A Jury of His Peers
by Joseph H. Delaney
Illustration by Arthur George
Orville R. Calhoun, part-time country lawyer and full-time dope smuggler, sat mounted on a horse as nervous as he was and waited under cover of a clump of scrub mesquite for the mule train. Even though he was paying plenty for protection he knew there was no such thing as safe, not in this business. No matter how big or how powerful you were there was always somebody ready to jump you. Double-dealing was the rule in this game.
Having the sheriff get popped with a ton of coke two weeks before at the provocation of one of his rivals didn’t promote complacency, and lately, Joe Schreiber, that agitator over in the county seat, had been getting more and more reckless with the accusations in his radical newspaper, the Tattletale. With the chokehold the dopers had on the local criminal justice system there wasn’t much chance he’d get anywhere, but any chance at all was too great a risk to take.
Though it was still way too early to expect to see any movement Orville raised his glasses and scanned the riverbank around the ford. Usually, he spotted the Mexican soldiers first. They almost always checked things out before sending the first mule across. Hiring them was expensive, but necessary, because while he could pay off the Border Patrol and the DEA only these soldiers had the muscle to discourage rival gangs from hijacking his shipments from the Mexican side.
A flash caught his eye, a glint of failing sunlight fleetingly reflected off some shiny object, maybe a gun barrel, Orville couldn’t tell. The afternoon Sun was so low in the sky that the figure was nothing more than a silhouette. Instantly, he traversed and searched the area where this had appeared. The tiny motor inside the binoculars zoomed their focus out to infinity, and suddenly there it was, a dark figure, moving with a peculiar gait downstream toward the ford.
Quickly he scanned the area around it, noting the nearest landmark, so he could return and watch it. He saw nothing. A glance at the ford, some two and a half kilometers to the left, still revealed no sign of the soldiers.
Orville dropped the glasses on their strap, slipped his rifle out of its scabbard and spurred his horse into motion. He moved quickly toward the wash that ran down to the riverbank and ended just downstream of the figure he had seen. If he timed it right, and if the stranger continued at the same speed and direction, Orville would come out behind him.
As he rode, Calhoun pondered the possibilities. He hoped it was only a wetback, and its appearance now just coincidence. That was a good bet. Hijackers were professionals, and seldom that careless.
As the ravine widened the trail got easier and Calhoun got a grip on himself. By the time he reached its terminus, where an alluvial fan of sand and gravel, dropped by countless rains, left him a clear shot at anybody who might try to cross in front of him, he was feeling positively calm.
Until the figure burst out into full view. When that happened, Calhoun’s heretofore mild concern turned into panic.
The stranger wore an elaborate disguise. In the dusk he looked more like a beast than a man—and big, fully as large as any bear Orville had ever seen here in the Big Bend. Worse, he was armed, and had seen Orville. He turned and pointed the weapon, which before he had merely waved aimlessly around, as though trying to decide whether to shoot.
The thing didn’t look much like a gun. Nevertheless, when the strange prickly sensation washed over his face and hands, Calhoun hesitated not an instant. He raised his rifle and dropped the stranger in his tracks.
Relief was mixed with regret. The report echoed down the walls of the ravine. Everyone near the ford would have heard it. There would be no delivery tonight. The Mexicans would suspect a double-cross on this side of the river and would flee. Calhoun would have to arrange a new rendezvous, endure the hassle of clearing the shipment with the fed’s patrol all over again, grease more palms, renegotiate storage and transshipment—it went on and on.
He wanted a good look at the source of his trouble so he dismounted, rifle in hand, and carefully approached the motionless body lying on the gravel. He stopped short, and gasped when he realized this was not a man disguised.
The creature wore a drab coverall with many bulging pockets, so that in places its limbs looked lumpy, like sacks of potatoes. What clothing did not cover, hair did, though on its face this appeared to have been clipped very short, almost like a human beard. The eyes were enormous, and there were many of them, all covered with some kind of horny material. Two were faceted like insect eyes. Calhoun knew in that instant that his life had changed forever.
What before had been merely panic blossomed into stark terror. Calhoun realized an alien would not visit Earth alone. It would have companions, and if they had ears to hear the shot they might already be on the way to investigate. With night falling so rapidly now, Calhoun knew he might not see them coming.
And he was right on the mark; he didn’t see the one that got him, although the darkness had nothing to do with that. The other creature had appeared out of thin air, right in front of him, accompanied by more prickly sensations, and shot him with something that froze all his voluntary muscles absolutely rigid. Calhoun toppled to the ground, his limbs retaining the pose they had when he was upright.
He could see only what was right in front of his eyes because he couldn’t move his eyeballs. He knew there were several creatures now, he heard strange voices in excited but incomprehensible conversation. Periodically something that felt uncomfortably prickly swept across his face.
After the discussion they picked him up and carried him off. Face up, he could see only a wobbly, starry sky.
When the stars vanished Calhoun screamed soundlessly. He knew they had taken him inside something and that it might be a spaceship. He was already convinced they were extraterrestrials.
Even though he was intensely curious he still tried as hard as he could to shut his eyes, which hurt badly. He couldn’t do it, nor could he hope to scratch the maddening itch into which the prickly sensation had degenerated. He must bear the unbearable.
Momentarily, another flurry of alien conversation distracted him. It sounded excited, urgent. In the periphery of his vision he occasionally detected movement but he couldn’t focus on it. Abruptly, the itching ceased, replaced by a sensation of tightening everywhere that clothing had not covered his skin.
Then, suddenly, Calhoun’s body came to rest. He found himself staring unblinkingly ahead at some sort of wall as the creatures turned him upright and stood him on his feet.
They left him, propped in this corner where he could not fall over, to ponder his fate in complete darkness. With their fading voices Calhoun’s last outside stimuli vanished.
“All right, Luqithur,” Chairman Feevish growled at his project manager, “I think it’s time for an explanation. Whatever possessed you to kidnap an alien and bring it home with you?”
“What was I supposed to do, kill it?”
Feevish cringed. He suspected Luqithur badly needed a rest. Like many people ,he had known whose work took them to primitive worlds and exposed them to barbaric cultures, Luqithur had become a little odd over the years. The veneer of civilization was thin, and the fact that Luqithur could even suggest intentionally killing another sapient frightened him. In all the world that happened perhaps once or twice a century.
Luqithur interpreted the chairman’s silence as accusatory. He realized how his remark must have sounded. “We planned to let it go after the danger was over,” he continued. “There’ve been other encounters where we did that. We’re confident that some of the other natives who saw us told others but we know from the studies we’ve made that the alien authorities don’t take such reports very seriously.”