Into This River I Drown

spooked. I don’t think I’ve seen you like this before. Not even when Big Ed—” “I told you not to mention that around me,” the sheriff snaps, cutting him off.

“Look, I don’t know how much of what he said was bullshit. Nothing has come

through the police station, and the field office in Eugene and Portland said they

haven’t sent anyone out this way.”

“Would they tell you if they had?” the smoker asks. “Seems to me if they were

investigating, they wouldn’t tell you a damn thing.”

“I’ve got a guy who owed me a few favors,” Griggs says. “He called around,

checked some stuff out. Nothing.”

“We still going to move operations?”

“I don’t know yet,” Griggs says. “I don’t want to, but if someone is poking

around, we may have to.”

“What is your timeline, then?” a new voice says. That one I recognize. Mayor

Judd Walken. My mouth goes dry.

“Give it a few weeks,” Griggs says. “If need be, we could do it on the day of the

festival, when everyone is distracted. I hate to lose our position now, though. It’s

prime fucking real estate. No one even knows about it. But it’s whatever the boss

wants.”

“This whole thing has bad mojo written all over it,” the smoker complains. “First

the guy in the river. Then that fucking meteor thing falling right near there. Jesus,

Griggs! It’s like the universe is telling you to get the fuck out, and you’re saying we

need to wait?”

“Now, now,” the mayor says over the sheriff’s angry growl. “It’s just a bunch of

random occurrences. Let’s not assign this to some higher cosmic power. I’ve already

reached out to the community to assure everyone that it was just that, a meteor that

fell and that the science department at the University of Oregon has already come to

pick it up. People seem to be excited that such a thing happened in our little town.

They won’t question it.”

“That’s great and all,” Smok

er says. “Just one thing: there was no fucking

meteor.”