Timewalker

TIMEWALKER

The cattle were nervous, their heads up, listening from the edge of the trees along the sagebrush-covered ridge. The half-moon hadn’t risen yet, the sky so dark it seemed as if someone had fired a shotgun full of diamond dust at a sheet of black canvas. Although it was not quite September, the night air was chill, more like autumn than late summer.

A deep silence settled over the clearing. No birds called to each other, no nighthawks trilled across the Montana sky. Even the wind seemed muffled, the trees so still they might as well have been cardboard props planted in the rocky soil. The cows sensed it too, sniffing the air, puzzled by the unexpected scent of lightning. As one, they swung their heads to the west, their attention fixed on a low, undulating growl. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, and nowhere.

The herd began to move, calves staying close to their mothers as they snaked along the timber’s edge. The lead cow, a rangy black-white face with one broken horn, stopped and raised her muzzle, her nostrils flared. The lightning scent was stronger now. The smell meant one thing to her. Danger. Move. Run.

Around her, a weird glow began to play, strips of bluish light interspersed with shadows whipping across the ground as a silver disc drifted low across the sky. The herd bolted, scattering in every direction, bawling as the disc temporarily turned midnight to morning.

A dark circle opened in the belly of the thing. From it, something large and soft fell and struck the ground with a wet thud. The opening sealed itself, the disc’s surface once more smooth as eggshell. The low, thrumming note faded as the machine banked north, gathering speed.

A kilometre below, parked along a rutted gravel road, a pair of headlights sent spikes of yellow light across the valley. Inside the battered pickup, the teenage driver and his two friends stared upwards, too stunned to speak as the light climbed away and vanished among the stars.