Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel Read Online Free PDF Page A

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lieutenants, Portis and Cord, they never cared much for Kliegg’s ways. Manx was
more their type. They just about jumped for joy when he showed up. First thing
Manx did was call me in and order me to bust up the still. Then he had Weeks
and Quincannon and me drag all the whiskey barrels to the parade ground and
assemble the men. He said somethin’ like…oh yeah— Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune . Took an axe to the
whole stock. Sand drank up the lot.
    “Then he started into drillin’ the
boys. Marched ‘em around, took ‘em to task for every spit and polish bit of
minute bullshit he could find. Then came the patrols. We hadn’t had regular patrols
in the four years I’d been under Kliegg. Nobody comes around here. Sometimes
the Mexicans down at the edge of the valley have trouble with their neighbors,
or rustlers passin’ through, then we mount up, sure. But his patrols turned
into expeditions. Some trooper made off with an extra sack of sugar in the
night, Manx blamed it on Indians or Mexican thieves, led punitive squads down
into the valley and rousted the little ranchitos and the Yaqui villages, busted up that cafe in Escopeta one time. Pissed off
all our neighbors, is all he did. God forbid he ever came across a band of real
hostiles.
    “The boys started gettin’ mean under
him. They needed something, so I rebuilt the still in one of the picket
storehouses. It was stupid of me really, to trust a buncha dumb kids to keep
quiet. Cord found out, and he figured he’d butter up to Manx with his
discovery, but he had to do it big, so he set the damn still on fire. All that
pressure, and the alcohol…it burned real hot. Fire nearly reached the armory. All
that dynamite left over from clearing this place…I don’t like to think what
could’ve happened. As it was, it burned up a lot of the outbuildings. We had a
trooper, a Polack named Skonicki. He got caught up in it. Burned all his hair
and most of his hide off. Burned him so bad you couldn’t tell his coat from his
flesh. He just laid there cryin’ and tremblin,’ begging for somebody to go to
his bunk and bring him his rosary.
    “So, that’s when Cord walks up and
says, “None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t rebuilt that damned still,
Sergeant.”
    “I don’t know what come over me
after that. I kept hearin’ that boy gaspin’ in my ears. Weeks laid a carbine
upside my head to get me off of Cord.
    “You know, Manx wanted to have me
shot. He said we were in war time. Doc Milton, that’s our surgeon, said he’d do
everything he could to bring Manx up on charges if they shot me. I guess he
saved my life; what’s left of it.”
    “What do you mean, what’s left of
it?” It was Kabede who asked that.
    “I mean, I been in the Army for
fifteen years. All I got that’s mine is my saddle and my boots and twenty-five
dollars tucked in my sock. I don’t even have a horse for the saddle. Before you
two showed up I was thinkin’ about walkin’ down to a hacienda on the east end
of the valley. There’s a fat Mexican gal there does our washin’ sometimes, who
favors me now and again with a smile. Past that, I’ve got no plans for the rest
of my life.”
    The Rider thought on Belden’s words.
The rest of their lives could be quite finite indeed if they didn’t find a way
out of course, but beyond even the impending attack by Adon’s riders, he’d
thought now and again about life after he found Adon. Like Belden, he had
little in the way of possessions or skills even, outside of his mystic
training. What use was that when you came down to it? He was thirty-five
years-old, and still living the life of a transient. How long could it go on?
    Then of course, how much time was
allotted to him now? According to what he believed, only a single year. He had
spent the past ten years looking towards something. Had the years without
fulfillment taken their toll upon him at last? He felt as if incessantly
looking to a future of