Julie had made her decision, and by all the gambling gods, she was sticking with it.
Somehow, I had to convince her to change that decision.
I had to keep trying.
That’s what superheroes did, usually against all odds and at some cost and danger to their own lives. And trying to convince any woman to change her mind always had danger involved.
So throwing all caution to the wind, I jumped on a plane and headed for Vegas. Besides, I wanted to spend some time with Patty and get her opinion on all this.
Julie wouldn’t see me, and had me removed from the Circus Circus when I went up to her blackjack table and sat down. Even my Empathy Super Power couldn’t cut through the anger, although it made the guard very nice and apologetic for escorting me to the door.
Since the direct approach hadn’t worked, I headed out into the desert, to where I knew the Silicon Suckers had a pretty good-sized village. It was impossible to see unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, and I did. The entrance to this one was hidden right under a billboard beside the highway.
The entrance led to a huge underground cavern cut out of the sand and rock and filled with castle-like buildings. I was welcomed into their castles, as I knew I would be, since I had helped them recover one of Dr. Doubleday’s mistakes.
The main leader of this band clicked at me in Silicon Sucker language, and I used what I called my Understand Most Anything Super Power to talk with him, asking him for more time to convince Julie to get their sacred dead off her chest.
He clicked that he would give me two full moons, or something that meant two months.
I thanked him, backed from his castle in a show of respect, and went back to Vegas.
Patty told me what I had feared, that there was nothing I could do unless Julie decided for herself.
I left the message on Julie’s answering machine that I had the money for the exchange, had contacted the best doctor in Vegas to do the job, and had prepaid for it. All she had to do was show up. I left the time and date and address of the doctor, the most famous and expensive in Vegas, hoping that might convince her to change her mind.
Nothing. She missed the appointment.
So I pulled some strings in the Casino Gods area of the superhero world, and got the Blackjack God named Danny to talk to her pit boss at work.
That didn’t work.
I talked to her friends, even called her mother, then I set up another appointment for her with the great doctor.
Again she missed it.
So one last time, with Danny, the God of Blackjack keeping the pit boss busy at another table, I went in to talk to her.
She was shuffling and didn’t see me coming.
When I slid the doctor’s business card with a third appointment written on it across the table toward her, she glanced up, the anger in her eyes almost knocking me back a step.
“Why are you insisting in meddling in my life?” she demanded, ignoring the stares from the older couple sitting at the table.
“Because you are in real danger,” I said, using every convincing power I could use in my super power collection. With this much energy turned on at a poker table, I could have convinced a world-class player I had a pair of deuces instead of aces.
Julie, on the other hand, was a little tougher. She just glared at me, so I went on.
“I have enough money to help. You won’t ever see me again, but please, just do this. It’s paid for.”
She stared at me as I radiated super levels of good will and empathy and convincing. My superhero powers were on full tilt right at that moment, and for a second I thought she was faltering a little.
“I’m being honest with you,” I said. “Your life is in danger. Please just do it, either with this appointment or on your own. It’s your life, I know, and your body, but I care about your life.”
Then I turned and walked away.
There was nothing else I could do.
I spent the night with Patty trying to sleep, then got back on the plane and went home.
I finally heard three months later that they had found her body face down in the desert, as flat-chested as the day she had come into the world.
I think back and wonder at times what more I might have done to convince her I knew what I was talking about. More than likely nothing. She needed to believe I was still the loser she left for abusive husband hell all those years before.
She needed to believe that those special breasts made her a better person. For her, a certain self-image was more important than life itself.
For me, Poker Boy, I have my hat, my leather coat, and my super powers. What more could I want out of life?
Nothing, except maybe winning every time. But even the best superheroes have to lose once-in-a-while. I learned that lesson on the poker tables, and with Julie.
Still, you have to feel bad for a person like Julie, caught in a self-image nightmare.
And besides, pulling those sacred suckers out of her ass just had to have hurt.
What Came Before…
Nineteen-year-old Boston native Jimmy Gray had been traveling with his parents and older brother, Luke, headed west to find a new home and new riches.
Before even reaching Independence, they were attacked and robbed by Jake Benson and his gang. Jimmy’s parents were killed, his brother wounded.
In one of the wildest towns in all of American history, Jimmy Gray, a sheltered, educated son of a banker from Boston suddenly finds himself very, very much alone.
But then through some luck, he finds other young men about his age and down on their luck who might be able to help him.
Together, the five of them head west after Benson.
They end up hunting buffalo as he always dreamed of doing, but then they are hit with a massive flash flood and Jimmy is left alone, his friends more than likely dead.
Luckily, they all meet up again and are all safe. So they continue west, knowing that Benson is just ahead of them.
Suddenly they come upon Benson and his men killing a farm family. They manage to get one of the men separated from the others, but in a fall he accidently dies.
So they scatter to meet up later at a camp. They managed that but found a survivor of the killings. So one of them had to go back with the kid while the others followed Benson.
The caught him once again terrorizing a small wagon train and managed to scare him and his men off.
But then they had to cross the forty-mile desert. And right from the start, things started off deadly.
Then, in the middle of the worst part of the desert, they find a wagon train, horses stolen, water gone, only women and children left to die.
But what can they do? If they try to take them along, everyone will die.
They decide they can’t leave them and take them, barely making it to the river. Barely.
Then, after getting help, they go back into the desert to get the women’s wagons and supplies, again risking their lives. They make it and head to Virginia City looking for Benson.
And they find him, trick him as he comes out of a barbershop and knock him out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
TRYING TO GET THE MINE BACK
Benson moaned and tried to push himself to his feet, seeming to realize slowly that his hand was injured and his feet tied.
Jimmy moved over to Benson, who looked up at him from his hands and knees.
“Remember me?” Jimmy asked.
Benson blinked a few times, then suddenly he remembered. “The Tyler kid.”
Jimmy nodded. “Good, I was hoping you would remember, since you killed my mother and father.”
Benson snorted and said, “We’re a long way from Missouri, kid.” He turned around so that he could work to untie the ropes around his feet.
“Before my mother died from the two bullets you put in her back,” Jimmy said, “she told me and my brother it was you. Now I would like my father’s gold mine deed back that you stole.”
Benson snorted again. “Tough woman, your mother.”
Benson kicked the rope loose and tried to push himself to his feet, wincing at the pain in his hand as he braced himself with it.
With all the anger that had built up over the past few months, Jimmy stepped forward and stamped down hard on Benson’s gun hand again, smashing it into the ground.
The tough man screamed and fell back into the dirt, clenching his broken hand.
“I’m going to kill you, kid,” Benson said through clenched teeth, his eyes closed in pain as he rolled in the dirt.
“Not with that hand you’re not,” Jimmy said. “So, my father’s gold mine deed, please.”
“You going to have to kill me before you get that gold mine deed back, kid,” Benson said.
“Oh, we’re going to do much worse than that,” Jimmy said.
Jimmy glanced at C.J. who was standing in the street behind Benson. “Want to help our guest rest for a few more minutes?”
“I would love to,” C.J. said, smiling.
When Benson moved to sit back up, C.J. stepped forward and hit Benson from behind on the side of the head with the flat base of the shovel. The clang echoed down the street and the few of the town’s people who were watching and listening made laughing noises as Benson flopped out cold in the dirt.
“Remind me that next time we’re digging,” Truitt said to C. J., “that you’re deadly with a shovel.”
“Thank you,” C.J. said, smiling and pretending to bow like he was performing in a Wild West show.
“Truitt, keep an eye out for this guy’s riding companion,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, real good thinking,” Truitt said, moving up the street closer to town. He jumped up on a rock so that he could see over the growing crowd.
By now, people were watching from both sides of the street and close enough to hear everything that was said. Jimmy didn’t care. At this point, he had nothing to hide.
Zach wrapped the rope around Benson’s feet again, and tied it off solid. It would take a knife to get that rope off the next time.
“Remind me to not get you men mad at me,” the barber said from his doorway.
Benson’s damaged hand was flopped in the dirt. It was clearly broken at the wrist and already starting to swell.
Jimmy, with his mother and father’s dead bodies in his mind, stepped forward and smashed Benson’s gun hand again with the heel of his boot.
Bone snapped loud enough to echo down the street.
Around them, the crowd made a gasping noise.
“Oh, that’s got to hurt,” C. J. said.
Jimmy smashed Benson’s hand once more, grinding it under the heal of his boot just to make sure the man would never use that hand for anything, let alone firing a gun to kill anyone.
To Jimmy, what he was doing didn’t feel good. But it felt right.
CHAPTER THIRTY- EIGHT
A SECOND ATTEMPT
The pain of the second stamping woke Benson up and he screamed again, clutching his forever-useless hand to his chest and rolling in pain in the street.
Finally, after what seemed like a long time of cursing and shouting, Benson sat up and tried to untie the ropes with his one good hand.
Jimmy kneeled down to face the man who had killed his parents.
“Now, the deed to the gold mine that you stole from my father after you killed him and my mother. Where is it?”
Jimmy made sure his voice was loud enough for anyone in the crowd to hear.
“Never,” Benson said through the pain.
“It’s all right for you to kill anyone you want,” Jimmy said, shaking his head and laughing. “But you can’t take a little pain?”
Benson glared at Jimmy.
Jimmy decided to try another way to get the mine. “You know, all those women and children you left in the Forty Mile Desert without water are going to be really happy to see you.”
Jimmy made sure his voice was loud. He wanted everyone to know what this man had done.
Benson again just glared at him.
Jimmy went on. “Especially since you gunned down their fathers and husbands and stole all their water and stock. What do you think they’re going to tell the sheriff when they see you?”
A couple people in the crowd gasped.
“They’re dead,” Benson said, trying to spit at Jimmy and missing.
“No,” Jimmy said, “actually, they are all alive. My friends and I were behind you, and we saved them. And they are all very willing to tell the sheriff what you did. Now, where is my father’s gold mine deed?”
“Never,” Benson said. “I said never, kid, and I mean never. You’re going to die for what you have done to me.”
“Oh, you’re going to shoot me in the back like you did my mother?” Jimmy asked, not bothering to hide the anger in his very loud voice.
Benson tried to spit again, but nothing seemed to come out of his mouth.
“Listen,” Jimmy said, “you think what we did to you here is bad, in front of all these fine people?”
Benson twisted around, suddenly realizing that a crowd had gathered to listen and watch and no one was helping him.
Jimmy went on. “You’ll discover this is nothing. We’re going to dog you every step you take, every moment of every day and night and make your life a living nightmare until we get my father’s gold mine deed back.”
“Just try it, kid. You’ll make it easier for me to kill you.”
“Just remember I warned you,” Jimmy said.
Jimmy stood up as Benson struggled to untie the ropes around his ankles with one hand.
Jimmy nodded to C.J., who smiled and once again hit Benson on the back of the head with the flat of the shovel.
Benson went over sideways in the dirt.
The crowd cheered this time.
“He’s going to have one very nasty headache,” Zach said, laughing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
DOING THE RIGHT THING
Jimmy quickly searched Benson, not enjoying the feel of touching the man at all, but he had to look for the gold mine deed.
Nothing.
“Search him to see if I missed it,” Jimmy said to Zach.
Zach found only a few coins that he pocketed. But no gold mine deed.
“So, we going to turn him into the sheriff?” C.J. asked.
“I think that’s what he deserves, don’t you?” Jimmy asked. “Then we have to go see if we can catch the women’s wagons before they get too far up the Truckee. They will need to stand witness against him for what he did to their husbands and fathers.”
“Good answer, kid,” a voice said from the crowd as a man stepped forward.
Jimmy turned to see the sheriff of Virginia City walking toward him. He was a tall man, very thin, with rough skin on his face and a scar on his forehead. But the smile on the sheriff’s face told Jimmy that he was in no trouble.
“Sir,” Jimmy said, “are you willing to hold him until we get the women to come and testify against him?” Jimmy asked.
“We know he’s killed at least ten men in Nevada,” C.J. said.
Again the crowd gasped.
The sheriff stood over Benson and shook his head in disgust, then turned to Jimmy. “You boys bring witnesses to a crime this man committed and we’ll put him on trial. Nevada Circuit Court rides through here in three days.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Jimmy said, smiling.
The sheriff glanced around and motioned for two men to come help him carry Benson. “Better stop at Doc’s office to get him to take care of the hand,” the sheriff said, smiling. “Looks to me like he caught it between two rocks.”
The crowd just laughed.
Jimmy felt very, very relieved.
Jimmy and Zach went back up the street until they found Benson’s horse and searched his saddlebags.
They found a few things that would help them, and a little more money tucked down in a hidden pocket.
And in the hidden pocket they found the d
eed to the mine. Jimmy just stood there, stunned, holding it in his hand.
It didn’t bring his parents back, but it meant they had won.
That night, they celebrated around their campfire. Jimmy knew that his brother Luke would be proud of what he had done, the lives they had saved by stopping Benson. It felt very, very good.
Josh made C.J. tell him three times what had happened so that he could write it all down, and then made C.J. promise that the next day he would take Josh into Virginia City to see the area in front of the barbershop, so he could get it right in the story.
Since losing his parents, it was the best night Jimmy had had.
And tomorrow, he would decide what to do next. And it would feel wonderful not chasing Benson.
First contact with an alien race brings complications. And troubles.
Especially when the first contact occurs under a dining room table at a Christmas dinner. And especially in front of the promised land.
I wanted to bring this goofy little Christmas story back into the light since it was first published in the anthology First Contact edited by Larry Segriff and Martin H. Greenberg from DAW Books in 1997. The anthology came out and vanished without a trace. I felt disappointed at that, since I really had a fond feeling for this light Christmas story.
Now it’s back, like that second piece of pie you knew you shouldn’t have eaten.
AMBASSADOR TO THE PROMISED LAND
This Christmas eve I met an alien, or maybe a ghost, and saw the Promised Land. Sort of like a bad Dickens nightmare, only it happened for real, right in the front formal dining room of my neighbors, Dotty and Harvey Jones.
My wife, Amelia, Amy for short, thinks the entire ghost/alien incident can be clearly explained. Now understand that Amy always says that, and more times than not, she’s right. Her parents conceived her while on a vacation to the south Pacific, so they named her after Amelia Earhart, thinking that maybe she might be the reincarnation of the famous flyer. This start in life made Amy the most practical, down-to-earth woman I have ever met. She also hated to fly.
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