Roswell 1891 (Teen/ CC) [COMPLETE]

[ken_r]

Roswell 1891



Roswell 1891


title:Roswell 1891
Aurthor: ken_r AKA ken242 AKA kenr AKA Kenneth Renouard
Genera: Alternate Universe with Aliens
Rating: teen
Conventional couplings.
Disclaimer: Again, I claim none of the characters. They are all borrowed from the Roswell TV show.
Summary: Same Roswell. Max, Michael, Isabel and Tess They will all love Liz, Maria, Alex and Kyle, but they will do this in the 1890s. Kivar is still looking for them. Philip Evans will still find them on the desert, but he brings them back on horseback. Max will heal Liz and several others. This time Jeff Parker will save Max. There is no FBI, but there are a bunch of Mexican vaqueros and some displaced Texans who all come to the aid of the children of the sky and show Kivar what a western welcome to a petty tyrant is like.

I had a lot of fun writing this story and trying to make as many things from canon as I could fit into 1891

Misha Roswell fan, as always, helped me in my Spanish. Where the Spanish is correct, "Yea Misha." Where it is incorrect blame it on what I was taught behind the gym in public school.

Roswell 1891

Philip sat on his horse. His right leg was hooked around the saddle horn as he tried to find a comfortable position. His fifty some years, most of them spent on the hurricane deck of a horse, made comfort difficult to find. Fifty yards to the left of him, he knew, was Alvarez and about thirty yards to the right was Chavez. They were all too old to be out in this weather. Every so often, a flash of lightning would light up the sky and he could make out the two other men. They had been together since they were boys. At least Chavez and Alvarez had been boys, though Philip wasn’t that much older either.

Philip remembered when the two teens drifted up to his ranch. His brothers were away in the war and it was just Philip and Diane working to hold the place together. Philip cursed the war. The war was what had stolen his brothers away from him. They had made plans for all four of them to take their horses to the New Mexico Territories. Philip could see that Texas was in for some hard times. His brothers had been away for a year when the twowrag tag Mexican kids came up to the door. Philip thought they were just trying to cadge a meal, but when he offered them a dinner, they refused. It had been Domingo who stated, “We are not looking for a stake on a grub line, Señor. We are looking for honest work.

Philip looked at the two and saw that it must have been several days since either had had a decent meal. He looked them both in the eye. “I can’t have two men working for me who might fall over in hunger. Eat up and then, get your butts out on that fence line and tighten the wires if you know how.”

He saw their eyes light up, “Sí Señor, we will get right to it.”

Philip hadn’t expected too much, but the two boys were used to doing a man’s job. It was only their size that hindered them. After watching them for an hour, Philip drove his wagon up to where they were working and without a word he began to help them. The three, Philip doing the work that needed body weight to pull the wire tight and the two boys, each with a mouth full of staples and busy hammers, finished a section of the fence that Philip had been dreading to tackle alone for several months.

It was the two boys who were with him when the broken down, one-armed soldier came by with the papers that said the two Evans brothers had fallen honorably in battle.

Philip knew he probably wasn’t proper, but what the hell did honor have to do with running a ranch? What did the Yankee government or the Confederacy either, have to do with Philip’s family?

Philip remembered one man calling for young men to join the Confederacy and stop the Yankees from running rough shod over the southern farmers. Philip had a small farm and he had yet to see a Yankee running over it or doing anything else for that matter. He surmised that it was the large plantations and their large staffs of slaves that were being run rough shod over. Philip didn’t like slavery. He felt that having slaves made a man lazy. Like when building the fence he was working right long side of the boys and when they turned in that night, they all three had the same pains.

His brothers had promised to be back within a year. Well it was a year to the date when that old soldier brought the papers. Philip was determined to not let any man see him cry. So for several days, he worked alone some distance from the ranch. When he finally got some semblance of control about himself, he returned and found the stables cleaned, the barn straightened up and overall, the yard was better kept than he had ever done. Nothing was ever said.

When the cows were sold, he gave each boy a man’s wages. Unlike grown men, they squirreled their money away. Later, they asked him to take them into town to get some clothes and things they needed. From then on, the two boys were part of his family.

As they both grew, they became very proficient with their revolvers. The old Remingtons he gave them, served them well. They kept them clean and kept fresh loads always in the chambers. Those nearby took to calling them Philip Evans’ Mexican boys.

As they approached their twenties, they had both taken wives. The señoritas they chose were hard working also. Philip and Diane accepted them, likewise, into their family. The Evans brothers wouldn’t be returning to accompany Philip to the new land in New Mexico, but Philip Evans’ Mexican boys would.

When they gathered the horses, even Diane and the two brides helped. This was a working ranch, “everyone worked.” The six of them soon to be several more, all moved the horses that Philip had raised and the few head of cattle he had, out of Texas ahead of the carpet baggers and into the hell that was now known as New Mexico territories.

They found a place just north of where the town of Roswell would be founded in the year of 1891. There was good grass and they managed to not only establish the horse herd, but to start a farm and to start the beginning of a herd of cows.

But tonight, they were out in the dark riding the ridges because, for the past three nights, there had been lights in the sky. All three men were sure the lights weren’t lightning.

No longer were they armed with the old percussion Remingtons. They had retired the old pistols to the walls of their homes. Now, they each had a pair of the new 1873 Colts in the 44 Winchester caliber, one in a holster and another in their saddle bag. They would transfer the second pistol to their belts to be carried in the small of their backs under either jacket, vest or serape. They carried this caliber because their rifles were also 44’s. Each of them carried the old 30 inch long barreled Winchester 73s.

Philip saw a flare and then a glow as Domingo Chavez rolled and lit a cigarette. It took some skill to fill and roll a cigarette in total darkness, on horseback.

There were flashes of lightning probably heat lightning many miles off. There was no thunder, just the whisper of the wind. Philip could hear the cows stirring before he saw anything. At first notice of the unease of his small herd, Philip had drawn his rifle. Now sitting on his horse, he cradled the rifle as he searched the horizon.

Except for the lowing of the nervous cows, Philip could see nothing. Suddenly, there was a shrill whistle from Alvarez on his left. He turned in the saddle and saw a shadow cross the stars. Philip had never heard of an owl that big. The shadow blotted out a large portion off the sky. In the flash of lightning, Philip could see his own horse raise his ears and stare toward the left. The horse danced as he nervously jittered in fright. These horses had been used in fighting the Comanche and they were not known for being skittish.

Philip swung his leg over and slid off his saddle. He tied the reins and looped his arm through the loop of the reins. In the next flash of lightning, he saw that both Chavez and Alvarez had also dismounted.

Suddenly high in the sky, there was a bright light. It was a fireball and it was heading straight for the ground. Philip slung his rifle over his shoulder and, using both hands, he quieted the fearful animal. Philip talked to the horse and stroked its soft muzzle. The horse was still at attention, but now that he knew the man was close to him, he settled down.

There is something calming to a horse, even one who was originally wild, about the gentle hands of its rider. Maybe the horse, having given up its freedom, now knows that the rider will protect it. The fireball came down right on the other side of the ridge. There was a flash of light/, but almost no noise.

Once whatever it was, had crashed, the horses calmed considerably. Philip slipped his rifle back in the scabbard and remounted. He gave a whistle and the three men converged on the ridge top to survey the strange event. Juan Alvarez took a wad of cloth out of his saddlebag. He felt around until he found a scrub juniper and he broke off a limb. He tied the cloth around one end of the stick and, taking a small screw top can from his kit in the saddle bag, he poured kerosene over the cloth.

He leaned over and Domingo Chavez struck a sulfur match and the cloth flared into a torch. The wind had subsided and Juan held the torch high. There was something sticking out of the ground, but none of the men had ever seen the like. The dust was still in the air. For some reason,` the breeze had abated and it was still and quiet.

That was it. It was quiet. There are almost always night noises, bugs, rodents and the wings of night birds. The dust hung in the air. It was totally uncharacteristic of a normal night. The yellow light of the torch caught movement. Both Chavez and Philip drew their revolvers. Alvarez was controlling his horse and holding the torch high. They approached and to their great surprise they saw four children emerge from the rubble.

They were four children such as none of the men had ever seen. This was a night of strange things. They appeared to be about six years old and there were two boys and two girls. That wasn’t what shocked the men. All four of them were as naked as jaybirds. They were covered in some oily sticky substance. All four of them just stood there and looked at the men. They said nothing and made no movement.

Philip moved very slowly and he saw their eyes following him. He wasn’t sure if he approached them, whether or not they would run. The night was cold and the children were obviously shivering. Each man had a poncho rolled up behind his saddle. Philip took his and without saying anything, he held out his hand and both Juan and Domingo untied theirs and passed them to him. Domingo was wearing a serape and he slipped it over his head.

With the four coverings, Philip dismounted and walked toward the children. The two boys stood in front of the girls. Philip extended his arm with the coverings hanging on it. There was no movement. Philip handed one boy, the dark headed one, a poncho. The boy looked at it and handed it to the girl behind him. Philip gave him the rest of the garments. He handed one poncho to the other boy, holding the remaining poncho for himself. Then, he gave the serape to the last child the small blonde girl.

They stood looking at the garments and then, at Philip. Finally, one girl stepped forward. Philip held the poncho and indicated for her to put her head through the hole in the center. Then he let the light canvas hang about her body. When he looked up, he saw that the other children had imitated his motions. The fourth girl was fingering the light canvas of the ponchos that the other children were wearing and then, she was feeling the wool of the serape given to her. All the children did this and there was some nodding between them as if they had come to some conclusion. Still, they hadn’t uttered a word.

Philip motioned for them to follow him and he saw their faces wince as they crossed the burrs and thorns on the ground with their bare feet. Philip mounted and leaning down, he swung one of the boys behind his saddle. He felt the little hands grip his jacket. Then, he extended his arm down to one of the girls. As he swung her up in front of him, she caught him around the neck. Juan tossed him his jacket and Philip used it as padding so she could sit cross wise on the wide Spanish saddle horn.

Both children were holding on as tight as their little arms and hands could hold. Philip could feel their trembling as they clutched him. Juan swung the remaining boy behind himself and Domingo swung the last little girl to sit on a pad, he had made with a blanket he had taken from where it had been fastened behind his saddle.

Juan doused the torch and now it was pitch black. It was even darker than before, because the brief period of the light had ruined their eyes for some time to be able to see in the night. The men let their horses have almost free rein and the animals knew that the adventures, for the night, were over. They were looking forward to the warm barn and the corn and hay in their stalls. The sure-footed animals took almost two hours to get back to the ranch yard.

When she heard the noise, Diane brought out a lantern and along with Marcella and Elena, the wives of Juan and Domingo respectively, they were astonished at what the men had brought home. Marcella and Elana didn’t want to be gone from their own homes for very long as they both had young ones sleeping.

They were all excited at the appearance of the four children. They all crowded into the ranch house. Marcella took a pan of warm water she had gotten from the stove. She began to rub each of the children with it ridding them of the sticky goo that was covering them. All four children were very fair complected. They had darting eyes as they took in every thing about them. Still they hadn’t uttered a sound. The children of the two women were both young, so they didn’t have anything that would fit these children. Philip and Diane, not having any children, didn’t have anything either.

Diane spread a feather comforter in a corner of the room. She then unpacked several quilts and made a bed for the four children. The children looked at her and then, they pointed to the door. Diane held the lantern high as the four children went to the edge of the light and relieved themselves. At least they were house broken.

The two children who Philip had brought in seemed to cling to each other. Diane tried to ask their names but they just stared at her. They had to call them something so Diane declared the boy to be Maxwell and the girl to be Isabel. Marcella smiled and pointed to the other girl. “Can we call her Teresa?” she asked.



Juan spoke up, “Let’s call him Miguel.”

Early the next day, the three men rode back to the crash site. When they got there, they found the rubble had already started to crumble. Poking through the wreckage, they could find nothing they could identify. It was clear that within a few days, the wreckage would be completely gone.

[ken_r]

L-J-L 76
Begonia9508
jake17
Mt. Gazer
mary mary
keepsmiling7
XAF RU208
cjsi8ne
roswellian117


Chapter 2

Back home later that day, the three women found that the children would motion to each other, but they said nothing. Diane would talk to them and they would watch her carefully. It was two days before the little girl known as Isabel, finally asked for a glass of water. After that, their education went very fast.

At first, the two girls had dresses made out of flower printed flour sacks like many children on ranches or farms. The ranch wives, would many times make the general store clerk un-stack many sacks to get two or more sacks the same pattern. Many feed and flour companies had their cotton sacks printed as well as white. This was sort of a bonus to the ranch families. The printed sacks when hemmed up made quite attractive dresses. The two little girls would spread them with their hands and admire the prints. Diane had found some light-weight canvas and she cut some pants for the boys. These were sort of handmade Levies, especially making them for children saved money. All thee women spent a better part of the day making the clothes. Now, each child had one item in their wardrobe.

They quickly learned to use the outhouse and the old “Monkey Wards” catalogue that was hanging there as toilet paper (Montgomery Wards was one of the earliest of the home catalogs. They were just full of too much paper to waste when they were out of date. They were used for toilet paper. It wasn’t that soft comfy stuff.) Diane found some old cotton sheets and she made underwear for the children. Even though they were now talking, when asked where they had came from they responded, “Home.”

The four children grew and learned while living with the three families. It was obvious that Isabel was the boldest. She was always asking questions. Soon, it was seen that some of the questions were from the others. The other three all seemed to turn to her before doing anything new.

Maxwell was always more standoffish than the others. Teresa was more stubborn, but she was also shy. Miguel was very stubborn and he was the least trusting.

They all became hard workers because living on a ranch meant, “everyone pulled their share.”

By the time they were the apparent age of sixteen, Max and Miguel` were followed constantly by Ricardo and Esteban, the two boys of Juan and Marcella. From the time they were thirteen, both Max and Michael had carried the old percussion Remington pistols of their father, Philip, when they rode out.

The four children were willing to consider Philip and Diane as their parents. No one had any idea where they originated. The word home that Isabel had used early on to describe where they were from was so nebulous. All four were dutifully loved and taught by all three families. They all became fluent in both the Spanish of the southwest and, also, the English that they practiced at home. If they had a native language of their own, they never spoke it.

Sometimes, Diane would see them look at each other and it was as if an understanding had passed between them. Most of the Anglos settling the Roswell area were displaced Texans. Many of the Hispanics had been in this area for so long that they considered Juan and Domingo as Tejanos, or Hispanics from Texas, and as strange to this area as they considered the Gringos.

They all four could ride and shoot, even Teresa and Isabel. When they were in the privacy of the family, the girls would wear canvas pants and fork a bronc just like the men. It was a necessity to be able to help in moving cows. Sidesaddle was just not reasonable for work. If they went to town or if any important visitors were present, the girls would dress in delicate dresses and corsets. Then they would either break out the sidesaddles or ride in a buggy.

When working with family, the petite Teresa would side up to a stubborn steer and with her tiny feet in cowboy boots, Tess, leaning in the saddle, would kick the recalcitrant animal in the head, while reading off his linage, of having neither mother nor father, as she redirected his path.

Isabel had had one slow learner of a long horn try to charge her once while on foot. She was carrying a drover’s whip and she stung the animal right between the eyes when he was at the ten feet that the whip reached. Neither girl had the strength or weight of the boys, but they both could dally a loop around any calf and set their horse back on his heels to flip the animal during branding.

The Alvarez and Chavez children were all riding and working with the older children of the sky, but the four children that Alvarez, Philip and Chavez found so many years ago, the ones who were from the sky, were now almost doing a man’s or woman’s work.

Diane, Elena and Marcella now, except for times when they were needed to move a herd, spent their time running the more feminine jobs of keeping up the ranch and truck gardens closer to home.

The three men and the four teens, along with several of the older children of the vaqueros, were all several hours from home. Juan had caught up with a maverick for which, he had been searching for some time. The maverick was a two-year old bull. He had avoided the castration and the branding that most of the herd under went when they were calves. The maverick didn’t avoid his appointed ritual by being stupid. When he saw Juan, he hi-tailed it for the brush. This was a point of honor with Juan. He had seen the maverick several times and each time, the bovine had given him the slip. Juan was on his cutting horse. This was a horse that had the temperament and nature to latch onto an animal and not loose it. Juan was riding through the brush, his horse darting at every turn the maverick made.

Juan had a lot of faith in his horse and he was sure that this time, he was not going to loose. Sitting on a darting horse who will change direction in a minute is not for an older man. Juan didn’t think of himself as old, but he lacked the reflexes he’d had at 16. The maverick fainted left and darted right and the horse followed. Juan didn’t.

Juan came off his horse hard. Being thrown off a horse is all part of a cowboys day. Older bones do not always take to that. Juan heard a crack when he hit and shooting pain ran through him. Isabel was the closest to Juan when he de-horsed. She swung off her mount and ran to the vaquero. Isabel knelt and put her hands on his leg. She closed her eyes tightly and Juan felt that she didn’t want to see him in pain. He was sorry to be causing the young señorita discomfort.

Max was well back with Philip and the others. Suddenly, he turned in his saddle and looked across the hills. Without a word, Max wheeled his horse and headed in the direction Isabel had indicated. Yes, there was some unknown ability in the four to communicate without words even over a distance. Even then it took Max almost thirty minutes getting to Isabel and Juan’s side. Max pulled up his mount and jumped off landing in a run. Isabel moved aside and Juan tried to say, “Sobrina (niece) it would be best to send for help. I can’t move and we are way back in the brush.”

He felt the cool hand of Isabel on his brow. “Tío Juan, (uncle) be quiet. Let Max do his best. This is what he was born for. It is his destiny to heal.”

Juan saw that Max was looking into his eyes as he massaged the broken ankle. There was a warm feeling running through Juan and there was a shudder. Isabel was holding his head and the feeling was quickly over. First he felt a numbness and then, a burning. After that Juan only felt foolish for being thrown off his horse.

He felt a warm, wet, smelly breath as the horse nuzzled his face as if to apologize for the accident. Isabel and Max helped the man to his feet. He was a little shaky, but a few minutes ago he had been in extreme pain with a broken ankle. Now, he was almost ready to remount. Juan looked at Isabel and Max. “What did you do, sobrino? (nephew) How did you know where to find me, Max? How did you take away the pain?”

The three of them rode back and it was a subdued Juan who returned to the ranch house that evening. After supper, Juan came to the Evans house and asked to speak to Philip outside. When they returned back into the house, the two boys were standing in front of the girls and the four were staring at them just like they were the night they were found. Diane came in and saw the two men and the four children glaring at each other.

“What are you men doing? You are frightening the children,” she said. “Now all of you sit down and tell me what happened.”

Juan looked a little abashed. It is true he had been glaring at the children that he had helped raise as if they were strangers. Juan had been with Philip most of his life. He had never believed any of the folklore that he only vaguely remembered from the family he had lost so long ago. Juan, like Philip, didn’t believe in anything that he couldn’t fight off with a Colt or Winchester. Still, at least two of these children had done things that Juan could only describe as miraculous.

After hearing the story. Diane turned to the four children. “What do you have to say about that?”

The four had formed up; Miguel and Max sitting with Teresa and Isabel standing behind with their hands resting on Max’s shoulders. It was Isabel who spoke, “Max is our healer. He was born with the gift to heal most wounds. I am the messenger. I can call and inform the others when there is a need. Teresa is the confuser. She can bring a person or animal to believe things that are not true. Miguel is our soldier. It is to him we would turn to if we feel threatened.” Isabel stopped as she assessed the effect of what she had said.

Philip and Juan were still looking incredulously at the children. Diane just shook her head. “You grown men are scaring them. What difference does it make if God has chosen to bestow gifts on them or not?”

The three adults did not see that Max opened his mouth to say something and Isabel tightly squeezed his shoulder so he just shut it.

It was later after the adults had gone to bed. Max and Miguel were sharing a room and Isabel and Teresa were sharing another. The Evanses had expanded their house to accommodate the four young people. Isabel and Teresa crept into the room of the boys.

They all four sat in a circle and their thoughts flowed through Isabel and then, to each other. “She doesn’t understand. We aren’t a gift of God. We are a normal four-square. We were matched to be able to meet and solve problems. Each of us fits someway into a whole and that is just natural,” Max stated.

“Max, if she wants to think of us as a gift of God, then you are going to let her. You didn’t see into the head of Tío Juan today. When he saw his ankle broken, all his mind could think of was his days of cowboying were over. He could hardly take that. You were a gift of God to him. Not what you did, as that was your nature, but the fact that you were here living with him and able to give him back his way of life.

We are going to have to trust them. All of them have cared for us and we need them to understand us. Max, I am not going to have all the answers. I am going to have to have help.” Isabel was worried that they would need more than just the four square to survive.

The next morning when Max and Isabel went out side after breakfast, they were met by Juan. “Sobrinos, ( collective for both nieces and nephews,) I want to thank you for your help yesterday. Marcella reminded me that her father was a curendaro (healer) and he always used his gift to help others. I guess that I was not expecting this in one so young.” Juan stumbled in his apology.

Isabel hugged him, “Tío Juan, I am just glad that we were there to help you. I, also, am thankful that you are not mad or scared of us. We are still your niños (children).

Meanwhile in the house, Philip and Diane were talking. “We need to sit down and talk to the children,” Diane said. “We need to know more about them. I think you should talk to Juan and Domingo. There might be things about our children that we do not want others to know. “

Philip remembered that night now almost ten years ago. There were a lot of strange things about these children and he surely did not want to loose them. They were family just as much, as the Alvarez and Chavez families were.

Diane had held a school for a few hours every morning except during roundup and branding times. There were now two in the Alvarez family, Ricardo and Estaban, both in in their early teens. There were three in the Chavez family, one in his teens that would be Bernaldo along with Katie and Selma both under ten. With the four children living with the Evanses that made quite a school full. The four foundlings caught on very quickly.

Because the three younger boys idolized Max and Miguel, they worked very hard also. The two girls usually sat with Isabel and Teresa trying to do everything the older girls were doing, so the little school was a success as far as Diane was concerned.

Diane and Isabel were folding clothes. The morning class was over and the rest of the children had gone home. Teresa was tending her flower garden so it was just the two of them. “Isabel, do you remember anything about your home?” Diane asked.

Isabel thought for a minute. “I remember noise and I remember pain. There were a lot of people running around and then, I remember sleep. There was a man. I do not remember what he looked like. He would awaken each of us ever so often. I don’t remember his name. He wasn’t very nice. He didn’t want to be with us. That is about all I remember.”

“Isabel, what other things can you do besides send messages?” Diane queried.

Isabel looked up right at Diane, “We can protect ourselves. We can make changes in things like change colors or shapes. We do not really know what we can do. I think Max and Miguel have practiced a little, but they don’t want to talk about it and I don’t pry. I figure when they work things out, they will tell the rest of us.”

Isabel looked up with a smile, “I can sew a dress, I can shoot a rifle and on a good horse, I can throw a loop on a calf. That is magic to me.”

Diane laughed the children had a good sense of humor. She thought, “Yes, I guess to them, the sewing, shooting and calf roping, were as foreign as the healing, sending messages and other things they were talking about were to the adults on the ranch. Yes, these were her children and if any one tried to take them away, they would also learn that, she, Diane could shoot and very accurately.”
--------------------------
Max and Liz are almost together. ””Divorce” a story about relationships and how fragile they can be.

[jake17]

awesome update ken, very creative!
carrie

[ken_r]

begonia9508
Roswellian117
mary mary
keepsmiling7
cjsi8ne
jake17

Chapter 3

It was the summer of 1899. The four youths of the Evans family were approaching 17 at least the way that the adults figured. Armed with a supply list, they had driven into the incipient town of Roswell. The three boys, Bernado, Ricardo and Esteban were also in the wagon. Teresa and Isabel had blossomed into beautiful young women. Miguel was a strapping young man. He was husky from the hard work offered at a ranch. Max was slightly taller, but he was more slender. If you were to describe any one characteristic in them all, it would be their eyes. They seem to catch everything that went on around them.

The buckboard progressed up the street, (the word street being a very generous description,) Max was driving with Miguel sitting beside him. Isabel and Teresa were sitting in a second seat fastened to the wagon. The three younger boys were in the back standing and holding to the seat back while jabbering about all the sights. There was a crowd in the street and Max had to pull up on the reins.

Pauley Pierce and a group of friends were surrounding a frightened little girl. This was unheard of behavior because most men of the west were respectful of women. Even some of the so-called bad men remembered the words of their own mamas and treated women carefully. Trouble was, Pauley was not the normal westerner. His father had come from the east. The more, those living in Roswell, saw of the Pierces, the more they wondered if the old man, at least, hadn’t left the east on a rail just ahead of a bucket of tar and pillow of feathers. Tar and feathers being a traditional way to usher no accounts out of town.

Mr. Pierce looked down on the hard working people of Roswell. He felt that he was better than any of them. This belief carried over to his son and his son attracted several discontented young men with him.

Max was armed as was Miguel. They both carried a Colt 45, in their holster and another in their belt under their jackets like Philip and the vaqueros. They had a rifle between them in the front of the buckboard. Max handed the reins to Miguel and carefully slid off the seat to the ground. “What’s wrong Pauley? This is low even for a skunk like you. Leave the girl alone,” Max said with authority.

Pauley spun around. People just didn’t talk like that to him. Trouble was, this wasn’t ‘just people.’ It was Max and Miguel Evans, along with their sisters and several of those brats belonging to the Evans’ vaqueros.

Pauley was tempted to draw his gun and show this upstart who he, Pauley Pierce, really was. Some of his friends had seen Max Evans in action. They put their hands on Pauley and whispered something in his ear. They knew how fast Max could draw and he never missed. They also saw that Miguel was cradling the long Winchester, glaring at them.

The three small boys in the back of the wagon got down on the floor boards because they knew things could get bad in a very short time.

“Since when does the Evans ranch offer protection to sheepherders?” Pauley said.

“I do not see a sheepherder, Pauley. I only see a bunch of coyotes being mean to a girl. Miguel and I have shot most of the coyotes on the range, so I guess if we find some more, we will have to shoot those too.” Max was watching Pauley carefully. He knew that Miguel would be watching the others. As the eyes were all on the Evanses, Max re-evaluated the girl. She was a young woman, just small in stature. She scurried between the men and ran for a small covered wagon near the general store.

A slender man with a black beard came out. He looked at the crowd, but that was cowmen’s business. A sheepman lasted longer if they kept away from things that did not concern him. He turned the wagon and headed out of town away from the crowd.

Max was still glaring at Pauley and his friends. Pauley broke the glaring contest by putting his hands in his pockets and swaggering, “Oh well, who cares about a sheepherders daughter? Maybe, one of the beauties of the Evans family would like to taste a bit of the companionship of a man.”

Pauley, immediately, lost all of his friends. This was shaping up into a blood bath and he was too stupid to see. First of all he wasn’t just funning a Sheepherder’s girl anymoe, but he had insulted the daughter of Philip Evans. And worse, he had done that in front of her two brothers. Philip Evans and his vaqueros could easily burn out any of the ranches in these parts. And if he perceived that one of his daughters had been insulted, he probably would.

This was 1899 with the new century coming up. Most of the hands on the ranches were just that. They were working hands, but it was reported that the Evans’ vaqueros were more like an army.

Everyone was surprised when Isabel gave a seductive smile. She stood and looked at Pauley. His friends were astonished. Was Pauley going to get away with this? Maybe Isabel wasn’t the kind of girl they all thought she was. Maybe, the brazen tactics of Pauley were going to pay off and he was going to get something from Isabel.

Max didn’t make any move. Miguel just held the rifle and no one could see that in the folds of her skirts Isabel was holding her drovers whip, ten feet long with a silk popper, it was. She could hit a fly on the rump of a horse and the horse would barely feel it.

Isabel didn’t flick the whip. She put her whole arm into it. It caught Pauley right below the left eye. The skin split open and blood gushed. Pauley screamed. He heard the cold voice of Isabel over his own cries. “Pauley, I just saved your life. Max and Miguel were going to kill you. I am just leaving you with a reminder to behave toward women no matter who they are. I will reduce you to needing a set of blinders and a tin cup, if you ever talk to me like that again.”

Pauley’s friends rushed him away. Isabel well knew her whip. Pauley would forever have a scar to remind him that she was not to be trifled with. Miguel just shook his head. He felt that killing Pauley would have been the best idea.

Max led the team and wagon over to the general store. The three kids scrambled off the wagon. They each had their list of purchases to make. Teresa and Isabel went to the dry goods area and began to finger and measure materials. Max and Miguel handed the clerk their list of things the ranch would need for the next several weeks.

The clerk noted that the list included a whole case of 44 Winchester shells. Items were noted and loaded on the buckboard. Isabel and Teresa made their purchases. The younger boys then picked out some sweets for themselves and their sisters. The whole amount was tallied and Max paid for it in cash. He was one of the few in this part of the country who could do this.

Most of the farmers and ranchers all ran a bill to be settled up in the fall when crops were harvested and cows were shipped. Max knew that they were fortunate to be able to pay at purchase. As he was settling up with the storekeep, Max asked, “Who was that girl that Pauley and his friends were harassing?”

“She is a sheepherder’s daughter. They aren’t Mexican. They don’t speak Spanish. They speak a funny language. The man gives the name of Parker. He told me once that I would never be able to pronounce his real name. They live back in the hills. They work for some Englishman, duke or some sort of thing.

They are nice people and even if you do not like sheep, Pauley had no right to be bothering her.” The clerk laughed, “That pip of a sister of yours sure branded him right! If I wasn’t married with five kids of my own, she would sure be a lady I would come calling on.”

Max grinned at the thought of the plump store keep, calling on Isabel.

It was late in the afternoon when they got the buckboard back home. The younger ones had curled between the bags and packages and had allowed the swaying of the wagon to lull them to sleep. Teresa and Isabel were eager to change to split skirts and shed the corsets they had worn to town. When they arrived home, the Alvarez family and the Chavez family all came out to get their things and they all labored to store the supplies for the rest of the summer.

Max was bothered by the vision of a small girl or maybe, woman with brown eyes, who was very frightened. She had scurried off so fast Max didn’t even get a chance to talk to her.

Summer on a ranch, is made up of ten million little things. The calves are already born and the herds have been moved to summer pastures, but fences go down for no reason. When it rains, the water holes must be patrolled to pull the more desperate or maybe, stupid cows out of the mud. When it is dry patrols must be increased to make sure the cows are making it to water. There are always trespassers and even some rustling. There is always also, the unforeseen.

To a rancher, the loss of even one cow means that he will have just that much less in the fall to carry himself through the winter. If the animal is part of his breading stock, that loss may be magnified many times. It is true that ranchers hunt any predator they see.

Most predators, given a choice, will take domestic stock over the wild stock because it is easier. When signs of loosing stock appear, it is necessary that the rancher take appropriate action. Juan had reported lion tracks on the ridges. There was not much to do if the cat was passing through. It would be silly to waste time chasing it. But Domingo reported a calf killed and partly eaten in the lower valley a few days later. Most of the others working at the ranch had their own chores and Max had an ulterior motive for wanting to track the cat through the hills.

Max had his kit already packed. It consisted of a coffee pot, an enamel pot, to boil things in and a frying pan. His soogan or bedroll was tied on the back of his horse. He took some salt pork, some beans, and a supply of tortillas that Elena prepared for him. Miguel kidded Max about going with him, but he really knew the reason Max was heading toward the hills.

Max still had the fleeting vision of the dark eyed girl he had seen that day in Roswell. Philip well knew that hunting cat was not the primary interest Max had in this trip. As Max prepared to leave, his father came up to his horse, “Follow the cat until you either kill it or until it is clear that it is moving out of the country. Don’t make this into an extended adventure. Remember, we still have a ranch to run and be careful when you get to that sheep camp. From what you said, I think the people are Basque. They are a standoffish people and don’t take to any interference.

Max picked up the trail of the mountain lion. It was heading for the high country. With luck, it was just passing through and would not be back to kill again at the ranch. Max tracked the cat not by following tracks, which for the most part, didn’t exist on the rocky surface. Max would look for passes in the rocks. He would find parts of paw prints here and there. He could, sometimes, find skat where the couger had squatted to relieve itself. There would be hair and often times there would be that musty smell that predators give off. Max would check any watering place no matter how slight. As far as he could tell, the cat was still heading over the mountain.

Max could have decided then, that his quest was over, but he still had a driving interest to keep going through the mountains.

Max always liked the mountains. When riding with Philip, they would always be assessing the graze and the water. A cowman always sees everything according to what drives his life.

Now Max, could afford to just ride, always being aware of what was around him, but really enjoying the quiet. Quiet was a relative word. The mountains were always filled with a noise of their own. There was always a sighing of the wind through the pine needles. The jay birds were always calling to each other, the different flocks identifying each other and their locations, to each other. There were always rustlings through the brush as small varmints scurried out of the path of the unknown trespasser.

The mountains in the southwest were, for the most part dry, but there were occasional streams. Back east, they wouldn’t even have the designation as brooks, but here, many of the streams had the pompous names as rivers. Most of them could be jumped across with a single bound of his horse.

Looking up in the sky, Max could see several wandering buzzards. They were really vultures, but the Texan names stuck and almost any soaring, circling bird was automatically called a buzzard. Occasionally, there would be a hawk of some kind flying, usually to a definite destination, that would be called a chicken hawk, but sometimes hawks, would be soaring and thus join the others that were just called buzzards.

Max was following a trail, probably made by the small black tailed deer that frequented this area. The trail led up over a ridge. It had been sometime since Max had seen any sign of the cat, which had precipitated his journey. By Philip’s rules, Max should have returned to the ranch house. Topping the ridge, Max gazed into a meadow.

Max was still in the tree line, but below him, he could see someone standing beside a bushy area. Max’s sharp eyes, made the someone, out to be a woman. Thinking about the bushes and also the time of the year, Max surmised that she must be picking berries.

Still sitting back in the trees where he couldn’t be seen, Max surveyed the area. Suddenly, he pulled up. There was a flash of light from the trees across the meadow. The sun was at Max’s back and he figured the light had reflected off something in the other tree line.

As he was sitting there thinking, Max saw a puff of white smoke. Max knew that could be only one thing. It was several seconds before the sound of the shot reached him. He looked around to see what had been the intended target. His heart went up into his throat as he saw the figure at the berry bushes crumpled.

Max took his rifle out of its scabbard and he aimed about 20 feet above the place where he had seen the puff of smoke. Quickly, he triggered off two shots. Max had no idea how close he had come to the figure he now saw moving away, but the figure did move much faster. There was no way of hitting the figure in the distance and Max, not knowing all the facts, didn’t want to hit it, at this time. He did want to scare away the assailant who, he believed, had purposely shot the woman.

Carrying his rifle in his right hand and guiding his horse with his left, Max hurried as fast as the animal could safely go to the crumpled figure. When he got there, he dismounted, laying the rifle beside him to be close, if needed, Max turned her over.

She was alive, but just barely. She was the woman who had been haunting his dreams since he had seen her that day in Roswell. He ripped open her blouse and exposing the young chest, he saw that she had been shot low down in the stomach. She was in for a slow and painful death if Max couldn’t do something.

Max had helped Tío Juan and he had been healing the rest of the four since they had been at the Evans ranch. He had even fixed up a few scrapes on the other children after cautioning them not to tell. Since they usually got their scrapes doing what they weren’t supposed to, they always kept his secret.

Now, Max was faced with a real life and death situation. He had a moment of doubt. Could he do something this big? Then, he remembered that face he had seen when he was confronting Pauley. The scared beautiful face and he resolved his determination to help her.

“Look at me dear one,” then, he switched to Spanish, "Mírame, Linda, (look at me pretty one.)"

Each time her eyes fluttered more at the sound of his voice than any recognition. They said she spoke a language different than Spanish. It was possible that she didn’t understand anything he had said. He did get her to look at him long enough to make contact with her. She had lost a lot of blood.

Max had never tried something this difficult. By instinct and the programming that they had put into him at his conception as a healer, Max knew what he must do. Stop the bleeding first. Then, he had to find the bullet and dissolve it. Finally, he had to encourage the wound to heal itself.

Max had no idea how he knew what to do nor did he know how it worked. He was the healer and that was enough. Every few minutes, Max would scan his surroundings. He wasn’t really worried. A man who would shoot a woman in ambush was not about to face a man with a rifle, especially a man with the reputation of Max Evans.

Max had the wound fixed. It would take time and more applications for the wound to completely heal. There was no moving her today. Hopefully, someone would come looking for her soon. She was resting peacefully for the moment. The girl, or rather woman, had lost a lot of blood. Max built a small fire. He put a pot of water on for coffee and also, to make some broth. When the small pot was boiling, Max put in several pieces of Jerky. He boiled this until it became a thick broth.

His old coffee pot was perking and Max could hear it. He made the coffee strong. It wasn’t really cowboy coffee as that stuff was strong enough to float a horseshoe in it .

As soon as Max felt the coffee had perked long enough, he poured some into his enamel cup. He tasted it first to see if it was too hot. He let it cool a bit until he felt it wouldn’t burn her lips. Max was cradling her in his arms, supporting her body with his chest as he first tried to get her to sip some of the coffee. Then, he took some of the broth and carefully spooned fed it to her. She began to moan. She was slowly coming around.

The sky children had a kind of sense of who they could trust. Maybe Max was more hopeful than knowledgeable, but he wanted her to trust him and he wanted to trust her, also. She was lying on his soogan which was a bedroll made out of a canvas tarp with two blankets. When folded, it made a comfortable bed with the same cover above as below and had something to keep off any rain or dew.

As the sun set, it became cold at this altitude even though the days could reach near a hundred degrees on the flats where Roswell was. Max had kept up a fire and the shadows were dancing in the night. Max tried to avoid looking directly at the fire. There had been someone who was trying to kill the lady and though Max believed they had left, you could never tell. He knew that he might need his night vision. Max knew that there might be other things in the night that could spell trouble, also.

The lady would waken from time to time and look at Max with fear in her eyes. Then, she would drift back to sleep. Her body, with the encouragement that had been given by a healer, was working very hard to repair itself.

It was after midnight, according to the stars. Max saw his horse’s ears prick up. Max had tethered him close to camp just for that reason. He had pulled some grass and there was a small bite of oats in the saddlebag, which he fed him. The horse was looking in the direction of the higher mountains.

Max quietly took his rifle and faded back into the shadows. It was quiet for several minutes. Then, a very low voice accented in a way that Max was unaccustomed to. “Señor, I am coming into the camp. I have been watching you and I think you are not the one who hurt my daughter.”

Trust demanded trust, so Max slowly appeared out of the shadows. He was holding his rifle by its long barrel. His right hand, of course, was free above his holster. Max was trying to show trust, but he wasn’t being foolish.

As he appeared, the other man came out of the shadows also. He was slender with a black beard. He was carrying a mule-eared double barrel shotgun. It wasn’t pointed at any direction particularly, but Max knew that it could be brought into play when needed. Max placed his rifle against a tree and keeping his hands away from his revolver, he pointed to the girl. “She was shot and I am a healer.”

The man showed no surprise. “Yes, we have had those in the old country. I hadn’t met one since I came here. Do you know what happened to her?” he asked.

“She was shot from the ridge line. I couldn’t see who did it. I fired a couple of shots to scare them off, but I do not think they are the type who would want to face a man. Back shooting a lady is not something they would want to get around. With a reputation like that, anyone could shoot you and there would be nothing said.” Max was studying the man.

Finally, the grizzled man extended his hand. “Name I travel under is Jeff Parker. My real name you could never pronounce.”

Max accepted the hand, “Max Evans, I was told you weren’t Spanish or Mexican or anything like we would have around here.”

Jeff chuckled. “It is just easier to change our names than to struggle trying to get others to say our real names correctly. We are Basque. We come from ‘Euakadi’ or maybe, you would know it as the back countries of Europe. Lizzy, her mamma and me, we come from the mountains of Spain. We speak a little Spanish and a little English, but our native language is ‘Euskara.’ We work for an Englishman name of Parker. That is why we use that last name. You are Evans, aren’t you, from that ranch on the flats?”

“Yes, my father, two families of our vaqueros and several Mexicans and Anglos all live there,” Max informed.

“How come you put yourself out for a sheepherder, you being a cattle man and such?”

I saw your daughter in Roswell. I was there with my brothers and sisters,” Max stated.

“Ah, your sister is the one with the whip. She will make some caballero a strong wife.” Jeff said.

Lizzy moaned. Max now had a name to apply to her. Her father still keeping his shotgun close by, went to her. Max motioned to the two pots near the fire. “There is some broth and some coffee if you want to try to feed her. I think she will be able to travel by morning.”

Jeff looked at him again, “You must be skilled at your craft. I haven’t ever heard of a healer so young. Most of the time they are old by the time they learn.”

Max shrugged and said nothing. Jeff looked at him carefully. This was a very different man than he had met heretofore in the new world. He had heard a little, about how this man faced down Pauley. Max was only in his teens, about the same age as his Lizzy.

All of the Evans family had a reputation of being very honest, but bad people to cross. The vaqueros were a throw back to a former time. They were totally loyal to Philip Evans and he treated them like his family. The young men were not known for frequenting the bars or the houses of the women back in town. The story of Isabel whipping Pauley had traveled the whole country.

By morning as Max had forecast, Lizzy was moving about. She was stiff and still hadn’t said anything to Max. She and her father had conversed a bit in that strange language that Max had no experience with. They prepared to break camp and as he was prepared to leave, Jeff again extended his hand. “Adíos amigo, I hope we see you again.”

Max replied in the way of all Texans, “You’all come by if you are down that a way. Our place is always open for visitors.”

Jeff, with Lizzy behind him, left returning to the mountains. Max had seen the cat on its way out of the country and he had seen, again, the woman of his visions. There was nothing else keeping him in the mountains and he was sure Philip would be worried so he headed back to the ranch.
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””Divorce”
a story about relationships and how fragile they can be is now finished.

[ken_r]

begonia9508 thanks for the images
keepsmiling7
cjsl8ne
mary mary


Chapter 4
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Meanwhile light years away in a galaxy very far away, and I mean very far away. Kivar was interrogating one of his scouts. “I have covered the planet they call Earth. The records from the palace said the clones would be sent to the time period known as 1947 Earth time. I have covered that area called Roswell and no one ever heard of anyone from outer space. The museum there is dedicated to football heros. That is all that town can talk about.

If there was a crash or anything like that, the people at that town do not know anything about it. They have a hot air balloon fiesta and they seem to be very excited about balloons. I used my best instruments and I could not find anything that could be traced to our people growing up there.” Nickolos was an able scout and he was a good scientist. If there were any sign of clones growing up anywhere on that planet, he would have found them.

Elexcis came in, bowing slightly, “My lord Kivar. I have found traces that do not correspond to a ship traveling to Earth in their time 1947. There was a ship, but it hit a temporal rift and it might have been diverted to another time period.”

Kivar frowned. He had taken his power by force and he was not known for being a terribly intelligent person. He put intelligent people in position and he expected them to deliver. Elexcis was a bitch but she was very good at tracing anything through time.

Nickolos spoke up, “The protector they sent on the ship was not a front line soldier. He was just a man they commandeered into piloting the ship. I do not think he even had any experience in navigation. There is really no telling where he ended up. You might follow Elexcis’s idea and if you find a time period, I can check it out.

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Max had returned. He reported that as far as he could tell, the cat had headed cross the mountains and would not be raiding the Evans spread again soon. He mentioned that he had met a girl and her father back in the hills. Immediately Tío Juan and Tío Domingo started teasing Max about having a girl friend back in the hills.

Max was standing with Philip when Juan came up. “Señor, I saw the sign of a grizzly heading towards the mountains. Suppose we should send Señor Max to see if he leaves or if he stays in the area? Fighting a grizzly might be safer than meeting that Señorita’s father in the mountains again.”

Philip could only laugh, “No, Juan, I think we should send Señors Max and Miguel to fix that fence that blew down in the south pasture. Either of them finding señoritas, right now, would be more trouble than we can cope with.”

Philip and Juan were still laughing at their joke when Max and Miguel departed for the fallen fence. When they arrived and looked at the fence, Max couldn’t see how it could have blown down. He found several tracks of cows that had passed the area after the fence had been opened. He also found several of the cedar posts that had been broken. Cedar is tough and it weathers pretty well in the dry southwest climate. The reason they use it, is it makes a long lived fence. Miguel whistled and Max rode over to where he was looking at a horse hoof print. All of the horses of the Evans ranch wore horse shoes with a particular notch cut in them. Philip had been doing this for years so he could tell if his horses had wandered away. This shoe print was not from an Evans horse.

Miguel followed the tracks. They were parallel to the several prints of the cows. In fact the cows were traveling fairly rapidly. Now cows do not travel very fast unless they are being encouraged. Cows drift. They graze or head to water, but they just do not take off cross country without someone moving them.

Max nodded at Miguel. The fence could wait the cows had to be found and now. Neither Max nor Miguel were worried about going alone. Philip had raised them to be self-reliant and they both had faith in their abilities. They followed the trail as it left the hills and headed toward Roswell. Now that would be strange.

Everyone in Roswell knew the rocking E brand. The cows might be slaughtered and quickly sold to consumers but the fact that they were rocking E would leave evidence somewhere. The skins would show this if nothing else. Only a green horn would think they could get away with something like this.

Finally Max and Miguel came over a ridge. There were about 30 head being held in a small valley. Max counted three men. They watched and saw that is all that were there at this time. Max whispered to Miguel. “If we start the cows moving at midnight and hurried them back to the ranch they could be home in a day and a half.

They retired from the scene and worked their way to the other side of the herd. The easiest thing would be to run the cows back over the camp below. They could afford to keep them moving fast, at least until mid morning.

Again it was evident that whoever the people below were, they were a bit green to be stealing in the west. There was only one man on guard during the night. Max kept watching the stars. When they had traveled half their distance across the sky, he and Miguel moved out.

They unloosed their guns and began firing them in the air. The cows clearly showed that they didn’t like being the object of that much noise. There were screams from the camp, but that was their problem. Neither Max nor Miguel had any stomach for a hanging, even if that had gone out of fashion years ago, and they had no time to nurse prisoners. As far as Max was concerned, he was just driving his cows back off the open range.

By mid morning, they were well on their way toward the Evans land. As they were driving their herd, a small group of men came up, they were being led, by the sheriff. “Evans what are you doing with those cows?” Max wasn’t about to start anything with the law, so he just sat on his horse.

“Nothing sheriff, they must have strayed off the range through a break in the fence. We are just returning them to our range.” Max could smell a trap. Sheriff Hanson at Roswell had won over the man, Jim Valenti that their father had supported. He had been mad at Philip ever since the election.

“You have anything to do with that attempted murder when someone stampeded those cows over a camp back there?” the sheriff queried.

Max looked him in the eye, “Sheriff, if there was a camp near this herd, then it would only be full of rustlers. We just started our cows on their way home.”

“You Evanses have to learn that the old days are over. If you lose some cows, you come in and swear out a complaint. Then, we will have an investigation. If we feel there has been a crime committed, we will take action,” he arrogantly stated.

“Yeah, sheriff and meanwhile, the cows are sold and slaughtered and by the time you get off your butt, there is no more evidence.” Max had a sudden idea. It was chancy, but, “Sheriff how much is Pauley Pierce’s old man paying you to make sure we don’t find out that he is the one who stole these cows?”

Philip would have told Max not to play with matches while sitting on a stack of dynamite. Hanson went almost berserk. His face got red and he couldn’t speak for several minutes. Max hadn’t thought of that until just now. It looked like he had struck a chord. Shit, it looked like he had struck o whole symphony. Well, that answered a lot of questions.

Old man Pierce had approached Philip wanting to buy into the rocking E. Philip told him that the Rocking E was a family possession and was not for sale in any part. The sheriff and his men quickly drew their guns. “That is enough Evans, the two of you are under arrest for attempted murder.”

Neither Max nor Miguel resisted in any way. This was not a time to use guns or powers. Taking Philip Evans sons into custody was an event that, in minutes after they rode into town, was known to everyone. Jim Valenti immediately, set forth to the Rocking E ranch.

Max and Miguel sat in their cell wondering what would happen next. About midnight, a deputy came in and told the boys to get ready, he was letting them go. Miguel looked at Max and frowned. That deputy had been one of those whose nose was pressed closest to Hanson’s butt during most of the election. Max, without doing anything overt, put his hand on the lock. He quietly melted the tumblers of the lock. The deputy got the keys and tried to open the door. Of course, he couldn’t even make the keys fit. He cursed and went out.

Meanwhile, Max and Miguel had been talking to Isabel. After all, she was the messenger. They told her about the attempt to take them from the cell. When she conveyed this to Philip, he told her to relay to the boys to do nothing that could be construed as a jail break or anything else that Sheriff Hanson could say they were resisting anything.

It was about two that morning. This was a time when senses are at their dullest. Suddenly, the doors of the jail were thrown open. Two men wearing hoods burst into the room and began to fire at everything in the cell. Miguel, as the soldier, simply erected a green haze between them. The bullets couldn’t penetrate the haze. It was as if the haze was a solid wall instead of an almost transparent barrier.

Back at the ranch house, Isabel reached across the table and took both of Teresa’s hand in hers. Teresa closed her eyes and squinted them tightly. Back at the jail, the men suddenly dropped their weapons and began to rip off their clothes. They were screaming over and over, “Its on me! Get it off, get it off!”

They fled the jail and were rolling in the streets, all the time screaming. The store keepers awakened by the din began to come out their front doors. The scene they saw was both funny and scary. The two men, still with their hoods, were breathing deeply and panting. They also were as naked as Jaybirds except for their boots. They were sitting right in the middle of the street.

One of the sheriff’s men awakened by the noise came out to investigate. He approached with his weapon drawn. There was nothing on the streets except for the screaming men. He went up to them and took the hoods off. To nobody’s surprise, it was two more loyal deputies of sheriff Hanson. The sheriff’s men took the naked ones off the streets.

They didn’t want to go back to the jail, so they went into the Crashdown saloon. The saloon usually stayed open all night. José, the bartender, was snoozing behind the bar and when he heard the noise, he had gone out to see what was happening just like everyone else.

Amy, the widow who had inherited the bar, was fast asleep along with her daughter. The sheriff’s men sat the naked ones down and tried to ask what had happened. All the two bare-assed ones could say was, “Get it off of me!” They clearly were not in their right minds.

Isabel released her hold on Teresa and Teresa opened her eyes. She was very tired after that ordeal. Isabel indicated that she would stay up so Max and Miguel would have an open access to help and information. Jim Valenti had, by this time, returned to Roswell and had awakened the telegrapher. He sent a telegram on behalf of Philip. The telegram was to one Alexander Whitman, attorney at law, El Paso Texas.

The next morning found Philip riding into Roswell with Isabel, Teresa and his two vaqueros, Alvarez and Chavez. They went first to the hotel. The hotel owner was a friend of Sheriff Hanson, but he wasn’t asked for a set of rooms. He was told to give three rooms to the group and to do it now. He started to object to the high handedness of Philip, but he looked at the black eyes of the vaqueros. He remembered stories he had heard them and Philip.

The hotel owner also looked at the beautiful daughters off Philip Evans. The hotel owner had been also a friend of Pauley Pierce. He remembered the day she had scarred Pauley with her whip. He noticed that the whip was coiled and hanging from her shoulder.

Sheriff Hanson had heard that everything he had tried last night had failed. He also heard that the Evans were in town. This wasn’t going at all like Old man Pierce had said it would. Hanson hurried to the hotel. “I am going to have to ask you men to surrender your arms,” he said officiously.

Philip had looked at cockroaches with more respect than he had for Hanson. “Don’t try to be a bigger ass than you already are, Hanson. We are not breaking any law and burying you would be a solitary event. I doubt if even Pierce would come to your funeral.” Philip pushed passed Hanson who was fingering the butt of his revolver. Hanson wanted so badly to draw, but even counting the two women, Hanson was the least equipped to make any overt move. He glared as the five people went up to their rooms.

As soon as Philip was gone, the hotel owner began to make excuses to Hanson about why he hadn’t stopped the Evans from taking rooms. Hanson stopped him. He knew that just like Hanson himself, the hotel owner was yellow through and through.

After they had settled in, the five from the Evans ranch, proceeded to the jail. At the jail, Philip surrendered his weapon. Juan and Domingo just took a seat in the office. Isabel and Teresa glared at the deputy as he stumbled in his mind to wonder if he should pat down the women or not. The rules were no one was allowed into the jail area except after a search. That gapping flesh hanging from Pauley’s cheek made his decision.

Inside the jail room, Isabel and Teresa ran to the boys. The girls were crying from frustration as they reached through the bars just to touch their brothers.

“Boys, the men went out to fix the fence and bring the cows in this morning. I think we can decide that this was a set up promoted by Pierce. I don’t think that Hanson is smart enough to figure something like this out. Just you hang tight. Use your magic only if you have to and try to make it look like something natural, if you can. I have a very good lawyer coming as soon as he can get here.”

With that, Philip and the girls returned to the office. The deputy had Philip’s gun, but he didn’t have the revolvers of the vaqueros and he hadn’t even thought to try to take Isabel’s whip away from her. He grudgingly handed Philip back his two Colts, one for his holster and one for the belt loop at the small of his back.

It took two days before Whitman arrived. Alex was very young for a lawyer, but he was a very smart boy. He had entered Harvard law school at 16 and he was the youngest person to pass the bar in Massachusetts. He came out west because he sought adventure. Some of his friends had gone to war and others were going into politics, but for Alex, he wanted to live the stories he had read in the pulp magazines of Ned Buntline. When he received the telegram from Philip Evans, he was thrilled. Of course, everyone knew of the Rocking E ranch.

This was a chance for Alex to really meet and interact with the heroes of the fiction of his dreams. He wondered why Philip had chosen him, instead of the many other local lawyers. He didn’t know that a friend of Philip’s had written the Evanses about the up and coming young man. Philip wanted to press against Hanson with new ideas, not tired old rhetoric.

Alex didn’t make a very good impression at his first meeting. First, he was dressed in the latest fashions from back east. His bowler hat, with its small brim, was sitting on his slicked-back hair. He was wearing white spats and slick leather shoes. This all was off-set by his fashionable checkered suit. On the campus of Harvard, he indeed cut a remarkable figure, but out here, he would just be a target for some of the drunker cowboys, if he was seen dressed this way on a Saturday night.

Alex looked at Philip. He saw a man in his late fifties. He was tall and he was hard from outdoor labor. Alex, then, looked at the two Mexicans with him. Alex thought he had never seen such hard, black eyes in his life. Then, it was even worse. The eyes began to soften in what Alex knew was laughter. Alex knew the laughter was at him.

To top every indignity off, with Philip Evans and the two hard, but now almost, laughing Mexicans were Philip’s daughters. They were as beautiful as any women that Alex had seen. They both had healthy tans from being outdoors. That was different from the women of the east who prided themselves in their pale, almost anemic complexions.

Both women were wearing split riding skirts and vests over their blouses. Both women wore broad-brimmed hats, as did everyone else he had seen. The tall one, Isabel, had a coiled whip resting on her shoulder. The other one, Teresa, had blue eyes that cut right through you. Neither were wearing the corsets that going to town required. Isabel and Teresa were not visiting as beautiful women, but they were here working to protect their brothers.

Philip took Alex aside. Teddy said you were very smart and that is what I want. He didn’t say you would be wearing a clown suit, so I want you to come with me and get some proper clothes. Alex started to defend his dress as it was the latest thing in Boston. Somehow, he thought these people do not care about Boston and may not even know it exists, or if it exists, where it is.
-------------------
”Divorce” is now fiinished

[ken_r]

Timelord31
begonia9508
Keepsmiling7
mary mary
Roswellian117
cjsl8ne
XAF Ru208

Chapter 5

Then, he thought of the two women. He really did want to make a good impression on them just because he was young and male and they were awfully pretty.

That afternoon, Alex in a broadcloth suit of western cut appeared before a judge demanding bail be set for his clients. The judge was taken aback by Alex’s youth, but Alex had all the right credentials. The judge wasn’t the sharpest tack in the shoe, but he did know that when he was confronted by legal procedure, he should just follow the correct rules. The judge was a little worried about Hanson. He knew that Hanson was controlled by Pierce, but he also knew that the men of the Rocking E were not men to mess around with. This whole case smelled. Alex surprised even Philip. After he was granted bail for his clients, he swore out a complaint against the men who claimed to have been assaulted by the herd of cows. His reasoning was clear even to the judge. The only way they could have been that close to the herd was if they were stealing it. He based his whole case on the position of the men with respect to the herd when Miguel and Max reclaimed it.

Max and Miguel were now free, but they couldn’t leave town. Hanson was trying to figure how to make a complaint against the boys for what happened to his two deputies. The deputies were still sitting in a room. They wouldn’t keep their clothes on and constantly cried about being covered by some crawly things. Hanson was sure Max and Miguel were responsible but there was no way he could see how.

Pauley’s friends, who had complained that Max and Miguel had tried to murder them were, themselves, faced with a warrant for rustling. The west was becoming modern, but this was still cow country and if there even was a suspicion that they had done something like that, they wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere.

Old man Pierce had assured them that he would back them, but faced with the charges now filed, Pierce was starting to feel he should cut his losses and wait for a better time. This left Pauley’s friends with the knowledge that they might have to face these charges. Finally, the result was they stated that they thought they must have been mistaken and it wasn’t Max and Miguel’s herd that came running through their camp.

After a lot of tempers being lost, the case against the sons of the Rocking E were dropped. Then Alex dropped his charges since it was now clear that no one had been in the path of the herd that night when Max and Miguel turned them back toward home.

The rocking E now knew they had an enemy. Max and Miguel knew that Pauley was a dangerous person. Max was beginning to wonder if Pauley had anything to do with the shooting of Lizzy back in the hills.

Alex was wondering if he could ever make an impression on two ladies who could out ride him, probably out shoot him, and maybe, even out fight him if he was not in court.

He remembered meeting Teddy Roosevelt. He had been impressed at the athletics the man involved himself in. Apparently he, Alex, had made an impression on Teddy. They had gone a round or two in the boxing ring. That he had been called to represent the Evans ranch was a result of this. He wondered if Roosevelt could tell him how to impress western women.

-----------------------

Kivar was again looking for information. Where had the ship with the four clones gone. The protector had left no trace of himself in the year 1947 or the year 1991 on Earth. The year of the crash and the probable year that the clones would quicken and the children would come out. The Earth people didn’t seem to know anything about ships from outer space.



Elexcis was talking, “I am almost 99 percent sure that the protector misjudged his settings. He must have arrived at Earth during a different time period, probably much earlier than we had predicted. I want to pick units of time a hundred years apart and sample them. We need to see if there is any indication that the ship landed ‘else when’ rather than ‘else where.’” Kivar assigned Nickolos, again because he still was the best scout.

Nickolos landed in the hills. He was very stealthy as he hid his ship. He was only observed by three people and 2000 sheep. Jeff remembered stories of men from the sky. There had been stories in Europe that men had landed and the Basque people had met them. These stories also were about men and women with strange powers. One of these powers was healing.

The Englishman Parker had hired Jeff and his family to herd and protect the sheep. Jeff intended to do this. It was his responsibility and also it was a point of honor. His family had been herding sheep for generations. The fact that he was seeing men come from the sky reminded Jeff that there was another man who was a healer. This was a good man. In fact, Jeff was sure that the healer had captured the heart of Jeff’s daughter, Lizzy.

Nancy, his wife, again not her real name, but it was sufficient to use, when dealing with the people, in this area, especially the Englishman. Nancy reminded Jeff that Lizzy would be of age soon when she should began to look for a husband. Jeff wondered if this stranger meant well or bad for the healer of his daughter.

Nickolos had no fear or respect for the people in this time period. They were so primitive. He walked into the town of Roswell. He took no notice of the stares they were giving him. Alex had been green, but this man in his skin-tight clothes was positively indecent. You could even see his maleness in the bulge at his crotch. He was parading in front of women and children with complete abandon.

He entered the Crashdown saloon. Amy was sitting at her table watching the patrons. Jim Valenti was sitting beside her. He was drinking a beer. As a gunfighter, he seldom drank very much. He always wanted to keep his head clear. Hanson’s deputies had looked in a few hours earlier. When the new person entered, Jim, along with everyone else, was flabbergasted. “What the Hell…?” he started. Amy looked at her bar keep, José, and saw that he had reached under the bar for the double-barreled shotgun.

Whitey Rollins, though, was drunk. He was always drunk so that was no surprise. When Nickolos entered, Whitey began to laugh. It was the laugh of a man who couldn’t control it. Nickolos looked at him and with the wave of his hand, he knocked him over.

Jim stood up. His hand was on the butt of his revolver. “There’s no call for that. You come in here dressed like some kind of clown, you have to expect to have people laugh at you.”

Nickolos started to wave his hand at Jim just like he did at Whitey, when he heard the clear voice of José. “No need to get surly pardner. You wave that hand and I am libel to blow it off.” José was pointing the shotgun right at Nickolos.

Nickolos was in a quandary. He hadn’t expected these primitives to behave this way. If he flicked the man in the corner with the woman the bar keep would use that weapon. Primitive or not, a sawed off shotgun at close range could cut an alien in half and spill his green blood all over the sawdust floor. If he turned to the barkeep, Nickolos was sure that the man in the corner would put several of those primitive lead balls in his body. Nickolos might be able to heal himself, but he would be weak for some time and these primitives seemed to all be bent on killing someone.

Nickolos lowered his hands, but he saw that José wasn’t that trusting. “I am looking for four strange children. They would have appeared in these parts sometime within the last ten years. Jim knew exactly what Nickolos was talking about, but Jim wasn’t about to help some green horn dude running around in skin-tight long underwear.

Nickolos held up a small bag. He opened it. “There will be a reward for anyone giving me any information leading to finding these children,” Nickolos stated as he turned looking at those in the saloon. He turned to the bar itself and poured a few pebbles out on the surface.

José reached over and picked one of them up. He nodded to everyone, “Yes, they are gold nuggets.”

Nickolos carefully put the pebbles back in the bag and put it in his suit. Try for the life of them, none of the people in the saloon could see where he could put the bag in such a tight suit. No one said anything. Most of the patrons had no idea what he was talking about. Jim knew, but he had no intention of telling this critter anything. In the back of the room there was a man, Clive Cheatum, who also knew about the children.

He had known Philip Evans when he brought the children home. No one had paid any attention to him, then. No one paid any attention to him now, but he knew the consuming hatred that the Pierces had for the Evans. He had his own way to, maybe, get two bags of gold. Nickolos went back to his ship. The environmental controlled cabin of the ship was much more pleasant than the dry, hot air in this desert.

-------------------------------

Sunday at the Evans ranch: Like most of the rural ranches, the ranchers were religious. Hell, they prayed even if they questioned the existence of a supreme being. With weather so great a factor and also, so many other variables ranching was a chancy business. People who cannot control their lives tend to not anger any chance of a being, who might have that control.

They were all too far from a town to attend a church. The Mexicans living on the ranch were all catholic and sometimes, a priest would come through to offer them services. Philip would put up any man of God who ventured through that area. Philip would, also, put up any other man as long as they were respectful of his way of life.

On a Sunday like today, there were no professional men of God present so those who were at the ranch all held a minute of prayer at dinner which was held in the early afternoon. The vaqueros and their families would make the sign of the cross and the non-catholic Anglos would all say their “Amens,” but they all would be asking for divine guidance to lead them through the next week or month or whatever until they could gather again.

The four children had began to wonder if they could be part of this. Their genetic memories were kicking in, bringing questions as to their origins. Philip and the vaqueros had separately told the four about the night they were found, Philip from a more scientific standpoint and the vaqueros from a more mystical one.

Philip had looked at the crash as he would at a wagon train that had run into trouble, but the vaqueros saw it as a blessing that had brought the children to a childless couple and to a loving extended family of both Anglo and Hispanics. Tía Elena would hug any of the four any chance she got and repeat how wonderful their coming was to all of those at the Evans’ ranch.

Now, there seemed to be a new member, if not of the family at least he was becoming a frequent visitor. Alex Whitman, when he could get away would visit as often as he could. He was now the official attorney of the Rocking E. He was, also, becoming lost in the blond hair and brown eyes of Isabel. She was still unsure how she felt about him. After all, Isabel could throw a calf and ride a bronc; could she lose herself in a man who only could ride a desk, but he could sure handle himself in court and he was “purtty to look at”.

Philip was telling her that the guns of Max, Miguel and the rest of the men of the ranch were going to be replaced by the rhetoric of men like Alex. Isabel thought a bit, maybe, if she could teach him to shoot, then she would see him differently.

The Pierce place was much different. Old man Pierce had brought in the most expensive furniture he could find. He was trying to build a place for himself as the leader of this area. He was determined to influence the area around Roswell and he was angry that the locals didn’t share the appreciation of himself as much as he thought they should.

After all, he was better educated than they were and he had more ready capital than any of them. He knew that the Evans family was wealthy, but most of their capital was tied up in cattle and other trappings of the ranch.

Pierce had tried to entice Lord Parker to become a friend. The English Lord was having a bit of trouble fitting in with the clannish ranch community. Lord Parker saw Philip Evans as a person he would like to know, but he feared that Old man Pierce was just another robber baron.

Lord Parker well knew his history about how this kind of person fit in back in Europe. Lord Parker, also, felt that Old man Pierce was also secretly the root of some of his troubles because of his sheep. Jeff Parker, who had adopted Lord Parker’s name, had told him of the trouble Lizzy had in town and also, part of her being shot.

When Clive approached Pierce with vague information about the four Evans children, at first he was disgusted. Who did Clive think he was? Pierce had had his fill of these westerners and their jokes. Just because he had been born back east, they thought he would believe any tall story they could tell. A few days later, when he heard other tellings of the occasion of Nickolos at the saloon, Pierce recalled Clive and he went out of his way to find him and listen more carefully to his story.

Jim Valenti was worried. He had met Philip before there was a Roswell. He had met him just after Philip and his vaqueros arrived in the area. Jim had been a gunfighter most of his life. He correctly surmised that the Rocking E was a group to ride the river with. The vaqueros were loyal and to Philip, they were family.

Jim had dropped by soon after the children had been found. Philip had talked to Jim about finding them,, but he never told all the particulars. Jim had gone on to be the first sheriff of Roswell and everything was good until Old Man Pierce had arrived on the scene. Pierce had tried to bribe him as the sheriff and Jim threatened to just shoot him if he ever tried to do something like that again.

Pierce, shortly after this, had transferred support to Hanson and with money and influence, Pierce had managed to defeat Jim Velanti in the election with the candidate in his pocket, Hanson.

Philip and most of the other old timers just hadn’t seen this coming. They would be ready next election, but for now, Jim was out of a job. About the only thing keeping him around Roswell was that he had developed a relationship with Amy, the widow who owned the Crashdown saloon.

Jim had ridden out to talk to Philip about the happening at the saloon. “He was the damndest fellow I ever saw. Came in wearing skin-tight long handle underwear, right out in the open, women and children not withstanding. They didn’t have a flap in the back so I couldn’t see how he could, you know, ‘go’ if he had to. Maybe that is why he was so all fired up tight. Constipation can do that to a man.

Anyway, he just flicks his wrist at Old Whitey Rollins and poor ol’ Whitey just goes flying. He was about to flick his wrist at me, but José was holding a sawed off shotgun at the bar and he would have just cut that stranger in two. The stranger seemed to be considering who was the most dangerous José or me. Then, he just calmed down and began talking about four strange children. I didn’t say anything, but who’s to say what someone else might tell him. If he appears at the ranch and it was me, I would gun him down. He was offering a reward in gold nuggets. Now you tell me, where in the hell did a man like that get gold nuggets near Roswell?”

Philip just shook his head. He had no intention of telling the former sheriff anymore than he already knew about his children. He had never told anyone about the crashed spaceship. Only he and the vaqueros knew of this.
----------------------------
Stories by Ken

[ken_r]

cjsl8ne
Roswelllian117
mary mary
begonia9508
keepsmiling7


Chapter 6

Clive had received a message that Old Man Pierce wanted to talk to him. Yeah, now, that old scoundrel wanted to talk. Before Clive had thought that Pierce was laughing at him. When Clive appeared at the Pierce house, he was a bit surly. Pierce tried to placate him, but he was getting tired of his obstinacy. Maybe, he should adopt the western way and just pistol whip, this unwashed ruffian.

When Clive saw that Pierce was loosing his patience, he began to talk,” You see it was about ten years ago. I was working on the Rocking E. That bunch is as snooty as a group can be. Those Mexicans look only to Evans and he treats them just like they were regular people. They are his family, he says. Anyone else is just hired hands.

“One night, Evans and those vaqueros he has, spent the whole night on the range. Someone said that they were seeing lights in the sky. Well the next morning when we went to breakfast, Evans and his Mexicans were all at the main house.

They didn’t say anything to the rest of us, but they had four kids with them. Never did say where them kids come from. But, the rest of the time I worked for him, Evans was spending most of his time with them kids, that is, Evans and them vaqueros of his were all over those kids.

This dude, the other day comes in. He is looking for four kids that appeared under strange circumstances. I’ll bet anything them kids is what the feller is looking for. Now, I can go talk to that feller if you want and if you make it worth my while.” Clive leaned back in his chair. He felt satisfied that he had made Old Man Pierce a deal he wouldn’t refuse.

For several minutes, Pierce sat looking at Clive. It amazed him that someone could be that filthy and still call himself a man. It also amazed him that Clive had the balls to ask for money. Then, Pierce thought. Maybe, he should let Clive do the dirty work. If Evans learned that some one endangered his children, Evans would readily burn them out. Let this unwashed lout take all the chances and blame if it failed.

Pierce shook out five 20 dollar gold pieces. He handed them to Clive. “Take this and see if you can find that man. See if you can talk him into to coming to see me. If you can’t, then just tell him what you just told me. Keep quiet about this to anyone else,” Pierce stated.

Clive was gone in a minute. At first, he thought of just getting drunk, but then, his feral mind thought of the gold that the stranger had and maybe, just maybe, he could collect twice.

Hanson had done everything he could think of to run Alex Whitman out of town. Trouble was, Alex knew the law and he had friends in Santa Fe, the capital of the territories. Hanson barely knew any law. He mostly did what Pierce told him to. Hanson knew that always, just over his shoulder, Jim Valenti was waiting, just waiting for Hanson to make a major mistake.

Hanson had already made one mistake with those Evans kids. Hanson didn’t kid himself, he knew that come next election, the good people of Roswell would be ready for him and, in all probability, Jim Valenti would be back in office.

Hanson was watching Whitman, who just kept getting in tighter all the time with the Evans family. Now, that was a thought. Those two Evans’ girls, Isabel and Teresa, they would be a score. Hanson, also, knew that if he ever let his feelings to those girls be known, Isabel, at least, would whip him within an inch of his life. But, they sure were lookers.

Hanson had heard about the stranger. He had heard how Jim and José had gotten him in a crossfire position and backed him down. He was wondering what to do about the stranger. Until he saw Pierce, he wouldn’t try anything.

Clive was going to track the stranger. It had been several days, but Clive had tracked Comanche for the soldier boys. He was a canny person. It was like Max had done with the cougar, but harder. Clive had seen the direction the stranger had gone. He had gone toward the mountains. The stranger was on foot, so Clive loaded his horse with his supplies and proceeded to also walk on foot. This way, he would see the terrain just as the stranger did. There were certain paths a man on foot could take and Clive was watching these. He would see a sign from time to time.

The stranger wore funny boots. Hell, everything he wore was funny from his underwear to his lack of a hat. The stranger had no provisions so that limited the distance he would have come from. True, the stranger was different from other men and might have more stamina, but all things together, Clive had an idea of the direction he had headed. And the clues Clive found along the way clinched this.

Clive was starting to see sign of sheep. What the hell did this stranger have to do with sheepherders? Clive came to a meadow and looking across, he saw the many sheep that Jeff Parker was tending. Clive had the cowman’s hatred of sheep and he had no intention of getting near them. He could see that there were two women at the camp. Now, that was an idea. If he could cut one or both of the women away from the man there, Clive could have some fun.

This was cattle country. Clive thought that no one would complain about the dalliance with a couple of women associated with a sheep camp. As Clive’s lust built, his greed reminded him of why he was here. The stranger wasn’t at the sheep camp, so he must be somewhere above it. Clive circled the camp giving it a healthy distance. He didn’t want to spook the camp because when his greed had been filled, he might have time to feed his lust.

Above the camp, he knew there were some caves. If the stranger was not with the camp, maybe, he was somewhere back there. Clive approached the caves without stealth. If he had wanted to, Clive could have snuck up on an apache while he was hunting, but after all he wanted to talk. Hiding would not help him find the stranger. As Clive was approaching the first cave, he heard a noise and he spun around his Colt drawn.

Nickolos had observed the man approaching for sometime. He knew of the sheepherder and family below him, but they minded their own business and Nickolos didn’t bother them. Nickolos let his mind drift. The man approaching was concentrating on him. The smelly man was seeking Nickolos and he had information.

Clive holstered his revolver. “Now, you are the man I was coming to see.”

Nickolos watched Clive carefully. “I see you have information about the children I am seeking”? Nickolos asked.

“Now, that I might. I understand there was some reward for this,” Clive said evasively.

Nickolos, again, reached into his suit to that place where no one could see and brought out the bag of golden pebbles. The fact that as soon as Nickolos left the Earth, the pebbles would return to river stones was not his concern. “Speak man. What do you know about the children I seek?” Nickolos asked.

“Well, there is a man who wants to talk with you. If you could come down and meet him, he would tell you a lot about them kids.” Clive droned on.

“Well then, I will give him the reward and you can be off and quit wasting my time,” Nickolos stated with finality.

“Now, hold on pilgrim. I just said he wanted to talk with you. I am the person who knows all about them kids. ‘Bout ten years ago, my boss at the Rocking E and two of his Mexican boys went out late one night. They had been seeing mysterious lights in the sky. Well, I don’t know what happened, but that next morning, the boss had four kids and he never said where they came from.

Them kids was sure strange. They didn’t talk but they seem as smart as whips. It wasn’t ‘til about a week later that they was talking up a storm. There was two boys and two girls.” As Clive was talking, Nickolos was searching his mind. It was such a simple mind. It had greed, lust and pure primitive self-interest to contend with. This was a simple man who wanted things for himself and cared about no one else. What he was saying was probably true.

Nickolos laughed and threw the bag of pebbles to Clive. “Now, get off the mountain and out of my sight. If your information is incorrect, I will kill you just like you would kill that insect you call a fly.”

This scared Clive. All thoughts of the sheepherders was driven from his mind. The impression that Nickolos had put there was that he would do just as he said. Clive had told the truth, but he knew that things had a way of going wrong and the stranger did not seem to be one who would be understanding.

Rather than returning to Roswell, Clive was now thinking about a quick trip back to Texas. He would ingrate himself with the carpetbaggers and there must be opportunities to make his fortune. Besides, he had two bags of gold that would keep him for awhile. Clive’s mind didn’t remember that the carpetbaggers had been gone from Texas for almost 30 years. They had come, they had ravaged and then, they became Texans themselves.

Nickolos composed his message to Kivar. It would travel across time and space. He could just see Elexcis nodding her head about how right she had been. Nickolos put everything he knew into the message. Now, it was for him to confirm the facts that Clive had given him.

Nickolos proceeded back to town. His movement was as usual noticed by Jeff as he was keeping his eyes on the surroundings of his sheep. Jeff shock his head, this man didn’t feel right. He had done nothing at all to make Jeff suspicious of him, but Jeff told Lizzy to watch herself as long as this stranger was around.

Max and Miguel had gone to Roswell without anyone else. They needed to pick up some things Philip and Diane had ordered. They saw Hanson as they drove the wagon up the street. He didn’t do anything, but Max had a strong belief that if he ever got courage, he would present a danger to the Evans family. Max knew that sometimes courage could come out of a bottle.

The wagon went to the stage depot. The orders their parents wanted would be waiting there. As they tied up the horses, Miguel tapped Max on the shoulder. There, in the middle of the street was the damnedest thing they had ever seen. That feller that Jim Valenti had told their father about, shouted, “Zan, Rath, I have come to take you back to Kivar.”

Max frowned. Both he and Miguel had slipped the loop off the hammers of their holstered weapons. They were standing about ten feet apart. Neither boy knew what to say. They just stared at the stranger and kept their hands near their guns. Hanson had gone inside the sheriff’s office and shut the door. He was watching from the corner of a curtained window.

Other people were scurrying off the streets, going into the closest shop and sitting on the floor so as to not get hit with a stray bullet. Nickolos saw that the boys had no intention of coming with him so he prepared a medium power shot. He directed the blast against Max and Miguel. They being so far apart made the shot weakened. Max didn’t know how he did it, but he held out his left hand as he drew his colt with his right. A green haze formed. The blast from this critter burned itself out on the shield. Max felt the weapon buck in his hand as he let the hammer slip from under his thumb. To his side he heard another shot as Miguel also let loose a shot. The bullets didn’t reach Nickolos as he erected his shield.

These children were becoming a problem. Kivar only really wanted Zan and Vilandra. She wasn’t present, but Nickolos felt he could rid himself of Rath. As Max released another shot, Nickolos released another blast. This one was powerful. It swept aside the feeble shield that Max had erected for himself and Miguel, from the stranger. The blast caught Miguel and spun him around. Out of the corner of his eye, Max saw Miguel fall. Full of anger, Max dropped his shield and holding his Colt with both hands, he fired the remaining four shots as fast as he could slip the hammer from under his thumb.

These children were becoming troublesome. Nickolos could stop the bullets Max had sent toward him. Every time he stopped a bullet, it took energy from him. Nickolos released another blast and Max went down. Nickolos quickly looked at Rath and then, giving him no more notice, he picked up the limp body of Zan and quickly departed for the mountains.

Only an alien could shoulder someone as big as Max and travel at such a speed. Nickolos was soon in the mountains. He would go to his ship and then, he would secure the prisoner, Zan. Kivar wanted the Zan clone and now, Nickolos must search for the Vilandra clone. The Ava and Rath clones were just nuisances.

Once he secured the Zan clone, he could return to the flat lands and look for the location of the Vilandra one. Nickolos was just outside the cave where he had hidden his ship. He put down the clone and prepared to fasten him with powers. Suddenly, he was hit with a force that he had no preparation for. The tiny pellets each took a piece of his body. Immediately, his body started to heal but there were two more blasts and two more after that.

Jeff Parker advanced. As he walked, he ejected the shells from his shotgun, replacing them just as fast. He fired both barrels over and over. Each time, the pellets did more damage than the alien Nickolos could repair. Each time, Nickolos became weaker and weaker. Finally, Nickolos just couldn’t recuperate any more. Nickolos just closed his eyes and died. He was surprised because he’d had no idea that he could be killed by these primitive creatures.

Jeff walked up and kicked the body of Nickolos. There was no movement. Jeff was sure the body was dead. The body had already taken on a gray pallor. It was but a few minutes until the body just melted into a pile of dust. Nickolos was no more. Well, Lizzy had some strong feelings for this Evans boy. Jeff lifted Max over his shoulder like a sack of flour showing that he was, at least, as able to shoulder the same weight as the alien Nickolos had. Jeff headed back to the wagon.

As Jeff approached the wagon, he called out in his strange language, strange, at least, to anyone in the southwest. Jeff stood his shotgun against a tree and he let the limp body of Max slide to the ground. Nancy and Lizzy came to the door of the wagon. When Lizzy saw who her father was carrying, she ran to him. “Where did you find him? What happened to him?” she asked as fast as she could.

“That strange fellow had him. I don’t know what he did. The boy hasn’t moved since I picked him up.” Jeff explained.

Lizzy quickly looked around. Her father had taken Max away from a stranger. The stranger might came back. Jeff saw the concern of his daughter. “Don’t worry, my child. I killed that strange feller and now, he has just plain disappeared.”

Lizzy was washing Max’s face with a wet cloth. She couldn’t see anything wrong with him. She looked pleadingly at her mother. Nancy came to where Max lay and began to strip his clothes off him. At first, Jeff was disturbed. His wife, he could understand. She was a married woman and she knew the mysteries of a man. Now, Lizzy, she was a unmarried girl; she knew nothing about men. Would it be right for her to gaze upon the unclothed body of this man?

Nancy looked at Jeff. “Women have been tending their men fallen in battle for centuries. Would you not want your own daughter to be strong and be able to stand beside her man and if he falls, she would be able to patch him up.”

Jeff thought, well if she put it that way, but he still found it easier able to think about the abstract idea, than, the reality of this applied to Lizzy. It still bothered the father in him.

Lizzy and her mother had the body of Max stripped. There were no wounds on him. There did not seem to even be any bruises to ‘mount too much. They rolled him over there was nothing on his backside so whatever happened must have been inside. Lizzy couldn’t pull her sight away from the naked body of Max. She trailed her hand down his muscular back to his tight buttocks. As she was day dreaming, her mother reached over and slapped her hand. “There will be none of that. You are to get him well first. Then you can see if he is a man who can protect a woman. Maybe, papa will consider him as a son. They didn’t have any skills or medicine to do anything about internal injuries. They commended Max’s body and soul into the hands of whatever gods he might have watching over him and Lizzy went back to cooling his body with the damp cloths.

It took two days for Max to wake up. His body had almost healed itself. The first thing he saw, was the beautiful face of the little sheepherder. He didn’t for sometime, have any recollection about what had happened to him.

[ken_r]

L-J-L 76
spacecowboy
keepsmiling7
begonia9508
cjsl8ne
mary mary

Author note: I think there was a less scientific time when people accepted more what they actually saw without having to understand it. Power blasts and green shields were no more surprising than men running around in skin tight union suits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_suit

Jeff remembers healers back home in the mountains of Spain. The history of UFOs goes back many centuries. Of course, Jeff sees Max as someone special. He is the choice of Lizzy, his daughter. There will be a time when Max and Lizzy are engaged when Jeff tells Max to get on back to the flat lands until after the marriage. Now Jeff is pretty understanding as this is the only man Lizzy had seen who is fit to maybe be a son-in-law. He allows the young people to get to know each other, to a point.


Chapter 7

As soon as Miguel saw Max raise up the shield, he went for his revolver. He was firing at the stranger, but his bullets weren’t getting there. Neither he nor Max had practiced enough with their power blast to rely on them. Hell, Miguel didn’t even think of the alien magic when he had a good Colt 45 in his hand. The first blast from the alien hurt, but it didn’t knock them over because of the shield Max had created. Miguel knew that Max was also firing his revolver. Then, the full blast of the strange man hit him. Miguel dropped his gun and flipped over in the dirt. His mind went into over drive. His alien side was about to collapse, but the human side, which had herded cattle for weeks at a time and could wield a branding iron as well as any cowpoke, wouldn’t quit. Miguel was paralyzed, but he was alive.

Hanson came out. This was his chance. Max was gone, but he had one of the Evans boys. He would book him for disturbing the peace and see if Old Man Pierce could figure out what to do with him. As Hanson and his deputies approached Miguel, Jim Valenti came out of the saloon.

Hanson was going to handcuff Miguel before taking him in. “Just a minute buddy boy,” Jim said. I will take him. He is hurt and besides if you can think of any charges to prefer, Whitman will just get them dismissed and Pierce will be mad at you, again.”

Jim bent over and hefted Miguel over his shoulders. Some one had run to find Alex and now, Jim saw him come a running.

Amy didn’t run a whore house. Several of the bar girls stayed at the Crashdown, but if they wanted to take their cowboy boyfriends to bed, they had to go to the hotel or to the crib down the street and pay for lodging, even if it was only for a few hours.

They took Miguel to one of the rooms and Amy called her daughter Maria. Amy kept Maria almost hidden most of the time. She didn’t want Maria to have anything to do with the bar. Amy wasn’t particulary ashamed about the bar. Her gambler husband, before he was killed, had won the bar with four Jacks.

Unfortunately, he had four queens a week later and one other man at the table had a queen high flush. Poor DeLuca didn’t have a chance. Five queens in a deck wasn’t healthy. Amy had, at the time, kept her daughter back east in boarding school. Now, all Amy had was the saloon, so Maria had to return home. They had much like Nancy and Jeff, so many miles away. Amy knew that Maria would need a man soon, but she preferred that Maria not get acquainted with anyone out here.

Amy couldn’t find anything wrong with Miguel. He was clearly hurt, but at the moment there wasn’t even a doctor in Roswell. All they could do was keep him clean and try to keep him cool. It was harder here because the temperature in Roswell was a lot hotter than it was in the mountains.

At first, Amy was worried at the interest Maria was showing in the unconscious young man. For Maria’s part, Amy kept her secluded way too much and this handsome wounded man was too interesting to pass up. Jim stepped in. “Amy, there ain’t many cowpokes hereby that would be worthy of your daughter. I know you want more than just a broken down saddle rider for Maria, but this here boy comes from good family.”

There weren’t many really eligible young men around. Amy wasn’t sure that Jim’s values were as high as hers, when it came to Maria. She did know that this boy was a good boy and he was hurt, so she was willing to help him.

At the Rocking E ranch, they were worried because the boys had gone to town and they should have been back long ago. Philip was ready to call his vaqueros and ride into town. Toward evening, before he could decide to take the town and county apart if necessary, a lone buggy drove up.

The young man who got out of the buggy was none other than their lawyer. When she heard him come in, Isabel was sure something had happened to her brothers. She had tried to use her message power but it was like speaking to an empty room. She hadn’t said anything to Philip, yet. Isabel knew that it would take little for the whole Rocking E to turn out as an army to protect the kids most of them had watched grow up. Isabel knew that Juan and Domingo, even though they were just a little younger than her father, Philip, could be a deadly two man army.

Put them together with many of the other men off the Rocking E and if they were truly angry, they could burn the town of Roswell to the ground. Roswell and its future would be finished before it hit its tenth birthday. It was only her ability and her father’s good sense that didn’t do it when Hanson put Miguel and Max in jail.

Alex knocked on the door. The most pleasurable thing for him, usually, was seeing the beautiful Isabel and hearing her teasing voice, but tonight he was on much more serious business. Philip heard the young man enter. He quickly came into the living room where Alex was standing. “What is wrong, Alex? Where are my boys?”

“Sir, I have a message from Jim Valenti. For the moment, stay out of town. Miguel and Max were in a gun fight. It was a lot more than a gun fight. None of us really understand anything, yet. Miguel is being taken care of by Amy, at the Crashdown. We don’t yet know what happened to Max.” Alex delivered his message.

“What the hell do you mean more than a gun fight? Either guns were involved or they weren’t. What the hell do you mean that you do not know what happened to Max? I would have staked my life that there was no shootist anywhere who could take either Miguel or Max. Were they shot in the back?” Philip was so agitated that Alex was having a hard time explaining what they knew of the activity that afternoon.

Jim had told Alex that he didn’t want to leave town with Miguel hurt and no news of Max at all. Jim had explained that Alex had to get Philip to protect the girls. That feller in them tights had said he was looking for all four of the children. Jim had no idea what was so all-fired special about them kids but one of them was hurt and one of them was missing. The way Jim thought was, “Philip should really watch them girls.”

“Sir, if I may? There is more to the message. That weird man dressed in long underwear was involved. Jim fears for your girls. He sent me here to tell you what happened and he will inform you when he knows more, but for now, the women should be protected.” With that, Alex went to the door where he had left the brand new double-barreled Greener shotgun. He was also dragging a canvas sack that was full of boxes of shotgun shells.

Philip frowned, “Son, did you ever shoot one of them things. They kick like the wrong end of a Missouri mule.”

Alex just shook his head, “No sir, but I figured that up close, the Greener would not need sharp shooting. Even I should be able to hit something close.”

Philip shook his head, “Son, just don’t you shoot at any of us. I will put a foot up your butt good, if I get hit with bird shot.”

Alex was taken back. It had taken him a lot of soul searching to even purchase a firearm. He, after all, believed in the voice of the law, not the strong arm of it.

Maria had wiped Miguel’s brow for the hundredth time. He was still hot to touch. He had began to moan. His eyes were fluttering, “Max, I need to get to Max.”

Maria put her hands on his shoulders to hold him down. It was the fever talking. “I need healing. I got to get to Max,” she heard again and again.

“He ain’t from round here. He must of come in a ship. Got to warn the Rocking E. He will be after the girls,” she heard Miguel say.

Maria leaned closed to Miguel. His breath smelled different from anything she could recognize. He was struggling against her hands, but he had no strength. “Miguel, Jim warned Mr. Evans about the stranger. We are trying to find Max. There is nothing you can do. You have to rest until you get your strength up.” Hearing her voice, Miguel finally relaxed. Either he heard her or he just wearied about fighting against her.

Maria put her hands on his shoulders to restrain him. His eyes opened wide and he stared at her. “Who are you? Where is Max? I am hurting so much, I need Max.” Then, he fell back unconscious from the pain.

Maria called out and it was Jim who came into the room. “He hurt so much. He is calling his brother and saying he needs him for the pain,” Maria said.

Jim just shook his head. He knew the Evans kids were very close. Miguel must be afraid of dying if he needed Max to be close so badly.

Jeff left the wounded body of Max to the women. He picked up a small flask of black powder and carrying his shotgun, he walked back to the cave where that strange feller had been living. He walked back into the cave. If Jeff had been a more civilized man, he might have had a heart attack when he saw the space ship. It was purring. Not doing anything else, just purring like some big ‘ole house cat. Jeff walked around the ship, he had no surprise. That feller had to get here someway and it was no more surprising that he had some sort of air ship, than the fact of who or what the feller was in the first place.

Jeff sat on a rock looking at the ship. Whoever this feller was he was after the Evans boy. If the story Jeff had heard was right, he had come especially for the two Evans boys and their sisters. Well, where there was one of these fellers, there might be more. Jeff took his flask of powder and climbed the rocks above the cave entrance. He searched around the rocks until he found a large one that was quite unstable. He carefully placed the flask under the low side of the rock and then, he put a nitrate fuse. This was a fuse, a rope he had soaked in a saltpeter solution. He lit the fuse with a sulfur match and scrambled away. There was a very loud bang and the rock slowly tipped rolling over and starting a land slide that covered the cave from any view.

When Jeff returned, he found Max with his eyes glazed over, was trying to sit up. He still couldn’t focus and he looked frankly awful. “You ain’t from round here, are you, son?” Jeff asked.

Max slowly shook his head. Actually he stopped his head and the world shook, but it was all the same.

“Well, there may be more of them fellers coming along. Wish I could get Lizzy and Nancy away from here. I have to tend the sheep, but it would be nice to get them away from this danger. I sealed up the cave that feller was living in. You know anything about a strange traveling contraption.

Max grimaced, talking was a chore, “They say we came in something like that, but we don’t remember,”

It was a week before Isabel came running into Philip’s study. She almost blurted out the fact that she could feel Max and they had communicated a little. Alex was going over some papers for Philip. Since he had his lawyer staying with him, Philip decided he should get as much out of him as possible. Isabel caught herself just in time. “Ah… Daddy could you help me move some furniture?” she asked.

Alex was quick rise, “I will be glad to help, Isabel.”

Philip’s strong hand caught him by the shoulder. “You just keep right on doing what you are best at, young feller. I will see what these women folks have need of that is so important.”

Alex was clearly disappointed, but he went back to the records and papers trying to make sense of the way these southwesterners did business. He just couldn’t see how anything could get done. Contracts were just a shake of the hand. Alex was surprised how few went back on their word. Then, he thought. These hands that shook in affirmation were the hands that rested right over the butts of Colt 45s. That made people a lot more responsible.

As soon as she got Philip out of the room where Alex was, Isabel excitedly spoke, “Daddy, I was able to talk to Max. He is in the mountains and he is with the sheepherder. He says that the man in long johns was the one who took him. The sheepherder killed the strange man. Max says that the sheepherder is worried that more of those men will come back once they sense that this man was killed.”

Philip understood this. It was what he had Alex working on, that confused him. Philip was worried. Jim said that the strange man wanted all four kids. Philip was anxious to get Max and Miguel back where they could all protect each other. Now there was the problem of the sheepherder. Philip felt that if he saved Max, the Rocking E owed him. Philip just yet hadn’t thought of how to pay him back. Philip was also concerned about Miguel. He was being cared for by that, Amy DeLuca woman. Philip hoped that didn’t get her into trouble with sheriff Hanson. It was just natural for Philip to wonder, with all that was happening, was ole’ man Pierce involved in any way? Philip had just gotten in the habit of blaming any and everything on the crotchety old man including the fact that one of their milk cows had just gone dry.

Maria, when taking food to her charge, would sit with him. First she told Miguel about her school in the east. She never mentioned her father. It was well known of his attempt at cheating which led to his death. Miguel got the idea that Maria didn’t really know much about him.

After talking to her a while, Miguel thought that, maybe, he wasn’t her real father, anyway. He could identify with that but there was no way he could relay to her their thoughts about their real parents that were in common. Miguel did tell her he was adopted, but where he came from, he left moot and she didn’t pry.

Maybe it was because she didn’t want to reply into his questions about her origins either. That was a topic, they left untouched. Miguel listened to her regaling him about the east. He thought that to be that crowded, must be awful. He had just been so free all of his life. His only bound was the rules of ethics he received from the Rocking E about how you were supposed to treat others.

He didn’t really understand her prattle about beautiful clothes. Hell, he had wanted a calf skin jacket and sometime when they had a calf that had to be slaughtered he, Miguel was going to have one.

Maria told of the parties. How beautiful the people were. She talked about the conversations she’d had with people from Europe. Well, he had gone to a fiesta once at the Gutierrez hacienda. Philip had been selling and trading with the Señor for several years. The youngest girl was having her Quinceañero, or coming out party, at fifteen, which meant she was now a woman. Miguel and the rest had enjoyed seeing everyone and Miguel had learned to dance with the señorita. He later had had a few dreams of seeing her again, but later he heard she had married a man of influence from Mexico. Miguel had to admit that the señoritas and their clothes were mighty pretty. That must have been what Maria was talking about. Miguel had met the man from Mexico who later married the young lady. He was a foreigner just like those that Maria was talking about. He was no way, like those in the families of Tio Juan or Tio Domingo. They were working men and families. This man, who won the señorita, was a fop.

Miguel told her about the time Philip had taken the two boys to an Apache camp. He had talked for a long time to one of the leaders about trying to rid them of a bad Indian agent. Miguel tried to get her to see that these proud men were asking for help and that was so foreign to them. He also told of visiting a Comanche war camp. Philip was trading for some horses and he had built up a trust among the tribes. Again, Miguel was trying to tell her of his admiration for these men who were still trying to live life on their own terms.

What they both got out of these mutually non understandable conversations was companionship. Maria was not permitted to associate with the patrons of the bar and Miguel just didn’t have anyone that wasn’t family to talk to. Amy had to be reminded again, by Jim, that Miguel was of a good family and if anything did get started he would make an admirable son-in-law.

The one thing Miguel would have liked to tell Maria was the loneliness he felt being from a place not of this Earth.

[ken_r]

cjsl8ne
begonia9508
mary mary
L-J-L 76
keepsmiling7


Chapter 8

Hanson was allowed to buy beer in the Crashdown, but he had to pay for it. That galled him as the other saloons gave him drinks on the house. He still had to come by frequently. First, he knew that if he wasn’t off working somewhere, Jim Valenti could be found there. Hanson was a believer of keeping his eye on competitors. Secondly, Hanson wanted to know about the condition of Miguel. The doctor had returned to Roswell, but Amy hadn’t called upon his services. Back in his mind, Hanson, worried about that other Evans boy, Max. What had happened to him? Where was that funny fellow in the long johns?

While Miguel was healing under his own power, Max was still in the sheep camp. He still was weak. Taking direct hits from alien-wielded power had taken a tremendous toll from him. Lizzy had been way too young to remember much before they left Spain. Her earliest memories were of the Englishman and the fact that he hired her father to run his sheep. “Why do the cattlemen hate sheep so much?” she asked.

“I do not know, Lizzy, sheep and cows just don’t seem to be able to share the same range very well. Some say that the sheep and their sharp hooves cut the grass at the root and that kills the range.

Others say that it is because there are so many sheep in a flock, that they graze the grass so short it dies. It is probably, just like with people, sheep and cows don’t like each other very much. Those who care for them seem not to like each other very much either,” Max explained.

“What about you Max? Do you like sheep and sheepherders?” she teased.

Max had been leaning against a tree. He sat up, “No, Lizzy, I wasn’t raised to like sheep. I do not fully understand sheepherders, but I was also raised to respect others who are different from me and my way of life.”

“Are you so different from me, Max?” she so wistfully asked.

“Lizzy, you have no idea of how different I am,” Max wished he could tell her about himself. Well, maybe, he could, someday. Her father, Jeff, seemed to understand that Max was different.

Nancy was watching the young people as she did her chores. She had allowed Lizzy to slack off many of the chores she usually did. Nancy knew that Lizzy would need to meet other young people to someday soon, find a husband. She worried. In Spain, the gentry who owned everything looked down on working people and especially, the Basque people.

The Englishman, Parker, had only looked at the skill he saw in Jeff when he hired him. Nancy knew that Max was from the Rocking E ranch and would he look upon Lizzy with serious intention or would he use his station to use her for his pleasure and then abandon her for others of his proper rank. She knew that Jeff had a lot of admiration for Max, but she wasn’t sure the reason for this.

Jeff and Max had had several private talks. Jeff was worried that more of those strange fellows would come back. Max didn’t really know what to do about them. He really didn’t understand why these strangers wanted the four children, now almost grown up, in the first place. Jeff was adamant about his duty to protect the sheep, but he asked Max if he could send Lizzy and Nancy to the Rocking E if the stranger came back.

Max was sure his family wouldn’t turn anyone in need, away from their hospitality. He, also, owed Jeff and his family a great deal for rescuing him and for helping him heal. Then, there was the beautiful Lizzy. Max was beginning to believe he was in love. Now that he was well enough to be contacted by Isabel, Max felt that he should leave for the ranch as soon as possible.

The problem was that Jeff didn’t have any spare animals to loan Max, so Max would have to hike home. Max didn’t tell him that as soon as Max was clear of the mountain, someone from the Rocking E would meet him with a mount and he would ride home like a proper cowman.

The day Max left for his ranch was a sad day for Lizzy. She wanted nothing more than to give him her heart and only hoped the wanted to give her his, also. At the last minute when he had shouldered the pack that Jeff had loaned him, Lizzy had kissed him. Then, she promptly ran away. Max looked concerned. This prompted a comment from Jeff, “Max, you know women.”

No Max knew almost nothing about women. He knew a little about Isabel and Teresa because when they were young, they all shared their minds together. But, as they got older, Max could sense that the girls were becoming more private. No, Max knew nothing about women. He had to return to the ranch as soon as possible. Max understood gun fighting and cows.

It was a few days later that Miguel bid a tearful Maria good bye and he took the wagon he and Max had been driving and returned. After he left, Amy went in to talk to Maria, “Is there anything I should know about, Maria.”

“No, mom, it was just so nice to have someone understanding to talk to. Do you think he will come back?” she asked her mother.

“I can’t tell, Maria. My experience with men would tell you no. Once gone, always gone, but Jim keeps telling me the Evans are a different kind of people. We will just have to wait and see.” Amy so wished she could bring her daughter hope, but as she aged, she had also had so many bad experiences that she felt jaded when talking about the reliability of men.

Hanson was relieved to rid his town of the Evans kid. All the time that Miguel was there, Hanson was terrified of hearing that Philip and his Mexican boys were on their way to burn the town. Even though Hanson had no intention of being a hero, he believed that Philip would look him up and take retribution. Hanson had to see Ole’ man Pierce as soon as possible.

Alex had returned to Roswell, as war no longer seemed imminent. This left the household freer to discuss the past events. Juan and Domingo were included in this discussion as they had as much to do with the raising and lives of the four children from the sky as did Philip. Max told what he had learned from Jeff. They all raised their eyebrows at the mention of him being in a sheep camp so long. They all felt that it was trying for a cattleman to endure that punishment.

Of course, Juan then mentioned the young lady and they all smiled including the two girls. Max had a lady friend. There were so few occasions for young people to meet others that this was considered serious, even though it was also a time for teasing. Max mentioned a certain lawyer that hung around cadging meals a lot more than seemed necessary for a man employed by Philip.

Miguel was almost afraid to bring up his adventure. His news was a lot less timely than that of Max, but he did leak just enough information for the family to start looking at him with playful smiles.

Juan was not as attentive as he usually was. The description of the death of the strange fellow and the way he was dressed was bringing memories from very long ago, stories he had heard as a child. He remembered one story about a man from the stars. He lived at a village. He was very demanding of the villagers, despoiling their women and insisting they give him precious stones that were found in that region. One night, when the stranger was sleeping alone, the villagers gathered together and each taking up a stone, they pelted the stranger until he expired and he just turned into dust and blew away. It had been a long time since Juan had thought of that story.

When he had seen the ship so long ago just melt to dust, he should have remembered, but Juan had been a practical man for too many years. It was their fear for the four children that shook his memory.

Philip reminded all of them how little they really knew about the origins of the four children, now, almost grown up. Max had told them that Jeff seemed to know a lot more about them than anyone else. This precipitated within Philip’s mind that he ought to take a ride in the mountains soon.

The ranch settled down for a while. Max was busy with checking the fences. He was gone for several days at a time. He took the two oldest boys of the vaqueros, Bernaldo and Richardo. Miguel managed to make a couple of trips to pick up orders for Philip and he always turned these trips into time to stop and see Maria. Pauley Pierce had noticed Maria. She had been hidden by her mother, so he hardly knew of her presence, but with Miguel’s attention to the Crashdown, he made it his business to discover her.

Philip decided it was time to visit Jeff and his family in the mountains. He started out intending to go alone. The fear of Diane for him to go off alone was mollified by the fact that Juan and Domingo notified him they wanted to see the man allegedly from Spain who spoke a language other than Spanish. The fact that they had as much love invested in Max as Philip did and the fact that Philip knew that he was getting to old for this trip, modified his decision and they all three left early one morning.

The ride through the forest was different for these three men than it had been for Max. As Max had mentioned to himself, with his dad and the two vaqueros, the conversation was always the condition of graze, was there water and was there any places where you could get the cows to stay?

They rode slowly and none of these men were spring chickens born yesterday. In fact, they had all three seen to many yesterdays. It was two days before they were in the high country where evidence of sheep could be found. They had been detected, by Jeff, a long time before they approached the small wagon parked at the side of a meadow. There was no one around. They dismounted and tied their horses to near by trees and the three men took out their meal of posole (a boiled parched corn) and tortillas. As they sat and waited, it was first Juan who, with hand signals, noted that someone was coming.

Philip nodded for them to just wait. He noticed that both men had moved so their serapes had fallen to cover their gun hands and holsters. There was a noise from the side. Philip had to smile because since he was facing the Vaqueros, it was only he who would be able to get his pistol in action quickly if needed. Philip didn’t move. A tall man walked out to the shadows. He was carrying a double-barreled shotgun and Philip could see that the two hammers were cocked. In accented English he said, “What is the business of you men at a sheep camp?”

Philip stated, “We are here to talk to a friend. We just hope this friend doesn’t shoot us before we get to talk.”

Philip heard a chuckle. “Just tell me, Señors, why should I think you had any friends at a sheep camp? Your boots are green from cow dung. You are cowmen, aren’t you?”

Philip had to smile at this, “True, we are cowmen, but my son said you would even tolerate a cowman, if he was polite and peaceful.”

“And who, pray tell, is this son who speaks so freely about my tolerance?” the tall man said.

Philip stood up. He carefully kept his hands completely away from his pistol. “I am Philip Evans of the Rocking E and these men are Señor Chavez and Señor Alvarez. They are also part of the Rocking E.”

With this, Jeff lowered the sights of his shotgun. Philip noticed he still hadn’t lowered the hammers to half cock for safety. “Your son would be Max? A man who saved my daughter and also a boy who was captured by the strange man?” Then Juan and Domingo removed their hands from beneath their serapes and taking the pull over garments off, they draped them over their saddles.

Jeff made a signal with his hands and two women came from out of the bushes. The older one was obviously Jeff’s wife and the younger, Philip was sure, was the girl in his son’s heart.

Jeff said something to Juan and Domingo, “Yes, I speak Spanish and English also. My native language is very difficult to learn so these two languages we use to talk to outsiders.”

Philip chuckled and said, “There might be another language that your daughter and my son would someday explore to converse different from any of our talks.”

Jeff had to smile, the tall cowman seemed to be satisfied that Max was interested in Lizzy. He still wondered what these three men had come to talk about.

Lizzy and Nancy were bringing cups of steaming hot coffee, and bowls of something. “Will a cowman eat Mutton stew or will it choke in his throat?” Jeff asked.

Philip took a spoonful of the stew, “Mighty tastey ma’am, but if you threw in a handful of jalapeños, it would be even better.”

For the first time, Jeff relaxed. Philip had just said he liked the traditional food of a sheepman, but to season it with the peppers of the southwest it would be even better. If Jeff wasn’t wrong Philip had said he approved of Max courting his daughter, Lizzy, and he would approve it even more when the two cultures were mixed when Max and Lizzy had a family of their own.

They talked about sheep graze, cattle conditions, the weather and water. These were all things ranchers had in common whether they be for sheep or cows.

Jeff asked where Max and the others Max had talked about came from. This was the first time that the three men, Juan, Domingo and Philip had talked about that night so long ago. Jeff seemed to know of people from the sky. He described the strange man and his stranger ship. He told of burying it under part of the mountain. The three cattlemen learned a lot about their adopted children that day. He expressed his concern that more of them might come. He told stories of these men having tremendous power and magic. Again he asked if they returned, could he send Nancy and Lizzy to the Rocking E for safety. Philip and the rest would never turn anyone away who was in trouble, especially women. Philip again told Jeff that he suspected that Max was developing a real interest in Lizzy.

After supper, They ate Mutton stew again, but this time with some peppers thrown in. They weren’t jalapenos but rather some other sort of pepper. They made the stew more flavoraful and the three cowmen ate every bit of it. Jeff was so glad about his wife. She was so able to arise to the occasion of the challenge of the cowmen. The three man went about fifty yards around the rim of the meadow to give the Shepard family privacy and they laid out their soogans or bedrolls. It was well after midnight when Philip awaken. He saw in the dim light that Juan and Domingo were already up looking across the meadow at something Philip couldn’t see. The barking of the sheep dog had changed from the bark of just watching the sheep to warning of something that the dog had no way to handle.

Philip strapped on his holster and took his spare pistol from under his bedroll. If he had been younger, he would have slept in the holstered pistol, but old bones need pampering and the bump of a holster under you all night didn’t help a sore back. There were shadows coming around the meadow. Juan pointed and Philip saw that two shadows would approach very near where they were standing. He nodded and Juan and Domingo just melted into the brush. There was a “klunk” and soon the two men returned, dragging the men they were seeking. In the faint light, Philip was sure these men were employees of ole’ man Pierce. He went to his saddle which was still by his bedroll and brought two pigging strings. It was the act of a minute when the two men were tied up like calves for branding. Juan leaned to Philip, “If we just had time, we could build a branding fire and using a pocket knife, we could brand them and geld them to be turned loose. Would they be able to cause any more trouble if they, like calves in the herd, no longer had balls to do anything?”

Philip smiled. He guessed Juan was joking, but he really didn’t know. The three men now had to concentrate on the men collecting in front of the wagon.

[ken_r]

L-J-L 76
cjsl8ne
mary mary
begonia9508
keepsmiling7



Chapter 9

A voice, it sounded a like Pauley, called out. “Come out, sheep man! We intend to burn your sheep and we will burn you, also, if you don’t get out here.”

Philip and his men were now close enough to hear someone say, “Come on Pauley, let’s us just start killing the sheep. I didn’t sign on for murder, even if it is a sheep man and his family.”

Pauly angrily answered, “I want that girl. She is responsible for me getting scared by that Evans bitch. I am going to play with her all night and when I am through, there won’t be anything left of her.”

At the word Bitch, all three cattlemen bristled. That stupid bastard Pauley just wanted to commit suicide. He had again insulted the daughter of the Rocking E. Although he didn’t know it, his words were given in the presence of her adopted father and uncles.

Philip was sure that no one was in the wagon. One of the men took a torch and Philip could smell the kerosene. Stupid bastards were going to start a fire in the forest as dry as it was. When the torch was lit, Philip shot the asshole. He fell on his torch and was screaming, as the kerosene soaked his clothes and he was engulfed in flames.

Juan shouted, “Pauley, don’t you ever speak that way about Isabel. And he shot, but Pauley’s horse jumped and he hit Pauley in the leg instead of the head where he was aiming. There was a “blam,blam” from his shotgun showing that Jeff, indeed, was out of the wagon. Two more men went down. Philip shot another who fell into the fire that was already started. The men began to gather about Pauley and, of course, he prepared to run.

What the hell was Evans doing with these people, anyway. They all made a run for Roswell. Philip and his vaqueros couldn’t give chase because they had a fire to put out. Everyone would loose if a major fire broke out. Nancy and Lizzy were fighting right along side of the men. And soon, the fire was under control before it really got away.

All total, eight men had been laid out.

Pauley and his men road all night and by daylight they were all worn out. They took a breather near a cattle tank, an artificial lake to hold water. The men looked to Pauley. He was in trouble, not for trying to burn out the sheepherder. His father would have been proud of that. Pauley had again, failed at something. Ole’ man Pierce didn’t tolerate failure in others. Of course, the failures he had against the Rocking E, he convienently forgot.

As soon as they had rested, most of the men went back to the Pierce ranch. Pauley had gotten them into enough trouble for one night. Pauley with the pain in his leg, was almost insane. He had lost the sheepherder girl, but there was that other girl, the daughter of the whore who ran the Crashdown. Pauley was sure the Evans man she was tending had left and that left only her mother and herself. Pauley had no knowledge of the bartender José, who slept behind the bar.

Pauley crept up to the windows in the back. Looking in one window, he saw the figure of Amy, with the covers thrown back and her gown pulled halfway up her thighs as she tried to sleep in the heat of the night. After a time of appreciation he, moved on to another window. There, he saw the figure of the young girl, Maria. She likewise was lying on the bed without covers and her gown in disarray as she tried to find sleep in the heat.

Pauley carefully crept into the room. He had his pigging string, It was a wonder why he carried one as he was not cut out to do labor at the ranch. He quickly grabbed Maria and forced a rag in her mouth. She was fighting him all the way. He bound her arms behind her back. Then, he forced her legs back up like he had seen the cowboys at the ranch do a calf. He stumbled against a chair. It made a terrible noise in the quiet of the night. He was dragging her to the window when he heard someone at the door. Pauley dropped Maria and stepped beside the door. When Amy stepped into the room, she spied Maria and she gave a cry, but there was another thunk and Amy was laid out on the floor.

Pauley didn’t want to wait for anyone else so he hurried to carry Maria through the window. Then, he cut the rope that bound her legs behind her and he threw her still bound hand and foot, over his saddle. He quickly rode off.

José heard the small scream from Amy. He ran to her quarters and saw that the door to Maria’s room was open also. Inspecting Maria’s room he found Amy unconscious, but still alive. First thing, he called Hanson. That was a waste. Hanson arrived almost an hour later and yawning, stated there was nothing he could do tonight. Call him in the morning.

José went into the back room. There was a orphan boy who slept there cleaning the room and the bar for room and board. José gave him a dollar and pointed to one of Amy’s horses in the corral. “Ride to the Rocking E; tell them what happened.” The boy hadn’t ever had a dollar before, so he quickly saddled the horse and left.

Jim was out of town on one of these times doing something to earn a few dollars to keep him going for a bit longer. José just hoped that someone from the Rocking E could come.

When the boy rode into the courtyard of the Rocking E, Miguel was about the only man home. Max was out riding and repairing fences. Philip and the two vaqueros were still in the mountains and there might have been a couple of cowboys in the bunkhouse across the yard. “Señor Miguel, some one has hurt Señora Amy and stolen her daughter. Señor Jim is out of town. Can you help us?” the boy pleaded.

That morning talking to Hanson showed how really stupid he was. He clearly had no idea of what to do. José told Amy that he had sent for help from the Rocking E. She hoped they would come soon.

As if that wasn’t enough, a man of medium height came in the bar. “I am looking for Jim Valenti,” he announced. Amy took one look and thought could things get any worse? The man was wearing black wool pants and a black broadcloth shirt. His boots were clearly expensive and looking through the front window, she could see his horse was a thoroughbred and his saddle had enough silver to please a vaquero. All Amy could think of was he was a professional gunfighter. She knew that Jim did some dangerous things from time to time and that meant he could be upsetting someone. This man must be sent to seek revenge. The man nodded and said his name was Kyle. “Jim isn’t around and I don’t know when he will be back.” Amy had enough on her plate, now, someone wanted to kill the man she was beginning to think she had a future with.

Kyle nodded his thanks and, accepting a beer from the bar keep, he threw a gold double eagle on the bar. “Just tell me when this is used up.” With that he went to a corner and with his back to the wall like a typical gunfighter, he sat watching. Except for trips to the outhouse, from time to time, that is all he did. The would-be gambler of Roswell tried to get him into a card game. Kyle took the man’s deck of cards and without looking at them at all, he dealt them calling out each suit and value as he did. He laughed. “I don’t think you would want to play cards with me.”

Hanson heard about Kyle. He came in to roust him. Kyle just laughed. “I am ten years younger than you and I was in cattle wars down in Texas before your mammy let you go out at night.”

The yellow streak in Hanson glowed bright and he quickly went to talk to Amy about Maria. About that time Miguel arrived. The first thing Hanson said was, “Evans, we don’t need your kind, here I am in charge and I will handle the investigation.”

“Miguel just growled. “Hanson get out of my way before I take that badge away from you and cram it so far up your butt that the pin will be tickling your throat.” Then, Miguel turned his back on Hanson and started talking to Amy.

Hanson saw his chance and he took it. That, almost cost him his manhood. As he saw Miguel turn, he reached for a whisky bottle. It was descending toward Miguel’s head when it registered that Miguel no longer had his back to him. Miguel was facing Hanson and his second pistol was pointed right at Hanson’s groin. “Lower that bottle another inch and say good bye to ever going back to any whore house. If you want to help why don’t you go roust that “Mastah” of yours and see if he or his no account son aren’t behind this?” Miguel made the word “Mastah” have the most derogatory sound in the English language.

Kyle was playing with the deck of cards he had taken from the would-be gambler. He laughed when he saw how easy Miguel handled the sheriff.

Miguel spun, “Who are you, mister?”

Kyle just as calm as could be said, “What’s it to you? I see you have five aces in your holster not counting that thing you have stuck in the back of your belt. Draw if you’re feeling lucky.”

Miguel frowned, “Do you have anything to do with the girl being kidnapped?”

Kyle now frowned, “I don’t have to pay for it or steal it. I ain’t got no use for anyone who would kidnap a girl.”

Amy had no time for these macho quips, “Miguel, she was taken from her room last night. Please, see if you can find her.”

Miguel left the bar and was walking down the street where he left his horse. He heard a horse riding up beside him. Looking up, he saw the gunfighter. “Look, if you can use some company, I still ain’t got no use for a man who would steal a woman. I have some time to spare. Can I come along?” Kyle asked.

Miguel, just shrugged. He didn’t kid himself. He was good, but he had no idea what he was getting into. Miguel would have preferred to have Max or Philip or the vaqueros with him. They were known people, but he didn’t have them, so he looked at the gunfighter as welcomed help.

As they came to his horse that he had tied in front of the store, Miguel said, “Look, I have to step out back. I will be just a minute.”

Kyle couldn’t understand why Miguel would go to a smelly outhouse in town when in just at few minutes, they would be out of town. Squatting behind a sage had to be better than sitting in that stench of a public out house.

As soon as Miguel felt the door close behind him. He gasped, “Isabel, give me some information. I can’t take it here very long.”

He felt Isabel inside his head, she was wrinkling up her nose at the sensation she was receiving from Miguel. “Maria is being held in a cabin just a short way toward the mountains. It is Pauley. Miguel, be careful. Pauley is now crazy. I am getting several things about him. Something about shooting the little sheepherder and trying to shoot daddy. There is something about hoping that Max and you do not make it from the shooting last week. It is all messed up and he is going to do terrible things to Maria.”

It is good she was fast with her information because Miguel could not hold his breath much longer. When he got back to Kyle, Kyle inquired where they should look first.

“Just follow me, I know right where she is being held.” Miguel replied.

Kyle whistled, “Wow, one dump and you have all the answers?”

Miguel just smirked, “Some of us use different parts of our bodies to think with. That is all.”

Kyle was laughing. He didn’t know what was happening, but he liked this man. By his stance, he had already figured that Miguel could probably hold up his part in any gunfight.

It was almost dusk when they rode up near a small cabin. Kyle looked at Miguel. “What now, o’ great one?”

“Well, we sneak up to the door and I kick it in. If Pauley has hurt Maria, I quit firing when I run out of cartridges,” Miguel explained.

“Okay, you lead. I don’t know Maria nor do I know Pauley. With my luck I would shoot some poor lady giving her husband his due,” Kyle stated.

Miguel stood before the door. All the strength built up from the hard work, along with a bit of alien magic as his father would say, went into the kick. The door flew off its hinges. In front of him, he saw a bed and tied to the bed he saw Maria. Her arms and legs were all tied to separate bed post. Pauley was standing before her with his pants off. He hadn’t bothered taking off his shirt. He was in the act of climbing onto the bed to assault her. Miguel let fly with a shot. It caught Pauley in his left arm. The shock of seeing Maria so abused had thrown Miguel’s aim off. Pauley jumped for the revolver he had placed on the night stand. It looked as if Pauley was intending to kill her when he had had his way. Pauley let fly at Miguel and Miguel got off another shot catching Pauley is the side. Pauley, with almost feral luck, jumped through the window. Miguel started to turn and head outside to give chase when he saw Kyle. The bullet had missed Miguel, but it had caught Kyle in the chest.

Kyle slumped as Miguel caught him. “I killed my first man at 12. He was a lumberjack, tried to move in on my family and he was a big son-of-a-bitch. Now, I am going to die from a piss ant like Pauley. I have killed a lot of men in my life time and most of them were facing me. Now, a pantless asshole takes me out with a lucky shot.”

Kyle was slipping fast. Miguel thought hard, “Isabel, I need help.”

It was a moment when in his mind a voice said. “What has happened Miguel?”

“I am with a man. He helped me find Maria. He caught a lucky shot from Pauley. I need to know what to do.” Miguel was pleading for help. He was sure he had some of the power that Max had to heal, but he had never tried.

“Miguel, take the person’s head. Look into his eyes and imagine the wound,” her voice said to him.

Miguel thought long and hard. Finally, looking into Kyles eyes he saw the line the bullet had taken through his lungs. Yes, Kyle was going to die if Miguel didn’t figure how to do what he had seen Max do so simply.

“Now, follow the wound until you find the bullet. Did it go through?” the voice asked in his mind. “If it did, look for an exit wound. If the bullet is not in the body, it will be easier but you must hurry. Retreat from where you are in the wound. As you go, imagine the bleeding stopping. Dissolve the spilt blood. Work your way back and finally, close the wound.” Miguel was almost exhausted from the ordeal. Kyle was now resting quietly.

Now, Miguel allowed Kyle to slump to the floor and he attended Maria. When released, he helped her find something to cover herself with. He had a serape on his saddle and he would get that in a few minutes. She was sobbing as she held on to him. She was trying to tell him in an incoherent way about her ordeal. Miguel just let her babble. She needed to get it all out, but he didn’t need to hear it. In fact, she would probably appreciate it if he didn’t retain all of what she was saying later when she had pulled herself together. Miguel picked up Kyle and placed him on the bed.

Maria was shocked when she looked at Kyle lying there with blood all over his shirt and coat. She looked at his bare chest and saw redness, but no bullet wound. She looked at Miguel and he just shrugged. “I wasn’t sure I could do it,” was all he would say.

It was late and Kyle was still weak. They would try to make it back to Roswell tomorrow. Miguel did think to give Isabel his thanks. She had helped him find Maria and also, to heal Kyle.

The next morning, “What the hell happened to me last night?” Kyle asked.

Miguel just said, “you got shot.”

Kyle unbuttoned his shirt and looked at his chest. It was tender right over his lung. He shouldn’t have survived that event. He remembered the sight of a man with out his pants and the lovely lady tied to the bed. “I assume this is the lady we were trying to rescue,” Kyle said with all of his charm.

Maria smiled with a slight embarrassment since he must have seen her in such a compromising position along with Miguel.

Then, Kyle turned to Miguel and asked, “What did you do?”

Miguel just shrugged. “My sister led me and we healed you. I am not very good at that, but I guess I was good enough. You are alive.”

Kyle looked around. “Sister, was she here?”

Miguel wished he could think up more clever answers. “In a manner of speaking, she was here. What counts is that you are healed.”

Kyle had a lot to think about. He needed to see Jim. Kyle had received a letter promising him a lot of money to come to Roswell. It was signed Pierce. He wanted to know more before he took the job. His relationship with Jim would help him decide.