The Grand Hotel was in ruins, and the Rider said a silent prayer that Faustus’ spell had worked and Spates and Rice were now on the train back east.
“You know who Lepsy reminded me of?” Belden said as they walked, kicking up ash.
“Who?” the Rider asked.
“Remember old Liver Eating Johnston?”
The Rider smiled to think on the grizzled sharpshooter they had fought alongside against Price’s command.
“But for the bald top, they had the same crazy beard didn’t they?” Belden observed.
Kabede was smiling brightly and shaking his head.
“Who in the world can Liver Eating Johnston be?” he laughed.
“He was a sharpshooter in our regiment in Missouri,” the Rider explained. “He told a lot of stories.”
“Well, you can never tell about those old mountain men,” Belden allowed. “He was a tough bastard. Took one in the leg and the arm at Newtonia and still kept on…”
“Come on,” said the Rider.
“Why was he called Liver Eating Johnston?” Kabede insisted.
“They say he had a feud with the Crow Indians, over them killin’ his Indian wife up in Montana,” Belden said.
“They, or he?” the Rider added.
“He used to raid the Crow, and every one he killed, he cut their liver out and ate it.”
“What?” said Kabede, half-smiling, but not entirely amused anymore.
“It was an insult, see. ‘Cause the Crow would do the same to the game they killed,” Belden explained. “So he was sendin’ ‘em a message, sayin’ they were no better’n animals.”
“He also told us they caught him once,” the Rider mused, smiling, “and he got free and killed his guard, then cut the man’s leg off and walked for two hundred miles in the snow.”
“Hell, I guess you walked further’n that since, Joe,” Belden laughed.
“Why did he stop to cut off the man’s leg?” Kabede asked.
“He took it with him and ate it,” Belden said.
Kabede stared, and Belden and the Rider both shared an ecstatic laugh at the look on his face.
It was funny, like they were back in the Army again, laughing over the horror.
“The old man is waiting for us,” said Kabede slowly. He looked as if they were both lunatics.
“I sorta want to see if any of my gear survived the fire,” Belden said.
“Go on,” said the Rider to Kabede. “We’ll meet you.”
When the Rider and Belden came to the corner of Tough Nut and Third, they saw Johnny Behan come down the steps in a fresh suit and hat, clean as a whistle.
Where had he been during the fire? the Rider wondered.
“You men know there’s an ordinance against you carrying those guns?” Behan called to them from the steps.
“We’re leaving,” the Rider called back.
“You know, Joe,” Belden said as they went north up Third. “Me and Kabede, we did our damndest to try and find you them ten Jews you needed. Went around all the shops. Made a list. Think it was in my old cavalry jacket pocket in the boarding house. But it shouldn’t be too hard to find ‘em again.”
“It doesn’t matter, Dick,” the Rider said. “But thanks.”
“Well what in the hell do you mean it don’t matter? You said you was gonna die, didn’t you?”
“If I don’t live, Kabede and Faustus will do the job,” he said confidently.
“So, you’re just gonna give up tryin’ to save yourself?”
“There’s more important things at stake then just me.”
They were quiet for a while.
“Hey Joe, what if I was to tell you…Kabede’s in the same boat as you.”
The Rider stopped.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you told me your ailment was due to your shadow not havin’ a head. Well I guess you ain’t noticed, but Kabede’s shadow ain’t got a head either.”
The Rider stared at Belden. He hadn’t noticed that. Why would Kabede’s shadow bear the mark of a doomed man?
“When did you notice this?”
“As far back as Eckfeldt.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“He asked me not to. But seein’ all that’s up for grabs, I thought you should know. Findin’ ten Jews is more important than you think, ‘cause it looks like it might pertain to both of you.”
Maybe not. Maybe a simple name change wasn’t the cure for whatever doom hovered over Kabede. One thing was for sure. He needed to speak to the Ethiopian and find out just what was going on.
They came to the boarding house and photography studio, the Rider’s anxiety over Kabede building with every step.
It was a heap of smoking lumber.
A woman stood in the street beside a pile of crates, with a camera on a tripod. She was peering through the lens, taking a picture of the ruined building when they walked up.
“Hello Mrs. Fly,” Belden called.
She straightened at their approach, an older woman, smoothing out her wool skirt.
“Hello, Mister Belden.”
“I still owe you rent,” he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
The Rider shuffled his feet, ready to go. He had to see Kabede.
“But?”
“My employer seems to have gone the way of the dodo.”
This isn’t important, Dick, The Rider wanted to shout.
“Well, I pray he wasn’t killed in the fire,” she said tersely. “I suppose you’ll be leaving.”
“I just stopped by to see if anything of mine had survived.”
She looked meaningfully at the ruined building and went back to changing the plate on the camera.
The Rider, fidgeting meanwhile, fell to looking at the crate behind her. Inside was a stack of framed photographs, including a business license. There was a picture of a mule laden with firewood standing in the alley to the left of the late boarding house. Another depicted a trio of dead men in their shining coffins, and another of a well dressed man who could have been a relative of one of the corpses, posing with his hand beneath his lapel, leaning on a Brady stand.
It was the face that peered out from the corner of another photograph beneath all these that suddenly caught his attention and made him stoop and rummage through the box quickly.
“Those are for sale,” Mrs. Fly said as she saw his enthusiasm.
The Rider stood, one framed photo, a studio portrait, in his trembling hands, Kabede’s plight for the moment forgotten.
“Where was this taken?”
She came over and looked at the portrait.
“Right here in my husband’s studio,” she said. “I ought to know, I took it. I take most of the studio portraits,” she said, pursing her lips as if her next words would have been something to the affect of her name not having been on the signage.
“Who are these men?” the Rider asked.
She held out her hand and took the portrait, turned it around and squinted.
“Let’s see. The man on the left…I’m not sure I remember his name. I sure remember him though. Smoked too much. Would hardly put out his cigars to pose. I kept warning him about the collodin. One spark and the stuff goes up like…well, like this place went up last night.”
“Was his name Laird?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Fly. “That was it. Laird. Carman Elisha Laird. How could I forget a name like that? Almost like a girl’s name. I guess he compensated with the cigars. The other one is H.T. Magwood. He runs the Lazy S Ranch over in Delirium Tremens. They said they were brothers.”
The Rider took the portrait back and stared at it once more. It showed two men against a painted backdrop, each with a hand on the other’s shoulder, smiling. There was a distortion between them, some flaw of the camera. Laird was on the left, just as the Rider had seen him in Yuma. On the right was a slightly taller, better built man, with curly light hair down to his collar. He was clean shaven and had bright blue eyes.
He had a large Stetson hat cradled in his hand, and wore a fine striped vest beneath a drover’s coat, and tall Texas boots with spurs.
They did seem somewhat alike, thought at a glance there was no resemblance. Something in their attitude, in their bearing.
“It didn’t turn out quite right,” Mrs. Fly said apologetically. “That’s why they didn’t buy it. I think one of ‘em might’ve moved. See the ghost?”
“What?” said the Rider sharply.
“Between them,” she pointed to the distortion. “I call ‘em ghosts. Somebody moves an inch during the exposure, or the camera gets jostled, sometimes you get ‘em.”
The Rider looked closer at the flare. It was vaguely man-shaped. The pit of his stomach dropped out. They were posing. All three of them. Mocking him.
“I’ll be goddamned,” said Belden, who was looking over the Rider’s other shoulder at the portrait. “It does look like a ghost.”
“Rider!”
The Rider, Belden, and Mrs. Fly all turned at the shout.
The revolver exploded in the horseman’s hand, everything going slowly, the smoke mushrooming out of the barrel, spitting fire.
The Rider almost imagined he could see the bullet as it struck the portrait in his hands, sending glass and the frame tinkling in a second miniature explosion right in his face. The bullet continued through the flimsy portrait and hit the Rider full in the chest, as hard as a mule kick. It blew him off his feet and into the tripod. The whole camera set up came down with a smash on top of him.
He lay there stunned, blinking up at the smoke passing slowly over the blue sky. Was that gunsmoke, or still the smoke from the fires? It was black. The fires.
“Watch it!” Belden yelled.
The pistol blasted again, a flat and ugly sound.
Then Mrs. Fly screamed. She was still screaming as she leapt over him, a dark blur, and he turned his head to watch her run screaming ‘Murder! Murder!’ down the street to anyone who would listen.
He turned his head slowly and blinked. The pain in his chest was fiery, but dull. The smoke tumbled lazily across the sky. Was his chest smoking?
He tried to look, and that was when he saw Dick Belden lying beside him, groaning, eyes clenched shut tight. He could see why. His arm was drenched in bright blood from the elbow down, and as he rolled on his side, the forearm flopped and twisted around unnaturally. He seemed to go limp then, facial muscle slackening. His mouth was open, and the ash and dirt from the street had clumped up, ploughed by his face. There was dirt in his open mouth.
He wanted to reach over and brush it out, but just then the world screamed and clattered and he was wrenched violently up.
The edge of a big blazing steel knife parted the strap over his shoulder and he almost turned on his face as the hard leather case which he’d long forgotten about (although it was important…why was it important?) during the fight and the fire slid out from underneath him. He was released and fell back into the street again, so hard the world flickered like that weird moving portrait in Lucifer’s quarters in Pandæmonium, where no doubt Xaphan was even now receiving his punishment at his former chief’s hands.
The world flickered, and across the flickering frame a man in a dark coat moved jerkily to a waiting horse. A gray horse.
A blue skinned man on a gray horse.
Now he was turning in the street in flashes, like a series of identical sketches being flipped through, changed ever so slightly to give the illusion of movement.
No, he really was moving. Headed down the street. Going.
Gone.
Where the hell was that idiot Johnny Behan and his farkocktah ordinance? And his farkocktah deputies, where were they?
He turned his head, watching the blue man on the gray horse disappear, and the edges of his vision grew blurry and washed. Things were moving there, or one thing. He didn’t want to see what. He focused on Dick Belden, with his mouth full of ashes.
“Zei gezunt,” he murmured, his lips curling, the sob rattling deep in his bleeding chest threatening to split him open.
He wanted to get the dirt of Dick Belden’s mouth, but his fingers pawed at the ash in the street and he felt nothing.
It was Westport and the Iron Brigade was driving them back across Brush Creek, Liver-Eating Johnston yelling curses in the face of that shrill almost Indian yell. The lead zipping through the air like clouds of horseflies. He couldn’t find Gabriel and Dick was yelling next to him, telling him to run back to the streets if they had to, cursing their own artillery. Men dropping dead all around, the blue wool going dark on Johnston’s arm even as he snapped off a shot with his Sharps. All the grey coats, all the angry, wild faces, the bulging eyes, the sabers waving in the sun, the bugles blaring, the splash of that freezing October creek water around his thighs.
His feet were so cold.
Black wings unfurled and dove at him out of the morning sun.
Glossary
Numerous Hebrew, Yiddish, Aramaic, Spanish, Ethiopian, and Apache terms necessarily find their way into the chronicles of the Rider and his comrades. An alphabetized and updated lexicon is here provided for the convenience of the reader.—E.M.E.
Aleinu — ‘It is our duty.’ A traditional prayer recited at the end of daily services. It reads in part:
‘It is our duty to praise the Master of all, to acclaim the
greatness of the One who forms all creation.’
arel — ‘uncircumcised.’ A disparaging term for a non-Jew.
beinoni (plural: beinonim) — ‘The intermediate ones.’ The bulk of humanity. The undecided, who are neither wholly good nor wholly evil.
belimah — (‘silence’) The cosmic silence that existed prior to God’s first words, ‘Let there be light.’
Birkat ha’mazon — ‘Blessing on Nourishment’. A blessing recited following a meal of bread.
Brit mallah —‘covenant of circumcision.’
challah — A braided bread eaten on the Sabbath and holy days.
Chihine Dine — A band of the Chiricahua Apache. The Red Earth People.
chumash — A book bound copy of one or more of the Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch.
corvée — Forced, unpaid labor.
Dine — The Apache word for themselves. (pronounced Di-nay)
dybbuk (plural: dybbukim) — The departed soul of an evil or sinful person, imprisoned in Gehenna.
farkocktah — Yiddish. A colorful adjective literally translated as ‘becrapped’.
Gai kukken afen yam! — Yiddish. ‘Go shit in the ocean!’
Gan — Apache mountain spirits, revered in dance.
Gehenna — Hell. One of the four precincts of Sheol. A place of torment reserved for wicked souls.
goy (plural: goyim) — Non-Jew.
Gut shabbes — Yiddish for ‘Good Sabbath’.
hamotzi — A blessing said over bread.
Havdala — The ceremony enacted to mark the close of the Sabbath, on Saturday night, when three stars appear in the sky. A braided, two-wicked candle is lit while a prayer is recited and the person gazes at the light reflected in his fingernails. A box of aromatic spices are passed around, and finally, wine.
hekhalot — ‘palace.’ One of the seven holy halls a mystic must pass before approaching the Divine chariot.
Igzee’abihier — ‘Lord of the Universe.’ Ethiopian name for God.
izze-kloth — A sacred Apache bandolier strung with lightning struck wood and bits of stone.
kaddish — In this use, the Mourner’s Kaddish. A prayer over the dead.
kelipot — ‘husks.’ Shells of evil which encase the scattered sparks of Divinity which existing in all things.
kiddush — The blessing said over wine on the Sabbath or holy days.
kockeputzi — Yiddish word meaning mishmash.
kosher- Conforming to Jewish dietary laws.
Luz — Said to be the only indestructible bone in the human body, possibly a vertebrae, where the deeds of a man are recorded
. When the body decomposes, the Luz remains, and it is from this bone that God will resurrect every man at the end of time.
Meshuggenah — Yiddish. ‘Crazy.’
mikvah — A naturally fed ritual bath used for purposes of purification.
minyan — A prayer quorum of ten Jews. Required for public prayer and some obligatory ceremonies.
moser — ‘Traitor.’
nazirite — An aesthetic described in the Book of Numbers. A nazirite abstains from wine, grapes, and vinegar, cutting one’s hair, and who avoids graves or corpses.
Olam ha-Tohu — ‘World of Chaos.’ The universe which existed prior to the creation of light.
payot — Curls worn by Hasidic men on either side of the face.
ranchito — Spanish for ‘little ranch.’
rebbe (plural rebbes) — A teacher in a Jewish school. Also a term of respect for a Hasidic leader
rekel (plural rekelech) — Black wool frock coat worn by Hasidic Jewish men. Buttoned right over left.
ruah/ruhin — ‘spirits.’ Demonic entities without perceivable physical forms, dedicated to the destruction and corruption of mankind. They are the children of Lilith and the succubi, who mate with mortal men through erotic dreams. Capable of possessing physical bodies for a time.
Sanba adma’I — Beta Y’srael/Falashan term for the Sabbath.
Sar-ha Cholem — ‘Prince of Dream.’ An angel who specializes in dream visions.
Sefer ha-Chayyim — ‘The Book of Life.’ The heavenly book in which the names of Jews are recorded for life in the coming year. Not being recorded means a person will die in the next twelve months. In the Merkabah Rider series, the tzadikim nistarim of the Sons of the Essenes maintain and actual, earthly Book of Life which contains the true names of their members.
Sefer Torah — The Torah in scroll form, handwritten on calfskin and produced to various exacting ritual specifications. It is treated as a living thing, never simply discarded.
seraph — (plural: sepharim) The ‘burning ones.’ Fiery six winged angels who surround the Throne of God.
Shabbat shalom — A greeting used on Sabbath.
Shalom Aleichem — ‘Peace be unto you (ministering angels).’ A song traditionally sung at the start of Sabbath on Friday night.
Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel Page 42