But it did.
As Cut Tom flew backwards, propelled by the bullet in his chest, Bull Bannock moved. The hammer of his horse pistol caught on the edge of his pants pocket with a rip. Tom had always told him he needed to invest in a belt and holster or else put the thing in the front of his pants where he could get at it. But Bull had always been afraid he would blow his pecker off. It was such a big target, he used to laugh and say. Then the Jew’s bullet smacked dead center into his forehead and he briefly conceded that Tom had been right before he wavered and fell on his face.
The crowd stood stock still. Martin and Heck made no move for their guns. Alvin took a step back, and Burly was way ahead of him, trotting expeditiously back to the Moderado as if he’d just remembered he’d left a pot of beans on the stove.
Dan Spector stared at the bodies of Tom and Bull, at the smoke curling from their wounds. He’d tried that pistol himself. He’d tried it. It hadn’t worked. It hadn’t.
“How?” he stammered.
The Jew just put the pistol back where it belonged.
Then he turned, and where his eyes fell the mob cleared a respectful path. That path led straight to his donkey, dozing at the trough in front of the Moderado.
The Rider walked down the silent aisle of staring eyes. The pistol was primarily a correspondence ward for use on the ethereal plane, but it was also a deadly weapon. Of course, it wouldn’t fire for any man who didn’t wear the little lapis lazuli ring embossed with the seal of Solomon, to which it had been married by ancient alchemical rites. A corresponding relief, barely perceptible, rode on the inside ring on the Volcanic’s lever, where the ring naturally touched it when he held the pistol. The ring flashed on the middle finger of The Rider’s hand, catching the lamplight. To any other, the pistol was a pretty trinket.
Trujillo started to walk after The Rider, squeezing his fist. He stopped short, Dan’s fingers on his sleeve.
“Best not, amigo,” Dan mumbled.
* * * *
The hour had come, though Shallbetter and the other men had been saddled and ready before the first hint of blue had crept into the night sky. That group of clean, quiet men had been waiting already when the others stirred, as if they hadn’t even slept.
Now they rode, and hell went before them.
Billy Shivers had no doubt every Jew in Little Jerusalem would be dead before the sun was yellow. It was behind their backs, and when they galloped as one body into the town with the rest of the posse heading in blind from the west, he figured they must look like the avenging army of fiery angels Shallbetter wanted them to be.
That little girl was dead for sure by now, and Cardin, and every other damn Jew in the settlement was going to go with her. Why the hell hadn’t Cardin negotiated? Was he really in on it somehow?
They tore through the center of town, the men squeezing off a few shots into empty cabins, killing nothing but glass and ammunition, all, except for the clean, quiet riders, who seemed to pull ahead as if they knew where they were going.
Then they saw six men in red robes outside one of the cabins in the middle of the street. When these men saw them coming, they spread out in every direction, hollering and screaming in fear.
Shallbetter was set to join the others in riding them down, but Billy pulled up alongside him and grabbed his reins.
“Get out of my way!” Shallbetter snarled.
“You want blood, or you want your daughter?” Billy shouted. “You ride in with that lot and you’re gonna put a bullet in her before you even see her.”
Shallbetter soured, pale.
“What do you intend?”
Billy pointed again to the cabin, and steered his horse that way.
“Looked like they were tryin’ to get in there, to me.”
The bullets started flying. The whooping of the rough men followed, but the only sounds the clean, quiet men made came from their shining pistols. Somewhere on the other side of the settlement, he noticed a pillar of black smoke rising against the lightening sky. How had they fired the place so fast? He hadn’t even seen them light any torches.
When they reached the little cabin, the door flew open. Billy hadn’t expected that, and thought ironically that for all the discretion he’d imposed upon the preacher, now they were both dead.
And then, an old Jew stepped out with the pale girl wrapped in a blanket in his arms.
Shallbetter pointed his gun.
“Papa!” the girl shrieked.
The Jew on the porch hesitated. He stared at the preacher’s gun, then glanced over his shoulder. Out of nowhere, there was a boy, maybe nine or ten hugging his leg with both arms. The Jew looked fearfully at Shallbetter.
“Put her down,” Shallbetter said, his voice as cold as the morning. “Put her down and step aside.”
Billy looked from Shallbetter to the Jew. He had to admit, if he was in Shallbetter’s place, he’d do the same thing.
Then the girl said;
“Daddy, Mr. Klein saved me!”
Billy stared.
The Jew looked as if he would cry.
Shallbetter lowered the hammer on his pistol. He put down the gun, and he went to his daughter.
He knelt on the porch of Klein’s cabin, holding her tight, his shoulders shaking.
The Jew’s wife came up behind him, tears spilling down her pink face.
For awhile, all that could be heard were the gun shots, cracking in the distance.
“Mr. Klein,” said Reverend Shallbetter, muffled by his daughter’s matted hair. “Thank you.”
* * * *
After The Rider had retrieved his things, he untied the onager.
The Chinese girl watched him from the upstairs balcony, wrapped in a shawl against the cool morning air. There was a fresh cut on her lip. She said nothing.
He pondered the mystery of Molech’s appearance here in this backwater town and the last words of Cardin. ‘When the Hour of Incursion strikes and The Great Old Ones take their place beside the infernal lords,’ he had said.
The Great Old Ones.
No infernal spirit could inhabit this earth without a physical body. Were Cardin’s ravings the hopeful delusions of a lunatic coaxed to madness by the tongue of Molech, or were they truly the portents of a vanguard assault upon the physical realm by some other threat allied with the Adversary?
In his travels, The Rider had heard whisperings of the existence of another, elder race of beings on par with the infernals.
The Great Old Ones.
That phrase was what had triggered his memory. But he had thought them nothing more than myths. Yet on the other hand, in his trade, it was not wise to discount myth. The matter would require further investigation. Whatever the case, Molech would not take part in that supposed assault. That at least, was certain.
There was another matter to consider. Cardin had been told to expect him. Told by who? It could only be Adon. The Rider’s former master. Then he must have crossed paths with these Canaanites. He was still in America. Cardin had come up from Mexico, Joseph had said.
With a click of his tongue, The Rider urged the animal away from the trough and turned south down the road, passing the saloon on the left.
As he walked, he glanced up at one of the windows, and saw the angel seated at the window through a part in the curtains. She raised one white, gloved hand of delicate lace and there was the glint of the newborn sun on the pane. Then she was gone; to join her subordinates in the scouring of the remaining Canaanites, no doubt.
He fished in his coat for his spectacles and found them in their case. He put them on, enjoying the sudden flood of brilliant, transcendent colors that shined down into the street.
The Chinese girl leaned far over the rail and watched him until he disappeared.
He tipped his hat to her and moved on.
II: The Dust Devils
POLVO ARIDO
population 103
Juan Miguel Alejandro-Dominguez, Mayor SALUDOS AMIGOS!
NO F
IREARMS ALLOWED!
As a dry Sonoran wind blew a choking cloud of fine white grit towards the lonesome border town, only two pairs of eyes, narrowed against the stinging sand were present to read the black words flaking on the faded sign.
One pair belonged to a white, unshorn onager.
The second belonged to a man who called himself The Rider. He peered out at the sign from beneath the down turned brim of his wide black hat.
They were brown eyes, protected from the adventurous grains that sought to swim in his tears by a pair of blue lenses embossed with geometric seals only visible when the sun glanced off them just so. His eyes narrowed further at the last line of the battered sign, not for fear of relinquishing the gold and silver chased Volcanic pistol belted around his waist, nor the similarly gilded two-shot Derringer tucked up his sleeve, but because the sign itself was perforated with bullet-holes; relatively fresh ones, by the brightness of the broken wood.
“Someone’s not obeying the local ordinance,” he murmured to the onager.
The animal shuddered insistently behind him, nudging his back. He slowly headed past the sign.
“Alright, let’s go, my friend.”
He had come south across the border looking for a man, following whim and rumor more than a trail. There was no asking about this man, as no one alive knew his real name. To know a man’s name was to have power over him. It was one of the first lessons his old master had taught him. It was why The Rider had stopped using his own name years ago. ‘Adon’ (or ‘Lord’) was the only name his master had ever given. Anyone who knew Adon’s true name was dead now. His master had made sure of it, by making sure The Rider was the last of the American enclave of his mystical order, The Sons of the Essenes.
Though The Rider could barely make out the buildings of the town through the swirling dust, it seemed as they moved on that the storm was a violent membrane, which once penetrated, proved comparatively calm at heart. Though still buffeted by mournful gusts, the town was at the epicenter of the gale, and the weather was peaceful if insistent once The Rider and the onager crossed the town’s boundary.
Polvo Arido was a prosperous looking place for a border town not on the map, with its clean bright adobe buildings and neat boardwalks. Its main street led to a half-built, columned manor house in the distance, anachronistic for the region. Construction scaffolds stood steadfast against the whipping winds like the forgotten siege towers of a battle lost long ago.
The Rider and the onager passed a blacksmith and a laundry, a lonesome telegraph office with a pair of frayed lines that swayed in the wind like broken fiesta streamers. A tall, rusty windmill squeaked in the constant wind behind the buildings. No faces pressed against the sugared glass of the shops to acknowledge their arrival, and no doors opened to welcome them.
They came upon a livery barn with a peaked roof, but when The Rider tried the door, he found it barred from within.
He looked at the onager. It shook its bristly mane in irritation.
“No room at the inn.”
An urgent rapping noise caught his attention, just barely discernable over the incessant howl of the wind.
The Rider looked towards the sound and saw a long thin face with a bony fist rapping the glass in the window of the neighboring dry goods store. The figure waved him over in a frantic manner, then disappeared within.
The Rider led the onager between the buildings and emerged out back, just as an impossibly tall, thin man ducked out from a low doorway on a modest back porch.
The figure shielded his eyes as a gust picked up, blowing three little cyclones across the porch and through the dust of the small, fenced in yard behind the store, in a corner of which there stood a rickety-looking open shed covered with flapping canvas weighed down by nails and flat stones on the roof.
The tall man cupped his hands and threw his deep voice at him.
“P-Put your animal in there!”
He motioned to the shed.
The Rider was unsure of the tall man’s motives. Did he expect to collect some steep fee for letting him put his donkey in a shed? Why was the livery closed, at any rate? It didn’t seem likely that it was filled to capacity. This was a small enough town, and he himself had only come across it because the sudden attack of the desert storm had bewildered and driven him here.
Where was everyone?
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t do to let the onager suffer through the blow without shelter. He led the dusty animal into the rickety shed and hitched him to the wheel of an old surrey with a set of broken spokes.
When he turned, the giant was still stooped in the doorway looking anxiously about and motioning for him to come inside. He shrugged at the onager and pulled the canvas down across the entrance.
The Rider started over with a sour taste in his mouth, fishing in his pockets for his wallet. The gaunt figure retreated inside.
When he stepped through the door and pulled it shut behind him, he found himself in a back hall with a short staircase leading up to where the proprietor most likely lived. He followed the tall thin man into the store proper, his eyes level with the space between the man’s shoulder blades.
The man was dressed in a pair of pin-striped pants whose cuffs ended halfway down his ankles, revealing a pair of mismatched socks stuffed into two of the largest black shoes The Rider had ever seen. The sleeves of his white shirt, stained by dust and sweat, were rolled to his elbows to hide the fact they didn’t quite reach his simian wrists. He wore two elastic arm garters more for show, The Rider guessed, than for practicality. His black vest crept up the middle of his back as though his bony shoulders were a pair of angry parents dragging the love struck garment away from an intimate rendezvous with his waistline.
The man had a long neck, which curved to keep the top of his ghoulish skull from skinning on the ceiling. He had thinning brown hair with a pair of obscenely fuzzy sideburns that ran down the sides of his face like ladies’ boots. His heavy steps resounded on the planks.
When they reached the store front, the giant turned to The Rider and motioned for him to crouch down and follow him.
What happened next was almost enough to make The Rider laugh out loud. The tall man got down on his hands and knees and crawled behind the counter, then poked his angular head up and furrowed a set of anxious eyebrows back at him.
“Well? W-w-w-what are you waiting for? D-dd-don’t you want to get a luh-look at them?” The voice came in a scared, stuttering whisper that cracked several times.
The Rider’s querulous grin wavered and fell.
Here was this physically imposing figure, hunched behind his counter and trembling at the ghostly moans of the wind outside. Sweat shined on the man’s forehead, and his long face was drawn tight across his skull. His nostrils flared nervously like those of a sorrel in a barn fire.
“What?” The Rider asked.
Maybe this man was crazy. Maybe he had wandered into an abandoned town where the population consisted solely of this tall lunatic.
Maybe the gold had run out, or the trails had changed, or the railroad had clanked by a few miles to the north. Perhaps everyone had packed up and left, except for this poor, towering stutterer who had invested his life savings in this shabby little dry goods store and would not admit defeat. Maybe he was too lazy to fix the wheel of his surrey and drive out of here.
The gaunt figure balked, his face shriveling, aghast.
“Aren’t you the muh-muhmuh-marshal?”
In answer, The Rider undid the buttons of his dusty rekel coat. There was no badge pinned to the white shirt beneath, only ropes of dangling amulets and charms. Did he really look anything at all like a marshal, with his beard and payot curls, and the fringes of his votive apron hanging down from beneath his black frock? Would a marshal come leading a donkey into town?
The giant held one scrawny arm before his face and grimaced as though he was about to be hit.
“Lord. You’re one of them...?”
The Rider peered at the
cowering giant.
“One of who?”
He didn’t like to see a grown man so cowed. He ran a finger absently over a tin of lamp oil and came back with almost as much dust as he might have picked up outside. How long had this man been hiding here?
There was a violent clatter from behind the counter and The Rider dropped his hand to his Volcanic pistol.
The giant had stumbled to his knees and upset a stack of canteens. He ducked behind the counter and peered cautiously out the front window, as if to see if he had been heard.
The Rider took a step to the window, to see what he was looking at.
“No don’t!” the giant wailed. “Listen, muhmister. You gotta g-get outta here. I don’t want no truhtrouble. Just go on out the buh-buh-back, will you?
Puh-please?”
His voice was on the verge of breaking down into infantile sobs.
The Rider stared at the man.
“What’s the matter here?”
The giant looked back out the window and what little color was left ran right out of his face.
“Oh God!” he said, and fell flat to the floor.
Taking the hint, The Rider ducked down behind the stack of lamp oil, but kept an eye on the window, which looked out across the windblown street toward an adobe cantina.
Through the grimy glass, he saw two men in wide sombreros ride their horses into the narrow alley between the cantina and the adjoining building, which looked to be an assayer’s office.
In a moment the two men had dismounted and tied their horses, crossed the planks in front of the cantina, and disappeared through the swinging half-doors into the darkness within. One of them clearly wore a gun belt, and the other a bandolier of bullets.
The giant glanced out the window, barely rising above the counter top, then immediately resumed his stuttering entreaties.
“Puh-please m-mister, you gotta get outta here. If they ca-catch you here...”
“You mean if they catch you here,” The Rider said. “Where are the rest of the people in this town? Who are those men?”
Merkabah Rider: High Planes Drifter Page 7