BUCK AND THE GENTS FROM SPACE by Mack Reynolds WHEN THE FIRST SHIP FROM SPACE landed on Earth, it never landed on no White House lawn, nor on that there Red Square in Moscow. It landed right smack on Sam Dillard’s spread, just a mite north of Sage City, New Mexico, maybe half a day’s ride in a jeep or a pickup truck. Fact is, so did the second one and the third one, but that part of it comes later, when Buck started interplanetary peace. That first time, though, he nigh on to ended it!
Well, sir, what happened was this. Buck was doin’ some chores round the ranch house. His paw and Chavez, the hired hand, was off fixin’ some fence over to Arroyo Seco. They’d maybe be back about dark, and he was cookin’ up his lunch and their supper. Mostly Buck did the cookin’ since Chavez’s wife run off back to Mexico—couldn’t stand it livin’ on the ranch and bein’ purely lonely, there not bein’ any other womenfolk. He’d learned most of his cookin’ from Sefiora Chavez. Ain’t much to learn about ranch and Mexican cookin’, but he liked to do it the best he could.
Anyways, it all kinda started when this here contraption—looked somethin’ like a big flyin’ saucer—comes landin’ down in the backyard, over near to the chicken coop.
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