The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [154]
"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