"Sit down," said Wilson Tchanga.
They sat on a couch, and he seated himself on a chair about fifteen feet away.
"Why don't you come a little closer?" suggested Matilda. "We're not here to harm you."
"I'll be the judge of that," said Tchanga. "Now talk."
"Do we call you Wilson, or Mr. Tchanga, or Rough Rider?" asked Dimitrios.
"You know who I am?" said Tchanga.
"Why else would we be on your doorstep?" said Dimitrios. "Before we begin, let me tell you that you've been my hero since I was old enough to have a hero. Meeting the Rough Rider is quite an honor, sir."
"I haven't been the Rough Rider in a long, long time."
"You're my hero just the same."
Tchanga stared at him, his face expressionless, for a long moment. "What did you say your name was?" he said at last.
"Dimitrios of the Three Burners."
"Lawman?"
"Bounty hunter."
"I suppose you have your reasons."
Dimitrios nodded his head. "Valid ones."
Tchanga turned to Matilda. "And you are?"
"Matilda."
"Got a last name?"
"Got a couple of dozen of them," she said.
He smiled. "You're no lawman or bounty hunter."
"No, sir, I'm not."
"All right, now we know who we are," said Tchanga. "Why have you sought me out?"
"I want to see if you're the man I'm looking for," said Matilda.
"If you're looking for Wilson Tchanga, I'm him." He smiled grimly. "If you're looking for the Rough Rider, I used to be him."
She shook her head. "I'm looking for Santiago."
He stared at her curiously. "Santiago's been dead for a century or more—if he ever really existed in the first place."
"He was my great-great-grandfather," said Matilda.
"I know I've aged," said Tchanga, "but do I look like anyone's great-great-grandfather?"
"No," interjected Dimitrios. "But you might look like Santiago."
Tchanga frowned. "I think I'm missing something here."
"Santiago is more than a name or a person," continued Dimitrios. "It's an idea, a concept, maybe even a job description. And the job has been open for a century. We're looking for someone to fill it."
"He was the King of the Outlaws," said Tchanga. "I was an honest lawman. I may not be much these days, but I'm still honest."
"We wouldn't be speaking to you if you weren't," said Dimitrios.
"Then I'm still missing something."
"You're missing a lot," said Matilda. "Sit back, relax, and make yourself comfortable, because I'm going to spend an hour or more filling you in."
Dimitrios studied Tchanga intently as Matilda explained who and what Santiago really was, what he had done, how he had hidden his true purpose from the Democracy, and why the string of Santiagos had ended the day the Navy "pacified" Safe Harbor.
"It's time to call him forth again," concluded Matilda. "The time is ripe for him to return. The Democracy is abusing and plundering the Inner Frontier again, colonists have almost no rights, aliens have even less. The Navy goes where it wants and takes what it wants. It protects us from a hostile galaxy, but there's no one to protect us from it."
There was a long silence. Finally Tchanga spoke.
"I'm more honored than you can imagine that you came to me. But I'm an used-up old man whose time is past. I'm no hero, no leader of men. I'm still holding a pulse gun, but if either of you made a sudden motion, I'd be more likely to duck than to fire it." He paused. "There was a time when I might have been the man you seek, but that time is long gone."
"You don't have to be a hero," said Dimitrios. "There's no holograph or video of Santiago anywhere in the Democracy's records. He didn't go out on raids, or face Democracy soldiers himself. He ordered his men to do those things."
Tchanga shook his head. "That may be so, but he might have gone with them from time to time. He could have. I can't. And I can't order men to do things I myself won't do."
"Generals don't fight in the front lines," said Dimitrios.
"They also don't run and hide when the shooting starts," replied Tchanga. "You need a Santiago who commands respect, and I am no longer that man. I wonder if I ever was."
"You were," said Dimitrios with certainty. "And you can be again. You can redeem your life and your reputation through the single act of becoming Santiago."
"I appreciate your words," said Tchanga, "but Santiago is too big. He blots out the stars. The ground trembles when he walks. He does not exist for me to redeem myself. You belittle him by suggesting that."
Dimitrios turned to Matilda. "Aren't you going to say anything?"
"What is there to say?" she replied. "I agree with him."
"Perhaps Santiago isn't a man at all," suggested Tchanga. "Perhaps Santiago is a woman."
"It's possible," she agreed. "But not this woman. I'm just someone who needs a little more protection from the Democracy than I've been getting."
"I hope you find your Santiago and get your protection," said Tchanga. He got to his feet and walked to the door. "You'd better be going. If he's as hard to find as I think he'll be, you haven't any time to waste."
They arose and walked out the door.
Dimitrios pointed to the pulse gun. "Is that thing even charged?"
Tchanga looked out across the vast field of mutated corn. "You see that scarecrow?"
Dimitrios squinted into the distance. "That one about 500 yards off to the left?"
Tchanga nodded. "That's the one." In a single motion the old man spun, aimed his pulse gun, and fired. The scarecrow burst into a ball of flame.
"My God!" exclaimed Dimitrios. "That was more than a quarter mile away! I couldn't do that on the best day I ever had!" He turned to the old man. "Can you hit it every time?"
"Just about," said Tchanga. He paused, and a look of infinite sadness crossed his face. "Unless I thought it might fire back at me."
"Jesus!" said Dimitrios as he and Matilda walked toward their vehicle. "What he must have been as a young man!"
"He still is."
Dimitrios shook his head. "No. Like he said, he's all used up."
"Don't look so sad for him," she said. "He'll be all right."
"I was feeling sad for me, not for him," Dimitrios corrected her.
"For you? Why?"
"Because that's my fate, probably the fate or every bounty hunter, if we live long enough." He paused. "I hope I don't."
"Don't what?"
"Live long enough."
They reached their vehicle, and neither of them saw the tear that rolled down the Rough Rider's withered face as he tried unsuccessfully to remember what it felt like to face an armed man with no more fear than he felt when facing a scarecrow.
13.
Alien face and alien ways,