The Circuit Rider Read online

  Tower carefully helped lift the sheared pieces from the girl’s body, stopping when dried blood threatened to pull the skin away.

  Anderson carefully snipped the cloth so as to avoid restarting the bleeding.

  “Where did you find her?” Anderson said. There was anger in his voice.

  “About a mile from town, on the main trail.”

  Anderson cut the last main part of the dress, and Tower lifted it from the girl’s body.

  “Holy goddamned hell!” the doctor shouted and jumped back, knocking the jar of alcohol onto the floor, where it shattered.

  Tower felt his heart sink inside his chest as the dark shadow of violence swept across him.

  Because the bloodied and battered girl before him hadn’t just been beaten.

  She had been marked.

  Five

  The saloons were in the same location as every other cowshit town Bird had ever been in: sandwiched in between the general store and the run-down hotel.

  By her quick estimation, there were at least four of them, but only one had loud piano music and drunken, off-key singing filling the night air.

  Voices. Music. They were a relief to Bird’s ears.

  She found the sound of a full saloon oddly soothing, or maybe it was just the knowledge that a bottle of whiskey was in her very near future.

  The image of the girl was still fresh in her mind. But the doctor and Tower had it handled. It wasn’t a three-person job, and Bird knew she was better at hurting people than healing them.

  She banged through the door of McGarry’s Saloon, walked to the bar, and ordered a whiskey.

  The bartender was a tall bald man with a bright green vest. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing pale, nearly hairless forearms.

  The man looked twice at Bird.

  They always did.

  It wasn’t necessarily just because she was a woman. It was also because of the way she was dressed. Boots, denims, buckskin shirt, Stetson, and two guns, tied down.

  They also stared because of her looks.

  While she waited for her whiskey, Bird glanced up at the mirror behind the bar. Her mother had always been a bright, fragile woman, which had earned her the nickname Bird from her husband. When their daughter was born and looked like an exact replica of her mother, the nickname became a real name.

  Bird had indeed inherited her mother’s looks: fine bones, a sharp nose, and a delicate mouth. As well as her brightness. Bird had light hair, pale skin, and translucent blue eyes.

  “Here you go, ma’am,” the bartender said, interrupting her recollection. Still, Bird caught the sarcasm in his use of the word ma’am. The only way it could have been more obvious was if he’d called her m’lady.

  “Leave the bottle,” she replied.

  She took two stiff shots in quick succession, then paused after she filled the third.

  It felt good to be at a bar again. Traveling with Mike Tower was like riding herd on a forlorn steer. Christ, the man was the most boring human being Bird had ever met. She’d figured he might be like most preachers she’d encountered in her time out West: loud and fiery in the pulpit, then drunk and lecherous outside the church’s walls.

  But she’d discovered Tower was neither. He tended to speak quietly but with conviction. And after a fair amount of time together on the trail already, he hadn’t made any advances on her. Most men who’d heard of her, or her reputation, mistakenly assumed she was always up for a good time. Most of the time, she wasn’t.

  She scooped up the bottle and her glass, and turned to face the room.

  There were roughly ten tables, about half of them occupied. A piano sat at the back of the room, with one of the whores idly hitting a key or two.

  Of the five occupied tables, one had the most action, with a group of five men playing poker.

  The other four tables mostly consisted of onlookers, and one table was taken by a solitary drinker, a man with an expensive-looking suit and slicked-back hair.

  Bird walked over to the empty table farthest from the action, the one in front of the piano. There were no other doors in the place, so there was no chance of anyone getting behind her.

  Bird Hitchcock did not like people behind her.

  The man with the slicked-back hair pushed himself away from the table and made his way to Bird’s table. He was medium height, a little thick around the middle, but she didn’t peg him as a gambler. He carried no gun, and Bird saw no telltale sign of a small sleeve pistol of the type cardsharps had begun to sport.

  “Hate to see a lady drinking alone,” he said. He stuck out his hand. “Name is Carl Van Osdol. Everyone calls me Van.”

  His hand remained outstretched as Bird sipped from her drink, using her left hand. She studied his face, saw that he was handsome, but she could read weakness in his jawline.

  “I’m a woman, not a lady. Which means I don’t mind drinking alone,” she said. “In fact, I prefer it.”

  A smirk briefly appeared on Van Osdol’s face.

  “In that case, may I ask for the opportunity to sit at your table and have a drink with you?”

  “You buying?” Bird said.

  “Of course.”

  She gave the chair across from her a nudge with her boot. Van Osdol pulled the chair out, sat down, and motioned for the bartender, who brought a new bottle and took the one on the table away.

  “Better whiskey, courtesy of yours truly,” Van Osdol said.

  She tossed off the rest of her drink, poured a fresh one, and took a sip of whiskey from the new bottle.

  “It might be an improvement,” she said. “But I’ll need a few more drinks before I can give you my final opinion,”

  Bird watched Van Osdol pour himself a drink and hold up his glass.

  “To the legendary Bird Hitchcock,” he said with a wink.

  A couple of the men from the nearby table glanced up at the sound of the name.

  “I’ll drink to her,” Bird said. “Heard she’s a beauty.”

  Van Osdol chuckled.

  “I quite agree,” he said. “Beneath the trail dust and the smoke of a few saloons, you are very, very beautiful.”

  Bird set her drink down. “I know you said your name, but who are you, really?” She gestured toward the bottle. “Free booze always comes with a price.”

  “You sound a bit cynical,” he said.

  “I believe the adjective you’re looking for is perceptive.”

  Van Osdol smiled. He had lovely white teeth, and she was sure the women in town found him quite handsome. To her, Van Osdol carried the same expression as the hundreds of rattlesnakes she’d used as target practice over the years, blowing off their heads from fifty feet.

  “I’m an attorney,” he said. “Or should I say, the one and only attorney of Green Spring.”

  “No competition, huh?” Bird said.

  “I prefer to think of it as a very open market,” he said.

  Bird downed her drink and poured herself another. The liquor cut through the dust in her throat like nobody’s business. She loved it.

  “Tell me, Van,” she said. “You happen to know if there are two men in town? One goes by the name of Toby Raines. The other one’s name is Ike.”

  Van Osdol looked at her with wry amusement on his face.

  “So I bought you the drink, but I’m doing you the favor?” he said.

  “Take your bottle and go to hell, then.”

  Van Osdol raised an eyebrow and a hand, simultaneously.

  “I meant no offense,” he said. “I have not heard of the first man.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “And believe me, I know just about everyone, even strangers. I spotted you immediately, didn’t I?”

  “What about Ike?”

  “That one is easy,” the attorney said. “While there may be more than one Ike in Green Spring, there is only one I know about, and to be perfectly blunt, the only one that actually matters.”

  “You attorneys use a lot of words,
yet none of them resemble an actual answer.”

  “You are most likely inquiring about Ike Daniels,” Van Osdol said. “His father owns the Rockin’ D, the largest ranch in the territory.”

  “I assume he’s one of your clients, then, seeing as how you’re the only barrister in town.”

  “Oh no, his attorneys are all from Chicago. They come out by train every month or so. I am quite insignificant in the eyes of Mr. Garrett Daniels.”

  He smiled. “The only person in town in the employ of Daniels is our very own Sheriff Dundee.”

  Bird wasn’t surprised, but local gossip held no interest for her.

  “Where can I find this ranch?” she said.

  “Pretty much ride due west out of town and you’ll be on the ranch for hundreds of miles.”

  The bartender appeared with two cigars.

  “Compliments of the house,” he said.

  Van Osdol selected one and Bird took the other. The attorney put his into his mouth, Bird put hers in her shirt pocket.

  “For later,” she said.

  Van Osdol nodded and fired up his cigar. He got it going, blew out a long plume of smoke, and spoke. “Now that I’ve helped you, I’m wondering if you’ll help me.”

  Bird poured herself another drink before he could take the bottle away after she responded negatively to whatever he might be proposing.

  “You can always ask,” Bird said. “Of course, if you ask me something that makes me angry, or ask it in a manner that angers me, there will most likely be consequences.”

  Van Osdol dipped his head in understanding.

  “There is only one way to ask this question,” he said.

  The thick cigar smoke hung in the air between them as the prostitute at the piano hit one final note before getting up and joining the table with the poker game.

  “For fifty dollars, would you be willing to kill someone for me?”

  Bird studied the attorney’s face. He wasn’t drunk. And he wasn’t joking. She sipped her whiskey and waited.

  “His name is Corey Flom,” Van Osdol said. “He killed a five-year-old girl.”

  “What about the law?” she said. “Have they already looked into it? Found the man innocent, so now you want your justice, vigilante style?”

  “They never looked into it because they can’t find the body,” he said.

  She thought for a moment.

  “What was this girl to you?”

  Van Osdol shook his head. “Not open for discussion.”

  Bird watched as one of the poker players slammed down his cards and gleefully raked in a pile of chips.

  “Tell you what,” Bird said. “The price is a hundred dollars, with fifty due now. I’ll look into it, and if I don’t like it, I’ll return the fifty to you, minus five dollars for my research fee.”

  “And if you like what you see?” he asked.

  “Then you’ll owe me the other fifty for a job well done.”

  Van Osdol studied her for a minute, then counted out fifty dollars and sketched out a map, showing where he believed Flom was hiding out.

  “He won’t be alone,” Van Osdol promised when he finished his sketch.

  She grabbed the money and the map, along with the bottle, and walked to the bar. The bartender came over to her.

  Bird held up the bottle. “This was a gift from my friend over there, but I also paid for the other bottle you cleared from my table. I’d like that now.”

  The bartender hesitated. “I thought it was more of an exchange,” he said. “One bottle for the other.”

  Bird laughed. “A whiskey exchange! Never heard of one of those. However, an exchange is a good idea. How about you and I start a lead exchange. You want mine first?”

  The man’s bald head turned pink as he brought out the bottle of whiskey and pushed it toward Bird, who plucked it from the bar.

  “A whiskey exchange — I believe I will have to remember that,” she said.

  Bird tipped her hat and walked out of the saloon.

  Six

  Mike Tower was praying.

  Behind him, the doctor cleared his throat.

  “I couldn’t save her,” he said. “She lost too much blood.”

  Tower hung his head. He couldn’t get the image that had been carved into the girl’s chest out of his mind. Evil incarnate. The stillness he had encountered while praying was gone. In its place was a quiet rage that he knew all too well.

  He made the sign of the cross, then got to his feet. “You tried your best,” Tower said. Anderson’s face was pale and his hands shook as he tried to clean his glasses. Spots of blood stained the sleeves of his shirt.

  There was a knock at the door, and then it opened and Bird stepped inside.

  Tower could smell the whiskey from across the room.

  “Show her,” he said to the doctor.

  Anderson walked over to his operating table, where the girl’s body had been placed. Her lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling.

  The doctor pulled back the sheet from the girl’s chest.

  Bird didn’t move.

  Tower watched as she took in the elaborate carving on the girl’s chest.

  “At first, I thought it was a brand,” the doctor said. “But looking at it more closely, I don’t think it is.”

  “No, I don’t think so, either,” Bird said. “I think it’s a message.”

  Tower joined them.

  “What do you think it is?” the doctor asked Tower. “I don’t have any idea. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “I know what it is,” Tower said.

  He paused, studying it again.

  “It’s called a pentagram.”

  “What is it?” the doctor said.

  “It’s a symbol that’s been used for hundreds of years by various groups for various reasons,” Tower explained. “Some good, some bad.”

  “It looks like a religious sign,” the doctor said.

  Tower nodded. “That too. When a single point is at the top, like a star, it typically stands for good. When it’s drawn with two points up and the single point down, so it looks like an upside-down star, it’s associated with evil.”

  There was silence as the three of them stared at the symbol etched into the girl’s flesh.

  Finally, Tower spoke.

  “You mentioned her family lives nearby?” he said to the doctor.

  Anderson nodded. “Not far from here.”

  Tower let out a long breath.

  “I should tell them first, before we go to the sheriff,” the doctor said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Tower said. He looked at Bird. She shook her head.

  “We need to find a hotel, as we’re looking to spend the night,” she said. “I’ll get a room and stow our gear.”

  The doctor went to the sink and began washing up.

  Tower again looked at the girl, then glanced up at Bird.

  “We need to find out who did this,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m going to find him,” Bird said, and left, slamming the door behind her.

  Seven

  The Hockings house was a small clapboard structure with one window in front and a large stone chimney on the opposite side. The porch had been painted at one point, but most of the paint was peeled away, exposing the original pine boards.

  Tower could smell dinner cooking inside.

  He and Anderson arrived to find the sheriff already waiting for them.

  “Sheriff Dundee, this is Mike Tower, a circuit rider,” Anderson said. “He brought her in.”

  Tower shook hands with the sheriff, a tall, lanky man who moved slowly and seemed distracted.

  “So you’re the one who found her?” the sheriff said. His voice was matter-of-fact.

  Tower nodded. “A couple hours ago on the main trail, about a mile from town.”

  Dundee looked as if he was about to ask another question but was interrupted by the sound of someone inside the house.

  The front door opened. A woman stepped
out onto the porch.

  Tower was immediately struck by the woman’s beauty. Raven hair, blue eyes, and a confident demeanor.

  “Ma’am,” Tower said, tipping his hat.

  Anderson nodded.

  “Evenin’ Gretchen,” Sheriff Dundee said. There was a long pause before he said, “’Fraid we’ve got some bad news.”

  “Is it Nancy?” she said, and sagged back against the door frame, a hand to her chest.

  “I did everything I could to save her, but she had lost too much blood,” Anderson said. “I’m afraid she passed.”

  The woman’s eyes widened and her mouth struggled to form a word. Then she fell forward. Tower got there just in time to catch her. He laid her down and Anderson joined him.

  Footsteps sounded inside and a young girl about eight years old came out on the porch. She had on a faded white dress, with a purple ribbon in her hair. Tower couldn’t help but recognize how much she looked like her sister Nancy.

  “What’s wrong Mama?” she said. Tower could hear the panic in her voice.

  “She just needs a little air,” Anderson said to the girl. “Everything’s fine.”

  Dundee, who showed no interest in the woman who had just collapsed, Tower noticed, now peered through the front window of the house. He glanced at the girl.

  “Honey, do you know where your father is?” he said.

  The girl looked down at her mother, then up at the men.

  “He left. About an hour ago.”

  Eight

  Just outside the hotel, a rooster crowed. Bird opened her eyes, felt the butt of the gun in her hand. Sometimes she slept with it under her pillow. Other times she set it under the sheets next to her and found herself in the morning holding on to it. Probably like Tower does with a crucifix, she thought.

  On the mornings when she awoke with the gun in her hand, she always had a sense of foreboding. This time was no different.

  But she was close, she knew that. As tragic as the murder of Nancy Hockings was, it helped Bird. It brought her one step closer to her mission of revenge.

  She got out of bed and felt no ill effects from the whiskey. Or if she did, she was so used to the condition that it was no longer worth noticing.