Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name by Edward M. Erdelac Read Free Book Online

a
keen screaming they felt in their bones, made their joints lock up with
anticipation. Then there was another massive thump and the horses cried out no
more.
    They
heard a terrible moaning sound though, deep and resounding. It was joined by a
heavy, shuffling rhythm.
    Something
came around the corner of the saloon, huge and ungainly, its hide shimmering.
It was Cashion’s bull, and it was lowing again and again in a deep agony. As it
stumbled closer, falling against the rickety saloon, making the whole structure
sway, they saw its side was ripped open. Its ribs were exposed, white and
shining, and its quivering organs were trembling in the spaces between. Its
long ropy intestines had spilled out, and the bull was dragging them behind as
they uncoiled, tripping on them as they wound around its foreleg like a dog
with an unmanageable leash. Its face was badly burned, and it seemed to be
blind. The smell of it was like barbeque and shit.
    It
came so close it brushed against the salt wagon, and then it began to bump its
head against the boards again and again, as it if had latched onto something it
understood even in this new, strange state, and was intent on solidifying its
connection to it, as if that would bring an end to the pain, a return to its
previous ideal condition.
    Hash
took out his colt and laid it across the wagon and shot it between the smoking,
burned eyes. It slumped to its knees and fell over.
    “Okay,
all bets are off,” Baines said, some of Bill’s panic evident in his trembling.
“We’ve got to go out there. Before it’s light and they can see us. We’ve got to
get to that cannon and stop it. They got the only horses now. We can’t even
leave here!”
    “Calm
down,” Purdee warned.
    “They
can see us,” the Rider said. He wasn’t sure, but it was probable that they
could see clearly despite the dark. “How else could they have aimed for the
horses?
    “They’re
right,” Hash said. “You’d never get to it before the sun came up anyhow.”
    “What
do we do then?” Baines nearly shouted. “Just sit here? They ain’t even tried to
parley! They’re gonna see us here from the ridge once the sun’s up…”
    “We
got water. We can wait them out,” said the Colonel.
    It
was almost as if they had heard him. The cannon thundered again, and again
there came the whistling. It was louder than before, and the Colonel and the
Rider both craned their necks for an instant before breaking into action.
    “Run!”
they both screamed. “Scatter! Cover!”
    The
Colonel grabbed Purdee and the two men went tumbling over the lip of the tanks,
and rolling away.
    The
Rider grabbed Baines, who had stooped under the wagon and was screaming for
Bill to come on. Out of the corner of his eye the Rider saw Gersh and Hash
running.
    The
screaming was so loud it seemed like raving in their ears. Then everything
leapt in unison into the air—men, the wagons, the barrels, the very dust and
all the human remains littering the ground.
    The
Rider and Baines went head over heels and crashed together near the doorway of
one of the picket hovels in a heap. The Rider’s ears rang, and his whole body
shook. The smell of powder was heavy in his nose, but he was unhurt. Baines was
blinking at his side, hatless. The Rider followed his look as the intense alarm
in his head gradually subsided and the stillness of the morning returned.
    Bill’s
wagon had been blown to pieces, and Bill was crushed beneath its wreckage. The
salt wagon was flipped over and lying a full ten feet from where they’d parked
it. Their makeshift breastworks were strewn about the settlement. A flying salt
barrel had smashed one of the picket hovels flat. Another had burst and covered
the ground in white.
    The
Rider heard the little boy crying from somewhere, and he could hear something
else, a great gurgling, as of a bath draining.
    He
rose unsteadily and staggered back toward the tanks.
    It
was the point of impact. They had laid a shell right in the