Fire Over Brinkston!

Good Afternoon Everyone!

This is my 24 Hour Short Story Contest Entry hosted by @mctiller!

The prompt for this story is: A cowboy during the 1800s in the American West runs into a flying saucer

How awesome is that! Here is the link to more of the contest particulars and how you can also enter!

Good Luck to all the other entries!

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“Here Lies Mad Dog Maggie, Mother.” That’s what the tombstone says.

Margaret Pearson hadn’t come from much, an average girl from an Eastern city. When her parents were murdered she was not yet a woman. Not yet betrothed, the suitors had descended like hawks the day of the funeral. Young Margaret, bereft and overwhelmed, sought release. Her family matters settled, she had enough to buy a lone train ticket. A ticket West.

It was said a person could start a whole ‘nother life West. She’d read about it in the papers. Romanticized. Of course she hadn’t known that at the time. She stepped off of the train in Brinkston with nothing but the clothes on her back and took her first deep breath of dust and blood. The war of Southern Oppression had ended, the railroad was booming and the streets teemed with destitute soldiers and freedmen. Desperate for a new start. This was no place for a young girl.

There was no work here either, not for one such as her, at least none considered respectable, but you had to survive. And survive she did, for two years, at the expense of her patroness, the Madame. But after two years of men complaining about broken noses and short purses, keeping a roof over Maggie’s head had become less than profitable. The Madame was forced to cut Maggie loose. She again found herself on the streets of Brinkston with nothing but her clothes.

She was fortunate enough to quickly come under the employ of a foreign rancher, one without preconceived notions about women and work. If an able bodied soul wanted to put in a hard day he was more than willing to give them a chance. For two years Maggie slopped pigs and herded cattle. Learned to live off the land during the long drives north. Could make a fire, set a snare and shoe a horse. It was the first time since her parent’s death that she felt truly alive.

Despite her willingness to bleed and sweat with the rest of them, the rancher was forced to let Maggie go. Citing distraction of men and loss of cattle, nothing to do with her former line of work, nothing at all. He, however, was a fair man and paid Maggie in full for the work under his employ. She, at least, had managed to save some small sum. Atop a borrowed horse Maggie rode into Brinkston, this time prepared to steer her future.

She had quickly turned to drink and cards, barely managing to stay afloat. There was no shortage of men that would line up for a game with Maggie, they saw her as an easy mark, but years in a cat house and years on the range had turned her into a reader of men. If she could stay sober, she could stay moneyed. This was not her night.

“Dammit, Turner, quit being so querulous and show your cards. I have laid mine to bare and gone all in.” Maggie taunted from across the roughhewn table.

Smells of whiskey pierced the nose as ivory keys pounded out a jaunty tune. The Madam’s saloon was always lively, all the livelier for Maggie’s penchant to go way up before crashing, sometimes literally to the floor.

“Miss Maggie, I will not show my cards or see to your bet as I do not think you have it.” Called Turner Pinckney. He had come West to escape his own ills yet still managed to run affluent against an egregious debt sheet.

“Are you ‘ccusing me, Turner,” slurred Maggie. “You ain’t owned your own dime since you arrived in Brinkstun.”

“I may not, my dear, but at least I have not lain with others for it,” chuckling, “or worse, cattle.” Turner Pinckney met Maggie’s eyes with a sneer cruel enough to curdle the gentlest of souls.

Maggie unsteadily launched herself across the table, cards and chips scattered. She had rough hands from the years ranching. They wrapped around Turner’s throat and squeezed. They rolled across the saloon floor, bumping into tables, sending glasses flying, their liquids now a permanent resident upon the stained floor.

An amusement to many, and not Maggie’s first tussle over a game, no one moved to intervene. Turner’s face began to turn shades of red not natural to any man looking to stay alive. One hand fought with Maggie’s grip while the other forced its way into his fine, rented waistcoat. Maggie’s natural instinct honed from the dangers of the high desert reacted just in time and met the hand where it lay trapped, flat between the two. No one else saw as bets exchanged hands and glasses were replaced and filled.

Amongst the sweat and spittle and soured liquor, they lay on the floor locked in struggle, both predator and prey. The boom of powder stunned the raucous crowd as much as it stunned the combatants. The wet patch spread across the front of the fine, rented waistcoat as Maggie removed her red stained hand still holding the smoking gun. The Madame screamed in horror as a clamor arose amongst the stilled patrons.

Maggie stumbled to the swinging doors and past, mounted her horse and rode and rode and rode. She could still here the screams and sobbing of the women behind her. What a horror show. She had never killed anyone before. It was not until sometime later as her blind frenzy had settled into a steady trot that she realized the screams and tears had been hers.

She found a shallow canyon and hitched her horse to a dying scrub. Maggie had no idea how far she had come or in which direction. She didn’t have any supplies and couldn’t afford a fire anyways. She knew that they would be coming for her, if not for the murder then for someone to hold accountable for Turner’s debts. She propped herself against the canyon wall and mulled turning herself in, she couldn’t last out here by herself, not unprepared.

It wasn’t the searing heat or booming noise that woke her, you get heat flashes and thunderstorms out here all the time, she had grown accustom. It was the rumbling of the earth. It felt as if a million steam engines had come boiling down the tracks all at once and stopped just as sudden.

A short distance away, the mouth of the canyon glowed with light, smoke rising into the still night sky from the unseen commotion. They had found her. Mounted up, rode out and found her, that’s what had set the ground to trembling. Ha! She was impressed, that’s a mighty posse for lowly Miss Maggie. She wasn’t even armed, having dropped Turner’s gun during her mad flight. Her horse was gone, freed itself in panic. Time to face the music as they say, no running from this one.

Maggie rounded the outcropping of rock, hands in the air, no point in dying just yet. To her surprise there wasn’t a soul. What there was well, was buried halfway into the cliff face. Silver and aflame and smoking, it looked as if something heaven had disgorged. It had left a furrow of earth scattered with ethereal debris as far as Maggie could see. Curious and brazen she stepped close and stooped to examine a piece of the flotsam.

“Eeeritru………..don dal maiii…..”

Maggie jumped near out her skin. Crawling from this heaped wreckage was a man! A small man of peculiar design.

“Hey!” Maggie shouted.

“Hey, now hold on their mister your likely pretty hurt.” Holding her hands in front of her as if to placate an animal.

“What manner of race are you mister, never seen your like before?”

And she hadn’t. He was small and slender. But had a big head. Far larger than would be normal. Dark inset eyes seemed to hold untold volumes. Instead…….

“Ray…izz….?”

“Rayez? Well, I’ve never heard of any Rayez’s ‘round here.”

The small man steadied himself and stood with an uncomfortable limp.

“Look mister, I’m in a world of trouble and you look like you need some serious help here, crashing your train and all but I need to depart from here forthwith.”

“Dep…..art……”

“Yeah, there’s people after me and your accident here was a call to the whole damned world about where to look.”

“Depart….Rayizz?” It almost hummed.

“I mean, you seem nice and all but you can’t come with me, you’re hurt, you’ll slow me down. Besides, I don’t even have my horse” Maggie sighed.

“Meun set………..Depart….” It held up a long slender finger as her horse emerged from just beyond the wreckage grazing on low grasses, locking eyes with the small creature.

“Well, I’ll be and you’re funny looking too….” She muttered under her breath, striding confidently to her horse.

“Well, c’mon Mr. Rayez, we need to make some distance and then I can try and get you sorted out but we better not tarry here any longer.”

The small funny man began limping toward her, his leg dragging behind him.

“Aww, hell!” she moved forward and scooped him into her arms, depositing him on the still saddled horse. She took her place in front of him and grabbed the reigns.

“Hold tight Mr. Rayez!” She yelled, as much in defiance of fate, as to her small passenger.

“Than…….kyou….” he uttered into her back as she brought the horse around and rode off into the dawn horizon.

It wasn’t many hours later that the assembled posse from Brinkston arrived at the smoldering site and mile long furrow. It stopped them dead in their tracks. They forgot all about Maggie and her murder of Turner Pinckney. They used what they could recover of the craft for a popular tourist attraction and buried the rest. All of the proceeds were used to pay off Pinckney’s creditors.

It was many years later when a strange man, slight of stature and of peculiar manner, rode into Brinkston. He carried with him, bundled carefully in a hand knit blanket, what he claimed was the body of Margaret Pearson.

“Mad Dog Maggie!” The local undertaker exclaimed.

“Umm, yes sir, if that is indeed what she came to be called.” The small man said.

“Well, that’s the name she earned after shootin up Turner Pinckney, so I’ve heard. Who was she to you anyhow stranger?” The undertaker queried.

“She was my mother. I thought she should be buried here, in a proper town, despite her reputation.”

“Your mother, huh?” Looking the small man over, suspiciously. “Then who, pray tell, was your father?”

“I doubt, sir, that any resident of Brinkston knew him, besides he left when I was very small.”

“Small, huh? Ha! You’re still small son. Where are you gonna go now? You can’t go back out there on your own.” The undertaker said half mockingly.

“I do not plan on returning ‘out there’. If you must know, I’m going home. Please, see to the burial.” He tossed a small purse on the counter and left.

No one ever saw him again. Residents of Brinkston claim to this very day that the sky wept with fire that night.

Thanks again for your time and attention!
@jackofcrows

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