Columbia River Plateau 1871, early autumn

A sharp pain sliced through my foot all the way to my knee. My balance slid askew as I fired my last bullet into the gut of the alien monster in front of me.

She stood almost as tall as me, clad only in purple skin and translucent wings. I knew her sex with only a glance. I rarely saw females in battle. They were often shamans, or witches. Deadly.

She wove the air with her three fingered, reptilian paws in a complicated pattern that I knew would cast a magical bolt of lightning likely to kill me. I let my sliding feet carry me to the ground, beneath the fading arrow of magic. It fizzled and dropped sparks right onto the small of my back.

Burning agony sliced across my waist nearly hip to hip.

I ignored it as I drew my belt knife launched it directly into the single eye of my enemy. Humanity’s enemy.

What my bullet through her heart didn’t accomplish, the sharp blade did. The one-eyed witch died instantly with her claws waving helplessly through the air.

I watched as her purple skin greyed and her almost translucent hair lost its lavender tinge. Her wing membranes crumpled into the rocky ground.

Never trust a one-eyed witch. They sometimes came back to life.

Or spinning purple spaceships brought reinforcements. Swarms rarely happened during daylight. Rescue ships waited until the darkest hours of the night.

This dead critter wouldn’t rise again. The near-constant wind of the high desert plateau already began to scatter the remains into the scrub sagebrush that dominated the high desert plateau.

“Dust to dust,” I mumbled the only prayer I remembered from before. Before my life became an endless battle with mundane weapons against arcane powers.

If I wanted the bounty for this swarm feasting on seven dead Indians courtesy of the U.S. Army, I had to act fast to harvest the spiral, hollow horn growing from the middle of her forehead. Males had straight horns.

A single mournful note escaped the horn. Sweet and melancholy, her death music tugged at my heart. I wanted to cry.

“Fuck it. I don’t need the money.” $250 per horn, $1000 for the spiraled horn of a witch. I tore the horn free of flesh and bone. Unusual how easily it came away in a single piece.

The money added up fast. That only mattered if a Rider of the Purple Sage, the paranormal branch of the Pinkerton Agency, lived long enough to spend it.

I had a deadly reputation among my fellow agents. No one, human outlaw or alien, messed with Josie Blue. I’d spent six years in the field, longer than three-quarters of my comrades. Before that, I’d spent four years as a Union Army scout during the war.

I never talked about my life before that and tried not to think on it too much.

I figured I’d used up most of my luck. This should be my last mission. If I survived long enough to find safety, maybe a nice little town populated by people rather than the dead and dying carrion eaters littering the ground around me.

They didn’t eat just any carrion, though never sheep. These critters would pass up dead buffalo, deer, wolves, and cattle for a single taste of dead human.

I braced my left hand against my bleeding back as I heaved myself upright. Every muscle twitch sent fire through my veins and dimmed my vision. But I had to stand. Crouching on the ground made me vulnerable.

Elinore, my skewbald mare, nudged me gently beneath my arm. Gratefully, I accepted her assistance until I stood beside her. She’d worked hard defending me today. Her instincts and a little training and she was as formidable a warrior as me. Her iron-shod feet and big teeth behind a half ton of weight inflicted as much damage as my two Colt .45s, Derringers in ankle holsters, a brace of knives, and a Spencer repeating rifle.

“You’ll have a scar or two from this battle, my dear.” I brushed her neck and nose with delicate fingertips. She hung her head, nearly as exhausted as me. Her saddle didn’t sit straight on her back. Something was very wrong with my closest companion. My friend.

“Guess you aren’t up to carrying me.” I buried my nose in her mane.

She remained still as we both gathered the strength and courage to move.

“First things first.” With one hand I dug a worn and stained shirt from my saddlebag. No water left in my canteen to dampen the cloth. Couldn’t find the blame thing anyway. Then, still clinging to Elinore, with one hand and my teeth, I ripped the once fine cotton in half. I still needed the mare’s strength to hold me upright, so I turned and rested my back and neck against her while I tied half the shirt around my waist. The pressure from my make-shift bandage gave me enough relief I could turn around and dab at Elinore’s wounds with the other half.

Those alien horns were wicked sharp. They’d left some jagged cuts. But horse hide can be tough. The bleeding slowed already and would soon scab over.

I hoped my own wound would too.

“If you are ready, dear heart, we’d best get going. We need to find water. And food. It may be autumn, but that sun is still hot enough to kill us both. One foot in front of the other.” We dragged ourselves along a twisted game trail that headed up toward a ridge. I’d be able to see for miles in every direction up there so I could choose a direction.

If only this scrap of high desert offered shade from anything taller than a tumbleweed or rabbitbrush, I’d rest a while. No water either.

We had to keep going. One step at a time.

***

About the Author: Irene Radford, aka P.R. Frost, aka C.F. Bentley, has been writing stories ever since she figured out what a pencil was for. A member of an endangered species, a native Oregonian who lives in Oregon, she and her husband make their home in Welches, Oregon, where deer, bears, coyotes, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers feed regularly on their back deck.

A museum-trained historian, Phyllis Irene has spent many hours prowling pioneer cemeteries deepening her connections to the past. Raised in a military family, she grew up all over the US and learned early on that books are friends that don’t get left behind with a move. Her interests and reading range from ancient history, to spiritual meditations, to space stations, and a whole lot in between.