The Six Messiahs

of what you call ordinary people to live a life that adheres to a semblance of decency; that you 'discovered' the way human beings live, as if you were observing a colony of ants. What gives you the right to pass such judgments? Where's the virtue that elevates you to such a godlike plane? You think your suffering entitles you to an exclusion from justice? Let me tell you: Everyone suffers and it relieves no one of his responsibility to obey the law. Do you honestly believe you're above the reach of consequences for what you've done?'

'Far from it...'

'I'll tell you to your face, you sound like a lunatic, Jack Sparks, and a menace to any person you might meet, myself included. The truth is you've fallen onto the same road that led your brother to that disastrous ruin of a human life. Or has that been your ambition all along?'

Jack couldn't face him now. 'No ...'

'I dispute you. I've built a life for myself these last ten years. I did it with determination and hard work and, yes, through obedience to standards of social order. Without that 'contract binding us, every man dedicated to his own pleasure according to an unfixed code of moral conduct, all you have left is unmitigated savagery and a civilization no better off, no more advanced, than the sort lived by jackals. I thought you were a good man once; no, a great man. I wanted nothing more in my life than to be like you. I am shocked. Shocked and I am bitterly disappointed. If you're the result of a life lived to the contrary, then I say thank God for society and thank God for the laws of man. You've left them behind; you're beyond the pale.'

Jack turned slowly back in his seat and looked at Doyle: his pale face stark white, the scar lining his jaw livid, radiating tension and despair. His mouth hung open; his eyes sank deep into their sockets.

'I never claimed there were no consequences,' he whispered harshly. 'Consequences are all I've been describing.'

'Then let's be clear about it: Are you telling me all this to ask for my sympathy or approval?'

'No...'

'Because if what you want is absolution, I can tell you I haven't the authority or inclination to give it.'

'No, no. I thought... all I had hoped for ... something closer to'—Jack's chest heaved with sudden uncontainable emotion; his breath quivered violently, face contorted in pain-—'to understanding. You, of all people. I thought you might... understand.'

Jack inhaled sharply, then he sobbed. 'I don't know... who I am. I don't know how ... I don't know how to live....'

Doyle watched in shock as the man before him came disastrously undone. His crippled hands clenched spasmodically at the fabric of the seats, tears splashed from his scarlet eyes; he sat upright for a long moment, rigid as a post, then sagged over as if his spine had collapsed.

'I'm so ... ashamed ... so deeply ashamed, the things I've done ... what I've turned into. Like him. You're right: Like him.' Jack's self-hatred so much deeper than any other could have felt for him: Doyle stunned. 'Should have died before I let that happen, should have found courage to kill myself but I couldn't... I couldn't. . .'

Words tumbling out in a rush, fractured by his sobs. 'Put a razor to my wrist.. . gun in my mouth ... too afraid to finish. Couldn't, so afraid to die, any emptiness greater than what... I'd been living. That fear ... all that kept me alive.; Worse than a coward. Worse than an animal... God ... God help me, please, God, help me....'

Jack doubled over, sobbing until it seemed his heart would shatter with the strain. Wounded bellows crashed out of him, like the roll of immense waves, washing Doyle's anger away; pity rose up in him, and remembrance of the good in this man. He reached out to Jack, who seemed now so far beyond human reassurance.

'Jack, no. No, Jack.'

As Doyle's hand sought out his and took hold, Jack stiffened, unable to accept any comfort, his shame even stronger than the pain. His sobs fell away like a retreating tide. He slid his hand from Doyle's grasp, stood up, turned to the wall, and covered his face with both hands. Shudders rippled his back as he struggled to control himself.

'Forgive me,' he whispered. 'Please forgive me.'

'It's all right.'

Jack shook his head once, sharply, and fled from the room, never showing his face, never looking back. Doyle went immediately after him into the hall, but Sparks had already disappeared from sight.

chapter 10

Apparently the rabbi had taken ill somewhere between Phoenix and Wickenburg; a porter had come into the car about half an hour after the old man had gone off to stretch his legs and quietly asked Eileen to accompany him. She returned a few minutes later asking for a flask of liquor—Bendigo wasn't about to give his up—then exited the car again with one borrowed from a stagehand and her makeup case; God forbid a woman should ever leave that behind.

When they left the train at the Wickenburg Station, Eileen insisted on tending personally to Rabbi Stern, warning off other members of the company by telling them that whatever he'd come down with might carry dire threat of contagion; more than enough warning to keep a bunch of superstitious actors at a healthy distance. Bendigo watched Eileen and a tall, thin man in an ill-fitting formal black suit help Rabbi Stern down the steps of the cargo car, where he'd been resting since his 'episode.'

Stern walked slowly, stiff-legged, doubled-over, leaning on their arms for support, still wearing his hat and half-covered with a blanket even in the brutal noonday heat; his long white beard poked over the blanket, but not much else of him was visible. Eileen and the tall volunteer passenger—he was a doctor who happened to be on board the train, according to Eileen, although if he was a doctor, where was his bag?—guided the rabbi inside the station where he rested in seclusion on a cot in the ticket office. Something about the doctor and the suit he was wearing felt familiar, but Bendigo's mind moved on to administrative concerns before anything could surface.

Sets and costumes were loaded off the train and onto the prairie schooners Rymer had hired from a local livery for the last leg of their journey—some sixty miles of rough road; they were scheduled to spend a night on the way at a charming little way station by the name of Skull Canyon. Eileen handily won the argument with Bendigo for allowing Rabbi Stern to continue on with them: Yes, Jacob was fit enough to travel and no, if Bendigo refused to let him go, then she'd be staying behind in Wickenburg as well and if that meant she missed their performances in the New Village or the Happy Hamlet or whatever this place was called, then that was the price Rymer should be prepared to pay. Her understudy was a dim-witted ninny who. would never make it through an entire show without a nervous fit, and as near as they were to the end of the tour Rymer wouldn't dream of laying out the cash required to replace his leading lady.

Actresses! Everything a melodrama! A bizarre infatuation striking as relentlessly as yellow fever or desert disaster, or whatever mysterious disease this rabbi suffered from. Never again, vowed Rymer, would he place himself at the mercy of the female disposition. Certainly not after he had returned and conquered Broadway.... Wait: a brainstorm!

Why shouldn't he find some ravishing young boy to play Ophelia; yes! It's not as if Shakespeare hadn't done it in his day; all the great female roles were originally written for boys to play. That was it; a revival of the grand tradition! And why stop there? Why couldn't a man play Gertrude as well, and every other female part? Why not do away with these bothersome strumpets once and for all? Nothing but trouble anyway, and the critics would surely stand and applaud his reverence for the classics!

Brilliant idea, Bendigo: You see? Even this cloud hides a silver lining.

But Eileen went on to impose one more intolerable condition: a private wagon to transport Rabbi Stern. He had to be quarantined, she argued logically: No other symptoms had appeared among the Players yet, thank God, but did Bendigo want to take the chance of infecting his entire troupe? Fine,

Rymer agreed to the wagon, thinking: I'll be rid of you soon enough, you meddlesome harlot.