Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (25 page)

The Mexicans were just drovers.
Piishi cared nothing for their horses since he was heading up into the
mountains, but he had stupidly forgotten to get ammunition from Rider Who Walks
for the fine rifle he had given him, and so he had stolen some from the Mexican
vaqueros
’ saddle bags as they slept.

He did not know why the Mexicans had
come after him. He had assumed they would not even notice the theft before they
were long gone. He had gone up into the mountains and made camp to await the
Rider’s spirit and maybe sleep some before going on to Pa-Gotzin-Kay. He
supposed the Running Indian had found his tracks, and he had been amazed to
hear the Mexicans crashing through the brush below where he had laid down to
rest.

He got up quickly and grabbed his
rifle, only to find one sandaled foot of the Running Indian standing squarely
on it, the weapon immovable under that lean, powerfully muscled leg. He looked
up in time to see the Running Indian’s weapon come down. It was a club crudely
carved to look like a Winchester rifle. It struck him hard in the temple.

When he had his sense of things
back, there was a sharp pain in his limbs, and he couldn’t feel his hands and
feet. The Mexican
vaqueros
were
standing around him in a circle, the Running Indian admiring the Yellow Star
Rifle Rider had given him. He wore a loose red shirt and a dirty white skirt, a
long white headband around his bushy head. He crouched on his bare legs, the
rifle across his knees. His half-lidded eyes were red and bleary. The Running
Indians loved their corn beer.

“We should take him down to the
rurales
in Nacozari,” said one of the
vaqueros.
“Maybe they will reward us.”

“I don’t want nothing to do with
those goddamned
rurales
. I don’t know
which is worse, having
rurales
in
town or these goddamned Apaches sneaking around.”

The
vaqueros
had tied ropes around both of his wrist and ankles and
lashed him to the silver capped horns of their gaudy saddles. A man sat twisted
atop each horse looking down on him over their shoulders. They had walked their
mounts in four directions far enough to leave his limbs stretched taut and
painful, the joints singing, his body suspended a foot above the ground.

He made no outcry. He would die
before he’d give that satisfaction to a bunch of Mexicans.

Their leader was a man in his late
twenties, long, wavy black hair and a trim mustache, golden teeth sparkling
between his lips. He had the carved iron knife Rider had lent him, and he was
sinking its point again and again in the ground between his feet where he
hunkered. A beaded and fringed Indian riding quirt, with an engraved silver
knob shaped like a grinning dog, dangled from his wrist.

“I don’t like this none,” said one
of the men on horseback in Spanish, looking nervously about. “You don’t see
Apaches off by themselves. He’s probably got friends up in these mountains.”

“No doubt, Carlos,” the leader
agreed. “No doubt. Maybe if we cut him up a little, he’ll tell us where.”

“What the hell you want to go and do
that for, Mauricio?” said the nervous man on horseback. “I don’t know why we
even chased this bastard up here for a box of bullets. You ought to kill him
and let’s get out of here.”

“Maybe we should pack him down to
Nacozari,” said one of them. “See if that Corporal Mendez will give us a reward
for him.”

“The
rurales
pay for dead Apaches, not live ones,” said Carlos. “I don’t
want to pack no live Apache all the way down to Nacozari anyhow.”

“We could send Pies ahead,” said the
other, motioning to the Running Indian. “Let them know we’re bringing in a
prisoner.”

“He could get loose and kill us
before we ever get there,” said the other. “I don’t want to pack no live Apache
neither. That’s like carrying around a wild wolf.”

“Esteban’s right,” said Carlos. “Let’s
just pull him to pieces and get the hell out of here.”

Mauricio put his face close to
Piishi’s, and held the knife in the firelight, looking at the magic marks
carved upon the blade.

“I wonder who he is,” he murmured. “Some
kinda medicine man maybe.”

“Who cares? Let’s kill him and go,”
said Esteban.

Mauricio rose to his full height and
tucked the knife between belt and belly.

Piishi glared at the Mexican. He was
sorry death would come to him before Rider could complete his task. Perhaps it
was good that the Mexicans kill him quick, before Rider’s spirit came and
entered into him. If he came now, he might get trapped in Piishi’s dead body
when the Mexicans killed him.

He gathered up his spit and launched
it with all his effort up at the Mexican. He was satisfied when the gob struck
him in his carefully trimmed mustache.

The Mexican recoiled in disgust and
angrily swiped at his face with his sleeve.

“Son of a bitch!”

He took the silver knobbed quirt and
brought it down with a sharp whack on Piishi’s stomach. It was an agony, but
Piishi forced a smile and said, in fluent Spanish, “Mexicans talk while Apache
kill.”

The Mexican stepped back and drew a
cap and ball pistol from his holster and pointed it at the night sky.

“Alright. Take a ride, boys.”

The Mexican never got a chance to
cock the pistol let alone fire.

An arrow hissed out of the dark and
buried itself up to the feathers under his chin, with such force he
somersaulted backwards and flopped into the campfire, kicking up a slow moving
geyser of embers which spurted into the sky and winked out.

Four figures leapt out of the night
into the light of the camp. They seemed to come from the sky itself, though
Piishi had seen no overhanging trees.

They were bare-chested and wore
blackened buckskin hoods over their faces. Tall, elaborate plank or metal
headdresses sprouted like the twisting angles of weathervanes a full two feet
from their heads, strung with beads and feathers. Each was a blast of brilliant
color, with long woven skirts, and strips of colored flannel flapping from
their arms and calves. Painted symbols adorned their chests and backs. One was
painted entirely white, and his buckskin mask had no headdress. Each bore two
iron short swords, the handles hide or leather wrapped, and one a bow and
buckskin quiver.

The Running Indian, Pies, did not
hesitate, but sprang to his feet and went crashing wild eyed into the brush,
racing down the mountainside.

The
vaqueros
uttered no oaths, nor discharged their weapons. There was
no time. The four silent figures landed on the rumps of their horses, and
simultaneously swept off the heads of the Mexican riders with their swords. In
a few moments, the white painted figure neatly parted the each of the ropes
affixed to Piishi’s limbs, and he crashed to the ground on his back, blood
rushing back into his numb extremities.

When he opened his eyes, and it
could not have been more than a few seconds later, he was alone. The horses
were screaming and galloping off into the shadows, their headless riders still
bobbing in their saddles.

The heads remained, rolling back and
forth like hastily discarded balls on a playground evacuated of children.

Then he was aware of an insistent,
familiar presence descending upon his mind. This alarmed him least of all that
had just occurred, and still caused him far less consternation than the fact
that the Mexicans and the Running Indian had surprised him in the first place.
A scent filled his nostrils, even over the burning flesh of the dead Mexican
roasting in the fire. He recognized it as the smell of Rider Who Walks.

“I am here, Rider Who Walks,” he said
to the silent night. “I welcome you.”

That was enough. He felt himself
slip back. It was like sinking beneath cool waters.

The Rider opened Piishi’s eyes to
find himself surrounded by death. A corpse lay burning in the campfire, and
four severed heads, Mexicans, lay strewn about, staring, as surprised as he was
by their state, apparently.

Yet Piishi was flat on his back, and
his limbs ached horribly. There were scraps of hemp tight around his wrists and
ankles, the loose ends severed, hacked by a knife.

What had happened here?

It
was the Gans.

That was Piishi. Not having had to
force himself into this body, the Rider had not needed to subdue the
consciousness within. Piishi was aware of him, and he was aware of Piishi. It
was like having a small voice in his ear. They could converse without either of
them having to talk.

“What
are the Gans?”

“Mountain
Spirits. They saved me from the Mexicans. I have seen the Gan Dancers, but
never the spirits themselves. They are watching over us, Rider.”

Not having seen what happened
personally, the Rider inwardly shrugged. Maybe the Apache had come out of the
night and saved him.

“No,
I told you. It was the Gans.”

The Rider frowned. It was strange to
share his thoughts this way. He sat up, feeling the blood rush back into Piishi’s
limbs. He rubbed his elbows.

“Your
knife is in the
jefe’s
belt. In the
fire.”

The Rider stood shakily and moved to
the fire. He booted the corpse over with the toe of Piishi’s high moccasin, and
gingerly kicked the knife out of the dead man’s belt. It was scorched, but
undamaged. He stooped and picked it up.

“It
is cool to touch?”

“Yes
,”
thought the Rider. “
Magic iron. Where’s
the rifle I gave you?”

“A
Running Indian took it. He ran down the mountain.”

“He
might be going to town. We should go and get him.”

“We
will never catch him. They run like rabbits. We should go on to Pa-Gotzin Kay.”

“The
town is full of rurales. If he goes to them, he could lead them back up here.”

“He
has seen enough tonight. I think he will go home to his people and his corn
beer. The stronghold is only a little ways away now. We can be there by
morning.”

Pies, the Rarámuri Indian who worked
as a wrangler for the Alvarez outfit, was not headed for his people and his
corn beer. He raced through the night, speeding down the precipitous slope. He
was headed to Nacozari, to tell Don Elfego that his son Benito and the men with
him had been killed by the Apache. First he would alert the
rurales
. By the time he reached the
road, still clutching the fine Henry rifle in a terrified grip, he decided he
would not mention the Apache gods.

In the vardo, Faustus took a black
eyeglass case from a shelf, snapped it open, and removed a small loupe fitted
with dark glass lenses, similar in composition to the bead the old man had
given the Rider to wear.

He wrinkled his bushy brow, fitting
the lens into his left eye and placed a hand over his right.

“What’s that?” Belden asked.

“It will enable me to see whatever
Piishi sees, so long as he wears the necklace I gave him.” He paused, and
Kabede thought he saw a dim amber light twinkling briefly in the dark lens. “The
Rider is with Piishi now. They are moving up into the mountains.”

“How do you know they are together?”
Kabede asked.

Faustus let the loupe drop into his
palm, and he slipped it into his vest pocket.

“Piishi would not move otherwise.
They will reach the stronghold soon.”

“What’s the plan if this Indian
shaman decides he don’t care for Joe’s palaver?” Belden asked.

“We shall cross that bridge when we
come to it. For now, I suggest a watch on the wagon and animals, beginning with
myself, and sleep for the rest of you.”

“You know,” said Belden, as Faustus
opened the vardo door, “if these
rurales
decide they want this rig, Corporal Mendez ain’t gonna stop them. And if we
kill one Mexican we’re going to have to kill ‘em all.”

“I suggest sleeping with your guns
loaded then, Mister Belden,” Faustus said, before ducking outside and closing
the door.

“You still don’t trust that old man,”
Belden said, settling down on Faustus’ own cot.

“No, I don’t,” said Kabede, sitting
erect, his rifle across his knees.

Belden put his hat over his eyes.

“Maybe you should’ve taken first
watch then.”

He was snoring easily in moments.

Nothing untoward happened in the
night, though each subsequent watchman strained his eyes to detect some
creeping form in the shadow around the vardo. Kabede walked the length of the
camel train to the Rider’s onager tied behind, but the animals raised no alarm.
He fed them and watered them, and listened intently for the sound of spur or
hammer beneath the ceaseless drunken clamor raised by the Mexicans.

A bit before dawn, when the sky was
purpling like a bruise, the voices finally dwindled and turned to snores.
Belden yawned and scratched his chin, thinking of breakfast.