Cowboys and Aliens

by Joan D. Vinge

  “So there was these big ‘lights,’ you fall in the river; when you come up . . .” Dolarhyde’s face twisted with disgust. “Two of my oldest hands was just ‘disappeared.’ And there’s these, these exploded . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked again at the carcasses of the cattle lying all around him.

  “There wasn’t no storm tonight, no lightning. You don’t respect me, do you. Otherwise you wouldn’t lie to me . . . would you?” Dolarhyde drew a Bowie knife from his belt, letting the blade gleam in the torchlight, beautiful and deadly. “Funny thing about respect. When it’s gone, it’s all over; everything gets sideways. . . . I can’t have that. Know what I’m saying, Roy?”

  Murphy didn’t even try to answer. But at the sight of the knife, piss stained his pants, and dripped onto the ground.

  Dolarhyde’s cold, scornful smile vanished abruptly as he turned away at the sound of riders approaching. He stood waiting, the knife still in his hand, as the men who had gone into town came riding out to find him. He searched their faces, looking for two in particular. He saw only one of them: Nat Colorado. His frown deepened again as he realized something serious must’ve happened for Nat to come looking for him clear out here.

  Nat reined in in front of him and dismounted.

  “Where’s Percy?” Dolarhyde demanded.

  Nat’s glance went from his knife to his face. It was Dolarhyde’s face that added a touch of fear to the respect in Nat’s voice, as he said, “Taggart locked him up, boss.”

  Dolarhyde stiffened. “Why?” he rasped. “For what—? What the hell’d he do now?”

  Nat forced the words out of a throat that didn’t want to say them. “Shot a deputy.”

  “Goddammit!” Dolarhyde’s fist tightened around the knife hilt.

  The horses around them moved restlessly at the sound of his anger. The two that were tied to Roy Murphy, already stretching his entire body with every small movement, moved some more.

  “He didn’t kill him,” Nat added, as if that might bring Dolarhyde some sort of comfort, or cool his outrage.

  “Who’s Taggart think he is?” Dolarhyde’s voice was enough to make Nat thank God that he wasn’t Taggart. “He wouldn’t have a job if . . . this is my town!”

  Roy Murphy cried out in pain, as the two riderless horses stretched him almost enough to dislocate a limb, but Dolarhyde still ignored him. Confronting Nat, he said, “Now I gotta go in there, reason with him . . . cause of your failure to take care of my son. Didn’t I tell you to watch my son—?”

  Dolarhyde turned away abruptly with the knife in his hand, and in one stroke slashed through the rope tethering Murphy’s feet.

  Murphy’s lower body slumped to the ground, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank y—”

  Dolarhyde slapped the rump of the horse Murphy was still tied to. It bolted away into the night, dragging a screaming Roy Murphy with it.

  Dolarhyde put away the knife as he closed on Nat again. Nat glanced up at him, barely. Dolarhyde’s fists were still knotted with anger; Nat’s expression said he figured it was his turn. . . . Braced against the blow he expected was coming, Nat stared at the ground.

  Dolarhyde studied his foreman, who stood gazing at the ground covered in dead cow parts as if he was afraid Dolarhyde had done that, and that he might be next.

  Dolarhyde’s fists unclenched. He looked at Nat a moment longer. He shook his head. At last he turned on his heel and shouted, “Everyone saddle up!”

  “Boss,” Nat said, “we ought to bring some extra hands.”

  Dolarhyde stopped, turned back to look at him. “What for?” he said.

  Nat took a deep breath. “You ain’t gonna believe it . . . but I think Jake Lonergan’s in town.”

  Dolarhyde’s eyes narrowed, as if every other thing on his mind had suddenly ceased to exist. “What—?” he whispered.

  “JAKE LONERGAN?”

  Jake sat on the floor of his cell, his back resting against the back wall, staring into a void. He glanced up as the sheriff and his men finally re-entered the office, but it took his mind a long moment to realize someone had actually called his name—if that was his name. . . . He sat blinking, as Taggart stopped by his cell.

  Jake still felt dazed, like his head hadn’t recovered yet from Ella’s blow . . . or he’d had too much whiskey on an empty stomach. Or maybe it was just everything. All it meant was that he was still sitting in a jail cell, trapped in what now passed for reality.

  Sheriff Taggart turned the key in his cell door; for a moment, Jake’s hope shot up.

  It dropped into his boots again as he registered the way the armed deputies were flanking Taggart. Some of them appeared to be new recruits, but two men glared at him over their guns; they both looked like they had broken noses. Lyle’s head was bandaged under his hat.

  The sheriff looked into the next cell, where Percy Dolarhyde still lay unconscious on the floor. He looked back. “What happened to him?”

  Jake glanced at Percy, back at Taggart again. “Couldn’t say.”

  Lyle unlocked Percy’s cell; he and another deputy dragged Percy out into the office, heading for the door. Taggart was holding a pair of manacles as he approached Jake. “Am I gonna need these?”

  Jake glanced at the other deputies and their weapons; they kept their guns trained on him, but they were keeping their distance this time.

  “No,” he said, looking back at the sheriff again. He’d done enough damage for one day . . . and he didn’t particularly want to end it riddled with bullet holes.

  But either the sheriff had been watching his eyes move, or the question had been rhetorical, because Taggart came forward and put the irons on him anyway. He had a hard time with the left one, finding a place for it by the metal bracelet. He glanced at Jake with an odd look, and another look at the bracelet, before he backed away.

  “What’re the charges?” Jake finally remembered to ask.

  Taggart picked up the wanted poster from his desk and began to read them off: “Arson, assault, mayhem, hijacking—says you robbed the bullion coach last month, with a gang of outlaws including Pat Dolan and Bull McCade, which makes you accessory to every law they broke. . . .”

  “That it?” Jake said, almost relieved . . . almost amused. A thousand dollars on his head, just for that? The sheriff held the poster out so he could take a look. He glanced at the face on it: it looked like a prison picture, badly reprinted. Was that him? He realized he didn’t even remember what he looked like, anymore . . . He read just above the picture, “SCOURGE A‘ THE TERRITORIES.” Yeah, right. His mouth curled up at the edges.

  “Murder,” the sheriff added. “Whore outta Cottonwood Grove, next county over—name of Alice Wills.”

  Jake’s smirk fell away, leaving his face stunned. No. . . . That was impossible; it couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t hurt—

  Taggart took down Jake’s hat from a hook on the wall, and removed the tintype of the woman from inside it. He held up the picture. The loving, gentle eyes found Jake’s—or he found them, automatically, as she smiled, seemingly only for him.

  “This her?” Taggart asked.

  Jake gazed at the picture, feeling only confusion, a nameless grief, an inexplicable resentment at the question. “You say I killed this woman?”

  Taggart shrugged. “You tell me.”

  Jake looked down, his eyes desolate. How was he supposed to do that? He didn’t know whether he was a cold-blooded killer or not. He had no idea what he was really like, or capable of. He thought of the face on the wanted poster, a face with stark, angular planes, and the eyes of a man he wouldn’t want to cross. The eyes of a man who’d kill you for saying the wrong thing, or maybe for no reason at all. If he would actually kill a woman like that . . .

  He only knew that if he had to live his life this way much longer, he didn’t give a damn if they hanged him—guilty or not—because he couldn’t take much more of this.

  The sheriff put the picture back inside the hat and tossed the hat to
Jake. Jake caught it with cuffed hands. Looking up at Taggart, he said, “Why would I carry around a picture of a woman I murdered?”

  Taggart only gave him a look that said anything Jake Lonergan, Scourge of the Territories, might do—even sparing his life—was beyond his comprehension. “That’s for Santa Fe to sort out.”

  He opened the cell door, and gestured to Jake. “Now I’m puttin’ you in that coach,” he said. “I will treat you with respect, but make no mistake—if you try and escape, I will put a bullet in you.”

  Jake put on his hat and walked out of the cell. At gunpoint Taggart pushed him toward the front door, and through it into the shadowy lamplit night.

  A coach stood outside the jail—an armored prison wagon with oak lattices barring the windows. Deputies lined the short path between the door of the jail-house and the coach, their guns still trained on him.

  A crowd of murmuring onlookers was gathered behind the deputies, staring at him. Christ, didn’t these people have anything better to do? He supposed they didn’t, in a place like this.

  If he tried to make a break for it now, he’d never get through that crowd without someone getting hurt. It would probably end up being him; but now he really didn’t feel like he wanted to hurt any more strangers on his way out of town.

  Even before he got to the door of the prison wagon he heard Percy Dolarhyde, awake at last and already mouthing off. Resigned, he climbed into the coach just as Percy tried to stick his head out the open door, yelling at Taggart about how it was an accident, they got no right sendin’ him to the federal marshal—

  Jake shoved the little shit back into his seat so he could get past. Percy broke off his rant to call him a few choice names.

  Jake observed the bruises that had streaked Percy’s face with the colors of sunset, wherever his head had collided with the bars of his cell. Jake barely managed to keep the smile of satisfaction off his own face. A few bruises were probably the worst thing Percy would end up with, if half the threats he was blurting about his old man were true. On the other hand, Percy’s face just might be the last amusing thing Jake Lonergan ever got to see. . . .

  Jake sat down on the opposite bench and looked out the window on the far side of the coach. He didn’t expect to find a friendly, or familiar face in the crowd that had spilled out into the street; didn’t even know why part of him was searching for one. But then he caught a glimpse of Preacher Meacham, framed by the bars of the oak lattice. As their eyes met, Meacham’s face filled with sympathy, and regret. His was the only one, but Jake appreciated it, for as long as it lasted.

  He thought he saw Ella moving through the crowd near Meacham; he recognized the dog that had followed him all day still at her side, like it’d come to say goodbye. He looked back again as the sheriff said, “Gimme your wrist.” Jake held out his hands. The sheriff unlocked the manacle on his left hand, freeing it—grabbed Percy’s arm, and locked the iron around his wrist.

  Sonofabitch—Jake thought.

  He saw a tight grin come out of hiding under Tag-gart’s mustache. “Best way to make a man stay put—chain him to his enemy.”

  Taggart showed the grin to Percy as he said, “You lovebirds have a nice trip, now.” When he slammed the coach door he was actually smiling; the relief on his face made him look ten years younger. Jake heard the heavy lock being fastened.

  “Are you tryin’ to get me killed—?” Percy whined out the window.

  OUTSIDE THE PRISON wagon Jake heard Taggart again, sounding abruptly exasperated, but not at him or Percy.

  “What are you doin’?” Taggart said to somebody. “Go on home, go to bed.”

  A boy’s voice answered: Taggart’s grandson—Jake could just see him outside the window, hanging on his grandfather’s arm.

  “Please don’t go.”

  Taggart shook the boy off, gently but firmly. “Have to, Emmett. It’s my job.”

  “I don’t like it here,” Emmett’s voice rose as he got more upset.

  Jake watched Taggart’s face, seeing sorrow, strain, regret, and love move across it. Taggart said, like he’d repeated it a hundred times before, “Your pa’s gettin’ things in order. When he does, he’ll send for you.”

  “Been over a year . . .” Emmett said, his voice starting to get tremulous now.

  A flicker of something crossed Taggart’s face that told Jake the man was telling lies he was having trouble keeping up. He watched Taggart force a smile as he put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, he will. And this is where your mama’s buried—you know I can’t leave my little girl. Now what would she say if she knew I let you stay up so late?” He began to turn the boy around, urging him back to wherever he should’ve been.

  Jake was suddenly glad he hadn’t had to kill the man; even if it meant he’d wound up in this fix.

  He sighed and tried to settle into his seat, too bone-weary and disoriented to do anything but let the coach’s wall hold him up. It was a long ride to Santa Fe. He could worry about the end of it later. . . . Right now his whole body ached—not just pain, but hunger gnawed at him too. Damn, he never even got to eat that pasole—He realized how little the pain or hunger had really bothered him, until now; like they were things he was used to enduring, to the point of ignoring them, for as long as he had to.

  His right arm jerked up short as he leaned back. Percy sat sullenly at the far end of the other bench, pulling the chain taut, keeping him from sitting comfortably. Jake yanked on the manacles, and Percy fell off his seat.

  That little pissant wasn’t going to make what might be his last ride miserable, simply by existing. Jake gave Percy a long, meaningful stare, and then leaned back again, making himself as comfortable as he could; forcing Percy to adjust, if he wanted to stay conscious.

  “Ah, shit. . . .” Percy muttered. He got back up onto the bench and didn’t try anything more.

  Jake folded his arms and looked toward the street-side window. He started, as he found the last person he’d expected, or wanted, to see there—Ella, the woman from the saloon, staring in at him.

  . . . the hell? He frowned. What was she, a bounty hunter—? He started to turn his face away.

  But that desperate, driven look was in her eyes again; the look that had seemed to see right through him earlier. . . . Unwillingly he turned back, not able to ignore her even now, even though he wanted to.

  “Listen, I’m sorry—” she said, her fingers tightening over the window lattice until they whitened. He glanced at her face, “But I had no choice. I couldn’t let you leave.”

  Jake grimaced, holding up his chained hand. “Well, I’m leaving now.”

  Jake heard Deputy Lyle shout, “Taggart!” in sudden warning.

  Taggart looked away at something, and his face turned as hard as stone. “Get inside now,” he said to Emmett. The townsfolk who’d surrounded the prison wagon began to vanish too, clearing out the street.

  As their voices faded, Jake heard the sound of riders, coming in fast. Percy sat up across from him, suddenly alert and expectant, and Jake’s eyes hardened.

  “I need you,” Ella said. Looking back at her, he saw the truth in her eyes, but no more clue as to why.

  “You got something to say, say it,” he snapped at Ella, as he heard Taggart calling orders up to the wagon’s driver.

  “I need to know where you came from.”

  His eyes widened, just for a second. Then he muttered, “So do I—” and looked away.

  “Step aside, miss,” Taggart said, through the far window, and it was a sharp order, not a request. The deputies nearest Ella moved in to force her back from the coach onto the boardwalk.

  Percy sniggered, grinning at him. “Oh it’s on now. . . .”

  Jake peered out the street-side window again, trying to see what had turned the whiny little shit back into a gloating monster, just as riders surrounded the coach, most of them carrying torches. Two men rode up close on either side, peering in.

  Jake recognized one of the
m—the man the sheriff had called “Nat” while facing him down, when Nat had tried to intimidate him into letting Percy go. Jake didn’t recognize the other man, until Percy yelled, “I knew you’d come for me, Pa!”

  Dolarhyde.

  6

  Dolarhyde peered in at them, his jaw set. He looked old . . . but he wasn’t as old as he looked; torchlight only deepened the unforgiving lines of his face. He looked damned intimidating, especially from where Jake sat now—ruthless and vindictive, used to getting his way, always. And rich—his bandana was made of patterned silk. Jake figured that explained a lot about Percy.

  “Shut up,” Dolarhyde snarled at Percy. “I’ll deal with you later—”

  Jake glanced at Percy with real understanding, but no compassion. Looking back at Dolarhyde, he found Dolarhyde looking at him with eyes that were the color of steel in the torchlight.

  Dolarhyde looked away from Jake again, looking toward Taggart. “What’s my boy doing chained to that outlaw?”

  Glancing from window to window, Jake saw Taggart’s whole body tense up. Taggart looked like he was set to stare down the Devil himself. His eyes hadn’t been that cold even when he’d gone up against Jake in the saloon. Suddenly a lot of random things Jake had seen and heard this evening began to add up in his mind.

  “You know I can’t let him go,” the sheriff said. “He shot a deputy.”

  Dolarhyde’s expression eased a little, but his eyes lost none of their deadliness. “We can work this out, John,” he said, with a casual arrogance that told Jake he was used to lording it over this town—that he thought everything in it, including the sheriff, belonged to him.

  And then his voice turned lethal, and his eyes filled with pure hatred as they fixed on Jake again. “But I want that other fella—” Suddenly he could have been the Devil himself as he glared in at Jake and said, “Where’s my goddamn gold?”

  Oh, shit, Jake thought. Not another one. . . . He met Dolarhyde’s hatred with complete incomprehension. “. . . who the hell’re you?” he asked.

  The hatred in Dolarhyde’s eyes turned to fury. “Who the hell am I? Woodrow Dolarhyde. . . . I’m the man whose gold you stole off the bullion coach a month ago. Five year’s worth of my hard work. Five thousand double eagles.” His voice grated, “I want it back.”