Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name

by Edward M. Erdelac

  “Their lives,” the Rider said, going back to separating his tangled bodyguards.

  Hashknife chuckled as he passed out of the tent.

  “That’s rich! You think any of ‘em put much worth in that?”

  Gersh watched the Rider sort out his amulets.

  “You’ve been in a lot of fights,” Gersh observed.

  “Yes,” the Rider affirmed. When they’d tended him, they’d no doubt seen his scars. His body bore the marks of shot and blade in more than a few places. Not all of them were got in the war.

  “Those little scars…they’re only on your face and hands. How did you get them?”

  The Rider glanced down at his hands, and a brief impression of cacophonous screeching and the closeness of sharp, slashing talons and fluttering wings came to mind. It was part of what had kept him awake nights, that claustrophobic sensation, that insistent memory that invaded his taxed mind in the dark, of kneeling with his face pressed in the dirt and his hands over his head as hundreds of shrieking little horrors tore at his flesh…no! He pushed it aside, flinching involuntarily as he did so, as if casting the memory from his mind with a flick of his head.

  His hide bore the mark of that night now. Though the cuts had healed, they were noticeable upon close inspection; tiny white lines crisscrossed his face and the backs of his hands like cracks in old leather. Like the Solomonic seals on his spectacles, they only appeared in a certain light, but they were with him always.

  “Just hard country,” the Rider said dismissively. “If I rode a horse, they’d be on my legs and you wouldn’t see them.”

  Gersh seemed to consider this.

  “You don’t ride?”

  “I’ve got an onager.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s like a donkey.”

  “How come you don’t ride that?”

  “I took a vow not to burden an animal with my own weight.”

  “To who?”

  To dead men, he almost said. It was an oath of the Sons of the Essenes, and they were all dead at Adon’s hand.

  “To HaShem.”

  “HaShem?”

  “The Lord.”

  Then, as the Rider began to duck under his talismans, Gersh held out the tallit to him.

  The Rider took it, putting his finger through the blackened, bloodstained hole and frowning.

  “My father wore one of those,” Gershom said, breathless, as if he’d been holding it in.

  “Your father was a Jew,” the Rider said, sliding the tallit over his head gingerly.

  “I don’t know,” said Gersh.

  “No, I’m telling you,” the Rider said. “He was. This is a tallit. A prayer shawl. We are told in the Bible to wear fringes on each of the four corners of our garments. We wear the tallit because modern clothes don’t have four corners, see?” He held up one of the knotted fringes. “These are called tzitzit. Each has six hundred and thirteen knots, so that we may remember the six hundred and thirteen commandments.”

  “I thought there was only ten commandments.”

  “God gave Moses ten commandments on stone tablets, yes,” the Rider nodded. “But we Jews are bound by six hundred and thirteen commandments found in the five books of Moses, the Torah.”

  “Shit,” said Gersh. “That’s a lot of commandments.”

  The Rider smiled. It was like working a long atrophied muscle.

  “Your name’s Hebrew too. ‘Turiel’ means ‘rock of God.’”

  “What’s Gershom mean?”

  “’Sojourner there.’ It’s like…someone who stays somewhere only a little while.”

  Gersh repeated the words soundlessly to himself.

  “You don’t remember your parents?”

  “Only a little,” Gersh said. “I was five years old when the Comanche killed ‘em.”

  “So Hashknife’s story about you escaping from Indians is true?”

  “Well,” said Gersh, “I didn’t so much escape. Hash bought me. He was a Comanchero—that’s like an Indian trader. He seen me at one of the big meets at Yellow House Canyon and bought me for a couple buffalo robes and a knife.”

  “Ah,” said the Rider, smiling thinly, “so you didn’t break a Comanche chief over your knee at six years old?”

  “Well, that part ain’t totally true either. He wasn’t a chief,” Gersh said. The Rider smirked, but the boy seemed serious.

  A thought occurred to the Rider.

  “Why do you wear your hair so long?”

  The big youth shrugged.

  “My mother told me a story one night, while we were layin’ in the wagon box out under the stars. It was about a man who never cut nor combed his hair, never drank liquor…this man was sort of like I dunno, Davy Crockett. He could whup lions barehanded, and he once tore the doors off a castle and walked off with ‘em. I asked her if I could be like the man in that story, and she told me I could. She called my father over and told him what I wanted, and he put his hands, he had these big, warm hands…he put ‘em on my head and he said some words. It’s the only time I ever remember being touched by my father and my mother at the same time. I remember I felt real safe.”

  “That story comes from the Book of Judges,” said the Rider. “The man’s name was Samson. His parents dedicated him to the Lord as a Nazirite.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s an oath a man takes, a promise to God. A Nazirite never cuts his hair or trims his beard. He never touches strong drink or any sort of grape, and he never sets foot in a graveyard, or handles human remains. Men can take this oath any time as a way to bring themselves closer to God, but in the Bible there were two men who were dedicated as Nazirites as children, and they were granted miraculous powers. The first was Samson. He was given great strength. The other was Samuel, who became a prophet and was granted sacred visions. He anointed the first Hebrew kings.”

  “So it’s….sorta like your oath about not ridin’ horses?” Gersh ventured.

  “Yes.”

  “So….what kinda powers does that give you?”

  Presently the tent flap was drawn back and Hashknife entered with a clutch of men behind him. The Rider and Gersh both got to their feet.

  “Well now,” said one of the men, a gravelly voiced, mustachioed man in a flannel coat. He was the oldest of the bunch, and carried a Henry rifle. “Here we are waitin’ for you to mend so we can come and get you, and the breed comes and tells us you’re up and askin’ for us. You ready to meet justice for the men you killed, you villain?”

  “Hold on, Colonel,” said a black man in a wool vest at his side. “I wanna hear more about these men he says are comin’ to get him.”

  Several of the other men in the tent voiced their agreement.

  The Rider slid his rekel coat on and held up his hands for quiet.

  “The one who got away—the dwarf,” said the Rider. “He’s gone to get friends. Like the ones you saw.”

  “Closest town with a telegraph is a day’s ride to the east,” said the black man.

  “That’s right,” said the Rider. “So he’s on his way back by now.”

  “He’d have to wait at least another day for them others to show before he headed back this way,” the Colonel said.

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” the Rider said.

  “What the hell is he doin’ heeled?” the Colonel hissed at Hashknife, upon seeing the Rider’s pistol belted at his side.

  “I didn’t have much choice,” Hashknife said.

  “Shoulda known better’n to parole a murderer to a couple a sideshow clowns,” the Colonel said, cocking his rifle.

  “I didn’t murder anyone,” the Rider snapped. “Most of you here saw what happened.”

  “None of us seen what happened to Mickey Cashion,” said one man, a freckle faced red head in a dirty shirt and duck pants.

  “Yeah, and what I seen was a man shrivel up and burn after bein’ shot by you,” said another, a yellow bearded freighter in a threadbare sack coat.


  “That’s right,” the Colonel said. “Just what’re you packin’ in that pistol of yours, mister? Some kinda s’plosive bullets? I heard about such things bein’ developed for the war, but I never seen ‘em myself.”

  “Explosive hell,” said the man in the sack coat. “Their clothes weren’t even singed.”

  “You said these ones comin’ would be like them others,” said the black man. “You mean….strong like them others?”

  “That’s what I mean,” said the Rider.

  “What are you goin’ on about, Purdee?” the Colonel said to the black man.

  “They wasn’t natural strong, them men, Colonel,” said Purdee. “That big Chinaman threw two grown men cross’t the bar, and nearly tore Trib’s arm off with his fingers. I don’t think the way they died had to do with his bullets so much as it had to do with the type of men they was.”

  “I never figured you for one of them superstitious coloreds, Purdee,” said the Colonel.

  “You know I ain’t,” he said. “But I don’t discount what I seen with my own two eyes neither. That gets a man killed. And I seen that Chinaman squeeze Trib’s arm and put his fingers right in his flesh. Trib wasn’t no soft man.”

  “How is he, the one who had his arm hurt?” the Rider asked.

  “Not good,” said Purdee. “In a lotta pain, like he been snake bit.”

  Gersh nudged Hashknife with his elbow, nearly knocking the smaller man over.

  “Will you let me see him?”

  After a short discussion, they led the Rider out of the tent. He stopped by the onager to retrieve his saddlebags, then they led him to one of the picket shacks, where he found a Mexican man sweating and moaning on a pallet on the floor. The woman he had seen earlier at the tanks was dabbing at his forehead with a damp rag. Her son was fidgeting in the far corner. The Mexican’s arm was swathed in bandages, but four red circular stains showed.

  “His bleedin’ slows, but it don’t stop,” said Purdee.

  The Rider knelt at the Mexican’s side and reached into his saddle bag.

  “I need these bandages off.”

  “He goin’ bleed all over,” Purdee said.

  “I can stop it,” the Rider said.

  “You a doctor?” the Colonel said from the doorway. “We got a doctor here and he couldn’t stop it.”

  “All I said is I can stop it,” the Rider snapped. Then, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m…a little banged up. Yes, I can stop it.”

  The Colonel said something in Spanish to the woman, who shook her head. But when he pressed her, she relented and began to unravel the tight bandage.

  The Mexican man looked at the Rider.

  “What’s your name?” the Rider asked him, taking a pouch from his bag.

  “Triburcio Perez,” the man said weakly.

  “Triburcio,” the Rider said, opening the pouch to reveal a packet of salt. “This is going to hurt a lot.”

  “What is that?” Purdee asked.

  “It’s salt,” the Rider said, licking his finger and dabbing it in there.

  “You gonna rub salt in a man’s wound?” the Colonel exclaimed, horrified. “Get that sonofabitch outta there.”

  The men stirred to grab him, but the Rider pulled away, causing his tender shoulder to sing. He nearly swooned.

  “I know how it looks, but listen a minute. There’s poison in the wounds. It was probably under his fingernails when they went in. Salt’s the only thing that will burn it out.”

  “I never heard of no such treatment,” the Colonel said.

  “You’ve never seen this kind of poison. The salt will kill it.”

  “You ain’t gonna let him are you, Coronel?” Triburcio pleaded.

  “Just hang on, Trib,” said Purdee. “Let the man take a look.”

  The woman finished unwrapping the arm. It was swollen badly, but did not have the appearance of gangrene. The skin around the four neat holes was puffy and raised like large insect stings, and the blood spilled out in four steady rivulets. There was a fifth hole on the opposite side of the arm where Ormzud’s thumb had gone in.

  “It ain’t blackenin’ up the arm like a snake bite,” Purdee said. “Otherwise we’d of sawed it off. But he says it’s burnin’ him on the inside and it won’t stop bleedin.’ Whiskey didn’t do nothing either.” He tuned to the Colonel. “I say we let him.”

  “No!” Trib groaned.

  The Colonel stared at Trib, then at the Rider, and he narrowed his eyes as if gauging him somehow.

  “Alright,” the Colonel said. “Try it, I guess.”

  “No!” Trib yelled and began to shimmy. Purdee leaned forward and pinned him down by the shoulders.

  “Gersh, get in here,” the Rider called.

  They made way, Purdee stepping out. Gersh took his place quickly, and held the thrashing man down like a child.

  “No, Coronel!” shouted the Mexican, shaking his head vigorously.

  The Rider placed his palm on the swollen arm, slick with sweat, and jabbed his salted finger into the first of the bullet wounds, up t0 the cuticle.

  Several of the men crowding the doorway to the shack looked away, and the woman held her boy to her breast and crossed herself.

  Trib screamed, in that unnerving, haunting pitch of a grown man in agony. The Rider turned his finger all around in the wound, rubbing the salt in on all sides. Between the sweat and blood, it was difficult to feel what he suspected, that the shed had secreted some of its septic slime into the man’s arm somehow. If he had, the salt would burn it away, just had it had eaten away their malignant bodies in the bar. Of course, it was also doing damage to the man’s arm, but it was necessary. The fluid of a shed could invade a mortal body and kill it slowly. Some said it could even turn a man into a shed himself, though he had personally never seen an infection allowed to progress that far.

  Trib shook, alternately blathering curses and sobbing prayers in Spanish and English.

  By the time the Rider thrust his bloody finger into the third hole in the man’s arm, Trib had passed out. Gersh relaxed his grip and the Rider was able to dab salt in the remaining two wounds with relative ease.

  He called for a skin and poured water in it, then poked a hole in it with a pin and squeezing it, flushed the wounds clean. Then he sat back and let the woman re-bandage the wound. The bleeding had slowed noticeably when he began. By the time he was finished, it had stopped altogether.

  “He may still lose the arm,” the Rider said, cleaning his hands with the water that was left. “But he won’t die.”

  “He did stop bleeding,” Purdee observed.

  “What did that?” the Colonel asked, the accusing tone diminished now. “And why did those men in the bar burn up like that?”

  “Think of a slug, when you pour salt on it, it shrivels,” the Rider said. “These men are made of the same kind of stuff.”

  “I never heard tell of no such thing,” the Colonel said.

  “Yeah but that don’t mean it ain’t so, Colonel,” Purdee observed.

  They gave the Rider a respectful berth as he rose and stepped out into the night. They receded into the dark but stayed milling about as he stood in the light from the doorway and wiped his hands dry. Gersh came out behind him.

  “They’re coming,” the Rider said quietly. “Men just like the ones who did this. I don’t know how many, but they’ll be here soon. They’re coming for me, but they’ll kill anyone they find here.”

  “What if we were to just give you to ‘em?” the red head ventured.

  “You might try to do that,” the Rider nodded. “But I’d fight you, and I’d kill two or three of you in the process. You’d probably have to kill me. Then you’d have to trust that these men coming are men of their word. They’re not.”

  “Well I’m for pullin’ out then,” said one man. “I don’t want to fight nobody.”

  “You won’t get very far,” the Rider said.

  “I’ll take my chances,” he answered, and walked off into the n
ight.

  A few others began to back away muttering and turned to follow.

  “There’s somethin’ else to think about,” the Colonel said loudly. “Cashion’s widow Marina and her boy. I ain’t for leavin’ no woman and no baby boy to the mercy of a bunch of killers.”

  Some of the shadow men slowed and rubbed the backs of their necks, though a few kept walking. Through the open doorway, the woman could be seen leaning over Triburcio, her boy dozing in her skirted lap.

  “Mexican or no,” the Colonel reiterated in a louder voice that quelled the remaining excuses.

  “I’m staying,” Gersh announced in his deep voice. He stood beside the Rider.

  Out of the dark stepped Hashknife, rubbing his chin.

  “Well hell. You’re my bread and butter, Gersh. Guess I got no choice.”

  A spark of fire struck in the dark among the men, the light glancing for a moment off a pair of square spectacle lenses. It was a slight, balding little man with wiry reddish hair and a toothbrush mustache lighting a ridiculous calabash pipe. He had the look of a professor, but his cream colored greatcoat, matching topper and pants cheapened his mystique, making him seem more like a carnival huckster.

  “I’ll stay,” he said in a high, tiny voice. “I’m not much with a gun, but I imagine it’s safer here, and I can lend a hand however I can.”

  “This is the doctor,” the Colonel said. “He came in this morning from Elmira, goin’ to hang his shingle in Tucson. Sheldon was it?”

  “Sheardown,” said the doctor, extending his hand to the Rider. “Amos Sheardown.”

  “Rider,” said the Rider, taking the doctor’s light, soft hand. It was useless he knew, to keep withholding his true name. The only ones the practice protected him from already knew it. Old habits died hard, though.

  “I’ve got to say,” said Sheardown, “You’ve some unorthodox notions about medicine, but I can’t deny the results. Where’d you learn that anyhow?”

  “Just something from one of my teachers,” he smiled.

  “Ah! You’re an educated man? That’s a rare thing in this country. What’s your field?”