Excerpt from Tombstone, 1881

All that was visible from the window to my right side was the scene of unending bronze desert; the sun was tilting towards the west, and shadows were beginning to lengthen off into the distance. Shades of lavender and deep violet threaded their way through the blue sky, arching down to the far horizon. By now, Kipp and I had become accustomed to the gentle rocking of the stage; it was oddly hypnotic, and I jerked my head up when my chin abruptly dropped to my chest. I glanced at Kipp who reclined across from me, his large body occupying the entire bench seat.
"I'm glad we came," he commented. "It's interesting, and I'm enjoying the change in scenery."
I nodded my head; Kipp suddenly craned his neck, and his ears pricked upright. His superiority to me in terms of raw symbiont skills was such that he picked up on the thoughts of our drivers, Pete and Dave, before I did. From their dialog, it was apparent we were being followed by men on horseback. Because of the slowness of the team pulling the coach, it would only be a matter of minutes before the unnamed pursuers would apprehend us. Kipp turned his head slightly.
"They are bandits... highwaymen," Kipp commented.
Despite my own talents as a telepath, I wasn't able yet to clearly pluck their thoughts from the air, as was Kipp.
"They have targeted this stage.... but not because of us. They think there is a gold box on board."
I laughed softly. "Well, it seems that Steve Hill's warning to the clerk at the stage company worked. They aren't after us, thinking I have a lot of money."
Pete's voice drifted back to me.
"Mrs. Totheroh, we're being forced to stop. You just stay inside and be quiet; let me handle this."
I was perfectly content to do just that and sat back on the bench, which was padded but not sufficiently to stave off hind end fatigue. I looked at Kipp whose eyes narrowed.
"My butt is sore, too," he commented. "I'm grateful to not be saddled, literally, with a bustle."
The rocking motion gently subsided, and had we been in an automobile, I would have been listening for a tiny squeal of brakes to accompany the stop. Instead, all I heard was the jangling of harness bits and the stomp of an equine foot.
"Driver, you know what we want, so you can go ahead and toss it down." There was a pause before the unfamiliar, gravelly voice added, "And tell your boy to put aside his shotgun."
Dave's thoughts were agitated and combative since he wanted to bring a fight to the robbers. But he succumbed to Pete's instructions, and I heard the clatter of the coach gun as it hit the wooden planks of the box. The sound of Pete's spitting was loud in the quiet desert air, and I saw the missile as it passed by my window. The sweet smell of tobacco wafted past my sensitive nose.
The bandits were careful to not use names, but I realized that they recognized Pete from past times they had encountered him as a driver. He had, occasionally, waged a battle when carrying Wells Fargo gold boxes, since he was being well compensated to make a delivery unsullied. I, of course, had given him the opposite instructions: don't fight and let's survive the trip to Tombstone.
A shadow fell across my window as a horse drew close. I saw a large brown eye and caught a whiff of hot, sweaty horse. Pushing my spine against the thinly padded seat, I hoped for invisibility. I glanced at Kipp; his eyes were rounded with the thrill of the moment, and his large mouth dropped open in a pant. Well, he'd wanted excitement, and we were slap dab in the middle of it.
I could see the rider as he dismounted; he cautiously approached Pete and Dave, watching them for any movement signaling an aggressive response. With a whistle he signaled another rider, who apparently approached from the rear of the coach to examine the boot. His efforts would lead to disappointment, since all that it contained was my small trunk and carpetbag. The robbers, with one another, were using names of reference in their minds, although they carefully avoided verbalizing them. Kipp's head darted up as he heard one of the men thinking 'Frank'.
"Could that be Frank Stillwell?" Kipp asked me.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"So what're you carrying?" the man's voice echoed out. The desert, with the lack of trees and shrubs, was a perfect void with no inanimate objects to disrupt sound waves.
"I've got a passenger today," Pete responded. "Just a lady," he added, "and I'd be grateful if you'd leave her alone." I knew that Pete kept a pistol concealed beneath the jacket he wore and could see his hand moving towards the gun. Despite what I'd told him, he was not going to let the highwaymen disturb me, if he could prevent it. It was quaintly chivalrous and totally unnecessary.
It was then that I felt the touch of a symbiotic mind weaving its way through the wooden walls of the coach. My eyes opened wide, and I stared at Kipp, whose head lifted in surprise. It was obvious one of the robbers holding us at bay was a fellow symbiont.
Over my four hundred plus years, I'd shared many memorable moments with my own species and recognized the existence of good and evil did not just reside with homo sapiens. I'd recently experienced the intrusion of Andrea Collins into my mind by use of a method that was thoroughly discouraged by our group. It was subtle, to be sure, but still an unwelcomed event. But nothing in my past prepared me for what was about to happen.
A forceful telepathic mind began an investigation of me that pushed past the normal and acceptable boundaries and began to shred its way into the hidden rooms that I concealed from all, save Kipp. I desperately tried to close off my mind, but it was immediately clear that the other symbiont was more powerful than I, and I quickly lost ground to his assault. And yes, it was an assault, with no quantitative difference from a human physical attack in that it was equally intimate and horrifying. I gasped and clutched with my fists at the empty air; my eyes seemed to lose their normal vision, and I heard myself whimper softly.
Suddenly, Kipp was there, teeth bared in outraged fury. Over the relatively short time I'd been associated with him, there had been moments when he displayed gifts of our species that had been lost over centuries due to the consequences of a limited gene pool. But Kipp, fresh from the ancient world, was the genuine article, functioning as God had intended.
Kipp hopped over to my side of the small coach interior and began licking my face in a frantic attempt to gain my attention away from the unknown attacker. In my thoughts, I could hear Kipp growl again, fearsome and powerful. I don't know how he did it, but he pushed outward with his mind and slammed a door that effectively closed off the unwanted intrusion of the stranger. Kipp and I both recognized a burst of surprise followed by a wry mental chuckle. The other recognized Kipp's impressive talents and respected them.
I leaned forward and rested my sweat covered forehead on Kipp's furry pelt. He pushed his head to the window and narrowed his eyes as he looked off to the southwest where a lone man sat upon a horse, silhouetted by the late afternoon sun. The man—no, make that a male, humanoid symbiont—turned his head slightly and watched Kipp. A hand drew up and touched the brim of a hat in a sardonic salute. Something akin to envy crossed the yards between us and both Kipp and I realized that he had no symbiotic partner... at least not any more. I started to tell Kipp that he should not impulsively protect me before he turned to stare at me and uttered a quiet "shut up" command.
"I'm blocking him for now so don't distract me," Kipp finally commented. He resumed his attitude at the window. The lone figure finally gave voice to his humanoid companions.
"Boys, let's go. There's nothing to be had here."
The man who was in closest proximity to me was visibly irritated since he was looking forward to stealing any jewelry or money I might have. But there was a fear of the lone man and the name given to him in the minds of the others was 'Johnny'.
I looked at Kipp and he glanced back, once. If the symbiont was, indeed, Johnny Ringo, then he was notorious as a cold blooded killer of such an unpredictable temperament as to strike fear in the hearts of those he thought of as friends. Per history, even Curly Bill was wary of John Ringo.
If this were true, I wondered how one of my kind could evolve into such an antisocial monster? Kipp relaxed his vigilance when he felt the other symbiont pull back from his aggressive examination of me. As the man spurred his horse in retreat, a parting thought came our way.
"I'll see you both in Tombstone," the man said.