Killer's Draw: The Circuit Rider (4 page)

Bird and Tower stood in the street, both digesting what the man had told them. Bird was also digesting a second bottle of wine and the few pieces of salty steak she had managed to choke down.

“So, the old man lured the preacher out of town to kill him?” Tower said.

Bird shook her head. “Not the way I see it. When he swung at me, it was like an old train pulling into the station, low on fuel. It took forever.”

Tower said, “I don’t see it either. There was something strange about Hale. It seemed like he had more on his mind than he was letting on.”

“Maybe he doesn’t really think his daughter is dead and he’s wondering where she is.”

Tower admitted, “Could be.”

“Or maybe the girl was seeing someone else. A jealous rival who didn’t like seeing his girl parading around with the new preacher in town,” Bird suggested.

“Love does do strange things to people.”

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience, Mr. Tower.”

“I am. But who’s to say it’s my experience?”

He turned and set off toward the sheriff’s office. Bird reluctantly followed.

“Besides, Mr. Hale was lying,” Tower said.

“Are you sure about that? His swing at me felt pretty truthful. I think he wanted to hurt me.”

“Maybe he did. But I think what he said about his daughter was the same type of material he shovels out of his horse’s stall.”

“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

“A lot of men have lied to me. Let’s just say, enough for me to recognize it.”

Before they made it halfway down the street, Sheriff Chesser popped out of one of the town’s three general stores. He had a plug of chewing tobacco in his hand. Bird got the feeling he’d been in the middle of a transaction when he’d seen them walking toward the sheriff’s office.

“Hold up there, you two!” he called out.

“I figured he’d be sound asleep in bed by now,” Bird said. “Dreaming about his wooden fish.”

Tower stopped and Bird swung around him, facing the lawman two abreast. The sheriff shoved some of the tobacco into his mouth and let out a long spit. Some of it dripped onto his shirt and he wiped at it with his hand.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that case you were asking about,” Chesser said.

“You’ve had some time to think about it,” Tower said. “I’m curious to hear your insights.”

The sheriff looked at Tower and held his hands wide. “When you’re dealing with all of this legal type of proceedings, you’ve got to move ahead cautiously. These kinds of issues can’t be taken lightly.”

“So, what do you have for us, sheriff?” Tower asked.

Chesser shook his head side to side. “Ain’t a whole lot I can tell you about the killing of that preacher. I talked to the judge and the city attorney, they’re both old friends of mine, and I guess that information is confidential. All I can tell is what’s already been made public.”

“Which is what?” Tower asked.

The sheriff whipped out a small piece of paper and read from it. “The body of one Bertram Egans was found near Killer’s Draw. It has been ruled a murder, but there are currently no suspects in the case.”

“Who found the body?” Bird asked. She shot this quick at Chesser, hoping to catch him off guard. It worked.

“Ol’ Stanley Verhooven did,” the sheriff said, surprising himself, along with Bird and Tower. Bird caught the faint scent of beer or whiskey on the sheriff and figured that his tongue was a bit looser than it should have been.

Realizing his mistake, Chesser looked down at the paper to see if that name had been written as “public” information. Bird guessed by his hangdog expression, that he now understood it hadn’t been.

“Actually, I’m wrong about that,” he said. He made a big show of taking a second look at the paper. “It doesn’t say who found the body, and I don’t know who did.”

“Well, we’re leaving town anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” Tower said, in a tone that was casual and offhand. Bird made a mental note to herself that when Tower wanted to lie, he was pretty damn good at it.

The sheriff perked up. “You’re leaving? As in now? Tonight?”

Tower nodded. “Yes, as much as we love Big River, we think it’s time to move on, isn’t that right, Bird?”

Bird looked at Chesser. “Hell yes, we’ve got to leave. That beer place you told me about? That’s the finest damn beer this side of the Mississippi. If I stay in this town much longer I’m going to drink it dry.”

“From what I hear, you just might be capable of that, Miss Hitchcock, but I do hope you two make it back to Big River sometime. This here is a good town. Full of good folks.”

“I believe you’re correct, sheriff,” Tower said. “Good night.” He tipped his hat to the sheriff, and he and Bird went back to the hotel, got their horses, and rode out of town. But they didn’t check out of their rooms.

“Something tells me you know where this Verhooven can be located,” Bird said.

Tower said, “Sure do. We passed a sign on our way out to Killer’s Draw. It had an arrow pointed east and said Verhooven Mine. Something tells me there is only one miner in the area with that name. And even if it isn’t the right one, I’m sure he’ll be able to tell us where to find Ol’ Stanley.”

It began to rain as they made their way out of Big River. Each passing mile brought a greater intensity to the wind and driving downpour. Bird and Tower each threw on a rain slicker, and the occasional flash of lightning revealed a valley floor overrun with newly formed raging streams.

Bird had her doubts about finding the sign to Verhooven Mine, and as the rain lashed at her face, the uncertainty only grew. They crossed a swollen streambed, struggled through thick mud, and then saw the sign.

The arrow pointed east.

When the rain abruptly ceased, Bird shook off her wet slicker and stowed it in a saddlebag. She made room for it there by taking out a whiskey bottle and raising it to her lips.

“Nothing like a drink after a rainstorm,” she said. It was a long drink and the liquor warmed her, reaching out to the parts of her body that had become wet and cold. Heat from the inside out. It was the best way to warm up.

She looked at Tower. “You’re wet on the outside, might as well be wet on the inside.” Bird held the bottle out toward him, but he declined. Her goal was to turn Tower into a drinking companion, and she had no intention of giving up just yet.

They headed directly east, and Bird was able to discern the slightest hint of a trail by the occasional hoofprint and stray wagon-wheel rut.

She felt the land begin to slightly rise, though the mountains were still distant. Tower filled Bird in on his unpleasant meeting at the boardinghouse where Egans had lived.

“That boy sure didn’t make a lot of friends while he was here,” Bird said.

“Or maybe the people he thought were friends really weren’t,” Tower said. “I find it strange that Sheriff Chesser had nothing to say about that. If Egans had committed some unspeakable crime, you would think the sheriff would mention it.”

“Or maybe not,” Bird said. “I think Chesser’s head is made of the same wood as those fish he carves.”

“You’re probably right about that,” Tower said. He lifted up in his saddle. “That must be it up there.”

Bird looked down the trail and saw in the looming darkness a white tent that looked as if a blind man had built it. The posts were crooked, the structure sagging. As they approached, she could see the remnants of a cooking circle strewn about.

“Do you think the storm did this?” Tower asked, looking at the chaotic camp.

“If anything, the storm probably improved it. Only a damn fool could have put together this fiasco.”

They pulled to a stop a dozen yards from the tent. Tower slid his rifle from its leather scabbard, and climbed off his horse.

“Well, miners aren’t exactly known for their domestic abilities,” he said.

Bird slid from her saddle, landed in mud, and drew one of her guns. She approached the tent and spotted a dozen empty whiskey jugs lined up next to the entrance.

“A man after my own heart,” she said. “Those whiskey jugs are the only things he kept organized.”

Tower held his rifle across the front of his body, his left hand on the barrel, his right sliding down to the trigger guard.

“Hello!” he called out.

There was no answer, save for the sound of Bird’s horse letting out a nervous whinny.

She glanced over, saw the horse’s ears were pointed forward, the nostrils flaring.

“Hello!” Tower called again. “Anyone home?”

He stood, arms at his side.

“My horse smells blood, just so you know,” Bird said.

“I do, too,” Tower answered.

He looked back toward the trail, then at Bird.

“If you want to go in, I don’t think you need an invitation,” she said.

Tower took a step forward and just as he did, a thunderclap exploded above their heads, a stab of lightning lit up the area, and a gunshot followed the rolling echo. It was impossible, but Bird thought she heard the sound of a horse thundering in the opposite direction.

The lightning flash briefly lit up the interior of the tent, and Bird could see the feet of a man, swaying back and forth.

Someone was inside, hanging.

Probably by his neck.

Bird ducked inside the tent. She had her gun in hand, ready to shoot if someone was hiding in the corner, waiting for an ambush.

But there was no one hiding.

The tent’s sole occupant, other than Bird, was a man hanging from the structure’s flimsy wood frame.

He was clearly dead.

As she took in the scene before her, the smell assaulted Bird’s senses: rotten meat, human despair, and the coppery scent of fresh blood.

She heard Tower enter behind her, and she spotted a lantern in the corner. Bird struck a match and lit the lantern. The scene inside was a desperate mess. Assorted mining tools were strewn about the interior, along with what looked like scrap wood and iron. A chain hung from another of the tent’s flimsy wooden supports, causing it to sag inward toward the center. Another whiskey jug sat on its side, next to the shattered remnants of another.

“Did you hear a horse?” Tower asked.

“Let me check,” Bird answered, stepping out the back of the tent. Immediately, she stepped away from the light thrown off by the lantern inside. She wasn’t sure if someone was out here, waiting to take a shot at either her or Tower.

But had they really heard a horse? Or had it been the faint echoes of thunder?

The rain had started again, big wet drops that struck the ground with authority. Bird searched the area behind the tent, but the ground was chewed up and the layers of overlapping mud made it impossible to tell what was fresh and what wasn’t. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Bird could make out a path leading away from the tent, toward another, smaller structure that she assumed was the mine entrance. That could wait until first light. She had no desire to explore a mine shaft in the middle of the night.

Bird walked in a wide circle around Verhooven’s camp. She saw nothing that caught her eye, nothing that seemed out of place. Then again, it was night and the rain had been falling hard. Whatever tracks or subtle disturbances in the area were impossible to spot now.

She found their horses and brought them back to the front of the tent. Bird took a moment to retrieve the whiskey bottle from her saddlebag. She had briefly entertained the idea of helping herself to some of the whiskey from one of the jugs inside the tent, but those smells were too much even for her. She would use her own supply, for now.

Bird tied the horses outside the tent, then went back in where she found Tower standing, his rifle leaned up against the table in the corner. He was turned toward the dead man.

Bird went and stood next to him.

“Mr. Verhooven, I’m assuming,” Tower said.

The dead man wore filthy coveralls and a stained shirt. His neck was stretched, the head tilted at an unnatural angle. His eyes bulged and his tongue protruded from his mouth.

Bird studied the dead man’s face. She saw blood dripping from the corner of the man’s eyes.

“He hasn’t been dead long,” Bird said.

“Just a minute or two,” Tower said. “That ended up being the difference between murder and suicide.”

“What are you talking about?” Bird said.

“I think we really did hear someone riding away. If we hadn’t, we probably would have jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

Tower lifted his leg and used the toe of his boot to push the dead man. The effort caused the body to slowly twist, and reveal what had been pinned to the corpse’s shirt.

It was a yellowed sheet of paper with thick black words scrawled across the front.

I killed the preacher.

Bird turned to Tower and said, “Why would—”

But before she could finish, they both heard a voice that seemed to come from a distance, yet at the same time closely surrounded them both. The effect was unsettling, and Bird felt a cold breeze along her neck.

The voice was faint, and the words weren’t clear. But it was a woman’s voice.

The same one they’d heard.

At Killer’s Draw.

EPISODE TWO

For once, the blood was her own.

Bird stared at the back of her hand. She had just finished
coughing, not an uncommon activity these days, she had to admit. But when she
expected to maybe see a bit of spittle, instead, she saw blood. Not a lot. But
even a little was more than she liked to see.

The bright-red splatter ran across her hand and dripped a
little onto her wrist.

Bird grabbed the whiskey bottle from her saddlebag and
helped herself, swishing the amber liquid around her mouth to rinse out the
metallic taste. She wiped the blood from her hand on her horse’s neck.

She straightened in the saddle and looked out over the
valley in front of her. She was behind Verhooven’s mine, studying the trail of
the mystery rider she was sure had been involved with the miner’s murder. Or
suicide, as someone had probably been hoping to make it appear.

Tower waited until the morning to load the body onto the
back of Verhooven’s horse and head back to Big River, so Bird waited with him
and then set off to find out if there really had been someone else at the mine—and
to see if that someone was responsible for killing Stanley Verhooven.

A hazy sun hung overhead, the deep recesses of the valley
below still shrouded in early morning fog. On the ridge to her east, Bird saw a
mule deer across an open meadow, startled by something or someone. It raced
across the open space and in seconds was back in the tree line, deeper into
safety.

Bird nudged the Appaloosa and they moved forward. The trail
had already taken them at least a mile from Verhooven’s camp, but the tracks
were becoming more and more difficult to find.

Of one thing Bird was sure: there was only one rider. He
apparently wanted to get away from the scene as quickly as possible, but once
he had, he took greater care in covering his tracks. Bird already noted how the
rider had swung wide and skirted open patches of dirt on the trail, opting for
sections that were covered in long grass or pine needles. Someone riding
normally wouldn’t do that, unless the trail was treacherous. The rain had been
prodigious, but the route was fine. There was no need to veer off unless the
goal was to lead followers astray.

Bird forged ahead and moved as quickly as possible, but
studying the ground made the going slow. She wasn’t a natural-born tracker. Bird
had ridden with some genius trackers in her time; men, and one woman, who could
read the ground like an open book and could interpret minute disturbances with
confidence and clarity.

Bird had learned a few tricks from them, but she went more
with instinct than any definite idea about whom she was following and where he
might be going. It was nearly an additional quarter mile before she found
another track. Just the edge of a hoof, barely noticeable along the crumbling
path.

She dismounted and studied the edges of the track to decide
how long ago it had been made, when she smelled smoke. At first, she thought it
might be from a campfire. But as she stood and covered the butt of her gun with
her hand, she changed her mind.

It was cigarette smoke.

Her horse smelled it, too, and snorted.

Bird slid the six-gun from its holster and climbed back on the
Appaloosa. There was just the tickle of a breeze coming at them, so the
smoker couldn’t be far ahead. She moved forward slowly, walking her horse ahead
with caution. She had covered a lot of ground in the last hour or so, but now
was not the time to race ahead blindly.

She crested a small rise in the trail and saw a man sitting
on his horse, facing Bird.

He was tall and rangy, wearing a long brown duster, with a
hand-rolled cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.

His black cowboy hat was low over his eyes—two brilliant
blue eyes peered out from underneath the rim at Bird.

The man exhaled, and a long stream of smoke immediately
caught in the breeze and blew toward her.

“Took you long enough,” he said.