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JULY 3RD, 1947
Corona, New Mexico
8:27 A.M.
Mac Brazel wasn’t a cowboy out of central casting, even if he looked like he was stepping up to the cameras in a western themed film, as he mounted the blood bay gelding. He was the real thing. Ranching had been his way of life for forty years. He loved the range, the solitude it afforded him, and the people who worked the land with him when he wanted company.
The storm earlier that night had kept him from sleep. After a quick cup of strong coffee—he had never mastered the art of coffee making, so strong was the only way he could brew it—he dressed, saddled his mount, and planned to follow the fences south, heading in the same direction that he had seen the immense flashes of lighting earlier that morning.
The herd of sheep that he tended on the ranch had settled down from the previous night’s scare and were now spanning out among the unusually wet range. Puddles and ponds, that would disappear by midday, filled every low lying area attracting flocks of desert grouse and skittish antelope herds that hurried to the puddles taking advantage of the rare abundance of water.
Mac stood up in the stirrups and scanned the horizon, shielding his eyes with one hand. The sky was clear, not a trace of smoke, despite the flames and cascades of sparks from the lightning strikes the night before. Mac considered the lack of smoke, and then figured that the downpour of rain had done a sure job in dousing any lick of flame. It was good news for him. A fire would spread fast on the desert range and he wasn’t looking forward to a day of driving sheep that were already frazzled from the night before, out of the line of fire. Sheep weren’t very bright, and despite the scorching heat from desert brush alight with flames, they tended to flock in panic, too frightened to move out of the fire’s path. The last thing that Mac wanted after a night of lost sleep was long day of rounding up and rescuing sheep.
Mac started off, urging the gelding into a steady walk. He had traveled about twenty yards down the southern fence when a faint voice behind him caught his attention. He pulled up on the reins and turned in his saddle as the horse came to a stop.
“Wait Mac. Wait up.” The blurred image of a small horse and even smaller rider accompanied the voice. “Mac? Mac?” The small boy approached, holding tightly to a horse that moved at a considerable gallop. “I saw it too,” Dee Proctor said, as he reined the little horse in alongside of Mac. “It was amazing wasn’t it Mac? Amazing!” Dee could hardly contain his excitement.
“It certainly was.” Mac squeezed his calf muscles, signaling his horse to move forward.
“What do you think it was, Mac?” Dee urged his horse to keep stride with Mac’s mount. Dee Proctor rode like no other seven year old. He spent every free minute either on, under, or around horses. There was nothing Dee wanted more than to be with a horse and to ride. When Mac brought his own two children to stay at the ranch, from their home in Tularosa, where they stayed most of the time with their mother, Dee would ride with them for hours, covering every inch of the range. With Mac, the rides were more like work, finding and rounding up stray sheep, mending broken fences, clearing debris, and today, searching for lightning strikes. It didn’t matter to Dee, riding was riding.
Dee’s folks, Floyd and Loretta Proctor, had purchased the neighboring ranch several years earlier, and like most in the country had become quick friends to Mac, his children, and his wife. For the majority of the year Mac’s wife and children remained in Tularosa, New Mexico. The schools were better there and the ranch life didn’t suit his wife. So most of the time, Mac was on his own, except of course when Dee Proctor was around.
“I think it was lightning, Dee,” Mac responded to Dee’s question.
“But I bet you never saw lightning like that. Did ya’ Mac?”
“You’re right there, Dee.”
“My ma and pop came and took me to their bed last night. I think they were scared. But not me. As soon as I could, I got out of bed and watched the lightning till morning.”
Mac smiled at the young man’s enthusiasm. In truth, it mirrored a bit of his own. “It was a sight all right.”
“Where do you think it hit, Mac?” Dee didn’t let him answer. “I think it struck up there.” He pointed to a slight rise in the land.
“Could be,” Mac responded. “Could be almost any place ‘round here.”
“We’ll know soon enough, Mac,” Dee said, then added, “What’re the sheep doing up there, Mac? Look.” He pushed his stubby legs up in the stirrups to get a better line of sight.
“I don’t know,” Mac said, as he and Dee set off at a gallop.
As they reached the rise, they pulled their mounts up to a walk, and curiously gazed at the herd of sheep standing uncharacteristically still. Their heads bobbed in an odd unison, all the while keeping the herds’ collective eyes staring across a stretch of torn up land that could only be described as a debris field. The other half of the heard, stood opposite, divided by the scattered debris. And despite their thirst, neither side would cross to gain access to the water guzzler that remained undamaged but littered with debris.
Small shiny bits of metal foil, like autumn leaves, drifted in the hot breeze. They clumped, blown together under brush and rocks, decorating the landscape in glinting confetti.
As Mac and Dee moved in, they noticed a track that looked as though some huge flat rock had skipped off the land, as one would do on the still waters of a pond. At first Mac could make out one area of impact. It had flattened an area of the range. The brittle grasses and scrub brush around the impact area had been singed. Shiny metal pieces of foil littered the area in abundance.
Mac reined his horse to a stop and dismounted with a quick swing of his left leg over the saddle. Dee started to follow. “No Dee, you stay put.” Mac handed him the reins to his horse. “You keep a tight hold there.”
Dee took the reins and wrapped them around the horn of his saddle and watched as Mac moved cautiously toward the impact site.
The sheep on both sides of the debris field followed Mac, slowly matching his stride keeping pace and distance, as if in some hypnotic trance.
Mac stopped.
The sheep stopped, both herds, divided by some invisible field, but tied together in step.
Mac started forward.
The herds moved with him.
The water guzzler in the middle of the debris field had been spared any direct hit by the lightning, or whatever it was that struck there. Although the water guzzler had not been hit directly, dirt and the foil like metal pieces were scattered around it. Mac walked up to the guzzler, the sheep following in parallel rows.
The guzzler was not damaged and it continued to pump up the water from deep underground. Mac leaned in, bringing his face closer to the water. He smelled it, and with no suspicious odor present, he cupped a hand, dipped it into the cool water, and raised it to his lips. Just before taking a sip of the water, he breathed in the scent once again. Convinced that the water had no strange odor, other than the slightly sulfur smell common with well water. He tasted it. Nothing. It was, as far as he could tell, fine, untainted water. He let the water fall from his hand back into the basin of the guzzler. It splashed down onto several bits of the foil like metal that had landed, or had been blown into the water. Mac noticed that some of the pieces floated, while others, that looked to be the same or closely the same size, sank. He pulled out one piece that was floating on top of the water and fished out another from the bottom of the tank. He rubbed the pieces of foil with his fingers and thumb. The foil didn’t tear or scuff. He held first one, then the other piece of debris up to the sun. Like a watermark on a fine piece of linen paper, Mac could clearly make out the design inside each piece of foil. He assumed the design was a series of numbers—not because they looked like numbers, to him they actually looked more like flowers—but because of the way they were arranged, in columns like a mathematician would arrange a complex formula. Mac dropped the foil pieces back into the water, where once again, one floated and the other immediately sank.
“What is it, Mac? Who left it here?
“I don’t know.” Mac took the reins from Dee and mounted his horse. “Come on Dee,” Mac said, and moved on following the path of the debris.
Further ahead, just about twenty five yards from the first impact site, they came upon a second, and shortly after that, a third.
“I don’t think it was lightning,” Dee said.
“Pretty smart for a young’un, aren’t you?” Mac said, then considered what the boy was saying. “Lightning would have caused the dirt and rock to fuse together causing a small crater. But whatever hit here flattened the land.”
“Or bulldozed it.” Dee pointed to the sides of the impact zone. “Did lightning do that?” Dee asked, giving voice to the same question that Mac had.
“Not sure.”
“Did lightning leave all this shiny stuff on the ground?”
“Not sure about that either.”
“Well, Mac, maybe they know?” Dee looked up to a distant hill.
Mac pulled his horse up to a sliding stop. He stood in his stirrups and followed Dee’s line of sight to the top of the hill. There a figure, distorted by the rising heat waves, stood looking back at Dee and Mac.
Mac glanced around taking in the scope of the surrounding terrain. He allowed his eyes to linger over the rocks and scrub brush that covered the land, checking each for any other figures that may have moved into the area. He returned his gaze to the hilltop and the figure that was there, still looking at him. Mac glanced back to the water guzzler. “What the hell?”
“Mac, you swore,” Dee chastised the man, then looked around to where Mac was looking. “Where’d they go, Mac?”
Mac snapped his head back and forth, from the figure on the mound of rocks back to the water guzzler, squinting his eyes as he scanned the land.
The sheep that had crowded each side of the impact zone, mimicking his every step, were nowhere to be seen. They had silently moved off. Disappearing as though a magician in a sideshow had snapped his fingers and commanded them to vanish.
Mac looked back to the mound and the figure still there. Only now it was moving toward them.