for his bed-ridden wife, alarmed by the shrill barking of Custer. Even in the twenty-first century cattle rustlers were still alive and on the prowl for prime heads of choice beef, and it wouldn’t have been the first time some thieves had come through his spread and loaded up a trailer. The Winchester 30.06 in hand as he’d shucked on the sheepskin coat, grumbling his way out the back door, his normally stoic German shepherd dog going berserk, straining to break free of his chain. Spooked by what, he couldn’t tell, but his cattle were agitated as hell, his horses snorting from the barn, all in a lather. He’d heard that animals had some sixth sense, though, a built-in radar that warned them of mass atmospheric disturbances, and it wouldn’t be the first time that beastly extrasensory perception had foretold him of a sudden thunderstorm. It all looked like another red sundown over the prairie from where he stood, but there was “something” in the air. He could feel it. Something he thought he heard like a whistle, or those incoming rounds he remembered from Korea, the cattle stomping around the pen in a fury next as he walked…
There was an explosion, out of nowhere, or rather, a series of blasts that sounded as one, but with each earsplitting trumpet of thunder there was no telling as his senses were shattered. Before he could fully assess the moment, glimpsing in horror his home and his parents’ home of eighty-five years being uprooted and blown away like so much fertilizer in a twister, he was sailing, dumped, last he remembered, facedown inside the cattle pen.
Now…
He thought he was going to puke, groaning, as he dared to open his eyes. He was getting his bearings, found himself dressed in a white smock like a hospital gown, squinting into the shroud of white light that seemed supernatural in a way he could only describe as some waiting room—Purgatory perhaps?—between Heaven and Hell, when a voice called from the glow, “Mr. Decker? Can you hear me?”
A hard search, adjusting his vision, and he spotted a lean shape in black, straight ahead. The figure was blowing smoke through the light, sunglasses so black and fat they looked more like a visor. Between the combat boots and the pistol in shoulder holster, any hopeful notion the man was a doctor evaporated. Had he landed, though, in a hospital? The light alone was spooky enough, but there seemed to be no walls surrounding him, as if he were in some vast empty space, with the white shroud, bright as the sun, going on forever. Calling him? he wondered, wishing he didn’t feel so sick to his stomach, that feeling of being disembodied chilling him to the bone, warping his senses.
“Who are you? Where am I?”
“You can call me Mr. Orion. And you are in protective custody for the time being.”
“Protective…what the hell is going on? What happened to my ranch?” He tried to stand, but rubber legs folded, collapsing him back into his seat. Groaning, the room spinning, he said, “What’s wrong with me? What have you done to me…”
“Minor burns from the incident, a few cuts and contusions, Mr. Decker. We gave you a shot of morphine for the pain, patched you all up… You’ll be good as new in a few days. As for your ranch and all your cattle and horses—they are no longer standing.”
He felt his stomach roll over. “And my wife?”
“Your wife, Allison, Mr. Decker, was dying of breast cancer and emphysema. We’ll, uh, just call the incident where she is concerned a blessing in disguise. No, belay that. You being a devout church-goer and all, think of her passing as simply an act of God, that she now rests in eternal peace.”
Anger cleared some of the sludge away, this Orion character slamming his nose with one smoke bomb after another, speaking of his wife’s death as if it was nothing more than some near-miss highway crash he ought to be making the sign of the cross over. “Why, you rotten… I want to know what happened and exactly who you are, mister, or I swear…”
“Relax, Mr. Decker. Do you really need to bring on number three heart attack?”
Decker froze, the man reciting more of his medical history, with doctors’ names, dates of operations, down to length of each recuperation. Was that a smile? he wondered, this Orion talking next about his two sons, matter-of-fact, how they had turned their backs on what they called Nowhere, U.S.A., riding off to chase the wind of whatever their dreams in the big cities of Chicago and New York. Putting him in his place, playing mind games. But how did he know so much?
“I’m here to help, Mr. Decker, but only if you wish to help yourself. First of all, let us be clear, what happened to your ranch was the result of a meteor shower.”
“That wasn’t no rock falling from the sky that leveled my ranch and killed my wife. Those were explosions. I’m guessin’ some sort of missile or rocket.”
“As you might well believe that’s what you think you saw, being as you were a decorated veteran of the Korean War, having seen more than your rightful share of combat. And I salute you for your service to the country, sir.”
“Stick all that noise, and I don’t need to think about nothin’. I know what I saw. I’m bettin’ you’re military, work for the government. Something screwed up with you people, and now you want me to shut my mouth about what I saw. Let me tell you, friend, out here, we may be just dumb cowboys to you people, but I got no love for your Big Brother.”
And the faceless smoker knew all about that, too, the threats of bank foreclosures on his property, the audits and subsequent liens that drove him into bankruptcy, the suits from Washington offering to buy up his land, claiming they could cut him a break on what he owed if he grabbed the brass ring of his last stand.
“You seem to know an awful lot about me,” Decker snapped. “Whether or not much of this is a matter of public record, you don’t understand me at all.”
Another wave of smoke and Orion said, “No, it’s you who don’t understand, sir. Here it is, and this is a onetime, nonnegotiable offer. Between property value, including livestock, what would be your projected future earnings for the next five years and your wife’s insurance policy, we are prepared to write you a check in the amount of three million dollars, nontraceable, nontaxable funds. Death certificates have already been made out for both your wife and yourself, only you, sir, get to relocate, all expenses paid, until you get set up in someplace far away from North Dakota. Washington, all your medical bills and those banks you so detest? Your debt is erased, officially you become the man who was never born. Think about it. New name. New identity. You could be sitting on a beach in Hawaii, sipping mai tais and playing with the local hula-hoop talent by tomorrow. If I were you…”
“You ain’t. No deal. I’m walkin’ outta here and goin’ straight to the county sheriff.”
“Is that your final answer, Mr. Decker?”
“First and last.”
“Suit yourself.”
It was too easy, Decker’s instinct stirring, the old combat senses flaring to life, telling him something was wrong. He saw the glowing tip of the cigarette fall to the floor, eyes up, but the faceless Orion was gone, vanished, as if the light had swallowed him up. No sound of any door opening or closing to betray an exit, he was rising when he heard the electronic whir, looked up, thought he saw the ceiling part. A black hole yawning into view, barely perceptible as Decker squinted into the light, he heard machinery grinding to life, from some point beyond the white halo, deep in the dark void. If he didn’t know better, it sounded like a threshing machine was cranking to life. What the…
Warning bells clanged in a brain muddied by dope. He cursed whoever’d shot him up, limbs unwilling to respond to a rising sense of fear when the noise shrilled into what he was now
