The Circuit Rider Read online

  Tower’s hand twitched at the memories: the feel of a gun in his hand; the drugs from the army surgeons who’d patched him up coursing through his veins; the hard, desperate faces of men who had tried to kill him.

  Outside his hotel window, someone cracked a whip and a horse snorted, followed by the wooden creaking of a wagon as it sprang to life.

  Tower opened his eyes.

  The emptiness of the hotel room soothed him. He thought of his own congregation that was waiting for him in San Francisco, once he completed this circuit ride.

  He thought of the absence of his guns, how they had once been so familiar and comforting to him.

  The world before him was one he now met without fear and without a desire to shoot first. He had been a hard man before he’d discovered a spiritual side to him that he never would have believed existed. Once he discovered a different way to live, he had embraced it and never looked back.

  Still, the attack in the general store troubled him. The woman’s face had been consumed with hatred. Try as he might, he could not place her anywhere in his past.

  Correct that, he thought.

  He couldn’t place her anywhere definitely in his past. Had her face seemed familiar? Something tugged at the corner of his memory but then let go, and, try as he might, he couldn’t get it back.

  Like many men who’d fought in the War between the States, great patches of time were lost. Whether it was psychological scars from battle or chaos that had consumed so many men like him afterward, he didn’t know.

  Especially for Mike Tower, considering what he had done during that war. There had been a time after the war, too, before his spiritual awakening, in which some very dark things had occurred. Things he’d buried as deeply as he could.

  Still, the past is never really over. Echoes reverberate for years, even generations afterward. He knew that.

  He picked up the Bible and placed it on his chest.

  The line from the book of Isaiah came to his mind: “Let the wicked forsake his way…”

  Mike Tower knew he had not done the horrible thing the Arliss woman was accusing him of doing.

  Yet the thought that crossed like a dark shadow across his soul provided him no comfort.

  He had done other terrible things.

  Twenty-One

  Located directly across the street from the hotel, the Day’s End Saloon made itself an easy choice for Bird Hitchcock.

  She left Mike Tower to his own devices, crossed the street, and entered the bar. The reaction was one she was used to: heads raised to see the new man entering the bar, then a double take when they realized she was a woman, followed by silence.

  It all happened as expected.

  The last part of the entrance routine, however, was when the bar’s patrons glanced down and saw her two guns, each fastened securely to a thigh with a rawhide strip. They were serious guns, in a serious rig.

  Rarely did any comments about a woman coming into a saloon for a drink reach her ears. They clearly knew she wasn’t a prostitute, and no one was about to ask.

  Bird went to the end of the bar, where the bartender was polishing glasses. He was a stout man with a neatly pressed shirt and a huge handlebar mustache.

  He glanced up at her.

  “Beer and a whiskey,” she said. “Leave the bottle.”

  She watched him pour the whiskey into a shot glass and set the bottle on the bar. Then he pulled a mug out from beneath the beer tap, filled it, and placed it in front of her. Bird plunked down a few coins.

  “To your health,” she said to no one in particular, then raised the whiskey and downed it.

  Drinking in town was so much better than on the open trail. Mainly because the fear of running out of whiskey was gone. She’d had to carefully ration her liquor, riding with Mike Tower, but now, judging by the rows of whiskey bottles and the big mug of beer in front of her, it appeared there was enough in stock to satisfy her thirst. For today.

  She poured another shot of whiskey from the bottle and glanced around the room.

  It was a long, narrow space, with the bar on one side and a row of tables and chairs on the other. The walls were empty, save for one advertising poster purporting the benefits of Dr. William Foggerty’s World-Famous Stomach Bitters.

  Half of the tables were occupied with small groups of men, and the last table was directly to Bird’s right. There was no one behind her, which was the way she liked it.

  Two men stood, glanced back at her, and left the bar.

  It was a reaction she was used to. Some ignorant individuals refused to drink in a saloon with a woman if the woman in question wasn’t there to sell her sexual services.

  Bird drank half of her beer, and the cold liquid tasted wonderful. She was hungry, but the beer would fill her up until she was ready to eat. Or perhaps her entire dinner would be in liquid form.

  She was in the process of filling her third shot when three men walked into the bar and headed directly for her. Bird shifted slightly to her right so, if she had to draw her gun, the bar wouldn’t be in the way. The shot of whiskey was in her left hand; her right hung casually by her side.

  “You the woman who rode in with the preacher?” the first man said.

  The muted conversations taking place at the various tables now stopped as nearly all heads turned toward the end of the bar.

  Bird held his gaze and downed her shot of whiskey without taking her eyes from him. He was tall with a thin, cruel mouth. He had a pistol stuck in his waistband and a double-barrel shotgun in his left hand.

  “Never interrupt a lady when she’s drinking,” Bird said. She refilled her shot glass with whiskey. “Any sonofabitch knows that.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” the man said. “But right now I don’t see a lady, just a drunken saddle tramp who rides with an outlaw disguised as a preacher.”

  The bartender glided to the end of the bar.

  “Matthew, I don’t want any trouble here,” he said to the man.

  “About time you paid attention to one of your customers getting harassed,” Bird said to the bartender. “I believe you should pour me another beer on the house.” She nudged the empty beer mug toward him.

  “Don’t ignore me,” the man who the bartender had referred to as Matthew said. “I got a message for your scum of a partner.”

  The bartender set a fresh beer in front of Bird.

  “He’s going to hang for what he did,” the man said. “The men of Prosperity won’t stand for some stranger molesting their women. And if you’re not careful, you’ll be hanging right next to him.”

  Bird smiled at him. “I suggest you let me enjoy my complimentary beverage here,” she said, raising the mug in a mock toast with her left hand. “Or I’ll shove that shotgun so far up your ass your balls will get caught in the trigger guard.”

  She drank from her beer and let her right hand rest on the butt of her pistol.

  “Matthew,” the bartender said. “This isn’t the time or the place.” He looked from Matthew to Bird, licking his top lip, where a bead of sweat had broken out.

  The man called Matthew looked down at her tied-down gun and then back up at her.

  “Who the hell are you?” he said.

  “I am a woman who loves her whiskey, and right now, you are interfering with a highly romantic interlude.”

  The man turned on his heel and stormed out of the saloon.

  She shrugged her shoulders and drank the rest of her beer. It was her favorite kind.

  Free.

  Twenty-Two

  Tower got directions to the town’s doctor from the desk clerk. He stepped out of the hotel’s front door onto the boardwalk and felt the afternoon’s sun on his face. He absentmindedly touched the scratches on his cheek and neck.

  He turned left and walked along the boardwalk until he reached the end of the street; then he crossed over and walked behind a leather goods store.

  The doctor’s office was a single-story house with a weathered fron
t porch and a rocking chair sitting empty next to the front door.

  Tower walked up the steps and knocked on the door.

  It opened to reveal a woman with dark hair shot through with gray, wearing a light-blue dress and a world-weary expression.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Good day, ma’am,” Mike Tower said. “The clerk over at the hotel said you had a severely injured man here.”

  The woman appraised him, then shook her head.

  “He passed away an hour ago,” she said. “He’s with God and the undertaker now.” She smoothed down the front of her apron. “I’m afraid I’ve never seen anything like what was done to poor Mr. Smitty. I thought I’d seen it all.”

  Tower considered asking for more details but decided against it.

  “I’ll go see if the undertaker needs help with the final proceedings. Thank you.”

  She nodded and shut the door.

  Tower walked back the way he’d come, past the hotel, to the other end of town. The undertaker’s shed was next to the livery, and since the door was open, Tower stepped inside. A bald man with enormous forearms and hands was stacking wood. He glanced up.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “My name is Mike Tower, and I understand a man passed away earlier today. I was checking to see if you need any help with the proceedings.”

  The man shook his head. “No, all taken care of. You might want to send a prayer up to God for the young man, though. Those Indians tortured the hell out of him before bashing his head in. Animals.”

  The bald man looked Tower up and down, his gaze hardening. “Speaking of which, I heard about you,” he said.

  Tower nodded. “Figured you might have.”

  He walked out of the undertaker’s shed and into the street, where a small group of men had gathered. They were heavily armed. One of them, a tall man with a shotgun and an angry, pinched face, spoke for the others.

  “There’s the rapist right there,” he said.

  Before anyone else could speak, Sheriff Ectors stepped forward through the group.

  “Afraid you’re under arrest, Preacher,” he said. “For the rape of Susan Arliss.”

  Twenty-Three

  Bird leaned against the doorframe and gazed upon Mike Tower, confined in his cell. It was a tiny jail with just the one cell, and on the other side of the door was the office of Sheriff Ectors.

  “I can’t leave you alone for one minute, can I?” she said, shaking her head. “I bet when you pictured this situation, you had me on the other side of the bars.”

  Tower looked at her. She could see he was calm, even slightly amused by her words.

  “Usually once a year I try to do a good deed,” Bird said. “Getting you out of here ought to do it.”

  Tower stood and came to the front of the cell.

  “Yes, I don’t think this is what Father Johnstone had in mind when he sent me out. Preachers are supposed to save people, not the other way around.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Bird said. “This isn’t too bad of a jail. I’ve been in a lot worse.”

  Tower nodded.

  “I didn’t rape Susan Arliss,” he said.

  Bird rolled her eyes. “Jesus Christ, I know that. You think I don’t know how to read a man? If you were a rapist, you’d have a bullet hole in your head and be buried back along the trail somewhere.”

  “That’s comforting,” Tower said.

  “You’re not evil,” Bird said. “Boring as hell, yes. But evil? No.”

  Tower put his hands around the bars of his cell. “Now what?” he said, as much to himself as to Bird.

  Before Bird could answer, the sheriff spoke from the outer office.

  “Visitin’ time is over, folks,” he said.

  “I’ll poke around, see what I can find out,” Bird said to Tower. “Try not to cause any more trouble while I’m gone.”

  She left him there, then walked into the main room, where the sheriff stood leaning against the edge of his desk. His arms were folded across his chest.

  “Don’t know I’ve ever seen anything quite like this,” he said. “A preacher accused of rape, and the crime happened some time ago.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Bird responded. “I assume you’re getting plenty of pressure from the menfolk around town.”

  “I put a request into the territorial marshal of Texas, where the original crime happened — ”

  “Supposedly happened,” Bird interjected.

  “I’m waiting to hear back from them.”

  “So what can you tell me about this Susan Arliss?” Bird said.

  The sheriff shrugged his shoulders. “Not much to tell. She and her husband bought a place out near Rifle Creek a couple months back, and she’s only been into town a few times.” He cocked his head at Bird. “Why are you asking?”

  “Just like to know more about the woman who says the innocent man sitting in your jail did something horrible to her way back when. Ordinarily, I would tend to believe her. But I don’t think Mike Tower has it in him to do such a thing.”

  “I don’t need you out there stirring up trouble,” Sheriff Ectors said. “There’s already plenty of that going on right now.”

  Bird smiled at him. “Wouldn’t want a little thing called the truth to get in the way of that now, would we?”

  Twenty-Four

  Happiness was a bottle in the saddlebag, Bird thought. A full bottle.

  She stopped on the first rise outside of town, pulled out the bottle, popped the cork, and took a long drink.

  Rifle Creek was northwest of town, a few miles over slightly hilly terrain. Bird set the Appaloosa at a slow trot and headed in that direction.

  Her thoughts turned to Mike Tower.

  For the most part, she was openly skeptical of all men, for good reason. Most of the men she’d known in her life had tried to hurt her in one way or another.

  But there was something different about Mike Tower. Because, in reality, she had no reason to believe him. Maybe he really did rape that woman. However, Bird had survived as long as she had by being able to read other people, mostly men. And there was something about Mike Tower, his foolish notions of religion aside, that spoke to Bird’s intuition.

  She believed him.

  The curve of water presented itself over the next rise. Bird stopped and let her horse drink. The current was swift even though the creek was merely a few yards wide.

  When the Appaloosa lifted her head and waited, Bird nudged the horse forward. They climbed several ridges; the grass was dry but thick. Swaths of purple clover occasionally interrupted the broad expanses of green and light brown.

  According to Larkin, the dry goods store owner, Susan Arliss and her husband lived on a spread less than a mile from the creek’s first big bend. Bird passed the bend and within minutes had spotted a flash of white set back from the creek on a raised shelf of land.

  Bird slowed the Appaloosa to a walk and approached the camp. She had been expecting a house, perhaps a sod house or at least a hastily built home of fresh lumber; after all, she’d heard that the couple had only arrived a few months earlier.

  However, there was no house. No corral. What Bird found was a ring of rocks to make a campfire, and a tent structure that was falling down, with a few stray patches of canvas cloth fluttering in the wind.

  There was no sign of any people.

  What a terrible spot for a camp, Bird thought. The wind ripped along the creek, and its inertia carried it directly to the camp, where there were no trees to serve as a windbreak. The slope behind the shelf of land also most likely poured rainwater down toward the creek.

  There was no recent sign of tracks.

  Bird pulled the whiskey bottle out and took another drink, leaning on the saddle’s pommel as she considered her options.

  She slipped the bottle back into its saddlebag and walked the Appaloosa toward the creek.

  Something seemed odd.

  There was no way two peopl
e who were setting up a ranch would live in this tent in this place for this long.

  The wind gusted and the horse shifted as Bird decided to walk along the creek, headed north. Perhaps there were more buildings ahead, or this was just an outpost and not the actual homestead of the Arliss clan.

  The Appaloosa snorted and sidestepped quickly away from the creek. Bird had her gun in her hand as she surveyed the grassy prairie surrounding them.

  Nothing.

  So what had spooked the big horse?

  Bird slid from the saddle and approached the creek. Maybe there was a coyote patrolling the area, although there hadn’t been many animal tracks near the campfire.

  She got to the creek, where the surface of the water reflected rays from the late afternoon sun.

  There was a flash of white in the water. As Bird peered closer into the creek, she saw a face looking back at her.

  For a brief moment, she wondered if it was her own reflection, but then came recognition.

  Susan Arliss.

  Twenty-Five

  Mike Tower was able to smell his new cell mate before he could see him.

  Sheriff Ectors’s voice growled from the next room, “One step at a time, partner. Straight ahead.”

  A man with dirt on his face and straw in his hair stumbled through the doorway into the cell area. His pants were covered with dirt, as was the front of his shirt.

  He reeked of whiskey and cow shit.

  “Sorry about this, Preacher, but I’ve got a cowboy too full of whiskey to behave. He needs to get some sleep before he’s ready to face society again.”

  Tower didn’t say anything as Ectors opened the cell door and prodded the cowboy onto the other cot in the cell. The man collapsed flat on his back and immediately started snoring.

  “I brought over some supper for you,” Ectors said to Tower. He went back out into the front office, then reappeared with a plate full of beans and one biscuit. “If you breathe real deep, you might be able to get a little bit drunk off of the whiskey fumes from your new neighbor,” Ectors said.