COULTER RIDGE

The rope ladder was still in place. Randolph thought it was a good sign given that he had not been this way for over ten years. He turned and looked at the late afternoon sun and then up the cliff. He wondered how visible he would be. The shaggy suit he wore was affective in forest or grassland environs, but he didn't know how well it would hide him against the rocks. He turned and looked into the wooded area behind him trusting his senses as he had always done. It would have to serve now. Scanning the cliff face he noted places that would offer him the ability to blend in amongst the outcroppings. It was not like the enemy to snipe from a distance. They had a weird sense of honor that made face to face kills their modus operandi, not that mass killings from above wasn't one of their most used methods. Randolph knew that his death was a priority to them. Such was life, we come in it from the dark and you leave into it. He didn't allow himself the luxury of pondering the ultimate destination or the nature of its administration. The workings of the afterlife were no doubt too complicated for such a simple mind as his. He believed in God and would often pray on the run. In fact when projectiles and explosions were flying and bursting around him he prayed in full earnest. Faith had become a natural thing. Even the bastards who now sought him were proof of God. Even they professed a belief in the divine but they were truly godless heathens.

The long shadows from the trees now covered him. If he could get up the cliff face before nightfall he could find a place to rest for the rest of the night. Slinging his pack and rifle he began to climb. He climbed for over an hour finally reaching an outcropping. He cut the robe and let the ladder fall to the canyon floor. The rest of the way would be rough. They could catch him but not from behind. He looked behind him and noted a small cave opening. Opening his pack and pulled out a pair of binoculars and flipped on the night vision mode. He looked into the cave-it appeared to be empty and of a size adequate to his needs.

A flash of lightening announced the arrival of a summer storm. The landscape flared white in is eyes then a silvery glow outlined everything giving it an eerie feeling. He took off the binoculars and crawled into the cave just ahead of an assault of huge raindrops. A peal of thunder shook the mountain. He sat back and let out a sigh. He would be dry and safe at least for the night. The next flash of lightening was the harbinger for another watery assault from the heavens. This time it was hailstones as big as golf balls that exploded on the rocks like mini ice bombs.

A week had passed since he had made his escape and he was bone weary. He stripped off the multi-green rag suit and hat. Then he removed his jumpsuit. The next few minutes was used to examine his body for cuts and scrapes he may have acquired in his flight. Adrenaline had a way of hiding the pain but he was pleased that apart from a few nicks and scratches he was okay. He did have one pretty bad cut on his upper right arm that needed to be cleaned. A small torrent of water ran down a natural half-pipe on the side of the cave. He used the water to cleanse his wound then took some anesthetic from his kit and applied it to the cut and dressed it. It was a safe enough place to take the time to wash the grime off the rest of his body. The night was warm but cooling fast. He finished his toilet then decided to risk a heater fire. The cave was high enough up and he was back far enough back in the cave to not be seen by a sniffer unit. If the enemy was using sensobots instead of sniffers his own body would be hot enough to be detected and he would have a fight on his hands. As tired as he was he needed to be refreshed so that he would be available to the needs of such an altercation Randolph shivered slightly at the night breeze across his skin. It reminded him of home. He remembered a girl and a warm summer night by a small lake. They had skinny dipped and had made love on the bank under a full moon. That wonderful night had a cool breeze just like this one. Funny though that he could remember the breeze but not that beautiful girl's name. Coming out of that pleasant reverie Randolph took out a coffee can sized object and opened the top. A six-inch fan swirled out. He touched the start button and a small hot blue flame flared out around the circular fanned element. The heat was instant and soothing. Once comfortable he took out a palm-sized shaver and ran it over his chin and close-cropped head, then over the rest of his body. The device removed the stubble and killed any hitchhikers that he may have picked up along the way. The next half-hour he spent checking his weapons, ammo and sparse food supplies. Tomorrow he would have to find some food or the enemy would not be his most pressing problem.

A loud blast woke him from a disturbing dream. a piece of rock shard crazed his cheek. He rolled over flat on the cave floor then into a fetal ball with his back to the cave entrance. The bombing continued for over an hour. Randolph composed himself and willed his mind away from the danger by singing.

'Tom Manly rode with a gun.

A man of anger a man on the run

He had the will to wage a righteous war

Never wondering what he did it for

The sun would rise

The sun would set

Fighting when it was dry

Killing when it was wet

Taking back what was taken

Teach the young before it's gone…'

The bombing stooped. He stayed still. If they were using motion sensors it would be best to stay still awhile until they lost interest. He calculated how long it would take to sweep the whole cliff face.

Randolph let his mind wonder through his memories. It had only been fifteen years since the enemy had come to America. No one saw it coming. There had been aggression, there was always someone somewhere that hated the ole US. There wasn't anyone who believed that our country would fall. That old Yankee spirit was always alive and well. We were invincible, created by God and perfected in freedom. Who knew? We had our homes, our jobs, our churches, our political correctness, and our right to consume and burn fossil fuels in our big gas guzzling luxury cars. We had our fast foods and our obesity. We relished our pride and selfishness as if we were entitled to it. It happened so quickly, a nightmare in which no one would awake. In fact so many died in that first terrible attack that saying we were even a nation was a joke. Of the few that survived many more died out of hopelessness. The rest woke up and started to fight back.

Randolph was a carpenter then. He was married with two beautiful children. He and his lovely wife and family moved from an impossibly expensive California to a more reasonable Kankakee Illinois. Moving in to his mother's house he got a job and began remodeling the old homestead. His father had died that year and left him, an only son, and his mother a considerable sum. His mother took a worldwide tour, he never saw her again. After he had finished the house he was asked to go back to San Diego to work on a hotel. The contract was too lucrative to refuse. He was to go home in September. The invasion came like a thief in the night. In two days eighty percent of all Americans were dead in the most vicious and prolonged nuclear onslaught in history. Anthony survived because he was working in the lowest depths of a high-rise. It took him a week to dig his way out. Tired, hungry and half-insane he stumbled upon others left behind, cursed to be alive. Life was hard and community took some time. It was a year later that he found out that the town of Kankakee and most of the Chicago area was nothing but a smoldering crater. The bombs were a clean type and the enemy occupied the East Coast to the Mississippi River in the first four years. Their armies moved to the west shortly after. South America and Europe was helpless and fell in the fourth year -the world was theirs.

Enough time had passed he sat up and listened. He reached into his pack and pulled out a black -tooth and attached it to his ear. He switched it on and pointed the retractable wand out to the open air. He had the enemies' evil chatter and equipment being moved away. It was a good thing, they thought they had killed him. it took him a few minutes to dress and don his rag suit. Satisfied that he looked like a bush he picked up his rifle and headed out of the cave. The sun was still behind the mountain and would put him in shadow all the way up the cliff face. He felt comfortable that he could make it to the top without being spotted. He climbed in spurts, stopping every twenty feet and lying motionless, blending in to the foliage growing in tuffs all the way up the face. It was a discipline that had saved his lie too many times to count. To any observer he would appear to be vegetation.

It took him three hours to reach the ridge. He scanned the flat mesa all the way to the tree line thirty feet in front of him. It looked clear but he waited for a full ten minutes to see if any thing would pop up that would cause him consternation. He made up his mind that the going was safe and began to crawl through the low grass. The black tooth was still operating and was good for about five hundred feet without the wand. By mid day he had made the tree line. Sweating from the exertion he sat under a copse of chaparral, that provided shelter. He rested making a meal of biscuits, coffeedone, trail mix and jerky. The food buzz that revved through his body took him back. He hadn't realized he was that depleted. Nibbling a little more often was put in a mental note to himself. It was better for him to eat a little every hour than to eat a large amount at one sitting. He had to stay fit and prepared to fight. Having his body go into a rest mode could get him killed. Not eating enough would do the same.

It was early in the day yet and his crew wouldn't arrive until tomorrow. He would have to stay hidden until they showed up. The rendezvous was determined a year ago. Randolph wasn't entirely sure they would come but faith was something he had in abundance.

Randolph had done his job. He learned a great deal about the enemy's plans, strength, and abilities during his captivity. The Natural Opposition would need to know what he carried in his brain. His long and dangerous trek from the desert to the mountains was necessary and critically important. The Opposition had taken to digging underground shelters the largest was the headquarters under the old city of Ramona. A crew was to meet him here so that he could pass on the info, memorization rather than carrying it in some device was the preferred method. Having done that he was to receive new orders. The idea of socializing with free men and women again was enough to have Randolph jump up and scream with excitement, but he managed to control himself. They may not come and if they don't he had to make it one -hundred and eighty miles north to a secondary cache. He prayed that they would come. Knowing that trek was not one he would easily survive. Ramona was south and west from his position. It would be a perilous trip due to the open terrain and wide valleys. Randolph knew that they would travel at night in a zig-zag to avoid detection and would probably have cloaking gear or hide shields to cover heat and sound. In any event the going would be slow.

As he was pondering his situation a small herd of deer came within twenty feet of him. Tears came to his eyes. The wild creatures going about what was natural to them brought up an emotion too strong for Randolph to suppress. What was once natural had been taken away or maybe what he was doing was natural. Randolph didn't know but he often thought about early man and how living would have been in those long ago days. Sadly, in the end, he knew that it wasn't much different than his own existence. Just staying alive was the only game in town, or forest, or desert, or mountain's majesty-one at which he was pretty good. He watched the deer and suddenly felt very lonely. He missed the society of people. Parties, church events, movies, concerts, picnics all so alien to him now. Those activities seemed the work of fiction created by a deranged author about a fictitious utopia. The pain of having it once be real and so horribly taken away was almost too much to bear. It had gotten to the point, to Randolph, that dreaming about such gatherings took on the feel of a nightmare.

His black tooth in his ear hummed a flat tone. It meant that voices were detected nearby, just out of range of human hearing. Randolph turned his head until the tone was the loudest. However, they were coming from the north and not being quiet about it. He pulled out his rifle and set the sites. He waited. The pulse in his black tooth got louder. There was more than one person probably a hunting party no doubt looking for him. He climbed the tree next to him for a better view. Looking through the gun sight and setting it to long range he saw a small group of men and a hover android making their way along the ridge line.

"Damn turnshifts!" he spat out the curse.

Four men followed in single file behind the hunter droid. It would be a difficult shot. He had to get them all with consecutive shots fast enough not to give away his location. The men would be easier but the droid only had one vulnerable spot, right above the ocular cavity. The bullet would scramble its neural net. The men were wearing shield armor and helmets. They too had a similar spot in the middle of their eyes below the brow. Why personal shields didn't protect that spot no one knew. Science was not Randolph's strong suit.

Randolph took five deep breaths and exhaled through his mouth. When he was settled he aimed and waited till the group walked into the open. A bead of sweat rolled down his nose and dropped to the dusty ground. He fired five quick shots and watched as the men fell in order. The hunter droid let out a loud whistle spun teetered and fell. Randolph waited. The droid twitched then rose into the air righting it self. Randolph let go another round and the droid blew up in a fiery plume.

Minutes passed and Randolph didn't move. He wondered if the thing got off a warning. Even if it did it did not know who the enemy was. Randolph relaxed and started to sing quietly to himself.

" His life as an outlaw was because he was right

Destroying the darkness to bring back the light

They said there was heaven but living was hell

They took all our freedom and our lives as well

Tom Danly rode with a gun

A man of anger a man on the run

He waged a mighty righteous war

Never ever wondering what he did it for."

Patience had kept him alive. The world was a dangerous place and he was but a small cog in a wheel that did not function as it once did. The irony was that he had all but forgotten that world. The inequities, starvation, pollution and disease all were a dark mist. The world he fought for was a world of myth, an ideal, long gone but an ideal worth fighting for. The truth is that man has learned to live under the yoke of many masters with different rules and values. He often wondered what would be wrong with just existing under the yoke of this new master. He would shrug the thought off with revulsion. It was an unnatural relationship, one that even at the deepest level could not be tolerated. Randolph did what he did because he would rather be dead than to live under these new masters.

He rolled over and pulled out a small bible and opened it to psalms. He found solace in the belief that the Lord would come again and remove the shackle of the beast. He read from the worn page. "He maketh me to lie down next…" A noise got his attention. It confused him. Looking at his timepiece he noted that if a floater were sent from the dessert it would arrive within the hour, unless there was a hunter group nearby. The enemies main base in the region was once called Palm Springs. He spent two years as a tech pretending to be loyal. He looked at the scar where he had cut out the chip that marked him. The enemy preferred the dry dessert heat to wetter climes. While working there he learned that the new masters depended on converts. They were a lot thinner spread than was originally thought. Their dependence on technology was their strength as well as their weakness. The entire invasion was done with an initial terrible violent blow then a smoke and mirror occupation crating organization from the chaos. They made themselves seem unbeatable and using fear and prejudice took over the world.

Randolph climbed down from the tree and decided to find a rock shelter. He was taking a chance that no foot patrols were near by. He knew that a floater crew would be here soon and he needed the rocks to hide his heat signature. His black tooth went off again. Turning his head he heard heavy footfalls. There was no way to tell if it was friend or foe so he climbed back up the tree.

The sun began to set as a loud whirring sound filled the air. A huge floater flew over him doing about thirty miles an hour. It was not in search mode it knew where it was going. He thought that those he heard approaching were not friends because they were traveling in the day light. It must have been a hunting group looking for him. But he was wrong. All hell broke loss. Loud explosions and flashes of light filled the darkening southern skies. Then it was deadly silent.

Randolph waited with a sad heart, fearing but knowing the worst. What had made them risk the daylight? Something very important was afoot and he didn't know what it was. the sun went down and he climbed down and started to walk toward the south and the site of the explosions. An hour later he was standing on the ash covered ground.

The scorched area was three hundred feet across. Randolph pulled out of his pouch a small device to read radiation levels. He expected it to be clean and wasn't disappointed. This was done using a fuel made of common sea salt and hydrogen that produced a super heated discharge that incinerated everything it touched. The explosive charges were used to confuse and disorient. As he walked he came upon a skeleton. All the flesh burned to ash. Another small device read out any surviving DNA and identified the person it once was. He knew the man. This was the crew sent for him. A sinking feeling landed square in Randolph's stomach. It was NOP for the enemy to save one person to extract information. As he looked around he spotted more skeletons. There were no footprints in the ash. They came in with the intent to kill every member of this expedition. That meant they knew its task and they knew about him. Something he knew was critical and a harm to their plans. he looked again at the blast field and a revelation overcame him. The Floater had blown up. This bunch must have had a portable disrupter weapon with them and had managed to get a shot off before they were incinerated. He knew the Floater would have vided the attack and the enemy would know what damage they had done. A floater was a valuable asset and bringing one down was a coo. Never mind that the pilot went with it. His toe hit something. He reached down and picked up the blackened object. It began to buzz and a voice filled his ears.

"Randolph. If you found this device the crew is dead. They gave their lives so that you could make it to base. We disguised a volunteer to be you so that they would stop looking for you. We surgically implanted a bug in your head. I apologize for not telling you but that device was able to read the enemies biologicals. We have captured their space technology and understanding their biology completes the picture. You are carrying the hope of the world. That just about makes you the most important person alive. Keep your head down and get here safe."

Randolph took it in stride and took the time to ID all the skeletons, including the one with his DNA and said a prayer. He hitched up and started walking toward Ramona. He would live to fight another day.

"Maybe they will have fried chicken." He said to himself then started singing in as full a voice as he possessed;

"Tom Manly rode with a gun

A man of anger a man on the run

The will to wage a righteous war

Never once wondering what he did it for

They came from the stars the devil's heirs

They stripped the planet without a care

Wiped us out almost every one

No remorse for what was done

It is their way for a thousand years

They claim the stars with death and fear

Not gray but pale blue the bastards came

Killing aliens was now the human game

To rid the heavens of this cursed bane

With Gods help now the human game'

END