The Six Messiahs

So, following at an agreeable distance, the hospital schooner brought up the rear of their five-wagon mule train as it rolled out of Wickenburg; the Rabbi and Eileen in back, doing her best Florence Nightingale. Once they were out of town, the tall, thin doctor—who happened to be headed for The New City as well; who was in fact driving their wagon—peeked through the ratted burlap curtain at the nurse and her patient.

'Sorry about the bumps,''li^ said, 'but I don't think you can attribute it to my driving, however incompetent it might be. A little asphalt they could use in Arizona.'

'You're doing fine, Jacob,' said Eileen.

'What about my suit? Did any of your colleagues recognize it?'

'I took pieces from three different costumes we aren't even using in this production; if anyone noticed, they would have mentioned it by now.'

'I hope nobody else comes down with anything,' said Jacob. 'If I'm supposed to be a doctor, I'm afraid they'll find my knowledge of medicine to be slightly deficient.'

'If anyone asks, we'll tell them I misunderstood; you're actually a horse doctor.'

'Good; at least the horses can't contradict me. But please God don't let any of them get sick: I won't even known which end to look into.'

She moved back in the wagon, removed Jacob's round hat from the ailing man's head, and wiped his forehead with a damp cloth; he looked up at her with his dull strange eyes.

'Thank you,' said Kanazuchi.

'That beard doesn't chafe too much, does it?' she asked. 'Afraid I used a bit too much spirit glue to fix it on but we couldn't have it melting in the heat and have any hope of carrying the whole thing off, could we?'

Kanazuchi shook his head. His hand found Grass Cutter lying under the long black coat at his side and he closed his eyes, letting the bumps and jolts of the wagon carry him toward meditation. He needed sleep now; the wound cleaned and freshly dressed, no sign of infection. The dry desert heat felt comforting. He trusted the wisdom of the body to take care of the rest.

Eileen watched the Japanese until he drifted into sleep, still trying to digest everything he and Jacob had told her: stolen books, haunting dreams about a tower in the desert, disturbingly similar to the one that rumors said was being built in the town they were headed for. As he slept, she moved across the wagon, settling just behind Jacob on the driver's seat.

He rattled the reins and called out to his charges, 'You are the most excellent mules, you're driving very straight now in a very satisfactory way. I can't tell you how pleased I am with you.'

'How are you getting along?' she asked.

'Splendidly! Driving is a very simple procedure; you pull the reins to the left, they go to the left; pull to the right, they go right,' said Jacob; then he leaned back toward her. 'You're the first person I've ever confessed it to, but I have always had a secret desire to be a cowboy.'

'Your secret's safe with me,' she said.

Jacob ran a hand over his smoothly shaven face, looking fifteen years younger shorn of the Old Testament whiskers Eileen had then diligently pasted onto Kanazuchi. 'I haven't been without a beard since I was a boy. Sixteen years old; part of my religious requirements, you know. We're not supposed to touch a razor to our skin; they say it's too reminiscent of pagan bloodletting rituals.'

'Thank heaven you didn't cut yourself shaving.'

'Thank heaven I didn't try shaving while bumping around in these feckukteh wagons; I'd look like one of those revolving poles outside a barber shop.'

'You look very handsome, Jacob. You'll probably have women chasing you all over the desert.'

'Really?' he said, stopping to consider the idea. 'What a strange experience that would be. Tell me, how is our patient?'

'Resting comfortably.'

'Good. What a marvelous sensation: to feel the air on my skin again. I feel as naked as a newborn baby. To be honest, if I were to look in a mirror I would hardly know whose face this is.'

Yours, she thought. Only yours, you dear sweet man.

The mules slackened their pace, looking for guidance from the reins.

'Oy there, giddyup, I think that's tjie appropriate expression, isn't it? Giddyup, meine schene kleine chamers. Oy there!'

The special express train carrying Buckskin Frank and his volunteer avengers did not reach Wickenburg until just after sunset. Procedural details of commandeering a train after Frank found blood on the tracks had delayed them in Phoenix for four precious hours. Drawn by the announcement of a five-thousand-dollar reward, the posse had snowballed to include nearly forty men by now, picking up self-righteous crusaders like dog hair on a dust mop as they rolled through Arizona, and a plague of journalists had attached themselves as well. The result: A simple task like questioning the Wickenburg Station personnel turned into a Tower of Babel; every volunteer and reporter taking it upon himself to conduct his own investigation until Frank had to fire his Henry semiautomatic carbine into the air to shut them up.

As it turned out, no one at the station had seen a Chinaman get off the noon mail run with the Penultimate Players, but the train was still standing in the yard and, even though somebody had tried to clean up the traces, Frank found a fair amount of blood had spilled out onto the floor of the cargo car. Enough evidence to move on; and more than enough to fire up this pack of amateur headhunters into wanting to make a night ride to Skull Canyon, where the troupe of actors was scheduled to bunk in.

Following Frank's advice, the posse did not wire ahead to the Skull Canyon telegraph office for fear of tipping anyone off: Easy enough to convince his fellow pursuers that was the prudent move; if Chop-Chop—a Phoenix newspaper had hung that headline-grabbing nickname on the marauding Chinaman and it was catching on fast— was this close at hand, the posse naturally wanted the glory of his capture to rain down only on themselves. After posing for a flurry of self-aggrandizing photographs, weighed down with so many weapons and bandoliers they might be mistaken for Pancho Villa's army, the posse repaired to Wickenburg's only saloon for some serious drinking.

Figured these actors would be the ones to harbor a murdering fugitive, the talk in McKinney's Cantina soon developed. Two peas in a pod. Can't trust theatrical people—that much was common knowledge, if not sense—ever since John Wilkes Booth shot the President, an event nearly every one of these armchair lawmen was old enough to remember. Actors were liars by profession, 'specially the traveling kind: whorin', thievin' rascals. Lock up your daughters and hide the silverware. Ought to be a law, and so on.

In plenty of places out west there were such laws, Sheriff Tommy Butterfield pointed out in his bland, pedantic, meandering way; upon their arrival, actors are required to notify local law enforcement of their comings and goings. Not in Arizona, mind you, but plenty of other places.

Well what in damnation are we paying our elected representatives for if not to protect us from the likes of these roving bands of actor-desperadoes, some paragon of well-heeled civic virtue piped in, and furious debate was joined pitting leading citizen against elected official. The whiskey that had started to trickle on the train flowed like the Colorado and any hope of the posse riding on that night faded faster than the dying twilight.

Buckskin Frank, who was not in a drinking mood by choice and never in an arguing one by nature, realized a squall had started inside that could take hours to blow over; so as the storm raged, he slipped quietly out the door.

A night ride with this bunch of knuckleheads was a dumb idea anyway, realized Frank: They'd probably trot themselves right off the top of a mesa in parade formation. Nor was Frank looking forward to making the trek with them during the day, when this high country turned hot as the hinges of hell. The only activity these big bellies had ever shown any talent for was sucking the money out of poor folks' pockets. Hunting down criminals in the wilderness didn't even qualify as a hobby.

Frank lit a smoke, looked around, and realized with a jolt he was alone for the first time since they had unlocked the door of his cell. Empty streets; the whole town busy jawing in the saloon. The posse had carried their horses up from Phoenix on the train; his roan was morning fresh and saddled up in a stable less than fifty yards from where he was standing. A wild thrill ran through him: Maybe he should light out for Mexico right now.

Molly's voice came into his head: Get a grip on your bishop, Frankie boy; there's a hundred angles could go haywire between here and the border. That's exactly the bull-brained sort of shortsighted scheming that has