The Circuit Rider (16 page)

T
ower
rode back to the Whitcombs’ big house on the hill. Dark storm clouds were
gathering north of town, a veil of blackness setting a backdrop behind the
buttes.

Bertram
the butler opened the heavy front door and gave no greeting to Tower.

“Might
I have a word with Mrs. Whitcomb?” Tower said.

The
butler’s smile was thin and without warmth.

“I’m
afraid they’ve retired to the country for the day,” he said. “I believe a
picnic lunch was packed, and they’ve gone. I am more than happy to let them
know you were here upon their return.”

Tower
weighed his options.

“Thank
you,” he finally said.

The
butler shut the door with more than a little emphasis.

Tower
climbed onto his horse and rode back toward town, then circled around so he
came up far behind the Whitcomb house. He began a series of semicircles, riding
to cut sign, as the trackers called it. He expanded his search, casting wider and
wider circles.

A
picnic for the Whitcombs would mean enough food and drink for four people,
Tower assumed. They would definitely not go via horseback. A wagon to hold all
of the food and refreshments would certainly have been required.

Tower
was nearly a quarter mile from the house when he at last picked up fresh tracks
of a horse and buckboard.

Tower
followed the tracks as they headed north toward the buttes, then veered on a
dim game trail toward the west.

The
buckboard clearly needed to skirt any terrain too challenging, and Tower saw
that the trail mostly meandered over rolling valleys and meadows, the landscape
becoming more lush the farther it went from the plateau upon which the town of
Twin Buttes sat.

As
he rode, Tower thought about Sadie Bell. A girl caught between a powerful man,
a lack of authority in the town—hell, they didn’t even have a sheriff—and
probably a range of emotions and fears. Panic being chief among them.

Though
he’d never met her, Tower could only imagine the sense of powerlessness and
fear she must have been experiencing. Going after the men upon whom most of the
town depended on economically would have been a lonely and terrifying
situation.

Ahead
on the horizon a gap appeared, and Tower sensed a body of water in the distance.
He crested the hill and gazed down upon a mountain lake nestled between a
saddle of hills with thick stands of cottonwoods and scrub brush surrounding
the shoreline.

The
buckboard sat at the edge of the water, the horse still in its yoke, munching
from a feed bag full of oats.

A
single person sat on a blanket facing the lake.

Tower
edged his horse closer.

The
person, a woman, turned to look at him. She had curly chestnut-brown hair piled
high on her head. Her face was pale, with fine features and a startling pair of
green eyes.

She
wore a white dress, her feet were bare, and a lace shawl was around her shoulders.

“Mrs.
Whitcomb?” Tower said.

She
raised the wineglass in her hand.

“Guilty
as charged,” she said and gave a little giggle. Tower wondered how much of the
wine she had had to drink.

“And
who might you be? Ants are usually the first visitors to interrupt a picnic.”

“My
name is Mike Tower.”

“Ah.
You’re the circuit rider who questioned my husband recently, correct?” she
said.

Tower
looped the reins of his horse over the back of the buckboard, dismounted, and
approached the woman.

“I
am,” he said.

“Please
sit, Mr. Tower. I’ve got a nice bottle of wine.”

Tower
remained standing.

“I
must thank you for stopping by yesterday,” Mrs. Whitcomb said. “I was listening
to your conversation, you know.”

Tower
shook his head. “No, I knew someone might be eavesdropping, but I didn’t know
who.”

“It
was all lies,” she said. Tower heard the fragility in her voice. A slight
tremolo effect.

“William
has a taste for young women,” she said. “The younger the better. Or, as I’m
sure he thought of them, the younger, the
fresher
.”

She
drank the rest of her wine and refilled her glass.

“There
have been many, many of the young things. Sadie was merely last in a long line.”

“Last?”
Tower said.

She
gestured with her glass toward the lake.

Tower
turned, and it took him a minute to spot the dark mass floating facedown in the
cobalt-blue water.

When
he turned back, Annette Whitcomb had a double-barreled derringer pointed at his
chest.

“You
see,” she said, “Mr. Raines was simply supposed to pay off Sadie Bell, in the same
manner in which we’ve paid off the rest of William’s playthings.”

She
drank her wine.

“But
it seems Mr. Raines had a little side hobby I knew nothing about. Something he
failed to mention when I hired him.”

Tower
put the rest of it together.

“And
you hired him because the sheriff of Twin Buttes had a heart attack and died. And
he would have been the one with whom you usually worked out the financial
arrangements with the other young women?”

Annette
Whitcomb nodded.

“Yes.
When one breaks from an old pattern, there are always unforeseen consequences. Mr.
Raines butchering Sadie was one of those unfortunate surprises. A very nasty
one, in my opinion.”

“How
did you find him?” Tower said. “This Toby Raines.”

Annette
Whitcomb adjusted her shawl without taking her gun from Tower.

“He
was a new man, joined William’s crew of labor ‘enforcers’ a few weeks ago. He
seemed very capable. Apparently, a bit too capable.”

The
woman set her wineglass down and looked directly at Tower.

“Please
make sure I am buried nowhere near my husband,” she said. “And pray that God
forgives me.”

She
put the derringer at the base of her chin, pointed up, and fired both barrels.

T
he
camp sat less than a mile from the Silvertip mine. It was easy to find, as the
miners working in the mine had no problem pointing out where the “enforcers”
spent the majority of their time. A few of the miners warned Bird about going
up there.

She
paid them no attention.

The
enforcers lived in a bunkhouse with an attached corral and stable.

There
was only one way to do this.

Bird
rode directly up to the bunkhouse, left the Appaloosa outside, and opened the
bunkhouse door.

It
was dark and smelled like men who spent a lifetime around cattle.

Three
men sat at a single table playing poker.

They
looked at her like she was a ghost.

Bird
kept her hands loose, her palms hovering over each gun.

None
of the faces was the one she sought. If it had been, Bird would have been
shooting, not talking.

“Where’s
Toby Raines?” she said.

“Go
to hell,” one of the men said. “Or come in, have a drink, and let us take turns
with you.”

The
other two men laughed.

“Trust
me, the three of you combined wouldn’t be man enough for the job,” Bird said.

The
man who had done the talking stood up. The other two pushed their chairs away
from the table.

“You’ve
got a mouth on you,” the standing one said. “I’d love to see you put it to good
use.”

He
reached toward his pants, either to unbuckle or to make a grab for the gun
stuck in his waistband. Either way, it didn’t matter to Bird. She drew her gun
and shot him first in the crotch and then once in the center of his forehead.

Neither
man at the table had gone for their guns. But they looked at each other, came
to an agreement, and tried to draw.

Bird
fired quickly, her thumbs working the hammers of her pistols with a ruthless
efficiency.

One
of the men got off a shot, but it tore up wood splinters at Bird’s feet.

She
felt the blow before she heard the shot.

It
felt like a hammer hitting her on the side.

She
spun and dropped to a knee.

A
lasso swung from a man on a horse and tightened around her chest.

Her
eyes locked onto the man’s face.

The
narrow, razorlike line of a jaw.

The
twin black eyebrows, thin and pointed inward like daggers.

Toby
Raines.

The
shock of seeing him in person, after all these years, hit her like a second
blow.

She
tried to aim her guns, but her arms were pinned to her sides and she shot low,
the bullets kicking up dust on either side of Toby Raines’s horse.

And
then she was lifted from her feet.

The
rope burrowed into her chest and she crashed onto her back, knocking the wind
from her lungs.  She couldn’t breathe.

And
then Toby Raines whipped his horse and it shot forward, dragging Bird behind
it.

M
ike
Tower heard the shots as he approached the Silvertip, and he laid the quirt to
his horse’s rear and kept right on going past the mine.

He
barreled around the corner and saw a man dragging something behind a horse.

Within
a sickening instant, he knew it was Bird.

The
man was too far away to get there in time, so he drew his Winchester from its
scabbard, slid from his horse, and took careful aim at the man dragging Bird behind
his horse.

He
fired and missed, but the man turned toward him.

Tower
fired again. This time, he saw the man flinch, and Tower knew he had at least winged
him. The man loosened his rope and kicked his horse hard for the hills.

Tower
continued firing, but the man was low, and none of the shots found its target.

Tower
leaped back onto his horse and rode at full gallop to the bloody figure
sprawled on the ground.

He
covered the distance fast, and by the time he got there the man had disappeared
over the hill.

Tower
slid from the horse and rushed to Bird.

She
was covered with blood, and her shirt as well as most of her pants and one boot
had been torn from her body.

But
she was alive.

Tower
rolled her onto her back.

Her
eyes opened, and she smiled at Tower.

“Took
you long enough,” she said.

“I’m
sorry,” he said.

Tower
looked down and saw that she had no major wounds, no gunshots pouring blood.

But
then he saw the scars of the crude pentagram that had been carved into her
chest.

And
Tower cursed at the God it had taken so long for him to believe in.

T
he
green of Colorado slowly gave way to the tans and browns of Nevada.

Bird
and Tower rode down from the mountains, through the high meadows crossed with
game trails, to the flat, brown plains on the edge of the desert.

They
planned to skirt the outer rim of the Red Crescent Basin, eventually finding
their way to Platteville, Nevada. From what they had been told, there was a
small outpost there with not much more than a general store and a lonely train
depot. But there would hopefully be enough for a quick resupply.

Bird
hefted her canteen. It was at least three-quarters full, about the same level
as the whiskey in her bottle in the saddlebag. She eyed the sun, near its peak
for the day.

“It’s
going to be hotter than hell today, Mr. Tower,” she said. “I apologize for
mentioning your competitor’s headquarters.”

Tower
continued riding next to her, without responding. She thought the comment
deserved
some
kind of response.

“Something
on your mind?” she said. “Usually you’re so damn talkative I can’t stand it.”

Tower
glanced at her. “Just wondering when you’ll share with me what’s on your mind,”
he said. “You know, my job is to help people, including those I’m riding with.”

Bird
said nothing.

She
knew what he wanted to talk about, that he had seen the scars on her chest, the
pattern drawn directly into her flesh.

Bird
figured Tower would want her to talk all about it, then somehow forgive. Well
preacher or not, he could go straight to hell with that kind of thinking. What
happened was between her and Toby Raines, and there would be no forgiving, no
mercy.
He hadn’t shown any back then, had he?

She
had an urge for whiskey, but she decided against it, as it wouldn’t be a good
idea in this kind of heat. Tonight, she thought, when it cooled down, she would
hit that bottle pretty hard.

“Bird,”
Tower said.

He
really wasn’t going to leave her alone about this, was he? The man had very
little to say, unless it was to question her. Well, maybe she should just shoot
him. Hell, no one would find his body out here.

“Bird.”

She
kept her voice even. “Listen. For the last time, I’m not talking about it — ”

“No,
that’s not what I mean,” he said. He pointed ahead and to the west.

“Looks
like we’ve got some folks thinking about joining us.”

Bird
spotted the Indians along the far horizon, maybe twenty horses. It was tough to
tell from this distance, but Bird knew this was Paiute country, with a few
Shoshone thrown in, too. There were even Apache from Arizona, running from the army
for fighting back against broken treaties and broken promises.

She
was definitely no expert, but she had gotten drunk with quite a few Indians
over the years; they liked whiskey as much as she did. Her guess was that the
newcomers were definitely Paiute.

And
if there were braves from different tribes riding together, that would most
likely mean only one thing.

A
war party.