Prologue

Clovis, New Mexico 1940

          The long lean and very haggard looking cowboy sat motionless on the back of his weary horse. Neither he nor his gelding had any more energy left to do anything else whatsoever.  And so they both remained there at the edge of the rough and rugged Caprock. The Llano Estacado, a flat plateau that extends over two-hundred and fifty miles north to south, and around 150 miles east to west, straddles the borders of New Mexico and Texas. The Caprock, which is the 300-foot tall cliff that extends along the northern edge of the "Llano", is situated about forty-five miles north of Clovis. The confused cowpuncher had absolutely no idea how he had come to find himself there that evening.

Although the scenery was beautiful in its own unique way, Sterling Maxwell, otherwise known as "Max", did not have the energy or clarity of mind to figure out just how he had gotten there. He didn’t really care either. Tiredness so outranked confusion that he didn't try very hard to figure out how he had mysteriously come to rest at the rim. Max had visited the Llano Estacado plenty of times as he was growing up, for it was one of his parent’s favorite picnic spots. Just a stone’s throw north sat Route 66 as it ran east to west across the state.

          The cowboy and his faithful horse continued to bathe in the peacefulness of the moment. They each absorbed the quietness and the energy of the locale as the sun began to set beyond the remote horizon. Max noticed what looked like purple brush strokes appearing in the evening sky. A slight breeze was blowing and the echoing cry of a hawk was heard off to a distance.

          “Looks like another work of art, Bandit,” whispered Max.

          Suddenly though, the tranquility of the moment was broken by a totally unfamiliar voice.

          "Max, we really need to get the heck out of here and I mean now."

          The cowboy's jaw had quickly dropped in disbelief as he had practically fallen out of his saddle.

          "What did you just say? No–now wait a dad burn minute, horses can't talk!"

          "I said we need to get out of here, Max. You're in serious danger."

          "Danger? This place in one of the best in the world, a man can do some thinkin’ here. No, I don’t think it’s very dangerous,” Max sighed. “I can't believe this, now I'm talking to my horse," marveled the weary and confused cowboy.

          "Max, you talk to me all the time."

          "Yeah, I realize that, but you've never answered me before. You're gonna' have to give me a minute or two here to get my bearings."

          Bandit, Max's longtime work partner and faithful equine companion seemed to suddenly have had no problem at all with speaking the English language. In fact, the horse seemed more adept at it than Max did at the moment. The very tall and very large palomino was the best looking and the hardest working horse on the Long Grass Ranch, and that wasn't just Max's opinion either. It was as if on the day that Max, age twenty-five, was promoted to the position of assistant foreman, Bandit the horse had received a promotion that day also. Max never could quite explain it but it was as if the horse had quickly understood its new position in the scheme of things that day. Now somehow the horse could talk.

          "What's next?" Max muttered to himself.

          Suddenly the six foot three inch bewildered cowboy felt an extreme pain in his head. The pain was utterly excruciating as if a thousand needles were poking into it. Max closed his eyes and tried steadying himself in the saddle which apparently did not work. For in what seemed like the blink of an eye, the man suddenly found himself lying flat on his back on the very hard dusty ground. Unfortunately, a large sharp rock was located strategically and painfully just underneath his right butt cheek.

          In spite of the searing pain in his head and posterior though, Max noticed that the sky was suddenly and totally black and was filled with an infinite number of bright stars. He wondered to himself how dusk could have turned to night so quickly. Slowly, Max realized that the popping and snapping noises that he heard, just to his right, was the sound of a large but dwindling campfire. He quickly determined that he was no longer located at the edge of the Caprock.

          Max thought he could hear moaning sounds. It appeared to be the moans and groans of other seriously wounded men. Suddenly, a very familiar sound arrived at Max's left ear. Bandit, the sixteen and half hands tall American Saddlebred was impatiently scratching its left front hoof into the dirt and blowing air forcefully out of its nostrils. The horse was just inches away from where Max was situated.

          "Bandit boy, what are we doing here?"

          That time though there was no verbal response from the horse. It had then quickly dawned on Max that earlier, he'd only been dreaming. He tried to sit up but found that the pains in his head and body were just too much. Max felt as if he had been run over by a freight train. As he continued lying there on the ground motionless, his mind raced. He then tried recalling the earlier events of the evening. Slowly but surely, memories from hours earlier began to seep back into his brain.

          After hearing rumors for months, about strange "goings on" in the middle of the night on the Long Grass Ranch property, specifically the remote upper northwest corner, Max had decided to check things out for himself. At first, the rumors were just whispers. But with each passing week the whispers had gotten louder and louder. Secret meetings held beneath a near perfect circle of old oak trees. Hooded men gathered around a dark menacing looking stranger. Those were just some of the things being spoken of. Max had at first tried to just write off the rumors as superstitious fairy tales, the kind that ranch hands would tell each other over an evening campfire. But the more Max overheard the whispers, the creepier he felt. Finally, he had to find out for himself what if anything, was taking place on his employer's property.

It had taken Max about an hour on horseback to arrive within a quarter mile of the circle of very old oak trees. He had not been up to that part of the property in some time. After arriving, he was surprised to find a large number of cars and trucks parked in the field off to a distance. There were also a few horses and mules tied off to the back of a couple of the trucks. Max made sure that that he and Bandit did not startle or disturb the animals as they arrived. While looking around, he noticed the orange glow of a very large campfire located within the circle of trees. He dismounted Bandit and dropped the reins on the ground as he confidently commanded the horse to "stay put". After taking a few steps toward the trees, Max quickly turned around though, walked back to Bandit, and then pulled his loaded Winchester rifle from its saddle holster. Hesitating for a few seconds though, he decided to put the rifle back into the holster. He then sat down on the ground and removed the spurs from both of his cowboy boots.

          "I best travel light and extra quiet tonight," Max thought to himself as he quietly started back out toward the trees.

The trees themselves had a story all of their own, no one around really seemed to know what that story was though. Somehow, thirty or so oak trees had taken root in an almost perfect circle at least twenty or thirty years earlier. The peculiarity of the situation was the remote location of the trees, and the fact that there were no other trees within a twenty or thirty square mile radius.

          As Max arrived at the tree line, he positioned himself in the dark shadows which were provided by one of the large old trees. As he leaned around the tree in a crouched position, Max counted at least twenty-five people sitting in a semi-circle around the campfire. He could not immediately detect the identity or even the gender of the folks gathered together though because they were all wearing black robes and hoods, but he had quickly assumed they were all male.

          Everyone was wearing that strange garb except the man who was speaking to the group. As he spoke, he walked back and forth within the campfire area in the space between the fire and those who were seated before him. Apparently, for some unknown reason, he had no reason to hide his identity. The man was dressed in a dark gray rumpled and dust streaked businesses suit, which in itself looked totally out of place considering the location of the meeting.

          "We are at a pivotal time gentlemen. Your ranks have grown considerably in the past few months. Not only has your group here thrived and grown, but so have some of the other groups in the state such as Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas," the man reported. As he spoke, he seemed to be in complete control of his audience. Each listener apparently mesmerized by every word. His voice was deep and very confident yet it had an eerie resonance to it.

          "You must begin slowly and carefully spreading the word that the earth is soon to be visited by the creators of the human race. As I've told you in the past, I have taken on human form in order to better relate to you. My species is so far more advanced and different looking than yours that it will take some time for you and your kind to eventually except us. Although we have so little commonality, it does not affect our desire to help you successfully continue in your evolution."

          "Thank you sir," someone yelled out from the group of men listening intently to every word spoken by the stranger.

          "We 'planted' your species on earth several centuries ago and we have patiently watched you evolve. Yet, we've also observed the human race going in directions that are very harmful…."

          "So God didn't create us?" asked someone who had just joined the group for the very first time that night.

          "There is no God young man. Let me make this very clear to all of you. The human race was created by my kind, we who travel and explore the galaxies. Someday, we will make a full-scale return to your planet and we will help you pull yourselves out of the calamities that you've brought upon yourselves. There are those of the human race though who know this truth, the truth that I have spoken of to you this very night, and yet they have spent thousands of years trying to deny and cover it up."

          "There is no God, is that what he said?" Max thought to himself as he felt a chill run down his spine. "I'm not a religious man, but this stuff sure doesn't sound right to me."

          "Gentlemen, tonight I want to tell about a great darkness that is quickly spreading itself around the globe. It's starting out in Europe, but it will soon touch the entire world, including America. It's during this second world wide war that you will begin laying the groundwork for our 'second coming'."

The group of hooded figures remained intently focused on the speaker.

"Once the citizens of this region and of the world witness the cruelty that mankind can inflict on its own members. The concept of a loving and caring omnipotent God will become even harder and harder for them to accept. They will then become ready to accept the truth about their true origin. The only rescue mankind has in store for it is what my species will bring in the future."

          “How long before you all officially show up?” asked one of the seated men.

          “I'm not at liberty to disclose specific information to you at this time. But I can tell you that your fellow man is by no means ready for our arrival. That's why groups like yours have been recruited all over the world. You will be provided with the training and the means to prepare the rest of mankind over the coming decades. Although we are greatly advanced, we are unable to do this on our own. That is why we need your assistance. Believe me when I say that you will all be greatly rewarded for your participation."

          Max could not believe what he had heard. His mind reeled as it tried to make sense out of it all. Suddenly, he heard what sounded like faint footsteps just behind him in the dry and brittle buffalo grass. As he slowly turned to look for the source of the sound, he unfortunately did not react quickly enough. Max failed to avoid being hit forcefully in the forehead with a very large tree branch.

          "Looky here fellas’, look what we found snooping around out in the trees!" shouted a hooded figure as he and another man dragged Max by the arms towards the group.

The seated men all began to slowly rise and observe closely as Max was unceremoniously dropped next to the roaring campfire. Max was not totally unconscious though as they had all assumed. He only pretended to be passed out for self-preservation purposes. His head hurt immensely and he could feel his warm wet blood trickling down into his eyes and face.

          "How long you reckon he's been out there?" asked one of the other men nervously.

          "I don't know and I don't really care. But what are we going to do about it?" replied the second hooded figure who had helped drag Max into the campfire area.

          "Does anyone know the identity of this cowboy?" asked the ominous leader.

          "Yeah, most of us know him. He's the assistant foreman for the Long Grass Ranch," responded someone from the group. Max had immediately recognized the voice of 'Skinny' Andrews, one of the ranch hands who up until that very moment, had worked directly for him.

          "Do you think it's possible that he might become a believer and join us?" asked the leader.

          "I doubt it, he just don't seem the enlightened type," replied Skinny.

          Max had had a thousand thoughts running through his head simultaneously while the men were discussing his presence. One of them was just how stupid 'Skinny' had sounded when he had used the word 'enlightened'. The injured cowboy's heart was beating rapidly and intensely as he lay there playing possum. It felt as if it were going to burst out of his chest.

          "Should we kill him?" asked someone from the group.

          Max's heartbeat rate had immediately increased even more after hearing that last question.

          "We do indeed have to kill him gentlemen. There's really no other choice," responded the leader. The entire group suddenly grew silent. "We can't afford to have our organization's existence compromised at this time. You have all taken blood oaths and are aware of the dire consequences if any of you were to reveal our operation."

          "How should we do it? I mean kill him that is?" asked Skinny, apprehensively. "Remember though, we're all unarmed just like you told us to be."

          "Well, I believe that if all of you were to kick and stomp him for a few minutes, it just might possibly look like he had been killed by a stampede of cattle."

          "Wow. I think that just might work." replied one of the other hooded men. “You aliens sure are a smart lot.”

          As the first of the hooded figures began to step forward and kick towards Max's rib cage, Max suddenly rolled onto his left side toward the kicker, grabbed the man's foot and pushed him backwards, that action sent the kicker sprawling back into some of the other men. One of the men in-turn tripped and fell backward into the campfire and began screaming hellishly. Unfortunately, that action was the only meaningful one that Max could muster before being viciously attacked by the others in the group. The kicks came fast and furious. Max tried to protect his face and upper body with his arms but they just weren't long or numerous enough. As Max began to truly sink into unconsciousness he could have sworn that he had heard the sound of hooves beating on the ground. How appropriate he had thought to himself at that moment, since whoever eventually found his dead carcass would probably truly think that stampeding cattle had indeed trampled him to death.

          What Max hadn't realized though was that the sound of beating hooves had been the real thing. The shrieking of men scared for their lives suddenly began filling the night air. All at once, several of the men were violently knocked to the ground like human bowling pins. Some of the men had actually seen it coming but had been so petrified by what they saw, that they couldn't move out of the way in time and were struck down anyway. What they had in fact seen was a gigantic golden horse with large glaring eyes and flared nostrils quickly running directly toward them. It had come running from what seemed like out of nowhere. The beast then jumped and cleared the campfire and landed right in the midst of the men. Suddenly the horse began to kick violently and repeatedly in every direction taking out men with each and every blow. Screams of pain filled the campsite. Some of the men who had missed being kicked by the horse or who had been able to recover quickly enough began running for the shelter of the trees as quickly as they could.

          Bandit refused to move beyond twenty feet or so of Max, nor would the horse allow anyone to come within that distance. The dark and menacing leader of the group, who had been knocked down by some of the falling men but had not taken a direct hit himself, slowly made his way to his feet. After rising, he began walking slowly toward where Max was but kept a watchful eye on the vigilant horse. The mysterious man had earlier observed the Winchester rifle slipping from its saddle holster and falling to the ground close to Max, as the horse had been kicking and bucking about violently. The stranger had immediately made plans to use the weapon on both Max and the horse, if he could only get his hands on it.

          The sound of several men in agony continued to permeate the area around the campfire. Bandit, the ever-faithful protector of Max continually circled around its owner. Suddenly, the horse detected running footsteps behind it. A hooded figure was trying to make its way toward Max, but Bandit simply kicked with its hind legs just in time to make contact with the man's head. The attacker went down like a sack of potatoes.

          The sound of Max's rifle being cocked suddenly filled the night air. Just as Bandit turned toward the sound it saw the rifle raised and pointed right at its large head. In a heartbeat though, the enemy with the rifle was down on the ground and the gun went unfired. Max had regained consciousness just as the stranger had raised the rifle toward Bandit. With all of his strength and with a body that was filled with excruciating pain, he had kicked the armed man's legs right out from underneath him.

          The stranger, having had the air knocked out of his lungs, began gasping violently. In spite of the pain though, he began groping around on the ground for the rifle that he had dropped. Just as he located the gun and began to grasp it with his right hand, he could feel on his face, the hot breath of the extremely large horse. Stubbornly, the man continued to try and raise the rifle anyway. It was the man's stubbornness that was his death sentence. Bandit had simply reared straight up and then brought both front hooves down on the stranger's head. The man was killed instantly.

          Max, who had rolled over to observe the encounter between his horse and the stranger thought to himself "I reckon creatures from another planet aren't immune to getting the stuffing kicked out of them either."

          Suddenly though, the stranger's body began to shake violently.

It was almost as if some kind of small animal was trying to crawl up through the body of the man towards the cadaver's open mouth. What happened next sent an intense shudder through Max's entire body. White foam and what appeared to be small gaseous bubbles began emitting from the open mouth of the dead man. At least that's what it looked like with the aid of the little bit of remaining light given off by the dwindling campfire.

          And then it happened, something did in fact exit the man's mouth. The thing was grotesquely ugly and dark in color. It resembled a gargoyle statue that Max had once seen on top of an old bank building in Denver. Whatever it was, it slowly moved across the ground toward Max and brought its face very close to his. Max could smell the being's nasty breath and it was like a combination of rotten eggs and sulfur.

          "Shoot, no wonder you didn't want anyone to see what you really looked like," Max snidely said to the creature.

          As the dark being began to reply, Bandit moved toward it and began to dig its left hoof into the dirt as if warning the creature to back off.    

"You can't stop what has already been put into motion you pathetic excuse for a human being."

          "I stopped you tonight didn't I?"

          "You have no idea what you are dealing with…."

          "I'm beginning to get a good idea about it right now though."

         "Oh yeah, is that right?"

          "You aren't really from another planet, jackass."

          "My, my, my, cowboy; you just might be a little smarter than you look. How could you have possibly made that connection? Are you a follower of Him?"

          "Nope, I sorely disappointed the heck out of my Pentecostal mama'. But you know, I do remember some of the things she talked about though."

          "Oh yeah, things like what?"

          "Demons for one thing."

          “Is that right? Too bad that knowledge isn’t going to do you any good tonight,” the creature replied menacingly.

          "Jesus Christ."

As soon as Max had spoken those two words, the creature had immediately withdrawn a few feet and cringed as if it had been splattered with hot grease.

          "That wasn't very nice cowpoke. In fact, I'm going to have to kill you for that."

          "I don't think so, ugly."

          "You just admitted it yourself; you're not even a believer. You've got no protection from me whatsoever you heathen!" replied the hideous creature as it laughed maniacally.

         "In the name of Jesus, I command you to shut the heck up.” Max yelled suddenly.

          The creature immediately opened its mouth to respond but found that it couldn't. The surprised look on its face was priceless. No matter how hard it tried, it could not utter another word.

          “You know, I think I just found religion,” sighed Max.

          The creature's eyes had suddenly widened even more and it had begun to make threatening moves toward Max. For some strange reason though, Max was not frightened at all. In fact, calmness and peacefulness had begun permeating throughout his entire being. Every time the creature attempted to draw close to Max, it would seem to literally bounce off of an invisible shield.

          “Okay, I've had about enough of you, ‘crapcake’. In the name of Jesus I command you to go back to hell!” ordered Max.

          The creature once again cringed at the name of the Savior and then made one last unsuccessful lunge at Max, but instead, it found itself beginning to sink down into the hard dry ground. It helplessly tried clawing and dragging its grotesque body back up out of the dirt but it was unsuccessful. Within just a few seconds the menacing creature had completely disappeared into the ground.

          Weariness and fatigue had immediately begun to overtake Max. His energy was spent. His body was badly bruised. Many of his internal organs had been damaged. It was then Max began to dream his dream about a talking horse.

And then it was time for him to wake up.

The sudden turn of events did not bode well with some of the surviving men who had remained hidden in the shadows surrounding the campfire. Their leader from another planet had just been insulted, humiliated, and then expelled from their midst. They weren't sure if Max was still alive or not and so some of them had decided to try and find out. Max was going to have to pay for his 'sins' and there was no way he’d ever see his young family back in town again.

          As he remained there on the ground in semi-consciousness, Max detected the sounds of approaching footsteps. He reached over for his rifle and removed it from the clutches of the dead man. Finding that the gun had already been cocked, he pointed the rifle straight up into the air and fired one warning shot. The loud and sudden explosion filled the night air and reverberated among the trees. The sound of footsteps had ceased immediately.

          "Come here, Bandit!" Max called out.

          The horse quickly moved right next to its owner. Max tried to stand up but found that he was unable to do so. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a hold of one of the saddle stirrups with his left hand and commanded Bandit to start moving toward the trees. Having placed the butt of the rifle under his right arm in order to maintain a firm grip on it, Max cocked the rifle with his right hand. As he was being slowly dragged away from the campfire, Max informed everyone within hearing distance that any attempt to come near him would result in immediate death. No one attempted whatsoever to approach him.

          Once Max and Bandit reached the shelter of the oak trees, Max utilized one of the trees to help steady himself onto his feet. He then slowly mounted his horse. It didn't take him long to realize that it was going to be a very long, slow, and painful journey back to ranch headquarters.

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