“Dick, what’s happening here?”
Belden shrugged.
The lieutenant cleared his throat.
“As soon as these proceedings have finished, I’ll take you men to see Colonel Manx,” the lieutenant mumbled through necessarily clenched teeth, his words slurring on the ‘esses.’ “In the meantime, you can state your business to me.”
“And who are you, sir?”
“Lieutenant Cord.”
“Lieutenant,” the Rider said. “You’d better think twice about going ahead with these proceedings. You’re going to need every able man you’ve got in about a day.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“It’d be easier to show you.”
The Rider motioned to Kabede for the spyglass, and the tall African snapped it open and held it out.
The Rider extended it and turned. It didn’t take long to spot the sizable dust cloud rolling across the chalk white desert. He focused on it, and held it out to the young lieutenant.
“Take a look.”
Cord limped up and took the spyglass from the Rider.
“What is it?” Belden asked as he peered at the cloud of dust moving slowly across the valley floor like a great thing burrowing beneath the sand, obscured entirely.
“Shut up,” growled Weeks.
“Good Lord,” Cord muttered. “Is it…Indians?”
The Rider didn’t answer, but he caught Belden’s eyes and shook his head.
Weeks stood beside the lieutenant and squinted his dark eyes. After a moment he sneered. “So what? Buncha Mex cattle stampedin.’ Probably one of them chilishitters down there farted an’ spooked ‘em.”
“You mean the people that live on the rancho down along the edge of the desert?” the Rider said.
“’Who else?” said Weeks.
“They’re dead,” said Kabede. “They’re all dead.”
Cord lowered the spyglass, the spaces between his yellow and purple flesh noticeably paler.
Weeks cleared his throat at the officer’s side.
“Lieutenant, you don’t put Belden here out on his ass, the colonel’s gonna have yours.”
“Bullshit, Cord,” Belden said, stepping closer to speak in the man’s other ear. “Forget what’s between us for a minute. Whatever’s comin,’ you think you and Portis can rally these men? You think they’re gonna listen to Manx? We’ve got to deal with this. You can kick me down the hill afterwards.”
“Maybe,” said Cord, still staring at the slow moving cloud, and wetting his lips, “Maybe we should go get the colonel.”
Weeks frowned and didn’t move until Lieutenant Cord looked up at him meaningfully. His frown deepened.
“Take the prisoner back to the guardhouse, sergeant.”
Weeks straightened slightly and executed a lazy salute.
“Yessir,” he said. He swapped an angry glance for Belden’s smug look of triumph, then wheeled on the fifer and drummer and barked at them;
“Well go on, take him.”
Belden smiled back at the Rider as the fifer and drummer took him by the elbows.
The Rider couldn’t help but grin back.
“See you soon,” Belden said, raising up his hands to salute, as they led him away across the parade ground. The Rider noticed the knuckles of both hands were raw and scabbed over.
“Alright you two, let’s go see the colonel.”
Lieutenant Cord turned and went back at a limping quick step, his saber rattling against his stiff leg.
The Rider and Kabede followed Cord past the lines of confused looking soldiers, who were looking agape from Belden’s detail to them.
“Dismissed. Dismissed!” Cord shouted offhandedly as he stalked past, headed for the biggest sod house on the grounds, which displayed a crudely cut plank sign that read:
Lieutenant Colonel R.W. Manx, Post Commander
11th Cavalry, Camp Eckfeldt
“If we get out of this, you ought to think about dressing more conservatively,” the Rider said, watching the eyes of the men on the tall African in billowing white. “You sort of stand out, don’t you?”
“And you don’t?” Kabede replied.
The Rider shrugged.
“Eh, maybe a little.”
Before they reached the two steps leading down into the sparse structure, all earth and thatch, a black haired young man, sporting a neatly trimmed Van Dyke, stepped outside, buttoning his clean uniform coat. He had a pair of snow white doeskin gauntlets draped over his belt, and his leather braces hung in loops at his sides. Like Lieutenant Cord, he appeared a bit worse for wear, though his ailments appeared to be internal. He was dabbing his nose with a pocket handkerchief when he appeared. There was a crust of dried blood about his nostrils when his hand came away. Likewise, his eyes were deeply ringed and swollen, as though he were fighting a bad cold, or had not been sleeping.
“What the hell’s going on out here, Mister Cord? Is that your idea of a proper dismissal?” he stopped short at the sight of the Rider and Kabede, his bright blue eyes narrowing. “Who are these men?”
“Sir,” the Rider began, securing the onager to a hitching post. “Joe Rider, sir. Formerly of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry.”
“Rider…” the colonel sniffled, not offering his hand or a salute.
“Kabede,” said Kabede, bowing his head slightly and setting his burdens down beside the onager. He slid the staff out from the bindle loops and leaned on it.
The colonel’s puffy eyes lingered for a noticeable span of time on the tall African. His expression showed bemusement at his wild dress and the carved staff.
“Kabede. Your attire…where can it possibly be in fashion, I wonder?”
“He’s African, sir,” the Rider said.
“How fascinating. I’ve met plenty of Africans,” the colonel said. “But never one from Africa. Gentlemen, I’m Colonel Manx. Won’t you step inside? Mister Cord, run and fetch Sergeant Weeks and Corporal Quincannon will you?”
“Sir, there’s something I think you should take a look at,” said Cord.
“It’ll wait, lieutenant.”
“I think—”
“Thinking isn’t really in your line is it, Mister Cord?” said Manx. He fixed him with a watery eyed glare. “Weeks. And Quincannon. On the double, if you please.”
Cord pursed his battered lips and saluted.
“Yes, sir.”
He turned smartly and went off across the parade ground again.
Manx gestured for them to step inside first, and they did, descending three stone steps into the cool earthen structure.
The inside was neat and well maintained, but retained an air of impermanence. Kabede had to stoop to keep from upsetting his head wrap on the low timbers. Manx’s desk was chipped and weather-beaten, with a chair that didn’t match, and a stack of faded regulation manuals under one of the legs. The fine feathered writing quill on it was out of place. A cheesecloth curtain barely separated his office from a simple cot, porcelain washbasin, and shaving mirror. A picture of President Hayes had apparently been unsuccessfully nailed to the earthen wall several times, judging by the holes, and now sat propped on a crudely chipped ledge, flanked by a faded little Napoleonic artillery crew made of lead.
It was as if the occupant was trying to will an importance to the place it just didn’t have.
There was also a faint, rank smell in the air. A smell of illness. The Rider wondered if the colonel were a consumptive.
“We don’t get many civilian visitors to Camp Eckfeldt,” Manx said as he settled into the creaky chair.
Eckfeldt. That was amusing. It was like eckveldt, a Yiddish word that meant ‘the end of the Earth.’
The Rider looked about. There was no place to sit.
“Obviously we’re quite a small outpost.”
Manx snuffled a bit, and blew his nose into his handkerchief twice, then tucked it quickly away. “Now, where on
Earth did you two come from? Aside from Africa.”
“We crossed the Valle del Torreón,” the Rider said.
“On foot?”
“Yes. There’s a little town on the far side—”
“Escopeta,” said Manx with a curl of visible distaste to his lip. “I would hardly call it a town. More of an infestation, really.”
The palm of his hand slammed down on the desk suddenly, and when he turned it over, a cockroach lay twitching. He flicked it away into a dark corner of the room to die, and ran his hand down his trouser leg.
“Damned things. Scorpions, tarantulas, all these I can abide, even understand. But I’ll never sympathize with a damned cockroach. Filthy things. They get in the coffee, the sugar, leave their little black spoors like pepper all over everything. You find them everywhere. Anywhere there’s people, even out here in the middle of nowhere, where trails…dissolve in the…emptiness.”
The colonel let his words trail off and leaned forward, pulling open one of the drawers with a squeaky groan.
“Can I offer you something?”
“Maybe later,” said the Rider. “There’s not much time, colonel.”
“No?” said Manx, leaning in, rummaging, not looking up.
“We were pursued across the desert,” said the Rider.
“From Escopeta?”
The Rider paused.
“Yes.”
“Well,” he sniffled, as he reached for something, “I would expect that, being as Escopeta’s almost entirely populated by shiftless assassins and bounty killers.”
The Rider took a step back from the desk, hearing the sounds of boots crunching closer in the dust outside.
“Sir?”
Manx sat up again in his chair. There was a Schofield revolver in his hand, cocked and pointed.
“I mean a wanted fugitive like you must have found himself pretty popular there, Mister Maizel.”
Kabede instantly jolted into a fighting stance, but the Rider gripped his arm, preventing him from completing his motion.
“Kabede,” he warned.
The Falashan’s eyes met his, and the Rider shook his head.
Weeks was in the doorway, a grizzled, unshaven corporal, presumably Quincannon, behind him, and Lieutenant Cord standing behind them both. Quincannon and Weeks had their pistols out. Any further movement of Kabede’s staff would touch off a firing squad.
“Precision timing as always, sergeant. Corporal Quincannon, disarm these men,” said Manx, still covering them both. A thin rivulet of blood leaked from his left nostril, but he evidently didn’t notice.
Quincannon stepped forward, dropping his pistol into its flap holster. He knocked the Rod of Aaron to the floor and jerked Kabede’s curved knife from his belt and tossed it aside.
When he moved to the Rider, he paused, glancing at his eyes, and then at Weeks for reassurance.
“Go on, Quincannon,” Weeks said. “He ain’t so fast me or the colonel can’t blow a window in his skull.”
Quincannon nodded and undid the Rider’s tooled belt with his golden Volcanic pistol and engraved Bowie knife. He threw the belt over his shoulder and patted the Rider down briefly, whistling at the amount of medallions he found strung about him. When he was through, he stepped away.
Manx had discovered his nosebleed and hastily ducked out of sight, cleaning it with his handkerchief again. He made a point of going through his drawer again, and emerged with a cigarillo and a folded bill. He smoothed the poster out on the desk. Manx turned it so the Rider could read the type, though he didn’t need to.
“The Killer Jew of Varruga Tanks,” Manx read. He leaned back in his chair and bit the end off the cigarillo, spitting it into a tarnished spittoon that resounded hollowly.
“I didn’t think the Army concerned itself with civilian law,” the Rider said.
“About a week back some men stopped by on their way to Escopeta.” He tapped the poster with the end of the cigarillo. “They left this behind.”
“What men?” asked Kabede suddenly. “A German? A Frenchman?”
“Foreigners, to be sure,” Manx nodded, striking a match and lighting his smoke. “You know them?”
Kabede looked at the Rider.
“DeKorte,” he said.
“They wanted you pretty badly,” said the colonel.
“It’s not how you think,” said the Rider. “All of Escopeta’s bearing down on this post. Don’t ask me why—”
“I don’t wonder why,” said Manx. “I think we can deal with a lot of saddle tramps and bushwhackers. Can’t we, sergeant?” he said to Weeks.
“Yessir,” Weeks said, smiling, as Quincannon went to his side and drew his pistol again.
“These aren’t normal people, colonel. They’ve been…altered.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Changed,” the Rider said. “Just take my word, there’s an army marching on your position right now, and nothing can stop them. Nothing except maybe myself and my friend here.”
“You’ve a fairly high estimation of your abilities,” Manx smirked.
“I’m serious, colonel. You’ve got to mount a defense. They’re only a day behind us. They’re forty, maybe eighty strong. They’re fanatical—”
“Poppycock,” the colonel stated, blowing smoke and watching it curl across the ceiling. “I don’t think the denizens of Escopeta could be roused to piss if their houses were on fire let alone cross the desert and attack a military outpost to get at one man. Not that pissing would help any. The amount of whiskey they imbibe, it would probably make it worse.” He chuckled to himself.
Quincannon snickered. Weeks smiled.
“Besides, there aren’t thirty men in that place.”
“We’re not talking about just the men. We’re talking about every man, woman, and child between there and this post. Any ranchos, haciendas, Indian bands…”
“You talk as if the whole valley were rising up against us,” Manx said.
Lieutenant Cord cleared his throat.
“Uh, sir? There does appear to be a large force of some kind moving across the valley. They’re definitely headed in our direction.”
Manx’s detached cool faltered a little, and once more his nose bled, so quickly he had to catch it with his sleeve.
“What?” he said, muffled by his arm.
“It’s just the Mexes movin’ their cattle, sir,” said Weeks.
“I don’t know about any army,” said Cord, “but it could be hostile Indians.”
“It’s not Indians,” the Rider said.
“Indians,” Manx said, his eyes suddenly alight.
“Cattle, I say,” Weeks said dryly.
Manx settled back in his chair, wiping his nose.
“You’re probably right, sergeant,” sighed Manx. “But in case you’re not, Mister Cord, have Lieutenant Portis take Jeffries and lead an exploratory patrol out. I want them to determine just what it is down there and if it’s a threat.”
“You don’t need a patrol,” the Rider said. “I already told you it’s a threat. They’re coming for us, and they’ll tear this post apart to get us.”
Manx waved him off.
“Sergeant Weeks, Corporal Quincannon, take these two to the guardhouse. In the morning we’ll send a dispatch to let the sheriff know we’ve done his job.”
“Your patrol won’t come back,” the Rider warned as Quincannon reached out and took him by the elbow again. He pulled away from the man’s weak grip. “Not as you’d know them, anyway.”
Weeks flourished his pistol.
“Let’s go, war hero,” said Weeks.
The Rider shook his head and stormed out, so that Quincannon could barely keep up.
A private waited outside, and Weeks motioned for him to take charge of the Rider’s onager. The Rider watched as the trooper led the animal away to the stable, the precious scroll case bouncing on the cantle.
Kabede was soon at his side.
“At least we will be able to pass the Sanba adma’I,” he said.
The Rider loo
ked at him.
“It will fortify us for what is to come,” Kabede said.
The Rider knew Kabede was right. Observing the Sabbath would only strengthen their spiritual defense. But the deep down truth was, the Rider was disinclined to do so. Why should he honor the Lord? He had seen much in the past few months that was vile and base in the Creator’s universe. He knew the old answer to the question why HaShem permitted evil to exist…yet this was boundless, alien evil. It infested Creation and the Lord did nothing. He appointed a jealous and vengeful angel as steward of the Earth, and let entities of unimaginable power and malevolence (no, not really true malevolence, simply complete moral apathy) slip through the cracks to sink their teeth into the souls of man and suck them dry.
He had led his life for the Lord, and where was he now? His name had been torn from the Book of Life. By Kabede’s hand, yes, in a desperate but ultimately successful act to save them both from the talons of Lilith’s demonic offspring. But by all that he believed, he was marked to die within the year. If it was true, and he had no reason to believe it wasn’t, he was going to die without ever having truly lived the life intended for a mortal man. No wife, no children, no home to call his own.
And here was young Kabede, ready to spend his last day of life in ritual. It all seemed absurd now. He felt trapped, but not by DeKorte or Gans or Jacobi or their plodding horde. He suddenly felt restrained by the past and his very nature. Watching the wealthy men coming into his father’s store as a boy, was this how he had envisioned his life? He thought about Nehema yet again. She was not a woman, he knew, but he couldn’t keep from thinking of her as one. She was being tortured somewhere in Yuma, punished for having helped him.
“You still doubt, Rider?” Kabede asked, as if sensing his consternation.
“I don’t know,” the Rider admitted. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to believe.”
The guardhouse was sturdy, thick adobe. Kabede and the Rider were led inside, and saw a row of three cells. The middle of which was occupied by Belden, who had been dozing on a straw cot, but got up at their entrance and came to the black iron bars to peer out. His shackles were gone, and someone had charitably given him a pair of patchy blue trousers.
Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel Page 2