Killer's Draw: The Circuit Rider (7 page)

The top of the grass brushed against the chest of the
Appaloosa as Bird nudged the horse forward. It seemed like a crazy idea. What
would a girl be doing out here alone? There were no ranches or farms nearby. There
was nothing but a broad, flat valley until you got to Big River.

So had she really seen someone?

Bird wondered if there was something strange in Axelrod’s
whiskey. Maybe it was one of those newfangled concoctions made with strange
pharmaceuticals. Bird had heard some interesting stories about creative
chemists back East and the crazy things people did when they ingested their
creations.

She pulled the bottle out and looked again at the label. No,
just straight whiskey. And the bottle had been unopened; she’d broken the seal
herself.

A firm wind was blowing down the length of the draw. Small
rocks moved beneath the horse’s hooves. A bird flew high overhead, its shadow
briefly moving across Bird’s path.

She rose slightly in her stirrups and looked out over the
top of the grass. It was especially thick here, probably because part of the
stream branched off and provided extra irrigation to the ground nearest the
stream. Where the grass extended, it slowly declined in height as it radiated
out from the streambed, forming a gentle slope, barely perceptible from a
distance.

Bird studied the ground but saw nothing that seemed unusual
in its presence. She saw no clues, no tracks of any kind, animal or human.

“Hello?” Bird shouted. Her voice echoed across the valley in
waves.

There was no response.

She sank back into her saddle, pulled out the bottle of
whiskey and drank. It was nearly empty.

Bird waited.

Another bird flew overhead.

And then someone laughed behind her.

Bird twisted in the saddle, bringing her gun out with the
motion. She brought the Appaloosa around with a start.

There was no one behind her.

Bird felt a moment of confusion that instantly  morphed into
anger. She did not enjoy being toyed with.

Bird dug her heels into the Appaloosa’s sides and charged
ahead, back to the riverbed.

No one was there.

Bird again studied the ground, walking her horse in tight but expanding circles. There were no tracks other than her own.

And then Bird realized something else.

Downwind Dave and his horse were gone.

She rode over to where she’d left the pair, but there was no
sign of them. Bird scanned the surroundings.

“Goddamn, this is really starting to annoy me,” Bird said.

There would have been no reason for the horse to run off. There
was water and plenty of grass. Plus, Bird had glanced over less than a minute
ago and seen the horse right there. Now, there was nothing, just the tracks
from where they’d come in, but no sign of the horse leaving. Bird kept studying
the ground until she spotted something at the edge of the stream.

It was faint, and probably nothing, but it caught Bird’s
eye.

She dismounted the Appaloosa and studied the small
indentation not more than two inches from the water’s edge. Bird looked into
the water, at the smooth stones and small pebbles that lined the bed of the
river. Their general color and sediment was uniform. She reached in and turned
one over, noting the darker and rougher rock bottom.

No one had walked through the stream recently. If they had,
some of the stones would certainly have been turned over.

Bird looked back at the mark, and realized it was really two
small marks.

Both seemed to hint at an edge of some sort. If it was the
mark of a boot, it would have to be a very small boot. Much too tiny to be a
man’s.

Which meant it was a woman’s.

Or a child’s.

“Father Silas sent you out here?” the man asked.

“He did,” Tower said. He stuck out his hand. “Mike Tower.”

Morrison shook Tower’s hand and said, “You’re a circuit
rider? Is that what I heard?”

“I am … or was. It depends, I guess, on what Silas has
in store for me. Right now, he wanted me to come out and see if I could shed some
light on what happened to Egans. Seems like he wasn’t getting enough answers
from the sheriff.”

Morrison frowned. They sat at a rickety wooden table on
equally rickety chairs. An unlit candle sat on the center of the table. A
lopsided bookshelf was the only other item in the room. The shelf was crammed with
small books bound in leather, all of them well-worn.

Tower looked at Morrison. Closer up, Tower could see he was much
older than he first guessed. Late sixties, maybe even early seventies.

“Chesser doesn’t like to share information, or really do
much of anything,” Morrison said. “Never has, never will. I’m not surprised
Silas was frustrated. I’ve tried to find out what I can, but I’m an old man. No
one’s got much to say to me, especially knowing how I feel … felt … about
young Bertram.”

“And how did you feel about Egans?” Tower asked.

“I liked him, of course!” the old man practically barked at
Tower. “He was a great kid. Wanted to help. Cared about people. He was a fine
young man. Don’t let these mealymouthed yokels tell you any different.”

“Oh, they’ve been telling me a much different story than you
are, that’s for certain. They all seem to think that whoever killed him
deserves a giant thank-you. Maybe even a street named after him, the way they
talk.”

“They’re full of manure.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because they don’t know what they’re talking about. Bertram
had big ideas for this town, and for this church. He was very curious about
what made people tick. Why they made certain choices in their lives. He was a
very passionate young man. I admired him. When he was engaged, he was very
passionate.”

“What do you mean by ‘when he was engaged’?”

Morrison shrugged.

“I guess I’m referring to the times he seemed like he had
something else on his mind. Like he had a secret. He would never tell me about
it, though. Even if I did ask, which was only once or twice.”

Tower thought about that.

“You think highly of him. No one in town apparently feels
that way. So, who do you think killed him?”

Morrison’s shoulders slumped. “I have no idea.”

“What do you know about Ronald Hale? He tried to tell me
that Egans killed his daughter, but then I heard that he doesn’t have a
daughter. In fact, no kids at all, not even married. Why would he lie about that?”

The old wooden chair creaked as Morrison got to his feet. “I
have no idea why Mr. Hale would say such a thing. Don’t know the man, to be
honest. But it sounds to me like someone knows why you’re here and is maybe
trying to confuse the issue.”

“That occurred to me,” Tower said.

Morrison put his hands on his hips. “If you don’t mind my
asking, why did you become a preacher, Mr. Tower?”

He’d been asked that before, but still, Tower paused before
speaking. “I think because I spent a good amount of my life hurting people. And
at some point, I wanted to help them instead.”

“I thought about becoming a man of the cloth, too,” Morrison
said. “But I just never felt the calling. I think a lot of men choose the
profession, or the profession chooses them, for the same reason you just
described to me.”

Morrison put his hand on the back of his chair and leaned
forward.

“I think that was the case with Mr. Egans. That feeling I
had that sometimes his mind was somewhere else? I think he
was
somewhere
else. I think he was in the past.
His
past.”

Tower thought back to the letters he’d read from Egans’
mother. The hints at a troubled past.

“I think you are probably right, Mr. Morrison.”

“And if I am, I think there’s a good chance that whoever
wanted him dead knew something about his past, too.”

The town of Big River appeared between her horse’s ears, and
Bird felt a mixture of relief and unsettledness. It felt like a long time ago
that she had ridden out to Verhooven’s mine with Tower.

Now, she trotted her horse back to the hotel, flipped a
couple bits at the hotel manager, and asked for beer and whiskey to be sent to
her room, along with hot water for a bath. Once she’d dropped her gear off, the
beer and whiskey arrived first, so she filled a mug with beer, then dropped a
couple shots of whiskey into it, sat on the edge of the bed, and waited for the
hot water. It arrived several minutes later, and her tub was filled. She
shucked her clothes, hung her gun belt next to the tub, grabbed the beer and
whiskey, and slid into the soapy hot water.

It felt wonderful.

Bird sank into the water and rinsed her face. She reached
out for the mug with a fresh serving of beer and whiskey, then sunk far enough
into the water that the scar on her chest wasn’t visible.

She closed her eyes, pictured the odd images back at
Killer’s Draw. The voice seemed so clear. If it was the voice of a child, where
had the child gone? And was that the print?

Bird glanced down and saw the scar on her chest now peeking
out just above the waterline. It had been carved there years ago by a man known
as Toby Raines. A man who was now dead, thanks to the gun hanging within inches
of her hand.

It was a violent country. Almost everyone she had ever known
had either killed someone or knew someone close to them who had been killed. She
had a feeling things would change eventually. Already, it seemed more law and
order was visible, especially now that the railroad had made its full circuit
across the country.

Bird drank again.

She wondered what she would do. How long would she ride
around with Tower? It still seemed odd to her. A woman like her—bottle in one
hand, gun in the other. Piles of dead men behind her. And now she was working side by side
with a preacher?

She didn’t believe in God.

But she sure as hell believed that life enjoyed making every
day a mystery.

The knock at the door came after Bird had gotten out of the
tub and changed into clean clothes.

“Who is it?” she asked. The gun was already in her hand
before the words left her mouth.

“Lynching party,” Tower said.

Bird rolled her eyes.

“Come in,” she said.

Tower opened the door and came into the room. He looked at
Bird and she saw him hesitate. There was a chair next to the washbasin so he
pulled it out and sat on it.

“Want some beer or whiskey?” Bird asked.

Tower looked. “Beer, please.” She poured a glass and handed
it to him.

“So, you go first,” he said. “What did you find out?”

 “Well, I found out who killed Verhooven. A man named Downwind
Dave Axelrod.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You won’t be hearing anything from him now, either.”

Tower looked carefully around the room, as if she’d stashed
the body under the bed.

“No, he’s not here. I lost his body at Killer’s Draw, but
that’s another story,” Bird said. “What about you?”

Tower set aside his curiosity, filled her in on his meeting
with the reporter, and Morrison.

“Sounds like the Big River Club is my kind of place,” she
said. She put her head back on the pillow and stretched out on the bed. She
felt very tired all of a sudden. Probably the combination of a bath and a
boatload of whiskey.

“Probably not, the bar was pretty small,” Tower said.

“Was there a bartender?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’ll do.”

“So, it sounds like Axelrod was hired by someone to kill
Verhooven,” Tower said, after Bird explained the discovery of the note and what
it said.

“That’s how it was signed?” he asked. “With just a P?”

Bird nodded.

“Plenty of people in town with a P in their name,” Tower
said.

“Yeah,” Bird said. “But how many with enough money to hire
their very own gunfighter?”

They walked into the hotel lobby and Tower immediately
spotted the two men who’d been watching him from the porch of the Big River
Club.

They sat at a table facing the stairs, the little one with a
cup of coffee in his hand. The big one sat in what looked like a dollhouse
chair beneath his immense bulk.

Since they were situated facing the stairs, Tower figured
they were now keeping a more direct eye on them, so he approached the table.

“May I help you gentlemen?” Tower asked.

The big man lifted his head and looked at Tower, his eyes
peering with apparent boredom from beneath heavy eyebrows. The little man
smiled, put down his coffee cup, and traced a pattern on the tabletop with his
index finger.

“Now why would you be asking if we need help? Do we appear
to be in need of assistance?” the man asked. His voice was high and chirpy. Tower
thought he sounded like a ten-year-old boy.

“I’m a man of the cloth, sir. I’m always looking to help
people,” Tower answered.

Tower sensed Bird behind him, moving away to the side.

“No, there is nothing you can do to help us, Mr. Tower,” the
man said. “I am simply enjoying a cup of this fine hotel coffee. And Carl is
busy … being Carl.” The big man displayed no apparent recognition that he
had been mentioned. He continued to look at Tower with tired indifference.

“Since you already know my name,” Tower said. “I’d like to
introduce you to my associate—”

Before he could finish the sentence, the little man said.
“Bird Hitchcock. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Tower looked at Bird, caught the look of annoyance on her
face. He turned back to the little man.

“And you would be …” Tower said.

“Name’s Benjamin Hackett,” the little man said. “And this is
my associate, Carl Weller.”

“I already mentioned that I’m a preacher. Do you mind me
asking what you do for an occupation?”

The little man chuckled. Tower noted the bright blue eyes,
the way they seemed to stare at him with none of the emotion carried by the
rest of the man’s face.

“I am an entrepreneur, Mr. Tower. I create my own
opportunities.”

“What kind of opportunity are you creating now?” Tower asked.

“Too early to tell.”

A brief silence hung between them. Hackett continued to
trace a pattern on the tabletop with his index finger. Weller continued to
glower. Tower decided that nothing important would be gained by continuing the
conversation.

“Well, good luck, gentlemen, I’m sure we’ll be seeing you
around town,” Tower said.

“That is very likely,” Hackett said.

Tower and Bird left the hotel.

“What the hell was that all about?” Bird asked.

Tower explained how the two men had watched his discussion with
Roger Jeffire and how he felt they’d staked out the hotel to keep an eye on
them.

“I’ll be damned,” Bird said. “Well, I’ve got some news for
you, Mr. Tower. That little man’s name sure as hell isn’t Benjamin Hackett. Or
maybe it is, but that’s not what he called himself down in Laredo. There, he
was known as Henry Jones. A helluva card cheat and quick with a gun. Carries
one up his sleeve and another one in his boot.”

“I figured he wasn’t being completely honest with me,” Tower
said.

“And that big man, he was known as Mr. Seven. Probably
because he’s almost seven feet tall. He likes to beat men to death with his
bare hands. I never saw him do it, but I saw the body of one of his sparring
partners. Pretty gruesome.”

They made their way to the newspaper office as Tower thought
about the two men.

“Why would they be so interested in us?” he asked.

“No clue. But I’m not done yet. Do you remember when Ronald
Hale confronted me at the restaurant about Egans and his daughter?”

“His fictitious daughter, you mean,” Tower said.

“Right. Well, just before he confronted me, two men had
walked into the dining room and sat well away from me. Something about those
two rang a bell, though, and I’ve been trying to piece together who they were,
but now that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Seven and Henry Jones again,
it hit me.”

“Who are they?”

“The two men in the restaurant were part of Henry Jones’
gang back in Texas. They’d been brought in to settle a range war by making one
of the warring party’s members disappear. I originally was part of that group,
until I realized they wanted us to simply murder everyone in cold blood.”

“So, now we’re facing four people at least who seem to have
a vested interest in what we’re doing.”

“Yes, four. There were five. “

Tower looked at her and Bird nodded.

“Downwind Dave was a part of that group, too.”