This assignment was strange, though. It was well known that the sarge hated Nakai, and did everything he could to make the man’s life miserable. That Nakai got a sudden leave, and that Benson was assigned to drive him, was just plain weird. Nakai was being treated like a man of higher rank, like someone important. If Benson had had to bet that someone in the barracks would get the royal treatment, he wouldn’t have laid his money on Nakai.
Nakai tossed his duffel in the back of the open humvee and slid into the passenger seat. He was a big man who looked smaller until you sat close to him. He also had a quiet power that Benson respected.
But that respect didn’t stop him from giving Nakai a hard time. “I thought you were going to be here fifteen minutes ago.”
Nakai pulled his jacket closer. “Thought you liked the early-morning cold. Figured you’d want a little time to bond with it.”
“I thought you had a bus to catch.”
“The 5:07 to La Barca de Oro. We still have time, don’t we?”
Of course they did, and Nakai knew it. Benson had a reputation for taking the humvees out full throttle, especially this early, when no one else was on the roads.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Benson said. He swung the humvee around and headed for the main gate. “You know, you could have taken a later bus.”
“You ever ridden a bus in the summer heat?” Nakai asked.
“Gotcha.” Benson hadn’t ridden a bus in desert heat, and the thought made him sweat just thinking about it, even with the chilly night air around them. Maybe it had been Nakai’s choice to leave this early. Then again, maybe not.
The scuttlebutt last night at the game had Corporal Nakai leaving a post, and running into the pilot of the weird craft now stored in the hangar. One of the guys had said the colonel wanted to get rid of Nakai until everything calmed down. And shipping him out this early certainly seemed to be confirmation of that rumor.
The front-gate guards waved them by without much more than a pause. As Benson ground the vehicle up to speed, he glanced at Nakai. “Weird how the colonel suddenly okayed your pass, isn’t it?”
Nakai never took his gaze off the road ahead. “Yeah. Weird.”
He spoke in a flat monotone that led Benson to believe that he didn’t think it weird at all.
“What’re you going to do?”
Nakai shrugged. “The usual.”
The humvee bumped over the rutted road. Benson held the steering wheel tightly, then glanced at Nakai. Nakai’s face seemed purposely blank.
“Something happen yesterday?”
“Why?”
“I’ve been hearing strange rumors.”
“There’re always strange rumors,” Nakai said, looking out at the scrub. He pulled his cap over his face, slumped in the seat, and didn’t say another word. Benson didn’t force the issue. Nakai seemed unusually tense. He wasn’t sleeping, despite his posture. He was studying the dark desert on both sides of the road as if he were watching for something. Benson kept his eyes glued to the pavement in front of him and let the cool night air shove back some of the sleepless hours.
After a while he kicked the humvee to high speed, and enjoyed the breeze in his face. Nothing like the hours before dawn. Nothing like it at all.
The small town was still asleep when Benson swung through the main street. It looked like most northern New Mexico small towns, square squat buildings parked in the middle of the desert. Some, like Española, were surrounded by trees and spectacular mesas. Most were like this one, so poor that they didn’t even bother to try to hide it.
Benson pulled in front of the fake adobe building with a Greyhound sign tacked to the grimy window. Nakai swung out of the vehicle, grabbed his duffel, and slung it over his shoulder.
“Thanks,” he said.
Benson didn’t know if Nakai was thanking him for the ride or for not asking questions. He suspected it was both. “See ya in a few days.”
“I hope so,” Nakai said as he turned and walked away.
Benson had no idea what these words meant, but he wasn’t about to ask. He shrugged and swung the humvee around. If he hurried, he’d have time for breakfast. And, God knew, he needed the coffee.
An hour later, when Benson entered the hangar, the sight of the captured craft stopped him cold. He had seen it yesterday, but its strangeness hadn’t really registered. Now, seeing it sitting on the back of the flatbed truck, he was shocked. It didn’t look manmade at all. Sitting in the rocks, it had almost blended in. Here in the hangar, it just looked alien.
Its lines and angles were unusual. Where he expected sharp corners, there were curves. Where he expected curves, there were sharp corners. Red lights—at least he thought they were lights—up front were angled like the eyes of a Siamese cat. And instead of one light on each side, there were two.
In the top center of the nose, rounded metal rose, almost like hubcaps stuck on the nose for decoration. The craft wasn’t yellow, wasn’t orange, wasn’t gold or brown, but it was a combination of the colors, all of them at the same time. It depended on where he stood and how he stood, and the way the light hit the sides.
And those sides. He wasn’t sure if they were made of metal or not—they looked like they were—but not of any metal he had ever seen.
He had been gaping. He knew it. Fortunately no one else seemed to notice. No one except the sentry who stood at the hangar’s bay door. He grinned and winked as Benson shook himself. Apparently the sentries, at least, had had the same reaction.
There were two other sentries standing before the doors of the hangar. Benson wondered why they were inside. He had noted guards on the outside as well.
Next to the inside sentries, three men in white lab coats were setting up equipment. One man stood at a table on which there was a very sophisticated laptop computer. The screen was covered with a series of orange numbers that made no sense to Benson.
With one more glance at the guard, Benson climbed up on the back of the truck and took up his assigned position on the lift. This much of his duty had already been explained to him. He was to help hoist the craft off the flatbed and into a specially prepared area of the hangar. Around the hangar, activity was starting to increase. From his perch he could see most of it. And since he didn’t have anything to do until they decided to move the craft, he could just sit and watch.
Two of the white-lab-coat guys were studying the ship, moving around it slowly, making notes as they went. Another crew was working to set up the area where the ship would be placed, installing more machines and checking video equipment.
The conversations were muted, but the hangar was so large that the sounds echoed and played back, almost like reverb at a stadium rock concert. Suddenly, silence fell over the hangar as Colonel Athelry entered, followed closely by Sergeant Coates. Athelry looked tired. Even his mustache was drooping. Coates’s normally red face was even redder. Both men stopped and gaped at the alien craft, just as Benson had. He shot another glance at the guard. The guard grinned.
Then the colonel shook himself, and elbowed the sergeant, who looked like he was coming out of a dream. They strode over to a spot below Benson, where a man in a white coat stood.
“Morning, Dr. Richards,” the colonel said.
“Morning, sir,” Richards said.
Around the hangar the activity went back to normal, but the colonel and the doctor remained close enough for Benson to hear.
The doctor was far from a typical military type.
He wore thick glasses, was mostly bald, and was unnaturally thin except for a bowling-ball-sized belly that made him look suspiciously like a python that had just eaten a meal. Benson hadn’t seen the doctor around the base before. He must have flown in yesterday after the craft had been found.
“Any new developments yet, Doctor?” the colonel asked.
“It’s clearly a spacecraft of some sort or another,” Dr. Richards said, handing the colonel a clipboard covered with papers. “But almost all the radioactivity ind
icating deep-space travel has dissipated. Quite fascinating, actually.”
“I’m sure it is, Doctor,” the colonel said, glancing through the papers the doctor had handed him. “But I’m more concerned at the moment with the questions Washington’s going to be asking, such as where did it come from, is it alone, and are we in danger?”
“Has the pilot realized that we have his craft?” Sergeant Coates said.
“That also,” the colonel said.
Benson made himself swallow and forced himself to keep his eyes on the controls of his lift. The air was caught in his throat. He was sitting next to a radioactive alien spacecraft. What the hell were they doing to him?
He almost jumped down from the lift, then managed to calm his nerves. The doctor had said the radioactivity had faded. Clearly, since the colonel and the doctor were standing closer to the craft than he was, he would be all right.
With another deep breath he felt himself relax a little more. He was going to have to be calm when he worked the lift, that much was for sure. They didn’t need him dropping the alien ship.
Below him the colonel kept studying the papers the doctor had handed him. Benson had no idea if the colonel and Sarge knew he could hear them, but he was sure he wasn’t supposed to be hearing them. Especially if they thought this might be an alien craft. God, he’d heard about this crap before, but that’s what he thought it was—crap. He’d seen the fake TV shows about extraterrestrials, and he’d decided that people were gullible enough to fall for anything.
Until now.
The ship glimmered in the light. He squinted at the sides. He was right: it was not yellow, orange, gold, or brown. It was a color he’d never seen before. One he couldn’t even describe. A shiver ran through him, and he swallowed hard. This whole thing unnerved him.
Just as the colonel finished reading, a side door of the hangar opened and Sergeant Redman stepped in at a fast walk. Redman had been Benson’s sergeant for almost six months. He was a good, but strict, sarge. Benson preferred him to Coates.
Redman was dressed in full battle gear and had his rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked more worried than Benson had ever seen him.
Redman hesitated slightly when he saw the alien craft, then went right up to the colonel and saluted. “Sir, we found Dietl, Lee, and Clowes.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “All dead, sir.”
Benson cursed softly to himself. He had liked Clowes. Liked him a lot, actually. He had played a lot of hands of poker against Clowes. The guy had been good.
The colonel turned. He didn’t even look surprised. Benson felt his own chill grow. The colonel had already known they were dead. But how?
“What took so long to find them?” he asked.
Sergeant Redman took a deep breath, then glanced up at the alien craft before going on. “All three were hung from the trees near the tank placement. They were skinned, sir.”
“Skinned?” Sergeant Coates asked.
“Skinned,” Redman answered. “And their heads are missing. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Benson swallowed hard. Jesus. What had he gotten in the middle of?
“Have you secured the area?” the colonel asked.
“We have,” Redman said. “But the men are jumpy, sir. Real jumpy.”
“We all are,” the colonel said. “Keep the area under wraps and get the med boys out there.”
“Yes, sir,” Redman said, saluted and left.
“Holy shit,” Sergeant Coates said, more to himself than anyone else. Benson couldn’t have agreed more.
The colonel took a deep breath, then turned to Dr. Richards. “I need answers and I need them quickly.”
“We’re doing our best,” the doctor said. He appeared to be the only one who was calm.
Of course he would be. He hadn’t known any of the men. Benson had known them all. He was shaking and his palms were damp. Damn. He wished he had found a way to get out of this duty. He was beginning to envy Nakai. He would have loved a three-day leave. This seemed like a good place to get out of.
“Doctor!”
The shout interrupted the conversation. Benson glanced down on the other side of the alien craft. One of the other men in a white coat was yelling for the doctor to come look at something. This one was a short guy, with black hair and no chin. And right at the moment he seemed as excited as if he had just won the lottery.
The doctor, colonel, and the two sergeants all moved around to the other side of the alien craft.
“Doctor,” the short guy said. “We’ve got activity from the ship.” He pointed up to a row of lights.
From Benson’s position on top of the lift, he could see that red lights had appeared on the side and top of the alien craft. A row of them, blinking. Benson was sure they hadn’t been there just a minute before.
As Benson watched, one of the red lights on the end of the row stopped blinking and went dark. The row got shorter.
Then a moment later another light went out. There were only six blinking red lights left.
The line of red lights was getting shorter and shorter. Suddenly Benson knew what was happening and what those red lights meant.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” the doctor said.
Benson couldn’t help himself anymore. He leaned over the lift controls and yelled. “It looks like a countdown.”
Five red lights were left.
The sarge looked up and frowned at him, but at that moment Benson didn’t care in the slightest. He didn’t want to be sitting on top of the stupid lift when that last red light went out. He swung off the lift and scrambled down.
Four red lights left.
“I think the corporal is right,” the doctor said. “It does appear to be a countdown.”
Three red lights blinked their warning.
Benson hit the floor of the hangar and took off running.
Behind him the colonel shouted, “Everyone get down!”
Two red lights.
Around Benson, men scrambled for cover. Benson dove in behind a large truck and rolled to a position behind a tire.
One red light blinked on the side of the alien ship. One small red light.
And then it too went out.
There was a click. A very loud click that echoed through the large hangar.
And that click was the last thing anyone in that hangar heard. Within a fraction of a second, the entire base was wiped off the face of the planet.
Corporal Benson, Sergeant Coates, Colonel Athelry, and the other thousand or so men and women stationed in the New Mexico desert didn’t even know what hit them. They died instantly, vaporized into a gray dust that over the years would scatter across the desert and mix with the red sand and dirt.
In a tree three miles away, the hunter watched the dust cloud rise to the sky.
Forty miles away, on an old Greyhound bus thirty minutes short of its destination, Corporal Nakai dozed, his head banging slightly against the dirty glass. His dreams were of the hunt.
His dreams were of his grandfather.
His dreams were of a dead brother he didn’t even know.
9
A warrior’s place is in battle. A hunter’s place is in the hunt. Take the hunter from the hunt and he loses his way. A man who loses his way turns inside. And sometimes the things inside are as threatening as the things outside. My brother left the monster behind, so my brother had to face another foe. A very old foe who had defeated our father. It is the way of the hunter.
Ben’s Saloon was tucked on a dusty corner of the small town of Agate, New Mexico. Nestled almost exactly halfway between two reservations, Agate was the only place to get a stiff drink within fifty miles, and Ben’s Saloon was the only place in Agate that served liquor.
Even on the brightest of days, no sunlight penetrated Ben’s dim, smoky interior, and people entering during the afternoon always stood for a moment just inside the door to let their eyes adjust. The place had a run-down feel, as if the saloon was as tired as the land that su
rrounded it. Old beer signs over the bar were coated with a layer of dust, their plastic chipped and faded. Beer glasses covered the back bar in front of two large mirrors. A crack ran up one side of the right mirror, the remains of a forgotten bar fight.
The long, wooden bar was the saloon’s most striking feature. It ran for almost forty feet and had been polished to a shine by Ben, the rail-thin owner. If he wasn’t pouring a drink, he was polishing the bar. He kept the bar so polished that on a slow night he could slide a full glass of beer the entire length without spilling a drop.
The floor was made of boards that had cracked and settled over time. Even a sober man would stagger a bit as he crossed Ben’s floor. A jukebox sat near the door. A dozen wooden tables and fifty or so chairs filled the main area. Each table had two ashtrays in the center and nothing more. The surface of each was scarred with the nicks and scratches of time; a few had names carved into the wood. Most were faded, the stain long gone.
Two bar-sized pool tables filled the back corner of the room, their green felt almost white in places from use. Dozens of cigarette burns dotted the rails and the felt had been patched on both tables. One table stood in a dip in the floor, and the regulars knew the right moment to brush against the table’s side so that a shot did or didn’t go into the hole.
Ben’s did a tremendous business on the weekend. Its business midweek was also good—in the early evening. But by one in the morning, only a few dozen regulars usually remained. This night was no different.
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