The Six Messiahs

chapter 13

SEPTEMBER 29, 1894

AS THE SUN SETS, OUR TRAIN IS CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI River near St. Louis. We departed Chicago at noon; if we meet our connecting train without delay, the journey to Flagstaff, Arizona, will take twenty-four hours. At the station there, a chartered train will be standing by to transport us to the city of Prescott, according to our map less than sixty miles from the location of The New City. How long the ride there will take depends on factors we cannot yet determine: terrain, weather, the quality of roads. Suffice it to say we will make our way as swiftly as humanly possible, and then see what we shall see. Not quite the deluxe excursion of the West Teddy Roosevelt had in mind.

Presto has generously agreed to provide the necessary funding from his apparently limitless reserves; he has hired three private sleeping compartments for the six of us on board. We must all try to rest during this leg of the journey; as difficult as that seems, it may be the last good opportunity we have.

The others are forward in the dining car. JS remains alone in the compartment next to mine. Since his recent confession to me on the train, he has retreated steadily deeper into silence and brooding melancholy. I wish I could say he was preparing for what he senses is to come; I'm more inclined to think what we're witnessing is the slow, strangling death of a personality. Even the realization that his brother survived has not restored the same sense of purpose to him; it is a black and solitary light that burns in Jack's eyes. And after all the man has endured, I do not know how much more any soul can bear.

These three we travel with—Jack, Presto, the Indian woman Mary Williams—and the absent Jacob Stern have been given a responsibility by the common dream that remains out of their reach, one that for whatever reason Innes and I do not explicitly share. But we each have our roles to play and if mine is to act the detective to uncover their true purpose, that is more than enough. I suspect, however, that a more valuable contribution would be to find a way to return Jack to some measure of himself before the final confrontation. Without Jack at the top of his game, whatever lies ahead for these people can end only in disaster. Our time is short; there is only one card left I can think of to play.

Tonight.

The black tower came into view as their wagons skirted the last cluster of rocks and rounded the turn into the settlement; they could see figures milling like ants around the scaffolding that enveloped its central tower as it rose over two hundred feet above the desert floor. Construction was still a fair way from completion—even from this distance sections of its facade appeared to be little more than a shell.

But for all that, to come upon such a stark, incongruous spectacle thrusting skyward from the heart of a wasteland took their breath away.

"That's what you saw in your dream?" asked Eileen, moving up beside Jacob on the driver's seat.

"Close enough," said Jacob, mouth going dry, heart thumping against his ribs. The sight seemed to paralyze him.

"You too?" asked Eileen.

Peering out from the shelter of the canvas flap, Kanazuchi nodded.

"Okay," said Eileen slowly, trying to center her mind on practical concerns. "What do we do now?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said Jacob.

"But—But you said you'd know what to do when you saw it."

"Give me a moment, dear, please. It's unnerving enough to come across something like this to begin with. Without even considering the implications of... of what..." He faltered badly. She noticed the reins trembling in his hands.

Good God, I've made a terrible mistake, Eileen realized. I've been assuming the poor man had some sort of plan, that if what they had dreamt about turned out to be true, he would be able to lead us through whatever followed, but he's frightened and fragile and may have no better idea about how to proceed from here than I do.

"Of course, Jacob," she said. "Bit of a stunner, after all. We'll just have to see, won't we?"

He ran a hand nervously over his chin and couldn't seem to tear his eyes off the tower. She handed him a canteen and held the reins for him as he took a long drink.

"I'm so thirsty," he said quietly and drank again.

A groaning of wood from the wagon's interior. Eileen peered back through the flap; Kanazuchi had ripped up one of the planks in the floor bed with his bare hands. Reaching down, he laid his long sword inside the cavity beneath the boards.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He didn't answer. She noticed he had changed back into his black pajamalike coolie clothes; Jacob's clothes lay folded in a neat bundle. Kanazuchi replaced the plank, concealed his second smaller sword, no more than a long knife, in the waist of his belt, then moved next to them at the opening.

"Jacob," he said quietly.

Jacob turned abruptly to face him, sweat running off his brow, fear lighting his eyes, his breathing rapid and shallow. Their looks engaged. Kanazuchi reached out a hand, and with the tips of his fingers touched Jacob gently on the forehead. Jacob's eyes closed and Kanazuchi's features settled into an expression Eileen had never seen him wear in the short time she had known him; no less feral and alert than before but tempered by a softening of character that suggested deep kindness and a wellspring of compassion.

How completely unexpected, thought Eileen. But then the man claims to be a priest, doesn't he?

Jacob's breathing slowed and settled; the bunched lines on his forehead smoothed. After a minute of this contact, Kanazuchi took his hand away and Jacob opened his eyes.

They were clear again. The fear was gone.

"Remember," said Kanazuchi.

Jacob nodded. Kanazuchi started toward the back; boldly, Eileen reached out and took him by the arm.

"What did you just do?" asked Eileen.

He studied her for a moment; she felt no danger and saw depths in his eyes, realizing how much of himself he kept concealed.

"Sometimes we must remind each other," said Kanazuchi, "of who we really are."

He bowed his head slightly, respectfully. Eileen released her grip. Then, moving like a shadow, Kanazuchi slipped silently out the back of the wagon. Eileen watched him sprint across a stretch of desert and disappear behind a stand of rocks. She looked carefully but did not see him again.

"What did he just do to you?" she asked Jacob.

"If I didn't know any better, and I do, I would say it was something along the lines of... a laying on of hands," he said, climbing into the back.

"Fiddlesticks."

"Now, now; just because a man carries a sword doesn't mean he's a bad person."

"He chops people's heads off."

"My dear lady, we shouldn't impose the values of our culture onto a person from one so completely different from our own, should we?"

"Heaven forbid. And just to show how open-minded I am, maybe I'll take up head shrinking as a hobby."

"I'm sure he could furnish you with a regular supply for practice," he said laughing. "Excuse me, Eileen; before we arrive, I think it best if I changed back into my own clothes. You're supposed to be carrying a sick old rabbi in this rattletrap." He closed the flap and picked up a few wispy scraps of hair from the floor of the wagon. "The beard, I'm afraid, is a total loss."

"If anyone asks, tell them it's a side effect of your disease."

She cracked the reins, urging their mules to catch the other wagons. Moments later, from the back she heard Jacob whistling happily away.

What a remarkable change had come over Jacob since Kanazuchi attended to him, wondered Eileen. But they were both priests and they shared that strange dream; perhaps that meant they had more in common than she could possibly imagine.

"Seems we have company," said Jacob, looking out the back of the wagon. Clouds of dust rose in the far distance on the road behind them; another string of wagons.

Moments later a convincing, albeit beardless, rabbi again, Jacob rejoined Eileen, took the reins, and enjoyed his first look at The New City. The town lay half a mile ahead; twin rows of sturdily constructed clapboard buildings lined either side of a main avenue that terminated at the tower construction site. Only a few of the buildings grouped near its midpoint carried a second story; from there ramshackle houses, little more than shacks, spread out in a disorderly sprawl that extended as far as they could see. The hump of a domed barnlike warehouse, the only other sizeable structure, rose out of their midst to the south.

"My," said Jacob. "These people have been very, very busy."

Directly ahead another guardhouse stood in their way. High barbed wire fences, ran away from it in both directions and encircled the settlement, leaving a broad bare hundred-yard stretch of desert between the fence and the city limits. Armed guards wearing the same white tunics moved out from the gate to meet them as the wagons approached.

"Jacob, I don't mean to be a bother...." She was chewing her lip.

"Yes, dear."

' 'Have you had any more thoughts about my original question?"

"I have, actually; I suggest we smile a great deal and do exactly what is expected of us, while patiently acquiring a sense of the town and who is in charge. You are scheduled to perform here for a week, yes? So we have some time, and as welcome guests this may require less effort than you might suppose. Particularly for someone so effortlessly charming as yourself."

"Okay." Not bad so far.

"Then, very quietly, we should try to find out where they are keeping the books."

"And then?..."

Jacob turned to her and smiled. "Please, my dear, a little forbearance; I'm having to improvise here."

"Sorry," she said, striking a match and lighting a cigarette.

"Part of my training; I like to have all my lines before I walk out on stage."

"Perfectly understandable."

"And him," she said, nodding toward the rocks where Kan-azuchi had disappeared. "What about him?"

"I assume our mysterious friend will proceed along similar lines. We know he's left his weapon here in the wagon; at some point, he'll certainly come back for it."

"We can't very well sit in the wagon all night waiting for him...."

"If he needs us for any reason, he seems more than capable of finding where we are."

Eileen inhaled deeply, let out a cloud of smoke. The guardhouse less than fifty yards off, white shirts fanning out to meet Bendigo in the lead wagon.

"We could die in there," she said.

"The thought had occurred to me."

"It feels sort of ridiculous under the circumstances. Even more than usual. Putting on a play."

"One could also die in bed tonight or have a horse fall on him, or God forbid be struck by lightning from a clear blue sky," he said gently. "That doesn't mean we shouldn't go on living."

She looked at him, chucked her cigarette away, and put her arms around him, laying her head on his shoulder. He touched her hair tenderly. She liked the way he felt and wanted to cry but fought off the tears, reluctant to appear weak.

"Don't go and die on me just yet, all right?" she said. "We've only just met, but I'm growing rather fond of you, you old bag of bones."

"I will try to cooperate. But only because you insist," he said with a laugh.

The wagons ahead slowed to a stop; Rymer, standing up and waving his hat, had a brief exchange with the guards before the gate was raised and the wagons waved through.

"You're supposed to be sick," she reminded him.

Jacob handed her the reins and took his place in the rear before they reached the gate. Eileen returned the enthusiastic waves of the smiling guards as they passed under a sign that read WELCOME TO THE NEW CITY.

"Hello. Hello," she called to them, then muttered through her dazzling smile, ' 'Nice to see you, too, you right bunch of sods. Keep smiling, that's good, you deranged pack of prairie weasels."

The troupe drove through no-man's-land and down Main Street. Facades of all the buildings flanking them sparkled with fresh coats of whitewash; bright flowers in boxes underlined every window and chintz curtains softened their interiors. Plain well-crafted signs announced each building's purpose: dry goods, dentist, silver- and blacksmith, hotel, variety store. Smiling citizens stood outside each establishment on the scrubbed, planked sidewalks and waved happily to the passing wagons. Their shirts gleamed an immaculate white; they all looked healthy and clean.

Ahead on the left a crowd had gathered under a marquee outside the opera house, where a banner read: welcome penultimate players. A joyful cheer went up as the wagons rolled to a halt next to the theater entrance and the ovation continued as more people ran down the street to join the throng, all wearing wide grins and the same white tunics.

Bendigo Rymer stood up again on his perch, waved his hat all around, and bowed deeply in every direction.

The sot's convinced they're all here to welcome him, thought Eileen. Like he died and went to heaven.

"Thank you! Thank you so much," said Bendigo, unheard above the cheering, his eyes awash in tears. "I can't tell you how much you're being here to meet us means to me: such a wonderful, generous reception."

"I don't believe that I have ever seen a man so desperately starved for affection," said Jacob with quiet wonder.

"Count that as a blessing."

The rest of the players were poking their heads out of the other wagons with similar confusion; so far all they'd done was drive into town; what would this crowd be like when they actually gave a performance?

The cheering died instantly as a huge man in a long gray duster, the only person they'd seen in the city not wearing a white tunic, strode out of the pack and approached Bendigo's wagon, accompanied by a frowsy woman carrying an open notebook.

"Welcome to The New City, my friends," said the big man.

"Thank you, I—" started Bendigo.

"Isn't it a glorious day?"

"Indeed, indeed, sir, the likes of which I have never—"

"Are you Mr. Bendigo Rymer, friend?" asked the big man.

"The same, sir, at your service ..."

"Would you step down and have your people come out of the wagons and get together here for me, please?"

"At once, sir!" Bendigo turned to the other wagons and clapped his hands. "Players! Front and center, double time, all together!"

The actors and stagehands gathered beside Bendigo; utterly silent now, and still smiling, the crowd pressed in surrounding them. Eileen helped Jacob out of the back of their wagon and, making it appear as if he was still quite infirm, helped him walk haltingly to the front.

"May I humbly present, for your employment and delectation, Bendigo Rymer's Penultimate Players," said Bendigo, doffing his stupid green hat with a flourish.

The big man carefully counted heads. No one in the crowd moved or whispered. He looked down at the woman's notebook, then counted heads again, finished, and frowned.

"Supposed to be nineteen of you," he said to Bendigo.

"Pardon me?"

"S'only eighteen people here. You said nineteen at the gate. You got an explanation for that, Mr. Rymer?''

Rymer gulped and looked around, caught Eileen's eye, and briefly registered the sight of Jacob without his beard. Eileen saw the man's puny mind working like a hamster on a wheel. He took a step toward the big man, folding his arms, assuming a completely unauthentic camaraderie.

"Yes, of course, it's quite simple really Mr...."

Bendigo fished for a response; the big man stared at him and smiled.

"Uh, my good sir. You see ... this gentleman here," said Rymer, turning and pointing at Jacob, "joined our company in Phoenix, when he took ill, and I must have neglected to include him in our number."

"Then that ought'a be one more, not one less," said the big man. "Shouldn't it?"

Bendigo's smile froze on his face, stricken and fresh out of bright ideas. Eileen walked quickly forward to them.

"I'm sure I can explain," she said calmly. "We did have another gentleman with us when we left the station in Wick-enburg, a doctor who traveled along for a while, to make sure our friend made a proper recovery."

"So where'd he go?" asked the big man.

"He rode back yesterday; he'd brought his horse along, tied to the back of our wagon; the last wagon, you see, trailing quite a ways behind the others—I'm afraid driving a team of mules is somewhat new to me—so Mr. Rymer must have failed to notice when the doctor took his leave."

"That's it, of course," said Rymer, sweat greasing his forehead. "The extra man."

The big man looked back and forth between them, smiling, betraying no reaction. Eileen noticed pistols strapped to the belt under his coat and the handle of a shotgun protruding from a deep inside pocket.

"So this man here," he said, pointing at Jacob. "He's not one of you."

"No, no, not at all," said Rymer hastily.

"He's a friend," said Eileen.

"What's his name?"

"His name is Jacob Stern," said Eileen.

The big man gestured to the woman; she wrote the name down in her notebook. Then she turned the page.

"I need the names of the rest of your people now," said the big man.

"Of course, sir," said Rymer, fumbling out a list.

"What's your name?" asked Eileen.

"What's yours?"

"I asked you first," she said.

Bendigo turned and shot her a dirty glance; Eileen half expected him to kick her in the shin.

"Brother Cornelius, ma'am," said the man with a menacing smile.

"Eileen Temple," she said, extending her hand. The big man looked down at it, slightly off balance, then shook it lightly. "Quite a beautiful town you have here, Brother Cornelius."

"We know," said Cornelius.

"Would you please stop?" whispered Bendigo to her under his smile.

"You'll be staying at the hotel, just down the street," said

Cornelius. "We'll escort you there after you take your stuff into the the-a-ter."

"Marvelous, so looking forward. I'm sure it's an absolutely splendid facility," gushed Bendigo.

"You tell me," said Cornelius. "You'll be the first to use it."

He gestured roughly; the woman handed Rymer a stack of leaflets.

"These are the rules in The New City," said Cornelius. "Please give one to each of your people. Ask them to obey. Our rules are important to us."

"Of course, Brother Cornelius," said Bendigo.

"Reverend Day would like to invite you to be his guests at dinner tonight," said Cornelius, with a look at Jacob. "All of you." He gave a sharp look at Eileen; she glanced away.

"How absolutely splendid," said Rymer. "Please tell the Reverend we would be most honored to accept his invitation. What time would—"

"Eight."

"And where would—"

"We'll come get you," said Cornelius. "Have a glorious day."

He walked back into the crowd out of sight. Giddy with relief, Rymer handed out the fliers to the company. Cheerful volunteers came forward from the crowd to help the stagehands unload their cargo.

Eileen realized she had never seen so many people of so many different races harmoniously grouped together before.

Something was dreadfully wrong here.

Kanazuchi watched their exchange from rocks above and outside of the fence to the east of town. With the naked eye, he could not make out their words from this distance, but he could read expressions and gestures like printed characters. It told him this:

The white shirts moved as one body, like insects in a hive.

No one of the white shirts realized yet that anyone else had been on board the last wagon; the stupid actor in the loud green hat had nearly given him away until Eileen stepped forward.

The big man, the one who'd asked the questions, was dangerous. Because of this man's attention, Jacob would soon be in trouble; he could not allow anything to happen to the old man. When the moment came, Jacob would be needed; for what exactly, only time would reveal.

Kanazuchi recognized he could do nothing until nightfall, four or five hours away. Regular armed patrols moved below him on either side of the fence; he would observe them for a while to understand their patterns.

After the actors unloaded their cargo, he watched them drive the wagons to a stable on the southern side of town: The Grass Cutter was safe for now and he knew where to find it.

He turned and studied the tower he had seen in the vision. Watched the workers swarming around its base.

When darkness came, that was where he would begin.

Innes burst into the compartment, holding a telegram. "I've secured horses, maps, weapons, and supplies; they'll be waiting for us at the station in Prescott." He handed Doyle a copy of the manifest he'd drawn up. "Took the liberty of putting this together; if there's something else you think we need, there's still time to wire ahead for it."

The boy's military stripe coming to the fore, thought Doyle with no small satisfaction as he glanced at the list.

"More than adequate," said Doyle, handing it back.

"Repeating rifles; I assume you both know how to shoot," said Innes, looking around at Presto and Mary Williams.

They nodded. Presto resumed the story he was relaying to Doyle; Jack's behavior at the time of Rabbi Brachman's death.

"Are you sure the man can be trusted?" asked Presto. "He seems to have an alarming disregard for human life."

Doyle looked outside at the moonlit plains rushing past the window.

"Leave us a moment would you?" asked Doyle of the other men.

Innes and Presto exited the compartment; Doyle turned to Mary.

"You have a connection to Jack. Through the dream."

She nodded, her eyes not leaving his, steady and strong.

"I've done all I know how to do for him. My diagnosis ... offers no solutions. Do you have an idea about the reason for his illness?"

"Sometimes people are attacked by ... an outside force."

"What do you mean?"

She hesitated. "Evil."

"Do you believe evil exists? As a separate entity?"

"That is our teaching."

Doyle took a deep breath, stepping off into unknown territory.

"Then if you're going to try and heal him," he said to the Indian woman, "you'd better get on with it."

She looked at him solemnly, nodded once, and moved to the door.

"Anything I can do?" asked Doyle.

"No," she said and quietly left the compartment.

Buckskin waited until the light faded from the western sky before he left the shelter of the rocks. The singing from the hollow stopped before dark and the kids in the white shirts lit a big campfire as the cold came on. Before the moon rose up, Frank led his horse across the road, away from the guardhouse, where lamps were still burning, and along the perimeter of the fence.

Ten double strands of barbed wire had been slung between posts drilled twenty paces apart; sunk deep in the sand, filled with mortar, built to last. The wire was a mix of Ric Rac and Hollner Greenbriar, two strands with a serious bite; a run-in with this much of the stuff could cut an animal, or a man, to shreds. These folks knew how to build a righteous fence, he had to give them that; must be some ranch hands among the gospel thumpers. But were they raising cattle in there? This wasn't grazing country; three strands of wire was enough to do the job on any range, and no fence he'd ever seen needed to run seven feet high to contain a herd. No; this fence had been put up for keeping something out.

Every half mile inside the lines, they'd added a watchtower, a covered platform twenty-five feet high with a ladder running up to a cabin. Manned by white-shirted guards toting Winchesters; Frank had to ride back a few hundreds yards from each one to stay out of their sight.

A few miles along, coming back to the fence after skirting a tower, he saw a field of light shimmering five or six miles ahead across the sand; a good-sized town, the center of this strange settlement. If the Chinaman had been hiding in one of the actors' wagons, that was where he'd be now.

Frank sat still in the saddle, shivering in his coat, and studied the situation. The fence ran on ahead to the left out of sight; he had no reason to believe it wouldn't complete a ring all the way around the settlement. They'd most likely included another couple of gates somewhere along the loop, which meant he could try to ride past the guards there or cut his way in anywhere on the fence. How he was supposed to ride back out again with a dead Chinaman strapped to the butt of his horse was a different story.

Mexico, on the other hand, lay two easy days' ride south, and there were no fences or guards anywhere between here and there. He could shave off his moustache. Lighten his hair with some lemon juice like he'd heard about in prison.

That dark-haired gal was inside there, too. As he thought of her, the sight of Molly Fanshaw's body lying on that Tombtone street two stories below him with her sweet neck broke came back. The empty whiskey bottle in his hand ...

He shook it off; his face tightened painfully.

Bad enough living in a cell with those memories; on the outside, there's a thousand reminders of your every failing. And as it turns out, a whole lot more disgust about your old selfish ways than you ever knew was inside you, ain't there, Frankie boy?

Was that Molly's voice or his own? He'd been hearing Molly more and more inside his head. Helpful words, teasing and gentle, the way he liked to remember her. Did that mean he was just turning soft or going crazy? Was she dead and rone or riding shotgun in his mind?

Shit. Did it matter?

His eyes picked up light and movement inside the fence to his left; what was that? Long way off. He took out the field classes, scanned for the flickering he'd seen.

Torches. A wide column of white shirts giving off a faint glow in the early moonlight. Carrying rifles, parade formation, a hundred of them at least, and a big man in a long duster tilling alongside, watching like a drill sergeant.

Whatever the hell this added up to, it was a damn sight worse than some crazy Chinaman running around with a meat cleaver.

The dark-haired gal was in there.

Frank began to reach for the wire cutters in his saddlebag but stopped short when he heard Molly's voice:

You want to think you're doing it for the girl, that's fine, Frankie. But let's be clear about something: You got some serious scores to settle up with yourself first. You can go right ahead and make a martyr of yourself, Buckskin McQuethy, but nobody's insisting you have to be an ox about it. Cut your way through that fence and in ten minutes you're like to have a hundred rifles staring at your face. And be honest, Frank: talking your way out of trouble ain't never been your long suit.

Never could sneak a nickel past Molly; she knew him inside and out.

Frank turned his horse and rode down the fence line, looking for the next gate.

As Buckskin Frank bunked down outside to wait for the sunrise, Kanazuchi was using his hands to separate two strands on the inner fence. His long knife would have cut through the wire without trouble, but he couldn't leave tracks, and with only five minutes between patrols, he couldn't hesitate; the moon would be high soon and take away his only advantage.

He pulled open the wires like strings of a long bow and slipped smoothly through the narrow opening. The wound on his left side throbbed painfully as he called on the muscles around it to complete the difficult maneuver, careful not to snag his shirt on the razor-sharp barbs; if this had been his fence, he would have coated them with poison.

Easing the wires back into place, he erased his footprints in the sand and set off at a dead run for the nearest shelter, a shed one hundred yards away across open ground. If a patrol had been watching all they would have seen was a blur.

Folding into the shadows against the wall, he opened his senses; sounds from all over the town reached him here, two blocks off the main street. One-room shanties built nearly on top of each other stretched Out in every direction; wood fires burning in stoves, smoke rising from crude chimney pipes.' Food cooking. Chickens in backyard coops. Horses moving in stalls of a nearby stable. Smell of urine from a nearby latrine. Someone passed by; a white shirt, carrying yoked pails of water. Kanazuchi erased himself in the darkness. Waited for the footsteps to recede.

The tower stood half a mile off, its blackness carving an even darker hole in the night sky. Construction continuing; bright lights, hammering and scraping of rock. He could pick his way among the shacks to get there, avoiding the main street altogether.

He dodged down alleys, retreating into hollows and shadows whenever anyone approached. Occasionally he caught glimpses of the white shirts in shacks through open windows, sitting motionless before their fires, silently at tables, lying on crude cots with their eyes open. As he stepped through a narrow gap between houses, he heard weeping: Through an open door he saw a woman sobbing, curled up on the floor; a man sat at a table, ignoring her, quietly eating from a bowl.

No dogs bothered him as he moved between the shacks; these people kept no pets. Strange in a community this size. And he heard no laughter; always a keynote in the night sounds of any city; families, lovers, people gathering, drinking. None here. Something else missing: He had seen no children. Many couples, but no children.

Turning a corner, he came face-to-face with the youngest person he'd seen, a boy perhaps fifteen, wearing the white shirt and carrying a bucket of slops. Neither of them moved; the boy stared at him without interest, dull and lifeless, then turned and trudged away.

Kanazuchi picked up a rock from the ground, glided around the next building, and waited; moments later, two adult males appeared from the direction the boy had gone, carrying cudgels and lanterns, raising them high, searching for an intruder. Kanazuchi threw the rock far in the opposite direction, rattling a tin roof; the men turned and headed toward the noise.

Soon Kanazuchi reached the edge of the settlement; a quarter mile of open ground inclined up a gradual rise to the construction site. The church's two wings extended out from either end of the building, in the shape of a capital "E" laid on its side; above its center section rose the black tower from his dream.

Spiraling minarets adorned the spired reaches of the structure; walls covered by a mass of irregular forms and shapes he could not distinguish from so far away. Stonemasons chiseled away at these forms from scaffolds wrapped around the wings.

The tower in the middle, as high as the building was long, looked closest to completion. Oblong slits perforated a bulging capsule at its peak, perhaps a bell tower, a black slate roof above.

Immense, narrow doors yawned open at the tower's base; sheets of suspended linen prevented Kanazuchi from glimpsing-its interior. Paths in the dirt circled the church and led out to work and supply stations; quarried squares of rock, a lumber mill, tool sheds, firing ovens for the bricks. The entire site teemed with an army of workers. He saw no overseers in the group; each man and woman seemed purposeful and self-directed.

A quarter mile behind the building rose a sheer mountain of smooth rock, a pale monolithic dome reaching twice again as high as the central tower. When viewed straight on, the rock provided a dramatic backdrop that accentuated the tower's stark visage. Between the construction site and the rock lay its rear entrance, less heavily trafficked.

He waited for the moon to drift behind a cloud, then left the cover of the shanties, moving into the open, away both from the tower and the town, then circled back to the outcroppings of the massive rock formation. The back of the church came into view; nowhere near the same level of activity back here. The rear facade exhibited nothing like the front's refinement and detail; its builder had designed his church to be viewed from the front.

Kanazuchi observed the workers' routines as white shirts periodically pushed wheelbarrows of debris out the back entrance, dumping their loads into a widespread area of waste a hundred paces toward the dome. He crept down to the edge of the site and concealed himself behind a mound of dirt.

When the next worker approached, Kanazuchi waited until he lifted the barrow to empty it, then snapped his neck with a single blow and dragged the body behind the dirt. He stripped the dead man's clothes, put them on over his own; white tunic, pants, and boots. A rough cotton weave, the pullover shirt had an open collar and hung to the middle of his thighs, leaving room for him to tuck the long knife, the wak-izashi, in the back of his belt. Pulling down the dirt with his hands, he quickly buried the body.

Retrieving the wheelbarrow, he encountered a second worker arriving with another load; the pale, slender young man dumped out his barrow, hardly noticing him. Kanazuchi grabbed the handles of his wheelbarrow and followed the man along the path back toward the rear doors. As they approached, the immense scale of the black cathedral came clear to him; the largest building he had ever seen. From its base, Kanazuchi looked up and could not see the summit of the central tower.

They entered down a ramp of wood set on a flight of stairs lit by torches in brackets on the walls. Workers were laying sheets of slate on one section of floor. Others chipped away at arches and portals; some applied mortar to cracks between the blocks of stones. Kanazuchi pushed his wheelbarrow into the central chamber of the church, unable to distinguish the high reaches of the walls rising above him in the dim light. Hut he could feel the cold, black sense of dread in the room.

He remembered drawings the priest at their monastery had shown him of European cathedrals and thought they must feel similar to this place; cold and threatening, designed to frighten and browbeat its worshipers. In his land, churches were gentle buildings, tied to the land around them, built to inspire harmony and inner peace. He wondered again what sort of god they followed in these Western countries that needed so badly to be feared.

In his vision, Kanazuchi had been shown a chamber buried below the main hall of the tower, a room where he had seen the Chinese men working. Perhaps it lay somewhere beneath where he was standing now; the debris behind the church could have come from such an excavation. If the room did exist, he needed time to search out its entrance.

A row of rectangular gaps in the walls on either side of the hall awaited windows, but stained glass had been installed in one opening; a round window directly above the rear doors was illuminated by a bright beam of moonlight that projected the image in the glass onto the black stone floor:

A perfect red circle of light, pierced by three jagged bolts of lightning.

He noticed the floor sloped in a gentle concavity toward its center, where this red circle projected. Kneeling to look closer, he saw that narrow gutters had been carved in the stone throughout the room, leading down to a network of connecting grills in the lowest point of this subtle basin. A cool wind blew up through the grillwork from below.

As Kanazuchi reached to examine the grills, bells in the tower above him began to ring, creating a deafening din inside the building. At the first strokes, the workers around him immediately stopped what they were doing, laid down their tools, and moved toward the front of the cathedral. Kanazuchi followed, mixing in with the workers as they funneled through the open doorway. He hid himself in their midst, a hundred of them, as they massed silently before the entrance; he spread his senses into the crowd around him and realized with a jolt: Only one mind at work here. No thoughts, no noise, no inner voices. One mind directing all these bodies.

Foremen dressed in black appeared on either side, armed with rifles. Looking ahead, Kanazuchi saw another equally sized group of white shirts approaching from the west: the next shift. More brown, black, and yellow faces than white, he noticed; the same as those around him.

The two work details moved past each other, exchanging only vacant smiles. The new group entered the church and the sounds of methodical labor resumed. Kanazuchi's shift marched half a mile west, splintered into smaller groups, and entered three low buildings; workers' residences. He obediently trailed the ones before him into their dormitory under the watchful eye of stationed armed guards; none paid him any attention.

Rows of double bunks lined the room's interior, accommodations for forty, both men and women. Exhausted workers dropped into the first bunk they came to; many fell asleep instantly.

Kanazuchi climbed into an upper bunk. The building closely watched from every side by guards. No other options; with the wound on his back still healing his body needed rest: He would sleep for a while.

The Reverend A. Glorious Day arrived an hour late for dinner. By then the actors, as was their custom, had long since consumed every edible substance placed within arm's reach. After passing what remained of the afternoon quietly at their hotel— the printed rules stated no one from outside the community could wander around town without an escort and none had been offered—the Penultimate Players had been summoned precisely at eight o'clock and led straight to the Reverend's private residence.

The House of Hope, announced the sign outside the large adobe hacienda, the most elegant of the buildings lining Main Street. Its dining room, like the rest of the quarters they caught a glimpse of on their way in, sported an odd melange of lavish decorative styles—plush Victorian chairs, light Norwegian hutches, Persian carpets, oriental statuary—as if a dozen millionaire's households had been scrambled and redistributed.

Silent, cheerful, and attentive white shirts served a dinner of satisfying fare spiced with a Mexican accent. At its conclusion, Rymer seized the floor and proposed a toast with the fine red wine they were drinking—although alcohol was forbidden in The New City, according to their fliers, the House of Hope apparently had a separate set of rules. Rymer spent the last live minutes of his oratory congratulating his own great good sense on having brought the Players to this obviously enlightened outpost of civilization.

"Bravo, Mr. Rymer; your graciousness is exceeded only by your epic loquacity."

They turned. Reverend Day stood in the open doorway; he'd been there throughout Bendigo's lengthy testimonial, but no one in the company had seen or heard him enter. Bendigo bowed deeply in the Reverend's direction, almost certain that he had been complimented.

"Now you really must explain for me," the Reverend went on, "how ever did you arrive at such a fascinating name for your little troupe?"

"Because if I do say so myself," came Rymer's reply, screwing himself up to his full sixty-seven inches, "we pride ourselves on providing our audiences with the penultimate in theatrical experience."

"Is that so?" said the Reverend, lowering into his seat; Eileen to his right, Bendigo to his left, then Jacob Stern. "Are you by any chance aware that the definition of penultimate is 'next to the last'?"

The self-satisfied grin on Rymer's face froze like a flower in a hail of sleet; his brain locked to a dead stop.

This one will be easier, realized Day, than taking candy from a dead baby.

Eileen appreciated the Reverend's jab, but as he sat down beside her and she got a first good look at him, the breath caught in her throat.

Her first thought: This man is dying.

The Reverend moved like an insect, stiff and mechanical, as if a steel rod had assumed the place of his spine. A dark suit hung on his thin body like limp masted sails. A spiny hump rounded his left shoulder and his left leg appeared to have withered. His hands were long and slender, loosely limbed, and covered with coarse black hair; they looked like the hands of an ape. The man's face appeared skeletal: a high domed forehead rising above deep-set luminous green eyes,' cheeks collapsing above a white bony jawline. Black and gray tangles of lank hair fell from the crown of his head to his shoulders. Lumpish blood vessels coiled around the sides of his forehead, pulsating dimly. Bright, livid scars crisscrossed his stark marbled skin, as if he'd been cut apart and inexpertly reassembled.

I know this face, she said to herself. I've seen it before; I don't know where or why, but God knows it's not one you'd soon forget. She thought of bringing it up, but strong instinct warned her not to speak to him.

The Reverend made no attempt at introductions; he knew the names that were important to him, everyone quickly figured out who he was, and the actors all lost their voices the instant he appeared. His voice oozed with a deep southern accent—or was there a hint of British underneath?

Unaware of Eileen's spark of recognition, Jacob realized he had met this man before as well and he remembered where exactly: the Parliament of Religions, last year, in Chicago. But it was clear to Jacob, now shorn of his beard, that the Reverend Day could reclaim no memory of him; his magnetic eyes studied Jacob carefully but without a trace of identification,

His eyes are deadly, realized Jacob, glancing down at the last of his apple pie, heart accelerating. He had encountered people before whose will exerted a palpable force; this man projected it through his eyes like the flex of a muscle. Mustn't look in those eyes; he wanted to warn Eileen.

"And how are you feeling this evening, Mr. Jacob Stern?" asked the Reverend. "I understand you were taken ill somewhere along your journey."

"Much better, thank you," said Jacob, hoping Eileen would look at him; she was fixed on Reverend Day.

"You are obviously not a member of this company; may I ask what brings you to our corner of the world?"

"You could say I was a sort of tourist," said Jacob modestly. "A man enjoying his retirement, setting out to see the West..."

"What sort of community is this anyway?" asked Eileen, unable to stay her curiosity. "I'm assuming you're in charge here, so I mean, what's the point of it all? What's the purpose?"

Reverend Day turned to her for the first time, and she felt the force of his gaze hit her like a physical blow; his expression appeared casual, even friendly, but the power in his eyes sickened her, turning her stomach. The blood drained from her face; she had to look away.

"To serve God, Miss Temple," said the Reverend modestly. "And his son and Savior, Jesus Christ. As should we all. I'm sorry, weren't you given a copy of our flier? It contains all the basic information one should know about us. We hand one out to each of our visitors when they arrive."

He wants me to look at him, realized Eileen; he wants me to and I mustn't; I can feel his mind scratching at me like a spider trying to find a way to crawl inside my head.

"Forgive me for making the observation," said Jacob, keenly aware of her distress, trying to pull the man's attention off her, "but it seemed to me your flier was more concerned with the many things one shouldn't do."

Day turned slowly back to Jacob; his look hardened, just short of anger. "You might recall, sir, that even God gave us his thou-shalt-nots."

Doesn't like to be contradicted, thought Jacob. Certainly he's not used to anyone taking exception with him—and with eyes like those in his head, who in his right mind would want to? Well, go ahead and do your worst to an old man, you monster, but harm a hair on this woman's head and I'll make you regret the day you were born.

"Only ten of them," said Jacob. "You've got fifty."

"Strict obedience to God's will is a difficult and challenging path for any man to follow," said Day. "We make no claims of perfection, Mr. Stern, we merely strive for it."

"The world would applaud you for it. Why hide yourself away like this?"

"The world... is a wicked place, as I am sure in your travels you have not failed to notice. Our hope is to build a better world for ourselves within the confines of our City. That's why I call my home the House of Hope. And we expect visitors to respect our efforts, and our values, even if they don't necessarily agree with them."

"Respect, certainly," said Jacob.

Don't provoke him, Jacob; ease up.

The Reverend's eyes stayed fixed on Jacob, kindling a realization and deeper interest. "Are you by any chance a man of God yourself, Mr. Stern?"

Jacob's eyes met Eileen's briefly; now she was trying to warn him off.

"You might say so," said Jacob. "I'm a rabbi."

"Of course, now it makes sense to me," said Reverend Day. "We have more than a few of your Israelite brethren among our number here, along with all the other failed faiths—converted, of course, to our way—but at one time sharing your beliefs."

"Win a few, lose a few," said Jacob, with a shrug.

The Reverend smiled patiently. "I would not wish to impose upon my guests the rigor of a theological debate, but perhaps you would care to sit with me, tomorrow, Rabbi Jacob Stern, and discuss our ... differences."

"I welcome the opportunity, Reverend. But I must warn you that converting to Judaism is a very serious undertaking."

"In the service of God's Holy Work," said Day with a smile, "that is a risk one must always be willing to embrace."

Reverend Day turned back to Bendigo Rymer, who had been sitting motionless throughout and who now, blinking his eyes rapidly, appeared to emerge from a deep hypnotic trance.

"I trust you found our humble theater to your liking, Mr. Rymer," said Day, rising to his feet.

"Yes; wonderful, sir," said Rymer, deeply moved by the man's solicitude. "Marvelous facilities; thank you ever so much."

"Splendid. I cannot tell you how greatly we look forward to your performance tomorrow night," said Day.

Reverend Day bowed stiffly and quickly left the room. Jacob put a hand to his forehead, trying to contain the throbbing pain that suddenly collected there; Eileen moved to him in concern.

The rest of the Players, who felt as if they'd been holding their breath for an hour, let out a collective sigh of relief.

Walks Alone knocked softly on the train compartment door. No answer. She reached to knock again, and Jack Sparks threw open the door, a pistol in his hand, furious at the intrusion. She remained calm and waited for him to speak.

"What do you want?"

"May I come in?" she asked.

"Why?"

She looked at him, pushing gently through the wall of anger he had built around himself. Jack dropped his look, tucking the gun back in his belt. He held the door open for her; closed and locked it after she entered.

She sat, carefully controlling her breathing in order to send no harsh signals into the room; after a few tense moments, Jack sat across from her.

"I want to tell you about my dream," she said.

After a few moments: "Go ahead."

He watched her with a cold, impatient scowl. She took another deep breath; how she began was most important.

"In my dream the earth is my mother; my father is the sky. They are apart but they live side by side, touching each other along the horizon, in balance. Because they are in harmony, the animals are born into the world, each in the image of the gods who share the heavens and the earth. The people are the last creatures to appear; they take the longest to create."

"Why?"

"They carry the most responsibility...."

"What does that mean?"

"They are the only ones who are given both light and darkness. Animals obey their gods without questioning; they know only goodness; the people are the only ones who must listen to both sides. They are the only ones who must decide."

"Decide what?"

"Which side is stronger in them."

She met his eyes briefly; anger flashed in him before she looked away.

"Did he send you here?" said Jack, jerking his head at the wall he shared with Doyle's compartment.

"I am only telling you my dream," she said simply, waiting.

"All right," he said finally.

"In my dream, the people have fallen from balance; they have forgotten that they were born from both earth and sky. Their minds grow strong but their hearts are closed; they have lost respect for the other animals and their gods. The people now believe they found their own way to the earth and that they are here alone, separate from the rest of creation. Their minds are strong, but by deciding to follow this path they have turned away from truth.

"This creates an emptiness in them. Into this emptiness come thoughts from the mind, thoughts that speak without the voice of the heart. Thoughts of power and controlling others. Darkness. This is how the wound begins to open."

"The wound?"

"The wound in the earth. The wound we have seen in our dream."

"In the desert."

She nodded. "What the people need is a healing, to bring the heart and mind together; what the mind tells them is that they need more power, and in this way the wound grows deeper. I am only telling you my dream."

Jack's look softened, interest creeping into his eyes, fighting the pain.

"In the dream we share, a tower has been built in the desert," she said, feeling confident enough to include him now. "My people use the medicine wheel to open their hearts and hear the voices of our gods; although we call out to the sky to hear them, we know the gods live inside us and that is where we must listen."

"And the tower?"

"This tower is like our medicine wheel, except it calls out to the darkness. A wound is open beneath it in the earth and the Black Crow Man asks the darkness to rise out of the wound and send its power over the earth."

"And this is how the darkness wins," said Jack.

"This is how time ends. This is how the people are destroyed; because they have opened the wound and allowed the Black Crow Man to invite this darkness into the world." "Who is this man?"

"In each of us, the false voice of the mind. In the dream he is the one who leads the people to the wrong path and calls out the darkness from deep inside the earth."

"And in the real world," said Jack, "he is my brother."

She hesitated. "I believe that is so."

"Who are the Six?"

"The ones who are called to stop him."

"Called by whom?"

"That is not for us to say."

"But you and I are among them."

"We were given the dream. Yes, I believe that was the reason."

Jack sat silently, face contorting as he struggled with waves of emotion. She watched compassionately but made no movement toward him; he would have to reach for her.

"How? How can we stop him?" asked Jack, raw fear on his face, voice breaking. "I've tried before and I've failed. I've failed myself as well. I've let the darkness in." His voice fell to a whisper. "I'm afraid. Afraid that I'm not strong enough."

Walks Alone took another breath and looked at him directly for the first time; this was the moment.

"You must heal yourself. Before you try again," she said. He stared at her, the last armor of protective rage melting away, vulnerable and real, tears pooling in his eyes. "I don't know how to begin," he whispered. "But you will try to stop him, anyway." "Yes."

"Then you will fail again. Is that what you want?" "No."

"You have no choice then."

He shook his head, agreeing. Tears ran freely down his cheeks.

She took his hands and held them tight. He looked at her. "I will help you," she said.

The first scream from the adjoining berth woke Doyle instantly from a restless sleep. He rushed out his door, followed quickly by Innes; both men paused and listened at the door to Jack's compartment. A rhythmic chanting reached them, the woman's voice, and the musky odor of burning sage. Falling and rising above the chant they could hear low moaning, then another protracted scream that stood their hair on end.

"Good Christ," said Doyle.

"Sounds like he's being roast on a spit," said Innes.

Doyle pushed through the door; the sight greeting them stopped them in their tracks.

The cramped room blisteringly hot. Jack lay flat in the narrow space between seats, Walks Alone kneeling beside him. Jack unconscious, naked to the waist, his torso daubed with diagonal streaks of red and white paint; Mary Williams, wearing a loincloth and halter top, displayed some of the same colors patterned on her face. Smoke from two smudge pots, burning sage, choked the close air. A long wooden pipe lay on one of the seats and a four-foot length of willow stick, topped with an eagle feather, rested on the floor near Jack's head.

Both of them drenched with sweat, Jack writhed in agonizing pain as she rotated her hands, as if rapidly kneading dough, above his rib cage. Lost in fevered concentration, her features tense and sculpted, repeating over and over again the same incomprehensible incantation, she did not even glance up at the Doyles' arrival.

Another dreadful scream broke Jack's lips and his body bridged off the floor, taut as a bowstring. Realizing his cries could be heard up and down the length of the car, Doyle thought to close the compartment door, but he could not respond to the impulse when he saw something appear in her hands as she quickly raised them from Jack's chest:

A wobbly transparent mass of pink-and-red tissues about the size of an oblong grapefruit, a hot black jellied nugget burning in its center, mottled all around with curved bands of a sickly gray substance that like ribs seemed to give the object structure.

Something fetal, a larva, more insectoid than human, thought Doyle. He turned to Innes; his face had gone white as an egg. Doyle felt strangely reassured; at least Innes was seeing it, too.

The woman's hands continued to agitate, vibrating at such an impossibly high rate it made it difficult for them to determine whether the queasy handful was being shaken by her or animated by its own odious energy. Part of their minds questioned whether she held anything in her hands at all.

Jack's body collapsed hard onto the floor.

Doyle grabbed Innes and pulled him back out into the hall, closing the door quickly behind them. They stared at each other in shock, Innes blinking rapidly, his mouth working but producing no words.

Doyle raised a finger to his lips and shook his head. Innes walked immediately back to their cabin and retrieved a bottle of whiskey from his bag. Sitting down across from each other on their bunks, the brothers plied themselves with measured, medicinal doses and waited for the whiskey to expunge the repellent memory from their brains.

They said nothing further about it; no more cries were heard from next door during what little remained of the night.

SKULL CANYON, ARIZONA

The posse had already spend one hell-raising evening overrunning the Skull Canyon Hotel, and as the liquor began to flow on this second night, it seemed unlikely the town could contain them much longer.

The group was currently suffering a heated division about which menace to society they should hunt down first: the Chinaman or that back-stabbing, snake-eyed, double-dealing, son-of-a-whore convict Buckskin Frank McQuethy. But they were agreed that whichever one of these running dogs they caught up with first would get fitted for a hemp necktie pronto and swing from the nearest tree.

Sheriff Tommy Butterfield felt the most personal sense of betrayal; he'd gone to bat with the governor about Frank, for Christ's sake. Put his trust in the man, laid his own political future on the line, and this was how Buckskin repaid him: a note pinned to a stable wall and vanishing into the night. The rat bastard could be halfway to Guadalajara by now. Tommy had been able to persuade the posse to ride on to Skull Canyon according to Frank's instructions that morning, but when they got there and found him gone again, the call for retribution turned into a chorus.

Throughout the next day, the talk grew meaner and the interrogation of the hotel staff rougher, until finally one of the clerks admitted that Frank had not gone off toward Prescott as they'd originally told the posse—according to Frank's orders under a severe threat of death, he was fast to add—but had been seen riding west toward that religious settlement. Where the actors and Chop-Chop the Chinaman had been headed in the first place. Now the room really fell into an uproar.

We'll ride there tonight, went the prevailing sentiment, ride in shooting and root out both of 'em; God take pity on anybody who stands in our way. All that remained was figuring out how to find the place.

That's when the gentleman who'd been sitting quietly in the corner with his four traveling companions spoke up for the first time.

We know that road, offered the gentleman. In fact, we're headed that way ourselves, and we would be more than happy to show you the way.

Right now?

Yes, we were planning to leave tonight, the man explained. And we know a good campsite along the way should you decide to break up the ride.

What's your business in this religious place? somebody asked.

We're Bible salesmen, said the man, and sure enough one of his companions showed them a valise that was chock-full of holy books.

A caucus ensued among the posse's elders; these fellas looked legit, sharply dressed and groomed, obviously Godfearing men, and they seemed to know the territory. The verdict came back fast and unanimous: The posse would ride with them at once.

By the time the thirty-eight amateur lawmen had assembled outside, the five Bible salesmen were saddled up, ready to go. None of the vigilantes overheard their leader, the man who'd spoken up first inside, the handsome one with the slight German accent, say quietly to his companions:

"Wait for my signal."