The Circuit Rider (13 page)

T
ower
looked at the people surrounding him. After he had chased away the attackers,
Tower and Bird had spotted a friendly face waving them toward an open doorway. They
had dragged the man inside, and now he was being tended to by an elderly
Chinese woman.

The
room was dimly lit, and Tower was initially overwhelmed by the strange scents. It
was the odor of many people living close together, but also of exotic scents
and something both sweet smelling and darkly pungent.

Tower
had heard of opium dens and that they were favored by the Chinese. In fact,
opium was known as hop, and in nearly every western town with a Chinese
population Tower had been to, the section where they lived was known as
Hop Alley.

But
the structure he was in appeared to be more for daily living, with perhaps as
many as three families sharing the building.

Tower
looked at Bird.

“Are
they still out there?” he said.

Bird
opened the door a crack and peeked outside.

“There
are still a few milling about, but I think they’ve had their fun,” she said.

Tower
turned to the terrified people in the room. Some of them sat on cots lined up
against the wall, but most stood. A pot was boiling on a woodstove.

“Does
anyone here speak English?” Tower said.

The
group put their heads together and spoke to each other in their peculiar,
singsongy language.

Finally,
one young man stepped forward.

“I
speak, sir,” he said, his voice halting.

“What
happened?”

He
bowed his head.

“They
say justice,” he said.

“Justice?
For who?”

The
young man seemed unable to answer.

Tower
pointed back outside, toward the temporary gallows.

“Those
men, why were they hung?”

“White
men say they guilty.”

“Guilty
of what?”

The
young man shuffled his feet. He looked over at an older man, who nodded his head.

“They
say the Chinese kill a white woman.”

O
nce
she felt confident there would be no attack on the Chinese and Tower, Bird went
looking for the sheriff.

She
found the sheriff’s office, but the door was locked, and after taking a look
through the front window, she saw that the place was empty.

She
walked past the gallows, where the dead men were still hanging, and spotted an
old man sitting on a chair outside the general store.

She
approached him and said, “Where might I find the sheriff?”

The
old man looked at Bird with a raised eyebrow, taking in her guns.

“The
cemetery. He died about a month ago. Keeled over right here on the street. Not
from a bullet but too much bacon and eggs!” The old man guffawed at his own
joke.

“So
who’s in charge?” Bird said.

“We
all kind of voted Chuck Adamson to be head of the town until we get it figured
out,” the old man said. He leaned over and spit out a long stream of tobacco
juice. “Chuck is head of the fire department, but we don’t have any fire
equipment just yet, so he’s got time on his hands. They’re all over at the
saloon right now,” he said.

“The
saloon?” Bird said. “That’s perfect.”

The
saloon was easy to spot—it was packed with people drinking beer and celebrating
the quenching of their bloodlust. Bird had seen mobs before; she understood how
they worked. In a few days, when the dust had settled, a few might look back
and feel differently about how they had behaved. But right now, they were
literally drunk with power and self-righteousness.

Bird
made her way to the bar and ordered herself a whiskey.

“Chuck
Adamson around?” she asked the bartender.

The
bartender pointed over to a table around which sat at least ten men. The man at
the head of the table was bald, with narrow shoulders and a weak chin.

Bird
had a hard time imagining him in charge of a penny, let alone an entire town.

She
approached the table and conversation stopped. Every man turned to face her.

“You
Adamson?” she said to the weak-chinned man.

“Yes,
ma’am,” he said. “And who might you be?”

“Bird
Hitchcock.”

A
little murmur went through the rest of the saloon.

“Well,
welcome to Twin Buttes, Miss Hitchcock. What can I do for you?” Adamson said.

“Stringing
up these Chinamen, is this something you folks do every week? Or was this a
special occasion?”

A
few people scoffed, and Bird felt the tension in the room kick up a notch.

Adamson
looked around, and when he realized no one else was going to answer on his
behalf, he said, “No, ma’am, this is what you would call an isolated incident.”

“Them
damned heathens got what they deserved for what they done to that poor girl!”
one of the men exclaimed.

Adamson
nodded. “It did get a little out of hand, but we got everything under control.”

“What
exactly did they do?” Bird said. She set her empty glass on the table and
refilled it from the whiskey bottle sitting in the middle of the table.

“They
killed a sweet little angel of a girl named Sadie Bell,” a man to Bird’s right
said. “Somehow they got her down into Hop Alley and had their way with her.”

“Bastards!”
another man shouted out.

Adamson
shook his head.

“No,
they didn’t just kill her,” he said. “They carved her up.”

T
he
Sagebrush Boardinghouse was on the outskirts of town, in the shadow of one of
the buttes.

It
was a three-story structure, unusual in a town that small, with a wide front
porch upon which several rocking chairs were spread out along its length.

The
boardinghouse was run by a woman named Sally Perkins, and, according to de
facto sheriff Chuck Adamson, Perkins was the woman who had rented a room to the
now-deceased Sadie Bell. Bird had gotten the information, then tracked down
Tower and suggested they find out more about Sadie Bell.

Perkins
met them at the front door. A man wearing bib overalls sat on the rocking chair
nearest the door. He had a pipe in his mouth, and smoke curled up and hung
there, trapped against the beadboard ceiling.

“Ma’am,
my name is Mike Tower, and this is Bird Hitchcock. We’d like to ask you a
couple of questions about Sadie Bell,” Tower said.

The
woman looked from Tower to Bird and back again before she said, “Yes, please
come in.”

They
entered a foyer with a wide staircase featuring a thick mahogany banister. The
stairs wound around the corner at the top, where Bird saw another foyer or
landing with a large window with leaded glass.

To
the right of the foyer was a formal dining room.

To
the left, a great room with a huge fireplace, a long couch with magenta
upholstery, and several deep leather chairs in a semicircle around the
fireplace.

There
was a grand piano and several oil paintings.

To
Bird’s eye, it was one of the finest boardinghouses she’d ever seen. And she’d
seen more than her share of them.

“Would
you like a cup of coffee while we talk?” Mrs. Perkins said.

“Yes,
please,” Tower said.

“Yes,
and if you could rustle up a shot of rye to thicken mine up, that would be
wonderful,” Bird said.

A
brief look of disapproval crossed the woman’s face, but she recovered. “Of
course,” she said.

Tower
looked at Bird and shook his head.

She
shrugged her shoulders.

The
woman returned, gave them their coffee, and motioned for them to sit on the
couch. She took one of the deep leather chairs.

“So
how can I help you?” she said.

“What
can you tell us about Sadie Bell?” Tower asked.

The
woman shook her head. “So sad.” She brought out a small handkerchief and wiped
at the corner of her eye.

Bird
watched the woman, trying to gauge if the emotion was real. It seemed genuine.

“Sadie
was a naive, innocent, and wonderful girl. She originally came to Twin Buttes
to be a teacher, but the little school was already staffed, so she worked as a
nanny for Mr. and Mrs. Whitcomb. Do you know of the Whitcombs?”

“No,
ma’am,” Tower said.

“Well,
William Whitcomb is the whole reason Twin Buttes exists,” Mrs. Perkins said,
with no small amount of pride. The woman was practically beaming at the mention
of William Whitcomb. “He discovered silver here, years ago, and built this
whole operation. He owns three-quarters of everything here, and the rest pay
rent to him.”

“Does
he own this place?” Bird asked.

“He
owns a small part of it. I own the majority. We’re partners.”

Tower
wondered how much Mrs. Perkins had to pay her “partner” to remain the only
boardinghouse in Twin Buttes.

“So
do you have any idea of how Sadie Bell ended up in Hop Alley?” Tower said.

Perkins
shook her head. “Knowing Sadie, she was probably trying to help someone. And
look at where it got her. Those heathens are good for nothing but doing laundry
and smoking opium.”

Tower
offered no comment.

“Anything
else you can tell us, Mrs. Perkins?” Bird said. She drank down the rest of her
coffee. She could barely taste the rye. Mrs. Perkins had a very light hand when
it came to fortifying coffee, apparently.

“No,
I’m afraid not. But they already found the Chinamen who did this, am I
correct?”

“I
believe they found the men they think are responsible,” Tower said evenly.

“You
don’t sound convinced,” Perkins said.

“I
just want to make sure no one else gets hurt.”

They
got to their feet, and Perkins opened the door for them.

“I
hope you can help,” she said. “Twin Buttes is a fine, fine town.”

T
he
weak coffee and even weaker rye, along with Mrs. Perkins’s strange affection
for William Whitcomb, all combined to leave a bad taste in Bird’s mouth.

They
left the boardinghouse and were walking back into town when a man stepped out
of the barbershop and directly into their path.

Bird
recognized the pipe. It was the same man who’d been sitting on the porch at the
boardinghouse.

“Get
your questions answered?” he growled at Bird and Tower. He shot a furtive
glance up and down the street.

“We
had a nice talk with Mrs. Perkins,” Tower said diplomatically.

“Why
the hell are you asking?” Bird said. “And why’d you wait for us to leave and
ambush us here instead of asking back at the boardinghouse?”

“I
like my privacy,” he said, looking around.

“The
privacy of an open street?” Bird said, the sarcasm obvious.

“Let’s
just say Mrs. Perkins wouldn’t tell you, but something was wrong with Sadie
before all of this happened,” the man said. “She spent a lot of time crying in
her room. Her appearance was strange. Sadie was always neat as a button, but
lately she hadn’t dressed well, and her hair was messy. Something was wrong
with the girl.”

“Any
idea what that might have been?” Tower said.

Instead
of answering, the man tipped his hat.

“Have
a nice day, folks,” he said, then turned and headed back up the street.

Bird
watched the man walk away, then turned to Tower.

“I
need to see the girl’s body,” she said.

Tower
glanced back down the street. “I suppose you’re right,” he said.

“I’m
always right,” Bird said. “Sooner you figure that out, the easier your life
will be.”

Bird
brushed past him, crossed the street, and walked down the boardwalk toward the
undertaker’s shop, which was just past the blacksmith.

She
heard Tower behind her, following.

Bird
didn’t bother knocking, just opened the door and went inside.

A
young man was planing a pair of long boards. He had on a thick wool shirt, the
sleeves rolled up. Sawdust covered his forearms, and some was even stuck in his
eyebrows.

He
stopped the planer and straightened at the sight of Bird.

“Ma’am?”
he said.

“I
want to see Sadie Bell,” she said.

The
young man took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat and most of the sawdust
from his face.

“Afraid
I can’t do that, ma’am, unless you’re family…?” he said. He looked toward
Tower, who had stepped in behind Bird.

“I’ve
been asked to bless the body,” Tower said, not exactly a lie.

The
young man was uncertain. “Well, I’m not sure I’m supposed to allow that. You
see, my father—”

“Your
father isn’t here. We are,” Bird said. She tried to keep the edge out of her
voice but was failing. “And I need to see her body.”

“Please,”
Tower said. “It won’t take a minute or two.”

The
young man set the planer down, went to the back of the room, opened a door, and
gestured for them to follow.

Sadie
Bell was laid out on a long wooden bench, with a white sheet over her body.

“I
would prefer it if you didn’t tell anyone I let you back here,” he said.

“I
need to see her chest,” Bird said.

“You
don’t want to do that, ma’am,” the young man said, his face going visibly pale
with the words. “It’s not pretty.”

“I
can handle it,” Bird said. “Do you want to take off the sheet, or do you want
me to?”

The
young man didn’t answer; instead, he went to the table and pulled the sheet
away from the body.

Bird
took the briefest of glances at the young woman’s face.

Pretty
, she thought.

And
then she looked at the girl’s chest.

At
the pentagram carved into her flesh.