The Six Messiahs

  The owl landed softly on the branch of an overhead pine, settled his wings, looked sharply down at her, and through his ageless eyes she felt the presence of her grandfather.

  Go back to your bed and sleep and wait for the dream. The dream is the question and the answer. The dream will tell you what to do.

  The owl blinked twice then swooped off into the night.

  She remembered something else he used to tell her: Be careful what you ask the gods for.

  Walks Alone walked back inside the walls of the reserve. Sleep would come for her quickly after so much time.

  THE NEW CITY, ARIZONA TERRITORY

  Cornelius Moncrief had a king-size headache, and prospects for improvement looked dim; there wasn't a man jack, or woman, in the West he couldn't persuade to see things his way—that was his job—but he found himself starting to wonder if the Reverend A. Glorious Day was going to come around. Shit. Nobody ever won an argument with the railroad and who was Cornelius Moncrief if not the railroad personified?

  Lord knows I laid it out for him plain as day—polite, too first time through, like always, that's company policy—but this white-eyed, Bible beatin' hunchback in the black frock coat with that scraggly hair and his Holy Roller attitude don' seem to grasp the nature of my authority. What is wrong with this jasper? I'm here to dictate terms and he's rantin' and ravin' at me like I'm some sinner in the market for salvation

  Give him this much, the fella must preach a mean sermon One look at that cadaverous face'd suck coins into the collection basket right out of my pockets. That mug belongs in a box with the lid nailed shut. Somethin's gone sour in this fella's pickle barrel, 'cause I know this much: I know there's nothing wrong with Cornelius Moncrief.

  'Course none of the Reverend's soul-saving flapdoodle was going to put Cornelius off his feed. He'd worked some of the diciest backwaters in creation during his fifteen years on the western circuit; murder, rape, casual violence: Couldn't expect people on a frontier to behave any other way. But somebody had to enforce the will of the railroad and Cornelius was the syndicate's number one troubleshooter: labor disputes, runaway coolies, accounts in arrears, they sent him in to settle up when all other options fell short. Cornelius carried a Sharps buffalo gun in a custom valise and a mother-of-pearl-handled Colt .45 with a Buntline barrel in his belt. At six foot four, 285 pounds, with his Sharps and that hogleg Colt, he'd never run into nothing yet he couldn't handle.

  But Cornelius had felt the heebie-jeebies crawling over him like bad violin music from the moment he jumped off his horse in this hick burg.

  Why you call this place The New City? Cornelius wanted to ask the Reverend. Was there an "old" one? What's the "the" for? And what's with the slaphappy grins on these yahoos? He hadn't heard a single contrary word from these citizens—spades, Indians, chinks, Mexicans, whites, all mingling together, everybody so nice and friendly to him you'd think he was Gentleman Jim Corbett come to town for a heavyweight championship bout. What did these puddin' headed dirt farmers got to be so damn giddy about? Living in a rat's nest of half-assed, fly-infested shanties fifty miles from nowhere in the middle of the Arizona desert? Road goes straight through Hell Valley, then takes a turn up Skull Canyon; even the goddamn Apaches had more sense than to put down wigwams this far out in the sand. No running water, electricity. Sweet Jesus, they ain't even got a proper saloon: The New City's a "dry community," they're so pleased to tell you with their pea-brain smiles.

  They built an opera house, though, right there on Main Street. Theatrical companies coining in to put on shows; if they die out here it won't be for lack of entertainment. But not another building in town off the Main Street with more than four walls and a planked floor 'cept that big black church on the edge of town.

  What'd the Reverend call it? The "cathedral."

  Now Cornelius had been to St. Louis and New Orleans and San Francisco, and this didn't look like any cathedral he'd ever clapped eyes on: towers, spires, black stones, not a single cross in sight, staircases twisting this way and that. Looked more like a castle in one of those short-pants fairy tales. Big enough to fit into any one of those cities, though. Going up fast, a whole hive of worker bees—and there was demolition going on underground, too; he'd heard muffled explosions round the clock since he arrived. Must be mining something in those high rocks behind the tower; quartz, maybe silver or gold. Some kind'a fresh money was bank-rolling this crazy tank town.

  Cornelius was getting steamed. First they kept him cooling his heels in the Reverend's parlor half the morning without offering so much as a root beer to cut the dust. Finally, he gets a sit-down in the same room with the head rooster and he's barely said hello before the Reverend rips into a tub-thumpin' filibuster on the evils of man, how it's the foretold destiny of The New City to rise out of the desert and create a world without sin—which is why he can't allow the railroad to bring the foul taint of civilization into their Garden of Eden.

  Right from the git-go, Cornelius wants to cut in: Save your breath, pal; I don't even pray to your God,'though I've sent a Chinaman off to meet Him from time to time. But try as he might, Cornelius can't find an opening to slip into his pitch 'bout how no-body in their right mind turns down the railroad. ...

  Come to think of it...

  A team of coolies deserted construction on the north/south Arizona spur line three months ago; pinched a ton of supplies when they skipped, too; explosives and such. Not a hundred miles from here. And he'd seen more than a few chink faces in that crowd when he arrived... this little excursion might be worth the trouble after all.

  But as I sit here and listen to this padre jabber, not that I'm half-interested in what he's flapping his gums about, there's some odd thing about the Reverend's voice makes it hard to break back in to my pitch: some sound buzzing in the room, like horseflies or a bunch of bees....

  What's that on the Reverend's desk?

  Looks like a ... a box of pins. That's it. Pins. Open box of pins. Never seen pins look like that before. Shiny. Long. Look new. Must be new. What is it about 'em? Are they new?

  "That's right, Mr. Moncrief. Shiny new pins."

  "Excuse me?" said Cornelius, without taking his eyes off the box. Not that he wanted to. He felt good; warm inside, better than he'd felt since he got here ... when was it, yesterday?

  "You go right on ahead and look at them. There's no problem with looking at the pins, is there, Mr. Moncrief?"

  Cornelius slowly shook his head. Heat spread through him deep and fast like Kentucky bourbon from a cool glass. He could relax. There was no problem with looking at the pins.

  "Take all the time you need. That's fine."

  Reverend Day didn't move. Standing behind the desk. Couldn't look at him. Eyes going soft...

  The pins stirred in the box. There was life in them. Yes, he knew it. They shifted, tumbling over each other, and then fast, one by one, the pins stood up out of the box and hung there before him in the air. Shining like ornaments, Christmas tinsel—no, the light flickering off them, reflections tossed high around the room: like diamonds. By the handfuls.

  "Beautiful..." whispered Cornelius. "So beautiful."

  Sounds around him. Clear bells. Birdsong. Whispery voices.

  "You watch them now, Cornelius."

  He nodded again. So happy. The Reverend's voice blended sweetly with that bell tone. Other voices clearer: a church choir.

  The pins formed a curtain, dancing, shimmering before his eyes: Pictures swam in and out of its surface. Silver fields of tall grass, waving in the wind. Sun jumping off a snowpack. Bright, clear water tumbling down a meadow of yellow flowers ...

  Life: so much life. Fish in a stream, horses running free down a lush box canyon. A mountain cat moving peacefully through herds of grazing antelope and deer. Hawks wheeling in a cloudless sapphire sky. And there far down below, near the horizon, what was that? What complete perfection of line, color, and shape dazzled his eye?

  A City blooming out of the desert like a hothous
e orchid. An oasis around its towers, rising up a thousand feet to meet the heavens. Towers of glass or crystal, red, blue, amber, twinkling in the brilliant sunlight like a canopy of jewels.

  Tears flowed down Cornelius's cheeks. His lips blubbered with inexpressible joy. He felt a deep loosening in his chest; his heart opened like a night jasmine.

  Through the translucent walls of the City, he saw some greater radiance illuminating its interior. A whisper of a thought and he glided toward the light, drifting through the walls as if they were an insubstantial mist. There were people below, a great mass of them, gathered peacefully on a tree-lined green around a raised platform from where the light originated. Hovering over the crowd now; he'd never seen such peaceful, welcoming faces. They held up their hands to him, guiding him gently down into their warm enveloping embrace.

  Love. They loved him. He felt it flooding his senses, filling every corner of his mind. Pouring out of this crowd and into him; oh, the powerful feelings he felt in return ...

  He loved them all so much.

  The crowd around him turned as one to face a figure of light standing above them on the central column. He gasped: The light came from within a beauty unearthly. Form obscured, features indistinct—golden, burnished—emanating from within a halo of perfect love and generosity and peace.

  The figure titanic. Wings spreading out beyond the eye's capacity. No way to measure their span.

  An angel.

  Eyes found him: great round disks of sky. His angel, there for him and him alone. Eyes held him in the embrace of their gaze. Loving him. A smile; a blessing. The angel spoke without words: He heard them in his head.

  "Are you happy here, Cornelius?"

  "Oh yes."

  "We have been waiting for you."

  "Waiting for me?"

  "Waiting for the longest time. We need you, Cornelius."

  "You do?"

  "The time is drawing near. There is so much for you to do."

  "I want to help you."

  "You've been treated very badly by those people; those people out there."

  Tears ran from his eyes. "Yes."

  "They don't understand you at all, do they? Not like we do."

  "No."

  The angel's immensity filled his field of vision; its voice echoed deeply through every fiber of his body.

  "Do you want to stay here, with us, Cornelius?"

  "I want to, yes. I want to so much."

  The angel smiled. Wind ruffled back Cornelius's hair with a sound like a thousand muffled drums. Hands folded in silent prayer, the angel flapped its wings again and ascended from the platform into the firmament. All eyes turned skyward, watching the departure. Music rising to a grand crescendo, drowning out the blissful murmuring of the crowd.

  Cornelius smiled, sharing now in their secret knowledge:

  He was home.

  chapter 4

  DEAD SEA AROUND THEM. BLACK, OILY WATER, becalmed: a false peace and a certain promise of violence. Vague, evil shapes flickered along the surface. Squall lines hanging black curtains across the northern horizon. Drab light from the west, yellow, greasy on the scummy foam. A full moon rising soon behind them, precise counterweight to the setting sun.

  Doyle stood at the aft starboard rail. Tried to roughly calculate their position at sea; nearing the 30th parallel, 50 degrees north. Nearest landfall the Azores, a thousand miles south. He heard the whine of the screws below. Engines laboring. Innes would be along any minute; no one would overhear them at this end of the ship.

  Doyle stared at the sketch he'd made of the scrawl on Selig's wall, aching to make sense of it. He had worked throughout the day on the whole problem, agonizingly close to unraveling the mystery, but the last piece that would complete the puzzle remained just out of his reach. And still no sign of that priest, Father Devine. He felt reluctant to approach Captain Hoffner with only his current conclusions, but the danger was unmistakable; if he didn't, Lionel Stern might not live through the night.

  Here was Innes.

  "Aside from what they stowed in their cabin, Rupert Selig and Stern brought four pieces of luggage," said Innes, producing a list. "Steamer trunk, two valises, one crate. Saw them myself; sitting in the hold, undisturbed." Doyle raised an eyebrow. "I slipped this bloke in the engine room a fiver."

  "Good work."

  "Crate's sealed with an intact customhouse band. About the size of a large hatbox. Figure that for the Book of Zohar, what?"

  Doyle said nothing.

  "Where's Stern now?" asked Innes.

  "Captain's cabin, well looked after for the moment. There's an inordinate amount of paperwork to sort out a civilian death at sea."

  "Never even occurred to me: What do they do with the body?"

  "Refrigerated lockers. Necessity on any cruise liner with their older clientele: a good many of them overfed, apoplectic, sclerotic ..."

  Innes shivered involuntarily. "Not too near the kitchen, I hope."

  "Separate area. Nearer the hold, where they store those coffins we saw them loading in port."

  "Put a man right off his mutton."

  "Listen: The ship's doctor insists on labeling Selig's a natural death," said Doyle.

  "He can't be serious."

  "All outward signs indicate Selig died of acute coronary failure. I can't dispute that, and that's surely what his killers would like us to. believe. There's no facility to conduct a proper autopsy on board; if there were, I'm not sure the results would contravene. And the last thing the Captain needs on board his luxury liner is idle talk about the murder of a passenger."

  "But of course that's exactly what we think it is."

  "Frighten a man to death? Send an excess of adrenaline racing through his system and literally explode his heart? Yes, I'd call that murder."

  "What could have set him off?"

  Doyle shook his head.

  "Maybe he caught a glimpse of the ship's ghost wandering around belowdecks," said Innes.

  "Good Christ." Doyle stared at him, wide-eyed, as if he'd been struck with a mallet.

  "Are you all right, Arthur?"

  "Of course; that's it. Well done, Innes."

  "What did I do?"

  "You've cracked it open, old boy," said Doyle, walking him rapidly toward the nearest hatchway.

  "I did?"

  "Call back that engineer of yours. Have him fetch a fireman's ax, a hammer, and a crowbar. It's time we had a few words with Mr. Stern and Captain Hoffner."

  The engineer flashed the beam of his lantern into the dark recess of the storage bay, picking out a sealed, rectangular shipping crate from among the forest of cargo.

  "Is that your crate, Mr. Stern?" asked Doyle.

  "Yes, it is."

  "I'm sure we are all most interested, Mr. Conan Doyle," said Captain Hoffner with chafed civility, "but I'm afraid I am not seeing the point of this exercise...."

  Doyle raised the ax and with one short, economical blow smashed the cover of the crate to pieces. Stern gasped. Doyle reached down, picked through the splinters, and extracted the contents of the box: a large square sheath of blank white paper.

  "Equivalently weighted to approximate your Book of Zohar," said Doyle to Stern, balancing the stack in his hand.

  "I didn't know; I swear," protested Stern. "I mean I saw ; them; I was there in London when the Book was crated."

  "It seems your late partner Mr. Selig had other plans, which may account for his disinclination to leave your cabin."

  "What is the significance of this, please?" asked Hoffner.

  "Begging your patience for the moment, Captain, I will | attend to that presently," said Doyle, dropping the paper and hefting the ax over his shoulder. "Now if you would be good enough to accompany us to our next destination. Innes?"

  Innes gestured and the little engineer—secretly thrilled at the spectacle of his rigid, disciplinarian Captain kowtowing to this crazy Englishman—led the way through a maze of passages and hatches to an adjacent hold: a fr
igid, uninviting room dominated by a row of square steel-hood-handled vaults. Rows of bare light bulbs hung from the ceiling, their pale auras failing against the odors of decay that permeated the air.

  "May I be permitted to ask what we are doing in the morgue?" asked Hoffner.

  With Innes holding up a lantern, Doyle cracked open one of the refrigerated lockers and rolled out its enclosed metal tray, introducing the rigid enshrouded outline of a corpse. He pulled the sheet away from the face and dispassionately yanked down the lower eyelids of the late Rupert Selig, revealing congested spiderwebs of blue and purple capillaries.

  "Contrary to your ship physician's opinion that he was in perfect health for a man his age, Mr. Selig suffered from heart disease and severe high blood pressure, evidenced as you can see by these massively ruptured vessels in the soft tissue under his eyes—a condition he kept secret even from you, Mr. Stern. You were not aware of it, were you, sir?"

  Stern shook his head.

  Doyle showed them a small glass vial of medicine; round, white pills. "Mr. Selig carried this homeopathic remedy—a mixture of potassium, calcium, and tincture of iodine of no small popularity but little established benefit—in a hidden pocket sewn into the lining of his jacket."

  "All very well and good, Mr. Doyle; it supports in fact my doctor's conclusion that a heart attack was being the cause of the gentleman's death, but what does it have to do with—"

  Doyle raised a hand, cutting Hoffner off again. "One point at a time, Captain; there is a design at work here, if you will trust me to bring it to light in the appropriate sequence." Doyle tossed the sheet back over Selig's gray face and gave the tray a shove, and it slid home with a metallic clang that echoed through the grim room.

  "Innes, if you please ..." said Doyle.

  Innes took the torch from the engineer and illuminated the far corner of the room; an orderly row of coffins lined the floor next to the wall.

  "You accepted these five coffins as cargo in Southampton, isn't that correct, Captain?"

  "Yes, so?"