The dawn came up nice and quiet. Blackness turned gray and then a pearl pink—and there she was: a hundred yards from us, of some gleaming metal resembling aluminum, twenty feet high and covering about as much ground as a caretaker's cottage. It resembled nothing more than a soup plate turned bottom up to dry.
A tall, semi-circular opening showed black in one side, with a sloping metallic ramp reaching from it to the ground. Two robots guarded the entrance, stiff and towering and without movement, the early light glistening along their jointed bodies.
In sharp contrast to this scene from the distant future was the anachronistic spectacle of six Indians, in war paint, fringed buckskin and stripped to the waist, squatting around a small cooking fire near the ship. Within easy reach of each was a long bow and a quiver of arrows.
Nothing about them gave me a certain clue as to which Indian family they belonged to. The single feather in each scalp lock was pure white with a vivid red tip. Two of them wore the black paint of untried warriors, and all were gnawing on strips of meat grilled over the fire.
Wetzel, placid and silent, leaned on his rifle and calmly stuffed a cheek with a twist of black tobacco. "Reckon they be a little hard to talk to?" he asked in a soft voice.
I shrugged. "Only one way I know of to find out."
"Thet fancy pistol you got could kill 'em all afore they get them bows unlimbered."
"Are you suggesting I shoot them down without warning?"
It was his turn to shrug. "They be Indians."