Chapter Six
Indy wasn’t sure what to prepare himself for. He’d seen such a wide and varied variety of impossibly strange people, places and things in his travels that he wasn’t sure anything could really make his heart race anymore. He found himself yearning to recapture the original thrill, the sense of wonder, of exploring his first Egyptian tomb as a boy on his father’s lecture tour. But since that time, over all these years, the abnormal had become normal, the extraordinary ordinary. Elaine was the most exciting thing in his life now and he didn’t think this would change that.
He stepped into the tent, which somehow seemed much larger on the inside. All around them a small army of workers were cataloging thousands of pieces of metal, of a type he didn’t recognize. He wasn’t a metallurgist, but he found that odd nonetheless. Indy moved into the room and picked up a piece. He crumpled it in his hand and then watched in stupefaction as it returned to its original shape with not a single wrinkle to show for it.
He had seen this stuff two years ago – where, he didn’t know. The government had taken him and some others in a bus with blacked-out windows to look at some kind of wreckage and mutilated remains. There had been an intense magnetic shroud there, and didn’t seem to be one here, but still he knew what he was about to see.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
He looked up at a lean and scholarly scientist who was watching him with bemusement. Like all other scientists working on this project he wore a long white lab coat.
“I’ll say,” Indy replied. “Usually when the government says they have top men working on something, this is the last thing they have in mind.”
The scientist laughed, a strange little tittering sound. “’Top men,’ eh? I suppose I’ll accept that designation.” Like many of the scientists around here, he was a German, only four years removed from being an enemy of the United States and for that matter, the rest of the world. Any war crimes he may have had a hand in were nullified by the knowledge and brainpower he had to offer. Indy was bemused, in a sad kind of way, that he had seen the day when Americans were uniting with Germans against Russians instead of vice-versa. He still immediately liked this guy more than Bolander.
“Dr. Jones,” General McIntyre said, joining them. “Dr. Avril Bernard, the chief scientist in charge of the project.”
Indiana Jones gave the man a friendly nod and turned back to the material in his hand. “What is it?”
Bernard didn’t seem in the least disturbed by his curtness. “Part of an alien spacecraft,” he said casually.
Indy looked up at him with a start. He knew some of these guys could be eccentric, but – “Oh, really?”
Bernard’s expression, at least, was completely serious. “Two days ago, Dr. Jones, a spaceship was struck by lightning and crashed into the desert at this site. What you are holding is part of its outer shell, but more importantly, it is evidence of extraterrestrial life.”
Indy cast a quick glance at the others to see if they were all endorsing this. They were. Either that, or they were all playing some kind of strange prank on him. Carefully, he said, “Don’t you think you guys are jumping to conclusions?”
The General answered his question with a question. “What do you see, Dr. Jones?”
Indy studied the metal carefully. The government had threatened to charge him with treason if he ever mentioned the other wreck he’d examined, and he didn’t want to risk finding out if that restriction still applied in another government facility, but this one was similar enough that he came to the same conclusion. “I see... an advanced lightweight metal used by the Russians for high altitude flight or even rocketry.”
“That’s ridiculous!” scoffed Bolander. “The Russians are years behind us in research –”
“Seems to me that’s what you said before they announced they had the bomb.”
Bolander fell silent.
Indy continued, “You guys see a spaceship because that’s just what you want to see. Throughout history, people unable to explain natural phenomena used flying saucers and visitors from other planets.”
Bernard asked, “Do you seem daunted that the top scientists in the world conclude this to be an alien space craft?”
Indy looked at Elaine, his Elaine. She, of all people, should have known better. She was usually so level-headed and pragmatic. “Daunted?” he said. “No. Disappointed, maybe. I saw some things like this way back in ’30, when jet engines were new. People were scared of them and assumed they had to be from space, because they didn’t understand the technology, but it was all Earth-bound.”
Bernard and the General exchanged a look. “Follow us, Dr. Jones,” the General said.
Bernard led Indy to three coffin-like cylinders at the other side of the tent and nodded to a guard, who opened one. Fog from the refrigerant inside escaped and billowed into the dry desert air with a hiss.
Indy looked inside. As the fog cleared, he could make out a charred humanoid creature, less than four feet long, with elongated arms and fingers. Again, it looked very familiar, though he still wondered at the lack of magnetism.
“They were recovered at the crash site,” Bernard explained. “Do you still feel we’re dealing with human life?”
“No,” Indy admitted. “They’re apes. Belango apes. I’ve run across them in Madagascar. Hairless from the fire.” He shrugged. “The Soviets must be using them for experiments or something.”
Bolander closed the lid and gave Elaine a meaningful yet vague look. “I think Dr. Jones has seen enough,” he said. “Now,” he continued to Indy, “if you’ll excuse us, we have serious work to do.”
“Is that what you call this?” Indy turned to Elaine, more disappointed now than ever. “I’m sorry, I thought you could tell the difference between a scientific inquiry and a wild goose chase.” He started toward the door of the tent.
Elaine was angry, but not at him. She wheeled on Bolander. “Damn it, Bob! Show him or I leave also.”
Bolander looked anxiously at the General and Bernard, who indicated their agreement with Elaine. Indy, his curiosity piqued in spite of himself, hesitated at the door.
“Oh, all right,” Bolander said, sounding as if it were anything but. “This way.”
Guards lined both sides of the containment room. Several physicists with goggles and lab coats huddled around the center of the room where a lead casement, a small coffin-like box, dominated. As Indy moved up to inspect the box, a technician reached into it and retrieved a stone cylinder, holding it up for him to see.
The cylinder was fifteen inches long, five inches in diameter, with a dozen raised rings spaced at regular intervals along its length. Every inch was covered in rows and rows of tiny detailed pictographs, cuneiforms and glyphs, thousands altogether. At a glance it had the appearance of ancient workmanship. That definitely hadn’t been part of the other crash site.
“Do you recognize the markings, Dr. Jones?” Bernard asked.
Indy caught something in the scientist’s tone and realized he was being tested. He studied the stone more carefully. “Egyptian, fourth century... Mayan. Sanskrit. Chinese pictographs. This thing’s been around.” Or it was a forgery, more likely. He ran through the symbols in his mind. “The Egyptian markings indicate... power.”
Bernard smiled. “Precisely.” He nodded to the technicians, who brought a radio and a light bulb next to the device. The radio suddenly burst into jazz music, the light bulb glowed, and the cylinder glowed as well, but with an intensity like nothing Indy had ever witnessed – like the sun, but without burning his eyes.
He was dumbfounded for a moment.
“Go ahead,” Bernard said gleefully, “touch it.”
The technician was already holding it, so he figured it would be okay to follow Bernard’s request. He reached out and touched it. “It’s cold,” he said with some surprise. It reminded him of the Sankara stones he had once found in India, which had also glowed without heating – at least most of the time.
The radio and light bulb were removed, and the glow faded from the cylinder. Despite his self-consciousness as the others watched him expectantly, Indy allowed his cynical mask to drop. He’d seen enough strange things in his time on this planet – who was to say there weren’t some from other planets as well? But the question was, why would they bother to come here?
“We don’t think even the Russians can take credit for this, Colonel Jones,” the General said.
“We’ve measured the negative ions around it,” Bernard said. “We’ve done every radiation test; it shows no signs of radioactivity. But it appears to have been the aliens’ fuel supply.”
“And now,” Bolander added with an intolerable air of smugness, “it’s the property of the United States government.”
Indy could feel Elaine’s gaze on him as he also felt himself drawn to the mystery. The sense of wonder and novelty he used to feel at strange and mysterious phenomena was creeping back in, because this time he was sharing it with her. Or maybe it was just because this one allegedly came from outer space. He ran his fingers over the markings on the outside.
“The prevailing belief,” Elaine said , “is that the writings represent instructions for use.”
“Sort of an owner’s manual,” General McIntyre said.
“And it was found at the crash site?” Indy inquired.
“Actually,” the General said, “one of our spotter-planes found it over four miles away.”
“In the hands of one of the aliens...” Bernard said.
How odd. Why would one of the aliens be clutching its own power supply during a crash? Had it been attempting repairs in mid-flight?
“I want this moved to a laboratory where we can control the security,” Bolander said, giving Indy a sour look.
“And I say no one’s moving that thing until I know precisely what it is,” the General said, sounding like one who had had this argument many times before.
“We don’t have time, General,” Bolander snapped. “Do you realize how difficult it’s been to keep this discovery quiet? In four days we’ve managed to keep a lid on this thing with the press as well as clear evidence over twenty square miles.” He pointed to a map on the wall. “You’ve had your chance to study it here. Tomorrow morning this entire area must be evacuated. Remember –” His eyes flitted to Indy and he grimaced. “Remember Roswell.”
Indy remembered Roswell, and so did everyone else in the country. The General frowned but nodded consent, accepting his defeat. “Dr. Jones,” he said, “do you think you can pinpoint what this thing says?”
Indy studied the intricate markings some more. The “power” reference had been simple enough to decode, but the rest not so much. “There’s no discernible pattern,” he said. “The languages are all mixed together.”
“We’re working with a computer to codify the different languages,” Elaine said, “but it’s been slow going.”
“How much time, Dr. Jones?” the General pressed, ignoring her.
Indy was both amused and frustrated by the man’s urgency. “You’re talking about codes that have never been cracked.”
“Give us two days,” Elaine said.
“You have twelve hours,” the General said. He turned and left the containment room.
***
It was a race against the clock as Indy, Elaine, and technicians began the painstaking process of recording data in a work tent. Symbols were noted. Computer cards were stamped. In a nearby computer trailer, a technician fed stacks of cards into a huge computer, which rapidly counted the signatures on each card and recorded the data on spools of computer tape. At Elaine’s direction a military photographer took pictures of the inscriptions.
Indy wanted to talk to her. He wanted to come to grips with what had happened – she’d left him at the altar and he’d found out she was a spy – fine, a specialist if she preferred, and now they were working together on a top secret government project involving aliens. Okay, so it wasn’t all that complicated, or even all that unusual by his standards, but he still felt a bit overwhelmed. They couldn’t talk about it, though, because they needed to devote complete attention to their work.
After he clarified one important detail.
“So,” he said, not looking up from his work and trying to sound casual, speaking just loudly enough for her to hear him over the German-accented chatter around them, “you and Bolander aren't married, right?”
He could almost feel her rolling her eyes. “No, Indy,” she said. “It's just helpful sometimes, as a woman trying to be taken seriously in my line of work, to have real or perceived connections.”
Indy nodded to himself. “Just friends. Great.”
Now Elaine sounded even more exasperated. “I didn't say we were friends. Forget about him, okay, Indy?”
He had many more questions, but he found their work engrossing enough to hold off a while longer. He hadn’t had a challenge like this for a while and the old thrill of decoding cryptic ancient writings was flooding back. Sharing it with the woman he loved made it that much better.
“Numbers,” he mumbled. “Lots of numbers.”
“And in pairs,” she said, pointing. “The Assyrian pairs are grouped here – Mayan here, Egyptian here –”
“And no two the same. It’s a lousy way to write an instruction manual.” He had to wonder why, if this thing was from space, it was written in Earth languages. Had these creatures been to Earth before? Had they learned these languages from Earthlings, or taught them to them?
Indy shook his head in frustration and looked away for a moment. As he did, the map on the wall caught his eye.
“Unless,” he continued, an idea dawning, “it isn’t a manual at all.”
***
Out in the New Mexico desert, in the growing light of dawn, two figures on horseback rode slowly across the high desert plain, seemingly oblivious to the chill night air. They approached a roadblock guarded by two MPs sitting in a Jeep and listening to the radio. As they drew closer, the soldiers climbed out with their rifles and flashlights at the ready.
“Halt,” the first said. “This is a restricted area.”
As the two figures stopped their horses just within range of the flashlight beams, they became recognizable as two cowboys. The younger one leaned forward in his saddle and expertly spit a stream of tobacco juice. “We just come to see what all the commotion’s about,” he drawled.
“Maneuvers,” the second soldier said, a little too quickly.
The older cowboy straightened in his saddle and stared out across the plain. “Ain’t heard any artillery,” he said. “You boys working on a secret weapon or something?”
The two soldiers shared a nervous look. Their superiors hadn’t done much to prepare them for civilian confrontations.
“Look here, fellas,” the first said, “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, but we’re going to have to ask you to turn around and leave.” He gestured ever so slightly with his rifle as he said this, hoping to get the hint across.
“Why?” the older cowboy said, not seeming intimidated in the slightest. “Afraid we might be Ruskie spies or somethin’?”
The two cowboys shared a laugh, and the soldiers couldn’t help joining in. Then suddenly the young cowboy stopped laughing and said to his companion, “Oni dolzhny byt'.“
The soldiers froze at the sound of the strange tongue.
“What did he say?” one of them demanded.
The older cowboy drew a silenced pistol and aimed at the two soldiers. “He said, ‘They should be.’”
Before the soldiers could unsling their rifles the older cowboy shot them both cleanly in the head. He blew the smoke from the barrel, spun the pistol around his finger and returned it to his holster with the dashing flair of an American movie cowboy.
Then he dismounted and began changing into one of the dead soldiers’ uniforms. “Come on, Veska,” he said in Russian, “get moving.”
His younger companion dismounted as well, glad to be off the horse, and rubbed his sore bottom. “I don’t understand how John Wayne does it,” he muttered.
Next: Chapter Seven
He stepped into the tent, which somehow seemed much larger on the inside. All around them a small army of workers were cataloging thousands of pieces of metal, of a type he didn’t recognize. He wasn’t a metallurgist, but he found that odd nonetheless. Indy moved into the room and picked up a piece. He crumpled it in his hand and then watched in stupefaction as it returned to its original shape with not a single wrinkle to show for it.
He had seen this stuff two years ago – where, he didn’t know. The government had taken him and some others in a bus with blacked-out windows to look at some kind of wreckage and mutilated remains. There had been an intense magnetic shroud there, and didn’t seem to be one here, but still he knew what he was about to see.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
He looked up at a lean and scholarly scientist who was watching him with bemusement. Like all other scientists working on this project he wore a long white lab coat.
“I’ll say,” Indy replied. “Usually when the government says they have top men working on something, this is the last thing they have in mind.”
The scientist laughed, a strange little tittering sound. “’Top men,’ eh? I suppose I’ll accept that designation.” Like many of the scientists around here, he was a German, only four years removed from being an enemy of the United States and for that matter, the rest of the world. Any war crimes he may have had a hand in were nullified by the knowledge and brainpower he had to offer. Indy was bemused, in a sad kind of way, that he had seen the day when Americans were uniting with Germans against Russians instead of vice-versa. He still immediately liked this guy more than Bolander.
“Dr. Jones,” General McIntyre said, joining them. “Dr. Avril Bernard, the chief scientist in charge of the project.”
Indiana Jones gave the man a friendly nod and turned back to the material in his hand. “What is it?”
Bernard didn’t seem in the least disturbed by his curtness. “Part of an alien spacecraft,” he said casually.
Indy looked up at him with a start. He knew some of these guys could be eccentric, but – “Oh, really?”
Bernard’s expression, at least, was completely serious. “Two days ago, Dr. Jones, a spaceship was struck by lightning and crashed into the desert at this site. What you are holding is part of its outer shell, but more importantly, it is evidence of extraterrestrial life.”
Indy cast a quick glance at the others to see if they were all endorsing this. They were. Either that, or they were all playing some kind of strange prank on him. Carefully, he said, “Don’t you think you guys are jumping to conclusions?”
The General answered his question with a question. “What do you see, Dr. Jones?”
Indy studied the metal carefully. The government had threatened to charge him with treason if he ever mentioned the other wreck he’d examined, and he didn’t want to risk finding out if that restriction still applied in another government facility, but this one was similar enough that he came to the same conclusion. “I see... an advanced lightweight metal used by the Russians for high altitude flight or even rocketry.”
“That’s ridiculous!” scoffed Bolander. “The Russians are years behind us in research –”
“Seems to me that’s what you said before they announced they had the bomb.”
Bolander fell silent.
Indy continued, “You guys see a spaceship because that’s just what you want to see. Throughout history, people unable to explain natural phenomena used flying saucers and visitors from other planets.”
Bernard asked, “Do you seem daunted that the top scientists in the world conclude this to be an alien space craft?”
Indy looked at Elaine, his Elaine. She, of all people, should have known better. She was usually so level-headed and pragmatic. “Daunted?” he said. “No. Disappointed, maybe. I saw some things like this way back in ’30, when jet engines were new. People were scared of them and assumed they had to be from space, because they didn’t understand the technology, but it was all Earth-bound.”
Bernard and the General exchanged a look. “Follow us, Dr. Jones,” the General said.
Bernard led Indy to three coffin-like cylinders at the other side of the tent and nodded to a guard, who opened one. Fog from the refrigerant inside escaped and billowed into the dry desert air with a hiss.
Indy looked inside. As the fog cleared, he could make out a charred humanoid creature, less than four feet long, with elongated arms and fingers. Again, it looked very familiar, though he still wondered at the lack of magnetism.
“They were recovered at the crash site,” Bernard explained. “Do you still feel we’re dealing with human life?”
“No,” Indy admitted. “They’re apes. Belango apes. I’ve run across them in Madagascar. Hairless from the fire.” He shrugged. “The Soviets must be using them for experiments or something.”
Bolander closed the lid and gave Elaine a meaningful yet vague look. “I think Dr. Jones has seen enough,” he said. “Now,” he continued to Indy, “if you’ll excuse us, we have serious work to do.”
“Is that what you call this?” Indy turned to Elaine, more disappointed now than ever. “I’m sorry, I thought you could tell the difference between a scientific inquiry and a wild goose chase.” He started toward the door of the tent.
Elaine was angry, but not at him. She wheeled on Bolander. “Damn it, Bob! Show him or I leave also.”
Bolander looked anxiously at the General and Bernard, who indicated their agreement with Elaine. Indy, his curiosity piqued in spite of himself, hesitated at the door.
“Oh, all right,” Bolander said, sounding as if it were anything but. “This way.”
Guards lined both sides of the containment room. Several physicists with goggles and lab coats huddled around the center of the room where a lead casement, a small coffin-like box, dominated. As Indy moved up to inspect the box, a technician reached into it and retrieved a stone cylinder, holding it up for him to see.
The cylinder was fifteen inches long, five inches in diameter, with a dozen raised rings spaced at regular intervals along its length. Every inch was covered in rows and rows of tiny detailed pictographs, cuneiforms and glyphs, thousands altogether. At a glance it had the appearance of ancient workmanship. That definitely hadn’t been part of the other crash site.
“Do you recognize the markings, Dr. Jones?” Bernard asked.
Indy caught something in the scientist’s tone and realized he was being tested. He studied the stone more carefully. “Egyptian, fourth century... Mayan. Sanskrit. Chinese pictographs. This thing’s been around.” Or it was a forgery, more likely. He ran through the symbols in his mind. “The Egyptian markings indicate... power.”
Bernard smiled. “Precisely.” He nodded to the technicians, who brought a radio and a light bulb next to the device. The radio suddenly burst into jazz music, the light bulb glowed, and the cylinder glowed as well, but with an intensity like nothing Indy had ever witnessed – like the sun, but without burning his eyes.
He was dumbfounded for a moment.
“Go ahead,” Bernard said gleefully, “touch it.”
The technician was already holding it, so he figured it would be okay to follow Bernard’s request. He reached out and touched it. “It’s cold,” he said with some surprise. It reminded him of the Sankara stones he had once found in India, which had also glowed without heating – at least most of the time.
The radio and light bulb were removed, and the glow faded from the cylinder. Despite his self-consciousness as the others watched him expectantly, Indy allowed his cynical mask to drop. He’d seen enough strange things in his time on this planet – who was to say there weren’t some from other planets as well? But the question was, why would they bother to come here?
“We don’t think even the Russians can take credit for this, Colonel Jones,” the General said.
“We’ve measured the negative ions around it,” Bernard said. “We’ve done every radiation test; it shows no signs of radioactivity. But it appears to have been the aliens’ fuel supply.”
“And now,” Bolander added with an intolerable air of smugness, “it’s the property of the United States government.”
Indy could feel Elaine’s gaze on him as he also felt himself drawn to the mystery. The sense of wonder and novelty he used to feel at strange and mysterious phenomena was creeping back in, because this time he was sharing it with her. Or maybe it was just because this one allegedly came from outer space. He ran his fingers over the markings on the outside.
“The prevailing belief,” Elaine said , “is that the writings represent instructions for use.”
“Sort of an owner’s manual,” General McIntyre said.
“And it was found at the crash site?” Indy inquired.
“Actually,” the General said, “one of our spotter-planes found it over four miles away.”
“In the hands of one of the aliens...” Bernard said.
How odd. Why would one of the aliens be clutching its own power supply during a crash? Had it been attempting repairs in mid-flight?
“I want this moved to a laboratory where we can control the security,” Bolander said, giving Indy a sour look.
“And I say no one’s moving that thing until I know precisely what it is,” the General said, sounding like one who had had this argument many times before.
“We don’t have time, General,” Bolander snapped. “Do you realize how difficult it’s been to keep this discovery quiet? In four days we’ve managed to keep a lid on this thing with the press as well as clear evidence over twenty square miles.” He pointed to a map on the wall. “You’ve had your chance to study it here. Tomorrow morning this entire area must be evacuated. Remember –” His eyes flitted to Indy and he grimaced. “Remember Roswell.”
Indy remembered Roswell, and so did everyone else in the country. The General frowned but nodded consent, accepting his defeat. “Dr. Jones,” he said, “do you think you can pinpoint what this thing says?”
Indy studied the intricate markings some more. The “power” reference had been simple enough to decode, but the rest not so much. “There’s no discernible pattern,” he said. “The languages are all mixed together.”
“We’re working with a computer to codify the different languages,” Elaine said, “but it’s been slow going.”
“How much time, Dr. Jones?” the General pressed, ignoring her.
Indy was both amused and frustrated by the man’s urgency. “You’re talking about codes that have never been cracked.”
“Give us two days,” Elaine said.
“You have twelve hours,” the General said. He turned and left the containment room.
***
It was a race against the clock as Indy, Elaine, and technicians began the painstaking process of recording data in a work tent. Symbols were noted. Computer cards were stamped. In a nearby computer trailer, a technician fed stacks of cards into a huge computer, which rapidly counted the signatures on each card and recorded the data on spools of computer tape. At Elaine’s direction a military photographer took pictures of the inscriptions.
Indy wanted to talk to her. He wanted to come to grips with what had happened – she’d left him at the altar and he’d found out she was a spy – fine, a specialist if she preferred, and now they were working together on a top secret government project involving aliens. Okay, so it wasn’t all that complicated, or even all that unusual by his standards, but he still felt a bit overwhelmed. They couldn’t talk about it, though, because they needed to devote complete attention to their work.
After he clarified one important detail.
“So,” he said, not looking up from his work and trying to sound casual, speaking just loudly enough for her to hear him over the German-accented chatter around them, “you and Bolander aren't married, right?”
He could almost feel her rolling her eyes. “No, Indy,” she said. “It's just helpful sometimes, as a woman trying to be taken seriously in my line of work, to have real or perceived connections.”
Indy nodded to himself. “Just friends. Great.”
Now Elaine sounded even more exasperated. “I didn't say we were friends. Forget about him, okay, Indy?”
He had many more questions, but he found their work engrossing enough to hold off a while longer. He hadn’t had a challenge like this for a while and the old thrill of decoding cryptic ancient writings was flooding back. Sharing it with the woman he loved made it that much better.
“Numbers,” he mumbled. “Lots of numbers.”
“And in pairs,” she said, pointing. “The Assyrian pairs are grouped here – Mayan here, Egyptian here –”
“And no two the same. It’s a lousy way to write an instruction manual.” He had to wonder why, if this thing was from space, it was written in Earth languages. Had these creatures been to Earth before? Had they learned these languages from Earthlings, or taught them to them?
Indy shook his head in frustration and looked away for a moment. As he did, the map on the wall caught his eye.
“Unless,” he continued, an idea dawning, “it isn’t a manual at all.”
***
Out in the New Mexico desert, in the growing light of dawn, two figures on horseback rode slowly across the high desert plain, seemingly oblivious to the chill night air. They approached a roadblock guarded by two MPs sitting in a Jeep and listening to the radio. As they drew closer, the soldiers climbed out with their rifles and flashlights at the ready.
“Halt,” the first said. “This is a restricted area.”
As the two figures stopped their horses just within range of the flashlight beams, they became recognizable as two cowboys. The younger one leaned forward in his saddle and expertly spit a stream of tobacco juice. “We just come to see what all the commotion’s about,” he drawled.
“Maneuvers,” the second soldier said, a little too quickly.
The older cowboy straightened in his saddle and stared out across the plain. “Ain’t heard any artillery,” he said. “You boys working on a secret weapon or something?”
The two soldiers shared a nervous look. Their superiors hadn’t done much to prepare them for civilian confrontations.
“Look here, fellas,” the first said, “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, but we’re going to have to ask you to turn around and leave.” He gestured ever so slightly with his rifle as he said this, hoping to get the hint across.
“Why?” the older cowboy said, not seeming intimidated in the slightest. “Afraid we might be Ruskie spies or somethin’?”
The two cowboys shared a laugh, and the soldiers couldn’t help joining in. Then suddenly the young cowboy stopped laughing and said to his companion, “Oni dolzhny byt'.“
The soldiers froze at the sound of the strange tongue.
“What did he say?” one of them demanded.
The older cowboy drew a silenced pistol and aimed at the two soldiers. “He said, ‘They should be.’”
Before the soldiers could unsling their rifles the older cowboy shot them both cleanly in the head. He blew the smoke from the barrel, spun the pistol around his finger and returned it to his holster with the dashing flair of an American movie cowboy.
Then he dismounted and began changing into one of the dead soldiers’ uniforms. “Come on, Veska,” he said in Russian, “get moving.”
His younger companion dismounted as well, glad to be off the horse, and rubbed his sore bottom. “I don’t understand how John Wayne does it,” he muttered.
Next: Chapter Seven
