Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name (13 page)

“Well,
it’s not much, but it’s what a three hundred three dollar investment gets you. Goddamned
city made me dismantle my faro table,” Doc muttered in explanation to the
Rider. “It’s dried me up some. You want a drink?” he said, sauntering up to the
bar.

“No
thank you,” the Rider said, coming to stand alongside him.

“Hey
Kudrecki, pass the whiskey bottle down, will you?”

The
big bartender produced a brown bottle and a glass and slid it down the bar into
Doc’s waiting hands.

“When
can we go to get my gun?”

Doc
sipped his whiskey contemplatively.

“Tomorrow.
I’m not overly familiar with Rudabaugh’s
associates, but I know where he goes to make and lose his money. We have to
allow him travelin’ time. Come morning we’ll head there.”

* * *
*

The Rider was directed to a cot in the back room behind a cheesecloth
curtain. He said his prayers and bedded down, listening to the clink of glasses
and low laughter. As usual, he didn’t sleep much. Whenever he drifted off there
was a buzzing in his ears or a flutter of something against his eyelids. He
still held the rosette token, so Lilith’s spawn could do no more than harry his
sleep, but it was enough. The last good long rest he’d had had been induced by
a bullet wound. He jumped awake several times, seeing red lights bouncing in
the dark behind his eyelids. Once he thought he saw the diminutive shed
Mazzamauriello perched on the foot of the cot like a leering black toad, and he
bolted upright and grabbed at his gun, which wasn’t there.

He
was awakened abruptly by the sound of loud voices arguing, a man’s and a
woman’s. The tone of the words was harsh and venomous, but the details murky in
his exhausted ears. By the time he got out of the creaking cot and stepped
sleepily into the bar, the argument was at its end, punctuated with the woman,
a plain featured, dark haired woman with hard eyes and gaudy clothes, smacking
a newly drained shot glass down on the bar, so hard a silver crack appeared in
it.

“To
hell with you, Doc,” she hissed in a thick Eastern European accent. “I’m going
back to Prescott. This is the last time.”

All
this ire was directed at Doc, who neatly poured himself a drink. He had barely
moved from the spot the Rider had seen him occupying the night before.

“Promises,
promises,” he murmured as the woman whirled and stormed out into the street.

Doc
looked after the woman, then returned his attention to the bar and knocked back
his drink, staring darkly into the bottom of the glass when he had finished.

The
Rider cleared his throat and stepped out.

“Good
morning, Doc.”

“Oh,
you just missed meeting my little Hungarian ray of sunshine,” he said, visibly
brightening. “Don’t worry, you’ll have another chance.”

He
put the glass down and stared at it a moment, then pushed it and the whiskey
bottle off the business end of the bar, where they smashed on the floor.

The
sleepy-eyed bartender looked over disapprovingly.

“Leave
it,” Doc said, straightening his necktie. “I’ll get it myself when I get back.”

* * * *

It was a cool morning, and the previous night’s compliment of drunks had
lessened, but not entirely dissipated. A good many well-dressed Mexicans had
supplanted them, and were going in and out of the businesses with parcels.

On
the boardwalk they met a big man with a beard and a sparkling gold tooth as he
came out of the bakery next door with a paper wrapped and partially eaten loaf
of bread under his arm.

“’Morning,
‘pard,” Doc said, greeting the man.

“Hey
Doc,” the man said, around a mouthful of bread.
“Didn’t know
you were back yet.”

“This
is Jordan Webb, my partner in the saloon,” Doc said to the Rider. “Jordan, this
is Rider.”

“Pleased
to know you,” said Webb, though the askance look he gave the Rider’s curls and
dress said otherwise.

“Did
you hear about the train robbery last night?”

“I
heard somethin’ about that, yeah,” said Webb.

“Did
you hear about it from Hoodoo by any chance?” he asked slyly, affecting a
knowing look.
“Maybe yesterday or the day before?”

“What’s
the matter, Doc?”

“Mr.
Rider and I were on the train and had some of our possessions taken. I thought
I recognized one or two of the miscreants.
Or maybe all six
of them.
Friends of yours.
Frank Cady, Dave
Rudabaugh…”

“Hoodoo
ain’t gonna like you pickin’ a fight with Rudabaugh,” said Webb, showing his
palms in a placating gesture. “My advice to you…”

“Is
unsolicited,” Doc said abruptly. “Did you see him this morning?”

“He
come
into Bill Goodlett’s saloon an hour ago. That’s
when I left.”

“You
own a damn saloon, Jordan,” Doc said. “How the hell does that look for us if
you’re seen drinkin’ at Bill Goodlett’s?”

“Well,
I don’t like drinkin’ our supply. Thinkin’ on the money while I drink gives me
stomach pains.”

“You’ve
got a whole loaf of bread there to settle your belly. I’ll see you later.”

Doc
stomped off the boardwalk and crossed the street, steering a purposeful course
that the Rider was obliged to follow.

“Who
is “Hoodoo?’” the Rider asked.

“Hoodoo
Brown,” Doc said. “He runs East Las Vegas. He’s duly-elected justice of the
peace and coroner. Half the gunmen in town are on his payroll, and the other
half are men like Dirty Dave and his pals. Hoodoo turns a blind eye to their
doings so long as he gets a cut of it. In turn, they rest easy knowing if
they’re apprehended it’s Hoodoo’s job to populate the jury boxes. He decides
cause of death too. You’d be surprised at the amount of suicides shoot
themselves in the back around here.”

“You
don’t get along with them?”

“I’ve
worked with several of Hoodoo’s boys on occasion. A lot of us came straight
here when the Royal Gorge War ended. Jordan counts himself as one of their
number. I do not.”

They
crossed a footbridge out of the bustling tent and clapboard settlement and into
the older, more respectable adobe neighborhoods he’d seen through the train
window the night before. There was a large plaza in the center of town, and the
Rider saw the windmill again. Someone had cut the body down, but a single
frayed piece of hemp tied to the crossbeam attested to the reality of its
previous ornamentation, and someone had strung up a skinny cur dog in its
place. The dog’s head was at a sharp angle and its tongue hung from the side of
its jaw, as limp as the rest of its boney body.

“Kids,”
Doc said with a shrug as they passed.

They
came at last to a place called ‘The Health Office Saloon,’ an adobe place with
a pair of swinging doors and a picture window out front.

Doc
pointed out a big man at the bar, but the Rider already recognized the nearly
bursting duster and sweat-stained hat.

“Dirty
Dave is a lout, but he won’t shirk from a fight,” Doc warned. “And big as he
is, he’ll forgo a fist fight and go to guns like as not. You’re not heeled, but
for that knife?”

“I
don’t have another gun, no,” the Rider said.

Doc
opened his coat, revealing a .45 on his hip.

“Well
then pretend like you’ve got one and stay behind me,” he said.

“It
might go better the other way around,” the Rider suggested.

“No
offense friend, but looking like you do, and going in there with just your dick
in your hand, you might set that bull to charging.”

“I’ve
settled a charging bull or two in my time,” the Rider said. “Besides, we need
him alive and talking.”

“Your
call,” Doc said. “However you want to play it.”

The
Rider pushed through the doors with Doc behind him and walked into the cigar
smoke and man chatter.

The
saloon was better than Doc’s place, no doubt. The bar was polished wood and
there was a big mirror behind it, and a painting of a reclining nude above
that. Gaming tables were full and running about the place, and the bartender
had on a clean white shirt and vest.

The
Rider went to the bar and laid his right hand flat on it.

Dirty
Dave Rudabaugh was belly to the bar, a few feet to his left, wide gun belt
sagging with the weight of his pistol, big calloused pig knuckle hands grasping
bottle and glass. He had a bulldog face and double chin papered with rough
stubble, a single thick fold in the back of his neck to match. He sported a
luxuriant down-swept mustache below a lumpy pear nose. The graying hair on his
head was cropped short and his meaty face seemed to squeeze at the bases of his
big red ears. He carried a lot of extra weight, but he was solid as a boar.

The
man was built to be a bully, and sure enough, he berated the bartender
offhandedly for the cleanliness of his glass, though he was the dirtiest man in
the place.

“This
glass looks like you wiped it with your dick head, Tetchy,” he rumbled.

He
set it down and with a flick of his thick finger, sent it smashing onto the
floor behind the bar.

Tetchy
the bartender looked angered, but stooped to clean up the mess.

“Bring
me another one.”

“You
gonna pay to replace that one, Dirty?” Tetchy muttered.

“What?”
said
Dirty
, his pale blue eyes bright in his mean
face.

Tetchy
rose, busted glass rattling in a dustpan and paled at Dirty’s look.

“Nothing.”

He
dipped slightly and set another glass in front of Dirty, then returned to the
Rider.

“What’ll
you have?” he asked, eyeing the Rider with open curiosity bordering on
amusement.

The
Rider closed his fingers around the shot glass.

“I’ll
have whatever that fat pig Dave Rudabaugh is having,” the Rider said loud and
clear.

The
chatter in the bar stopped and he heard creaking chairs and leather as heads
and bodies turned in their seats to see who’d spoken.

Dirty turned too, his lips pinched and his eyes glaring.
There was a confused expression on his face for a half a second as Dirty took
in the Rider, then he blinked and straightened, his hand dropping to his side.

The
Rider pitched the shot glass at him, with all the force and accuracy a
practiced stone thrower in the Army had taught him. The little glass struck
Dirty in the upper lip with such force it exploded, rocking his head back and
knocking his hat off, sending blood, glass, and a chip off his eye tooth flying
in all directions.

In
another minute Doc was there, and he smashed Dirty’s groping hand with the
barrel of his own .45, then followed up with a knee to his big belly that left
the man spluttering and groaning.

Doc
looked at the Rider with open admiration.

“I
never thought I’d meet a man faster with a whiskey glass than I was.”

The
Rider smiled thinly and moved to his side.

Doc
gripped the bandanna around Dirty’s neck and hoisted him up so his back and
elbows were on the bar.

“You
busted my mowf!”
Dirty whined.

“You’d
complain if you were beat with a golden stick, David,” Doc said. “If it had
been me you tried to draw on, you’d be shitting through a hole in your gut
right now. Now, I believe you have something of mine.”

Dirty’s
eyes were wide, scared.

“In m’coat pocket.”

Doc
tightened his grip on Dirty’s throat and reached down with his other hand,
taking out Dirty’s pistol and passing it to the Rider. Then he stuffed his hand
in the man’s duster pocket and came out with his own nickel plated revolver.

“That’s
fine,” Doc said, slipping the gun into the holster under his arm. “Just fine,
David. But you also appropriated a weapon belonging to my associate here. Where
is it?”

Dirty’s
eyes flitted to the Rider.

“That gold gun?
Sonsofbitches made off wiv it. I took the
wrong damn sack. Came back here with nothin’ to show for it but
a bag fulla lanterns
.”

“Lanterns,”
the Rider said. “Why were you stealing lanterns?”

“Wasn’t
my idea,” Dirty said.
“Dodgy’s.”

“Dodgy
Shunderburguer,” Doc confirmed. “What does Dodgy want with lanterns?”

“They
got some kinda iron in the fire, wouldn’t tell me what. Said they needed all
the red glass lanterns they could get.”

“Who’s
“they?’”

Dirty hesitated.

“Aw
hell, I don’t give a damn. Dodgy, Frank Cady, Slap Jack Bill, Crazy Horse Bob,
Bullshit Jack and the Professor.”