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that told me he was much more
perceptive than he let on. "I never tried to hide from anyone.
I used my own name, driver's license, Social Security number, and sometimes even had telephone and electric service.
No, they didn't want to find me" He hastened to add, "I
don't blame them for that. I know you're supposed to love
your brothers and sisters, but mine-well, it was really hard.
So we just all sort of ended up going our separate ways"
    Trying to bring a note of levity into the conversation, I
replied, "Well, with your inheritance, you can certainly do
that. Any ideas what you will do?"
    To my surprise, he answered almost immediately. "Oh,
yes. I'll come back here"
    "Mrs. Irvin says you're a model employee"
    His face grew warm. "I like the kids. At that age, they accept a person for who he is. Makes no difference if you're
rich or poor, important or not-any of those things. But I
wouldn't come back to work here"
    His reply puzzled me. "Oh, then why come back here?"
    He looked at me as if he couldn't believe I could ask such a question. "Why, to find the pilot of the UFO that
crashed here in 1897"

    I whistled to myself, thinking that the old codgers back
at Hooker's might not have been too far off on their suppositions regarding Justin Chester.
    Justin lived in a small underground room behind the museum. We had to climb down a short flight of eight or ten
steps to reach it. I sat on his cot while he packed what little
he possessed into a worn sports bag. When he saw me looking at the bag, he grinned and with great pride said, "Would
you believe, someone threw that away? I found it beside the
road"
    What could I say? "Not bad"
    As I looked on, he removed a two-by-four from the closet
doorjamb and pulled out a few bills and slid them into his
wallet. He grinned sheepishly. "My `safe.' The door doesn't
have a lock, and as much as I hate to admit it, we do have people passing through who aren't above taking something that
doesn't belong to them" He fit the two-by-four back into
place and, stepping back, surveyed the tiny room. "That's it"
    His only mode of transportation was a bicycle, so we
tossed it along with his bag into the back of my pickup.
    By now we were on a first-name basis. I wanted to top off
the gas tank before we pulled out. Justin sent me to Fuqua's
Stop and Shop, the second convenience store in Elysian
Hills. While the tank was filling, I called Tricia and told her
we'd be in at around six or seven.
    When I went inside to pay, Justin was talking excitedly
with the older man behind the register. When he spotted
me, he introduced us. "Tony, this is Sam Fuqua. I've known him ever since I came here a few months ago. I was telling
Sam that after I get my inheritance, I'm coming back here
to find the Martian pilot they buried out at the cemetery"

    "Nice to meet you, Sam," I replied, handing him my credit
card and ignoring Justin's conversation with the elderly man.
    As we pulled out onto the road for Austin, Justin Chester
sat silently, staring blankly out the passenger window.
He mumbled, "These are fine folks out here. The salt of the
earth. Even if I don't find the pilot, I might just stay here
anyway."
    I made the mistake of asking him about the UFO.
    He scooted around in the seat, his eyes alight with enthusiasm. Right before my eyes, his shyness morphed into animated exuberance.
    Words tumbled from his lips, and for the next six hours,
all the way back to Austin, I learned more about the mysterious UFO than I wanted to know. "It all started in April,
1897. April nineteenth, to be exact. A slow-moving spaceship crashed into a windmill. You remember seeing the house
on the hill behind the museum?"
    When I nodded, he continued. "That hill just east of it
is where the windmill stood. Anyway, the ship broke into
hundreds of pieces. When the people searched through the
wreckage, the story goes they found a small body with a
big head. The townsfolk gave the little man a