Billy looked from Shallbetter to the Jew. He had to admit, if he was in Shallbetter’s place, he’d do the same thing.
Then the girl said, “Daddy, Mr. Klein saved me!”
Billy stared.
The Jew looked as if he would cry.
Shallbetter lowered the hammer on his pistol. He put down the gun, and he went to his daughter.
He knelt on the porch of Klein’s cabin, holding her tight, his shoulders shaking.
The Jew’s wife came up behind him, tears spilling down her pink face.
For awhile, all that could be heard were the gun shots, cracking in the distance.
“Mr. Klein,” said Reverend Shallbetter, muffled by his daughter’s matted hair. “Thank you.”
* * * *
After The Rider had retrieved his things, he untied the onager. The Chinese girl watched him from the upstairs balcony, wrapped in a shawl against the cool morning air. There was a fresh cut on her lip. She said nothing.
He pondered the mystery of Molech’s appearance here in this backwater town and the last words of Cardin. ‘When the Hour of Incursion strikes and The Great Old Ones take their place beside the infernal lords,’ he had said. The Great Old Ones. No infernal spirit could inhabit this earth without a physical body. Were Cardin’s ravings the hopeful delusions of a lunatic coaxed to madness by the tongue of Molech, or were they truly the portents of a vanguard assault upon the physical realm by some other threat allied with the Adversary?
In his travel, The Rider had heard whisperings of the existence of another, elder race of beings on par with the infernals. The Great Old Ones. That phrase was what had triggered his memory. But he had thought them nothing more than myths. Yet on the other hand, in his trade, it was not wise to discount myth. The matter would require further investigation. Whatever the case, Molech would not take part in that supposed assault. That at least, was for certain.
There was another matter to consider. Cardin had been told to expect him. Told by who? It could only be Adon. The Rider’s former master. Then he must have crossed paths with these Canaanites. He was still in America. Cardin had come up from Mexico, Joseph had said. Then The Rider would look for him there.
With a click of his tongue, The Rider urged the animal away from the trough and turned south down the road, passing the saloon on the left.
As he walked, he glanced up at one of the windows, and saw the angel seated at the window through a part in the curtains. She raised one white, gloved hand of delicate lace and there was the glint of the newborn sun on the pane. Then she was gone; gone to join her subordinates in the punishment of the remaining Canaanites, no doubt.
He fished in his coat for his spectacles and found them in their case. He put them on, enjoying the sudden flood of brilliant, transcendent colors that shined down into the street.
The Chinese girl leaned far over the rail and watched him until he disappeared.
He tipped his hat to her and moved on.
Episode Two - The Dust Devils
POLVO ARIDO
population 103
Juan Miguel Alejandro-Dominguez, Mayor
SALUDOS AMIGOS!
NO FIREARMS ALLOWED!
As a dry Sonoran wind blew a choking cloud of fine white grit towards the lonesome border town, only two pairs of eyes, narrowed against the stinging sand were present to read the black words flaking on the faded sign.
One pair belonged to a white, unshorn onager.
The second pair of eyes belonged to a man who called himself The Rider. He peered out at the sign from beneath the down turned brim of his wide black hat.
They were brown eyes, protected from the adventurous grains that sought to swim in his tears by a pair of blue lenses, embossed with geometric seals only visible when the sun glanced off them just so. His eyes narrowed further at the last line of the battered sign—not for fear of relinquishing the gold and silver chased Volcanic pistol belted around his waist, nor the similarly gilded two-shot Derringer tucked up his sleeve, but because the sign itself was perforated with bullet-holes—relatively fresh ones, by the brightness of the broken wood.
“Someone’s not obeying the local ordinance,” he murmured to the onager.
The animal shuddered insistently behind him, nudging his back. He slowly headed past the sign.
“Alright, let’s go, my friend.”
He had come south across the border looking for a man, following whim and rumor more than a trail. There was no asking about this man, as no one alive knew his real name. To know a man’s name was to have power over him. It was one of the first lessons his old master had taught him. It was why The Rider had stopped using his own name years ago. ‘Adon’ (or ‘Lord’) was the only name his master had ever given. Anyone who knew Adon’s true name was dead now. His master had made sure of it, by making sure The Rider was the last of the American enclave of his mystical order, The Sons of the Essenes.
Though The Rider could barely make out the buildings of the town through the swirling dust, it seemed as they moved on the storm was a violent membrane, which once penetrated, proved comparatively calm at heart. Though still buffeted by mournful gusts, the town was at the epicenter of the gale, and the weather was peaceful if insistent once The Rider and the onager crossed into the town’s boundary.
Polvo Arrido was a prosperous looking place for a border town not on the map, with its clean bright adobe buildings and neat boardwalks. Its main street led to a half-built, columned manor house in the distance, anachronistic for the region. Construction scaffolds stood steadfast against the whipping winds like the forgotten siege towers of a battle lost long ago.
The Rider and the onager passed a blacksmith and a laundry, a lonesome telegraph office with a pair of frayed lines that swayed in the wind like broken fiesta streamers. A tall, rusty windmill squeaked in the constant wind behind the buildings. No faces pressed against the sugared glass of the shops to acknowledge their arrival, and no doors opened to welcome them.
They came upon a livery barn with a peaked roof, but when The Rider tried the door, he found it barred from within.
He looked at the onager. It shook its bristly mane in irritation.
“No room at the inn.”
An urgent rapping noise caught his attention, just barely discernable over the incessant howl of the wind.
The Rider looked towards the sound and saw a long thin face with a bony fist rapping the glass in the window of the neighboring dry goods store. The figure waved him over in a frantic manner, then disappeared within.
The Rider led the onager between the buildings and emerged out back, just as an impossibly tall, thin man ducked out from a low doorway on a modest back porch.
The figure shielded his eyes as a gust picked up, blowing three little cyclones across the porch and through the dust of the small, fenced in yard behind the store, in a corner of which there stood a rickety-looking open shed covered with flapping canvas weighed down by nails and flat stones on the roof.
The tall man cupped his hands and threw his deep voice at him. “P-Put your animal in there!”
He motioned to the shed.
The Rider was unsure of the tall man’s motives. Did he expect to collect some steep fee for letting him put his donkey in a shed? Why was the livery closed, at any rate? It didn’t seem likely that it was filled to capacity. This was a small enough town, and he himself had only come across it because the sudden attack of the desert storm had bewildered and driven him here.
Perhaps a troop of soldiers had been hit by the same storm and taken refuge here. But there were no hostile Indians about, and the nearest fort was miles across the border to the north, as near as he could tell. Where was everyone?
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t do to let the onager suffer through the blow without shelter. He led the dusty animal into the rickety shed and hitched him to the wheel of an old surrey with a set of broken spokes.
When he turned, the giant was still stooped in the doorway looking anxiously
about and motioning for him to come inside. He shrugged at the onager and pulled the canvas down across the entrance.
The Rider started over with a sour taste in his mouth, fishing in his pockets for his wallet. The gaunt figure retreated inside.
When he stepped through the door and pulled it shut behind him, he found himself in a back hall with a short staircase leading up to where the proprietor most likely lived. He followed the tall thin man into the store proper, his eyes level with the space between the man’s shoulder blades.
The man was dressed in a pair of pin-striped pants whose cuffs ended halfway down his ankles, revealing a pair of mismatched socks stuffed into two of the largest black shoes The Rider had ever seen. The sleeves of his white shirt, stained by dust and sweat, were rolled to his elbows to hide the fact they didn’t quite reach his simian wrists. He wore two elastic arm garters more for show, The Rider guessed, than for practicality. His black vest crept up the middle of his back as though his bony shoulders were a pair of angry parents dragging the love struck garment away from an intimate rendezvous with his waistline.
The man had a long neck, which curved to keep the top of his ghoulish skull from skinning on the ceiling. He had thinning brown hair with a pair of obscenely fuzzy sideburns that ran down the sides of his face like ladies’ boots. His heavy steps resounded on the planks.
When they reached the store front, the giant turned to The Rider and motioned for him to crouch down and follow him.
What happened next was almost enough to make The Rider laugh out loud. The tall man got down on his hands and knees and crawled behind the counter, then poked his angular head up and furrowed a set of anxious eyebrows back at him.
“Well? W-w-w-what are you waiting for? D-d-d-don’t you want to get a luh-look at them?” The voice came in a scared, stuttering whisper that cracked several times.
The Rider’s querulous grin wavered and fell.
Here was this physically imposing figure, hunched behind his counter and trembling at the ghostly moans of the wind outside. Sweat shined on the man’s forehead, and his long face was drawn tight across his skull. His nostrils flared nervously like those of a sorrel in a barn fire.
“What?” The Rider asked.
Maybe this man was crazy. Maybe he had wandered into an abandoned town where the population consisted solely of this tall lunatic.
Maybe the gold had run out, or the trails had changed, or the railroad had clanked by a few miles to the north. Perhaps everyone had packed up and left, except for this poor, towering stutterer who had invested his life savings in this shabby little dry goods store and would not admit defeat. Maybe he was too lazy to fix the wheel of his surrey and drive out of here.
The gaunt figure balked, his face shriveling, aghast.
“What d’you mean? Aren’t you the muh-muh-muh-marshal?”
In answer, The Rider undid the buttons of his dusty rekel coat. There was no badge pinned to the white shirt beneath, only ropes of dangling amulets and charms. Did he really look anything at all like a marshal, with his beard and payo curls, and the fringes of his votive apron hanging down from beneath his black frock? Would a marshal come leading a donkey into town?
The giant held one scrawny arm before his face and grimaced as though he was about to be hit.
“Lord. You’re one of them...?”
The Rider peered at the cowering giant.
“One of who?” he reiterated, impatiently. He didn’t like to see a grown man so cowed. He ran a finger absently over a tin of lamp oil and came back with almost as much dust as he might have picked up outside. How long had this man been hiding here?
There was a violent clatter from behind the counter and The Rider dropped his hand to his Volcanic pistol.
The giant had stumbled to his knees and upset a stack of canteens. He ducked behind the counter and peered cautiously out the front window, as if to see if he had been heard.
The Rider took a step to the window, to see what he was looking at.
“No don’t!” the giant wailed. “Listen, muh-mister. You gotta g-get outta here. I don’t want no truh-trouble. Just go on out the buh-buh-back, will you? Puh-please?”
His voice was on the verge of breaking down into infantile sobs.
The Rider stared at the man.
“What’s the matter here?”
The giant looked back out the window and what little color was left ran right out of his face.
“Oh God!” he said, and fell flat to the floor.
Taking the hint, The Rider ducked down behind the stack of lamp oil, but kept an eye on the window, which looked out across the windblown street toward an adobe cantina.
Through the grimy glass, he saw two men in wide sombreros ride their horses into the narrow alley between the cantina and the adjoining building, which looked to be an assayer’s office.
In a moment the two men had dismounted and tied their horses, crossed the planks in front of the cantina, and disappeared through the swinging half-doors into the darkness within. One of them clearly wore a gun belt, and the other a bandolier of bullets.
The giant glanced out the window, barely rising above the counter top, then immediately resumed his stuttering entreaties.
“Puh-please m-mister, you gotta get outta here. If they ca-catch you here...”
“You mean if they catch you here,” The Rider said. “Where are the rest of the people in this town? Who are those men?”
The giant answered with a quivering lip that bit back at his own words, chewing them and swallowing them like an incriminating letter.
“What about this marshal? How long ago did you send for him?”
The giant glanced out the window.
“We d-didn’t send for one. I juh-just hoped another might’ve come.”
“Another?”
“They k-killed the last one. Tied him to the old w-w-windmill outside the teh-telegraph office. Left him in the storm.” As if with new resolve, the gaunt man shook his head violently.
“Mister, you have to g-go. If they find me, you duh-don’t know what they’ll do.”
“How many of them are there?”
“I d-d- I don’t know,” the giant stuttered. “Tuh-ten or twenty.”
The Rider pursed his lips.
“Ten or twenty? Which is it?”
The shopkeeper shook his head and got down on the floor, clasping his big hands over the back of his neck.
The Rider sighed. He had gotten all he would get out of this man. He turned and went out the back hallway.
“Muh-mister?” He heard the man’s voice, sounding as though it came from far away. “Puh-puh-please don’t tuh-tell ‘em about me?”
The Rider answered with the bang of the back door slamming shut.
He watered the onager and left it in the tool shed, then went around the west wall of the dry goods store to the street, where he could get a good view of the horses from the meager protection of the buildings.
He could not go back into the storm and try to find help. The only town he knew of was twelve or thirteen miles to the north. He had learned from the past that sometimes the best way to meet a problem was head on.
Across the way were a flea-bit piebald and a dun, both with gaudy Mexican saddles whose studs glinted even in the sand filtered sun. The mounts tied to the hitch nickered nervously; they didn’t like the storm one bit.
The Rider looked up and down the avenue, and satisfied no one would see him, he bounded across the street to get a better look at their horses.
He found, on the piebald, a Winchester ‘76 rifle in good condition, decorated with a pattern of brass tacks on the butt. He drew the rifle from its boiled leather scabbard and ejected all the shells, one at a time, putting them in his coat pocket before replacing the rifle. Rummaging through the saddlebags, he came across a bottle of liquor and a gold watch with a chain wrapped in an old bandanna. Opening the watch, he found a tintype portrait of a beautiful Mexican woman. She had dark features and lustrous
hair, pushed up stylishly into a bun with two curly rivulets running down the sides of her face. He tucked the watch into his shirt pocket and turned to the dun.
No rifle hung on the horse, but in the cracked leather bags, he found a pouch of gold dust stuffed under a spare shirt and a razor. He put the pouch in his coat pocket.
He gave one more glance down the empty street, then lowered his chin to the wind and stepped up onto the planks.
* * * *
Fiero saw the bearded gringo step in first. He always sat facing the door. He was grinning toothily at the hand he had cleverly dealt himself from the bottom of the deck. On the other side of the table, Sucio wrinkled his forehead at what he had been passed.
Fiero liked to sit far across from Sucio because the man smelled so badly. He was the sort who never took a bath when the opportunity arose.
Many of the men went for days without baths, especially when they were on the run from federales, but here in town, there was plenty of time for such things. They had been here for a week now, and Sucio still hadn’t taken a bath. The man was crazy.
Once,Fiero asked Sucio why he never took a bath. Sucio told him it was because if he stank bad enough, he believed it would keep evil spirits away. Fiero laughed and called him campesino, but he had not clapped Sucio on the shoulders in good humor as was his custom with his other compañeros, for he could never stand to get very close to him.
Sucio’s filthiness not only kept evil spirits away, it kept everyone away; men, women, and even some animals. Only the flies kept to Sucio. His horse was cleaner than he was.
Sucio was a bad card player as well. That was why Fiero had decided to offer him a few hands. If it had been up to him, they would have been playing Faro right now, but this little cantina had no table, and it turned out that poker was the only game Sucio knew how to play anyway.
There was no real reason for them to play for money, as they would all soon be equally rich, but Fiero thought that to play cards for anything less was to not play at all.
Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter Page 7
