Two Witnesses
Last Cruise
Seth climbed in his truck and turned to Bruce in the passenger seat. “You ready?”
“Heck yah. Let’s go.”
Seth started the truck and looked in his rear view mirror to the back seat. “Tasi, Christopher, are you two ready to do some fishing, or what?”
Tasi shivered. “We never catch anything there man.”
Seth pulled out of the driveway, boat in tow. “So what? We’re just taking the boat out. Lake Berryessa is going to close to the public next month. Slowly but surely all the boat launches closed down, and this is the last one.”
“That’s messed up.” Bruce looked down. “I spent many a days up there. I can’t believe it’s closing.”
Seth pulled on to the Silverado Trail heading up the valley. “Rick told me he thought it was a set up. First the government lease on the land was about to expire, so everybody put bids in. One guy thought he didn’t have a chance, so he bid on them all. Then he won all of them. He obviously couldn’t afford it, and it’s been locked up since.”
Christopher leaned forward. “What? One guy closed the whole lake?”
Seth shook his head. “Rick said it was obvious they didn’t want people on the lake anymore. This was just their legal route.”
Bruce took a deep breath. “Well… By the way California has been going down, I can believe it.”
*****
In the afternoon they found a quiet cove with steep sides. Seth thought they would find bigger fish down about ninety feet or so. They drifted, drank a few beers, ate sunflower seeds, and caught nothing.
Bruce tapped on the fish finder. “Hey Seth. How do you see a fish on this thing?”
Seth fiddled with the stereo in the seat next to him. “Look at the little red blips and arcs. It depends if the fish is going with us or swimming toward us.”
“Well this must be a school or something because there’s more red than blue, and it appears to be under the boat.”
Seth leaned over and looked. “Nah. There must be something wrong with it. That much red would be as big as a house. Try to reset it.”
Bruce got up and walked to the front of the open bow.
Seth turned to Tasi and Christopher. “You guys getting any bites?”
Christopher started to reel in his line. “Nothing man. Tasi quit a while ago. I haven’t had a nibble or seen a single fish jump.”
Bruce stumbled backward to the others, falling past his seat on to the floor of the boat. “Let’s get out of here!”
Seth laughed. “Now what? Did you see jaws?”
Everyone laughed.
“I don’t know what I saw, but I know it doesn’t belong in the water.” Bruce motioned for Christopher to hurry. “I saw… a bunch of lights. I thought it was my imagination, but they moved. I tried to follow them until they disappeared in the glare off the water.”
Christopher laughed. “Cut him off. Eighty-six the beer to Bruce.”
Bruce pulled himself up to his seat. “Just reel it in. I don’t like it here anymore.”
“Maybe that’s why they want the public gone.” Seth patted Bruce on the back. “Relax man, even if we go now, we still have to cross the lake to get back to the truck. Isn’t that the direction you said it went?”
“Oh thanks. Like I really needed to be thinking about that when we’re putting across.”
“Okay. You drive.” Seth turned off the stereo. “Hey. Have you ever heard of a USO?”
Bruce shook his head. “What’s that?”
“It’s an Unidentified Submerged Objects, or USO. They’re the submarines of the UFO world.”
Bruce reached over to turn the stereo back on. “Come on man. Stop it.”
“I’m not kidding. I heard our government is aware of up to twelve bases. And for over ten years the Cuban government has been telling its people they are aware of an ‘opening’ not too far off their shores.”
Tasi interrupted. “Hey guys, I have an announcement.”
Christopher laughed. “An opening for what?”
Seth shrugged his shoulders. “Does it matter? I mean, many prominent people have reported seeing things coming and going from the water down there. They don’t even make a splash. No drip when they come out of the water… why don’t they drip? I tell you, if they exist, they must be everywhere man.”
Tasi stood and spoke above the conversation. “We’ve decided to return to Guam in a couple of weeks to be with my wife’s family. Her mom and dad have a local Catholic church. They think the end of the world is coming, and they have been pressuring us to return for months.”
Christopher stopped reeling and turned. “Months! You just told me the other day it was a remote possibility?”
“Well…” Tasi looked around. “Well, I didn’t know how to say it? The hints were coming from the family, but I didn’t think we’d go. Then I got the call. What can I do?”
Christopher threw his pole down. “Dude! How about saying, Christopher, we’re going back to Guam. That would have worked.”
Tasi hung his head for a second before looking up and tilting back the rest of his beer. “Christopher, I don’t want to go. You know how much I want to start a kitchen with you.”
“It’s too late. The damage is done.” Christopher picked up his pole and cut the line.
*****
The truck was quiet all the way down the mountain, everyone a little tired. There was no radio reception in the hills, and Seth knew the others didn’t want to listen to his CDs from the chapel, so they cruised in silence. The last corner out of the hills opened to the valley floor, stopping at the Silverado Trail.
Christopher broke the silence. “Tasi. I know you have to go. My family is Catholic too. If things blow over maybe next year we can try again. I’ll just stay where I am. I can work on our recipes.”
Tasi looked up with a big smile. “Thanks man. We may have lost our business for awhile, but we haven’t lost our friendship, or our dream.”
Christopher joked. “Guam is closer to my family in the Philippines than here. Maybe we can do something there?”
Tasi sat up straight. “Oh man, it could be a great place! We could…”
Seth turned left on the Silverado Trail back toward Napa.