the Norse

Pablo, we have to go up there.

I know it. But we'll have to leave Orville behind.

"What are you all talking about?"

I was telling Pablo that we're going up there to see what's up in that cave.

I'll tell you what's up there! Same nonsense as what brought us that feller who couldn't speak a lick of English who's now gone. Vanished into thin air. Left nothing but this burn spot. Same whatever it is that bring us Phone Home. That and whatever it is that is drying things up around here.

Right, well we're just going up to take a look. Why don't you sit down and light your pipe or something.

Don Pablo and my father headed out from camp towards the tanks. They walked past picnic area 51 and began the climb up to alligator rock. They came to the alligator and headed right toward the cave.

They scrambled around some boulders, and traversed the mountain till they came to a boulder that was so large it seemed just like part of the mountain. Under the boulder was a space that formed the cave they were looking for.

This is it ain't it?

Yeah. Geezus Bill, wish I didn't have to bend down and crawl into it.

Go ahead, I'll follow.

They got down on their knees and could see light coming from the back of the cave. The cave bent to the right and they crabbed along till they came to a small space where the ceiling rose up enough for a man to stand. In front of them were some pictographs, and one of them was of a face.

What is it? Or, who is it?

Not certain Pablo, but I think that's what scared Orville.

Yeah, you think?

Hmmm-huh, yep, I sure do.

Sure don't look like no Indian, not with blond hair it don't. Not with those sunglasses either.

Looks Norse don't he? You know the Inuit make sunglasses out of bone. They take a piece of bone and cut slits in it for the eyes and tie it onto their heads with a rawhide strap. Cuts down on the glare when they're out on the ice, and cuts out some of the blow when they're in a storm.

Yeah, so?

Well, the Norse where up in Greenland 1,000 years ago, and they traded with the Inuit, and some say they also sailed over to Labrador and perhaps further south.

Yeah, well the Rio Grande valley is a lot further south.

That's right, and we know that the natives who lived around here painted what they saw on the walls.

So you saying that the Anasazi or whoever met some Vikings out here at the tanks and painted this here face?

Who knows? Maybe?

Well how'd they get here?

Just like they got everywhere else. They sailed.

That don't make no sense. The Rio Grande ain't not much mor'n a creek at El Paso. How'd they get one of them big ol long boats up the Rio Grand a 1,000 years ago. Besides, once they got to Juarez how'd they get out here? It's another 30 miles at least.

Yeah, well, we don't know what the Rio Grande looked like 1,000 years ago now do we? It could've been a lot wider n' deeper back then. You know they tell us that this whole continent was covered by a glacier back then. Who knows how long it took to melt off, and how deep the Rio Grande was when it was carrying all that water. Besides, we don't know what the snowfall was like back then either.

Yeah, well even if the Rio Grande was 10 feet deeper and thirty feet wider, that still don't explain how they got out here.

What if the Rio Grande had a different course back then? What if this whole valley were part of a floodplain that swelled every spring like the Nile delta, and what if they came in the spring.

What if, what if. So what.

Well whatever, that pictograph sure looks like a Viking wearing a pair of Oakley sunglasses, and whoever it was who painted it sure didn't paint something unless he had seen it. Anyway I bet that's what Orville saw by candlelight and what scared him.

Yeah, and maybe that's why that Swedish speaking feller came and went and acted so strange after coming down from here. He saw his grandfather on this here wall.

Maybe.

So you think Vikings sailed up the Rio Grande 1,000 years ago, so what? That still don't tell us how they got out here, or where all that water went.

Don't really know, but it went somewhere, and I am getting ready to go somewhere too because I'm getting hungry, so let's go.

They bent down and crabbed back to the cave's entrance. They stood up into the glare of the sun under a porcelain blue sky and headed down the mountain not knowing what it meant, and not yet making anything of it all except that they knew it meant something.

Alligator, vi var här‏

Late in the afternoon they pulled in near Hueco Tanks. Orville could remember when there were no fences around the place, when it wasn't even a park, just a watering hole in the desert, a natural cistern for water among four small hills.

He switched the electric magnet off, dropping 12 lbs of metal to the ground waking my father up.

Geezus, what was that!?

Caught you sleeping again did he Bill, shouted Pablo from the back.

Nooo, I was just thinking, that's all, thinking about how thirsty I am. Meditating actually, yep.

Right.

Right, let's get camp set up. Get a fire going. Pablo can you and the Swede bust out the chairs. I'm going to scavenge for something to burn. Shouldn't be that hard, everything around here is as dry as toast.

A fire was built, and it was Pablo's turn to cook for the others, that meant vegetarian. After dinner Orville decided to take his rock hammer and go out and do some exploring. The old boot maker went along.

They crossed the park fence and headed towards the tanks. They came to Picnic Area 51and the old boot maker suddenly turned toward the hill and started walking up. Orville yelled after him, but after a moment he could see that the old boot maker wasn't slowing down, and seemed to know where he was headed, so Orville decided to follow him up the hill.

They came to a rock formation, a line of boulders that looked like a large alligator laying on the mountain. Orville thought to himself that if the boulders were not so large, and if they were not so high up on the hill, they might have been placed there to form the alligator.

They crossed in front of the alligator's mouth, traversing the hill. By this time they were high off the desert floor. The old boot maker stopped, and bent down in front of a hole.

Orville walked up to the old boot maker and the hole. He could see that it was the entrance to a cave. The boot maker looked at Orville, and before anything could be said he went into the cave.

"Well, I followed him this far, might as well keep going," thought Orville, and he stooped down and crawled into the cave after the old boot maker.

They crawled along for fifteen or twenty feet, the light was dim, but they could still see. A small chamber opened up, it must have been a bubble of gas trapped inside the rock as it cooled that formed the small chamber in the cave. The old boot maker stood up and began feeling the wall. Orville pulled matches from his pants and lit one. What he saw next made him scream.

Orville fell to the floor of the cave and began to crawl away as fast as he could all the while yelling and screaming. The old boot maker could see Orville's distress and he headed out after him. Orville flew out of the cave like a bat at sundown. He headed down the hill yelling how awful it was.

In the camp my father and Don Pablo looked up towards the mountain. They could hear Orville yelling as he came down the mountain. They rushed out toward him and met him at the park fence helping him over. The old boot maker followed.

Geezus boys, it's terrible it is. I saw him, he's the scariest thing I ever did see.

What is? Who'd you see?

He's up there in that cave I tell you, the scariest thing I ever did see, a bad spirit if ever there was one out here in this desert.

Spirit, what in the devil are you talking about? There ain't no spirits up there in that hill.

I tell you I saw him, I did.

Yeah, you saw somethin' alright, but it weren't no spirit.

You'll see, you'll see him.

As the three men talked the old boot maker turned away and walked toward the camp. They followed him shortly and found him standing in front of the fire.

When they approached the sun had nearly set behind him and as they faced the old boot maker his face was lit by a red light from the fire while his profile was outlined by the setting sun behind him. He began to speak slowly to them. As he spoke he drew circles on the ground with his feet, and he moved his arms in the air as though he was rowing a ship, and he filled his cheeks with air, and blew it out in a steady stream hard against his hand moving his hand away from his face as though it were the sail of a ship moving away and he began to say three words in his native tongue "vi var här‏." He said them over and over again, very slowly, one at a time, as though it was the most important thing he had to say to the three travelers, and indeed, it was; vi var här‏.

They watched him, listened, and repeated those words to themselves, not knowing what to make of those words.

After several minutes the old boot maker stopped himself. He suddenly smiled and dropped his arms to his sides, and slapped his legs. He shrugged his shoulders and sat down by the fire and hummed to himself.

That night after the travellers fell asleep the old boot maker rose from the ground and walked towards the west. Coming towards him from the horizon was a bright light, like a speeding train. As the light drew closer he could hear a pulsating rhythmic sound, a sharp contrasting sound that tossed the listener's ears to the left and to the right and caused an inexplicable urge to sway and lift one's legs. As the light grew closer the sound became louder, and the urge to sway and lift one's legs became overwhelming. The light drew close and circled the old boot maker and screwed down toward the ground without touching it. Before he knew it was happening; he was on the light as it sped away.

He was served red beans and rice by his flight attendant Flow, she had added a "w" to her name since the last time he saw her, and her skin seemed to be darker, and her hair was in fine dark curls. On all four-hundred channels of the in flight entertainment they were showing performers from the 2006 Roskilde Rock Festival. One musical group in particular caught his eye. They wore the most unusual costumes, the same sort of garb as worn by the pilot of the ship who came into the main cabin for a Mohito, a tall spidery looking thing wearing huge sunglasses over all eight of his eyes, and white shiny boots on all eight of his legs.

In the morning the travelers searched for the boot maker, but all they found was a round section of scorched earth. Inside the burned area there was a curious pattern of unburned ground, if you didn't know better you would have thought it was a Paul Bond stitch pattern.

As the travelers stood in front of the patch of scorched ground, hundreds of miles away the old boot maker found himself back in his shop, there was only one problem, it was locked, and his alarm went off, and once again, he was naked, except for his boots and hat.