OXTAIL:
Jeremy Haladyna's foray into science fiction...Kansas style!
"ASYMMETRICAL aliens? "
"And with a SPEECH impediment?"
" And they sure don't know the finer points on livestock,
that's for sure!"
A
group of alien cattle rustlers, the culprits behind those
mutilations going back 50 years, are still dispatching herds in
southwest Kansas. But now night raids in their triangular craft
are coming up short--the bovine gene pool's gotten small…offering
too little reward for their labors.
Their best remaining hope: to conscript an Earth-human
collaborator, to force an able someone to procure new breeds for
them. If only their random choice were other than Harley Rennet,
an aging sign painter. But…it's old Harley they levitate while at
the wheel of his '59 Rambler. Once up, he's not so much terrified
by the aliens as fascinated by how they look.
That's no
surprise, really, since Harley only took to painting billboards and
barns to make ends meet. He's the very model of a frustrated
artist. So as the aliens coerce him on pain of “liquidation,”
Harley looks for a way to even the score. If he's to do this or
die, he'll seek to do it his way. Gathering his pluck, he poses
them one question.
When he asks
"What's in it for him?”he innocently trips a cosmic lever…a key legal
precept of far-distant stars. Now the aliens must oblige him in
something—but in what? Harley doesn't need to think
twice. If he's going to sell out Kansas ranchers, then these
aliens will help him do the crop circles
he's
dreamt for years of making. There's your bargain!
Thus--Harley's long-suffering
wife, his dog, his little Kansas town and five whole counties
roundabout--are all soon held tight in the grip of High
Strangeness. Like those unhappy cows, the mystery drops (with a
thud) in the lap of Kansas Law Enforcement: lazy-ass Sheriff Ted,
a small town P.I., and a couple of countrified tornado spotters
known to a weather channel. Together they'll track the
falling cows, puzzle over the circles, and call on gorgeous Nance and
her boyfriend to fly their drones…all as a dragnet tightens around
hapless Harley.