And finally, the self-respect their belief had forced on him, as he’d come to realize that the faith they’d had in him was actually justified. . . . That he might actually deserve to live, after all; that he hadn’t been born just to add to the sum total of human misery. . . .
That it wasn’t a sin for him to be glad to be alive.
All he needed, now, was the kind of courage it took to find out what he was really meant to do. . . .
The hummingbird darted away, came back, danced away again, almost as if it was inviting him to play a game of tag with the future: calling him into a new game, one he’d never played before . . . never knowing if the rules would be fair or foul, only knowing that there was still hope and there would always be new possibilities, because life was always changing. That it had changed already, if he was only willing to believe it.
He looked into the hummingbird’s bright-dark eyes again for a long moment, before he turned where he stood, gazing at the distance where the sky reached down to touch the earth . . . a horizon without limits, only the promise of places he’d never seen. No black-and-white, no absolute right that he would always be on the wrong side of: He looked up into the sky’s deep and perfect blue, which had always seemed so far away, so far above him—unreachable.
He glanced down at his wrist, at the spot where the demon gun had shackled him to his past—until Ella had kissed him. He raised his head again, to see the hummingbird flying off into the distance, vanishing almost before his eyes could see which way it went . . . realizing that he truly was free to choose his own path, at last.
Jake started toward his waiting horse, turning his back on the lost years he was no longer chained to. The vividness of the few memories he did have would fade in time, just enough so that someday he could recall them without his eyes burning. . . .
He glanced up at the sky again, at the secret that lay hidden within the blue. It no longer seemed unfathomable to him . . . any more than the true meaning of freedom. A faint grin touched his face as he reached his horse, as if the universe had just whispered in his ear. He mounted up and rode away; no longer looking back, or needing to, as he followed his spirit guide into the future.
A WOMAN’S FIGURE, silhouetted by the sky, stood gazing down into the canyon from a cliff high above, invisible to any eyes that might have looked up from below. She watched as Jake rode away, her body haloed in rainbow light by the brilliant afternoon sun. She stood without moving, still looking after him until Jake was long gone from her sight. Jake hadn’t seen her, and she was sure that he never would again. But if he had, he would have seen her smiling.
FINIS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOAN D. VINGE is the author of The Snow Queen, which won the Hugo Award for Best SF Novel, and its sequels World’s End, The Summer Queen (a Hugo Award finalist), and Tangled Up in Blue, as well as three novels about the character Cat—Psion, Catspaw, and Dreamfall, and the novel Heaven Chronicles. She also has written a number of shorter works, and her stories, including her Hugo Award-winning novelette, “Eyes of Amber,” have appeared in major SF magazines and anthologies. Her short fiction has been collected in two books, Eyes of Amber and Phoenix in the Ashes. Ms. Vinge is also the author of a number of film adaptations, including novelizations such as Ladyhawke, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Willow, and the film Lost in Space, as well as The Return of the Jedi Storybook, which was a huge bestseller.
She also is the author of The Random House Book of Greek Myths, a book for young readers, with illustrations by Oren Sherman; and for several years was the manga and anime critic for the anthology series The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin Grant. She is currently working on Ladysmith, the first in a series of “prehistorical” novels set in Bronze Age Western Europe, which will make good use of her degree in anthropology. Visit her at www.sff.net/people/JDVinge/.
COWBOYS & ALIENS
Joan D. Vinge was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She has read science fiction since junior high school, and has been writing professionally since 1973. She now lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband, editor Jim Frenkel, and their two children. Joan’s short story, ‘Eyes of Amber’, won the 1977 Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novelette and her novel The Snow Queen won the 1981 Hugo Award for Best SF Novel. She has been nominated for several other Hugo and Nebula Awards, as well as for the John W. Campbell New Writer Award.
BOOKS BY JOAN D. VINGE
Heaven Chronicles
Fireship/Mother and Child
THE SNOW QUEEN CYCLE
The Snow Queen
World’s End
The Summer Queen
Tangled Up in Blue
THE CAT SERIES
Psion
Catspaw
Dreamfall
The Random House Book of Greek Myths
COLLECTIONS
Eyes of Amber
Phoenix in the Ashes
MEDIA TIE-INS
Ladyhawke
Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi Storybook
The Dune Storybook
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Santa Claus: The Movie
Return to Oz
Willow
Lost in Space
Cowboys & Aliens
Acknowledgments
I’m much obliged to my steadfast and supportive publisher, Tom Doherty, and my editor, James Frenkel, at Tor Books, for giving me a shot at a real prize (the real prize is never the money); to Cindy Chang, Jennifer Epper, and Jennifer Sandberg, at NBC-Universal, and to the filmmakers, for helping this novelization to fulfill its potential by making possible creative decisions that don’t affect the film, but very much enhanced this book.
I’m also obliged to Lawrence W. Cheek for his book Nature’s Extremes: Eight Seasons Shape a Southwestern Land, an inspiring, lyrical portrait (both visual and in words) of the desert Southwest; as well as to James L. Haley, author of Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait, and Dody Fugate (et al.) at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, for their detailed and illuminating accounts of Apache society—as well as the mutually tragic history of the Apaches’ interactions with “alien invaders” from their own planet. . . . And last but not least, once again, to my mom, for making me proud of the Native American heritage in our own family. The Erie nation may have been erased from history’s map long ago, but its descendants remember.
—JDV
First published 2011 by Tor, Tom Doherty Associates, New York
This electronic edition published 2011 by Tor
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Copyright © 2011 Universal Studios and DreamWorks II Dist.
Cowboys & Aliens TM & Universal Studios and DreamWorks II
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The right of Joan D. Vinge to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Joan D. Vinge, Cowboys and Aliens
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