An Unmarked Grave by Kent Conwell

around?"
    A sly grin played over her ruddy face. "Reckon he's another one of them mysteries all towns got"

    Her reply piqued my curiosity. "Oh? What sort of mystery?"
    She chuckled and began restocking the cigarettes above
the register. "About thirty years later, around eighty-six, he
just up and sold out. Moved up north. Never told a soul. I
was about-let's see.." She hesitated and gave me a sly
grin. "Well, how old I was ain't no matter."
    I chuckled.
    She continued. "I always figured it was kinda strange.
Should have expected something, I guess. His wife had left
him a couple years before. I suppose he was ready to move
on. He never had no children. All he had was five or six sections of land. What with cattle and a few oil wells getting
ready to come in, it brought him a pretty penny, so he never
was hurting for money. Heard later, he set up some trusts for
needy folks up north around Chicago." She shrugged. "Don't
know for certain, but that's the word what come back."
    I thought nothing of her remarks at the time. "This Marvin Lewis who owns the museum. Any kin to the judge in
the article?"
    "His grandson. In fact, Marvin is the one who bought out
Jim Bob. He sold part of Jim Bob's acreage to the sheriff
and Buck Ford"
    I glanced out the window at the museum east of us. It was
built into the side of a hill like the old dugouts of a couple
hundred years back. "Not much business over there, huh?
Why does he keep it open if the whole thing was a hoax?"
    Mabel came to stand beside me, peering out the window.
"Probably because Marv don't believe it was a hoax."

     

looked down at her in surprise. "You mean ..."
    She arched an eyebrow. That's when I noticed that her eyes
were almost the color of turquoise. She must have been a
knockout when she was younger. Even now, take her hair
out of the bun and put her in something besides baggy red
sweats, and she would make a striking picture. "Yep. Marv
claims his grandpa told him that there was a space pilot, just
like the story says. They buried him in an unmarked grave at
the cemetery so no one could dig him up"
    "So, with Justin Chester living in a room at the back of
the museum, he and Marvin Lewis must have hit it off. I
mean, with both of them believing in the UFO business."
    Mabel laughed. "You got that right. Two peas in a pod.
I don't know about Justin, but Marv . . " She hesitated,
searching for the right words. "Marv has always been one of
those what never fit in. It's of his own choosing, of course.
He never ran with the crowd, always saw things different. Sometimes I thought he was being contrary just to be contrary. Someone call a color black, he'd call it red just to be
different." She frowned up at me. "Know what I mean?"

    A wry grin twisted my lips. I knew the kind. Those who,
Thoreau wrote in Walden, hear a different drummer. "Exactly."
    She hastened to add, "Now, Marv's a good man. Contrary he is, but that contrariness sure helped us out when he
represented us in the state legislature back in the eighties."
    I arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"
    Gesturing to the oil wells in the pasture across the highway, she explained, "There was some problem with mineral
rights ownership back then. The state insisted it belonged to
them because the mineral rights were not included in the
Spanish land grants or some falderal like that, but Marv
straightened them out" She chuckled. "Good and proper, so
around here, we just kind of overlook his peculiarities. If he
wants to believe in UFOs, let him"
    I studied the museum. "How old is that place?"
    She grunted. "It's been there as long as I can remember.
When I was a kid, we played on it. The roof had caved in.
All that was standing were the walls. Then, about fifty years
ago, Marv roofed it."
    "What kind of stuff does he have in there?"
    She snorted. "Junk. Pieces he claims came from the
spaceship, but they're just pieces of old busted up farm machinery. Every once in a while it draws some poor