2211 words

"Of all the stupid ideas you've ever had -- Fred, damn it! Slow down, I've got sand in my shoe." Betty Williams stopped tramping through the sand wash, sat on a large boulder and poured sand from both slippers.

"There -- now as I was saying, this is absolutely the dumbest thing you've ever done. You spend a small fortune on a metal detector and a bunch of other crap. Then you insist on me following you for miles up this God forsaken, snake infested, sand trap. And this is supposed to help put our marriage back together? I don't know who's the dumbest you or that stupid marriage counselor." She lapsed into sullen silence.

Fred knew when she got into one of her moods, there was no negotiating. She wouldn't walk another step farther away from the van, and he was sure she wouldn't try to have fun looking for nuggets in the old sand wash.

"Why don't you just rest a while? I'll check out this area for another half hour, and if I don't get rich, we'll head back to the van." When she didn't answer, he walked away swinging his Gold Bug back and forth. He soon forgot all about the time, and after successfully digging up his fifth, nice, little nugget, he looked around and found that he had covered almost a mile. He couldn't see Betty, but he figured that she was either sitting behind the boulder or had returned to the van.

He headed back, working the ground as he went. When he got to the boulder and looked on the other side, he found her chatting happily with a grizzled old prospector. It was the first time he had seen her laugh in months.

"Fred, I want you to meet Charlie. Charlie's my new friend. He's a barrel of laughs, and I don't know when I've heard so many funny stories." Fred held out his hand, and Charlie, with an agility that belied his age, jumped to his feet and wrung Fred's hand like a long lost friend. His whiskered face contorting into a toothless smile,

"Fred, I'm sure glad to meet you and your lovely wife. We've been getting along like kinfolks. Did ya find any color in that wash? I've been doin some drywashin, but can't do any braggin yet." Fred shook out the five nuggets into the palm of his hand. Charlie squinted at them saying,

"Not a bad days work for a beginner. Maybe tomorra, you'll let me try that fancy gadget?"

"Well, Betty and I hadn't really decided on coming back tomorrow."

"Oh no! You don't have to rush off so soon, do ya?"

Fred, thinking about Betty's tantrum if he agreed to camp out on the desert, answered, "I'm afraid so, Charlie."

Charlie walked with them as they started back to the van. After about a mile, he pointed to a circle of rocks fifty yards to the right.

"My camp is right there and the road is right behind my camp. Why don't you stop by my camp, have a cold drink, and then you can walk back to your van on the road. It's easier walking." That was all it took to get Betty's agreement, so they headed for Charlie's camp.

Arriving at Charlie's camp, they were surprised to see quite a few people milling about. As they entered the camp several came up, happily greeted Charlie, and asked to be introduced. When they had Charlie alone again, Betty asked,

"Charlie, are you putting us on or something? These people are all in costume -- not really costume, but their clothes remind me of some of my grandma's old photo albums. What's the deal?"

"Well Honey, didn't you notice? I'm in costume, too. We came out here to do a tintype -- you know a motion picture. The equipment is delayed, so we're just sittin around havin fun. Sure you don't want to stay?" Seeing no cabins or tents, Betty shook her head, no.

She turned to Fred, "Fred, why don't you go get the van? I don't think I could walk another step. Okay?" Fred grumbled and headed off down the canyon. As Charlie had said, he found the road not far behind the camp. Soon he was packing his gear into the van and heading back up the canyon.

When he got to where he figured the camp was, he stopped, got out, and locked the van. He looked for several minutes.

The area looked vaguely familiar, but strangely different. There was no circle of rocks. He could find no footprints. He searched the road until he found where he had entered the road, but when he tried backtracking, he could find no prints in the desert. He hurried to the sand wash. Plenty of prints there. His, Hers, but wait a minute, Charlie had walked between them. How could he do that without leaving any footprints?

"BETTY!!!" He shouted -- not even an echo. Where were all those people? Where was Betty? "BETTY!!!" Nothing.

In the midst of the panic that was taking over his mind, Suddenly, it occurred to him, "God, no one's going to believe that I just lost her up here. I'd better get some help. He dashed back to the van, and headed for the little town of Fort Exile.

Fort Exile was the only available source of help for forty miles. Most of the other small towns and villages had long since boarded up and moved out. The new interstate had created many ghost towns, as it lured business to new locations closer to the flow of traffic.

Fred slid to a stop in front of a mud colored adobe building with a weathered sign which read, "Fort Exile Sheriff." His cloud of dust made visibility almost impossible, and when he got out of the van, the heat was like a blast furnace. He wiped his face with the back of his hand smearing dust across the sweat on his forehead and entered the small building.

Inside it was quite cool, and as he waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, he could hear the hum of the swamp cooler. There was a counter running across the entire room, and behind the counter seated at a table were two men playing checkers. Fred counted eight empty beer bottles on the table, and both men had their hands firmly closed around their refills.

"Where can I find the Sheriff?" he asked impatiently.

"Well, that depends on why you want to see him." one of the men answered, as he looked up with a sleepy grin.

"Mister, I need help. My wife and I were prospecting up the canyon and I lost track of her. I've looked all over the place where we were, and she ain't around anywhere. I think an old prospector that we met might have kidnapped her."

"You sure she didn't just go voluntarily?" The larger of the two got up and walked to the counter. He picked up a clipboard and got ready to write. "First, let's have your name and your wife's name and age. Then I'll need a complete description. Okay?"

Fred was starting to get a little angry. "I want to see the sheriff. In the first place, my wife isn't about to take off with a decrepit old prospector. Why Hell, Charlie must be at least seventy. He might be a smooth talker, but Betty wouldn't walk across the street with the likes of him."

When Fred mentioned the name, Charlie, the other man got up and approached, "Did he say Charlie, Dan? Could it be?"

He turned to Fred, "Mister, my son, Dan IS the sheriff. My name's Harold, and I'm his one and only deputy. Did you see any other folks with this Charlie fella? Fred looked at him, puzzled --

"Yeah, there were quite a few folks at his camp. I left Betty there while I went to get the car; and when I got back, they were all gone. They even wiped away their footprints, but I'll never figure out how they moved all those big rocks."

Dan let out a sigh, "Well I'll be ... Old Lonesome Charlie has paid us another visit. I was sorta hoping he was gone for good." Fred interrupted his musing with,

"Damn it, I'm the one with the missing wife. How about filling me in? Who is this Lonesome Charlie? If you know him, why don't we just go get my wife, then we can all go home, instead of standing here filling out stupid reports?"

Harold handed Fred a cold bottle of beer, turned to Dan, and softly muttered, "You better tell him the bad news, son."

Dan nodded, "You've got the wrong tense, Mister. It's who WAS Lonesome Charlie."

"Back in the early eighties, the fort that this town takes its name from was located at the entrance to that box canyon, you were prospecting in.

"They built the fort at the entrance because the walls of the canyon were so steep that no one could get in or out. The fort only had to defend against a frontal attack, and the horses, cattle, and supplies were safe in the canyon.

"Gabby Charlie Wilson carried supplies to the fort. His wagon train arrived every four months. They called him Gabby because he talked all the time. Couldn't stand to be alone. He even hired a different companion to ride with him on each trip, so he'd have someone new to talk to and swap stories with. People at the fort started avoiding him 'cause he'd talk their ears off.

"Then trouble with the Indians started and this one time when Charlie was back in the canyon unloading his wagons, the Indians attacked. The fort was doing fine until the Indians started a rockslide which covered the fort with a pile of rock six hundred feet high and a half mile deep. That slide killed everyone at the fort and sealed Charlie in that canyon.

"Forty years later, when they discovered gold out in these rocks, this town came to life. When they were clearing the entrance to the canyon, they found Charlie's body. According to his diary, he dug for nearly eight years trying to get out. You could tell from his writing how he gradually went mad for lack of human companionship."

"Wasn't long after that, that folks started disappearing. Some claimed to have seen Charlie leading people up into that canyon. Seems like Old Lonesome Charlie would pick up someone to visit with for a while; then when they ran out of interesting things to talk about, Old Charlie'd go get another one."

Fred could feel reality starting to slip away. Either these local yokels were giving him the treatment, or the whole, sun-baked world had gone mad,

"Just hold it one damn minute. I hope you're not trying to get me to believe that some ghost from the past has kidnapped my wife, just because he wants to talk to someone. If you expect me to believe a cock-in-bull story like that you're crazy.

"The Charlie I met is just as real as you or me. Hell, I even shook hands with him. If you're too damn lazy to help me find her, then call the state troopers over at Bizel Junction. I want some action and I want it now!"

Harold reached across the counter patting Fred on the arm, "Calm down, Sonny. What is your name? You never did say."

"Fred, my name's Fred Williams and my wife's name is Betty."

"Well Fred, you don't hafta believe what Dan's tellin ya, but all the folks around here will tell it just like it is. We can call ole Cap'n Rogers over at Bizel Junction, but I doubt if he'll come over."

The last time Charlie grabbed someone, it was a female surveyor working for the government. Cap'n Rogers got in trouble cause he didn't believe us when we told him about Charlie. He told us that she was probably hiding behind one of those Anheuser-Busches that we're always sippin on.

"Anyway, the Feds chewed him a new behind for not reporting her missing and conducting an immediate search. The Feds had their own search team out there for a couple a weeks, but never found hide-nor-hair. Her tracks just disappeared, so they just hushed it up and left.

"You're the first one to have actually talked with Charlie and got to leave. You musta not been very interesting."

"That's exactly what Betty always said," Fred replied. "Has anyone ever escaped from Charlie?"

"Not in recorded history," answered Harold. "At least this time we didn't lose one of our locals. 'Course that don't make you feel any better. Sorry." Fred finished his beer and grinned, as Dan handed him a refill,

"Oh, I don't know about that, Harold; I'm starting to feel better already. Who's winning the checker game?"