The Sheriff of Yrnameer

by Michael Rubens

  A few kilometers outside of the camp he dismounted. He took the saddle off his baiyo and hid it between some boulders, along with his bag. Then he let the baiyo wander free, knowing it would come when he whistled.

  He slipped into the camp when Cole was captured, using the commotion to pass unnoticed. When Cole had his conversation with Runk at the campfire, he had been hiding in the shadows of one of the tents. When Altung was handing the Artemis coil to Cole the next morning, Joshua was perched on a rock, peeking over the edge, heart pounding.

  He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t.

  Tears were rolling down his cheeks as he watched Cole ride off. He waited for Altung to carry Runk away, then rolled over to get up. There were three gun barrels pointing at him.

  Bacchi was waiting for Runk in his tent when he returned. He was sprawled out on a pile of rugs and pillows, pouring himself some wine from a flagon. He barely looked up when Altung pulled back the tent flap and entered, depositing Runk on a specially constructed chair.

  “Enjoying the wine?” asked Runk.

  “You know where that cute little detour he outlined takes you?” said Bacchi, ignoring the question. “Right past the afterburners of his ship. He’s not planning to fly anywhere. He wants the Artemis coil so he can fire up the engines just as you pass, and then fry all of you.” He sipped the wine. “This stuff is crap.”

  They threw Joshua onto the dirt in the center of the camp. A ring formed around him, the men laughing and jeering at him. Someone kicked him in the ribs and he gasped, curling into a ball. Another kick landed. Someone else produced a long, curved knife.

  “Enough!” he heard a voice say. “Get him to his feet.”

  Altung reached down with one hand and lifted Joshua to his feet by his head. Runk examined him, scowling.

  “Who are you?” he said, but Joshua’s gaze was unfocused, looking off to the side. “Who are you!” Runk repeated.

  “Bacchi,” whispered Joshua. Runk squinted in confusion, then followed Joshua’s gaze to Bacchi, who was trying to conceal himself behind another of Runk’s men.

  “Bacchi!” said Runk. After a moment’s hesitation, Bacchi stepped forward. “You know him?”

  “That’s Cole’s deputy.”

  “You sold us out,” said Joshua. “You sold us out!”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of that going on,” said Bacchi.

  Joshua went to spit on him and missed, scoring a direct hit on Runk. It was quite a soaking, considering Runk’s size.

  “Argh!” said Runk, and viciously backhanded him, producing a tiny slapping sound and no apparent effect. “Hit him!” he screamed at Altung. Altung hit him. That had a very apparent effect.

  Runk glared down at Joshua’s unconscious form. He jerked his head at one of his men, a creature with short, bristly fur and hard, gemlike eyes.

  “Throw him to the uk,” he said. He turned to Bacchi. “You help him.”

  “Sure, why not,” said Bacchi. “I want to watch.”

  ˙ ˙ ˙

  Joshua woke up to the feeling of sand and gravel scraping painfully up his back and the back of his head. In front of him was the night sky. He realized he was being dragged by his heels.

  A boulder with a thick vertical crack in it drifted by to his left. Still woozy, he reached out and stuck his hand in the crevice and held on. He jerked to a stop.

  He felt a few impatient tugs on his legs, and then they were thrown violently down. An alien voice spit out something angry and staccato.

  “Oh, you awake now?” This time it was Bacchi speaking. “Well, you better get up and walk. Or he says he’s going to shoot you in the ninga.”

  The bristly alien grabbed his wrist and yanked him up to a sitting position. Joshua pulled his wrist out of his grip and got to his feet on his own. Bacchi, behind him, shoved him forward, the touch burning the abraded skin on his back.

  “Keep going.”

  As he staggered ahead, Joshua again said, “You sold us out. You both sold us out.”

  Bacchi chuckled. “See, the thing is, if you really knew Cole, you wouldn’t be surprised by that. If you were smart, you’d know that you should never trust a word he says.”

  Joshua kept walking. To his right the ground fell away steeply down to the camp. Below him he could see Runk’s men making preparations for the ride to Yrnameer.

  “Did you hear me?” said Bacchi. Joshua didn’t answer. “Did. You. Hear. Me,” repeated Bacchi.

  “I heard you,” muttered Joshua.

  “Do you understand me?”

  Farg him, thought Joshua. He wasn’t going to answer.

  The path was turning now, a sharp switchback that cut through a narrow corridor in the rock that Joshua hadn’t seen from the camp. Bristly stepped to the side before entering, and gestured with his gun for Joshua and Bacchi to go first, then followed them into the passageway. The walls were close enough that Joshua could touch each of them without straightening his arms. High above him he thought he could see the jagged aperture where the walls opened to the sky.

  He slogged forward, still dizzy. Now the walls abruptly ended as the three of them emerged into a roughly circular opening, about twenty meters across, the rock stretching to the sky like a giant chimney.

  In the center of the circle was a pit. As they got closer Joshua wrinkled his nose at the stench rising up from it. He heard a gargling, growling sound. His heart started to thump.

  Behind him, he heard Bristly giggle.

  “End of the line, Joshua,” said Bacchi. He held out his hand to the alien for the gun. “May I?”

  The alien said something.

  “What?” said Bacchi. “Are you kidding?!”

  The alien said something else.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s take it easy, pal,” said Bacchi.

  Again the alien talking.

  “Runk said what?!”

  Joshua risked looking over his shoulder. He only had a brief moment to register the sight of Bristly pointing his gun at Bacchi, who had his hands in the air, and then Bristly thrust out a leg, his foot catching Bacchi in the chest and sending him stumbling backward and over the edge. He screamed on the way down, and then Joshua heard the thump, and then horrible growling and screeching and tearing and more screaming that ended abruptly. Something sailed out of the pit and landed with a dull thud on the ground. Joshua jerked his head away, gagging. It was a foot-long section of Bacchi’s tail.

  Bristly was speaking to him now, the gun pointed at his chest.

  “No,” said Joshua, trying to back away, his feet inches from the edge. “No!” he repeated, as Bristly gestured again. The alien let out an enraged honking sound and clubbed at Joshua’s head with the pistol.

  Joshua reflexively ducked into a deep crouch. Bristly stumbled forward, carried by the momentum of his own swing, and tripped over Joshua.

  Joshua didn’t hear the thud, but the screaming was even louder this time, a bloodcurdling trilling noise, mixed with snapping and crunching and gurgling, and then the trilling stopped. Another object was ejected from the pit, reaching the apex of its flight just above and in front of Joshua. As it dropped he automatically reached out a hand and caught it. Bristly’s gun.

  MaryAnn wouldn’t come to the door when Cole rapped softly on it, then knocked harder. Now he was nearly pounding on it, hitting it as hard as he dared, hissing, “MaryAnn. MaryAnn!”

  It was a few hours before dawn. The streets of Yrnameer were silent. They’d be coming soon.

  He had ridden for two days straight, often falling asleep in the saddle and jerking back awake, stopping only when the baiyo was too exhausted to take another step. When he got to the village he rode to her door, dismounting the baiyo without tying it up.

  The sky had started to brighten on the horizon when she finally answered, opening the door the merest crack to peer at him suspiciously.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “You have to come with me.”

  “What? No,�
�� she said. “What’s wrong with you? Are you—?”

  “No, I’m not drunk. MaryAnn, please, I need you to come with me.”

  “Go away.” She started to shut the door. He stuck his foot in it.

  “MaryAnn, wait, please, wait.”

  “Get your foot out of the door!”

  “MaryAnn!” he shoved against the door, forcing his way inside. She stepped back, not cowering exactly, but looking at him like she didn’t know him, not expecting this behavior. He found himself at a momentary loss for words.

  “Please, just come with me. Please. I’ll explain as we go.”

  “Cole, I’m not going anywhere. What is wrong with you?”

  “MaryAnn, remember that time, a long time ago, when you told me you had faith in me? You remember that, right?”

  She hesitated, but then she nodded, a small movement.

  “I need you to have that faith now.”

  She stared at him, silent. But this time she shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  It seemed very quiet in the room. He nodded slowly. “I understand,” he said. “Sorry to wake you.”

  Then he left.

  He was nearly around the corner, walking fast, when she called out to him.

  “Cole. Wait.”

  They were running now, heading toward the main gate.

  “Where,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “are we going?”

  “Gotta get to the ship,” said Cole. “Come on!”

  They didn’t say another word until they were at the base of the passenger ramp, gasping for breath.

  “Cole, what’s happening?” she managed.

  “Just …” He gestured for her to follow him up the ramp. “Not much time.”

  She followed him through the corridors of the Benedict, catching up to him as he clambered up into the escape pod.

  “Cole—” she said again as she climbed into the pod.

  “They’re coming,” he said. “Have to hurry.” As he talked he was hitting switches and manipulating the controls.

  “Cole, what’s going on. What are you doing?”

  “Yes, what exactly are you doing?” demanded Nora from right over his shoulder.

  “Argh!” said Cole. “Where did you come from?”

  “I followed you two from the house. So that’s what’s happening, huh? You two are running?”

  “Nora!” said MaryAnn.

  “We’re not running!” said Cole.

  Nora jabbed a finger at MaryAnn. “I trusted you! I thought you were a nice person!”

  “I am a nice person!”

  “She is a nice person!” seconded Cole.

  “So what are you doing? Get away from those controls!” said Nora, pulling at Cole’s hands.

  “Nora, let go of me!” said Cole, trying to fend her off. “We don’t have time! I’ve got to get the engines online!”

  “Because you’re running!” said Nora.

  “No!”

  “You’re running?!” said MaryAnn.

  “I’m not running!” shouted Cole, pulling his wrist from Nora’s grasp.

  “So why the engines?” said Nora. “Why?”

  “Because he’s running,” said Joshua.

  He was a sight: sunburned, his eyes red, his hair full of sand and dust. He had dried blood on his face. He glared at Cole balefully, holding the gun on him with a hand that trembled from fatigue and adrenaline.

  “I saw you,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I followed you there. I heard what you told them,” he rasped.

  “Joshua,” said Cole, keeping his tone as even as possible, “we don’t have time for this.”

  “Joshua,” said Nora, “what happened to you? What are you talking about?”

  “I believed in you,” said Joshua, his gaze fixed on Cole. “We all believed in you.”

  “Joshua,” said Cole, “please. We’ve got to hurry.”

  “Cole, what is he talking about?” said Nora.

  “He sold us out,” said Joshua. “He sold us out. Bacchi was right—you’re just a liar and a thief and a cheat!” He was crying now, and he angrily wiped the tears away with his forearm. The gun stayed aimed at Cole, though.

  “Cole, what is he saying?” said MaryAnn, looking at him in horror.

  But Cole wasn’t listening. He was looking at one of the monitors, the view from the most distant remote camera that he had set up. He’d placed it in one of the trees that bordered a field a little over a kilometer to the northeast of the village. As he watched, the first of Runk’s men marched into frame. And then there were more of them, and more.

  “Joshua, we really don’t have time for this!” said Cole.

  “Joshua, what are you saying?” said Nora. “Explain what you mean.”

  “I followed him! To the hideout! He made a deal with them! He’s leaving everyone to die!”

  MaryAnn and Nora looked at Cole. “Cole?” said MaryAnn.

  Cole jabbed his finger at Nora. “It was her idea!” he said.

  Joshua turned to her, confused, and Cole lunged forward and grabbed the gun, punching Joshua in the nose with the other hand. Joshua tumbled back, sitting heavily on his rear end. When he tried to get up, Cole was pointing the gun between his eyes.

  “Nobody move!” said Cole.

  Nobody moved.

  “Now you listen to me,” Cole said to Joshua. “You get in my way and I will farging shoot you in the farging head. Understand? Understand?!”

  Joshua nodded, wide-eyed.

  “Good,” said Cole. “Hold this.”

  He shoved the pistol back in Joshua’s hand, jumped back into the control chair and let his momentum pivot him around to face the controls, extended a stiff-arm blindly at Nora just as she was opening her mouth—”Save it!”—and got to work.

  “Cole …?” said MaryAnn.

  “Just listen,” he said. “Bacchi’s right. I am a liar and a thief and a cheat, and much worse than that.” His eyes were on the control panel as he hit a rapid succession of keys. “But I’m not running. And I wanted you here, so you could see that.”

  He glanced up at the monitor. Runk’s men filled the screen. He pointed to it with one hand while he typed with the other. “See that? That’s them. They’re nearly here.”

  “Oh my God!” said MaryAnn.

  “We have to warn everyone!” said Nora. “We have to wake everyone up, or they’ll be slaughtered!”

  “She’s right! I’ll go!” said Joshua.

  “No! You wake them up and they’ll be slaughtered anyways, and half the casualties will be from shooting one another,” said Cole. “Nora, you know it’s true.”

  “So what are you going to do?” she said.

  “See that?” said Cole, pointing to a second monitor, showing another field, this one unpopulated. Peter’s field, the one he had torn to shreds, and then, at Cole’s direction, very carefully repaired. But not before making some important additions.

  “I have to get the engines to fire by the time they get to that field, or they’ll make it to the town.”

  “The engines?” said Joshua. “But—”

  “The fuel cells,” said Nora. “You buried the fuel cells in the field. And then when they walk through it—”

  “Nothing, unless I can get the engines online.” He turned his attention back to the controls. “Okay, here we go.” He hit a button, then pounded his fist on the panel, swearing. “Why does nothing ever work for me when I need it?” He massaged his forehead, trying to think. “Why won’t they respond to oh farg me with a whutger, that’s why!”

  He leaped out of his seat and rushed past them, practically jumping into the open hatch. He was halfway down the ladder before he reversed course and sprang into the escape pod again, raced to the control panel, and pointed to a large button.

  “You see this? When you see this turn red and light up, you push it. Got it?”

  “Got it,” said MaryAnn and Nora.

  “Right,” said Joshua.

&
nbsp; “Good,” Cole said, and ran the two steps back to the hatch. Before he disappeared from sight he stopped again. “It lights up, you push it.” Speaking to all of them, but directing it at Nora.

  “Got it,” she said.

  “I mean, no matter what. Understand?”

  She stared at him, the import of what he was saying sinking in. She nodded.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good.”

  And then he was gone.

  And then he was back again, scrabbling up into the pod and marching across to MaryAnn, pulling her into his arms to kiss her, hard.

  When he released her she let out her breath in a little rush, speechless, her fingers on her lips.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly. “Thanks for your faith.”

  Then he turned to Nora, grabbed her, and kissed her, too.

  “Just to be fair,” he explained as she blinked at him, stunned.

  He turned to Joshua. Joshua shrank back. Cole stuck out a hand.

  “You’re a good kid,” he said when they shook.

  And then he was gone again, this time for good.

  “What’s a whutger?” said Joshua.

  Item number seven on Cole’s checklist, underlined twice: make absolutely sure that the Traifo interface is correctly aligned and connected.

  There was no check mark next to it. He cursed himself.

  He switched to cursing Joshua as he struggled to undo the knot that tied Joshua’s baiyo to a tree near the Benedict, aware of the seconds ticking away. Frustrated, he pulled out his knife and cut the line. The baiyo wheeled and shied, leaving Cole pivoting in tight circles as he tried to mount, giving him yet another target for his curses.

  “Oh for God’s sake, would you please just stand still?” he finally said. The baiyo suddenly stopped resisting and stood stock-still, trembling. Cole shook his head in wonder and hoisted himself into the saddle, grunting with the effort.