The Circuit Rider Read online

  Tower had no appetite whatsoever, but he ate the food on the plate with a mechanical efficiency. He had learned the lesson in war well: eat when you can, sleep when you can, because you never know when either will be in short supply.

  He set the empty plate outside the cell door and lay back on his cot. His fellow cell mate had stopped snoring, and Ectors had left the office.

  There was silence except for the occasional shout from the street or the sound of a horse braying.

  Tower wondered what Bird was doing.

  Of all the places he could have imagined, the jail in the town of Prosperity, Kansas, was the last place he would have expected ending up.

  He wondered if there was a way to contact Father Johnstone back in Saint Louis. What would he say? I’ve been arrested, send help?

  No, that wouldn’t do.

  He wasn’t about to drag the church into this situation. Tower knew he hadn’t raped the woman, but there was a chance he knew her.

  But where?

  When?

  He closed his eyes and scrolled through the memories, as hazy as they were, trying to picture the face of Susan Arliss. He imagined her with shorter hair and longer hair. Heavier and thinner.

  The food in his stomach must have made him sleepy, because soon he felt himself drift off.

  He dreamed he was back in Missouri somewhere. In his dream, he had been arrested. And they must have tied his hands, because he couldn’t move them. They weren’t just arresting him, Tower realized in the dream.

  He was being executed.

  Because they had put something around his neck. It must have been a noose, because it was getting tighter and tighter and he couldn’t move his hands.

  And then, suddenly, Tower was awake.

  His eyes snapped open to see his cell mate on top of him, straddling him, with his knees pinning his hands to the cot and his hands around Tower’s throat, choking him.

  Tower bucked, but the man held on.

  Tower lunged forward, head butting the man. He heard the crunch of cartilage and figured he’d broken the man’s nose. But the man still held on.

  Light exploded across Tower’s vision, and he knew he was perilously close to passing out.

  He twisted beneath the man’s weight and managed to free his left hand.

  He corkscrewed his upper body as best he could and clubbed his left fist against the man’s temple.

  His assailant’s grip on Tower’s throat loosened, and he felt a rush of air as he inhaled.

  The oxygen boosted him, and he bucked one more time, this time knocking the man off of him and onto the floor.

  Tower pushed off from his cot and threw himself at the man. He crashed into him as the man struggled to get to his feet. Tower swung from the hip and smashed a fist into the man’s mouth. Teeth sprayed onto the stone floor.

  The man weaved in front of Tower and threw a wide, looping left. Tower easily stepped inside it and gave the man a shot to the body that doubled the man over, then an uppercut that snapped the man’s head back. When he straightened, Tower threw a short left hook that connected solidly with the man’s jaw.

  Tower heard bone grind and saw the man’s eyes roll back into his head.

  He fell backward, his head smacking the edge of the steel cot frame with a sickening snap.

  The man landed on the stone floor, his eyes wide and unmoving.

  Tower drew his breath, still ragged from the shock of the attack and the experience of nearly being choked to death.

  As he stood, looking down on the man, who was a total stranger to him, only one question came to Tower’s mind.

  What is happening?

  Twenty-Six

  The situation was instantly clear to Bird. The very woman who had accused the man she was riding with of a heinous crime was now dead, and she, Bird, had discovered the body.

  People might not believe that Bird found her this way. Instead, they might jump to the conclusion that she’d killed her in order to solve the problem.

  The best plan of action for Bird was to get the hell out of this place.

  Because if the same group of men who wanted to get their hands on Mike Tower showed up, they would have some very definite ideas on what to do with Bird.

  “Well, shit,” she said.

  Bird looked down at the woman in the creek.

  Susan Arliss had been a beautiful woman, but someone’s bad intentions had clearly not been swayed by the woman’s looks.

  Bird looked back at the Appaloosa. It had moved away from the creek and was now tucking into a thick stand of grass. She scanned the horizon and saw no one approaching.

  She had time.

  Bird stepped into the creek, wrapped her hands around the woman’s arm, and pulled the body from the creek. The water was ice-cold, and Bird nearly lost her grip on the woman. She managed to get Susan Arliss’s upper body from the creek, but someone had tied large river rocks to the woman’s feet and lower back to pin her underwater.

  But Bird didn’t need to see the woman’s feet.

  Bird pulled the bowie knife from the sheath on her belt, reached down, and cut the front of the woman’s dress open. She looked at the woman’s smooth white skin and the top of her breasts.

  There was no pentagram.

  Bird rolled the woman onto her side and used the knife to cut away the back of the woman’s dress. The woman’s back was smooth and without any marks.

  Bird had no idea if Toby Raines was in the area, but she had been close to finding him in Green Spring. And if he was continuing west knowing that Bird was behind him and hot on his trail, it was more than possible he would have come this way.

  If he had killed Susan Arliss, he hadn’t left his mark.

  And Bird knew firsthand how important it was for him to do so. How much sick enjoyment he got from it.

  Bird pushed the woman back into the creek rather than leave her out for the coyotes. Her body would be safer in the water. It was an unpleasant thing to do, but Bird couldn’t afford to tell Sheriff Ectors what she’d found. Bird would have to wait until she had better information and a better idea of how to free Mike Tower.

  She walked over to the Appaloosa and swung up into the saddle, then turned the horse back toward Prosperity.

  She didn’t know what had gone on between this woman and Mike Tower.

  And now, only Mike Tower would ever know.

  Twenty-Seven

  The man was dead.

  Tower had not heard him breathe, so he had checked his pulse and found none.

  He made the sign of the cross.

  Tower sat on his cot and prayed. He prayed for the man’s soul, and for his own, and he asked God to forgive him for what he’d done.

  Moments later, Tower heard the door to the sheriff’s office open and the sound of boots on the floor. He heard Ectors sit down in his wooden chair behind his desk.

  “Sheriff, you might want to come in here,” Tower said.

  He heard the older man get to his feet, and, moments later, the sheriff appeared in the doorway to the cell. He glanced down at the man on the floor.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  “He’s dead,” Tower said.

  Ectors drew his gun and pointed it at Tower.

  “Stay right there,” he said.

  Tower looked around him. Where exactly was he going to go?

  The sheriff drew a pair of cuffs from his belt and passed them through the bars to Tower.

  “Put one on your wrist and the other on that ring in back.”

  Tower glanced behind him. There was a black iron ring bolted into the wall. He went to the back of the cell and locked one cuff on his wrist and the other on the ring. The cuffs snapped into place.

  Ectors slipped his pistol back into his holster, unlocked the cell door, and knelt by the dead man.

  “What happened?” he said, his voice disgusted.

  “He attacked me, tried to choke me,” Tower explained. “One minute, he was on his cot and I was o
n mine. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me, trying to choke the life out of me. I punched him, and when he fell, he cracked his head on the edge of the cot and snapped his neck. He was probably dead before he hit the floor.”

  Ectors stood.

  “This is bad,” he said.

  “Who is he?” Tower asked.

  “Don’t know. Never seen him around town before. Probably a cowboy from one of the herds bein’ held outside town.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t know,” Ectors said.

  He sighed and looked at Tower.

  “For a preacher, you sure cause a lot of trouble,” he finally said.

  Twenty-Eight

  Dusk arrived with Bird as she walked her Appaloosa down Prosperity’s main street.

  A few folks were out on the sidewalk, finishing their affairs for the day, picking up the last order of yarn from the dry goods store, leaving the saloon, or just arriving at the saloon for the evening’s festivities.

  A few drops of rain tapped on the brim of Bird’s Stetson. She nudged her horse forward toward the jail.

  Bird noticed a figure standing in front of the sheriff’s office.

  It was Ectors.

  “Visiting hours are over,” he said.

  She stopped the Appaloosa. The rain had begun to pick up, and the early evening sky was growing darker by the minute.

  “When do they open up again?” she said.

  Ectors shook his head. “Not sure they’re going to, unless you’re his attorney. That boy seems to make a lot of trouble, doesn’t he?”

  Bird sensed something different in Ectors’s voice.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “’Fraid I’m not at liberty to discuss the situation right now, ma’am. Feel free to check back in the morning, when I’ve had a little time to think on it.”

  Bird recognized a standoff when she saw one.

  She nodded. She had a brief thought that the law most likely required her to report a crime. She knew about the dead woman in the creek, but there was something about the way the sheriff was looking at her that erased any desire to share the information with him.

  “I never did get your name,” the sheriff said.

  Bird sighed because she knew what would happen.

  “Bird,” she said.

  Ectors raised his eyebrows at her.

  “Bird Hitchcock?” he said.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I thought you were dead,” Ectors said.

  “I think quite a few folks would prefer that to be true, but so far I’ve managed to disappoint them.”

  “Huh, Bird Hitchcock and a preacher? How’d that come about?”

  “The church doesn’t send out circuit riders without protection, especially seeing as how they don’t carry guns. So that man you have in there is my responsibility.”

  “Well, I can tell you, that man doesn’t need protecting. If anything, looks like people need protection from him.”

  Bird tried one more time. “Still not going to tell me what’s going on?” she said.

  “Give me the night to think on it,” Ectors said.

  She tugged on the Appaloosa’s reins.

  “I’ll be in the saloon if you change your mind.”

  Twenty-Nine

  The Day’s End was packed, but crowds always had a way of parting for Bird Hitchcock, even when the assembled mass didn’t know who she was.

  Maybe it was the way she didn’t pause when she entered, but walked purposefully to the bar and ordered a whiskey.

  She held up a finger after the bartender poured her first shot, which she tossed down, then nodded for him to hit the refill.

  “Just leave the bottle,” she said, having savored the whiskey as the fumes warmed her. She put her money on the bar and said to the bartender, “What’s the occasion here?”

  “Big doings tomorrow,” he said. “The last of the herds will be in, and we have a little Prosperity celebration. Have some singers and dancers from back east who put on a big show for the cowboys.”

  “And take most of their money in the process, I’m sure,” she said.

  “Hey, they’re grown men — they know what they’re doing,” he said.

  “I’ve known plenty of grown men who have no idea what they’re doing,” she said.

  The bartender chuckled. “I suppose you’re right, ma’am.”

  He threw a small towel over his shoulder and walked to the other end of the bar. Bird turned and looked out at the crowded saloon. A lot of cowboys, fresh from their baths and shaves, fire in their eyes from long days and months on the trail, ready to make it all worth it, have their fun before they headed back to their homes in Texas or Louisiana or wherever they were from.

  She felt the eyes of some of the men on her and knew she was always an odd attraction in a saloon. A woman, but not that kind of woman.

  A lot of the men didn’t care for having a nonworking woman in the saloon; others seemed to enjoy the sight. Most just ignored her.

  She preferred the ones who ignored her.

  When the young cowboy with a shock of bright-red hair approached her, she instantly knew he was not in the group that would ignore her.

  “Hey, did you ride in with that preacher?” he said. “The one locked up over in the jail?”

  Bird shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know anything about a preacher in jail. Who would come up with such a strange idea?”

  The cowpuncher looked confused for a moment.

  “Oh,” he said. “I was hoping to find out if it’s true.”

  “If what’s true?” Bird said.

  “That he raped a woman and then killed some drunk cowboy who’d been thrown into the cell with him.”

  Thirty

  Ectors had seen to the removal of the dead man. Now, he pulled up a wooden stool outside Mike Tower’s cell, placed his hands on his knees, and leveled his gaze at him.

  “I think it’s time for you to tell me just what is going on,” he said.

  Tower shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t explain something I don’t understand.”

  “So within one twenty-four-hour period one woman accuses you of rape and a man tries to kill you. You don’t find that a bit odd?”

  Tower took a deep breath. “I find it a lot more than odd. Shocking. Frightening. But most of all, confusing. I’ve never seen that woman before in my life, and I have no idea who that man was who attacked me.”

  “Why do I think you’re not on the level, son?” Ectors said.

  “I don’t know why you don’t believe me. I’m telling the truth.”

  Ectors sighed. “It’s not that I think you’re lying — I just don’t think you’re being completely honest. Like there’s more to the story. I can tell you one thing, you don’t look like a preacher.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just sayin’,” the sheriff said, spreading his hands wide. “Most preachers I’ve met are either real old men or men who make a living through their talking. You ain’t old, and you don’t talk much. I think you are, or were, a man who was used to letting his actions speak for him. And you surely proved that recently.”

  Tower stood.

  “You know and I know that not a single person on this earth can get through very long without making some enemies,” Tower said. “I’m sure I’ve made my fair share. But I can tell you I never laid a finger on that woman, and I don’t believe I’ve ever met that man who just attacked me. Yes, I fought back, but I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  He could tell the sheriff more, a lot more, about his past, but he figured that wouldn’t help matters. Besides, practically every man in the West had been in the War between the States and probably done some things they weren’t very proud of. But this was neither the time nor the place to start talking about what he’d done. Besides, he didn’t think all of this had anything to do with his past. It was about something else, but what, he wa
sn’t sure.

  Sheriff Ectors got to his feet and picked up the stool with one hand.

  “Well, Preacher, I don’t know what to make of you. I believe that you believe you’re telling the truth. What the truth actually is or may be, well, hopefully we’ll find out. In the meantime, it’s my job to keep you safe in here, and that’s what I intend to do.”

  He walked out, shut the door to the cell area, and threw the bolt.

  The sound echoed through Mike Tower’s cell.

  Thirty-One

  “I’m sorry,” Bird said. “I must not have heard you correctly. Who killed their cell mate?”

  The young cowboy smiled at Bird. “A damn preacher, can you believe it?” He started laughing. “Some of the boys are talking about stringing the bastard up. What the hell? He rapes a woman and kills a guy with his bare hands? And he claims to be a preacher?”

  Bird poured herself another shot of whiskey. She raised the bottle to the cowboy. He nodded and held out his glass. She poured him one, set the bottle down, and sipped from her glass.

  “You never know about people, do you?” she said.

  “Hell no. You never know about a town, neither,” he said. “Prosperity was supposed to be a quiet down, now we got a mad preacher killing people!”

  “Don’t forget about Smitty,” the bartender said. Bird turned to the man, who was wiping down the bar with enthusiasm.

  “Who’s Smitty?” Bird said.

  “Nicest young man you’d ever want to meet. Left work at the bank one night, no one ever saw him again until they found him a half mile from town. Someone sliced him up, looked like the work of the Kiowa, and then smashed his face in. You could barely recognize him, from what I hear. But until this week, Prosperity’s been a mighty quiet town. In fact, people joked we should have named it Serenity, it was so quiet. Glad we didn’t. We’d look like fools.”

  The young cowboy threw down the rest of his drink and looked back at a group of other cowboys leaving the saloon.

  “Thank you for the drink, ma’am.” He hesitated. “Ma’am, may I ask you a question?”