Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name (14 page)

“Who’s
the Professor?” Doc asked.

“Just
what goes on here, Doc?”
came
a voice from the
doorway.

The
Rider turned, and framed in the open doors was an older, big-bellied man with a
rich salt-and-pepper mustache and swept sideburns, in a tweed vest and cream
colored topper. There was a gun belt around his waist, but he was fingering his
drooping watch chain idly. By the look of the two armed men behind him, he
didn’t have much call to use his gun.

“Just
having a talk with David here about the misappropriation of firearms and
lanterns,” Doc said.

“Lanterns?”
said the man in the doorway. “Those wouldn’t be train lanterns would they?”

“You
have an interest in train lanterns, Hoodoo?”

“Not
so much.” he admitted. Then he spoke directly to Dirty, who was wincing as if
he’d just seen the passing of the last of his luck. “But in a bag of cash that
got taken off the AT&SF last night, you bet I do.”

Tetchy
the bartender moved toward the back room, attracting Hoodoo’s attention as well
as those of his two bodyguards (both who wore city marshal bands pinned on
their hats).

“Hang
on Tetchy,” said Hoodoo. “Where’s Dodgy today?”

“He
ain’t been here in two days, Hoodoo.”

Hoodoo’s
eyes went to the Rider for the first time. There was a hint of amusement in the
corner of his mouth.

“Who’s
this dude?”

“A
friend of mine from Georgia,” Doc said. “He’s alright. Rider, this is Hoodoo
Brown, esteemed Justice of the Peace.”

The
Rider nodded.

Hoodoo
sucked his teeth.

“What’s
your interest here, Rider?”

“My
pistol was stolen last night.”

“Take
Dirty’s then, and call it even.”

“It’s
a very rare pistol, your honor,” said the Rider, “and an heirloom besides. I’m
disinclined to let it go.”

Hoodoo
raised his eyebrows.

“Well,
awright. Let’s all go back to my office and sort this thing out.” He turned to
go, and touched the arm of one of his men. “You stay here. Open up a tab with
Tetchy. See if Dodgy shows his face.”

The
slim, dark haired marshal nodded and went to the bar.

* * * *

Hoodoo Brown’s office door, situated in the adobe town hall, bore the
legend ‘Hyman Neill, Justice of the Peace, Coroner.’ When the six of them had
entered and closed the door behind them, Dirty was flung into a chair facing
Hoodoo’s big polished desk, and Hoodoo sat down and laid his big knuckled hands
flat on the green blotter, where a folded copy of the Las Vegas Daily Optic
lay.

“I
always played you fair, haven’t I, Dirty?” Hoodoo said.

“Fair
enough,” Dirty agreed, wiping his bloody face with his sleeve.

“And
I played Bullshit and Dodgy and those others the same. When you all robbed the
Barlow and Sanderson stage outside Tecolote I didn’t ask to wet my beak, not
even when you hit it again a couple weeks later.”

“I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that,”
Dirty muttered.

“You
make a fair to middling constable and a handy gun for a burg like this, but as
a liar you’re tits on a bull. You know the terminus is in New Town. That makes
the train my jurisdiction. It
don’t
get touched without
my permission.” He picked up the paper and slapped it with the back of his
hand. “The goddamned city fathers are already complainin’ about our lack of
subtlety. Then you go and steal two thousand dollars off the alcalde’s
cousin....”

“There
was two thousand dollars in that bag?”
Dirty interrupted,
almost choking.

“You
gonna tell me you didn’t know how much he was carrying? Gonna tell me you boys
didn’t know about him comin’ from California with all that money? I’ll be lucky
they don’t sic the goddamned Pinkertons on me.”

“Hell,
I thought he was just another high hat Mex, Hoodoo! Honest! I didn’t even get a
chance to count that damn money. I swear I didn’t know that Mex was nobody. The
whole thing was Dodgy’s idea!
Him and the Professor!”

“Who
is the Professor?” Doc asked.

“Some
skinny, suit wearin’ Englishman,” Hoodoo said dismissively.
“Too
big for his goddamned britches.
He’s been in town for two weeks,
throwin’ a lot of money around, buyin’ up my men, apparently.”

“What’s
his line?”

“Who
knows? I can’t keep track of every dude that blows in off the rails. We had him
figured for a speculator, not a goddamned mastermind.” He turned on Dirty.
“Where are those idiots now? They’re not in town, or we’d of found them by
now.”

“They’re
up at a little place on Elk Mountain. It’s an old miner’s cabin.”

“Elk
Mountain’s a lotta ground. You know where?”

“They
drew me a map,” Dirty said, taking a crumpled piece of paper from his hip
pocket and smoothing it out on Hoodoo’s desk. “I
never been
up there myself. I only went along on the train for the swag.”

“No
shit,” said Hoodoo, squinting at the chaotic geometry of the creased map.

“No,
I mean, they wasn’t even interested in robbin’ the passengers. All they wanted
was the damn signalman’s lanterns and the spare globes.”

“What for?”

“Got
me hangin’,” said
Dirty
, shrugging. “We
was
only supposed to get all the lanterns and the boxes of
red glass globes in the caboose. We
was
supposed to
ride straight for Elk Mountain after that, but it was easy to cut loose from
them in the dark. Only I grabbed the wrong goddamned sack, like I said.”

“What
did you do with the lanterns?” the Rider asked.

“I
slung ‘em in the ditch out back of the Rincon Hotel. They
was
just lanterns. I was waitin’ at Bill’s for Dodgy to come along so I could get
my money, or else pawn Doc’s pistol, come out with somethin’ for myself.”

“What
the hell would those idiots want with all the lanterns on a train?” Hoodoo
mused.

“Maybe
they jumped some poor bastard’s claim,” Doc suggested. “Maybe they’re usin’ the
lights for the tunnels.”

“It’s
likely a working mine would have its own lighting in place already,” the Rider
said. “Why did they only grab the red glasses?”

“What
about it, Dirty?” Hoodoo pressed.

“All’s
I know is we
was
supposed to meet at a cabin on Elk
Mountain. They never told me what the lights was for, nor mentioned nothin’
about
no
mine. Hell, I didn’t care. I’d planned to cut
out on ‘em anyway.” His eyes flitted for a moment. “I was gonna cut you in,
Hoodoo.”

“Aw
shut up,
Dirty
,” Hoodoo said, tiredly, rubbing his
forehead. “Just leave the map and your gun and go clean yourself up for
Crissakes.”

“My gun?”
Dirty stammered.

“For
this man,” Hoodoo said, indicating the Rider. “Recompense, so he can go his own
way.”

Dirty
muttered, but stood up, unbuckled his gun belt and dropped it on the desk.

“Thanks,”
said the Rider, shrugging past Dirty and taking his pistol belt. “But if you’ll
let me copy that map, I’m going up to Elk Mountain.”

“You
really set on retrievin’ that pistol of yours?” Hoodoo said, watching the Rider
buckle Dirty’s gun on.

“Come
now, Rider,” Doc said. “One gun’s just as good as another.”

“Not
when it’s mine,” said the Rider.

“What
line are you in, mister?”

“I’m
a bookseller.”

Hoodoo
smiled thinly

“A
bookseller,” he repeated.

“That’s
right,” said the Rider.

“And what brang you to East Las Vegas?
Besides
the train.”

“I
had some correspondence I needed to pick up.
For a deceased
friend.”

“Correspondence?”

“Yes.
We were…business partners. I wanted to check the post office to see if he had
any letters.”

“Well,
they don’t normally release letters to anybody other’n the addressee.”

“I
know,” said the Rider. “But I thought the postmaster might make an exception.”

“He
might at that. But not for you.” Hoodoo leaned forward on his elbows. “But I’ll
tell you
what,
it just so happens the postmaster’s a
near and dear friend of mine. You’re headin’ up to Elk Mountain anyhow.
I seen
how fast you are with a whiskey glass, and how quick
you are to strap on a gun. It might be that if you’re up for doin’ a little
work
for me, I could arrange for you to take a peak at this
ex-business partner’s mailbox.”

“I’m
not an assassin,” the Rider said flatly.

“Oh,
I could care less what happens to them boys up there. Just need somebody who
can keep from getting killed himself. And…who can bring back
that
two thousand dollars.”

The
Rider considered. He’d known men like Hoodoo Brown at various times in his
life; opportunists, who somehow managed to set themselves up over stronger men
than themselves, men who would shed blood at a word. He supposed the secret was
that for all their railing about being individuals not bound by the law of man,
such men that acted on instinct rarely had any higher ambition. Such men needed
a thinking villain like Hoodoo Brown, in the same way that a fighting cock
needs a handler to feed and care for it, to polish its spurs and point it in
the right direction.

The
Rider was no such man, but the offer was a sound one. He had intended to bribe
the postmaster, but the trip to New Mexico Territory had shed him of much of
his remaining cash.

“I’ll
see what I can do.”

“Sure
Rider,” said Doc. “You’re just going to ride up into the mountains on your ass
and ask those boys to give you your gun and two thousand dollars? That’s a
sight I’d like to see. You know, I might be interested in takin’ a little day
trip up to Elk Mountain myself. I hear the view is spectacular.”

Hoodoo’s
eyes narrowed.

“I
don’t suppose that two thousand dollars would have anything to do with your
wanting to go up there would it, Doc?”

“If
you’re keen on protecting your interests, send Dirty to keep an eye on us,” Doc
offered.

“I
don’t expect you need me to give you an excuse to dry gulch him, Doc. Everybody
knows you hate him. But I might just send one of my marshals with you.”

“Sure!
Send two or three,” Doc said nonchalantly, reaching for the map on Hoodoo’s
desk.

Hoodoo’s
hand slapped down on the back of his hand.

The
Rider tensed as the two men stared at each other across the desk. The
unfamiliar gun felt heavy on his hip, the curve of the butt unwieldy under his
fingers.

“Be
smart, Doc,” Hoodoo warned. “Be smart, and you’ll have a license to run a faro
table in that saloon of yours again.”

“I’m
an educated man, Hoodoo,” Doc said. “Haven’t you heard?”

“Educated
men ain’t always smart,” Hoodoo said.

They
held each other’s eyes for a minute,
then
Hoodoo
released Doc’s hand and leaned back in his creaking chair.

Doc
pocketed the map and touched the brim of his hat.

Hoodoo
looked to the Rider and locked his fingers across his belly.

“Remember
our deal, stranger. It’s in your interest to keep your friend honest.”

“I’ll
remember,” the Rider promised.

“My
man will meet you at the stableyard in an hour,” Hoodoo called to them as they
left the office.

When
they were out in the street, the Rider caught Doc’s sleeve.

“It’s
important I get my hands on that correspondence,” he said. “Almost as important
as getting my gun back.”

Doc
only smiled and removed the Rider’s hand from his arm.

* * *
*

They spent much of the hour at the stableyard arguing, and when the
tall, dark haired marshal they had seen at Bill Goodlett’s saloon rode up on
his black horse, they were still having the same argument, Doc saddling a grey
mare as the Rider tightened the onager’s pack.

“Is
it that you’re scared to handle a horse in the mountains?” Doc was saying as
the marshal stopped and stared over them, the sun blackening his features and
lining him in gold.
“Because it’s not that steep.”

The
Rider sighed as he brushed the neck of his onager and peered up at the man on
the horse.

“I’m
not
afraid,
I’ve just taken a vow not to ride.”

“But,
what the hell kind of a vow is that? Abstinence from liquor or lewd women,
that’s a vow I can understand the benefits of. But really, do you think God
worries Himself over a horse’s back pain? If God didn’t want man to ride a
horse, He wouldn’t have allowed the saddles to fit so well…”