The Circuit Rider (23 page)

S
ee
you in San Francisco.

The
words burned in Bird’s memory. They had shocked and enraged her, but worst of
all, they had fooled her.

Toby
Raines was not going to San Francisco. He had planted that thought in Bird’s
head with his message written in blood, then laid out an ambush.

Bastard.

“Tower,”
she said and looked at the preacher, now leaned back against the cool, damp
rock next to the waterfall. She had propped him against a vertical slab of
stone cut back into the rock wall. It was the only place mostly protected from
a firing line.

Bird
crawled down to the ledge of the rock, took off her hat, and held it under the
water, then she scurried back to Tower. She scooped water into her palm and
wiped Tower’s face clean. She held her hat with the cold water to his mouth and
tried to get him to drink.

“Drink
up,” she said.

Bird
pushed her saddlebag farther under the ledge and squatted on her heels, rifle
in hand. From here, she was protected partially by the front lip of the rock
ledge. She scanned the steep cliff walls. By now, her ambushers would be nearly
in place, ready to launch another attack.

She
wanted to spot them first and get another one.

Bird
let her eyes slowly scan the surrounding inclines, using her peripheral vision
to detect any movement. It was easier to see something move than to see
something hidden and still.

The
water rushing by less than three feet away made it difficult for her to hear
anything.

“Come
on, God,” she said. “The least you could do is help out Mr. Tower. He’s one of
yours, after all.”

A
brief flash of red to the left of the river caught her eye, and she turned,
bringing her rifle to her shoulder. She sighted and fired in one natural
motion, not consciously aiming, simply reacting to what she instinctively knew
to be the red of a man’s shirt.

Something
told her the shot was true, but there was no time to verify. Guns on all sides
fired at once. Bullets whizzed past Bird’s head, crashed into the stone walls
of the overhang, and thundered through the valley.

And
then she heard something over the din of the water that made her freeze. The
snort of a horse
above
them.

Bird
whirled, dropped to one knee, and fired directly above the overhang at the man
on the horse, who had a rifle pointed down at them.

How
the hell did he get up there?
she
thought.

Bird’s
shot went high, and instead of hitting the man in the chest, the bullet took
off the top of his head. He toppled from the horse and fell out of Bird’s view.

More
bullets shattered rock near Bird’s head, and the shards from one pelted her in
the face. She felt a sharp pain in her right eye and knew that pieces of rock had
gotten inside her eyelid. She tried not to blink, not wanting to scratch the
eyeball and cause any more damage.

The
pain was intense.

She
kept her other eye open, felt blood on the right side of her face, below her
eye, and knew she was in trouble.

Bird
raced back to Tower, who was still unconscious.

She
knew their options were limited.

They
couldn’t go up, and they couldn’t go down.

They
were going to die here.

Unless.

No.
She would not do it.

But
the thought that entered her mind stayed there, and she realized it was the
only way.

Bird
slapped Tower across the face, and his eyes opened.

“Get
up, Mr. Tower,” she said. Bird slung her saddlebag over one shoulder and put
Tower’s arm around the other. She held on to her rifle and thumbed the leather
loops over both pistols so they would stay intact.

Bird,
still with only one eye open, charged across the narrow ledge, pulling Tower
along with her.

And
then they jumped.

T
he
ground fell away, and Bird was terrified she had made a bad mistake. Her
last
mistake.

The
air rushed up at her, and she felt herself falling with a speed that took her
breath away.

For
only the briefest of moments, she realized she had no idea how deep the water
would be.

And
then she hit the water with such force that her entire body rattled.

The
cold water hit her in the chest like a hammer. She lost all sense of time and
panicked as she had no idea which way was up. She lost her grip on her rifle
and Tower at the same time. Her feet crashed into the bottom of the river, and
then she instinctively pushed off up toward the surface.

She
needed air and needed it fast. The shock of hitting the water had knocked the
oxygen from her lungs.

Bird
broke the surface of the water, and the roaring of the waterfall was so loud
she couldn’t think.

And
then the current caught her, and she felt herself pulled with an enormous power
unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

Her
shoulder crashed into something, and she saw Tower next to her. His eyes were
open, but he looked dazed. She grabbed his shoulder.

“Kick!”
she screamed at him. Bird was struggling to keep herself afloat, and she knew
she couldn’t do it for both herself and Tower. She needed him to swim. Or
better yet, she needed something that could help them both.

The
river rushed with a torrent around a corner, and Bird felt a moment of relief
as she figured she was blocked from rifle fire.

And
then she saw what she needed.

A
tree trunk at least ten feet long, floating in the water parallel to them.

Bird
kicked toward the log and pulled Tower with her. She was gasping for breath but
thankful she was not swimming directly against the current but rather taking an
angle with it.

Just
when she thought she was never going to make it, her hand grabbed a short,
stubby branch jutting from the trunk, and she managed to steer the other end of
the log to Tower. He wrapped his arms around it, and Bird did the same.

She
risked a glance back toward the waterfall and the ledge from which they’d just
jumped. But it was already hidden behind the bend in the river.

Bird
looked at Tower. He was on the wrong end of the log, which crashed into each
surge of the river and dumped a bucket of cold water directly on his face.

“Hold
on!” she yelled to him, but she saw his hands loosen their grip on the log.

He
retightened his grasp, but Bird saw blood pouring from his nose. His eyes
looked glazed. She knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on too much longer.

The
river wound its way through several more twists and turns. Bird tried to steer
their way closer to the bank, figuring they still hadn’t gone far enough from
Toby Raines and his men, but she wasn’t sure how much longer Tower could hold
on.

She
heard a deep roaring sound and thought the noise was being distorted by water
in her ears, but they came around one more bend and she realized what it was.

A
churning stretch of violent white-water rapids.

Oh
no
, she thought.

B
ird
quickly understood two things. The only way she and Tower would survive the
rapids was if they could somehow manage to hold on to the fallen tree they were
both clinging to. And the second thing she realized was that there was no way
in hell they would both be able to hold on. Maybe she could. But there was no
way Tower could do it. He was already slipping.

The
only chance they had was if she could figure out a way to somehow lash
themselves to it.

“Tower!”
Her voice was lost in the din of the approaching white water.

He
didn’t respond to her call.

“Damn
it!”

Bird
used the last of her waning strength to hoist herself higher onto the tree. She
reached down, unknotted the strip of rawhide holding her holster in place, and
pulled it free. She swung her leg onto the log and jammed her foot into the
crotch of a V-shaped branch.

She
looped the rawhide over Tower’s arm and ran it underneath the same jutting
branch, then tied a square knot as fast as she could.

Bird
doubted it would hold, but that was the best she could do.

Suddenly,
the back end of the log rose up as the nose dipped down into the first of the
falls. Bird felt herself being tossed upside down. She crashed into the side of
the tree and landed on her back, her arm now twisted over her head. She felt a
searing pain shoot down her spine and something give way in her shoulder.

The
wood swung sideways, turning broadside into the churning water. Bird sank down
beneath the log and fought panic as she struggled to get back to the surface of
the water.

Just
when she thought she was going to have to breathe in, the log shifted and she popped
to the surface.

She
sucked in air greedily and looked for Tower. She saw his arm still lashed to
the branch, but she couldn’t see his head or face.

The
din of the water suddenly stopped, and Bird called out, “Tower!”

Over
the top edge of the log, his face appeared. He was bleeding from a new gash
across his forehead.

But
he was alive.

“You
look like hell!” Bird said.

She
had a momentary surge of hope and then her ears were filled with a roar.

She
turned and saw a second set of rapids.

The
river seemed to fall away beneath her, and they were once again airborne.

Bird
twisted and saw blackness ahead.

But
it wasn’t water.

It
was a series of huge rocks strung across the middle of the river.

They
hurtled toward the boulders with a deadly certainty, pushed by the log now
behind them.

Just
before they crashed into the rocks, Bird closed her eyes. She felt a stunning
blow to her head that radiated numbness throughout her body. There was a brief
flash of bright light.

And
then darkness.

“A
h,
the flower greets the dawn.”

Her
skull was split in half. That was the only thing that could cause so much pain,
Bird thought. Her eyes slowly opened, and the pain running down the middle of
her skull only grew worse. She shut them, waited a beat, then opened them
again.

A
man stood looking down at her. He was dressed in dark-gray pants and a white
shirt with a neat bow tie. His sleeves were rolled up, and Bird noticed paint
splotches on his hands.

“Who
are you?” Bird choked out. Her mouth was dry and her voice sounded far-off,
like an echo.

“My
name is Jonathan Morris Bunker.” He spoke with a slight lilt, and his words
were clipped with a strange precision.

She
tried to rotate her head to the right, and the pain seemed to sluice from her
skull down through her neck to her spine.

She
gasped.

“Mr.
Tower?” she said.

Bird
heard movement to her left, and she managed to get a glimpse of the preacher on
the ground next to her.

“I
have tea for both of you, if you are able to drink,” the man said.

“Got
anything stronger?” Bird said.

She
dreaded trying to do it, but she forced herself to sit up. Her head spun, and
she felt nausea in the pit of her stomach.

“I
have that, too, miss,” the man said.

Bird
watched the man pull out a large green bottle from a leather case sitting at
his feet. He poured some into a metal cup and gave it to Bird.

She
sniffed it. It wasn’t whiskey, but it would have to do.

“What
the hell is this?” she said.

“It’s
absinthe. Quite popular in Paris these days.” The man poured a small amount
into a tiny glass made of green crystal. “To refugees from the river,” he said.

Bird
drank it down. She looked at her hips. Both guns were still in their holsters. Her
rifle was nowhere to be seen. Her saddlebags were next to the small campfire.

They
must have traveled quite a ways from the waterfall, because the steep mountains
were gone and they were on a much flatter part of the plain. Bird wondered how
long they’d been in the water.

She
felt a pleasant warmth in her chest from the drink. She held out her cup. “I
could use a refill, if the bartender allows it.”

The
man dutifully poured more of the clear alcohol into her cup.

Bird
turned and went to Tower.

She
knelt down beside him, the movement making her dizzy for a moment.

He
was looking at her. His skin was pale. He smiled.

“Do
I look as bad as you?” he said.

She
nodded. “Probably worse.”

Bird
looked down at his side and saw a new bandage on the bullet wound.

She
looked back at the strange man, who had turned to an easel where a stretched
canvas sat. He was painting, but he must have sensed her gaze because he glanced
over at her.

“My
friend Gustave Courbet was once stabbed in the buttocks by a vicious
prostitute. I learned how to bandage wounds from a drunken nurse who talked me
through the procedure. That, and I studied medicine for six months, but I had a
fainting problem no one at the school could cure.”

“You
learned well,” Bird said, studying the bandage. “Thank you.”

“My
pleasure, mademoiselle. I only fainted twice during the procedure.”

Suddenly,
Bird was famished. She walked to her saddlebags and found they were empty.

A
large fifty-caliber Sharps rifle sat next to the man’s belongings.

“I
hate to impose more than we already have, seeing as you probably saved our
lives, but do you have anything to eat, Mr. Three Names?” she said. “My friend
over there is looking pretty shaky.”

“Yes,
I have fresh biscuits left over from this morning, with some honey. Please help
yourself.”

Bird
saw a plate with the biscuits next to a pot on the fire. She brought two
biscuits to Tower, then ate one herself.

They
were delicious.

“I
could get used to this,” Bird said. She glanced over at the painter.

“I
might have to marry you,” she said.