{"id":119,"date":"2009-11-15T00:00:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T05:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/?p=119"},"modified":"2022-12-14T14:31:22","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T19:31:22","slug":"no-child-of-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/articles\/no-child-of-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"No Child of Mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI<\/strong><\/span> said \u2018get\u2019 and go on out.\u201d Geraldine told her unwanted intruder.<\/p>\n

Terry, a young wife from the homestead down the road stood looking slack-jawed as Geraldine shuffled her slowly back into the red sands and cold winds of the Martian landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you can tell that son of mine, if he wanted to check up on me, he could do so his own damn self.\u201d That wouldn\u2019t happen, of course. The Companies had their contracts with the miners. Six months on, six months off. All in all, it was a fine deal for the miners. The wives tended to be less convinced.<\/p>\n

Geraldine wasn\u2019t a wife. No, she was pushing seventy, and had long ago lost her husband\u2014God rest his soul\u2014to one of the Earth pandemics ten years ago. Geraldine hadn\u2019t planned to retire to Mars, she hadn\u2019t come for a better life and a chance to get off of the over populated Earth. No, she\u2019d come because her baby son, her smallest child, had begged her to join him on his homestead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m no good with housework, you know that mom. Besides, I ain\u2019t gonna be able to attract a woman on my own. It isn\u2019t like you ever get to see your grandbabies on Earth. They all live too far away. You come up here and help me find a woman and you can have all the grandbabies you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

One grandbaby would have sufficed. Instead of grandbabies, old Geraldine Lewis sat in her rocking chair, saying her rosary along with a \u2019vid of her priest back on Earth praying for the sounds of children playing and waited for Maury to come home from his six months in the mines.<\/p>\n

Terry and some of the other young wives came by to check in, but she couldn\u2019t truck with their skinny legs and helpful smiles. Plus, Geraldine was losing her sight for real and there wasn\u2019t any way she\u2019d have a moment\u2019s peace if Maury found out about that.<\/p>\n

No. Better to keep \u2019em out and wait for Maury\u2019s six months to come up.<\/p>\n

Still, it got lonely, like you\u2019d have to imagine, and the way wind howled against the windows made Geraldine cold on the inside. \u201cCan\u2019t break the windows.\u201d She told the wind. One of those howls started up just as soon as Terry took off on her speeder. \u201cThey ain\u2019t glass anyhow, just that new plastic. They won\u2019t break just on account of the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pulled her shawl up tighter around her and turned up the volume on the \u2019vid, and silently rebuked herself for talking with no one around. Maybe when she\u2019d been younger and her husband was still alive, talking to herself from time to time was an alright thing, but now it was a sign of senility. Just another one of those damn double standards where the young could do a thing the old couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

That god-awful wind persisted, and against reason, Geraldine pushed herself to her feet and trudged to the door to look out the fine plastic-glass panels along the side. When she moved the curtain there aside, all she could see was the swirl of red sands dancing with itself on the back of the wind. \u201cWouldn\u2019t take two hours out there.\u201d She said to herself. \u201cWouldn\u2019t take two hours out there and that sand and cold would mummify me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not so much a horror she could see, since she really couldn\u2019t see anymore, Geraldine\u2019s fancy went off to vaguely remembered pictures of Mars and \u2019vids of the wilds out there since terraforming hadn\u2019t really taken the way they\u2019d hoped. Her fancy superimposed in her fuzzy image the twisting puffs of sand, colored red with iron just like blood was. She didn\u2019t see the dark spot in that twisting wind as it sped towards Maury\u2019s little homestead.<\/p>\n

She heard gun shots in the distance though. Large caliber rifles. Someone chasing someone else off.<\/p>\n

Then she heard another sound, a sound like a thousand tea kettles all with different pitches, whistles at the same time. That did the job of making her colder than the winds could have if they wanted too, and she let go of the window shade and stumbled, then tripped, away from the door.<\/p>\n

The horrible wailing went on Geraldine fought against legs too weak and aged in order to get back to her feet. She\u2019d heard that bats her age would shatter hips at the merest touch. Not she. No, not from one stumble while something making noises that terrible seemed to be coming to her door.<\/p>\n

Well intact, if aching with a newly forming bruise, Geraldine did finally pull herself up by a chair and took up a cane she loathed to use. On her feet, it occurred to her just how silly her response had been. Screaming tea kettle monsters\u2014indeed.<\/p>\n

No, what she likely heard was some kind of speeder. She\u2019d heard highwaymen and the kinds of trouble they were causing the homesteaders. It was likely that and nothing else.<\/p>\n

And if it was that, she was in some very real trouble. A rifle ain\u2019t no good if you can\u2019t see to use it.<\/p>\n

A shot gun was another story, however. With that in mind, Geraldine carried herself to Maury\u2019s gun cabinet and felt her way through. She didn\u2019t have much practice, nor was she any kind of natural shot. Luckily, with a shotgun, all she needed to do was point it in a direction and hope the arthritis didn\u2019t stop her from pulling the trigger.<\/p>\n

She imagined she painted a pathetic image, a bent and crooked old crone hugging a shot gun to her chest while one shaking arm supported her weight on a cane. She thought of her youth, she\u2019d been a thing to look at once, she\u2019d had children to hold to her instead of shotguns and fantasy.<\/p>\n

She missed Maury.<\/p>\n

That was when the horrible din started up again, closer now then it was before and growing closer. She envied the eyes of the young wives, as well as their legs, and hobbled with the weapon to her rocking chair. This she pointed towards the door and sat down, rocking slowly and waiting.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take no long suffering time for something to happen. Geraldine had barely gotten all through the Lord\u2019s Prayer when the door splintered open with a startling force behind it. Her ears told her, her eyes said only that the shape at the door was gone now and something dark sped past the door and down the hall in the direction of where she sat.<\/p>\n

It, what ever it was, stopped in front of her.<\/p>\n

\u201cReckon if your here to rob me, you\u2019re likely to get yourself shot first.\u201d Geraldine told the shape. At her age, she had no fear of death. It was no longer a thing unfamiliar to her.<\/p>\n

It did not answer in any words she understood. Rather, it made a soft hissing noise\u2014a noise that sounded a lot like pain. Then, this tall thin dark shape shot off in the direction of the basement door. There, she thought, it would be trapped since they had no cellar doors. Also, she thought about it, standing up, she thought she smelled something a lot like blood in the air. Blood, but different.<\/p>\n

The trip to the basement stairs was exhausting enough that she decided not to follow the shape down in. Instead, she leaned on the door jam and called down. \u201cI ain\u2019t gonna shoot the injured. No use you bleeding to death in my son\u2019s basement. Ain\u2019t no way he\u2019ll get a woman to come marry him if he\u2019s got a haunted basement. Why don\u2019t you come on up here?\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no answer beside from the huffing sound the figure made when it breathed. It couldn\u2019t have been more than a few steps down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d she asked in a huff. \u201cYou don\u2019t speak American or something? Don\u2019t right know what the hell other language they brought up to these colonies but maybe some Spanish. Hablo Americano?\u201d Her accent was, of course, insulting, but she didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

What answered was a significantly softer version of the hissing she\u2019d heard on the back of the red wind earlier. Pitiful, and she had just enough pathos left in her old bones to detect pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re hurt bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just, you just stay there.\u201d She said after a moment thinking. With that she stood up and went to the kitchen and found the box of sweets she\u2019d hidden in a cabinet. Maury thought she shouldn\u2019t have sweets. She thought it was none of his business.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow look.\u201d She told the breathing sound down the basement stairs. \u201cI know you\u2019re hurt, sounds like you\u2019re probably afraid too. I reckon though if you wanted to hurt me I\u2019d already be done fer. Gun or no gun. So,\u201d she sat on the top step and opened the box, speaking just as soothingly as she could, like she did when Maury was just a little guy. \u201cSo why don\u2019t you have a chocolate and we can do what we can for what ever is hurting on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

It stopped breathing, and that silence stretched out longer than Geraldine could take. \u201cSon? Really, I don\u2019t mean no harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t hear it breathing again until it was almost on top of her, hovering over her. It was tall and from what she could see awful thin with arms just a little too long to be alright. It looked as if it were wearing some kind of skin tight leather suit. It smelled a bit like wet iron, like blood. The box of sweets in her hand rattled, she couldn\u2019t follow the movement of the figure\u2019s hand as it darted into and out of the box with a piece of chocolate.<\/p>\n

It made another pathetic whistling noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere, now, see here? How we\u2019re all safe and sound? I don\u2019t see good no more, but why don\u2019t you let me see what\u2019s bleeding. You know what blood is? Owie?\u201d Maybe her tone crossed the language barrier, or maybe it understood her, but she found the figure setting its wrist into her outstretched hands. Her eyes were just too bad to notice it had a few extra joints in its fingers. Up along its super thin arm she could dimly see the leather parted and red blood oozed out a bit. It wasn\u2019t a bad wound, it just must of felt like it, and she took a handkerchief which she wrapped around its arm and bound it tight. The thing flinched when she tightened the knot and all but pulled away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s alright.\u201d She soothed. \u201cGeraldine ain\u2019t gonna hurt you. Just like a great big space baby, aren\u2019t you? Now, I\u2019m sure that hurt, but it was just a little bit of shot, I\u2019ve seen much worse. We\u2019ll keep it clean and you\u2019ll be just fine. So, comer, I\u2019ll sing you a lullaby like I did for Maury when he was a little man.\u201d Geraldine held her arms out in an open and inviting fashion. She was lonely enough, she decided before the stranger came to her, lonely enough that it didn\u2019t matter to her who it was, so long as it was here and so long as it didn\u2019t have pretty legs and think less of her just on account of her age.<\/p>\n

The figure settled its weight down into that open gesture, much to her surprise, and even set a head on her shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t that better?\u201d She wrapped her arms around the thing carefully and started to sing something low and sweet and meant to sooth a sad child.<\/p>\n

She never saw for sure the monster that rested in her arms. The shimmering iridescence of its oil slick green skin, nor its liquid black narrow eyes. She couldn\u2019t see the spikes that extended back from its almost featureless face. She didn\u2019t know what she held in her arms and comforted, and if anyone had told her, she just wouldn\u2019t have believed them.<\/p>\n

When some time had past, these things are difficult to gauge when the weight of suffering rests in your arms, and the sharp copper smell had all but left the room. The stranger was breathing more evenly, and once or twice she heard a trill sigh that sounded off, but peaceful after a fashion.<\/p>\n

That peace broke with a pound on the door and Geraldine\u2019s old heart skipped in her chest so hard she all but figured it might not start back up.<\/p>\n

\u201cMrs. Lewis? Mrs. Lewis? Are you alright in there?\u201d The pounding continued and she knew they wouldn\u2019t let her alone, not with the panic in their words.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo and hide,\u201d she whispered and pointed down the basement stairs and prayed for understanding. The stranger hissed softly and moved away from her. With all the creaking and groaning that went along with it, Geraldine got to her feet and shuffled slowly to the door calling out, \u201cI\u2019m here, what\u2019s all this noise?\u201d<\/p>\n

To her surprise, the men at the door, tall and armed by the fuzzy outlines of them she could make out, had already pushed their way in. \u201cSorry for the trouble, ma\u2019am. We come after a\u2014\u201d the lead man hesitaited with his words and maybe played with his hat, \u201c\u2014poacher we think came this way. Wouldn\u2019t have barged in, but this one\u2019s squirrelly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid something to the yaks,\u201d said another man. \u201cSomething bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I hit him, so he might be desperate,\u201d said the lead man, likely the sheriff the way he talked.<\/p>\n

Geraldine scowled and tried to justify what she was hearing with the shivering stranger in her basement. She couldn\u2019t and so she said; \u201cno one like that has come through here, fellas, so why don\u2019t you push on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love to ma\u2019am. Hate to interrupt your afternoon and all, but just in case he\u2019s in here and you don\u2019t know about it, I\u2019m afraid we\u2019re gonna have to have a look around.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would have given away too much if she argued, so she just shuffled to the side while the men went about searching her house from attic to basement. She held her breath and sat down on the hallway steps, waiting for shouts or gun shots and screams.<\/p>\n

When someone from the basement shouted, \u201cain\u2019t down here,\u201d Geraldine started breathing regular again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d the man in charge told her as the posse headed for her front door, \u201clooks like you was right. Tell you though, he might still be out there, so you watch out and lock this door after us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAny word if any of the boys from this shift at the mine heading home anytime soon?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t know about that, ma\u2019am. Lock this door.\u201d<\/p>\n

The screams of the wind swallowed the posse back up as soon as they were out the door, which Geraldine did in fact lock after. In the moments that followed she realized just how much she missed the sound of someone else breathing in the house with her.<\/p>\n

She felt weaker now, tired beyond reason when she dragged her bones to the basement stairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello?\u201d She called down into the gloom she couldn\u2019t see into even with the lights on. The open black mouth of a door way gave her no answer. \u201cHello, son, are you down there?\u201d Again she heard nothing and knew there was nothing down there to lure to her with chocolates or the promise of love and comfort. The injured thing, hearing its pursuers must have left the basement by the storm doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t no kind of child they can\u2019t take away from me!\u201d Trembling, she sank to her rear on floor weeping. \u201cDamn them, damn them to feel like I do.\u201d The vague curse filled the air, but was answered by the same thoughtless quiet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Classic stories of the West seem to revel in the vast spaces and the wide open vistas; the very isolation that living on the frontier must bring with it. Filamena Young returns to Mars in a follow-up story to “Mars Ain’t No Place for Ladies<\/a>”. — ed, N.E. Lilly<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5],"tags":[115],"media":[299],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"media","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}