Fire Wind (8 page)

“You pathetic man! I will feast on your
impudence!” The reptilian creature roared out at me.

I drew my gun, but its long tail whipped out
and wrapped around my wrist and tugged me forward toward the
recently elongated jaw full of teeth. Hiking my knee up I pulled
the boot knife free and jammed it through the thick scales of the
tail gripping my arm and the reptilian screamed.

The hold of the tail released and whipped
away with my knife still embedded. As the reptilian grasped at the
knife still lodged in its tail I spun close and punched straight
into her throat.

Her reptilian eyes pulsed with fear and I
ripped the small bladed knife in my fist to the side and severed
her throat wide open. The creature fell forward gagging, as I
stepped to the side.

Stooping down I picked up my gun from where
it had fallen and coolly emptied all six shots into the back of the
reptilian’s head and the body that had already begun to regenerate
new tissue to repair what I had severed. The six shots were too
much though and it slumped out to lay immobile upon the floor.

Leaning back against the corner of a table I
thumbed new shells into my gun idly as the room watched on in
paralyzed shock. My voice carried well throughout the room as I
said, “I know how strange this must all seem to you. Truly I do,
but the fact remains that now faced with the reality of what you
now know what are you going to do? As I see it you have three
options. You can leave this town as fast as possible and take up a
life elsewhere and pretend this never happened, but you would only
be deluding yourself though because the darkness you see before you
exists everywhere and one can never run from the darkness of one’s
own soul. The second option would be to stay here and pretend that
nothing is different. That false utopia will soon be impossible to
play along with, because all hell is about to break loose. That
ladies and gentlemen leaves us with option three. Option three sees
you all heading over to the church to plead for the redemption of
your immortal souls. Whether you leave or stay in town after that I
don’t care. Take my words to heart friends and get right with your
Maker or………” I kicked the green pile of scales before me and
continued, “or you could be spending eternity with the likes of
these monsters.”

People flocked for the double doors like a
parched herd of cattle stampeding for water.

Angus and Pastor Lonigan both wore huge
grins, as they turned to shepherd the bunch on over to the church,
which had likely never been filled to such capacity before. Before
I knew it I was alone within the bar that had been the setting for
many a man’s fall from grace.

Going to the bar I picked up a bottle of
whiskey. I stared at it for a moment in contemplation.

Never again! Turning I smashed it into the
bar. The amber liquid spilled out everywhere and I walked for the
double doors as I left the stains of the past behind.

I had a strong temptation to set fire to the
place, but it would accomplish nothing other than to likely catch
the whole town on fire. The choice to not frequent such places and
the delights they offered came from within rather from the physical
absence of such places.

Where there’s a will there’s often a way of
accomplishing it. The same is true whether people are rebelling or
doing that which is right.

I walked out the double doors and saw that
most everybody was at the church. It had to be standing room only
in there. Behold the power of prayer. Nodding I walked down the
boardwalk my boot heels echoing with the noise of my passage.

The war wasn’t over by far, but a victory had
been attained. Now that victory would need to be pushed beyond the
borders of the town.

How to achieve that I wasn’t sure, but I
prayed that it would even be so. In pride I walked down the street
of my town.

It was dark and yet I felt an urging to
awaken. Looking up I saw the crate that the lantern was sitting on
begin to shake slightly.

I came to full awareness then and I bailed
off the cot and out of the cell, only taking the time to grab up my
boots and my gun belt. I didn’t bother with the jailhouse door and
it’s multitude of locks. Instead I exploded through the glass panes
of the window to land on the boardwalk outside.

I rolled on toward the street and fell into
the dust as the jailhouse exploded into a fireball behind me. Heat
scorched over top of me and I covered my ears with my hands as the
flames burned unabated.

I crawled forward and then someone was
helping me up. It was Edgar and I took his hand and got up.

I made it across the street and sat down to
put my boots on. Looking up it was to see that the jail was gone. A
virtual crater was in its place.

Thankfully no other buildings had caught on
fire and the burning boardwalk was even now being brought under
control by others who’d been roused by the explosion in the night.
Edgar handed me my gun belt and I strapped it on as I stood up.

I had blood on my face and arms from where
they’d gotten cut up by the glass. In a bit of a dazed shock I
looked at the evidence of what would’ve been my demise if I hadn’t
heeded the sudden urging to come to alertness.

Glancing off to the side at the crowd that
had gathered in the early morning gloom I noticed the old indian
watching me. I nodded and he smiled before disappearing.

He’d saved my life again. I looked around and
in sudden horror I saw that the fire before me wasn’t the only one
in town!

“Oh no!” I exclaimed and took off running
towards the Pastor’s house at the edge of town.

Reaching the burning blaze I saw that it was
a mirror image of the jail in terms of the crater in the ground
with just bits of splintered pieces of wood smoldering about on the
ground. There were no words to be said by the silent throng of
people ringing the debris of all that remained of a good man.

Angered at the attack in the night I turned
away only to see a man approaching from the church out of the gloom
of early morning.

“Pastor Lonigan!” I exclaimed rushing
forward.

He gripped a hold of me firmly, “I’m glad
you’re okay Taran! I had the urge to pray and I thought they might
try to do another sacrifice in front of the church so I went to
pray at the church late last night.”

“Thank God!” I breathed out, as I turned to
glance at the crater and what little remained of the Pastor’s
house.

“Indeed.” The Pastor commented dryly.

Gripping my arm then he pulled me away from
the others and said, “I saw it all Taran. A spinning orb of light
came out of the desert and hovered over the town. It pulsed what
looked like a solid beam of lightning into the jail and then it
swiveled to take out my house. I was praying in the church’s
steeple up by the bell and I had a good view. It spun away and
headed off in that direction.” He said pointing to the south.
Before continuing with, “You can’t see it from here, because of
that rise of the land, but up in the steeple I saw the craft fly up
a canyon and I’m positive that it is still there. The canyon I
speak of can’t be much more than a mile from here.”

I patted him on the shoulder, “You did good!
I’m going to go investigate, but you should try to get some rest.”
I said before hurrying off to the stable yard.

*****

I had my horse about half saddled, when
another rider pulled up beside me. It was Edgar. I gave him a
curious look and he said, “I heard you and the Pastor. I would like
to come along and see for myself.”

“You know we might not come back, right?”

Edgar nodded.

I shrugged and said no more. Mounting up we
took out of the town as the sun began to make its way over the
horizon. The beauty of the sunrise was lost on me though as my mind
was full of the complications of how to combat such an advanced
foe.

I felt reasonably confident of not being
discovered as the creatures seemed to prefer the darkness of night
to move out and about in rather than broad daylight.

Reaching the canyon I pulled up and Edgar
followed suit. Daylight or not I didn’t feel comfortable riding up
the narrow canyon.

“Let’s circle around and find a way up this
mesa so we can ride along the rim of the canyon.”

Edgar nodded and we backtracked. He led off
to the right and I followed him figuring that he knew a way to get
up onto the mesa that the canyon cut down through.

*****

Easing forward on our bellies we inched
closer and closer to the edge of the canyon rim. The deep hum we’d
been hearing for several moments only intensified the closer we got
to the edge.

Reaching the edge, both of us now hatless, we
peered over. Daylight revealed the metallic surfaces of the object
that had been somehow cloaked from view that night at the
enclosure.

I thought it had spun and perhaps it had, but
right now it remained motionless as it hovered just above the
ground. The question of how to defeat it was on both our minds.

We both drew back from the edge keeping our
heads down. Edgar put it best, “It’s like a buzzard floating on the
breeze.”

I nodded thinking. The concepts at play with
the technology below us was far beyond me. Staring at the blue sky
overhead I prayed for help.

A shadow crossed over me and in alarm I
blinked and made to run for it, but I relaxed at the sight of a
buzzard coasting by. True to Edgar’s words it did seem to just hang
in the air. What if the ship below operated on the same principle,
at least partly?

“What makes air thinner? You know, less
buoyant.” I asked thoughtfully.

“Gas.” Edgar replied.

I glanced at him. I knew he was an educated
man and his answer piqued my curiosity, “Gas?”

He nodded and then hesitatingly he said, “At
least I think so.”

“Explain.”

“Well back East I saw this experiment done. I
was thinking of becoming an engineer before I chose to be a doctor
and I took some extra classes. Ships aren’t just built willy-nilly.
There are mathematical formulas that go into the making of them or
they wouldn’t float or move about right. They might even break
apart or…….”

“Alright alright I get it! Get to the point!”
I said in a harsh whisper brought on by the dire grimness of the
situation.

Edgar sighed and said gesturing upward,
“Imagine the sky above was all water with that cloud up there being
a ship floating on the surface. Well I saw this professor release a
burst of methane gas from a cylinder located underneath the
water.”

“Methane gas?” I asked blankly.

“Yeah the stuff that gets let off in swamps
and from the rear of cows.”

“Got it.”

“Well anyway this bubble of gas rose through
the water because it’s lighter than water. When it reached the ship
the ship sunk beneath the water all the way down to the bottom of
the container. The gas made the water less buoyant. Maybe that
could work with adding gas to just regular air. It’s a theory
anyway.”

“A shaky one, but who knows. Where do we get
this methane gas?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I mean we
don’t exactly have the time to follow a herd of cows around.”

Not being able to help it I chuckled. The
gravity of the situation had me sober again rather quickly
though.

“What’s that cave down there that there
parked outside of? It looks like its seen active work before.”

“Oh that’s the old gold mine outlet that got
the town it’s start. It’s all played out now though. It’s been
vacant going on ten years now. The towns really suffered without
the mine. It would’ve gone belly up if it weren’t for the outlying
ranches and……”

“Mining?” I said cutting in.

He nodded.

“Are there any mining supplies still laying
about the town?”

“Yeah there’s a whole warehouse of them. Whoa
wait a minute, if you think you’re going to take that thing out
with dynamite, I think you better think again!”

I waved his protests away, “No, no, I agree
with you. That ship is way beyond dynamite, but what if we try the
gas thing and see if the ship will sink and then we use the
dynamite to cover it up? In essence the rock we cover it up with
will replace the air it needs to float. What do you think?”

“I think that’s insane, but I’m down for
trying it. There’s only one problem though. We don’t have any
gas.”

“Ahh my friend I bet we do. We need to get
back to town and check out that warehouse.”

We scooted back from the edge until we
reached where we’d left our horses and then we lit a shuck out of
there.

*****

Coughing lightly I held my hand to my face to
help filter out some of the stirred up dirt from having to break
down the door. There had been no choice but to break the door down
as the hinges had been rusted shut.

Walking into the warehouse I could only make
mental comment to the honesty of this town’s residents. The
warehouse was piled high with supplies from the now defunct mine
and yet the supplies had laid dormant in this warehouse untouched
and unclaimed for going on ten years.

Oh there was plenty of dynamite for sure.
Going to a case I cautiously peeled the lid off and looked inside.
Amazingly the dynamite had not yet begun to sweat
nitroglycerin.

It was good to know that the dynamite was at
least still partly stable. It would be no good though if the most
vital element needed for the plan wasn’t in supply.

I saw some headlamps and I hurried over to
them. Angus being shorter had to run to keep up with the lantern he
held high to illuminate the warehouse.

“What is it?” He asked excitedly.

I skipped by the lamps and began pulling the
lid off of a box, which was one of several stacked up in the corner
of the warehouse. Angus arrived with the lamp as the lid came
free.