Cowboys and Aliens

by Joan D. Vinge

  He did think about Preacher Meacham; he wished Meacham could’ve been here, as he faced this. But Meacham’s last request before he’d died had been, “Get our people back.” Even God couldn’t deny Jake was doing his best to honor that.

  The di-yin picked up a small pot filled with some kind of liquid, and passed it to Black Knife, who passed it to the man sitting next to him, all of them still chanting.

  The pot finally reached Jake’s hands. He accepted it, staring at the bits of plant matter floating on the surface of the opaque brown liquid. He raised it closer to his face, sniffing. The smell was as unfamiliar as the look of it; instinctively he made a face, then glanced at Ella.

  Her eyes were alive with hope and need—the need for him to do this, for all their sakes, and more. “. . . please,” she murmured.

  He glanced past her at the others; all around him he saw the same expression come over their faces . . . all of their hopes pinned on him.

  Jake looked down again and shook his head—not in refusal, only astounded at his own foolhardiness. He took a deep breath, held it, and drank down the liquid in gulps until the pot was empty.

  He felt an odd warmth in his throat and gut that was comfortingly like the burn of whiskey, even though the taste it left in his mouth was more like chewing tobacco combined with horse dung. Could have been worse.

  Some of the Apaches sitting in the circle got to their feet and left the limited space within the wikiup, as Jake remained sitting next to Ella, wondering what came next. His body already felt like an old man’s; otherwise, he was a little dizzy, that was all—maybe just his nerves.

  Blankets covered the ground. Jake tried to relax, but his body reminded him with every breath that it’d had more abuse than any human being deserved already today. After a time, though, a strange calm began to settle over him, and gradually all his tension flowed away.

  The light from the small fire pit at the center of the hut seemed brighter and brighter, breaking up into rainbows; he stared at it, hypnotized. All his senses seemed to be opening up: He heard the coyotes call-and-response somewhere out in the hills, as they sang love songs to the moon . . . smelled the mesquite wood smoke of the fire mixed with sage and damp creosote bush, as well as night-blooming plants he couldn’t name, all carried to him on the cooling breeze. He could feel the ground solidly beneath him, through the woven texture of a wool blanket. . . .

  Ella watched him intently, watching over him, like the handful of Apaches who had remained in the wikiup.

  Jake felt his eyelids growing heavy with dream-sleep, vague images shifting like sand every time his eyes closed; he struggled to keep them open.

  Ella put her arms around him, supporting him carefully as he lay back, too drowsy to sit any longer. his head was resting on her knees; she looked down at him, her face lit by firelight, by an ethereal light that seemed to be all the colors in existence at once. He smiled at her, feeling perfectly safe and content, as he saw not only reassurance but belief in her eyes.

  A soft whirring filled his ears; he forced himself to open his eyes one last time, and saw the jewel-bright colors of a hummingbird as it darted above his face, glimmering in the firelight like a rainbow made solid. He wondered vaguely what a hummingbird was doing here of all places, and after dark. . . .

  It hovered over him in a zigzagging dance, as if it was inviting him to follow—somewhere, somehow, if he only could—before it disappeared again from his sight. He heard the Apaches around him murmuring to each other.

  “. . . a good sign . . .” Ella whispered. “They say it has come to be your spirit guide. . . .”

  His eyesight blurred, unable to see where the bird had gone, or even make out Ella’s face, as everything shifted out of focus. . . .

  His blurring vision abruptly sharpened again . . . and he saw Alice.

  Alice? How . . . where—? He saw her moving away from him through desert dunes, the wind whipping at her flowered dress, stirring up veils of sand around her. The billowing clouds of sand grew wilder, until he almost lost sight of her as she turned back one last time, and he saw her eyes gazing at him: at the only man she had ever loved, or ever would. . . .

  “. . . it’s not your fault. . . .” she said.

  “What—?” Jake called out the word, but he had no voice; no sound would come out of his mouth.

  Ella stroked Jake’s hair, soothing and reassuring him as he moved restlessly, his closed eyes following something, lost in a dreamworld. . . .

  The sound of the wailing sand overwhelmed Jake’s hearing as the swirling clouds obliterated his sight. He stumbled on through the dunes, searching for Alice.

  “. . . hello!” he shouted, suddenly able to hear himself speak; but there was no response.

  Jake’s eyes opened again, but he was seeing into another world now. Ella heard Jake whisper out loud, “. . . hello . . .” and knew that the medicine dream had taken him completely. Placing her hands on his temples, she closed her eyes, her mind making contact, connecting, following his own as he moved deeper into the dream.

  The sandstorm had blinded all Jake’s senses; he couldn’t see anything at all anymore, couldn’t hear anything but Alice’s voice, still echoing, “. . . it’s not your fault. . . .”

  He turned where he stood, trying to follow the echoes to their source . . . and all at once Alice was there again, moving toward him this time . . . her beautiful eyes, her smile . . . he put his arms around her, and they kissed . . .

  And as her lips found his, the world seemed to spin and tumble, sweeping them with it to another place entirely—one he knew. The long grass in front of the cabin . . . whispering in the breeze as they lay back together on a sunny spring day, kissing, touching, making love . . . losing themselves in the scent and feel of sun-warmed skin as they explored each others’ bodies, lost inside each other’s pleasure and joy. . . .

  Until at last, their shared passion spent, Alice drifted off to sleep, still held close in his arms. As he held her, watching over her blissful sleep, there was nothing more he could imagine wanting, or needing . . . except for time to stop, so that they could stay like this forever: loved, cherished, safe and at peace, here in their hidden world.

  . . . He closed his own eyes, drifting away into deeper dreams . . . deeper memories . . .

  . . . He rode down the hill, through the long grass toward the cabin . . . saw Alice lying among the wild-flowers outside their home, as if she had fallen asleep in the shade of a cottonwood tree on a warm afternoon. Only asleep . . .

  But as he dismounted and approached her quietly, to wake her without startling her, he saw how her body lay . . . saw something wrong about it. . . .

  He reached her side and saw that her eyes were wide open, unblinking . . . her mouth open, in a soundless scream. . . . No . . . The skies overhead darkened with storm clouds, as he stood staring down in disbelief, and a flash of lightning shocked his eyes—

  . . . And suddenly he was standing inside the cabin, inside a memory he had already reclaimed, dropping the heavy saddlebags onto the table with a clatter of gold coins. . . .

  But this time, the memory didn’t stop as Alice’s face fell, her eyes darkening—filling with anger, as she saw the waterfall of gleaming gold. She broke away as he tried to hold her in his arms, and said accusingly, “Where’d you get that?”

  “Where do you think?” Jake smirked, too full of his own twisted pride to see the warning signs of the storm—

  “Take it back,” Alice said flatly, folding her arms to shut him out.

  “Like hell—” Jake started to frown.

  “—that’s blood money—” Alice’s anger cut through his words.

  “—it’s gonna buy us what we need,” he insisted, his own voice rising, “I goddamned earned it—”

  “—by robbin’ and killin’!” Alice said furiously. “This ain’t a clean break. Don’t you understand—?”

  But he had never understood, because he had never known anything else . . . there had
never been anything in his life to compare it to, until now. And now, just when he’d begun to believe—

  A deep rumbling filled the air, made the cabin floor tremble under their feet. More gold coins spilled from Jake’s saddlebags, sliding, rolling off the table, transforming. . . .

  And this time he knew why. But he was helpless to stop it . . .

  In the wikiup, Jake broke out in a sweat and his body began to twitch, trying desperately to move. “—No—” His hand reached up like a drowning man’s, but this time he was unable to break from the surface of his dream.

  Ella’s face contorted with grief as she shared his growing terror, his realization of what was about to happen, and that there was no escape—

  An explosion shook the cabin, as part of its roof ripped away, and the stone chimney collapsed into a heap of rubble. Above them, a blindingly blue unnatural light blotted out the sky. . . .

  And suddenly Alice was screaming, as she was pulled from Jake’s arms up into the air. He lunged after her, but another bola closed its hand around him, jerking him off his feet. He saw the floor fall away, and then the cabin itself, as he was pulled up . . . up . . . disappearing into the depths of his darkest nightmare—

  As it all changed, forever. . . .

  . . . He was only dimly aware, this time, that the dream had changed, that he had gone somewhere else . . . somewhere dark and dank . . . a cave . . . where he stared up at the staccato flashing of a brilliant white light. Its hypnotic flickering held his conscious mind in stasis, the way the frigid, soulless embrace of the bola cord held his body . . . preventing thought, preventing movement. . . .

  There were other people around him; their wide, empty eyes as opaque as white glass, reflecting the light that held them mesmerized. Their faces were as expressionless as the faces of the dead . . . the dead. . . .

  . . . But Alice wasn’t dead . . . he knew she wasn’t. She was here somewhere, gazing up. . . . If he could only look at her instead, only see her, tell her he—

  He wasn’t dead. . . . He needed to remember . . . something . . . do something . . . it was important—But not now . . . not while the light held him with its rapture, like a moth drawn to a flame. . . .

  . . . Until like a dream, more darkness followed the light . . . until he opened his eyes, suddenly, in shock, as he heard a woman’s voice screaming in anguish, in agony—as if she’d been thrown into a fire. . . . He tried to turn his head to see what. . . .

  As he moved, a flare of pain burned out all his senses—

  His body went limp and stopped struggling, just as his senses came back in a rush.

  But the sound of a woman screaming stopped, just as abruptly, and he lay in the daze of someone who’d been painfully awakened but was somehow still dreaming. . . .

  He was flat on his back on a strange bed now—something between an operating table and a rack—and yet nothing more than a pair of metal bars was holding down his shoulders. But something was touching his head—the thing that had struck him blind with pain when he tried to move; that had left him even more physically helpless than before. . . .

  . . . He lay motionless, afraid to move even a finger; paralyzed by his own fear. The hot breath of a wind that smelled of sulfur touched his exposed face, his hands and feet, but the table under him felt cold, as cold as the unnatural blue light that filled the inside of the vast—cavern?—a space so large he couldn’t see its walls because . . . buildings? flumes? crates? telegraph wires? . . . forms that made no sense at all to him blocked his vision, most of them glowing with light that looked more like phosphorescence than lamps or flames.

  The thing he lay on had glowing lights too . . . golden ones. Up close they looked like the rumpled surfaces of animal brains covered by glass . . . but as he tried at last to move his hand to touch one, pain drove through his head again like a bayonet.

  His cry strangled in his throat as his hand fell back. . . . Weak with relief, his body surrendered completely to the bonds that held his mind. He could only open his eyes, only see as far as he could make them move, to one side or the other.

  But maybe just that was enough. . . . At the limits of his sight he could make out impossible forms—not human—moving as randomly as shadows, disappearing into strange, shifting clouds, emerging again, silhouetted by random cones of blue light. In the distance he thought he saw steaming pools, and streams glowing orange-red with the heat of whatever flowed in their beds . . . lines of golden tears rising into . . . inside of. . . .

  His mind finally surrendered, then: The only thing he’d ever seen that looked remotely like this was a painting of Hell. . . .

  There was a small table beside the one he was trapped on. Lying on it were more things he didn’t recognize . . . and things he thought maybe he did. Sick terror filled him, as he realized what things like that were meant for, what they could do to a helpless human body.

  He looked away from it with effort, moving his eyes as far to the other side as he could. He realized then that there was another table like the one he lay on, beside his. And Alice . . . .Alice? That was Alice, on the other table, gazing at the ceiling, not at him. . . .

  “. . . Alice . . .” he gasped. His mouth and throat were as dry as if he hadn’t had water for days. A band of red—a ribbon of blooming roses—circled the waistline of her flowered dress, as she lay the way he remembered her lying in the grass, outside their home . . . not moving—not—

  She couldn’t move any more than he could; that was all. . . . Her eyes were open—

  “. . . Alice—!”

  She didn’t move, didn’t glance toward him or even try to answer . . . She didn’t even blink, only went on staring at nothing, her eyes wide and dark like a fear-stricken doe’s. . . .

  Jake called her name again, some part of his mind refusing to accept this final proof of their shared damnation. . . .

  His eyes couldn’t make sense of the monstrous shape that suddenly loomed over her. And yet somehow he knew what it was . . . a demon. That was a demon.

  As it released the restraints from Alice’s body, her face turned toward him at last . . . but when he saw her eyes, he realized she hadn’t moved of her own free will. She stared through him at nothing, still without blinking, without moving, . . . without breathing.

  That red band ringing her dress—he knew what it was now. It was blood. Alice was dead—

  She was dead . . . lost to him forever . . . she’d been murdered, lying right there beside him, by monsters that could only have crawled out of Hell itself, to drag them into the Pit. . . . .

  In the wikiup, Jake cried out, his voice raw with grief and rage, his body straining against the invisible bonds of nightmare. The tears that filled Ella’s eyes spilled over and ran down her face, as the unfolding memory went on and on, as pitiless as the demons who held him captive inside his dream—too much like the demons buried deep in her own soul.

  But she was unable to do anything to help him, even to comfort him. . . . It was all she could do to weep for him, with him, inside her own prison of memories. Because this was a path he had to walk alone, for all their sakes. . . .

  Jake watched the golden brains under glass that ringed Alice’s death bed begin to pulse and glow; her body shimmered like a mirage, glowing . . . disintegrating as he watched, into a pile of ash. The hot breath of the wind swept it away, like dust erasing her existence. . . . Alice. . . .

  A long shadow fell across his tear-blurred eyes; he looked up, expecting what he would see as the demon who had just stolen Alice from life, and from him, body and soul, started toward the place where he lay. A kind of fear and revulsion he’d never known before filled him, smothering even his grief, as the reptile-skinned mockery of a face pushed toward him from the insectoid carapace that covered its skull. It stood over him, gazing down with red inhuman eyes, as if he was a fly trapped in its web, and it was considering which of his wings to tear off first.

  And then its armored chest parted like a cabinet opening, reveal
ing the extra set of manipulating arms hidden within the folds. The semi-translucent, sucker-tipped fingers of its hands began to pick through the selection of operating tools . . . things meant to torture and kill, never meant to heal. . . .

  It brought up a long, slightly curved rod of silver metal. He saw a blue light appear at the tip of the rod, as if the demon held a lit candle, bring it toward his side. Trying to follow its track, he saw that his shirt had been pushed up; saw the marks that traced a pattern on his side and stomach.

  Patterns were for cutting things out. . . . He clenched his jaw, his whole body trying to hold himself motionless, but was unable to keep from trembling as he was to stop anything else that was happening to him now.

  The light-knife touched his side, burning through his flesh as it began its predesigned course toward cutting out his guts, one piece at a time. Jake cried out in pure agony, as his body convulsed uncontrollably, and one pain doubled another until he was blind and mindless, struggling to wrench himself free, his body fighting for its life.

  Something gave way, releasing his left arm. He flung out his hand toward the instrument tray, frantically groping for something, anything, he could use as a weapon. He caught up a smooth metal rod like the one the demon held, pulled it to him and saw the tip catch fire with blue light.

  The demon grabbed for his hand, too late. Jake was fast, and the cutter beam was like lightning; a streak of blue slashed the monster’s face, burning a red furrow across it. The demon screeched and staggered out of his line of sight. Jake fell back onto the table, his arm coming down on a surface at its far side.

  His hand landed on a piece of metal; he dropped the cutter as the hard, squared-off curves suddenly squirmed to life and clamped shut like a trap around his wrist. Panic-stricken, he tried to pull free; the metal band came with him, not trying to hold him down.

  Jake wrenched himself loose from the table’s restraints; half slid, half fell, off it onto the floor.