The straight laced guy walked out the door.
"I wanted to talk with him more," I told Bird.
"I think you spooked him off," said Bird.
"China Lake, eh," I commented.
"I think he's connected over there," said Bird, "stuff has been happnin'."
"Want to step outside for a minute?" I asked.
"Sure," he said.
At that moment we seemed to both know where the conversation was going, a hippy-to-hippy thing.
So we were out under the pressure of the stars, and the hippy trivial lingo began, rebel politics mostly, where the scene was, festivals, the Deadhead thing. I was muttering in conversation and reflecting on the situation at the same time. Thus far the people in the saloon seemed mute and commonly suspicious, no wonder, a Prospector hangout. Bird said that the wheelchair miner had lost his legs in a cave in and that straight laced guy was just moving through town as were many of his cut moving through town because of an incident at the Base. Then he paused waiting for my question.
"Okay," I asked on cue, "what the hell happened at the Base?"
"UFO," said Bird, "not uncommon around here, but this was a big one, Mothership." Hung over the the entrance to the complex for an uncomfortably long time, rumor, two or three hours. Upset the Admiralty, upset everybody out there and knocked out sensitive electronics, enough mojo to trap folks underground during the whole deal."
"And here I barged in and snapped off about Time Tunnels," I said.
Bird went on, "we had some topographical shake. The ground started moving, railgun quakes. We all felt it, figured something was up. The UFO rumor filtered down. No rumor I think," he added, "considering what I've seen around here."
It was getting chilly, the desert in early spring. Bird decided to go back inside. I said I'd go grab another pack of cigs out of the truck and be there soon. Actually I wanted some space to jigsaw my thoughts together as it had all happened in the space of an hour. Needed to think, felt edgy.
I didn't like this place, Red Mountain. In fact I didn't much like the desert, any desert. Too many stars all looking right down into my brain. Particularly this place felt badlands desert barren, something not right. True the UFO story spooked me, but then I had already been spooked a week back reading about Time Tunnels. That magazine had haunted me then for some reason, and yes here I was, a pawn of my own curiosity. I looked around with a chill more penetrating than the fact of the temperature. This place was not Disney's Living Desert. It felt ruined, maybe raped by the mining, even more so, I sensed a more antiquated destruction.
Back in the saloon the climate did not feel all that warm and fuzzy either. Bird was now surrounded by four others, the barkeep lady, a skinny middle aged couple and another grizzly old man. The wheelchair guy was not present, I looked toward where he had been to determine he must have gone out the back door. I decided to tone my brashness, perched on the stool, offered to buy a round.
Thankfully Bird introduced me to the others. "It's okay he's a keeper," said Bird.
I don't remember their names now. Ill refer to the skinny couple as Bud and Lil and the coot as, Gabby, as he he did match the Gabby Hayes icon.
I'll call the barkeep, Sue for Slewfoot Sue. This will help sort out the conversation which did after a few beers start to happen as follows.
They asked more about me and I gave them the humble pie. A simple teacher from Fresno was me. An art teacher with a skittery imagination and that I really didn't know why I was in their ghost town other than likely looking for ghosts. I repeated the tale about the UFO magazine. I also lied that I'd had an argument with my wife and had to get away for a while. The mood eased toward ordinary chatter. So I dared asking more about them.
They were all Red Mountain homeys, Bird and Gabby authentic prospectors, Bud and Lil staying nearby because of the cheap rent and Sue owned the saloon. I thought it discriminate to not pry too much about the mining effort, didn't have to after all for Bird and Gabby it was the key obsession. The two Prospectors in fact started poking fun at each other.
Gabby needled, "Bird is called Bird because of a bird."
"I really did see that bird," said Bird.
"Was it a crow?" Lil chimed in teasing. "A buzzard? A really really kickass bird?"
"Like I've told you it was bigger than a condor," said Bird. "Hey, "I didn't know what it was, it freaked me out. The Indian told me it was a Thunderbird."
So then came the subject of a Native American which a bit fantastic itself seemed more acceptable to the crew. Mainly because the Indian, a Shoshone, had been the most successful miner in the region and had produced nuggets of some kind of rare gold-- a desert varnished black gold. For instance the Indian once found a 10 lb nugget that to most would have thought to be an ordinary black rock. Anyway the Indian told Bird that the creature he had seen was the legendary Thunderbird. Bird insisted that the Thunderbird looked much like a "pterodactyl" The prehistoric critter had been perched on an escarpment in a place called Iron Mountain Canyon.
Since then I have located photos on the Internet.
The conversation loosened as Sue plunked down more beer. It all started to whirlpool as my memory of the night also swirls. But here are some bits and pieces in shorthand.
UFOs came up again, the China lake incident mixed in with sundry other. Turns out these folk, had many UFO sightings, hard to tell which one from which.
Gabby said he knew about those "flying dinner plates" but they were demons from hell and best not to ponder on them. "The Damned can sneak up on you," he declared, "and that goes for your ghost-Thunderbird," he quipped to Bird. Bird shot a quip back. Something about Gabby's dousing rods, tools of the devil. (Gabby doused maps to locate gold).
Barkeep Sue said she had seen tiny little lights like pinlights darting around in her storage room. "They made a sound like Donald Duck," she said.
Lil said she saw a fleet of saucers once and that she thought they came out of nearby caves.
Bud said he had a friend that actually saw the China Lake mothership through a scope, more of an immense triangle.
Bud affirmed Lil's theory on the caves. "We have caves and we have CAVES! Some are recent mines, some are mines but not made by the white men. They go back to the mists of time. Some caves a more like volcano veins and maybe extend out into the Pacific. Who knows what's down there. There are 20,000 holes! Risky for dirt bikers, often terminal. They see a pile of dirt, go roaring up the side and drop down into a thousand foot pit."
Lil said, "this whole region is a geological nightmare. Something happened here a long time ago. There are places where the rocks are all melted and fused, not as much a volcano-thing, but more like a big blast in the sky thing. Well there were volcanoes too," Lil added, "boulders the size of a house scattered around from the last time Mammoth erupted, quite a distance as the crow flies... or the Thunderbird. But I think something else melted everything, a comet hit... I don't know... either that or Ancients had nukes!"