Derelict

How Will You Escape Being Condemned? - Part B

Chapter Twenty-Eight

With extreme care and deliberation, Bryan raised his hands. "Hey! If you have claim to this gas, it's all yours. I got no beef with you and I'll just move on down the road."

Six men emerged from a half dozen of the trucks he had previously thought abandoned. All wore pointed boots and faded grey Stetsons. All moved in utter silence and stealth. And every one of them had some type of weapon pointed at him. Bryan suppressed a wild urge to ask which one of them was John Wayne or at the very least was related to him.

One of the men, a wiry, tough old bird sporting a grizzled grey beard laughed. "You see that, Cletus? That tanker's done claimed another one."

The man from behind responded and Bryan figured he had to be Cletus. "Yeah. Works every time."

Then his voice took on the serious, deadly tone of a man not used to be defied. " Now," he said shifting his attention to Bryan. "Let me tell you son. You're gonna turn around very slowly and keep those hands in the air. You make any sudden movements or do anything these here boys don't like, even if it irritates them just a little bit, you're gonna discover what it feels like to be aerated with lead. Got it?"

Bryan nodded and complied, moving ever so carefully. Squinting against the harsh glare of the sun, he could see little more than a dark silhouette and a shotgun held waist high, pointed at the center of his chest.

Before he could speak, he felt the sonic pistol yanked from his waistband. He was frisked from head to toe with a thoroughness that showed these men knew their business. What was equally disturbing and frustrating was their seeming ability to move without making even a bit of noise.

"Well, lookit here," exclaimed the man holding the sonic pistol with obvious unease like it could bite him at any time. "This ole boy's got some kinda new-fangled star wars blaster." He handed the weapon to Cletus who studied it briefly then slipped it into his belt at the small of his back.

One of the others snickered. "Star Wars? Yessir! Where's Chewbacca? Better yet, where's one of them silly little Ewoks? I've always wanted to plug me a few of them."

Cletus wasn't amused. "Knock off the stupid talk and get back in position. Keep an eye out, we ain't got a clue whether this ole boy's on his own or not."

Bryan finally spoke up. "Please. Be careful with that, it's..."

"It's alien, is what it is," interrupted Cletus. "And that tells me you gotta be working with them."

"What?" His assumption confused Bryan. "Them? No. I'm no collaborator. I just escaped from the mine at Sierra Blanca and I grabbed that on the way out."

Just then, a shout cried out when the sonic rifle was discovered in the pickup truck. Cletus turned his gaze back to Bryan. He took a few steps forward but the shotgun never wavered. "Stow that thing in the truck," he called out to the man holding the rifle.

"I'm telling you the truth," said Bryan, pouring into his voice every ounce of earnestness he could muster. "I escaped."

"That so?" He paused and came a few steps closer. "Son, I think you just signed your own death warrant. Ain't nobody ever escaped from Sierra Blanca. So if you were there, then that means they let you out and that means you been working with them and that means you're a dead man."