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In the previous episode, Becky, just
like a typical kid, wants to play some times. Graax wants to learn
- or teach - all the time. He tells her that the word for skyship
- the interstellar vehicle he was riding in when he crash-landed
off the trail to Contention City - is brrouf.
That can’t be a proper name for
anything, thinks Buck, her daddy.
Episode #9
I supposed I was a historical figure by
virtue of my relationship with Mr. Graax, just like the first
Indian who met Columbus. As historical as can be though nobody
remembers his0 name. Nobody will remember mine either. I wanted to
do more than hear about other planets from someone else. Oh, to go
there myself and see new things! The K-10 seemed awfully confining
at that time. The money wasn't going to help when I was dead. I
wasn't being true to the kid on my grandpa's knee.
Finding Graax's crashed spaceship was
one of the highlights of my life. I got to meet somebody from
another planet. But our relationship went beyond that. I got to
see what an amazing woman my wife was, bringing him back from near
death like she did over my protests that she stop. I got to see my
children try to help a stranger and to appreciate them for the
good people they were. And then, talking to him, it reminded me of
the dreams I used to have.
All that thinking got me so I couldn't
stand to ride the perimeter at the day's end. I'd come back early
and watch the sunset from the porch. Caleb and the men noticed the
difference in me but didn't say anything, thinking I was coming in
to work on the ledger, knowing they were a mess.
I couldn't bring myself to sit down at
my desk and open the ledger. Instead, I'd sit on a stump and watch
the setting sun, looking at the stars, Mercury and Venus as they
came out for the night, praying, Why does that green-skinned
bastard get to travel around like he does and I can't even go up
like a bird and look down at my own world? That ain't fair! I'd
wish and pray as hard as I could, but if He was listening, I never
heard tell.
Edith came up behind me and asked me
what was on my mind. "You aren't out there as late as you
once were."
"I can't do this anymore. This
ranch gives me catarrh and Renner gives me the fits. With as hard
as I work, we should have more than we do."
"I know."
"I want to soar like the birds,
too. I'd like to see Graax's home world, but I'd also like to go
to the moon, Venus and Mercury to see if there's people on them or
little animals. Sure, I suppose Graax might know, which isn’t
right, but I'd like to see for myself. Then I'd like to see Mars
and Jupiter and all of the rest of the planets."
"You?"
"Yes, me."
"Has talking to Mr. Graax gone to
your head?"
"I reckon it has."
"Good. You never dreamed much
before except when it came to having more money. It's time you
started."
That flummoxed me. "You said it was
good I was so practical. You said a couple needs to have one
practical person and one dreamer for there to be a balance."
I recalled a conversation from a year or so ago.
"I did."
"What made you change your
mind?"
"Nothing. I didn't. I was only
trying to convince myself there was a reason we were together. At
the time, you weren't letting me go out with the Rogers boy to fix
his pa. You were plain mean."
"Not mean. I had good sense,"
I insisted. "Half these settlers and others wouldn't get
killed if they'd use good sense. That's what you need to do too.
Indians and vagabonds don't give a hoot if you think you can cure
Rogers. They don't care about Rogers. They'll rape you, kill you
and take your money. My children needed a mother more than Rogers
needed curing." I didn't want to talk to her anymore.
"Let me know when dinner's ready."
She didn't bother me when I looked at
the sunset again. That was just as well.
It wasn't enough to be merely a
relatively successful rancher who weathered a drought in as fine a
fashion as he could manage, suffering a sneaky and stupid
neighbor. I needed adventure as well. I figured that I’d need to
be able to look back on more than years of harvests and marketing
cattle at the end of my life.
Still, I had to be practical with a wife
and two children to support and guide. Dozens around here might
have owed their life to Edith, but she owed her life to me with
her foolishly impulsive ideas. Even Graax needed me. He was
dependent on us for food and even to help him pick up something
from the floor. My adventuring days when I was single were mostly
past, spent on cattle drives, though teaching Graax ranching would
be something of an adventure too.
I supposed, in a way, I'd been blessed.
My daughter's school day was longer than
anybody else's, considering all we learned about Graax's planet
and ours. A dullard might have protested. She didn't. She wanted
to learn about his people as much as he wanted to learn about
ours.
His planet, Squaattoos, had three
continents, water in the oceans, and ice at both the top and the
bottom of the planet. It also had birds, plants and war.
"Sounds a lot like Earth," I
said. "You should feel right at home here."
Mr. Graax nodded and smiled, a mannerism
I believed he picked up from us. He never did that when he first
came to live with us. But then he was injured and hurting from his
accident, without reason to smile.
"Edith is a doctor. She said you
healed fast. How did you do it?"
He thought about his answer. "I had
helpers," he finally said.
"The Lord? Amen! He helps us
all," I replied, thinking he was referring to his alien
angels. Later, I learned he was talking about parts of his blood
heightened by the scientists on his planet to heal his body
faster. Past that, the explanation he gave didn't make much sense
owing to the limitations to his English and the complexity of the
subject he was talking of.
I had thought the electric light and
phonograph were amazing when I saw them in Tucson. They were
nothing compared to the wonders of the civilization on Squaattoos:
wagons that fly from city to city; machines that think for the
people; alien people like Graax who were part machine and part
creature. Even he had parts of him that were mechanical, like the
healers. It boggled me. Humanity was far more backward compared to
the Squaattoosians than the Indians were compared to the Europeans
when they arrived.
Whether his people were older than ours
and had been pursuing science and technology for a longer time or
whether they were just smarter, Graax didn't know. We weren't even
close to the level where we could begin to do the things his
people were doing.
"But we were like you before one
day," Mr. Graax said.
"Do you have cows on Squaattoos?"
I asked.
"Like cows," Graax replied.
"Do you have ranches?"
"What is ranch?" he asked.
"This is a ranch," I said,
pointing at the kitchen table.
"Table?"
"No. Ranch," I reiterated,
pointing again at the table.
"Becky said that was table. Yes, we
have ranches on Squaattoos," he said, nodding.
I studied him. Perplexed.
"Now he thinks you mean the table
is called a ranch," Becky said, giggling. "Funny
Pa!"
"Hush up now Becky," I said,
upset she could make herself understood more clearly than I could.
Addressing the alien again, I reiterated
what I had said before: "This right here is a table," I
said, forcefully. "But this is a ranch," I restated,
making an expansive gesture.
"Air? Earth? Becky didn't tell me
that. Mrs. Turner did tell me that."
"Ranch," I said. I hated it
when we had communication difficulties. I’d get flustered and I
hated being flustered. "It is where we are. I am a rancher.
The K-10. It's how I earn my living. Cattle; horses; table; Dad;
Mom; Nuñez; Guzmán; Caleb; Becky; Saddles: we're all raising
beef to sell so people don't go hungry. The K-10. The J/B. The
Lazy-R. The XIX. Rocking-H. Those are all ranches, though on the
Lazy-R they don't know what they're doing."
He nodded sagely.
"Do you know what a ranch is? Do
you have them on your planet?"
His face dawned with comprehension.
"Yes," he said, nodding. "We do have ranches. We
don't have such names. We have Ranch One, Two, Three."
He understood, but I was frustrated from
having to explain. Whatever patience Becky inherited for teaching
others she didn't get from me. "Good," I said curtly.
"Unlike Earth ranches. Different.
Bigger."
I smiled. Now we were getting to the
nugget of what I wanted
to learn from him. Knowledge of agriculture on other planets could
give me an edge on others in the livestock business. "You say
they're bigger? How do they go about running more head?"
"More head? I'm sorry but I don't
understand," the creature said, shrugging. "I thought
this is head," he said, pointing to his head.
I stood up abruptly. Imperturbability
wasn't my strong suit. I bit my tongue. I wanted to kick him and
call him stupid but that wasn't called for. Anybody who could fly
a spaceship from one planet to another wasn't stupid. He just
couldn't speak English well and I couldn't fault him for that. If
I was in a foreign country, or among a bunch of Indians, I
wouldn't have easy goings making myself understood either.
I gave up. It wasn't worth it. Trying to
hold back my frustration in vain, I mumbled: "It's good
you're learning English, Mr. Graax. I look forward to talking to
you about things again. For right now, I've got to turn in for the
night."
Maybe he sensed my disappointment.
"I never worked on a ranch before Buck Turner," Graax
said. "Not even on Squaattoos."
I gathered it was his way of saying:
Forgive me for my stupidity. I took it as an apology. "So
what's your trade?" I asked.
"It's learner now. I cannot do my
Squaattoos trade here," the alien said.
"Probably flew a spaceship," I
said.
"And I did other things. I studied
too. I will do that here too."
"Oh."
"But they don't pay me for
it," he countered. "It's not a trade if they don't pay
you."
"No, I guess they don't do that for
anybody," I admitted.
"This is a ranch?"
"That's right. We call it the
K-10."
"Do you do work here?"
"I've been known to."
"Could you teach me to be a
rancher? I want to repay your kindness."
I couldn't help smiling widely. "I
was hoping you'd say that. I could do that Mr. Graax. We can
always use the help. You fixing to say on Earth?" I asked,
shocked at his honorable manner. He knew how much taking care of
him put us out and how much we could use the help. I guessed you
can find good people from every planet.
"If you don't have ranches like
this on Squaattoos, then nothing I teach you is going to have any
value back where you come from. Every operation is different.
Shoot, you go to another planet, I'd imagine it'd be really
different. Your animals would be different to begin with. We sure
could use the help, though. We can use all the help we can
get."
"I'm here on Earth as a student.
I'm here to learn everything and anything I can," explaining
he'd be practicing his profession if he learned about ranching
from me.
"Well, shoot. I'd be glad to show
you the ropes in the morning." I yawned. "I'm tired.
It's about time to turn in and saw some wood."
That night, in keeping with his people's
custom of rewarding their teachers at the end of their lessons,
Graax gave Becky a gift. Here, we pay teachers money. On his
planet they pay them money or presents within a ceremony.
"I give this to you, Becky," he
said, stiffly bowing, presenting her with a cube scribed with a
variety of etchings on each side. "You like to play games. This
is a game we play on Squaattoos. Doohis." He told her the
game's name without a click, slowly pronouncing the gargley alien
word.
"Doohis?" she affirmed.
"Yes. Good," he said, palming
the cube.
"This is how you play," he said,
explaining how the object's sides moved in different directions.
When you lined them up, you finished the game. Graax mixed up the
six sides so that each side had a variety of symbols. "To win,
you have to get all of the sides with just one letter. Go and
play."
"This is dandy!" she cried.
"Do you play?"
"Yes," Graax replied.
"Like Solitaire, with the
cards?" she asked.
He nodded. "This is the only doohis
that I have. On Squaattoos you can get more. If you like this, if I
can go back home, I will try to get you other games like this."
"Thank you Mr. Graax," she said,
hugging him.
He hugged her back.
The next morning, there were tears in her
eyes as Graax mounted up. The student creature had finally graduated
the Creature Teacher.
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