Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name

by Edward M. Erdelac

  “Bookworms and such.”

  Doc smiled.

  The train sat in darkness, for night had fallen in the interim and no one dared to stand and light the lamps. Women were fanning themselves and fading into the arms of their men. Rapid Spanish angry or concerned rattled in the gloom, and the Rider watched the bouncing lantern lights extinguish, melding the fleeing robbers with the night. The only luminescence in the car was the orange glow around the door of the potbelly stove the car used for heat.

  The rear door clashed open again and an assistant conductor came tromping in. He went right to the stove, opened the door and lit a wick, which he then proceeded to light the interior lamps with.

  When the people realized he was an official of the railroad, demands and protestations ensued, with the silver-haired man in the pinstripe suit who had lost his valise the shrillest and most insistent of all. The conductor doggedly nodded and apologized until he lit the last of the interior lights. Then he went to the conductor who was sitting in the aisle face to the ceiling clutching his broken nose and helped him to his feet.

  The conductors conferred, then the lamplighter announced the train would be underway again shortly and ducked out the front door, leaving the bloody-nosed man pinching his face with a handkerchief to field the angry questions. The man murmured through the handkerchief and went back down the aisle toward the rear of the train.

  The Rider caught the conductor’s sleeve as he passed.

  “Sir, I’m required to tell you that the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad disavows all responsibility for…,” he droned.

  “Never mind that. How long till we reach the end of the line, now?”

  “Three hours from the time we get moving again.”

  “Out of curiosity, what was taken, besides the passengers’ personal effects?”

  “Nothing,” the conductor said tiredly. “Just every damn lantern on the train, and two boxes of spare brakeman’s globes from the caboose. This was the only car that was robbed. Excuse me.”

  The conductor disengaged himself, leaving the Rider to puzzle over the theft.

  Doc heard it too.

  “Curious,” he said.

  The robbery had taken all of fifteen minutes, but it was forty five minutes before the engineers got the train on its way again.

  They pulled into Las Vegas deep in the night, chugging through dim adobe buildings and behind sleepy cantinas, passing east into New Town, where the structures became frame and canvas all aglow, the incubating bones of a civilization too young and rambunctious to sleep. The Rider heard gunshots in the night as they pulled in, and lit against the rising moon a tall windmill with a corpse hanging limp as ripe fruit from one of the crossbeams.

  End of the line, thought the Rider, as the train exhaled and the sleepy passengers rose, quarreled in the candlelight over their luggage, and then jammed the exits.

  Doc dozed throughout the procedure, and the Rider had to rouse him. They were the last to step down from the yellow car onto the plank platform, and found that the porters had led the Rider’s onager down from the live freight car.

  “What the hell is that?” Doc asked, when the Rider claimed the brushy coated, crop-eared animal from the porter. “An albino mule?”

  The Rider patted the animal’s withers and shrugged.

  “He’s not a mule.”

  “You mean God granted that thing the ability to procreate?”

  The animal shook its bristly mane and blew out its lips.

  The ability yes, but not the opportunity, the Rider thought, ruffling the animal’s good ear

  They arranged to have the onager taken to the stableyard, and after the Rider paid, Doc said;

  “My place is just a block west.”

  The Rider followed.

  The town was lit in more than one way, with staggering, caterwauling men wheeling through the lamp-lit streets. The Rider saw one drunkard get struck and cursed by a racing rider bent low over his horse, hat brim flat to the wind. The drunk miraculously spun on one boot heel and stumbled off in the direction he’d just come, either making a spontaneous decision to take the encounter as an ill omen and return to his point of origin, or else being entirely unaware that he had altered his course.

  The saloons swallowed and regurgitated men by the fistful, a never-ending commerce of bleary eyed toughs and bellowing boasters that drew slit eyed men shuffling cards and over-painted women with dull expressions like clusters of iron filament to a magnet.

  They passed down Centre Street, angling towards one particular saloon, a single-story clapboard establishment with a simple sign that read Toe-Jam Saloon next to a small bakery gone dim for the night.

  They went inside, and the modestly decorated saloon was dimly lit, with friendly shadows and a few tired, quiet men at the bar, in direct contrast to the raucous, crowded places they had passed on the way.

  “Well, it’s not much, but it’s what a three hundred three dollar investment gets you. Goddamned city made me dismantle my faro table,” Doc muttered in explanation to the Rider. “It’s dried me up some. You want a drink?” he said, sauntering up to the bar.

  “No thank you,” the Rider said, coming to stand alongside him.

  “Hey Kudrecki, pass the whiskey bottle down, will you?”

  The big bartender produced a brown bottle and a glass and slid it down the bar into Doc’s waiting hands.

  “When can we go to get my gun?”

  Doc sipped his whiskey contemplatively.

  “Tomorrow. I’m not overly familiar with Rudabaugh’s associates, but I know where he goes to make and lose his money. We have to allow him travelin’ time. Come morning we’ll head there.”

  * * * *

  The Rider was directed to a cot in the back room behind a cheesecloth curtain. He said his prayers and bedded down, listening to the clink of glasses and low laughter. As usual, he didn’t sleep much. Whenever he drifted off there was a buzzing in his ears or a flutter of something against his eyelids. He still held the rosette token, so Lilith’s spawn could do no more than harry his sleep, but it was enough. The last good long rest he’d had had been induced by a bullet wound. He jumped awake several times, seeing red lights bouncing in the dark behind his eyelids. Once he thought he saw the diminutive shed Mazzamauriello perched on the foot of the cot like a leering black toad, and he bolted upright and grabbed at his gun, which wasn’t there.

  He was awakened abruptly by the sound of loud voices arguing, a man’s and a woman’s. The tone of the words was harsh and venomous, but the details murky in his exhausted ears. By the time he got out of the creaking cot and stepped sleepily into the bar, the argument was at its end, punctuated with the woman, a plain featured, dark haired woman with hard eyes and gaudy clothes, smacking a newly drained shot glass down on the bar, so hard a silver crack appeared in it.

  “To hell with you, Doc,” she hissed in a thick Eastern European accent. “I’m going back to Prescott. This is the last time.”

  All this ire was directed at Doc, who neatly poured himself a drink. He had barely moved from the spot the Rider had seen him occupying the night before.

  “Promises, promises,” he murmured as the woman whirled and stormed out into the street.

  Doc looked after the woman, then returned his attention to the bar and knocked back his drink, staring darkly into the bottom of the glass when he had finished.

  The Rider cleared his throat and stepped out.

  “Good morning, Doc.”

  “Oh, you just missed meeting my little Hungarian ray of sunshine,” he said, visibly brightening. “Don’t worry, you’ll have another chance.”

  He put the glass down and stared at it a moment, then pushed it and the whiskey bottle off the business end of the bar, where they smashed on the floor.

  The sleepy-eyed bartender looked over disapprovingly.

  “Leave it,” Doc said, straightening his necktie. “I’ll get it myself when I get back.”

  * * * *

/>   It was a cool morning, and the previous night’s compliment of drunks had lessened, but not entirely dissipated. A good many well-dressed Mexicans had supplanted them, and were going in and out of the businesses with parcels.

  On the boardwalk they met a big man with a beard and a sparkling gold tooth as he came out of the bakery next door with a paper wrapped and partially eaten loaf of bread under his arm.

  “’Morning, ‘pard,” Doc said, greeting the man.

  “Hey Doc,” the man said, around a mouthful of bread. “Didn’t know you were back yet.”

  “This is Jordan Webb, my partner in the saloon,” Doc said to the Rider. “Jordan, this is Rider.”

  “Pleased to know you,” said Webb, though the askance look he gave the Rider’s curls and dress said otherwise.

  “Did you hear about the train robbery last night?”

  “I heard somethin’ about that, yeah,” said Webb.

  “Did you hear about it from Hoodoo by any chance?” he asked slyly, affecting a knowing look. “Maybe yesterday or the day before?”

  “What’s the matter, Doc?”

  “Mr. Rider and I were on the train and had some of our possessions taken. I thought I recognized one or two of the miscreants. Or maybe all six of them. Friends of yours. Frank Cady, Dave Rudabaugh…”

  “Hoodoo ain’t gonna like you pickin’ a fight with Rudabaugh,” said Webb, showing his palms in a placating gesture. “My advice to you…”

  “Is unsolicited,” Doc said abruptly. “Did you see him this morning?”

  “He come into Bill Goodlett’s saloon an hour ago. That’s when I left.”

  “You own a damn saloon, Jordan,” Doc said. “How the hell does that look for us if you’re seen drinkin’ at Bill Goodlett’s?”

  “Well, I don’t like drinkin’ our supply. Thinkin’ on the money while I drink gives me stomach pains.”

  “You’ve got a whole loaf of bread there to settle your belly. I’ll see you later.”

  Doc stomped off the boardwalk and crossed the street, steering a purposeful course that the Rider was obliged to follow.

  “Who is “Hoodoo?’” the Rider asked.

  “Hoodoo Brown,” Doc said. “He runs East Las Vegas. He’s duly-elected justice of the peace and coroner. Half the gunmen in town are on his payroll, and the other half are men like Dirty Dave and his pals. Hoodoo turns a blind eye to their doings so long as he gets a cut of it. In turn, they rest easy knowing if they’re apprehended it’s Hoodoo’s job to populate the jury boxes. He decides cause of death too. You’d be surprised at the amount of suicides shoot themselves in the back around here.”

  “You don’t get along with them?”

  “I’ve worked with several of Hoodoo’s boys on occasion. A lot of us came straight here when the Royal Gorge War ended. Jordan counts himself as one of their number. I do not.”

  They crossed a footbridge out of the bustling tent and clapboard settlement and into the older, more respectable adobe neighborhoods he’d seen through the train window the night before. There was a large plaza in the center of town, and the Rider saw the windmill again. Someone had cut the body down, but a single frayed piece of hemp tied to the crossbeam attested to the reality of its previous ornamentation, and someone had strung up a skinny cur dog in its place. The dog’s head was at a sharp angle and its tongue hung from the side of its jaw, as limp as the rest of its boney body.

  “Kids,” Doc said with a shrug as they passed.

  They came at last to a place called ‘The Health Office Saloon,’ an adobe place with a pair of swinging doors and a picture window out front.

  Doc pointed out a big man at the bar, but the Rider already recognized the nearly bursting duster and sweat-stained hat.

  “Dirty Dave is a lout, but he won’t shirk from a fight,” Doc warned. “And big as he is, he’ll forgo a fist fight and go to guns like as not. You’re not heeled, but for that knife?”

  “I don’t have another gun, no,” the Rider said.

  Doc opened his coat, revealing a .45 on his hip.

  “Well then pretend like you’ve got one and stay behind me,” he said.

  “It might go better the other way around,” the Rider suggested.

  “No offense friend, but looking like you do, and going in there with just your dick in your hand, you might set that bull to charging.”

  “I’ve settled a charging bull or two in my time,” the Rider said. “Besides, we need him alive and talking.”

  “Your call,” Doc said. “However you want to play it.”

  The Rider pushed through the doors with Doc behind him and walked into the cigar smoke and man chatter.

  The saloon was better than Doc’s place, no doubt. The bar was polished wood and there was a big mirror behind it, and a painting of a reclining nude above that. Gaming tables were full and running about the place, and the bartender had on a clean white shirt and vest.

  The Rider went to the bar and laid his right hand flat on it.

  Dirty Dave Rudabaugh was belly to the bar, a few feet to his left, wide gun belt sagging with the weight of his pistol, big calloused pig knuckle hands grasping bottle and glass. He had a bulldog face and double chin papered with rough stubble, a single thick fold in the back of his neck to match. He sported a luxuriant down-swept mustache below a lumpy pear nose. The graying hair on his head was cropped short and his meaty face seemed to squeeze at the bases of his big red ears. He carried a lot of extra weight, but he was solid as a boar.

  The man was built to be a bully, and sure enough, he berated the bartender offhandedly for the cleanliness of his glass, though he was the dirtiest man in the place.

  “This glass looks like you wiped it with your dick head, Tetchy,” he rumbled.

  He set it down and with a flick of his thick finger, sent it smashing onto the floor behind the bar.

  Tetchy the bartender looked angered, but stooped to clean up the mess.

  “Bring me another one.”

  “You gonna pay to replace that one, Dirty?” Tetchy muttered.

  “What?” said Dirty, his pale blue eyes bright in his mean face.

  Tetchy rose, busted glass rattling in a dustpan and paled at Dirty’s look.

  “Nothing.”

  He dipped slightly and set another glass in front of Dirty, then returned to the Rider.

  “What’ll you have?” he asked, eyeing the Rider with open curiosity bordering on amusement.

  The Rider closed his fingers around the shot glass.

  “I’ll have whatever that fat pig Dave Rudabaugh is having,” the Rider said loud and clear.

  The chatter in the bar stopped and he heard creaking chairs and leather as heads and bodies turned in their seats to see who’d spoken.

  Dirty turned too, his lips pinched and his eyes glaring. There was a confused expression on his face for a half a second as Dirty took in the Rider, then he blinked and straightened, his hand dropping to his side.

  The Rider pitched the shot glass at him, with all the force and accuracy a practiced stone thrower in the Army had taught him. The little glass struck Dirty in the upper lip with such force it exploded, rocking his head back and knocking his hat off, sending blood, glass, and a chip off his eye tooth flying in all directions.

  In another minute Doc was there, and he smashed Dirty’s groping hand with the barrel of his own .45, then followed up with a knee to his big belly that left the man spluttering and groaning.

  Doc looked at the Rider with open admiration.

  “I never thought I’d meet a man faster with a whiskey glass than I was.”

  The Rider smiled thinly and moved to his side.

  Doc gripped the bandanna around Dirty’s neck and hoisted him up so his back and elbows were on the bar.

  “You busted my mowf!” Dirty whined.

  “You’d complain if you were beat with a golden stick, David,” Doc said. “If it had been me you tried to draw on, you’d be shitting through a hole in your gut right now.
Now, I believe you have something of mine.”

  Dirty’s eyes were wide, scared.

  “In m’coat pocket.”

  Doc tightened his grip on Dirty’s throat and reached down with his other hand, taking out Dirty’s pistol and passing it to the Rider. Then he stuffed his hand in the man’s duster pocket and came out with his own nickel plated revolver.

  “That’s fine,” Doc said, slipping the gun into the holster under his arm. “Just fine, David. But you also appropriated a weapon belonging to my associate here. Where is it?”

  Dirty’s eyes flitted to the Rider.

  “That gold gun? Sonsofbitches made off wiv it. I took the wrong damn sack. Came back here with nothin’ to show for it but a bag fulla lanterns.”

  “Lanterns,” the Rider said. “Why were you stealing lanterns?”

  “Wasn’t my idea,” Dirty said. “Dodgy’s.”

  “Dodgy Shunderburguer,” Doc confirmed. “What does Dodgy want with lanterns?”

  “They got some kinda iron in the fire, wouldn’t tell me what. Said they needed all the red glass lanterns they could get.”

  “Who’s “they?’”

  Dirty hesitated.

  “Aw hell, I don’t give a damn. Dodgy, Frank Cady, Slap Jack Bill, Crazy Horse Bob, Bullshit Jack and the Professor.”

  “Who’s the Professor?” Doc asked.

  “Just what goes on here, Doc?” came a voice from the doorway.

  The Rider turned, and framed in the open doors was an older, big-bellied man with a rich salt-and-pepper mustache and swept sideburns, in a tweed vest and cream colored topper. There was a gun belt around his waist, but he was fingering his drooping watch chain idly. By the look of the two armed men behind him, he didn’t have much call to use his gun.

  “Just having a talk with David here about the misappropriation of firearms and lanterns,” Doc said.

  “Lanterns?” said the man in the doorway. “Those wouldn’t be train lanterns would they?”

  “You have an interest in train lanterns, Hoodoo?”

  “Not so much.” he admitted. Then he spoke directly to Dirty, who was wincing as if he’d just seen the passing of the last of his luck. “But in a bag of cash that got taken off the AT&SF last night, you bet I do.”