went through two himself, silent as before, his movements spare and economical. His wound stayed clean, no festering; the strange man seemed to be using the energy he conserved to consciously will himself to heal and damned if it wasn't working; his pallor gone, breathing steady and strong.
At the moment, Eileen felt more concern for Jacob, driving their wagon all day in the blinding heat; she spelled him at the reins for a stretch until the swelter drove her back under the cover of the canvas. She knew the poor man had to be exhausted just from the tossing and jolting the rough road gave their buckboard—his face scarlet, sweat soaking his shirt—but he never complained, cheerful and buoyant as ever, making it impossible for her to give in to her rising sense of apprehension.
Damn Bendigo anyway for marching them out across a desert in the heat of the day; their first performance wasn't until tomorrow night, they shouldn't have attempted this crossing until the sun went down; the road was well marked and the wagons all equipped with lanterns. But heaven forbid they should show up late for a free meal; Rymer might lose a nickel.
Winding down from the foothills of the Juniper Mountains and into the sands of the eastern Mojave, their caravan had just passed through an eerie formation of spiraling vertical pillars, etched out of limestone and silt, rising from the flats like a forest of rock. The wagons rounded a corner in the densest part of the stand and came to a crude gate fashioned from large cut logs, the first sign they'd seen of human hands in hours. A small hut, built from the same wood, apparently empty, stood to the side.
A sharp whistle blew.
Out of nowhere, a dozen heavily armed men—people; Eileen realized half of them were women—appeared on every side and above them on top of the pillars, rifles cocked and trained on the wagons. They wore light cotton pants, heavy steel-tipped boots, and identical collarless white tunics; each one equipped with a belt of bullets slung around their waists.
Something else odd about them: They were all smiling.
A tall woman, the only one without a rifle—she wore twin-holstered sidearms and a whistle around her neck—stepped forward to the gate and spoke to Rymer in the lead wagon.
'Welcome to The New City, friend,' said the woman cheerfully in a loud, clear voice. 'What is your business with us today, please?'
'We are the Penultimate Players,' said Bendigo, with a grand sweep of his Tyrolean hat. 'Theatrical vagabonds. Come to entertain, amuse, and, one hopes, humbly, to please.'
The woman smiled at him. 'One moment, please.'
She opened and consulted a list in a leather-bound folder she carried and apparently found a corresponding entry.
'And your name, sir?'
'I am Bendigo Rymer, director of our happy band; entirely at your service, madam.'
'How many in your party, Mr. Rymer?'
'We are seventeen, uh, nineteen of us, in all.'
'Thank you, sir; you are expected,' she said, closing the book. 'We will have a look in your wagons, and you can go right on in.'
'By all means,' said Rymer. 'We have nothing to hide.'
The woman gave a signal, and the guards on the ground moved swiftly forward, throwing open the wagon flaps, while the ones stationed on the pillars held their rifles pointed and ready.
'Good afternoon,' said Jacob to the handsome young black guard who took hold of the bridle on his mules.
'Good afternoon, sir,' said the man, well-spoken, smiling broadly.
'You have a tremendous amount of heat out here in your desert this afternoon,' said Jacob, mopping his brow.
'Yes, sir,' said the guard, still smiling, never taking his eyes off' him.
The canvas yanked away from the rear of their buckboard: Kanazuchi had pulled himself into a sitting position, swords hidden under the skirt of his coat. Startled, Eileen turned to look at the face of the guard; a slight young woman, no more than twenty, pony-tailed and freckle-faced, but she moved with the sharp assurance of a well-trained soldier. Her eyes darted methodically around the empty wagon—what is she looking for? Eileen wondered—and settled on Kanazuchi for a moment. He nodded and smiled, betraying no uneasiness. The girl smiled in return, a gaptoothed grin that suggested no undue curiosity.
'Hello,' said Eileen.
'Have a glorious day,' said the girl, and dropped the canvas cover.
The guards on the ground stepped back and signaled to the woman at the gate; she leaned on a stone counterweight and the log barrier rose up smoothly, clearing their path.
'Please proceed, Mr. Rymer,' she said to Rymer. 'Do not attempt to leave the road. When you reach The New City, someone will meet you with further instructions.'
'We are most grateful, madam,' said Rymer.
With sweat covering his body, Bendigo congratulated himself on the unflappable coolness of his performance—authority figures outside the theater paralyzed him, particularly when heavily armed—but the woman hadn't noticed even the slightest uneasiness. What an actor he was! He urged his mules through the gate. The other wagons quickly followed.
'Have a glorious day!' said the woman at the gate, smiling and waving at each passing wagon.
'Thank you,' said Jacob, returning her wave. 'You, too!'
Eileen peeked out of the back as the log gate closed behind them; the guards on the pillars watched them roll away, rifles still in hand, while the others disappeared back to their hiding places.
'What do you make of that?' asked Eileen.
'I detect the fine hand of religious fanaticism,' said Jacob from the front seat.
As he joined her to look through the flap, Eileen noticed a profound change in Kanazuchi; he looked revitalized by their encounter at the gate—focused, senses keenly attuned, his movements regaining their catlike precision and alertness. Although she felt no threat to herself, for the first time she felt a reason to fear him: He seemed more animal than man.
'Strange, weren't they?' she asked.
'Serious people,' said Kanazuchi.
'Seriously happy.'
'No,' he said, shaking his head slightly. 'Not happy.'
From the checkpoint forward, the road improved dramatically; hard packed dirt graded and leveled on top of the sand, nearly eliminating the rocking of the wagons. Across the dry flatlands to the rear, a distant rhythmic pounding faintly reached their ears. Eileen shielded her eyes and peered out in that direction but could see nothing on the heat-distorted horizon.
'What is that?'
'They are putting up fences,' said Kanazuchi. 'Barbed wire.'
'Who is?'
'The people in white.'
'You can see that from here?'
He didn't respond; Kanazuchi discarded Jacob's round hat, removed the long black coat, and began to strip off the motley patchwork beard.
They were getting close.
Time to reassume his own identity.
By nine o'clock that morning, the Chicago Western Union office had received a flurry of responses to their late-night barrage of telegrams. Attaching the name Arthur Conan Doyle to the inquiries greatly increased the alacrity and density of detail in the returns, particularly from newspaper editors, most of whom confessed they couldn't help with the requested information but were unable to resist firing off a question or two about the uncertain fictional fate of you-know-who.
As they had suspected, the most promising results came back in a lengthy reply from the
