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The fight against the Pxelepiti fails miserably. Everyone in
Buck’s posse is killed except for Buck and Graax. It’s Buck’s fault. He
forgot to post a guard that night. Everyone fell asleep, and they rode right into
a trap. Graax couldn’t tell some children were disguised Pxelepiti from a
distance.
For more information and Science Fiction Western adventure
see www.sfwestern.com.
Episode #40
"Come on Graax!" I cried, expecting to be shot
through the middle any second, sure our insurgency against the Pxelepiti would
die along with us. Whether it mattered, I had no idea.
What could I have done differently? Have the men shoot the
children on sight? What if they'd really been children? You couldn't tell who
the enemy was. The aliens' devices offered a barbaric and immoral tinge to war,
unlike anything I'd ever heard of. It shocked and sickened me.
After a hundred yards, I looked back and saw neither man nor
alien following. That was no assurance. I expected to see the
"children" popping up somewhere ahead: from hiding places in the
grass; jumping out of the trees. I spurred '49er on at his fastest gallop.
I don't know how far my exhausted horse ran, pushed to his
limits through the night. Little by little he began to tire, less able to
respond to my frantic urgings.
The chestnut was scared as I was, and our wish for safety was insatiable. Good old '49er could have ran all the way to the New Mexico border
in ten minutes, and I still would have urged him on. There was no way the horse
was going to go fast enough for me. Humankind isn't going to get to outer space
on the back of a horse.
Finally '49er slowed from the all-out run to a gallop ...
"Come on! Let's go!"
Then to a canter ...
"Let's go old buddy!"
Then to a walk... .
I spurred his sides: "Ya! Let's go! Come on! Come
on!"
The horse kept walking, snorting with each of his
exhalations.
"Jesus! Would you get a move on it!?" I spurred his
sides harder.
He lurched and stood still, panting heavily.
I spurred him again. "Come on! This is no time to
rest."
But rest he did - for good. He teetered over, and I slid off.
I reckon his heart burst.
NO!, I thought, too scared to scream. I
can't outrun them!
But I started running anyway. The bullet had only grazed my
foot. The forest stayed silent except for the rustling of the grass and trees. I
gradually suspected I'd survive and I didn't understand why. Aliens who can kill
with wizardry could kill me or anyone else they wanted to just by willing it to
happen. Maybe they didn't consider me important enough to make the effort.
I stopped running when I spotted Skinner's pinto, with
Skinner still in the saddle, still gripping the reins in rigor mortis. The horse
had panicked and tried to follow '49er and me.
It walked up to me. I reached out and stroked it behind the
ear. "There, there,"
I whispered and looked over Skinner's body. I fingered
Skinner's head and face to see if he was really dead. He was. I saw part of
Skinner's brain stuck to the back of the stallion's poll.
I pushed Skinner's body off the horse with a heave and
dragged it into the brush. This was no time to worry about burying him properly.
Skinner wouldn't be needing the horse anymore, and I was without a mount. I
decided to take it. I'd have to clean it up sooner or later. It started to rain
lightly and, so, with assistance from the moisture, I began to pick off and
flick parts of Skinner stuck to it.
A few minutes later, I spotted Graax. I was so angst-ridden,
I almost shot him, looking just like the alien he was. I had to remind myself
the Pxelepiti wouldn't necessarily look like aliens.
"Think we escaped?" I said.
"Perhaps. Different horse?" Graax said.
"Forty-niner croaked. Best horse I ever owned. This was
Skinner Alexander's," I answered. "What do you mean perhaps we
escaped?"
He regarded me quizzically and shrugged. "At least you
really believe me now about the Pxelepiti."
I scanned the horizon, forest and cliffs in all directions.
The reservations I held yesterday seemed antiquated and foolish. "What did
they do to the others? To Skinner over there?"
Graax glanced around. He didn't answer.
I rephrased my question, put my hand on his shoulder and
looked directly into his irisless eyes. "Dammit, I'm talking to you! I
looked around for them already." I never talked to him like that before,
but I was angry.
"That may be true but you cannot see the lights I
can," Graax replied.
That statement made me feel foolish and insignificant.
"Just tell me, dammit! How'd they bushwhack the men?"
"They sent a signal through the air with a device I had
forgotten all about. They must have made one after they found out about the
brrkups," the alien said. "I forgot and didn't think about them. I'm a
scientist who studies the things of your planet. I'm not a fighter or a soldier.
I cannot help you fight well."
I wasn't going to let him off easily. "You forgot?"
I said, abrasively, sounding something like Tomas de Torquemada from the
Inquisition.
Graax nodded. "Yes, because we don't use them, the
sperbrrkupots. They're cruel. I forgot about them. I'd no business telling you
about the Pxelepiti anyway. I should have let my Council talk about this with
their Council on Squaattoos. You cannot defend yourself. Now we know they have a
sperbrrkupot, and they can go into Contention City, kill hundreds of your
people. There's nothing we can do to stop them," Graax said. "I tried
to make you stronger, but only made you weaker."
A sperbrrkupot in Contention City! Whatever it was and
whatever it looked like! With all the brainclipped, what a tragedy! I shuddered
at the vision my imagination produced.
"They'd do that?"
He nodded and shrugged, as if to say I'm sorry and I don't
know what to say at the same time. "At least all the death will be kept in
one town," he said in condolence. "There are few people with brrkups
elsewhere."
"What in tarnation is that supposed to mean? One town
doesn't matter? You make me sick!" I hied Skinner's horse away.
"I mean it could be much worse...," Graax said.
"No! Stay away from me! I don't want any part of you and
your things," I said, shouting at Graax as I rode away.
Graax shrugged again as I rode away. He looked mournful,
although I never could be sure I was reading his body language correctly. He's
probably just analyzing me again! He tried to imitate us, but all the motions
and gestures still looked different on him.
I rode back to him still yelling, so loaded to the muzzle
with rage I was: "To you, we're just an experiment. You don't care about
us. All you want to do is to see how we run, like we're some kind of a
machine," I said, more hotheaded than I'd ever been before.
"Perhaps...," he began again.
"You make me sick!" I spit on him. "Why don't
you just go back there and tell them Pxelepiti what you know about us? You say
they always find out about your people's secrets anyway. "Leave...Me...Alone," I yelled, choking on each word. "You had no business
giving us anything if the person I was putting it in could be killed instantly!
You had no business doing any of that if you didn't tell me what I was doing!
That was fine for Renner, anything was fine for Renner, but...Damn!"
Graax sullenly gazed down at the ground. He was either
waiting for me to finish my tirade or ashamed of himself. He might as well have
murdered those people himself, as far as I was concerned.
"The Pxelepiti might take you in. Your people aren't
strong enough to do anything for you. You say it will be a few years. You might
as well get on with your own kind."
"But ..." he began.
"They are your own kind, more than we are. They come
from your own planet?" I said.
"Buck...," Graax began anew, looking pitiful.
I'd have none of that, angry as I was. "Get away from me
you damn green-skinned freak! I wish I'd never saw you! Should have left you
die!" I said, spurring the pinto away from Graax for the last time.
He sat there on the back of Prettygirl as I rode off. He
could keep her. I'd get Becky another pony. Where he went or what he did, I
didn't care. I figured him to be sad only because he wouldn't get to finish his
experiment. He could go home with the Pxelepiti, back to Squaattoos.
I stuck the barrel of the revolver into my mouth and almost
pulled the trigger.
You can't do that. You can't give up. Not surrendering was
just an excuse to avoid what the Japanese call hara-kiri, honorable suicide,
that I'd read about in one of Edith's magazines. Why shouldn't you surrender
when there's no hope? I was guilty of a thousand crimes.
That point about not giving up; it wasn't that. It was
cowardice on my part.
If I wasn't going to kill myself, I desperately needed a
friend, somebody who could think clearly about what needed to be done. In my
condition, I didn't trust making those decisions for myself.
I prodded the pinto on toward the Buckmaster spread, telling myself my old buddy, Jed, would know what to do.
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