The Six Messiahs

  "Awfully indistinct, finally, isn't it? Your medicine," said Doyle in a flush of irritation.

  "No more than yours."

  She turned to him; he saw the effort and strain so clearly etched on her face and felt instantly remorseful.

  "Hope we didn't disturb you last night," said Doyle.

  "When?"

  "We heard a scream; we came into the compartment."

  "I do not remember," she said, looking at him directly.

  He decided she was telling the truth.

  "Mary. Can you tell me any better now what you think was ... wrong with him?'' he asked.

  "I do not know how to describe it in your terms."

  "In yours, then."

  She paused.

  "His soul was lost," she said forthrightly.

  "Can you tell how, exactly?"

  "The soul is able to travel far but must then find its way back. The way back into his body had been blocked."

  "Blocked?"

  "When the soul leaves, its place can be stolen."

  "By what?"

  "By a windigo."

  "A what?"

  "A demon."

  The memory of the fleshy mass they had briefly glimpsed in her hands flashed before his eyes. He felt helpless, bumbling, and somewhat ill.

  "How?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "Suppose it doesn't," said Doyle. "I've never seen anything like what we saw in that room last night."

  She looked right at him again. "Neither have I."

  "Mary, I—"

  "My name is Walks Alone."

  Doyle nodded, appreciating the confidence he knew her disclosure conveyed. "If there's anything I can do ..."

  She shook her head. "It's up to him now."

  Before he could ask her anything else, she led the two horses to Jack. Doyle watched her guide him slowly to his feet and up onto the horse. He did not look at her and still moved and responded to her touch like an obedient sleepwalker. Any thought taking place behind his clouded eyes remained obscure to observation. Doyle walked back toward the others.

  Lionel Stern was the only stranger among them to horseback; they decided to put him on a large sedate gelding and let him bring up the rear. He was standing outside the corral, holding the reins out at arm's length, staring uneasily up at the animal.

  "On principle," Lionel said to Doyle as he passed, "I'm against the idea of sitting on anything that's larger and stupider than I am."

  Innes had seen to the purchase and the packing of the mules and with Presto was now studying a map laid out across a rock.

  "The old fellow inside said we'd find a road, about here, that's not on the map," said Innes, drawing in an east-to-west line.

  "What sort of road?"

  "The nutters put,it in themselves; it's supposed to take us directly to their settlement," said Presto.

  "How long?" asked Doyle.

  "If we ride straight through, perhaps late tonight."

  "What's this place, Skull Canyon?" asked Doyle.

  "Stagecoach stop. We'll cut down through these hills and pick up the road ten miles west of it," said Innes, very much at home in the world of maps and tactical options.

  "The old man said that over the last few years, they've had a steady stream of people passing through on their way to The New City," said Presto.

  "Wide-eyed fanatics, the lot of them," said Innes. "He also told us they had five men come off a train and retain some horses early yesterday."

  "They answer splendidly to the description of Frederick Schwarzkirk and company," said Presto, lowering his voice, with a glance at Walks Alone. "Including one with a rather unmistakable solid-blue glass eye."

  Doyle s brow furrowed; he hadn't even considered that the attack on Walks Alone might be somehow connected to the league of thieves.

  "Alarming," he said.

  "Yes," said Presto, with a glance at Innes. "We thought so, too."

  A loud crash from nearby; Lionel's saddlebags had fallen to the ground, and he was sitting upright on his horse, clutching the rear lip of the saddle, facing exactly backward.

  "I may need a little help with this," said Lionel.

  Frank could see the House of Hope from the window of his second-floor hotel room. Neat lines of cigar ash had accumulated on the windowsill; he'd been watching the front door of the place for an hour, as he had promised Eileen he would do when she left for the theater.

  Jacob had not returned from his appointment with Reverend Day. Eileen marched over there to look for him at six o'clock and was turned away; their meeting was still going on, a black shirt told her; they did not wish to be disturbed. Her instincts advised her differently and she returned to the hotel in a tizzy. Frank calmed her as best he could and gave his word he would find Jacob and meet her at the theater after the show.

  Not that he didn't have enough to worry about. The Chinaman had been in their wagon all the way from Wickenburg, she'd told him, including that morning Frank had seen them in Skull Canyon; he'd had the killer square in his sights and let him off the hook. Now Chop-Chop was probably on the loose inside The New City—Kanazuchi was the man's name; he was some kind of priest, from Japan, not China—and if the rest of what Eileen had said was to be believed, both he and this Jacob fella had been drawn out here by a nightmare both men were having about that big black tower.

  In the old days, that alone would have been enough to drive him back to drinking.

  One part of his dilemma had turned crystal clear, however; if he planned on making any serious time with Eileen—and he did, more than ever, after talking to her—putting a bullet through this Japanese would knock his chances down to less than zero. Which amounted to as big a rock and as hard a place as Frank could ever remember finding himself between.

  He looked at his watch sitting open on the sill: half past seven. The play was supposed to start at eight. He wanted to take a stroll around the House of Hope but needed to wait until dark. He wanted just as much, if not more, to see Eileen on the stage.

  Another angle had been taking shape in the back of his: mind; it held out the prospect of a better outcome but carried a higher risk. He'd need his Henry rifle to pull it off and he'd more than likely get himself killed. Naturally that's the one he was leaning toward.

  Frank put on his hat, walked out of the room, and peeked from the top of the stairs. Clarence and the nitwits still waited for him in the lobby. He tried doors along the hall until he found an open one, slipped out a window, shimmied down a rain gutter into the empty alley, and made his way to the intersection with Main Street; as evening came on, a large crowd of white shirts gathered outside the theater.

  Seeing Eileen perform in this or any other show would have to wait. But it was about the best reason he could come up with for staying alive.

  From the edge of the shantytown, Kanazuchi watched the last of the white shirts enter the theater. Torches burning in the brackets out front were beginning to work against the gathering dark. He waited five more minutes, then walked across' the empty street and down an alley toward the stables.

  He had learned that Reverend Day lived in the adobe house across from the theater. This man would know the location of the underground temple and the books, of that much Kanazuchi felt certain; he was probably the man who had arranged the theft of the Kojiki.

  Kanazuchi had waited hours for the Reverend to come out of the place the white shirts called the House of Hope; there had been no sign of him. The house was heavily protected, and its guards, all dressed in black, were more dangerous and better armed than the white shirts he had seen. To get inside, he would need the help of the Grass Cutter.

  Curious: While watching from this vantage point, a short time after he began, Kanazuchi had witnessed a clear disruption in the white shirts' concentration, as if the control they moved under had suddenly lapsed. Some stopped dead in the street, others fell to their knees; a few appeared to be in severe pain. Minutes later, the control resumed and the white shirts i
nstantly went on about their business as if nothing had happened.

  No one approached as he entered the stable; the barn appeared to be empty. By the light of a single burning lantern, he entered the rear courtyard where the actors' wagons stood. He stopped and listened: no one there. Kanazuchi slowly parted the canvas on the back of the wagon he had ridden in and found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle.

  "Eileen said not to kill you," said the man kneeling inside.

  The hammer already cocked; finger edging down on the trigger.

  If I attack, the bullet will still strike, Kanazuchi realized.

  "I don't want to," said the man. "But I will."

  Kanazuchi looked him in the eye. A serious man. He was good; nothing had given away his presence in the wagon. He knew how to hide and he undoubtedly knew how to kill.

  "What do you want?" asked Kanazuchi.

  "They've got Jacob. Eileen said you need him for something and that you'd want to get him back. That true?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I need your help."

  Kanazuchi nodded. The man uncocked the hammer but did not lower the rifle.

  "Where is he?" asked Kanazuchi.

  "That big adobe."

  "We must get him out."

  "That's what I was hoping you'd say. Looking for this?"

  The man tossed the Grass Cutter toward him; Kanazuchi caught the scabbard and pulled the sword in one blindingly fast move. The man's grip on the rifle didn't flinch.

  "My name's Frank," said the man.

  "Kanazuchi," he said, with a slight bow.

  "Kana ... that mean anything in English?"

  "It means hammer."

  "Well, what do you say, Hammer," said Frank, finally lowering the gun. "Let's go raise a little hell."

  Kanazuchi stood aside as Frank climbed out of the wagon. They looked at each other warily, a perceived sense of professional kinship and common cause delicately balancing the scales against powerful self-preserving instincts. Each waited for the other to make a first move; then, like dance partners, both turned and walked in step toward the stable.

  "Took my sidearm when I rode in but they left the rifle with my saddle gear. They didn't look for the one in my boot," said Frank, touching the butt of the spare Colt in his holster.

  "Mistake."

  "This town's sicker than a bag of drowned kittens."

  "It is like a clock; wound up, running down."

  "Getting sloppy," said Frank, nodding. "You feel it, too."

  "Yes."

  "This freak show's coming to a head," said Frank.

  "Remove the head, the body will fall."

  "Now there's something I know you're good at."

  "Sorry?"

  "That's sort of a joke, Hammer."

  Kanazuchi thought for a moment, then nodded. "I see."

  They stopped just short of leaving the alley at the edge of Main Street. Ghostly laughter followed by applause drifted toward them from the theater, then faded to an eerie silence. Lights burned in windows on both floors of the House of Hope; they could see at least six of the guards in black patrolling its broad front porch.

  Frank struck a match on the side of the barn and lit a cheroot. "Figure this Reverend A. Glorious Day's the one we want," said Frank.

  "Twelve men guard the house; only three in back," said Kanazuchi, watching their movements.

  "Move around much?"

  Kanazuchi nodded. "They change every hour."

  Frank glanced at his watch. "Had a notion about how we might get inside."

  Frank explained as they crossed Main Street. Kanazuchi agreed. They turned down an alley and approached the back door of the House of Hope.

  Three guards sitting on the porch armed with Winchesters and Colts. Frank walked five steps ahead, hands over his head; Kanazuchi behind him—Frank's pistol in his belt, the Grass Cutter out of sight down the back of his shirt—pointing the Henry rifle between Frank's shoulders.

  The guards stood up. They wore loose black clothes; their eyes clear and alert. Not the same group of men, but their manner reminded Frank of the ones he'd seen ride up to the House earlier that day.

  "I found this man walking in the stable," said Kanazuchi.

  "I already told you, you stupid slant-eyed son of a bitch," said Frank, staggering and slurring his words, "wanted to make sure they were taking care of my horse—"

  "Be quiet," said the lead guard.

  "He had the colic few weeks back, can't be too careful; those damn kids weren't even tending to—"

  Kanazuchi smacked the back of his head with the rifle butt; Frank stumbled and fell forward on the stairs.

  "He told you be quiet," said Kanazuchi.

  All three guards looked down at Frank curiously, rifles lowered. Frank curled his hands near his stomach and moaned as if he was about to be sick.

  "He's one of the visitors," one of them said.

  "Yes. He has been drinking," said Kanazuchi.

  "Take him to corrections," said the lead guard.

  Two of the guards reached down to grab Frank by the arms just as he slipped Kanazuchi's long knife out of his shirt; as they stood him up Frank drove his shoulder into the chest of the lead guard, knocking him back hard into a column, then grabbed him around the face and plunged the knife in behind the man's left ear. He died without making a sound.

  From behind, Frank heard two sounds like a rush of rainwater; when he turned, the bodies of the other two guards were falling to the porch and their heads were rolling down the stairs. Kanazuchi's sword was already resting back in the scabbard.

  Damn. This guy knew his stuff.

  Kanazuchi tossed Frank his rifle; Frank cocked it one-handed, then exchanged the long knife for his pistol. Kanazuchi slid the wakizashi into its scabbard; Frank holstered the Colt. They moved to either side of the back door and waited.

  "Didn't have to hit me so hard," whispered Frank.

  "More authentic."

  "Glad I wasn't playing dead."

  No one came; none of the guards from the front had been alerted by the skirmish. Frank tried the door; it opened.

  Dim lamps lit the interior hallway. Thick carpets muffled their steps. Plush furnishings throughout the house, oil paintings on the walls, a crystal chandelier hanging over the stairs in the front entryway. Not a spittoon in sight. Fancier than a St. Louis whorehouse.

  They heard a raised voice in a parlor to their left, crept up on its partially open sliding doors. Inside, four more of the black shirt elite being jawed at by an obvious superior, a tall, blond fella with a foreign accent; the same bunch Frank had seen arrive that afternoon.

  "... the wire says they got off the train in Prescott and left on horseback this afternoon. Look for them on the eastern road. Five men, one woman. They should be carrying a book with them. Let them ride through; take them when they pass the gate. The Reverend won't release our money to us until he has that book. Go."

  The four men started for the sliding doors; Kanazuchi and Frank slipped across the hall into a dark room as the men moved off toward the front of the house.

  "Not you, Mr. Scruggs."

  One of the four, a baby-faced man carrying a briefcase, stopped obediently; the blond man put an arm around his shoulder and walked him toward the door.

  "You stay with me," said the tall one.

  Frank and Kanazuchi waited until they heard the front door close before stepping back into the hall. Through curtains they could see the guards patrolling the front porch. Keeping one hand on the pommel of his sword, Kanazuchi nodded toward the stairs; Frank acknowledged and they went up; stopped on the landing when they heard the creak of a floorboard above.

  A black shirt came into view, looking down over the balustrade to the entrance hall below.

  Kanazuchi whipped his arm forward and the handle of his knife appeared in the guard's throat; he slumped to the floor, silently clawing at the blade. Kanazuchi took the rest of the stairs in three steps without making a sound, put a fo
ot on the guard's neck and snapped it.

  This guy really knows his stuff, thought Frank.

  Frank followed him up. They entered the first door to their right off a central hall. Kanazuchi closed and locked the door behind them. Brighter light. A lived-in feel, more than the other rooms they'd seen. Book-lined shelves. Work on a desk. A large globe. A Bible, open on a reading stand.

  "Reverend Day," said Kanazuchi.

  Frank knelt down to examine dark stains on the carpet.

  "Blood here," said Frank. "Fresh; maybe two hours."

  "Jacob," said Kanazuchi, looking at broken glass littering a corner.

  "Looks like he put up a fight. They dragged him out... this way," said Frank, following the smeared trail of blood; it stopped abruptly before a blank panel of wall.

  Both men studied the wall.

  Shouts from the back of the house, relaying quickly around to the front, an alarm; someone had found the bodies.

  Frank and Kanazuchi looked calmly at each other. They heard footsteps pounding up the stairs outside but neither man hurried. Frank traced a barely visible seam running parallel to the line of the rose-colored wall paper. Kanazuchi discovered a discolored spot on the paper, slightly darker from an accumulation of skin oil. He touched his finger to the spot and pushed; a catch released and the wall panel swung open along the seam, revealing a narrow passage.

  The doorknob to the office behind them rattled; the lock held. They heard a jangle of keys. As a key was inserted, Frank dropped to one knee, fanned the handle of the rifle, and emptied the fifteen shots in the Henry's chamber through the door in under five seconds, followed by six from his Colt. Kanazuchi ran to the door and opened it.

  Four black shirts dead in the hall outside.

  This man is good, thought Kanazuchi.

  More shouts outside and below, reacting to the gunfire, the alarm spreading beyond the House. Frank followed Kanazuchi into the concealed passage. Scuffed bloodstains led them down a flight of stairs, through a short corridor, and out a one-way door into the pantry of the House's kitchen. They paused in the darkness; Frank calmly reloaded. Footsteps and raised voices multiplied around them.

  "The Reverend is not here," said Kanazuchi.

  Frank snapped the filled chamber back into the Colt. "No shit."