The Amish Spaceman

SOMETHING POKED Dean in the ribs.

  “Taste the freshness,” he murmured.

  “That one’s alive,” said a gravelly male voice. “He ain’t no ghost.”

  Dean opened his eyes to a bearded face and deep blue sky. Beside him, Emerson yelped and grabbed the Amish dress to cover her body.

  “Yep, definitely alive, both of them,” said another voice, this one belonging to a clean-shaven older man in a knit cap. “I been working this river for thirty years, and I ain’t seen nothing like this.”

  With all the delicacy one can muster in these situations, Dean covered his crotch with both hands.

  “Excuse me! What’s going on here?”

  The bearded one laughed. “We should ask you that. It’s our shipment of flour you’re standing on.”

  “Shipment of flour?”

  Dean pulled on his trousers and got to his feet. He and Emerson stood in the center of a crater, surrounded by a mountain of flour. The muddy Ohio stretched around a chain of barges, and at the end steamed a white, four-decker tugboat. On either side lay riverbanks and the orange-brown trees of Ohio.

  “We saw a plume last night,” said the older sailor. “Came out to see if it was fire, then heard this terrible groaning and moaning.”

  “Thought for sure it was a ghost,” said the other. “That was an awful, murderous racket. It was like a woman being strangled by a man who was also being strangled.”

  “Yes, quite,” said Dean.

  “Also, we heard this horrible, nasty smacking sound, like someone hitting a side of beef with another side of beef.”

  “I’ve never been so afraid in my life,” said the older sailor. “And I’ve seen Carrot Top in concert.”

  “I understand,” said Dean, turning red.

  “Good thing was, it didn’t last that long, maybe a minute or two,” said the bearded man. “We walked forward a little bit, and it started again!”

  Dean held up a hand. “No need to explain.”

  “At that point, we skedaddled back to the towboat and called it a night,” said the older one. “It was time for Friends anyway. So what you reckon made all that racket last night?”

  “Probably a ghost,” said Dean. “Not to change the subject, but is there any way we can take a shower? Maybe wash the flour out of our clothes?”

  “Shower we can do,” said the bearded man. “We’ve got a laundry, and can probably find a spare room.”

  “Thank you, but a room won’t be necessary. When can we get off the boat?”

  The bearded sailor waved at the wide, caramel-colored river. “You can leave now if you don’t mind a swim. The closest place we can stop without putting the barges aground is Huntington, West Virginia. The current’s pretty strong going upstream, so we probably won’t get there ‘til after midnight.”

  “It would be great if I could make a call,” said Dean. “Could I use your radio or a cell phone?”

  “Ha! Murphy spilled coffee on the radio last week,” said the older man. He slapped his thigh. “Cell phones are too much trouble, all that modern world invading our peace and quiet. We got all we need: good paycheck, the flour pretty much takes care of itself, and the most beautiful river you ever seen. Working on a barge thirty days at a stretch––son, that’s heaven.”

  The bearded sailor leaned forward and whispered, “We’d go crazy without the USA Network.”