It was going south fast. He wished Sadie was with him. He held up the medallion, the light catching its surface.
“Put this around your baby’s neck,” he urged. “It’s for protection.”
He tried to push it into her hands, but she knocked it away. It flew end over end and bounced onto the porch, rolling, and finally came to a stop against the shiny high heeled boot of the dandy who had been at the funeral service earlier. He was standing in the open doorway now, his tooled gun belt loaded and strapped, shining brass encircling his narrow waist. He was fanning himself lightly with a laced handkerchief.
“What’s the trouble here, Hetta?” Junior called, in a high toned voice as silky as his billowing shirt. It had a hint of southern, but affected, not natural born. His bright blue eyes were on The Rider, looking him up and down. A thin lipped smile played across his face beneath his thin mustache, as if he saw something he liked.
The Rider looked at the amulet lying at his feet, and Junior followed his look. He tucked his handkerchief in his vest pocket, stooped down, and came up with the little amulet between his fingers. It made the round of his knuckles a few times, then he held it up and arched one eyebrow.
“Is this yours?”
“No,” The Rider said, looking to Hetta. “It’s hers.”
“Hetta?” Junior said. “Why don’t you come in the house. Your little boy’s bawlin’ again, wants some suck. Momma says he’s disturbing the gentlemen.”
“Yessir, Mr. Junior,” she said, leaning the broom against the porch pole.
“Excuse me,” came a voice from inside. The Rider recognized its owner before Junior stepped aside and let him come out onto the porch.
It was Johnny Behan, tucking in his shirt front.
Behan saw him at the same time, and opened his mouth, but The Rider held up his hand and called to Junior as Hetta shouldered past him into the house.
“Just a minute,” he said.
Hetta looked back. Junior flipped the amulet and caught it and looked at him expectantly.
“Will you give that to her please?” The Rider asked.
Hetta stared at The Rider, then moved slowly to take the amulet from Junior, but the dandy closed his fist around it.
“That is mine, Mr. Junior,” she said quietly.
“Is it?” he held it up again, looking from it to her. “I’ve never seen you wear it before, Hetta.”
“It’s my boy’s,” she said carefully, looking at The Rider. “Can I have it?”
“You know you’re not supposed to accept gifts from the gentlemen, Hetta. Don’t Momma and I take care of you?”
“Let her have it,” The Rider said. He didn’t like Junior, or the way he talked to this woman.
“Oh Mr. Behan,” Junior called. Johnny had stood there stupidly the whole time, and had only begun to finally walk past. He stopped now and looked back. “Would you be so kind as to and run and fetch Constable Wager for me? I believe this gentleman and I are about to have a problem.”
Behan tipped his hat to The Rider and smiled, hastening off down the street.
“There doesn’t have to be a problem,” The Rider said evenly.
“Oh but there does, if you mean to tell me how to regulate my affairs, sir,” Junior rattled out. “Do you mean to do that?”
The Rider slowly shook his head. He had no desire to shoot it out in the street with this overdressed pimp.
“Then Hetta, get in the house.”
“Mr. Junior, I swear, he didn’t give me…”
Junior’s lanky hand came up and cracked the woman sharply across the ear, so hard she cried out.
“You get your lyin’ black ass inside!”
“Don’t do that!” The Rider shouted, hunching his shoulders and slapping his hand on the butt of his pistol.
Junior was grinning, showing all the teeth he could. His hand went to his gun.
“Pull it!” he hissed, his eyes suddenly alight. “Go on, pull it out. Show it to me!”
The Rider eased slightly. He didn’t want this.
Just then one of the shutters creaked open and his eyes darted to the window.
In that instant Junior gasped. The Rider’s eyes went back to him in time to see his holster tilt upwards on his belt, the barrel suddenly pointing at him through the open bottom. It was a trick he had heard of, but never seen—a swivel rig.
Hetta screamed and sank to her knees, arms thrown up across her face. She pressed herself against the doorframe.
The Rider’s Volcanic cleared his holster as he turned on his heels, presenting his profile to Junior while the pimp blasted at him from the hip. He heard the bullet pop as it buzzed by, felt it whip past his belly like a tiny comet.
The Rider fired back once. Junior folded back into the dim doorway as a dark spot appeared in the middle of his pristine shirt. His eyes were wide open and he was giggling as he flew backwards into the shadows.
The Rider’s gaze went back to the window. A woman was framed there, a dark haired woman in a brazenly unbuttoned camisole. The sun shined on her small breasts, poking through the dark lustrous hair that hung wildly down. But The Rider did not look away. Her long nose, her dark eyes, that same gleeful, ecstatic expression; it was the woman from his dream. She was no amalgamation of Sadie and a half-remembered girl glimpsed in a Palestinian market. She was real. She was smiling that wide, abandoned grin.
Then something hard struck the back of his head, and he fell heavily on his stomach in the dust. As his vision rippled and then retreated to the back of his screaming skull, he saw Hetta on her knees with the amulet he’d made in her hand. She was staring at him with wide, fearful eyes, running with tears.
* * * *
The Rider awoke in the Tip Top jail, to an all encompassing ache in his head and the hissing of a lamp. The jail was rock walled and dirt floored, and had more of the feel of a little cave than any kind of manmade structure. The iron bars of the cage were set right into the stone, and but for a tin pot, the cell was empty. He was laying face down on the bare floor.
Beyond the bars were a stool and a chipped desk on which the lamp sat, and in the light was Johnny Behan and Constable Wager, looking down on all The Rider’s weapons and accoutrements piled there. Constable Wager had the silver and gold Volcanic and the Derringer in his hands. He was peering at the Hebraic inscriptions and wards in the light.
They heard The Rider’s shoe stir on the stone floor and both of them looked in his direction.
“Whalp,” said Wager, “I ain’t seen a fancier rig in all my born days. Mister, you even got that sissy Junior beat for ostentatiousness.”
“He shot first,” The Rider moaned, pushing himself up and rolling back to sit against the wall.
“That ain’t how he tells it.”
“What do you mean how he tells it?” The Rider asked sharply.
“He says he cuffed that nigger gal and you voiced your objection by takin’ a shot at him.”
“He’s alive?”
“You blew out his collarbone,” Behan said. “That’s when I come in and put a stop to it.”
So it had been Behan who had cold cocked him.
“Don’t know why you didn’t make Yuvapai sheriff, Johnny,” Wager said, putting the pistols back down on the desk among the scattered talismans and bowie knife.
“You just vote for me next time I run, Hank,” Behan quipped, hooking his thumbs on his belt loops.
The Rider had seen his bullet cut Junior dead center in the chest. It was not possible he’d survived.
But of course, there was another type of mazzik. Shedim, who possessed physical bodies, and could eat and drink. A lili could choose to physically conceive a child with a mortal. The shedim were carried to term and reputedly ‘birthed’ out of the rectum. They were lesser in power than the lilin, and could not affect the ethereal world like pure ruhin, but they were more resilient than mortals, and could at least perceive the Yenne Velt. Half-demons, like the half-angelic Nephillim of old. The Rider h
ad tools to combat them, but common bullets weren’t enough. If Junior lived among the lilin in The Bird Nest, he could very well be a shed.
“You know I didn’t shoot first, Behan.”
Behan licked his lips.
“Call me a liar, I said what I saw, cousin.”
Well, Behan didn’t like him, and wanted him gone. The truth wasn’t going to get in the way of that, apparently.
“What I can’t figure out,” Wager said, scratching his chin and looking at The Rider’s possessions on his desk, “is just what all this bullshit is for. You got more jewelry here than the goddamned Queen of England, and them pistols got enough gold and silver on ‘em to buy this town twice over.” He turned back to The Rider. “Who the hell are you, mister?”
The Rider stood up slowly and came to the bars, closing his fingers around them.
“Do you dream about The Bird Nest women?”
He saw the immediate downward glance flicker in their eyes.
“Do you dream of chasing them in the desert? One of them in particular? Maybe it’s Aggie. Maybe it’s different for each of you. Maybe it’s different every night. But you dream of them every night. She’s naked when you see her, and hairless, and she leads you to the other. The woman you can’t see. The one with hair touching the ground. The one who dances.”
“My God,” Wager stammered, putting the desk between himself and the bars. “How do you know that?”
The Rider opened his hands.
“It’s who I am.”
The men stared at him, each reliving his personal nocturnal encounters, no doubt. Every night these women came to the men of Tip Top, of that The Rider was now certain. Only his own knowledge and talismans had kept his dream from ‘consummating.’ In his dream, the long haired woman had attacked. Their dreams probably differed. Maybe they caught the woman they chased, or the long haired woman. On some deep, terrible level, he envied them that experience. But he pushed that aside. This place was hell’s spawning ground. It was said that every day one hundred demons died. But here in Tip Top, with a mostly male population, every night, how many were born?
“He’s some kinda hypnotist,” Behan said dismissively. “That’s what all these trinkets are. A lotta Jew mesmerism and hoodoo.”
But Wager was staring at The Rider.
“They’re not women, Constable,” The Rider said to him, forgetting Behan for the moment.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re the reason no child can survive in this town. They’re the reason Rica Gersten’s baby was the way it was, and why Eileen Arnold is going to lose her’s. The colored girl Hetta too, and in a couple months, Manuel Calles’ wife, if you don’t let me put a stop to it.”
Wager slid his hand across his forehead and set his hat back on his head.
“I don’t know about this…”
“What’s not to know?” Behan chuckled nervously. “You’re not buyin’ into this hogshit, are you, Hank?”
“I don’t know,” Wager admitted. “I don’t know. I got to think on it. Got to clear my head. It don’t seem real.”
“Come on! That’s ‘cause it ain’t,” Behan spat.
“The children started dying when they showed up in town, didn’t they?” The Rider pressed. What time was it? How long had he been here?
“My God, my God, I believe they did. That Chinese family…they lost two little boys the morning after Junior and Miss Lilly showed up.”
“Miss Lilly?”
“Junior’s blind momma. She runs the house.”
“I remember,” said The Rider. “She was at the funeral.” God, he had seen her and not recognized her for what she was. How was that possible? It seemed obvious now. She and her girls had stood out like Mormons among the other soiled doves. Was it because he was so enraptured with Sadie? He tried to think back…no, he had not had his Solomonic lenses on. He hadn’t put them on since he’d got to Tip Top last night. She’d driven his most rudimentary precautions out of mind.
There was a rap on the door that made Wager and Behan both jump. Pete Arnold, the German brewer stepped in, his hat in his hands, and a worrisome expression on his face.
“George?”
“Pete! God, you like to scared the pants off me,” Wager admitted.
“George, it’s time. My Anna…she ain’t gonna wait. Can you come?”
Wager leaned on the desk on his knuckles.
“Christ, this is all I need.”
“You’re the closest thing we got to a doctor,” Pete pleaded.
“Aw hell, Pete. I helped Barney Williams’ mare drop a foal, once. It ain’t the same thing. Get one of them laundry women.”
“The wife don’t trust them. All the babies they delivered has died in a couple days. She thinks they got the evil eye. Please, George! She ain’t gonna wait!”
Wager looked at The Rider, then at Behan.
“Aw, go on, Hank,” Behan urged. “This one’ll keep till you get back.”
Wager closed his eyes and sighed
“Alright, Pete, let’s go.”
“Constable!” The Rider called as he made for the door with the brewer.
Wager stopped and looked over his shoulder.
The Rider pointed through the bars at the two amulets he’d made, scattered amongst the rest.
“Those two there.” The Rider indicated. “The ones with the three names on them and nothing else. Take one for the baby.”
Wager stood there, considering.
“Please, George!” Pete Arnold hissed from the dark.
Wager shook his head and went out after him, leaving the door open. It was black outside.
The Rider hung his head against the bars.
Johnny Behan sat on the desk and looked at The Rider. He smiled and threw a thumb over his shoulder.
“There goes your one chance of gettin’ outta here.”
He picked up The Rider’s Volcanic and turned it over in the light, spinning it on his trigger finger.
“You sure got bad taste in iron, cousin. Slappin’ silver and gold on this old thumbsuster’s like dressin’ up a pig in a wedding gown.”
“Johnny,” The Rider whispered miserably, “you’ve got to let me out. I’ll come back in a few hours.”
Behan laughed.
“Sure you will.”
“If I don’t, it’ll be because I’m dead.”
“That’s the most tempting offer you’ve made me yet,” Behan said, still twirling the Volcanic.
“I’m the only one that can stop this.”
“Stop what?”
“All the babies dying, and the dreams...”
“Listen,” Behan said, cutting The Rider off with a wave of his hand. “You might have that poor shitkicker three quarters bunco’d, and you might have my little Sadie all set to light out with you, but from one pimp to another, you ought to know, I would just as soon burn you down for tryin’ to escape as let you out. You run a good game, buster, I’ll give you that. But no Yid ever got the best of Johnny Behan.”
He was so pleased with himself it was almost disappointing to see the stock of the Winchester sweep up behind him and hear it crack against the side of his skull.
Almost.
It was Wager’s rifle, which he’d left propped against the wall beside the door. Sadie stood there holding it by the barrel as Behan crashed senseless to the floor.
She immediately took a knee and turned him over, feeling his swelling head where she had hit him.
“I’ve heard him like that before. There’s just no talking to him when he’s full of himself,” she explained apologetically, almost as if to Behan.
“He’ll be alright?” The Rider asked, watching her look of concern with a strange tightness in his chest.
She nodded and straightened.
“I think so. Where are the keys?”
The Rider gestured to an iron hook on the far wall. She replaced the rifle by the door and went to it. In a few moments he was at the desk, gathering his weap
ons and ducking into his talismans.
“He told you I was here?” The Rider asked, nodding to the unconscious Behan.
“No.” She watched him loop amulet after amulet over his neck with a frown. “Hetta did.”
Hetta was standing outside in the dark, her face shining with worrisome sweat and tears.
“They got my baby in there, mister,” she sobbed when they came out of the little jail. “They got my baby boy. My little Alfred…”
The Rider nodded.
“I’ll get him. Tell me what happened.”
“When the law come and took you, Mr. Junior wasn’t dead. I thought he was. I thought I seen you kill him, but he got up. And after he told Mr. Johnny and Mr. Henry what happened, he come inside and told me to give him that charm you give me for Alfred. I lied, told him I din’t have it, and he just about broke my arm to get it. He took Alfred out my arms and dragged me to Miss Lilly. He showed her the charm and she told him to get rid of it. Then she told me to run and fetch Miss Sadie to fetch you.”
“How does she know me? I don’t even know her,” Sadie interrupted.
“She know ever’body in town, Miss Sadie. She know ever’thing about ever’body. She know which men goin’ come and which of her girls they goin’ ask for before they show up. Sometime I think she know what they goin’ want before they know they selves.”
“But how?” Sadie insisted.
“She a devil woman, Miss Sadie. They all is. Lord, I don’t know how I got mixed up with them. The things that go on there. I can’t hardly sleep for the nightmares I has. Most nights I just stays in my room with Alfred. I just needed someplace to stay and have my baby. I got rid of the babies for them—for all the gals in town got theyselves in a way and didn’t want it. I knows it’s hard. I’s just tryin’ to help them girls. You got to understand that. But I’m the one put babies in all them graves, got no markers.”
She put her hands over her face, and they slowly slid down to reveal her wide, frightened eyes, streaming. “I was the one that German gal come to. The one with the baby by the soldier boy. They kilt him too. Mr. Junior done it hisself. He a real bad man. That soldier boy come lookin’ for a place to hide cause he run off from the other soldiers. He come to get that German gal. Ms. Lilly said they’d put him up and hide him. Mr. Junior took a shine to him. He locked himself in the room with him. I don’t know what he did, but I heard that soldier boy cryin’ through the walls like a baby boy. I never even seen his body, but I had to scrub the blood off them walls.”
Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter Page 22
