Hazards

Free Hazards by Mike Resnick Page B

Book: Hazards by Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online
Authors: Mike Resnick
Tags: Science-Fiction
my right, but he immediately urged his horse forward and blocked my way. Then he started jabbering at me and pointing to my left. I looked where he was pointing, and all I could see was maybe twenty thousand cows, give or take a couple.
    “That’s mighty considerate of you, Brother, but I’m looking for sinners of the two-legged kind,” I told him. “Besides, mighty few cows contribute to the poor box, and that’s a serious consideration when you’re figuring out where to build your tabernacle.”
    I walked around his horse and began heading off again, and again he blocked my way.
    “Just what seems to be your problem, Brother?” I said, starting to get a bit riled.
    He began talking a blue streak, but I didn’t hear no familiar words like “pampas” or “bolas,” and finally I held up my hand for silence.
    “I appreciate your concern,” I said, “and as near as I can figger it, either you think I’m here to convert your cattle, or I look so hungry you want me to take a couple of hundred cows home with me, or—and now that I come to think of it, them first two don’t hold a candle to the next reason, which is that you got all your womenfolk stashed in the direction I’m going.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to worry none, Brother. The way I smell after walking through your pasture, I doubt that any woman of quality would let me get near her—and if she would, that just means she’s been stepping in all this stuff too, and I ain’t wildly interested in getting much closer than fifty feet to her, or maybe a hundred, depending on which way the wind’s blowing.”
    I began walking yet again, and this time he just sighed and frowned and shook his head, and finally he dug his spurs into his horse and headed off toward all the cattle he’d been trying to introduce me to.
    It took me a whole day and a night to get out of that cow pasture, but finally I came to what was either a large rocky hill or a small rocky mountain, and I followed a footpath up it, and pretty soon I became aware that I was being watched by unseen eyes, which in my broad experience are just about the worst kind of eyes to be watched by, and finally the footpath widened a bit, and suddenly I was facing a mighty impressive stone building which sure didn’t resemble no other building I’d ever seen. Of course, the 200 naked warriors, each of ’em with a spear and an expression that would have meant their shorts were too tight if any of ’em had been wearing shorts, might have had a little something to do with it.
    Finally they stood aside, and a kind of short, pudgy white man moseyed out of the building while they all bowed down as he passed by. He was wearing a loincloth, which meant he was dressed a lot better than any of his friends and neighbors, and he had a half-smoked cigar in his mouth. He was kind of bald, and a little bit cock-eyed, and he had such a thick unkempt beard that it instantly said to all and sundry that he wasn’t on speaking terms with his barber, and his bare feet were pretty caked with all the stuff I’d been doing my best to avoid, but outside all that I suppose he was as presentable as most people, and certainly more presentable than some I’d run into lately.
    He walked up to me, stopped about four feet away, put his hands on his hips, jutted out his chin, and said, “Who the hell are you?”
    “You speak English,” I said, surprised.
    “I speak English a hell of a lot better than you answer questions,” he said. “Now, who are you?”
    “The Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service,” I said. “Weddings and baptisms done cheap, with a group rate for funerals. And who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
    “Rakovekin, Lord of the Outer Realm, Messenger of the Almighty, Spokesman for the Elder Deities, and Commander of the Legions of the Dead.”
    “That’s quite a mouthful, Brother,” I noted.
    “Yeah, it can get tedious,” he admitted.

Similar Books

Playing the Game

Simon Gould

Angst

Victoria Sawyer

Chill

Alex Nye

The Call of Zulina

Kay Marshall Strom

Replica

Jenna Black

A Question of Ghosts

Cate Culpepper

The Bishop's Daughter

Wanda E. Brunstetter

Drowning Barbie

Frederick Ramsay