The Circuit Rider (24 page)

“T
he
risk of infection is quite high,” the man said.

It
was now evening, and the sun had gone down an hour earlier, leaving a cool
breeze that was threatening to turn into a chilling wind.

Bird
sat next to the fire, which was now bigger than she would have liked. It would
make finding them an easy job for Toby Raines and his men, if they were
anywhere in the vicinity.

Jonathan
Morris Bunker — Bird had forced him to repeat his name several times so she
would get it right — was looking over at Tower, who now lay wrapped in a
blanket, his face pale and slick with sweat.

“I
believe you are accurate in that diagnosis,” she said.

Bird
glanced down at her coffee cup, again filled with the strange drink called
absinthe.

“How
did you end up finding us, Mr. Bunker?” Bird said.

“Please
call me John,” he said. “I had walked down to the river to clean my brushes,
and myself for that matter, and there the two of you were. At first I thought
you were dead, but then you pulled out your pistol and pointed it at me.”

Bird
shook her head. She had no recollection of that.

“I
used the mule over there,” he said, pointing toward the meadow, where Bird had
spotted the animal earlier in the day, “and managed to get the two of you up
here.”

“Well,
I greatly appreciate your efforts, John,” Bird said. “We would probably both be
dead if you hadn’t helped us.”

“Think
nothing of it,” he said. “I’ve been pulled many times from the gutters of
Europe by friends as well as complete strangers. It was the least I could do.”

Bird
looked at him. He had a small round face, with big, soft brown eyes and a thin
mustache. His hands were delicate, with long, pale fingers.

He
sighed. “Ah, Europe.”

Bird
refilled her glass.

“What
is this shit again?” she said.

“Absinthe,”
Bunker said. “Also known as the Green Fairy.”

“The
what?”

“It’s
made with wormwood and some other herbs, including fennel and anise. Poets and
painters love it because it allows access into recesses of the creative brain,
unlocking powers one never knew one had.”

Bird
watched Bunker look off into the distance. She raised an eyebrow at him. “You
are a bit of a bag of hot air,” she said. “But I like your style.”

She
drank more of the absinthe. “Miss my whiskey, though.”

“You
like whiskey?” he said.

“More
than life itself.”

“Well,
why didn’t you say so?”

Bunker
got up, went to his case, and pulled out a small, square bottle filled with a
dark-brown liquid.

She
looked down at the drink in her hand. “Did you say this stuff makes me
hallucinate?” she said.

“It’s
been known to create strange visions in some people,” Bunker said.

“Well,
I hope that’s not the case right now,” Bird said. “Is that really whiskey?”

“Yes,
a very high quality I brought over from Scotland.”

Bird
looked up at the stars.

“Thank
you, God.”

T
ower
was cold. Which was strange, because it was summer in Saint Louis. He stood on
the street corner, the comforting bulge of the gun in its holster on his hip.

His
teeth were chattering.

He
had to stay quiet. It was the end of the case, the one that had consumed most
of his life for the past six months.

It
had all come down to this moment. It would all end tonight on this street
corner, where the man who had been embezzling money from his client was due to
arrive. The client who had hired the private detective agency would not be
here.

Only
Mike Tower.

It
was a last-minute request for a meeting that had set Mike Tower on edge. Either
the embezzler, a shifty banker named Ted McCarthy, had finally taken the bait
or he had figured out that Tower had been working undercover all along.

In
which case, it wouldn’t be McCarthy who showed up, but probably a thug whose
job it would be to make Mike Tower go away. Permanently.

It
had begun to rain, a warm summer sprinkle that put a shine on the street and
made the distant sounds from the train yard seem a little farther away.

The
soft scrape of a shoe on cobblestone caught Tower’s ear, and he turned.

He
had his answer.

McCarthy
was nowhere to be found.

Instead,
he’d sent not one man, but two.

One
already had his gun out. The second was in the process of bringing something
out from inside his vest.

Tower
drew instinctively, calmly. The first man fired a shot that chipped the
cobblestone a foot in front of Tower. Tower’s shot puffed the man’s shirt
directly over his heart, and he took another step forward on a leg that
collapsed beneath him.

The
second man’s hand now held a knuckle-duster — a short-barreled gun with at
least five bullets in it. But the man realized he had to get much closer to
Tower, so he began to run straight at him.

It
was an easy thing to do, and Tower did it. He swung his pistol over and fired
again, this time drilling a bullet into the center of the second man’s
forehead.

Before
the man could fall, Tower heard a soft rustle of fabric behind him.

Again,
instinct took over, and he turned and fired.

Now
it was hot.

Tower
felt fire.

The
glow of a face.

No
, he thought.

No!

T
he
fire popped in the middle of the night, and Bird opened her eyes. Over the years,
she had trained herself to isolate and identify each sound in her environment
before she fell asleep, no matter how many empty whiskey bottles were on the
night table next to her.

So
she very well knew that the pop of the fire wasn’t what woke her.

It
was the mumbling.

She
sat up and looked over near the fire.

Tower
was sitting by the fire, the blanket around him, his face pouring with sweat. His
hair was wet and matted down. He was staring at Bunker’s easel, upon which sat
a painting. It didn’t look done; it appeared to be more of a sketch with some
small amounts of color added.

But
it was the image that caught Bird’s attention.

The
painting was of a young woman.

Bird
almost didn’t recognize herself.

But
the painting was of a younger Bird Hitchcock.

Tower
was staring at it.

“She’s
coming for me,” he said.

Bird
got to her feet and went to Tower. Bunker stirred in his little makeshift cot,
but Bird couldn’t tell if he was awake or not.

Tower’s
voice rose. “No! Don’t run toward me like that!”

Now
the volume had increased, and Bird saw Bunker twitch in his blankets, then grab
a small pair of wire spectacles and put them on.

“What
in the dickens?” he said.

“Relax,”
Bird said to Tower. She tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but as soon as she
touched him and felt how hot his skin was, he flinched.

“No!”
he shouted.

Bird
stepped back from Tower.

Bunker
got to his feet as well. “He’s delirious with fever.”

“Yes,
I figured that out,” Bird said.

Suddenly,
Tower jerked once. Twice. A third time.

And
then he went still. He looked at the painting of Bird. There was more moisture
on his face, and Bird wondered if he was crying.

Tower
turned to look at her.

“I
killed her,” he said. “I shot her and she died.”

He
fell forward and landed on his face in the dirt.

“H
oly
Jesus!” Bird said as she tore the bandage from Tower’s side. She had managed to
get Tower back onto his bedroll, but clearly the infection had spread.

Now
she looked down at the gunshot wound in Tower’s side. It had swollen shut and
tightened into a straining cone of red skin tinged with yellow streaks. Long
pink lines radiated out from the entry point.

“My
assessment? That is quite a bad infection,” Bunker said.

“Looks
like it’s about to explode,” Bird said.

“It
is, unfortunately. And if it explodes inward, and goes into his bloodstream, he
could very well die. I read that in a textbook before I dropped out.”

Bird
nodded.

“We
have to lance it,” she said. Bird pulled out her knife, knelt by the fire, and
held the blade over the flames.

“Bring
me that whiskey,” she said.

Bunker
brought her the bottle. “I’ve got one clean handkerchief left,” he said. “We’ll
use that to seal the hole.”

“Get
him ready,” she said.

Bunker
went behind Tower and pressed him firmly back onto the bedroll. He tried to
force the wooden handle of a paintbrush between his teeth. It wouldn’t work. Tower’s
teeth were chattering.

“I
hope he doesn’t crack a tooth,” Bunker said.

“Hold
him steady,” Bird said. “What a waste of whiskey,” she said, taking a long
drink. She splashed some onto the top of the infected wound, then aimed the
red-hot end of the knife at the center of the bulging infection.

She
let out a long breath and then drove the knife in.

Tower
lunged up as a stream of blood mixed with yellow pus sprayed out from the wound.

Bunker
fainted and fell backward.

Bird
immediately withdrew the knife and poured whiskey directly into the gaping
hole.

Tower
screamed and tried to get up, but Bird put a hand on his chest and pushed him
back, and he collapsed onto his bedroll.

Bird
plugged the wound with the clean handkerchief, then tied a long strip of shirt
around Tower’s waist, holding the new, clean bandage in place.

“Christ,
I hope that works and doesn’t kill him,” Bird said. She held up the whiskey
bottle. There was still quite a bit left.

Bunker
sat up, looking confused.

Bird
showed him the whiskey bottle. “I’m like a good doctor — use just enough to get
the job done while being careful not to overmedicate.”

She
took a long drink of the whiskey. It was probably the best she had ever had.

Bunker
went back to his blankets and lay down.

Bird
glanced up at the painting.

“What
in the hell are you doing with that?” she said.

“The
subject chooses the artist, not the other way around,” he said, his voice
especially soft. He was a fragile man, Mr. Jonathan Morris Bunker.

Bird
guzzled from the whiskey bottle.

Hell,
she needed to recover, too.

She
had just stabbed a man, after all.