The Alien Sherriff a serial by James Patrick Cobb

When a space ship crash lands in a remote Western valley, the survivor of the crash, a Squaattoosian named Graax, ends up helping the Arizona rancher who saves his life to subdue a raucous and unruly town with the assistance of brrkups. What are brrkups, you ask? Read on!

Crash Landing - From the look of the thing — a point of light that streaked through the sky leaving a tail — I thought it was a shooting star at first.

Our home- the clinic - The creature recovered from his injuries faster than anybody Edith had ever seen, though it didn't seem fast to me. I found the wait irritatingly slow. With hundreds of questions for the creature, I was impatient for him to heal so he could do things for himself. Mainly, however, I wanted him to learn English so I could talk to him and unveil the mystery of his existence.

Jedidiah Buckmaster - Jedidiah Buckmaster and I didn't agree about most subjects, but we did agree on the things that mattered most: religion; politics and business. That’s why he was as close to me as a brother, closer than my natural brother up in Montana. I never saw Joseph anymore, and he wasn't much of a writer. He'd sent one letter in ten years.

the creature looked healed - After the first two weeks of convalescence, the creature looked healed though he didn't act it. He laid around like a pair of dirty dungarees unless he was using the toilet, eating or taking medicine, getting his dressings changed, or getting cleaned. Then, when he was up, he moved slower than frozen water.

Problems - I’ll admit some of the problems with caring for him were of my own creation, but who expects their wife to turn their home into a hospital?

talking English - Becky finally got the alien to start talking English by holding up one of Lupe Guzmán's tortillas. She told him the word and then spelled it out, writing it neatly on her little chalkboard that she balanced carefully on her lap.

Becky the teacher - Before I could teach the creature about wrangling, he was going to have to speak and understand English. Somebody had to teach him.

schoolhouse games - I started to see some of the get-up-and-go that seemed absent from the creature's character at first. He was an eager student of anything and everything humanlike - except my daughter's games.

a historical figure - 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.

this is how you get up there - Last episode Buck becomes irritated with life in general because he believes he should have more wealth than he does. If only he didn’t have the troubles with Renner and the drought. Also, Squaattoos has so much more in the way of technology than Earth does. Graax gets to go to another planet and Buck can’t even fly up like a bird can and see his own.

Spleetebechh is just spleetebechh - We stopped off at Nuñez’s and Guzmán's shacks first. They were small, mean little buildings built largely of leftover wood and tin from my hacienda. When they weren't working for me, they kept their quarters in good repair. Their wives and combined seven children planted and tended a large vegetable garden and small flower and herb gardens. They also raised chickens and pigs.

Graax didn't have a reason to lie - Buck learns more about Squaattoos from Graax. There’s the animals they eat called spleetebechh and lebbetebechh. There’s Leepox Deesheepon who invented a faster way to travel. The people there raise animal tissue in pots while believing the animals ranched the natural way by robots taste better.

Why is he not stopped? - The men of the K-10 have to check the boundary with the Lazy-R everyday. A fight Buck knows he will likely win easily is brewing. He just doesn’t want to leave the consequences of that fight as his legacy. He’d like to have the Lazy-R property as well as his own, if only to pass on to his son and men. Eventually the drought will be over and the rangeland will recover.

a bad dream - Jack Brucker, the sheriff of Contention City, writhed, sleeping fitfully. The bed sheets came untucked. His wife, wide awake, knew something was troubling him. Someone and some situation troubled him. 

the road to the Brucker home - Somebody had to show the Thomas brothers the way to the Brucker house. That someone was Dan Calpert, who'd been locked up for nonpayment of debts to MacMillian's Dry Goods.

the gates of Hell - It was as if the gates of Hell opened up and loosed all of its denizens free in Contention City. After the Brucker murder, it wasn't safe standing on a street corner there, let alone make a life for yourself.

to hire a sheriff - After Brucker's death, Whitby MacMillian, proprietor of MacMillian's Dry Goods, found his goods being blatantly stolen so frequently that he decided to close up shop until the Council hired a new sheriff, however long the process took.

the change the brrkup effected - I suppose it's the same for everyone, but when I reminisce for a time, I realize how I've seen a good many amazing sights.

six brrkups per day - Like Brucker, I dreamed of becoming a sheriff when I was a boy, ever since I found out there was such a man. I remember the first one I met when I was a boy in Texas—he stood so proud, so tough. Everybody treated him with a great deal of respect. We'd been playing a noisy game of horseshoes, and he told us to move on.

Contention City Sheriff - Even compared to your finer saloons in towns like San Francisco and Chicago then, I'd imagine the Metropolitan would hold its own. It was a handsome place with its oak paneling, fine paintings, mirrors and crystal chandeliers. The only bit of sophistication and distinction for miles around, the fancy saloon was ready to accept money from the jubilant and discouraged alike.

Crime will become a thing of the past - Late at one windy Tuesday afternoon meeting in the Metropolitan, I stood before the City Council of Contention City with the solution to their problems in my palm. I'll be the first to admit their skepticism had a basis in fact. The brrkup didn't look like much. I wanted to get them to let me try it out.

Hank Atwell - I shouldn't have agreed to let Hank Atwell, the man who wore all the hats at the Contention City Chronicle, interview me. I didn't know any better at the time. I might as well have told him to write whatever he wanted and not bother taking the time to talk to me. The results would have been the same.

I brainclipped Childs - My deputies and I then clipped every drunk we could find. They were the people who'd get the most obvious benefit. I needed as many examples of success as possible to point to. As a matter of course there'd be others like Garza opposing my efforts. Some people are just naturally opposed to any new idea.

He's back! - Everyone came running from inside the house on that seventy-five degree spring afternoon (24 degrees Celsius). My welcoming committee consisted of Edith, Becky, Caleb, Graax, Guzmán, Nuñez and their wives. They'd all been out at the main house to greet Graax, who'd ridden in just ahead of me.

stick a brrkup in everybody's head? - Yeah, so I put brrkups in more heads than I promised the Council I would. Still, I never wanted to stick a brrkup in everybody's head. Critics said I did.

I watched the implanted - Even with so many people in the population implanted, work at the Sheriff's Office still wasn't easy. With my deputies, I watched the newcomers to make sure they were the kind of people we wanted. To do that effectively, we needed to keep records, something law enforcement agencies do to an even greater extent nowadays. In the 1890's, in the west, it was uncommon, unless the suspect was arrested.

the town gets increasingly peaceful - Hefting a loaded double-barrel shotgun in trembling hands, Judy Alexander searched the streets of Contention for her husband Skinner. She didn't have to search long. Four minutes after she started, someone told her exactly were to find him: The Metropolitan.

Bank Robbers - Smith and McCall backed out of the bank the next day at 1:15 p.m. carrying slightly more than $10,000, revolvers drawn, more grift than they dared hope for.

having fits - I bit into my well-done steak thirty minutes later at the Contention Café. Everyone clipped and unclipped kept telling me what a good job I was doing. They mainly spoke to me, probably because Graax was alien and unapproachable.

Troubling side effect - After a tasty dinner of boiled brains, and before Edith served up some Indian pudding, I told my family what the minister had said that morning. I told them also we were going to church tomorrow, just as we had done before.

Haby's story - Rev. Rollins intends to call for a ban to the brrkup because it deprives the people who’ve been brainclipped of the chance to make their own decisions. While this troubles Buck, it’s nothing to the guilt he feels once he finds out that those who’ve been clipped can be compelled to tell the truth by depressing a spot on their head. Buck intends to try this out on the defeated bank robbers.

A Church Sermon - Every Sunday the congregation’s set-up committee gathered an hour before the 10 a.m. service to clean up the liquor and beer-soaked establishment from the previous night's revelry. My family and I joined the weekly effort to make the place as fitting as possible for presenting the Word of God.

The Zaibatsu - That Tuesday, wind soughed through the streets of Contention City, and the rain beat up on the tin roof of the Sheriff's Office. The watery onslaught stopped and started repeatedly, as if as if there were cherubim playing with a great spigot in the sky.

The Original and the Changed - The rain pounded on. Suddenly and earnestly Graax said, 'I hope I can tell you this in a way letting you see how serious I am.' 'What?' I asked nonchalantly. 'I fear your planet is dead, like a man shot left bleeding without aid,' Graax said, his big eyes probing into the deepest parts of my brain.

City Council Meeting - Deputies Russell and Anaya spent a good chunk of the day helping people pick up the pieces of their storm-fractured lives. They said they found it amazing how everybody, clipped and unclipped, pitched in and worked together. Anaya busied himself with compiling an account of the work to be done. Russell prioritized the work and organized teams to do it.

Forming A Posse - No matter what was said about the brrkup, I believed it impossible to regard it as anything but a good thing. It improved many lives, but the one I was most amazed with was Skinner Alexander's. Who would have thought he could go from card sharp to respectable citizen? Amazingly, it happened. I found it gratifying to see him succeed, hold a job, treat his family decently and behave with newfound honesty.

my small group - We rode back into town to the Contention Café where Cletus Daniels was running back and forth between the kitchen and dining room cooking and busing tables occupied by hungry disaster workers.

we rode - It was terrible conditions under which to be understood. I cursed the weather and hoped the men heard me. They either didn't hear or didn't believe in acknowledgment with their voices or eyes.

the Pxelepiti - At six a.m., as the sun began to peek above the horizon, I realized I'd forgot to post a guard. My body would have been content sleeping the rest of that day, but fabricated visions of the Pxelepiti woke me up. The fact nobody suggested posting a guard, made me realize I was going to have to do all the thinking. The strain of the mission must have gotten to me. Tired or not, such an error can be swiftly fatal.

insurgency and fallout - 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.

an old friend - The wet weather splashed in my face off and on all the way to the Buckmaster spread. It was only mid-afternoon, but dark, roiling clouds concealed the sun, making it seem more like dusk.

This sounds dangerous - While we were still loaded for bear from all that drinking, dizzy as birds who'd eaten some funny berries, Jed got his tack together so he could ride into town.

Homecoming - The very sight of my home brought the first smile to my face since I started fighting the Pxelepiti. After glancing out of a window, Edith saw me and ran out to greet me as we rode up. Her hair was mussed, her clothes were covered in mud and there were little black circles under her bloodshot eyes. I figured she must have been helping the neighbors with their problems.

The Contention City Human Defense League - The second posse retrieved the bodies. East of the area, we found an area of crushed vegetation the size of a parade ground. It looked like a giant African elephant had dropped down from the sky and sat for awhile. Other trails crisscrossed the area too, where the aliens had knocked down trees, cactus, grass and the like. There also were bits of metal and paper with strange writing found here and there.

A Final Note - I found a brrkup encased in an earring box one late December morning in 1901 on the doorstep of my blue bungalow. There was a note, too. No hard feelings?, the note read. Though it was unsigned I instantly knew who wrote the note: Graax.