Mac and the Mentioners

1

Me and ol’ Mac used to hang out a lot, y’know? We was buddies. Pals even.

But all’a that was before the Mentioners came to town.

When that happened, Mac was 16 and I was 15.

*

Anyway, we was up early on that Saturday morning, three hours before sunlight. That’s ‘cause we was goin’ fishin’ at our favorite spot, a cow tank that sits in a little draw a good six miles out across the tall grass.

‘Course it’s only six miles if you don’t run across no rattlesnakes on the way. You run across a rattler buzzin’ in the tall grass, you pretty much gotta backtrack a ways and then make a big loop around one side or the other. You gotta give that snake his due. And all that loopin’ around adds mileage.

Not that me or Mac got anything against them snakes.

Well, I don’t. Mac ain’t never offered his opinion, but he tags along with me so I figure we’re prob’ly in agreement.

Way I figure it, we’re walkin’ through their livin’ room, they ain’t slitherin’ through ours. I guess I’d get a little cranky and set up a buzz too if some big ol’ towerin’ thing like me or Mac—from the snake’s point of view, you understand—came stompin’ through where I live and eat and might raise young’uns someday if I ever meet the right girl.

Anyway, we don’t mind the hike. We like that cow tank bein’ in that draw and bein’ so far away ‘cause nobody else ‘cept maybe the rancher who first sank it knows it’s there.

Now, if you look close when you’re drivin’ past it out on the highway you can see the top half-moon of the blades on that windmill stickin’ up, but you gotta know what you’re lookin’ for. Fact is, whenever we was drivin’ by out there on that road, Me and Mac used to point through the side window on Dad’s old pickup and tell anyone who was ridin’ with us, “Hey, look at that old windmill out there!” And we wasn’t cheatin’. We was pointin’ right at it.

But even when we pointed right at it and said all that, all we ever got back was a blank look and, “What windmill?” ‘Cause if they didn’t know it was there they wouldn’t never spot that little half-moon of blades stickin’ up.

It was still fair though. More than fair. That old windmill and the cow tank down in that draw ain’t but about three miles from that place on the highway. And I know what you’re prob’ly thinkin’. If it’s that close from right there on that road, why don’t we cut our trip in half and have a good little drive to boot?

But me and Mac don’t care to drive out there and park the pickup and get through the barbed wire and go the short way. There’s way too much chance folks passin’ might see us and figure it out, ‘specially with us carryin’ our fishin’ poles. And we don’t want nobody else to find it neither. A fishin’ spot found is a fishin’ spot lost. That’s why we always make that six-mile walk from my house. Well, that and ‘cause that’s just how we go.

When we’re gonna head out there, Mac comes over on the afternoon before and spends the night. That way we can get up and walk over there the next mornin’. Early, like I said.

We go that early for two reasons. One, we take our time out there in the tall grass. Between maybe stumblin’ into prairie dog towns and maybe comin’ across them rattlers in the tall grass, you gotta take your time. I figure if I ever step through into one’a them prairie dog holes I’ll prob’ly tear up an ankle at best. And with my luck I’ll prob’ly annoy a rattler who just slithered into that same hole a little earlier to get himself a little prairie dog breakfast.

So we take our time.

Well, I take my time, that’s for sure. And ol’ Mac, he ain’t never in a bigger hurry than I am. I think he sees me as kind’a his lead hound. If I set out in a direction, Mac figures there must be a reason so he just follows along.

But then, I’m more the watchful type, at least on the ground. Mac’s always busy talkin’, and never a lot about the same thing in a row. He mentions this and moves on, mentions somethin’ else and moves on. Now and then I catch him starin’ off at them black high-line wires, even against the night sky where you can’t really see ‘em good.

But ‘specially if there’s a quarter moon or better, I can spot a prairie dog town even in the tall grass. And I guess I’m more the listener type too. Ever’ time we happen up on one’a them rattlers, it’s me who says, “Rattler” or “Snake” and it’s me who throws it in reverse if I’m too close to that buzzin’ or me who takes a quick turn to one side or the other if I’m far enough away.

Mac, he just follows along. Talkin’.

I kind’a see ol’ Mac as the color guy, like on them sports channels. He don’t say nothin’ worth hearin’ really, but he provides all the runnin’ commentary. I don’t think I’ve ever lacked for his voice or his opinion on a whole slew of things.

That’s why when I see one’a them snakes I keep my notice short and to the point. It’s plain rude to interrupt another man when he’s talkin’, and the deal is, Mac’s always talkin’.

‘Course I don’t listen to most of what he says. I hear it, but I don’t listen to it. Most of it prob’ly “won’t hold water,” as Mama’s fond of sayin’. Daddy, he just says, “Don’t listen to that boy. Hell, you’re dumber’n a claw hammer and Mac done lost his peen a while back.”

Oh, I said we go fishin’ that early for two reasons, but I only talked about one.

The other reason we go that early is so we get there on time. Prairie dog holes or no, rattlers or no, Mac wants to be sittin’ right there on the bank of that cow tank when the sun peeks up over the edge.

Now ol’ Mac, he’s tough enough. I gotta give him that. He carries his fishin’ rod in one hand and a little shovel in the other, and I hefted that little shovel one time and it’s pretty heavy, especially when you gotta carry it six miles in and six miles back. I can’t imagine.

Anyway, Mac says it ain’t a shovel. He says it’s a authentic “e-tool.” And it’s got US Marine Corps stamped in the metal right on it, so I guess maybe it is.

And just so there’s no confusion, times bein’ what they are, in the case of that little shovel the “e” stands for “entrenching,” not “electronic.” Just so you know. And then he uses that shovel to dig worms right down by the water inside the bank of that cow tank just before we sit down to fish. And if he happens on a caliche rock he’s gotta dig out, he flips that shovel over and there’s a little hollowed-out kind of a pick on the other side. A hollowed-out pick don’t make no sense to me, but Mac swears by it, not at it, so I guess that’s all right.

Anyway, that whole shovel deal’s only a couple’a feet long, but I told Mac one time he could carry his mama’s little hand-held pine and chrome garden trowel in his hip pocket and it’d do just as good for diggin’ them worms.

But Mac tells me to mind my own business. Says he wants to give them catfish bait that’s livin’ and warm. Just between you and me, I don’t hold no truck with that though.

What I ‘spect is when he’s diggin’ them worms ol’ Mac’s prob’ly thinkin’ he’s like one’a them army guys diggin' a foxhole or somethin’ while bullets are flyin’ past.

To which I figure, to each his own. It ain’t me havin’ to pack that thing six miles in and six miles out.

Now me, I carry a little bit of chicken liver or beef liver in a plastic bag in one pocket of my jeans and my whittlin’ knife in the other. So I got my bait with me all the way from the house, so it’s at least as warm as them worms. And a’course I carry my fishin’ rod in one hand and my snake stick—I cut that off a yucca plant when it was through with its bells—in the other. I carry that just in case I don’t hear one’s them snakes in time.

I ain’t had to use that stick to flip away a snake yet though ‘cause’a my hearin’. I’m a little proud of that, but I ain’t proud enough of it yet to leave that stick at home.

2

Anyway, like I was sayin’ that’s where we was, out there at that cow tank, when them Mentioners swooped in or whatever they did to get there and set down right above the town.

At first there was just a weird hummin’ sound. I figured it was the wind through the transmission lines on them towers the electric company strung out all along the caprock. Them towers look like a bunch of tall, stretched-out pyramids walkin’ across the prairie.

Only we hadn’t never heard them wires hummin’ while we was fishin’ before. Them wires are a good mile or two away from the cow tank. And even when we heard them wires hummin’ the first time they wasn’t anywhere near that loud.

We heard that same hummin’ the very first time, only a lot quieter like I said, when we was passin’ underneath some’a them wires on the way out here. That was prob’ly a year or two ago and it was prob’ly the only time me and Mac ever argued that I can remember.

When I heard that hummin’ for the first time, as I recall I interrupted Mac’s blatherin’ just long enough to ask him if he heard the wind blowin’ through them wires and settin’ up that hummin’.

Well, ol’ Mac stopped graveyard cold—talkin’ and walkin’ both, all at the same time—and he said, “Billy, are you stupid or what?”

And I stopped and turned around and put my hands on my hips and said, “What?”

And he shook his head like he just watched his pa put down his favorite dog—you know, lookin’ at the ground and his head shakin’ real slow—and he looked up and said, “I don’t think so. If you reckon that’s wind hummin’ through them wires, your reckoner’s broke and you ain’t ‘what’ at all. You’re stone cold stupid.”

Well, that warmed my cheeks a little bit only it was still dark so Mac couldn’t tell. And I said, “How you figure that?”

And he said, “That hummin’ ain’t from wind crossin’ through them wires, man.”

He always adds “man” when he thinks he’s teachin’ me somethin’ I don’t know, which I’m glad ain’t all that often. I don’t like it.

He said, “That hummin’s little electric dealies runnin’ through them wires. And them electric dealies go really fast—so fast it makes ‘em heat up and vibrate—and them heatin’ up and vibratin’ is what sets up that hummin’.”

And I said, “Oh batshit. You’re makin’ that up.” We cuss sometimes when we’re out there in the tall grass, but not enough to worry a preacher.

And he said, “Ain’t neither. You just ask your daddy.”

And I huffed in his direction and turned around and went on watchin’ for prairie dog towns and listenin’ for snakes. I wasn’t about to ask my daddy about it neither. If I did I’d collect another round of how Mac’s full of stuff you hadn’t ought’a be full of after you spend a little time in the bathroom. Well, that’s what he says if Mama ain’t around. If she was around he’d slip back a little and say that thing about be bein’ dumber’n a claw hammer.

And Mac didn’t say no more about that hummin’ neither. He just fell in behind me like always and went back to talkin’ about everything else on Earth except them wires.

Come to think of it, we didn’t talk about them wires or that hummin’ anymore at all until that day when them Mentioners showed up.

3

But that day we got to that cow tank a little bit later than usual. The sky was already a good light blue before we even got close. And when the sun started peekin’ over the edge we were still a long quarter-mile away.

Not that we hadn’t left the house on time. We did that all right. But we had to take a detour around a prairie dog town that sprung up, plus three more different detours around rattlers that sprung up. Them snakes were far enough away that we didn’t have to backtrack none, but they was buzzin’ loud, like maybe they had a sore fang or somethin’. When I think back on it, I still think they was annoyed by the sound of the Mentioners comin’ before me and Mac could even hear it.

Anyway, I guess us bein’ late to our fishin’ hole put Mac in a rotten mood. And from the time we passed out of the tall grass and onto the short green grass and them pigweeds and purple thistles growin’ right around that leaky ol’ windmill right up until I asked him what was that loud buzzin’, Mac didn’t say nothin’ to me. He just leaned his fishin’ pole up against that windmill and climbed up over the side of that cow tank and went right to diggin’ worms with that little shovel. If I remember right, his jaw muscles was even a little tight.

And when I asked him that about that hummin’ all he done was look over his shoulder at me and say, “Shh! Mentioners! I’m tryin’ to listen!” Real harsh, just like that. I hadn’t never heard Mac talk like that before. Not to me or nobody else.

So me, I didn’t say nothin’ else, though I did wonder what he meant about “mentioners.” I’d never heard of such a thing. Anyway, I just walked around the tank on the outside of the bank to the far end. The tank was kind of a big oval, and I didn’t want to annoy Mac anymore than he already was. Not that he’d risk puttin’ a dent in his shovel against my head, but I figured why take the chance? I’d never seen Mac go that quiet that fast before. Or listen that close.

Later on I figured it out though, why he went quiet like that. I figured he heard them Mentioners even before I caught wind of ‘em, though between me and Mac I’m usually the better listener.

But that day, ol’ Mac never even fished. He didn’t dig for no more worms neither.

When that hummin’ set up like that he’d only pulled a few worms outta the ground, and he put them back and covered up the little hole he’d dug and scooped a little water off the pond with that shovel, kind’a splashin’ it up over where he’d dug.

Then he folded the spoon part of his shovel down over the top of the handle and turned that little knob tight so it wouldn’t unfold accidentally and raised that shovel up and waved it back and forth over his head so I’d see him. Finally he said, “Hey.”

And I looked up and said, “What?”

And he grinned and said, “There you go again.” Then he waved that shovel again and said, “You can have this, okay? Look, I gotta go.”

And again, I said, “What?” Not that I didn’t hear him but just that I never seen him walk away from fishin’ before.

And he said. “Sorry, man. I ain’t who you thought I was.” He chuckled then. “Hell, I ain’t even who I thought I was. I ain’t no talker. I’m a Mentioner. And I gotta go.” And he turned around and walked up over the bank of that cow tank and headed a little to the left, toward the main part of town.

That was the first time I looked over there. That was the first time I seen that big ol’—somethin’. A space ship or somethin’? I don’t hold no truck with that nonsense myself, but I’ll allow it looked like two pie plates turned to face each other. Well, only they was white, not silver, and they was thin. So more like dinner plates I guess. And they glowed a little. And I knew right off that’s where the hummin’ was comin’ from.

Just for a second, I remembered what Mac said about them electricities runnin’ through them wires and settin’ up all that quieter hummin’, and for another second I wondered if maybe that thing over the town was what they were runnin’ to. Maybe they’d all got together there, them electricities, and that’s why the hummin’ was louder. Or somethin’. I don’t know.

What I do know—and it might’a been a trick of the light, I gotta think it was, and I’m gonna hold to that ‘cause nothin’ else makes any sense—is when Mac had walked about ten steps past his end of the tank and that windmill he kind’a glowed for a second.

Well, not even a second.

And then he kind’a stretched out toward town. But I mean, not like there was any stretchin’ at all really. Anybody who’s ever stretched anything knows that stretchin’ stuff takes a little time, even if it’s only a second.

But that wasn’t no second. He was just kind’a there and then he wasn’t.

*

‘Course, I ain’t sayin’ none’a this is true. I daydream more than I ought to when I’m fishin’, especially when the fish ain’t bitin’. And they sure wasn’t bitin’ that day, so there’s no tellin’ what I really saw or didn’t see.

But there’s one thing I didn’t see for sure. I never seen Mac after that.

I even started in the same direction Mac went at first. Mac was my buddy. My pal. I vowed I was gonna find him. But after I got to that place where he kind’a disappeared, I went ahead and turned for home.

That was the first time I ever ran six miles.

But as I think back now on that whole deal, truth be told maybe I did see Mac one more time after he disappeared.

Maybe he was that little zip of electricities I seen against that blue sky headin’ straight at that pair of pie plates.

But who knows? I mean in the next second, them pie plates disappeared too.

Only I’ll allow it never took a second.

They go really fast.

*******
About the Author

Harvey Stanbrough was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas and baked in Arizona. For a time, he wrote under five personas and several pseudonyms, but he takes a pill for that now and writes only under his own name. Mostly.

Harvey is an award-winning writer who follows Heinlein’s Rules avidly. He has written and published over 100 novels, 9 novellas, and over 270 short stories. He has also written 18 nonfiction books on writing, 8 of which are free to other writers. And he’s compiled and published 27 collections of short fiction and 5 critically acclaimed poetry collections.

These days, the vendors through which Harvey licenses his works do not allow URLs in the back matter. To see his other works, please key “StoneThread Publishing” or “Harvey Stanbrough” into your favorite search engine.

Finally, for his best advice on writing, look for “Harvey Stanbrough’s (Almost) Daily Journal.”