Dreams That Burn In The Night (21 page)

Great-grandfather
jumped off the rock. "What? What?" he shouted. "What is this craziness! Has my great-grandson
fallen upon his head too many times!"

Great-grandmother
tried to quiet Great-grandfather down but he jumped around like a frightened horse. He paced back
and forth, cursing loudly.

"They also told me
the Great Spirit is superstition," said Great-grandson.

"What is this
superstition?" roared Great-grandfather. "Is that another of those city funnies you picked up at
away school? If I wasn't so old I'd flatten you with a rock! I never heard such
fool­ishness!"

"But,
Great-grandfather," protested Great-grandson, "I am only telling you what they are teaching me at
away school. It isn't my fault that the white people are all crazy. They even told me that it was
impossible to talk with people after they are dead."

"They have gone too
far!" shrieked Great-grandfather. "They have gone too far! There will be no more away
school!"

Great-grandfather
beat his scrawny chest with his fists in a defiant gesture which sent him into a fit of
coughing.

Great-grandmother
patted him on the back as his face swelled up and turned red.

She looked
disgusted. "You shouldn't have told him all those terrible things," she said, pounding
Great-grandfather's back vig­orously. "You know this happens every time he gets
upset."

Great-grandson
looked properly apologetic and helped Great-grandmother sit him back on his favorite sitting
rock. The cough­ing fit passed, leaving Great-grandfather weak and gasping for breath.

"It's the vapors,"
said Great-grandmother. "If he had enough sense to come in out of the . . ."

Great-grandfather
scowled so ferociously that she stopped speaking. She knew when she was well off.

"No more!" shouted
Great-grandfather between gasps. "No more away school!"

"But,
Great-grandfather," the boy protested. "I will be arrested and thrown into the white man's jail
if I do not go to away school."

The old man folded
his arms across his chest. He raised his head, tilting it at a defiant angle. He sucked his
scrawny stomach in and pushed his thin chest out. It was his warrior's stance, which had once put
fear into the hearts of many a comely woman. When Great-grandfather did this, it meant that his
mind was made up. It meant that there would be no further discussion. It meant that there would
be no more away school. It also meant another coughing spell for Great-grandfather, who was
always forgetting his condition.

Great-grandmother
began whacking him on the back again with the practiced ease of one who has done it many hundreds
of times. She sighed. "He never learns."

"Or else he never
remembers," suggested Great-grandson.

Great-grandmother
shook her head wearily. "I think it is a little of both," she said.

The letter from
away school came three weeks later. The boy carried the letter to his great-grandparents. "I told
you they were going to throw me into the slammer if I didn't go to away school," he said after
reading them the letter. The letter said they were going to throw him into the
slammer.

Great-grandfather
started to go into his warrior's stance, but
the old woman had anticipated that very thing and she whacked him in the back before he
could get a decent start at it. He was taken completely by surprise and fell forward off his
favorite sit­ting rock. This saved him from another coughing spell.

"What happens is
that they are going to come and get me and throw me in the slammer," said Great-grandson, looking
unhappy about the whole thing.

"Something will
have to be done about this thing," said the old man solemnly from his seat upon the ground. "I
will not take this thing lying down." He got up as if he meant it literally and started to sit
back down on his favorite sitting rock. His dim eyes betrayed him and he almost sat down on
Great-grandmother.

"The rock is two
feet to your left," said Great-grandmother.

"I knew that all
along," said Great-grandfather indignantly. "I was only trying to get you to guess my
weight."

He moved over to
the rock, stared at it carefully, judging its exact location, and sat down. He missed the rock by
three inches.

"It is good to sit
upon the ground once in a while," reflected the old man as he rubbed his hip. "It gives a man a
whole new perspective on things."

Great-grandmother
snickered to herself. In an aside to the boy, she said, "Boy! He's in lousy shape, ain't
he?"

It was but one day
later that Great-grandson rushed up to his great-grandparents. "They've come," he cried, gazing
over his shoulder fearfully. There was a loud whining noise from the di­rection from which he had
just come. Great-grandfather was asleep in the sun with his mouth open. He jumped awake,
think­ing he had been shot. He felt all over his chest, not that it would have made any
difference in his condition.

"Who? What?" he
said.

"The white men have
come to throw your one and only great-grandson into the slammer!" shouted
Great-grandson.

Great-grandfather
yawned and closed his eyes again. "That's nice," he said. "I always liked buffalo sou . . ." He
was asleep again.

"Wake up
Great-grandfather!" shouted Great-grandson.

"Boy, he really is
in lousy shape, ain't he?" said Great-grand­mother.

"Who? What?" said
Great-grandfather.

"We already covered
that already!" groaned Great-grandson.

Grudgingly,
Great-grandfather awoke. He rubbed his eyes. From a distance, there was a strange whooshing
noise.

"Who's that
whooshing around my place of business!" roared the old man.

"It's the white men
come to throw me in the slammer!" yelled Great-grandson for the third or fourth time.

"No kidding," said
Great-grandfather. He didn't seem particu­larly concerned. "By the way," asked the old man, "what
the hell is a slammer?"

"That's a white
man's jail," replied the boy.

"Well! Why the hell
didn't you say so in the first place! You idiot! I thought a slammer was a ..."

Great-grandson was
never to know what the old man thought a slammer was because the white men arrived in a strange
vehicle without wheels.

"It's the white men
come to throw our one and only great-grandson into the slammer," said Great-grandmother. But as
she said it she had doubts. For one thing, they had tentacles and were blue. She'd seen some ugly
white people in her day but none quite as ugly as the two specimens who had just come into
view.

Great-grandson
threw his hands up in the air, screamed at least once, and ran like hell. He disappeared behind
an outcropping of rock.

"What's wrong with
him?" asked Great-grandfather. "Did he sit on a cold worm? Where's he going?"

"It's the white men
come to throw our one and only great-grandson into the slammer," repeated Great-grandmother, and
she motioned at the aliens embarking from the vehicle. He fol­lowed her arm with his weak eyes
and saw them vaguely.

Great-grandfather
snorted. "You think I don't know what they are? I got eyes, you know." He blinked his eyes
uncertainly. For some reason, the blurry forms in front of him seemed suspiciously blue. He
attributed this to indigestion.

The aliens advanced
on the seated couple. The aliens were six feet tall, covered with blue scaly armor. They had eye
bulbs on each side of their faces, thin slit mouths, red eye membranes across red-pupiled eyes.
They were clothed in a superior smirk.

"So you think
you're going to throw my one and only great-grandson into the slammer, do you?" roared
Great-grandfather.

He immediately went
into a coughing fit.  Great-grandmother began pumping his back in the usual
fashion.

"What's a slammer?"
said the first alien. He eyed the old man, who was bent over double, gasping and coughing with
his tongue hanging out.

"Boy, he's really
in lousy shape, ain't he?" commented the first alien.

"Yeah," said the
second alien. "This is going to be easier than making candy out of babies."

The first alien
took a hand weapon out of a pouch strapped below his chin. He set the gauge on stun. "This is
going to be the easiest one yet. No technology worth shaking a quantum at. No force fields, no
personal power packs, no weapons. Clothes made out of animal skins. Primitive." He aimed the
weapon at Great­grandfather and shot him in the head, laughing to himself all the
while.

It had absolutely
no effect on the old man. He just kept coughing. The first alien turned and stared at the second
alien. "Wow!" he said.

"Yeah," agreed the
second alien. A good stun shot was strong enough to cripple a five-ton herbil.

Great-grandfather
coughed, Great-grandmother pounded his back, and Great-grandson hid in the rocks viewing the
whole pro­ceedings with alarm.

"My stunner must be
out of whack. Lemme use yours," grunted the first alien.

The second alien
handed it over to him. The first alien set it on stun and shot the old man again. Nothing
happened. The old man didn't even blink an eye. He was too busy trying to get his breath
back.

"Hey!" said the
first alien, whipping his tentacles in a confused circle around his shoulders. "Hey!"

The second alien
nodded his head. "Yeah."

"Am I gonna get him
now!" threatened the first alien, setting his tentacles determinedly around the hand weapon. He
set the stunner on full charge, moved the power setting to overload, and blasted away at the old
man again. The only thing that happened was that the weapon overheated and melted into a
shapeless hunk of hot metal. It burned the alien's tentacle. He yelped and threw the useless
weapon away. He waved his stinging tentacle in the
air. He looked madder than hell. He looked at the second alien, who looked right
back at him.

"We didn't get the
wrong planet, did we? I mean, I've seen technology and I've seen technology, but this is beyond
me. How come he ain't dead, is what I want to know."

"I can't understand
it either," said the second alien. "We flew over the missile base. They had atomic weapons. Real
kid stuff. No force fields, no anti-matter weapons. Prepubescent technol­ogy. So how come this
one is so hard to kill?"

"I'll nail him with
my molecular disruption gun," said the first alien as he took a small metal tube out of his neck
pouch. "He won't know what hit him." He smirked, but his smirk lacked con­viction.

Great-grandfather
sat weakly on his favorite sitting rock. He'd got his breath back finally. Great-grandmother had
her eyes on the ugly white men. She couldn't understand anything they were saying. None of it
made any sense. This helped convince her that they were indeed white people.

"Stop burping me!"
growled Great-grandfather. She stopped whacking his back.

The gun in the
alien's tentacle erupted in a silvery-red flash and a brilliant beam of energy passed through
Great-grandfather and completely destroyed his favorite sitting rock. It disappeared in a
shimmering cloud of vaporized molecules. Great-grandfather fell flat on his back. He was so
shocked he almost went into another coughing fit.

"Hey!" shouted the
first alien, whipping tentacles in all direc­tions, entangling two of them in his confusion.
"Hey!"

The second alien
was too shocked to even say yeah.

"That does it!"
shouted Great-grandfather, struggling to get off the ground. "I'm going to teach you crazy white
people to mess with me! Throw my one and only great-grandson into the slammer, will
you?"

"What's a slammer?"
said the first alien. "Are we talking the right language or what?"

"I'm going to hit
you with the dreaded curse of Cheroboa! I'll knock your rooty-tooty eyes out!" exclaimed
Great-grandfather, dangerously close to another coughing fit.

Great-grandmother
covered her eyes. "Oh no! Not that old song and dance again!"

"Maybe they put up
that missile base to fool us," suggested the second alien. "Maybe those radio broadcasts we
picked up twenty years ago are true? Maybe this guy is Superman?"

"Hoogma nuba toot!"
roared Great-grandfather, and he made a mystic pass through the air with his hands. He looked
around ex­pectantly. Nothing happened.

"Nuts!" he said. "I
was sure I had it right."

"Who is kidding
who?" asked the first alien. He eyed the old man critically, studying him first with one eye bulb
and then the other.

"Where's his cape?
Superman got to have a cape," said the first alien. "How we gonna find out if he's
Superman?"

"Hoogma toot nuba."
It began raining in downtown Los An­geles. "Ah, come on now!" complained Great-grandfather. "I
know I had it right that time!" He stared at the sky expectantly.