Magic Words

by Gerald Kolpan

  Gershonson placed the letter on the dresser and walked to the calendar that hung by the north window. He noted where he had circled his departure date of May 12, 1869 and counted forward seventeen days. When his hand came to rest on the twenty-eighth, he quickly realized that today was the Friday of which the letter had warned. Eli opened his pocket watch and saw that it was a bit before five. After a change of linen and Mrs. McGreevy’s brisket of beef, he would say the prayers he had neglected in the wild and retire to observe the Sabbath. Regardless of the note’s admonition, the next night he would discuss the mysterious letter with the sheriff, as any law-abiding citizen would.

  At dinner, none of the boarders complained about the brisket of beef (or any other of Mrs. McGreevy’s dishes), and they were suitably entertained by Eli’s recounting of his adventures in frontier retailing: there was the rancher who insisted on being present the entire time his wife was inspecting his wares, lest she be led into temptation; the little boy who inspected one of his funnels and, using it as a top, persuaded his mother to buy it for him as such. Finally, he related how a man near Lake Platte had attempted to pickpocket him. Experience had taught Eli never to carry anything in his trousers or coat. When the man came up empty, the peddler asked what he needed besides his money. Embarrassed, the pickpocket replied that he could use a good penknife. Asking the robber to wait a moment, Eli brought out a flat case containing a dazzling assortment and sold him one. By the time this last story was told, Mrs. Emmanuel Wilson, the wife of the town’s assistant druggist, was laughing so hard that she begged to excuse herself and ran for the privy.

  The sun now nearly down, Gershonson rose from the table, offered the widow his compliments for the delicious meal, and bade his friends good night. By now they knew that it was time for Mr. Eli to begin his religious observance. His fellow boarders had long gotten used to the idea that he would not so much as read a newspaper or light an oil lamp from now until the following evening; and while there were a few among them who worried about the ultimate fate of his immortal soul, as people of faith, they respected his practices. One and all, they wished him a good day of rest.

  Eli made his way to his room and opened the top dresser drawer. Inside was a purple velvet bag embroidered with Hebrew characters. Pulling on the drawstring, he removed a yarmulke and a black and white silk prayer shawl and put them on. Picking up his prayer book, he stepped to the window and began his lonely keeping of shabbos.

  As he rocked back and forth over the verses, Eli noticed that there was far more light than usual for the time of year. Normally in May, he raced to reach the aleinu, hoping it wouldn’t become too dim to finish the service. But as his finger glided down the lines of text, the world got brighter, until he could feel the light penetrating even through his closed eyes.

  On the final word of the adon olum, Eli Gershonson said amen. He placed his prayer book back on the dresser and looked down at Omaha.

  Below, men and boys rushed about, some bearing buckets of water, others shouting in panic. Women fainted in the street or screamed, frozen in place. An acrid smell filled Eli’s nose, like charcoal and coal oil. He heard a small explosion, than another, and at last, saw the great lantern that had allowed him to so clearly read the word of God.

  The Nickel & Dime was ablaze.

  Fire poured from every room. Those windows left closed exploded into the evening, showering glass on the would-be firefighters; those left open fed air to the flames, igniting the floors above them. The overhang had collapsed onto the ground, spreading the inferno to the adjacent buildings. As the timbers fell, their fires consumed the boardwalk like a hungry dog. Men stumbled through the smoke coughing, others vomited from the fumes. Eli was horrified to see two bartenders stagger from the blaze, impaled by copper coils from the saloon’s whiskey still.

  From his window, Eli saw six men attempting to restrain Mack Swain, who had somehow survived the conflagration and was trying to reenter the building. As the big man tried to tear himself from their grip, a figure emerged from the smoke and nearly ran into his arms. Her face was like the coals in a stove and her long gown and hair a mass of flame. Unable to recognize her, Mack called out the names of several of his prostitutes. Attempts were made to capture her; but she zigzagged through the town center, too engulfed for anyone to approach. Overcome with horror, Swain fell to his knees and foamed at the mouth. What had been Hannah Miller collided with a hitching post, ignited it, and was still.

  Eli threw off his tallis and skullcap and ran downstairs. The other boarders had already reached the street. Mrs. McGreevy and Mrs. Wilson held each other and wept. “Those poor girls,” he heard Mrs. Wilson say. “To be used like they were in life, and now to die like this.”

  Eli thought of manning the bucket brigades; but when the southern wall of the building crashed to earth, he knew saving either humans or structure was hopeless. By now, all who would die were dead or would wish to be.

  Emmanuel Wilson supported his wife as she fainted. Mrs. McGreevy hurried to the kitchen for water to revive her. Alice Worzchowski, the schoolteacher who lived in 2B, crossed herself and collapsed onto the shoulder of Harry Birch, the livestock auctioneer.

  Eli Gershonson, too shocked to weep, closed his eyes and began to pray kaddish for strangers and whores. But the words, usually so automatic, had turned as dry as the black cinders that floated everywhere, and the ancient chant strangled in his throat.

  He had been warned; and he knew who had warned him.

  The spring went quickly and so far, Prophet John had been right. As their journey progressed, neither Julius nor McGarrigle had received so much as a scratch.

  Over nearly sixty days of travel, they had encountered only those who wished to exchange goods, not gunfire. The Indians had been more than happy to trade for their work, and the level of their craft was indeed equal to some of the finest guilds of France or Germany. Their hospitality, while primitive, was offered with an open heart, and Julius learned to navigate their arcane rituals of visitation and dining. Only once did he risk offending his hosts. During a meal with the Otoe, the two men were offered the tribe’s finest delicacy: boiled dog. As the pale meat made its way around the party, Julius looked up for any sign of help from Prophet John but received only an amused grin. Making the sign for thanks, the old scout took a piece and bit into it with relish, rubbing his stomach as his eyes closed in beatific satisfaction. Only when the dish was set before Julius did John intercede, his fingers pointing at the miserable boy and tracing shapes in the air. The assembled elders smiled knowingly and the chief gestured to a woman nearby. She ran from the lodge and returned in moments with a tray of boiled turkey eggs.

  “Take one and eat it,” John said. “I’ve explained to our friends here that you’re an ‘egg eater.’ That’s how the red man calls the Hebrew. They know that there are certain items that your gods won’t allow you to eat on pain of no admission to the Jew paradise—things like Fido here—so they’ve brung out the old hen fruit. Too bad, boy—you don’t know what you’re missin’. After a meal like this, I could bark all night.”

  As fine as their luck had been, Julius made no secret of the fact that he would have been far happier back in Omaha or even, God forgive him, the Old Country. There, every Jew was used to handling local threats like brutal Cossacks and Jew-baiting cops. But how did one deal with the mindlessness of nature—the coyotes that howled through the night or the venomous serpents that waited for a man to put a foot wrong? What was the polite way to tell an ignorant Sac or Fox chief that one’s teeth were not up to the task of masticating his prized buffalo jerky?

  John McGarrigle quickly tired of such complaints. If something rattled in the brush, the prophet simply listened to the sound, ascertained its point of origin, and then informed Julius of the presence of “brother snake” and what good eating he made when grilled. More than once, Julius had seen him place his rifle on the ground and raise his hands to the sky before a well-armed tribe of hunters, a gesture of pe
ace that was always accepted. Perhaps the prophet was brave, perhaps a fool, but his techniques were effective and the ensuing barter lucrative. The pair collected moccasins, dolls, headdresses, and robes. They exchanged tobacco for fine bows and traded cash for carved statues and pottery.

  Now, with fall approaching, their wagon and pack mules were heavy with goods. In a week or ten days, they would be back in Omaha. Julius imagined walking through the shop door and searching his brother’s face for signs of approval. Finding none, he would then rent Bruno Gaita’s bathtub for a full hour and dissolve the months of grime and fear.

  He smiled as he cinched one of the saddlebags closed.

  “John, if I believed in God, I’d suppose we’d been blessed.”

  “I was born that way,” the prophet said. “My dear mother used to tell me that on Christmas Eve, 1820, the night she birthed me, some of the other whores saw a bright light in the east. With the railroad bigwigs all over the territory these days, you meet an awful lot of people who act like they’re Jesus Christ. Shit. They ought to meet someone with a real claim.”

  “Seriously, John, I didn’t expect to make it back alive when we started out. And after a few weeks of staring down savages, I was even more convinced. But here we are, going home—going home rich.”

  “Kina hora,” John said.

  Julius stared at the prophet, not certain of what he had heard. For the first time since their journey began, the boy saw the scout’s face betray irritation.

  “That’s right, young Jules. Kina hora—your own people’s word in the original Jew. Don’t be surprised, boy. I know every phrase the world says to ward off the Evil Eye. The eye-talians call it the mallocio, the Mexicans mal de ojo. I can’t pronounce the Chinese word, but I’ve learned to spit over my shoulder like they do.”

  John demonstrated the technique.

  “And it’s a good thing, too. Because with you temptin’ fate by talkin’ about how we ain’t got ourselves killed and bitching the rest of the time, I’ll probably need to learn it in the ancient Greek. Now take that coffee cup and turn it over.”

  “What?”

  “Goddamnit, turn that coffee cup upside down, put it on the ground lip first, and leave it there. And you call yourself a Jew.”

  Julius saw the old man was in earnest. He took the cup from its place by the fire and inverted it. When he looked up again, he saw the cloud of a wagon approaching their camp. It was a fine vehicle, lacquered in black and pulled by a fine team of matched grays. As it emerged from the dust, Julius could see it was accompanied by a small contingent of cavalry, six men, their uniforms barely worn, their weapons still shiny and sleek with bluing. They could not have been more than a day out from home.

  The wagon came to a stop before the prophet. A beefy sergeant, his face already red with travel, gestured to a private, who leaped from his horse and pulled the vehicle’s door open. Out stepped a man of medium height sporting blonde mutton chops and a fine black suit. He wore rimless pince-nez and carried a clipboard thick with papers. He made no effort to shake hands or exchange pleasantries.

  “Freytag,” he said, as if the name held the same greeting value as hello. “Raiload siting superintendent. Central Pacific.”

  The prophet nodded. “John McGarrigle. This here’s my young employer, Mr. Julius Meyer. Can we offer you all some coffee?”

  “No, thanks. We’re just out here inspecting this pass of ground to see if there’s a best place to lay tracks without we disturb some redskin ghosts and get the natives up in arms. Been out here long?”

  “Close on three months. Out of Omaha.”

  Freytag’s taciturn demeanor changed in an instant. He raised his eyebrows and whistled.

  “Omaha, eh? Guess you missed the murder-fire.”

  “Murder-fire?” said Julius. “What’s a murder-fire?”

  “That’s a murder, son, where somebody uses a fire like somebody else might use a gun. They think they know who did it, but I can tell you, whoever it was was plenty mad.”

  “What did they burn and who was it they murdered?”

  “It wasn’t a who, son,” Freytag said. “It was a them. You’ll be familiar with the Nickel & Dime Saloon, then?”

  Julius’s heartbeat skipped and he felt his stomach tighten. There were few people he cared about, but those few were apt to visit the Dime at least once in a day.

  “Burned to the ground—sunset, two month ago. Nothing left but ashes and chimneys. Whoever did it set the fires in little piles all around the building so that even if you got one place under control, another coupla flames would be eating the place somewheres else. About twelve of the whores went up in smoke. Another two of them was burned so bad, the sheriff has to guard them day and night to keep citizens from killing them out of mercy. All told, about twenty dead. But the worst was that pimp, the one called Calhern. I think I will take that cup of coffee.”

  Julius turned the cup back over and filled it from the pot. Freytag took a sip and frowned.

  “Whoever it was did this wanted him found—closed all the doors to his room to give it a better chance of not burning when the rest did. He was bound with leather at the ankles and wrists and tied to his bedposts—like an Indian stretches someone over an anthill—took the mattress out from under him so that he was lying on just them metal springs. Well, sir, she lit a fire under them springs and cooked him, like you’d grill a chicken. When they finally came to lift him off the springs, what was left of his body went with them, but his hands and feet stayed tied to the posts.”

  Now it was Julius’s turn to whistle.

  “Dead aplenty,” he said softly.

  “What’s that?”

  Prophet John stroked his beard. “You said you think they know who did it?”

  “Well, after it was all over, everybody started looking for their friends or their favorite whores or their kin. They was mostly able to figure who was who by something on the body, like some jewelry or a scar. Even a girl burned to the skull is still gonna have a gold tooth or a tattoo somewhere. They say that Swain, the bartender, went insane and they’re sending him to a nuthouse in Denver. Doc says he’ll probably never recover.”

  Freytag took another sip of coffee, then dumped the dregs on the ground.

  “After they was done weepin’, and wailin’, people began to notice that the place’s top girl, this Indian name of Lady-Jane, weren’t among the dead or the survivors. No one saw any red skin fall off a bone and not so much as a hair comb of hers was found in the rubble. People looked up and down for her, but no dice. Yes sir—she’d disappeared like snow after rain.”

  Prophet John stroked his beard. “Word was that she was about to leave the life. Why torch the place if she had a foot out?”

  “Don’t ask me to figure the Indian,” Freytag said. “They can live among us for years, learn our ways, even sleep with our men like she did. But I guess you just never know when that bloodthirsty nature will come back out. Made that way, I guess. The government and the holy rollers are trying to civilize them. You ask me, they’re best civilized dead.”

  Freytag took a step forward and then stopped. He seemed to stand suspended in place for a moment, almost as if he had paused to step back or suddenly forgotten how to move. Julius heard what sounded like a thump hit the man’s back and then watched as Freytag stiffly dragged his left leg up to meet his right. He stood that way for what may have been a second, and then his mouth dropped open. From it poured what looked to Julius like all the blood a man needed to stay alive.

  Freytag’s eyes opened wide as if seeking the answer to how his life could drain from him so quickly. Then, almost like a dancer performing a pirouette, he twisted around once and fell. The two arrows in his back were in almost perfect alignment, each positioned perfectly to pierce a lung.

  Prophet John flew through the air and hit Julius hard. At the instant of impact, he reached out and plucked a Henry rifle from its spot by the fire. Three arrows sliced through the air Julius had just o
ccupied. More took their place: from right and left, from ground level and from above.

  “It’s the death rain, boy,” the prophet said. “Get down and stay down.”

  John had tackled Julius so as to place them between two large boulders. Peering over the larger one, the boy could see a big sergeant attempt to escape from a screaming brave armed with a Sharps buffalo rifle, a gun made to kill a sixteen-hundred-pound beast at four hundred yards. From a distance of ten feet, the Indian drew a bead on the soldier and fired. The sergeant disintegrated.

  Before they could draw their guns or pull swords from their scabbards, the bluecoats were cut down like ducks in a sideshow. Once the men were separated from their horses, the braves unsheathed their knives and dismounted, seeking the hair of the living and the dead. Julius saw one warrior strip a dead corporal of his tunic and put it on. Whatever power its owner had possessed in life would now be transferred to his enemy.

  Prophet John dodged and weaved; standing to fire, then taking cover between the rocks. The Henry picked off one, then two, then three of the braves. Bullets ricocheted off its gun barrel and arrows missed by the length of a honeybee. To Julius, the prophet seemed utterly changed: no longer the affable barfly dispensing cornpone wisdom and wild predictions, but the kind of fierce fighter that young Lemuel Norcross loved to read about; a dime-novel hero, jaw set tight against the foe.

  As he watched the soldiers fall, the superstitions of Europe and the mumbo-jumbo of eastern deserts came flooding back to Julius. He could hear the kaddish in his head and his mind recited the sh’ma: the final prayer of the people Israel declaring the oneness of God.

  Then a sharp grunt, half said, half sung, cut through the internal words. It was uttered low and in a strange language; spoken by a voice born to command.

  “Stand up, boy,” John McGarrigle said.