“I’m goin down to the co-op for a cigar.”
That’s the last thing Uncle Ray told Nelda before he disappeared. I musta heard that story a thousand times over the years. Nelda, she never figured Ray to have run off. Wasn’t the cowardly type, she’d say. If you ask Nelda, Uncle Ray ran afoul of something on his way through the woods after picking up a pack of Captain Blacks and a dollar scratch-n-win ticket.
Something, not someone. Nelda, she’s clear on that. And you know what? I believe her.
See, buddy down at the co-op, he seen Uncle Ray that night. Sold him the cigars and the scratch ticket and watched him head out through the lights of the station and across the highway into the ditch. After that, he went back to reading Penthouse Forum or whatever he got up to during the night shift.
The path Uncle Ray took through the woods? Bet your ass they searched it up, down and all around. Had the dogs out and everything. Sure, they caught his scent. He was on that path dang near daily. He was on it that night, no doubt. But they never found hide nor hair of him, nor evidence of him straying off the path and up into the ravine, nor down along the creek, neither.
Didn’t find jack shit.
Uncle Ray ain’t the first dude around here to up and disappear. Guess that’s true everywhere, though. But this ain’t your run of the mill run-off husband, neither.
But see, Nelda and Ray both lived here their whole lives. Same as Nelda’s parents, my grandparents. Same as me. They know some things just don’t fit. The woods at night can get strange. Lights and shit, hovering, flashing. Most people say it’s the northern lights. But I seen the northern lights plenty, and these lights? They ain’t them.
Uncle Ray picked the wrong time to get a hankering for that sweet smoke, I guess. A man don’t abandon his wife of 30 years after buying a pack of cigars and a scratch ticket, not to mention the 1977 F-150 he restored all on his own, weekends and late nights for years on end. I can see one or the other, maybe. But not both of ‘em. Aunt Nelda, she swears by it. And I believe her, bud. Damn straight.
