The Sheriff of Yrnameer

by Michael Rubens

  Cole had swiped his uncle’s skimmer and run away for good three and half weeks into his junior year of high school, no doubt a vanishingly minor and inconsequential branch point in the overall flow of history. For Cole’s personal history, however, it would indeed have a consequence, and that consequence was about to become manifest.

  “A poet? Really?” said the Yoin, with far more interest than Cole had expected or hoped for. “I like poetry.”

  Had Cole bothered to stay in school one more day, he would have been present for his second-period language arts class, which had included a brief but memorable discussion about the vital—life and death, really—importance of poetry in the Yoin culture.

  “I really like poetry,” said the Yoin.

  One of the other bandits sighed loudly. Another began massaging his temples as if warding off a looming headache.

  “Oh. How … wonderful,” said Cole, starting to intuit that he’d made a very bad mistake.

  “Why are you wearing a badge?” asked the Yoin.

  “A badge? Oh, this old thing?”

  “Poetic license?”

  Cole stared at the armor-plated face of the Yoin, trying to discern if he was joking. He was not. The Yoin were very, very serious about their poetry.

  “Yyyes?” ventured Cole.

  The Yoin nodded in satisfaction. “Tell me a poem.”

  “A poem.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I have to say, you seem like very busy people, and I suspect you’re here on some sort of important mission. Maybe I could help you with that?”

  “First tell me a poem.”

  “I really, uh, prefer to work from the page. If you want, I just had a collection published by a small press, and I could go get you a copy—”

  The Yoin pointed the gun at him. “Okay, I’ll just shoot you.”

  “You know, I could probably summon a few lines. …”

  “Good.”

  The Yoin leaned back against the skimmer, arms crossed. The other four bandits exchanged exasperated, long-suffering glances. One of them began idly sharpening his claws with a large knife, shaving down the tips like they were pencils.

  “Okay,” said Cole. “Here we go. I hope you like it.”

  “As my people say, if you’re alive at the end, I liked it.”

  “Ah. Figure of speech?”

  “No.”

  “Right.”

  “Begin!” said the Yoin. He leaned back again, chin up, head cocked to one side, eyes half closed in an attitude of critical appraisal.

  Cole could feel the prickly sensation as perspiration beaded on his forehead. He scanned around, searching for something to inspire him. Now he was starting to catch glimpses of faces: Bacchi’s Storjan girlfriend, peering out of the shattered windows of her café with a few customers; Orwa, looking over the railing of his second-story roof deck; the purple guy whose name he could never remember.

  “Nothing dactylic,” said the Yoin, interrupting his thoughts.

  “No, of course not.”

  Cole spotted MaryAnn, crouched behind a barrel. He held up a hand, motioning her to get back. She shook her head.

  “No trisoptic decameters,” added the Yoin.

  “Would you please?” said Cole.

  “Sorry. When you’re ready.”

  Cole could hear the bandit whittling his pointy claws into pointier claws. Ideas were popping into Cole’s head, but they were less formally poetic and more shocking images of him getting shot to pieces.

  The Yoin opened his eyes. “Well?”

  “Just picking the best one.” He leaned close to Joshua again and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Do you know any poems?”

  “Umm, uh … ‘There once was a Gan from Hanlukket. … ‘

  “He’s probably heard that one before.”

  Joshua seemed genuinely surprised. “Really? How?”

  Maybe if he ran one way, and Joshua the other, one of them would make it. The general store was about three meters away and—why was Fred in there, waving to him? Cole gave him a hard glare, trying to send the signal to keep his big egg-shaped head down. Now Fred was murmuring something to him, and the AT was crackling, laboring to capture and analyze Fred’s voice. Cole made small but urgent hand gestures for him to shut up.

  The Yoin sighed. “The promise of water in the desert,” he said, “the sun a wretched companion / the poem denied / the well / dry.” He looked at Cole expectantly.

  “Uh … very nice,” said Cole.

  “Thank you. What I meant by it is that I’m now going to shoot you.” The big black hole of the barrel came up again, centered right on Cole’s forehead.

  “Dreaming leaves silent before the vision of the dawn!” screamed Cole.

  The Yoin paused. “Interesting. Continue.”

  Cole continued, a torrent of impressionistic language flowing into his ear from the AT and directly out of his mouth without making so much as a courtesy stop in his neocortex. As he declaimed he slowly inched closer to the general store, so that he could hear Fred better.

  Fred, unlike Cole, knew about Yoin culture. All Greys did. Poetry, to the Yoin, was what gambling was to the Greys, and by some accident of evolution and brain structure the Yoin were particularly enamored of the Greys’ speech patterns. A solid percentage of the gross planetary product of Fred’s home world, in fact, consisted of poetry exports to Yoi, or EnterCo, as the planet was known.

  There was a saying in Fred’s language: “Like poetry for a Yoin.” It was not a compliment. At the moment Fred was reading from the ingredient list of a candy bar wrapper that he’d found in his pocket. The Yoin was nodding appreciatively, grunting now and then in apparent satisfaction.

  Fred ran out of text and began reciting menu items from his favorite pub. He listed every city he could remember. He improvised a weather report. He described the family pet.

  After a half hour Cole was starting to feel hoarse. After forty-five minutes he took a seat on the porch of the general store, Joshua sitting next to him. An hour passed and Cole was still talking, relaying Fred’s words to the Yoin, who seemed quite content to while away the afternoon listening to poetry. Cole’s voice was getting croaky. One of the bandits was snoring.

  And then suddenly the flow of words ceased, Cole stumbling a bit like he’d come to the end of a moving sidewalk.

  The Yoin opened his eyes. “That’s it?” he said.

  Cole nodded.

  “A little short,” said the Yoin.

  “That’s really sort of my métier,” said Cole.

  “Hmm,” said the Yoin. “Hmm.” He closed his eyes again, making little nodding and head-tilting movements and occasionally mouthing some words, as if he were replaying choice passages of the poem internally. This went on for several more minutes. The other bandits looked like they’d been cudgeled into a near stupor.

  “Come on,” whispered Cole, tugging at Joshua. They rose silently and began walking away.

  “Freeze!” commanded the Yoin. They froze.

  The Yoin began clapping in a polite, respectful manner. He nudged one of the other bandits. They began clapping, too, waking the one who was sleeping. He looked around blearily and joined in the applause.

  “Very nice,” said the Yoin. “Interesting. Almost had elements of poetry by the Greys.”

  “Qx”-x-’–’,” corrected Fred quietly from the interior of the store.

  “So,” said the Yoin. “Back to the reason for our visit.” He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “WHERE ARE OUR PEOPLE!” he bellowed. “WE SENT MESSENGERS HERE, AND THEY NEVER RETURNED! WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?”

  “I’ll tell you what happened!” said Joshua as Cole stomped on his foot.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Cole. “No one came here. What is it you want?”

  “You’re LYING!!” boomed the Yoin. Cole, five meters away, could feel his hair blowing back. “What have you done with our comrades?”

  “
Look at us!” said Cole. “We’re not warriors! We’re weak and helpless. We’re shopkeepers and farmers and humble poets and bed-wetting idiots!”

  “I do not wet—”

  “How could we have done any harm to your friends? If they’re half as strong as you are, they would have destroyed us!”

  The Yoin considered this. He turned and had a quick conference with the others.

  “THEN I WILL GIVE YOU THIS MESSAGE!”

  “There’s really no need to shout,” said Cole.

  “Right. Then I will give you this message,” repeated the Yoin. “We will be back in three weeks for your crops. You will feed us, or you will DIE!”

  “Okay, that sounds pretty fair,” said Cole. “But have you thought about maybe getting a few agbots? They’re really pretty efficient with all the planting and harvesting and—”

  “SILENCE!”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “THREE WEEKS! CROPS OR DEATH!”

  “We’re not gonna aayiii!“ said Joshua. “Stop pinching me!” he said to Cole.

  “There’s absolutely no problem,” said Cole. “We’ll get everything all set and ready to go for you.”

  “GOOD!” said the Yoin. “By the way, nice poem again.”

  “Thanks,” said Cole. “Well, I guess you’ll be on your way now. …”

  “No!” said a voice, approaching from behind Cole.

  “No!” repeated the voice. A woman’s voice, older, resonant, full of strength. Cole turned. It was Daras Katim. She was striding toward the bandits, brimming with controlled, dignified fury.

  “Daras,” he said as she passed, trying to stop her. She shook off his hand. Cole caught a whiff of healthy earth after a rain shower.

  “We will not give you anything!”

  Cole hurried after her. “Daras, please, this is not the time.” She shook him off again, turning to him.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “You’re interrupting me.”

  She said it with a tone of such stern command that Cole stopped in his tracks, uncertain of what to do. Daras, meanwhile, continued toward the bandits.

  “Go back to your holes, and come back when you’ve learned how to behave in a civilized fashion!” she said.

  At least two of the bandits sheepishly lowered their heads. But the Yoin was unfazed, staring at her expressionlessly. She walked directly up to him and stopped a short meter away.

  “When you work for your food, growing it from the land like we have, then you can share it. But you’ll have none of ours. Do you understand?”

  The Yoin didn’t move.

  “Do. You. Understand?” said Daras.

  Cole was frozen, still unsure of how to intervene.

  “She’s so brave,” whispered Joshua.

  The Yoin shot her dead.

  They buried Daras, as per her wishes, at the top of a grassy hill at the base of the mountains. Orwa was selected to say a few words and said many, many of them. When they went to clear out Daras’s shop, they discovered that all the plants were shriveled up and brown.

  That night there was another town meeting, this one more contentious then the others. Daras Katim’s death had fueled their anger and stiffened their resolve.

  Cole, for his part, found himself wishing that he’d brought along some sort of recording device so that he could later review exactly what he had been saying, because he was starting to wonder if he was losing his mind. He’d say something like, Please, listen to me, I really don’t think we can stand up to the bandits, and the townspeople would apparently hear him say something like, We will resist and overcome, making the wrongdoers regret their rash actions!

  No, you don’t understand, Cole would say, we simply don’t have the firepower.

  Yes, you’re right! they’d respond, The purity of our intentions and the righteousness of our motives will suffice to defeat the enemy, albeit in the most measured and gentle fashion possible!

  After several hours like this, Cole extricated himself from the excited discussion and slipped out of the town hall, taking a seat on the porch. He lay back and stared up at the stars, his legs dangling over the side.

  “I didn’t know you were such a poet.”

  He sat up. MaryAnn had stepped out of the doorway.

  “It was like a voice was speaking in my ear,” he said, reminding himself to have a private talk with Fred as soon as possible.

  She took a seat next to him.

  “It was horrible seeing that,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “She was so strong, and full of life.”

  And stupid, thought Cole automatically, then guiltily banished the thought.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Oh, Cole,” she said, and leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder. Before he realized he was doing it he put his arm around her, the most natural movement in the world, gently pulling her closer. She turned to look at him, her face inches from his, her lips soft and beckoning. Then she closed her eyes and moved forward subtly, and he closed his, and it was the most wonderful, transcendent kiss he had ever experienced.

  Or would have been, he imagined later, if Nora hadn’t stepped out the door at that very moment and said, “So, what’s the plan?”

  MaryAnn altered her approach pattern just enough so that she brushed by his waiting lips, continuing the action so that it became a smooth turning motion to face Nora.

  “Hi, Nora,” said Cole.

  “You do have a plan, right?” said Nora, standing over him, hands on her hips. “Or are you just going to sit around and play cards for another week, maybe wait for someone else to get shot?”

  MaryAnn turned her gaze back to him.

  “Of course I have a plan,” said Cole.

  The next evening Cole strode briskly into the packed town hall, his strategic vision outlined on the several roles of poster-size paper tucked under one arm. As he made his way to the front, he overheard Joshua telling a group of citizens stories of Cole’s exploits in the space marines, adventures that had grown somewhat in the telling.

  “He’s an expert at these things!” Joshua was saying.

  The assembled Yrnameerians listened intently as Cole explained his plan, pinning up the papers and drawing charts out on a whiteboard. First, they would concentrate on constructing a series of defensive structures, starting with a heavy fence around the village. Beyond the fence would be a series of traps designed to slow and weaken the approaching forces: pits with sharpened stakes at the bottom; trip wires; complex, spring-loaded devices designed to crush and puncture and maim. Hidden foxholes and sniper nests would be constructed to take advantage of what few weapons they had. Bandits who made it past the traps and the snipers and the fence would be funneled into narrow side streets and alleys, where they would be set upon and destroyed.

  Construction would begin immediately. While that continued, Cole would lead the citizens of Yrnameer through a short but intense course of basic training, drawing on his extensive military experience to hone them into a razor-keen fighting force.

  When he finished there was an unnerving moment of silence. Then the hall erupted in applause, building to cheers and stamping of feet and shouts of enthusiasm.

  The plan, everyone concurred, was brilliant. Any quibbles were minor.

  For example, everyone wholeheartedly agreed that the bandits needed to be trapped and corralled and destroyed, but the general consensus was that it should be done in the most benign way possible. The traps, for example: necessary, yes; but perhaps they could, say, forgo the sharpened stakes at the bottom. That, or how about not sharpening them so much. Someone suggested that they could keep the stakes, and keep them sharp, but wrap them in some sort of padded protective covering.

  Cole didn’t argue. He nodded amiably and scribbled some notes and encouraged the comments. “Great idea,” he said when someone ventured that warning signs might be appropriate. “Like it, like it,” he said when someone else advocated some gentle music.

  W
hat did it matter? The whole thing, he knew, was a crock in the first place: they could build their traps and trip wires and their barriers and whatever else, and when Runk showed up with his men they’d blow a giant farging hole through the thick fence and flood through the middle of town and slaughter anyone who got in their way.

  Yes, we need to use the firearms we have, someone said, but how about we just shoot them in the legs?

  Great, said Cole. Great.

  Cole envisioned the next few weeks passing as a sort of painless montage: there’d be music, and different moments of the townspeople hard at work building a defensive wall around the perimeter of the town, and digging holes to serve as traps, and training with the few weapons they had. There’d be a wiping of perspiration and drinks raised to one another and the exchange of friendly smiles between comrades, and perhaps deeper, more meaningful glances between him and MaryAnn.

  But by midmorning of the first day, Cole had come to the unavoidable conclusion that the remainder of the experience would in fact drag on in exceedingly real time, with lots of heaving and hoing and digging and hauling under the hot sun, full of the kind of intense straining that raised the danger of a really spectacular hernia. And, judging from the few tense conversations he’d had so far, he foresaw a series of increasingly strident arguments with Nora regarding matters strategic. Plus, of course, at the end of all this effort they’d all probably be dead.

  By around noon, Cole had decided that he was better suited to a supervisory role, the kind where he could relax in a chair in the shade of a broad umbrella, drinking germonade spiked with a little shersha, which he later discovered was made from the fermented excrement of some sort of segmented worm. Which, after a few more shots of shersha, didn’t bother him so much.

  At the moment he was watching Nora direct the townspeople as they struggled to erect the fence: a series of stout logs, sharpened at the top and pounded vertically into the ground in a dense row, lashed to horizontal support braces.

  “Push! Lift that! Lift!” she bellowed.

  There was lifting and pushing, accompanied by much grunting. Cole raised his glass. “Good job, folks,” he murmured. “Keep going.”