The Circuit Rider Page 5

  “Mind telling me what you’re doing with Preacher Tower there, sir?” Bird said. “Maybe going to confession?”

  “Oh, we’re going to confession, all right,” Daniels said. He clapped his hand on Tower’s shoulder. “But he’ll be the one admitting his wrongdoing.”

  “Afraid I can’t let that happen,” Bird said. “It is my job to get this man to San Francisco. Unharmed. Sort of a religious mission.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll just have to live with being a failure,” Daniels countered. “Seems like you’re used to it already.”

  Bird smiled again. “You seem upset, Mr. Daniels. Are you bothered that this here preacher slapped around your son in the same way your son slaps around young girls?”

  “You bitch!” Ike Daniels shouted.

  “Bird,” Tower said.

  “Hell, he couldn’t even do that by himself,” she continued. “He needed help. That’s probably why you brought extra men for this job, because you can’t count on that useless, pathetic son of yours.”

  Garrett and Ike Daniels roared in anger and went for their guns.

  Tower watched Bird and saw her hands blur with a speed that shocked even him. Flames erupted from her guns as she fired so fast the gunshots merged into one continuous sound, like rolling thunder.

  Tower shouldered his way into Garrett Daniels, knocked the old man off balance, and wrenched the rifle from his hands.

  He shot a quick look at the street as a bullet kicked up dirt near Bird’s feet and another one shattered the whiskey bottle.

  Tower brought the rifle to his shoulder and glanced down the line.

  All of the men were down, including Ike Daniels, who was now missing half of his head.

  The only sign of movement was from Garrett Daniels, who had struggled back to his feet after Tower knocked him down. Blood seeped through the old man’s shirt and vest.

  Daniels swayed as he tried to draw the pistol from its holster. He got to his feet and faced Bird.

  “Put that gun down, you drunken bitch,” Daniels gasped. A long string of blood dangled from his lips.

  Bird stood still, both guns now trained on Daniels.

  The old man’s hand shook as he tried to clear leather with his pistol.

  “She’ll kill you,” Tower said to Daniels. “Drop your gun. Do it now. You don’t have to die.”

  The old man took a quick breath and tried to cock his gun.

  Bird promptly shot him in the head.

  The old man staggered, then fell face-first into the street.

  Bird looked at Tower, then down at the broken bottle and the big wet patch where the whiskey had spilled.

  “Now that was totally unnecessary,” she said. “Who would shoot such innocent whiskey?”

  Sixteen

  Bird awoke in the morning, a gun in her hand, two bottles of whiskey on the table next to her, one empty, one full.

  The second had been courtesy of a happy townsperson who appeared extraordinarily joyful that the town’s de facto ruler was dead.

  She cracked open the new bottle of whiskey, poured two fingers’ worth into a glass, and drank it down. Then she crossed the room and dipped a toe into the bathtub, which had been filled for her free of charge by the hotel’s manager. The water was still warm.

  Bird sighed. She felt dirty, but not from killing the Daniels men.

  It was the name.

  Toby Raines.

  The man who had set her on the course for what she had now become.

  She lifted her head and looked into the mirror. She saw the same woman who’d grown used to the killing lifestyle, now with a few more corpses to her credit.

  Bird stepped back and took off her nightclothes.

  She glanced at the door, made sure it was locked, then stood naked before the mirror.

  Bird Hitchcock then did something most people thought she was totally incapable of doing.

  She cried.

  And as the tears streamed down her face, they ran along her beautifully defined chin, down her strong neck, toward her chest.

  Where they stopped.

  Because they ran into the raised ridges of something that had been carved into her chest years before by a man named Toby Raines.

  A pentagram.

  Episode Two

  Seventeen

  The fire was a small one, placed near the base of a scrub oak whose branches served to break up what little smoke the tiny burning twigs created.

  Bird Hitchcock and Mike Tower were in a narrow hollow, protected from gusty winds and hidden from the view of any riders. They were on opposite sides of the fire, their saddles and saddle blankets serving as their beds for the night.

  The horses were staked not far from the fire, munching on a thick swath of buffalo grass.

  Bird leaned back against her saddle. She loosened her shoulders and felt the gentle ache of a long day’s ride catch up with her.

  They had ridden two days with only one dry camp to break up the monotony. Now, confident there were no Indians nearby, she and Mike Tower had agreed that a humble fire, only big enough to heat up some coffee and fry a bit of bacon, would not put them in any danger.

  “Time for a drink,” Bird said. She slid the bottle from her saddlebag and eyed the amount of whiskey that remained. Rationing alcohol had never been her strong suit, but there was nothing Bird hated more than being completely without whiskey, so she kept the desire to binge in check.

  “It’s not holy water. It’s better,” she said and held out the bottle toward Mike Tower.

  He was stretched out next to the fire, his head on his bedroll, his legs crossed at the ankles. He was a big man with long legs, narrow hips, and broad shoulders.

  Too bad, Bird thought. All that man, going to waste.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  She shook her head and drank from the bottle. It smoked through her mouth, the liquor cutting a swath of fire through a day’s worth of trail dust.

  Bird felt the muscles in her body relax as the alcohol worked its way through her system.

  She knew they were only a half day’s ride from their next stop, Prosperity, Kansas.

  “Well, Preacher, you surely are a bundle of fun,” she pointed out to Tower.

  “Thank you kindly,” he said without looking at her. His hat was slid forward over his face.

  Bird took another drink from the whiskey bottle. This is going nowhere, she thought.

  Somewhere beyond the hills to the east, she heard a coyote howl. The night air was still; the heat of the day had departed, leaving crisp coolness in its place.

  It was a new experience for Bird. A man seemingly not interested in her. Well, he was a preacher, after all. But Bird had known some religious men who hadn’t let their proselytizing get in the way of their fornicating.

  “Don’t mean to insult you, but I think there’s something unnatural about your line of work,” she said. “A man has urges.”

  “A desire to help people? That’s unnatural?” Tower said.

  Bird took a drink of her whiskey. She was building a nice warm fire in her belly.

  “For most men I’ve known, the answer is yes.”

  “What about being a gunfighter? Does that seem natural to you?” Tower said.

  “Absolutely,” Bird said. “The most natural thing in the world.”

  “How’s that?”

  Bird almost answered. She thought about her youth, being shuttled to different homes, different families. The home on the edge of the frontier where she’d hunted and become the provider of meat for the household while her foster parents drank themselves into oblivion. And then her encounter with Toby Raines that changed everything.

  “So what’s the plan in Prosperity?” she said. She raised the whiskey bottle and took three long gulps. Bird wanted the fire in her belly to consume her, to reach her head with its soothing ability to shut off thought and memory.

  “See who needs help, I guess,” Tower said. “Remind them to treat others t
he way they would want to be treated.”

  “And does it work?” Bird said.

  “Sometimes,” Tower answered. He slid the brim of his hat back so he could glance at Bird. “I can help them see a better way, but it’s up to them. Most folks have good inside them, but they don’t want to admit it. It’s buried deep.”

  He peeked out from beneath his hat. She saw his face was blank, but she easily detected the trace of curiosity mixed with amusement in the tone of his voice.

  “Sounds like a wagon full of shit to me,” she said.

  Eighteen

  They hit the city of Prosperity just past noon. Tower hesitated to think of it as a city, but it was more than a town.

  He was hungry and a little tired. One thing you could say about Bird Hitchcock, as slight as she was, she could snore up a storm. Especially when she hit the bottle like she did last night. Tower knew why. They were close enough to town that she could restock her supply. But it wasn’t just the snoring. Sometimes Bird had nightmares, and as much as Tower wanted to know, he never asked her about them.

  None of his business. And if she ever did decide to talk to him, which seemed highly unlikely, that would be her decision.

  A small herd of cattle had just been driven down the main street into the stockyards at the edge of town, and Tower could smell the animals, rough and ragged from their long trek up from Texas.

  “Meet you at the hotel later,” Bird said, and Tower watched her ride directly to the first saloon on the street.

  He nodded, then slowed his horse to a walk, scanning the storefronts ahead for the general store. They were running short on some basic supplies: salt, flour, and bacon.

  In addition to a place to stock up on things they needed for the trail, the general store was the lifeblood of a city this size, and Tower wanted to meet with its owner to see about setting up a service.

  Tower passed by the usual establishments: barber, blacksmith shop, dentist. There was even a billiards club.

  Finally, Tower spotted a storefront with a sign reading Larkin’s Dry Goods.

  There was a calico dress in the front window. For a moment, he pictured Bird wearing it and laughed out loud. The absurdity of it! The day Bird Hitchcock wore a dress was the same day the world would end.

  Tower tied his horse to the hitching post and went inside the store.

  “Howdy,” the clerk said. He was a pink-faced man with a crisp white shirt and bright-red suspenders.

  “Hello,” Tower answered.

  “Help you?” the clerk said.

  “Name’s Tower. I’m here to pick up a few goods and see about setting up a service.”

  “Good to meet you, Mr. Tower. Name’s Burt Larkin. I own the place, and we’d love to have a meetin’ here,” he said. “We’re building a church, even have a pile of lumber, but don’t have a regular preacher just yet.”

  “I’d be obliged if you’d help me get the word out,” Tower said.

  The door opened behind Tower, and he glanced back. A woman with a shawl and a small black purse over her wrist entered. Tower nodded to her.

  “Be happy to, Mr. Tower,” Larkin said.

  Tower turned from the woman and glanced at the shelves.

  “Appreciate it,” he said. “I’ll be gathering my supplies — ”

  The first blow caused Tower to duck, thinking a can of beans had fallen from a shelf.

  He turned, and the woman who’d entered the store was in front of him, her face filled with rage.

  “Bastard!” she shouted. She raked the side of Tower’s face with her nails, and he stepped back.

  “Stop!” Larkin shouted.

  The woman’s face was a mask of fury, and she swung at Tower with both hands, great slaps that windmilled at Tower, who had backed against the shelves and offered no resistance.

  Larkin got between them.

  “Stop it! He’s a preacher!”

  Tower watched as the woman’s hand entered the shopkeeper’s apron and emerged with a small derringer. The barrel swung his way, and he ducked as the shot thundered in the small room.

  Tower smelled gunpowder as Larkin and the woman struggled over the derringer.

  And then he heard the click of a gun being cocked.

  Instead of a shot, he heard a voice.

  One he recognized.

  “I’ve never killed a lady,” Bird Hitchcock said. Tower looked up and saw Bird standing behind the crazed woman with her .45 planted against his assailant’s temple.

  “I’d hate to start now.”

  Nineteen

  They were in Mike Tower’s hotel room. He sat on the bed, and Bird tossed him a hand towel soaked in whiskey.

  “Wipe this on those cuts,” she said. “Damn waste of good whiskey, though.”

  She sat in a wing chair covered with flowery upholstery. The hotel was fancier than she would have liked, and more expensive than Tower cared for, but it was the only one with rooms available.

  Bird poured whiskey into a glass that was sitting on the table next to a washbasin. She curled her fingers around the glass and looked at Tower.

  “What in the good goddamned hell was that all about?” she said, then drank from the glass.

  Tower stood, walked to the mirror hanging above the washbasin, and wiped at the scratches on his face. Bird thought he looked uncomfortable with the question and found it interesting that he was avoiding the answer.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  “Well, do you know the woman?” she said.

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Then you need to practice making a better first impression on people,” Bird said. “What did you do, skip ahead of her in line at the store?”

  Tower hung the whiskey-soaked towel on a peg next to the table with the washbasin. Before he could answer Bird’s question, there was a knock on the door.

  “Maybe she’s back to finish the job,” Bird said. She polished off the rest of the whiskey in her glass, set it back on the table, and went to the door. She put her right hand on the butt of her gun and opened the door with her left.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” a man said. He was older, with white hair and a neatly trimmed white beard. Bright-blue eyes glanced at Bird, then found Tower.

  Bird noticed the gold star pinned to the man’s brown leather vest.

  “Afternoon, Sheriff,” Bird said. She looked over the man’s shoulder and saw no one else. She opened the door wider and gestured for the man to come in. “Want a drink?” she said.

  “Howdy,” the man said to both Bird and Tower. “I don’t believe I’ll take you up on that drink, ma’am. My name’s Wayne. Wayne Ectors. I’m the sheriff of Prosperity.”

  “And you’re doin’ a damn fine job,” Bird said, refilling her glass. “Except for the crazy woman at the general store. Hope you’ve got her under lock and key by now.”

  “Bird,” Tower said. “She was just mistaken about who I am.”

  “Yeah, about that incident — it’s the reason for my visit here,” Ectors said. “Seems what happened has got some of the menfolk in town a bit riled up.”

  “As I understand it,” Bird said, “she attacked him, not the other way around. Why aren’t the men upset with her?”

  Ectors took off his hat and nervously fiddled with it.

  “Well, she claims the preacher here raped her,” Ectors said. His blue eyes studied Tower for a reaction.

  “That is the most ridiculous goddamn thing I’ve ever heard,” Bird said. “We just got into town an hour ago. How could he possibly have done this to her? Doesn’t that seem a bit ridiculous?”

  The sheriff put his hat back on, as if he needed something to do. “Well, Ms. Arliss claims it didn’t happen today. More like a couple of years ago.”

  Tower stood, walked to the window, and looked out over the town’s main street.

  “She’s not telling the truth, Sheriff,” Tower said. “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  “Where did she say t
his happened?” Bird interjected.

  “Down in Texas.”

  Tower shook his head. “Impossible.”

  “So are you here to arrest Mr. Tower, or are you just being sociable?” Bird said.

  The sheriff shook his head. “No, no. Not at all. Just wanted to let you know that some of the men in town are a bit upset over this news. They don’t think the woman has any reason to make up this whole story, so they’re not sure what to do. They wanted me to come and arrest you, but I can’t do that without any more evidence.”

  Bird swirled the whiskey in her glass. She had a fairly good idea what the answer would be, but she decided to ask the question anyway.

  “So you want us to leave town?”

  Ectors was clearly uncomfortable with what he was going to say next. Bird almost enjoyed watching him struggle with it.

  “No, truth is, I’d like you to stay in town until I can get some more information from Ms. Arliss, seein’ as how she’s pretty upset.”

  Bird nodded. “We won’t leave town, Sheriff.”

  “And I wanted to warn you about the men.”

  Bird smiled.

  “Don’t worry about us, Mr. Ectors. I find most men can be handled quite easily.”

  Twenty

  Alone in his room, Mike Tower took off his boots, hung his shirt over the back of the chair, and put a Bible on the bed.

  He stacked the two pillows against the headboard and stretched out on the bed, his right hand on top of the book. It was his prized possession, dog-eared and with a binding that wasn’t going to last more than another year or two. It had seen him through some dark times, and it looked like it would have to help him get through yet another.

  Soon, his eyes were closed as the weariness of the ride, the shock of the woman’s attack, and the fear that hadn’t stopped blossoming in his stomach combined to overtake him.

  He drifted into a half sleep, and images stuttered through his tired mind.

  The smoke of a battlefield. Gunshots. Dead men and the suffering that came after.