Space Cowboy
Travis McClure turned his tired horse west, away from camp, away from cool water and soft sleeping bags, away from everything he so desperately wanted. He glanced at the sky, greenish gold, not blue like the skies back home on Earth, streaked with pale clouds that twisted and streamed in the unending wind. Two suns hung low, bloated red Beta and tiny Alpha, so white it hurt his eyes. Twin suns that burned and bleached and stole the spit from your mouth if you let them. Travis tugged his hat down, the brim floppy and torn, and nudged his horse in the ribs.
“Let’s go, Deuce.”
Deuce snorted his displeasure but broke into a laggardly trot, hoofs smacking the rust-red trail. The narrow path was packed tight by the scattered bands of cattle and wild sheep the terraformers had released decades ago, an attempt to jump start millions of years of evolution and create a living planet in a galactic heartbeat. Someday, long after Travis and his family had gone home, colonists would arrive with their factories and schools, cities and farms. But for now, only the scattered camps of geologists and stockmen, too desperate or too stubborn to leave, covered the awakening world. Aletha Three was a harsh planet, desolate and arid. Someday, the Company claimed, it would be a paradise of green meadows and shadowed forests. Someday, but not today. And not tomorrow, and not for as long as Travis could imagine being stuck here.
“Just one more season,” Dad would promise. “One more season, two at the most, and we’ll have saved enough money to pay off the loans on the ranch. Then we’ll go home.” Travis sighed. He was starting to think his dad’s promises were as empty as the wind. He’d been eleven when they landed. Now he was sixteen. Five years chasing cattle from pasture to pasture, five years wondering if he would ever see Earth again.
The trail grew steeper as it climbed into the foothills. Travis urged his tired horse forward as they slipped around boulders big as starship hangars. Scraggly patches of sagebrush and juniper poked out of the dry soil. The climatologists at base camp had been promising rain for weeks, but so far, not a drop had fallen. No surprise, Travis thought sourly. Like everything else on Aletha, nothing quite followed anyone’s carefully laid out plans. Weather satellites failed, burned up by the harsh radiation that streamed around the planet. On the surface, radios became useless for days at a time after solar flares or during the sandstorms that swept in from the deserts to pummel the grasslands. Even simple machines like vid-games and clocks tended to die early in the harsh environment. He glanced at his wristwatch, not certain if it was keeping time correctly. His legs and stomach certainly felt like it was getting close to supper time.
As if he had read his mind, Deuce stopped, refusing to go forward, and stood flicking his ears back and forth. Travis frowned and glanced down at the trail in
front of him. He had been following the stray cattle all afternoon, hoping every time he topped a rise or turned a corner he would run headlong into them. So far,
though, he was always one jump behind. The tracks were fresh, a few hours old at most, long scuff marks trailing where their hoofs had dragged. The little herd had been moving fast. So had something else. An odd footprint covered the cow tracks, the impression perfect in the soft red dust.
“Whoa, Deuce.” He swallowed, his mouth so dry his voice cracked. “This isn’t right.”
Travis stepped out of the saddle and crouched beside the strange tracks. Three toes, spread wide like a hawk on the grab. He’d seen tracks like these the year
before and shuddered at the memory. Three yearlings ripped apart, shattered bones covering the bloodspeckled ground. He had been riding alone when he
had heard the scream, a keening wail of rage and animal triumph. No one had believed him then. They said it was a pack of coyotes or feral cats. But Travis knew better. He patted Deuce then fished his radio out of the saddlebag.
“Dad? Are you on the net?”
A burst of static preceded Jim McClure’s reply. “Where’re you at, Trav?”
“About five klicks west of Needle Point.” Travis paused. He didn’t want to say what he had to, especially over an open frequency. “Dad, do you remember those tracks I told you about last year? The ones around those dead heifers?”
“Yeah, I remember.” Even across the distance it was clear his father still doubted the story.
“I think...” Travis took a deep breath. Far away, too distant to be clear, a scream echoed down the canyon walls. “I think whatever made them is back.”