Issue 10: "Lead Us Not Into Desecration, Part Two"

“Bat Lash!”

It took the gambler a moment to register that his name was being called as he made his way down the boardwalk. His mind was on the lovely lady he’d be spending the evening with...just as soon as he located one that struck his fancy, of course. The trouble was in picking out only one: Tucson had quite a selection to choose from, which was the reason why he’d decided to stick around for so long. His hot streak at the gambling tables didn’t exactly hurt his decision, either.

Lash’s name was bellowed again, and he finally stopped to see what all the fuss was about. When he saw the three men elbowing past folk on the boardwalk, however, Lash’s feet were in motion once more as he wisely beat a hasty retreat away from the approaching trio. Spotting a nearby alley, the gambler took a quick detour and tried to lose them behind the buildings lining the main street, but the men soon overtook him, one of them grabbing Lash by the back of his vest and slamming him face-first into a wall of the alley. “I want my money back, you perfumed son of a whore,” his assailant growled.

“Y’know, most folks start a conversation with ‘Hello’,” Lash replied in a daze.

The man spun Lash around so they were face-to-face. “I ain’t in the mood for no sass. You cheated me outta fifty bucks, and if’n you don’t cough it up right now, me and the boys are gonna take it outta your stinkin’ hide.”

Should’ve known this fella was gonna be trouble, Lash thought to himself, then said to the man, “First off, would you mind not bein’ so rough on my attire? This here vest is made of imported Chinese silk...an’ hand-crafted by an imported Chinaman, to boot. Secondly, I never cheat. I won that money off’n you fair an’ square, so if you want to pound somebody’s head in, why don’t you go find that faro dealer who gave you the bad hand?”

“Wrong answer, nancy-boy.” He drove a fist into Lash’s gut, and the gambler fell to his knees as he gasped for air, while the men stood over him laughing. “Actually, I changed my mind,” his assailant told him. “I’m gonna take back my money and we’re gonna beat y’all up anyhow. Sorry in advance for messin’ up your fancy duds.” He made to slam his bootheel into Lash’s head, but the gambler rolled out of the way and managed to stagger to his feet. The other two men rushed forward and tried to grab hold of him, but he slipped away and started running down the alley once again. He hated to act in such a cowardly way, but he always did his best to take the peaceable route in all matters...and he didn’t think that these fellas knew the meaning of the word “peaceable”.

Doubling back towards the main street, Lash hoped he could throw them off the trail. He was nearly there when somebody came out of nowhere and grabbed hold of him. The gambler cocked his fist, figuring it was one of the men chasing him, then stopped cold when he saw that it was a stranger clad in red longjohns and some sort of hood pulled tight over his head, with little gold wings where his ears should be. “What in the Sam Hill are you made up for?” Lash blurted out.

“That’s what I’ve been wondering,” the stranger said, then looked down the alley in the direction Lash had come from. “Is something wrong? Why are you running?”

Before Lash could answer, the three men tore around the corner, shouting, “There he is!” Lash tried to pull away from the stranger and get moving again, but he wouldn’t let go. The three men skidded to a stop before them, the lead assailant telling the stranger, “I don’t know who you are, mister, but you just saved us a lot of breath.”

“And why is that?” he asked them. “Why are you chasing this man?”

“‘Cause he’s got an ass-whuppin’ comin’ to him, that’s why,” one of them said.

The stranger’s eyes went from the men to Lash and back again, then he said, “I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. If he’s a lawbreaker, then I’ll help you take him to the police, but I won’t just hand him over so you can pound on him.”

“Mister, you ain’t got no choice in the matter,” the lead assailant said as he stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. But before he could do more than that, the stranger let go of Lash and suddenly became a blur of red lightning, knocking all three of the men flat within seconds.

“Still interested in that ass-whuppin’?” the stranger asked as he stood over them, hands balled into fists. The three men soon made it clear that they weren’t by scrambling to their feet and taking off. Meanwhile, Lash was slowly backing away in the other direction, unsure of whether or not the stranger would turn on him next. The gambler hadn’t gotten more than six feet away when the stranger zipped up beside him in the blink of an eye, saying, “I’m gonna presume from their attitude that you’re actually an innocent party in all this?”

“All’s I did was have a run of good luck in the gamblin’ hall, which those gentlemen couldn’t appreciate.” Despite the truth of the statement, Lash’s voice was trembling -- the incredible speed this individual possessed was unnerving him terribly. “Thanks for helpin’ me out of that jam, mister. You didn’t have to stick your neck out like that, but I’m grateful all the same.”

“It’s all part of the job.”

“It’s your job to hang out in back alleys an’ wait for good-lookin’ idiots like me to run by? Can’t imagine that it pays well.”

“No, I didn’t mean it was literally my job...or maybe I did...I don’t know.” The stranger closed his eyes and began to rub at his temple. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know much of anything at the moment: my own name, why I’m wearing these clothes, how I can move so fast...I’ve been pretty confused ever since I woke up in the desert north of here.” He sighed and looked at Lash. “I was all alone, without so much as a canteen on me...I figured for sure I was going to die out there, but I started walking anyways. Then after a few minutes, I just got this urge to run...and the next thing I knew, I’d cleared well over a hundred miles in about two seconds.”

“You...you’ve got to be joshin’ me! Nothin’ can move that fast!” But then again, Lash had seen the stranger move awful damn quick just moments before. This is too much, the gambler thought, and began to pace in the alley. “Alright, let me get this straight: You woke up in the desert in your longjohns, with no water, no supplies, an’ no memory...an’ you just up an’ ran all the way from there to Tucson?”

“Is that where I am? I only stopped here because it was the first town I came across.” He cast a glance up to where the alley connected with the main street. “Unfortunately, I’ve been having to lay low ever since I got here. I can’t exactly blend in with this outfit.”

“Ain’t it the truth? Lucky for you, I believe in paying back those who’ve done me a good turn.” He flashed the stranger a grin and hitched a thumb towards the main street, saying, “I reckon I might have some spare clothes back in my hotel room that’ll fit you. An’ if I don’t, we’ll head on down to the mercantile an’ scrounge up something that does. In the meantime, y’all might want of pull off that fancy hood so’s you don’t get too many stares your way.”

The stranger did as Lash advised, and the two of them headed over to the hotel. They did indeed get a few stares as they made their way down the main street, but Lash merely held his head high and acted as if nothing was amiss, and the stranger tried to do the same. When they entered the hotel lobby, the manager at the front desk did a double-take. “What’s with your friend there, Mr. Lash?” the manager asked him. “I’ve heard of losing your shirt in a card game, but it looks like this here fella’s been stripped clean.”

Lash leaned against the desk and said, “Don’t you know? That there’s the latest Paris fashion.” He waved a hand at the stranger, who was standing in the middle of the lobby looking about. “Pretty soon, every man in the States in gonna be struttin’ around in his longjohns like that.”

“If you say so, Mr. Lash. Personally, I’m more of a traditional sort.” He turned to the wall behind the desk and pulled a piece of paper out a small cubbyhole marked with Lash’s room number. “By the by, a telegram was just dropped off for you.”

The gambler took the paper and read it over, then glanced up at the stranger, now standing before a mirror hanging on the wall of the lobby and looking hard at himself. “What are the odds of this?” Lash said under his breath. “Not the sort I’d want to bet on, that’s for sure.” He read it one more time before walking over to the stranger.

“I barely recognize myself,” he said as Lash came up behind him. He kept brushing a hand through his short blond hair, as if making sure that it was really his. “I know the face, but I don’t think of it as me. It’s more like...somebody I met a long time ago.” He turned to Lash. “Does that make any sense?”

“I’m beginning to think that the world’s run short on sense all of the sudden.” He held up the telegram, saying, “An old friend of mine just sent me a message. Seems he also ran into an unusual fella today, only this one’s made outta rubber, plus he dropped outta the clear blue sky. To top it off, this other fella’s lost most of his memory too, an’ what he does remember ain’t exactly puttin’ my friend at ease.”

The stranger took the telegram out of Lash’s hand and read it for himself. “The place your friend sent this from...Desecration, is it? Where is that?”

“Haven’t the foggiest notion.” Lash looked over at the manager and said, “Hey, Gerry! Y’all ever hear of anyplace called Desecration before?”

“There used to be a mining town called that about two hundred miles north of here,” the manager replied, “but I think it went bust a couple years back.”

“‘Bout two hundred miles north, eh?” The gambler turned to his new companion. “So tell me again: which direction did you come from when you did all that runnin’?”

The stranger’s eyes widened. “Do you really think that what happened to me also happened to this guy your friend met?”

“Well, if it didn’t, then this is all one hell of a coincidence.” Lash tucked the telegram inside his vest, saying, “Looks like we’ll be makin’ a little trip up north. But first, let’s get you some proper clothes, then we’ll hop on over to the depot an’ see if they’ve got any trains headed near Desecration. It’ll probably take us a day or so to get there, but...”

“Who needs a train?” the stranger said, and pulled that funny hood of his back into place. “Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll have us there in no time flat.”

“What are you...hey, put me down!” Lash squirmed about as the stranger scooped the gambler up into his arms. “What do you think you’re doin’?”

“Saving you money on train fare.” Seconds later, the stranger was speeding north out of Tucson as Bat Lash hollered, one arm pinning his hat to his head while the other was locked in fear around the speedster’s neck.

He was dreaming of waterfalls, clear and cold, soaking his hair as he stuck his head beneath the unending cascade. He couldn’t describe the relief that flooded through him while he let the water run into his open mouth, gulping it down so fast that he almost choked on it. He didn’t care, though, just so long as it kept the heat away. He couldn’t stand that heat anymore, sapping his strength, his will, his mind...no, the heat hadn’t taken his mind, it had been...what had it been? A bearded face, laughing at his pain, their pain...then they’d been left to die, but he wouldn’t...he’d refused to give up. He’d walked across the sun-baked land even while his body screamed for mercy, and then...and then...

Hal Jordan sat up abruptly, his breath coming in panicked gasps as he tried to figure out where he was. After a moment, he realized he was still down in the dry riverbed he’d collapsed in earlier, only now the sun had disappeared from the sky, and the stars were beginning to come out. He could feel drops of water trickling down his face, and he soon noticed his chest was soaked as well -- looking down, he saw the wet rag which had fallen in his lap when he sat up. Then he saw the blanket laid out beneath him, providing some protection from the bare earth. He was still trying to puzzle it all out when a voice nearby said, “Glad tuh see yo’re finally awake. Yuh had me worried.”

Bringing his ring hand up, the Green Lantern turned to see a man standing just a few feet away, silhouetted by a campfire. He was dressed in a beat-up, gray uniform jacket with an equally-abused wide-brimmed hat, and a pair of faded blue jeans tucked into cuffed leather boots. While the outfit struck Hal as strange, what really held his attention was the man’s face...or rather, what remained of it. The whole right side was heavily scarred, to the point where his right cheek was nothing but a hole -- the firelight playing off of it served only to make the sight more gruesome than it already was. “Who are you?” Hal asked. “What do you want from me?”

“Name’s Jonah Hex, an’ Ah don’t want nothin’ from yuh, ‘cept fer y’all tuh quit pointin’ thet damn fancy ring at me. Yuh almost took muh head off with it earlier, an’ Ah didn’t really appreciate thet.” As he talked, he held up his hands, keeping them clear of the gunbelt he was wearing. Other than that gesture, however, he seemed completely at ease. “So why don’t yuh just settle down an’ try tuh get some food down yer gullet afore yuh pass out on me again?”

“No way,” Hal replied, lot letting the ring waver an inch.

Jonah sighed, then said, “Son, Ah’m doin’ muh best tuh be patient with yuh, an’ Ah ain’t exactly known fer muh patience, so yuh kin imagine how tough this is on me. Now muhself, Ah’m hungry, so Ah’m gonna eat. As fer yerself, yuh got two choices: Y’all kin shoot me in the back when Ah turn around, or y’all kin come over by the fire an’ join me in havin’ a bite. But afore yuh decide, let me point out thet, if’n Ah wanted yuh dead, Ah sure as Hell wouldn’t have bothered with keepin’ yuh alive this long.”

Despite his own confusion over the situation, Hal had to admit that the man had a point -- it didn’t make sense for someone to waste that much water in the middle of the desert on a person they were planning to kill. “You promise...do you promise that you’re not going to double-cross me?”

“Ah swear on muh life, Ah ain’t gonna do a thing tuh hurt yuh.”

Slowly, Hal let his hand drop. “Okay, I’ll trust you. But if you try anything...”

“Believe me, Ah ain’t gonna risk it,” Hex replied, and walked over to the fire. “Now come on over here. Y’all may not believe it, but the desert kin get mighty cold at night. Be damn stupid if’n Ah go tuh all this trouble savin’ yer life just tuh have yuh freeze tuh death on me.” Hal did as he was told, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders as he sat down near the man, who was removing a small tin pot from the fire -- the water inside was bubbling, and Jonah reached in and plucked out a bit of meat with his bare fingers without hesitation. After tasting it, he filled a tin cup with the pot’s contents and handed it to the Green Lantern, saying, “Yuh may not be up fer eatin’ just yet, but at least try tuh get the broth down.”

Hal examined the pale chunks floating in the cloudy broth. It looked a little like chicken, but he doubted that there were any chickens in the desert. “What is this?”

“If’n Ah tell yuh, y’all might not eat it.” He plucked some more meat out of the pot and ate it, and after a moment, Hal followed his lead, taking a few sips of broth, then fishing out some of the mystery meat and giving it a nibble. It definitely wasn’t chicken, but it wasn’t half-bad, either, plus the smell of it was making him realize how hungry he really was. As Hal polished off his share of the food, Jonah asked him, “So, yuh gonna tell me whut the Hell yo’re doin’ out here in the middle of nowhere, or are yuh gonna make me guess?”

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Hal said, “I wish I could tell you, but...I can’t remember anything. Not my name, or how I got here, or even what this thing is.” He held up his ring hand. “I sort of remember fighting someone, but even that’s fuzzy.”

Jonah stared at him for a moment, then rolled his eyes upward, muttering, “Yuh just cain’t make it easy fer me, kin yuh, Lord?” He looked back at Hal. “Yuh don’t remember nothin’? Fine, we’ll work around it. First off, tell me ‘bout this fight yuh ‘sort of’ remember.”

“Well, I...I’m not too sure if it was really a fight. I remember a lot of pain in my head.” He rubbed his fingers against his temple. “And somebody laughing at us...”

“‘Us’? There was more’n one of yuh there?”

Hal paused, then said, “Yes...yes, there was. We were all in pain, and this man was laughing, and he said...” He squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to bring the memory into focus, but it was no use. “Dammit, it’s there, it’s right there, but I can’t reach it!”

“Don’t force it too hard, son. When it wants tuh come out, it’ll come.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know what this is like, feeling like your head...your head’s just empty...”

“As a matter of fact, Ah know exactly whut it’s like. Quite a few years back, Ah got caught in a rockslide an’ got muh brains scrambled well an’ good fer muh trouble. Spent a month or so thinkin’ Ah was a preacher-man.”

Hal opened one eye and looked at him. “You’re kidding.”

“God’s honest truth.”

The Green Lantern laughed in spite of himself. “I don’t know you in the least, but I seriously doubt anybody could mistake you for a preacher.”

“Well, at the time, Ah wasn’t wearing’ this fine coat Jefferson Davis gave me,” Hex said, plucking at his jacket’s lapel. “Ah’d taken it off tuh move incognito, an’ just muh luck, thet’s when Ah got whacked by the damn rocks.” He smiled and shook his head. “Yuh should’ve seen me tryin’ tuh bluff muh way through a Sunday service...why the Lord didn’t strike me down right then an’ there fer blasphemy, Ah’ll never know.”

The mental image of this scarred cowboy standing at a church altar reading aloud from the Bible was just too much for Hal, and he started to laugh even harder, with Jonah joining in as well. After a few minutes, Hal got a hold of himself well enough to ask, “So how long did you...heh...how long before you got your memory back?”

“Oh, bits of it were comin’ back all the time, but not enough tuh make sense of it. Wasn’t ‘til a month later thet the whole thing came a-tumblin’ back in muh brain, an’ when it did, everything was clear as day again.”

“Do you think the same thing will happen with me?”

“It might. Reckon all’s yuh need is the right thing tuh trigger it.” Jonah fell silent for a moment, turning his gaze towards the fire, then said, “Desecration.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s supposed tuh be a town north of here called Desecration. Judgin’ by the trail yuh left afore yuh passed out here, it looks like yuh came from the north, so...” Hex shrugged. “Just thought maybe if’n yuh heard the name, yuh might recall something.”

“No, I...” Hal started to say, then paused. “Wait...yes, I do know it, but...I can see the word, but there’s nothing to it. No connection.” He gazed at the fire himself, a crease of worry forming on his brow. “How long is this going to last? You said that it took a month before you returned to normal...how can a person live for a month like this? And what if my memory doesn’t come back? What then? Do I just spend the rest of my life fumbling around in the dark?” He leaned forward, covering his face with his hands and saying, “God, I can’t remember what year this is, or how old I am, or what I even look like. I wouldn’t even know myself if I saw a picture...”

Without a word, Jonah got up from the fire and walked over to his horse. He rummaged around inside his saddlebag, then went back to Hal and tapped him on the shoulder. Slowly, the Green Lantern lifted his head to see Jonah standing there, holding a small shaving mirror in front of him -- reflected in the glass was the slightly-sunburned face of a man with tousled brown hair and a green mask covering his eyes. “Yo’re a bit of a pretty-boy,” the bounty hunter told him, “but yuh seem okay otherwise, so Ah ain’t gonna hold thet against yuh. As fer the year, it’s 1878. Don’t know if’n any of this will help yuh get yer memory back, but at least now yuh know.”

Hal took the mirror from him, still staring at the image of himself. “No, it’s not bringing anything to mind...but it does make me feel a little better.” He looked up at the man, saying, “Thank you, Mr. Hex.”

“No thanks needed...an’ yuh kin drop the ‘Mister Hex’ nonsense. Muh friends call me Jonah, an’ so long as yo’re ridin’ with me, y’all kin count on me as yer friend.”

“Considering the mess I’m in right now,” Hal replied, contemplating the stranger in the mirror once more, “I’m glad I don’t have to count you as an enemy.”

“So,” Ralph said, “what are three dazzling urbanites like us doing in a rustic setting like this?” He and the others were sitting around a table near the back of the Desecration Saloon. The owner of the place, expecting more trouble, put up a fuss over their presence at first, but once Bat Lash tossed a decent sum of money at the man (and that was only after Scalphunter had prodded the gambler into doing such), the owner decided to leave them be for now.

“I really wish I knew,” Barry replied. “The last thing I can remember with any clarity is helping Hawkgirl to her feet after I accidentally bopped her.”

“Is that what this is from?” Kendra said, touching the bruise on her forehead -- both she and Barry had removed their masks, as the notion of “secret identities” seemed rather silly while they were stranded 130 years away from home. “Remind me to kick you in the butt when we get back to our own time.”

“I hope you don’t have to wait too long to do that,” Scalphunter told her. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure where we should begin when it comes to solving your...unique situation.”

“‘Unique’ is puttin’ it mildly,” Lash added. “In all my days, I never dreamed I’d ever be sittin’ in a bar with three folks from the future.” He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Is this sort of thing common where y’all come from?”

“Not exactly,” Barry said, “and that’s one of the things troubling me about all this: Did we get thrown back in time accidentally, or was this all intentional?”

“Judgin’ by what the rubber-man remembers, I’d say intentional.” Kate Manser was picking at the wooden tabletop with the pointed edge of the sheriff’s badge she’d thrown at Kendra’s assailants earlier that night. “From the sound of it, y’all got jumped by somebody...and it must’ve been a pretty nasty somebody to take out the three of you.”

“You mean the four of us,” Ralph corrected her. “I know for sure that Green Lantern was still with us when it happened.”

Barry sighed and said, “Be nice to know where he is right now.” He’d tried to raise Hal on the comlink earlier, then realized that it wouldn’t work without a satellite to relay the signal, and they were currently about 80 years away from Sputnik. “Maybe whoever did this to us captured him...or maybe he got away and he’s still in our time.”

“Or maybe he just hasn’t found his way here yet,” Kendra said to him. “He may have gone in the opposite direction like you did at first, in which case, he could be sitting in another town right now even more lost than we are.”

“Which is why I think we should be out there taking a look around instead of hiding in here.” Flash turned his attention to Scalphunter. “I agree with you that we might still be in danger, but we can’t ignore the fact that our friend could be out there somewhere in need of our help. Look, I can canvass the immediate area by myself so fast, you’d never even know I’d left.”

“Maybe you could,” the Kiowa warrior replied, “but considering that none of us -- including you fancy future-folk -- has any idea what we’re up against, I think letting you take off into the night on your own is an incredibly stupid move. What do you expect us to do if you don’t come back?” He jabbed a finger at the tabletop. “Until the dawn comes, the majority of us will stay in here. We’ll take turns walking sentry around town, but only in pairs, and if any trouble comes up, shoot to wound if you can. We won’t get very many answers off a corpse.” He looked the three Leaguers over and said, “We’ll have to rustle up some more guns for you folk. I’ve got a spare rifle...”

“Sorry, that’s not our style,” Barry told him.

“Damn shame,” Lash said. “With your speed, I reckon you could sling bullets faster’n a Gatling gun.” The gambler then flashed a grin at Kendra and Kate, saying, “So, how would you fine ladies like to accompany me on first watch?”

“How would you like to be gelded?” Kate replied as she glared at him, flipping the badge between her fingers.

“Hold that thought, ma’am,” Ralph said, his eyes on the doorway. Three men had just walked into the saloon, and the Elongated Man stretched his neck up a few more inches to get a better view of them. “Is it just me, or does something about those guys seem a little off-kilter?”

The others turned their attention towards the door now. Indeed, the oddness of the three men was immediately evident: they all looked exactly alike. Identical shirts, trousers, boots, hats...even their physical features were the same, right down to the haircuts. “Y’know, I’ve heard of a pair of look-alike gunfighters called the Trigger Twins,” Lash offered. “Maybe that’s who these fellas are.”

“There’s three of them, Bat,” Scalphunter said.

“Trigger Triplets, then.” As the gambler talked, the men turned in unison towards their group and started making a beeline for them. “Whoever they are, they seem to have taken an interest in us.”

“Funny, I was prepared for something a lot more dangerous than this,” Scalphunter said as he got up from his chair. “They don’t even appear to be armed.” He stepped in front of the three men, a hand on the butt of his gun, and said to them, “We don’t want any trouble. Just tell us who you are, and what you’re doing here.”

In response, the centermost man lifted his right arm and held his palm up in front of Scalphunter, as if commanding him to halt. The Kiowa warrior couldn’t figure out what to make of this, and was about to speak again when he saw a blood-red glow begin to appear in the center of the man’s hand, and he suddenly realized how badly he’d misjudged the situation. Before he could even think about moving, Flash came up from behind and pushed him clear, then grabbed the strange man’s arm and tried to point it away from the group. As the speedster did so, the red glow shot out of the man’s hand and struck the saloon’s ceiling, burning a six-inch-wide hole right through it.

“What the Hell was that?” Kate said, staring at the charred timbers above them. Before anyone could even attempt an answer, the other two men had raised their hands, their palms turning red now as well. She and the others dove out of the way as two more red beams tore through the table they were just sitting at, destroying it completely. In the midst of all this, the owner and the rest of the saloon’s patrons were running for the door in terror -- a simple bar fight was one thing, but this was shaping up to be a nightmare.

Lash and Ralph had ended up under another table, the gambler drawing his gun as he peeked out at their assailants. “Well, at least now we know who we’re up against,” he quipped. “They look familiar at all, Mr. Dibny?”

“Not in the least. If it wasn’t for the laser show, I’d say they were just three average cowboys.” He began to snake an arm out towards one standing near them, saying, “Let’s see if we can restrain one and get some answers out of him.” As Elongated Man made to grab onto the ankle of his target, his hand inexplicably passed right through the man’s leg, which seemed to shimmer at his touch. “Holy crap, it’s a...” Ralph started to say, but clammed up when the man he’d tried to grab onto caught sight of Ralph’s stretched-out arm and turned towards them, taking aim. The two men barely had time to scramble across the floor before their hiding place turned to splinters.

Meanwhile, Flash was still struggling with the one he’d initially tried to restrain, though he had managed to keep the man’s arm pointed upwards. The man’s other hand, however, was locked tight around Barry’s throat, squeezing his windpipe with a shocking amount of strength. As he was debating whether he should vibrate free and risk losing his own hold on the man, Kate came up and smashed a chair across his assailant’s back. Unfortunately, it had no effect, aside from the man swaying a little from the impact. That didn’t deter her in the least, and she simply jumped on his back and wrapped her arm around the man’s neck, attempting to use her own weight to topple him. It’s like I’m wrestling with a statue, she thought as she delivered a kidney punch to the small of his back, then yelped when her fist hit what felt like solid steel.

“How in blazes do you stop people like this?” Scalphunter said as he reloaded his pistol. He’d taken refuge behind the bar after he had emptied his whole cylinder into one of their assailants, who didn’t even flinch at all the lead being tossed his way.

“I don’t think they’re people,” Kendra said, crouching beside him. Like Kate, she’d tried punching out one of them, and had almost broken her hand in the process. “I think we’re dealing with robots.”

“With what?”

“Machines that look and move like men...that’s the simplest way to explain it.” She paused as a laser blast tore through the bar, punching a hole in the solid oak framework. “You can’t just shoot it and expect it to fall over like a regular person.”

“Do you have a better idea, then?”

“I might.” She glanced up at the wall behind the bar. Hanging above the shelves stocked with liquor bottles were a pair of metal tomahawks -- she couldn’t tell whether they’d been actual weapons used by Indians or just gussied-up hatchets made for display purposes, but they looked sturdy enough. “Get ready to lay down some cover fire,” she told Scalphunter, “and try to aim for its head, there might be less armor there.”

He nodded and, when she gave the word, popped up from behind the bar and trained his gun on the man before him. Not a man, a machine, he corrected himself. But what sort of future are we headed for where you can mistake a machine for a living human being? Pushing aside such concerns for the moment, he fired off one shot after another, scarcely able to believe that this “robot” could survive so many bullets to the brainpan. Then Scalphunter saw that deadly arm come up once more, and he ducked down just as another blast tore through the bar, this time mere inches away from his own head. As this was occurring, he caught sight of Hawkgirl swooping up to grab the tomahawks, then twisting around in the air and diving straight at their opponent.

Peering carefully around the side of the bar, Scalphunter watched as Kendra brought her new weapons to bear, sinking the metal blades into either side of their opponent’s neck. There was a sound rather like a shriek of pain, and the outline of the man seemed to flicker like a mirage, until the man disappeared completely and left behind something that the Kiowa warrior couldn’t even find the words to describe. It had the general shape of a man, with a torso, two arms, and a head, but they could be termed that in only the loosest sense. The head was slim and featureless, save for a large circular lens set in the center, and the arms were spindly, fragile-looking things made of banded metal, with three jointed “fingers” at the end -- the ones on the thing’s right hand were folded back to expose a short tube, which Scalphunter supposed was where the deadly beams of light came from. What shocked him the most was the fact that the thing had no legs, the hip sockets instead giving off a strange blue-white light as it hung in the air in front of Kendra, who was pulling the tomahawks free from the sparking wounds she’d inflicted. The thing began to raise its right arm and point it at her, but she brought one of the blades directly down on its shoulder joint, severing it completely, and a final blow to its neck sent the head flying -- the thing continued to hang in the air for a few seconds before the light from its hip sockets went out and it dropped to the floor.

Despite his own problems, Barry saw what Kendra had done, and the revelation about what they were really fighting allowed him to change his tactics. Doing his best to look Kate in the eye, he choked out, “Get...clear...” Kate didn’t understand at first why the speedster wanted her to give up, then she saw him begin to vibrate, and felt how it was causing his assailant to shake as well. She let go and backed away, just as Flash increased the vibrations to such an intensity that the robot was starting to come apart at the seams, and within seconds, it was only so much scrap metal at Barry’s feet.

The third robot, seeing how its companions had been deactivated, began to sweep its laser around the entire saloon in an effort to wipe out the Leaguers before they could take it down as well. Before it had a chance to hit anyone, however, Barry rushed over and grabbed its right arm, wrenching it free from the rest of the robot at super-speed -- the feedback immediately shorted out the machine’s camouflage. The robot then made to strike Flash with its other limb, but Ralph came up behind it and wrapped his own elastic arms around the thing, saying, “Sorry, playtime’s over. Gotta put your toys away.”

Lash walked up to it slowly, staring at the machine with wonder. “Forgive me if I sound like a country bumpkin, but can somebody tell me what in blazes I’m lookin’ at?”

“The Hawkgirl called it a ‘robot’...whatever that means,” Scalphunter replied.

“It means that it’s a very sophisticated machine,” Barry said, readjusting his mask, “and that it’s even more out of place in 1878 than we are.” He looked the robot over as it tried to break free of Ralph’s constricting limbs. “I don’t recognize the design at all. Anybody else got a clue?” he asked his teammates.

“Not a one,” Kendra said. “It looks pretty advanced, though, even for our time.”

Kate shook her head, saying, “I don’t understand. How come they looked like men when they came in here, and now they look like that? I mean, they had legs, too...”

“They were using a holographic projection to disguise themselves,” Ralph explained. “I caught on to that when I tried to grab this one and my hand passed through his leg...these things must have some sort of built-in anti-gravity, as well.”

“English, rubber-man, speak English!” Lash cried in exasperation.

“It’s probably better that you don’t understand it all, anyways,” Barry told him. “Who knows how badly we’ve messed up the timestream already just by being in this town, and the longer we’re here, the worse it’s...”

“Don’t worry, Flash,” the robot said. “It will all be over soon. By the dawn, I shall have what I came for, and then I can dispose of you and your friends personally.”

“Good Lord,” Scalphunter said. “These things can talk, too?”

“No, it’s not the robot,” Kendra said to him. “It’s broadcasting...and I know that voice. I don’t know where from, but I’m positive that I’ve heard it before.”

The robot’s head turned slightly towards her as the unknown voice said, “Have you forgotten me already, Hawkgirl? Admittedly, we didn’t have much time to get to know each other before we parted, but...” There was a pause, then a laugh which sounded terribly familiar to the Leaguers. “Ah, I should have suspected this! When my sensors picked up your presence in this time, I assumed you followed me here intentionally, but that isn’t the case, is it? And thanks to my psionic scrambler, you have no idea who I am or what my plans are! How ironic!” The voice began to cackle louder.

Barry grabbed the robot’s head in both hands and glared into the lens. “What are you talking about, you bastard? And what did you do to Green Lantern?”

“Nothing yet, but my drone will reach him soon. Poor little man, all alone out there...he doesn’t stand a chance.”

“I may not remember who you are,” Barry said, “but if you hurt him, I swear to God you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Do you hear me?”

“I can hear you just fine...but can you hear this?” An electronic tone began to come out of the robot, slowly rising in pitch. At first, the Leaguers thought it was feedback of some sort, but then Ralph and Barry made eye contact, each of them mouthing the same word: “Bomb.” A split-second later, Elongated Man unwound himself from around the robot, and Flash grabbed hold of it and raced away from Desecration, towards the busted copper mine just outside town -- the speedster had no idea how powerful the ensuing blast might be, but he hoped that the now-deserted shafts the miners had dug out would be deep enough to contain it. He paused only a moment at the mine’s entrance, then threw the robot down into the darkness as hard as he could before taking off again. A few seconds later, an explosion shook the ground, and Barry looked on from a safe distance as clouds of dirt and scraps of timber spewed forth from the mine before the entrance collapsed in on itself.

As the echo of the explosion faded away, Barry scanned the night-shrouded horizon for even the tiniest glimpse of green. “We’ll find you, Hal,” he said under his breath. “I don’t know where you are right now, but we’ll find you. Just hang in there.”