The Circuit Rider (4 page)

T
ower sat in the sheriff’s office. He looked around.
There was an empty gun rack in one corner on which Tower noticed a thick layer
of dust.

No Wanted posters. Just a few cheap dime novels
whose pages were falling out of their bindings.

“So, I’m glad we could take a minute and have a
chat,” Sheriff Dundee said. He had left a message at the hotel for Tower, who
had received it along with his breakfast.

Dundee smiled at Tower’s lack of a response,
revealing teeth that were crooked and a deep yellow.

Tower waited.

“Ordinarily, I might be suspicious of a man who
brings in a dying girl,” the sheriff said. “Might even think the man had
something to do with it.”

Tower kept his face blank.

“But seein’ as how you’re a preacher and all, and
you weren’t alone, right? Well, I think you’re probably not under suspicion,”
he said.

“That’s why you wanted me to come by? To tell me
I’m not under suspicion?” Tower knew there was more.

“More or less,” the sheriff confirmed.

“If I’m not under suspicion, then who is?” Tower
said. He pictured the sheriff sitting here on hot days, his feet up on the
desk, reading one of those dime novels, waiting for one of the men from the
Daniels ranch to show up with his paycheck.

“That’s a good question,” Dundee said, clearly taken
aback by the query. Tower almost smiled at how easily he put the sheriff
off-balance.

“That investigation is ongoing.” Dundee’s words rang
with a hollow officiousness.

“How many suspects do you have?”

Dundee threw up his hands. “We just found her, for
godsakes!”

A horse and cart trotted by the open door of the sheriff’s
office. Tower saw an older woman with a young boy driving the team. Probably in
town for supplies. Though young, the boy was in firm command of the horses.

Dundee seemed to gather himself.

“The reason I told you you’re not under suspicion
is to let you know you don’t have to stay around,” the sheriff said. “You are
free to leave whenever you wish.” He attempted a smile that made Tower’s skin
crawl.

“I already knew that,” Tower said.

“And your friend can go too. The woman.”

Tower smiled.

“Actually, I came to hold a few services since you
don’t have a regular church here,” he said. “So I’m not quite ready to leave
just yet.”

Dundee kept his face passive, but Tower could tell
the man didn’t like the answer.

“And the woman? She staying too?”

Tower shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t tell Bird
Hitchcock what to do, or try to predict what she’ll do. Men have died attempting
to do just that.”

The sheriff ground his jaws together. This wasn’t
how the conversation was supposed to go.

“And then after your church activities are done,
you’ll mosey along?” the sheriff said.

Tower stood.

“Never heard of a preacher being run out of town
before, sheriff. At least not for no good reason.”

Dundee held up his hands. “Now hold on, no one’s
runnin’ you out of town. Simply letting you know you are not a suspect and are
free to leave whenever you wish.” He paused. “Same goes for your woman.”

Tower shook his head.

He could see why Daniels had chosen Dundee to be his
puppet sheriff.

The man did not have a firm grasp on reality.

Tower tipped his hat to the sheriff and walked out.

His woman.

Tower laughed.

Bird Hitchcock,
his woman
.

A
ccording to the map Van Osdol had drawn for her,
Bird figured the Flom hideout was only another hour northeast of the town.

She set the Appaloosa on course and saw the storm
clouds to the west. They were moving this way, great thunderhead formations
with swatches of purple and sickly streaks of yellow, but she had time to get
to where she needed to be before it hit. Bird hauled the whiskey bottle out of
her saddlebag and took a long pull.

“First of the day,” she said to the empty air
around her.

As the whiskey burned, its warmth always a comfort,
Bird thought about what she’d learned from the Daniels men.

One, they were as arrogant as all get-out, which
she figured was a natural by-product of owning an entire town and half of the
territory.

And she figured the old man’s heart was as tough
and leathery as the asses of the cows he raised. You didn’t acquire the kind of
enterprise Daniels had without some steel in your spine.

But she didn’t think Toby Raines was hiding out at
the Daniels ranch. It wouldn’t be his style, and even if he had been there, the
other cowboys would have known. Raines had a presence about him that demanded
attention.

Nothing the old man said bothered her, though. Calling
her a drunk and a saddle tramp. She’d heard it all before and had given up
caring a long time ago. Still, it would’ve been pleasurable to pull out her .45
and splatter his brains into the frying pan’s bacon grease. Listen to them
sizzle.

Bird lifted the bottle of whiskey she’d paid for
last night at the saloon and took another swig.

The taste of dark smoke and smoldering fire charred
her throat, but it was a good hurt. One she embraced with all of her being.

She goosed the Appaloosa and eventually crested a
hill that, according to Van Osdol’s map, overlooked Flom’s current abode.

The map, and Van Osdol, were right.

A small cabin sat half-absorbed by thick brush,
with a thin wisp of smoke curling out of its chimney. Two horses were in a
makeshift corral to the right of the cabin, and a thin stream ran behind and
through the thick brush at the rear of the place.

Bird heard the crack of a whip and an anguished
cry. The Appaloosa’s ears perked up, and she felt the horse twitch.

With a gentle tug, Bird backed the horse up, then
eased around the ridge, coming up on the house from the left side.

She saw two men standing, looking at a third man on
his knees, with his arms tied behind his back. His shirt was off.

One of the two men standing had a whip in his hand.
The other had a bottle. They were laughing, hooting and hollering as the man on
his knees tipped over onto the ground. The man with the whip gave him another
crack along the back.

Bird nudged the Appaloosa forward.

She was only thirty feet from the men when they
first noticed her.

The one with the bottle nudged the one with the
whip, who had brought his arm back to unload another wallop on the kneeling
man.

“Where are your goddamn manners?” the man with the bottle yelled at her. “Supposed to always hello the camp!”

Up close, the whip marks were visible on the
kneeling man’s back. Some of the welts were bleeding, and it looked like the
man had been beaten as well. His face was puffy, one eye was black, and his lips
were cracked and bloody.

“Hate to break it to you, but this doesn’t exactly
look like a convention on proper manners,” Bird said. She swung down from her
horse and walked toward the kneeling man.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“Name’s Hockings,” the man said. “These shits
killed my daughter.”

“That’s bullshit,” the one with the whip said. “He
tried to rob us and we caught him. He’s a thief.”

“How old was your daughter?” Bird said.

“Barely eighteen,” the man spat out. “When she
didn’t come home last night, I found a description of this place in her journal.
Along with some stories about the disgusting things she used to do out here
with Ike Daniels and his buddies.”

The kneeling man was whimpering now.

The other two men laughed. “Cryin’ like a baby,”
the one with the bottle said. His teeth were stained black and his hair was
plastered tightly to his head.

“Looks like this bitch wants to have a little fun
with us,” the one with the whip said, gesturing toward Bird. “That’s good,
because all this whippin’ is makin’ me downright randy as a billy goat.”

Bird turned to face the men. “One of you named
Flom?” she said.

The one with the whip snapped his head up to look
at her. “I’m Flom. But what the hell is it any of your business . . .”

Bird shot him dead center of the forehead. She had
drawn her gun with a smooth, effortless action that seemed unhurried, but was
done in an instant.

One moment she was standing empty-handed, the next, she was firing.

“Shit,” the second one said. He looked at his dead
companion, then back at Bird. “I don’t want a fight.”

Bird waited, the gun still in her hand. A feather
of smoke rose from the muzzle.

“Let’s have a drink and calm down,” the second man
said. His voice carried a cheeriness that almost made Bird laugh. He tossed the
bottle to Bird and went for his gun.

With the bottle in the air, Bird fired right-handed,
pumping two bullets into the man’s gun hand. She caught the bottle out of the
air with her left.

The man shouted, cursed, dropped the gun that
hadn’t even cleared leather, and held his mangled right hand with his left.

Bird holstered her pistol and pulled the cork out
of the bottle. She wiped the mouth of the bottle clean, glanced inside the
bottle, poured a little whiskey onto the ground, and took a drink.

The man on the ground groaned.

Bird looked at him.

“Buy you a drink?” she said.

M
ike Tower knocked on the front door of the Hockings’
home. He waited and glanced across the street at the livery, where he saw a
horse being groomed inside the main stable, and a boy running to fetch more water
with a wooden bucket.

The door to the house opened and Gretchen Hockings
looked out at Tower. He noted the bags under her eyes, the hair carelessly
hanging over her forehead, and the stooped shoulders of a woman who was clearly
on the brink of giving up.

“Mrs. Hocking, I just stopped by to let you know
that if you need someone to talk to, I’m here for you,” he said.

She looked at Tower, then stepped back.

“Why don’t you come in, Mr. Tower,” she offered,
her voice a tired monotone.

He stepped into the small house. It smelled vaguely
of boiled potatoes.

“I’m here alone and I could use someone to talk to,
I guess,” she said. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Please,” Tower said. She poured him a cup and sat
at the small wooden table in the center of the room. An empty vase stood on the
tabletop between them.

Tower pulled a Bible from his pocket and set it on
the table.

“This must be a very difficult time for you,” he
said.

A tear escaped from the woman’s eye and rolled down
her cheek. Her hand twitched as if she meant to wipe it away but changed her
mind, knowing there would just be more to take its place.

“Nancy didn’t deserve this,” she said. “She’d had a
rough time and we thought it was all over. We should have protected her, from
herself, too.”

Tower studied the tabletop, traced the contour of
the wood’s grain.

“Why did Nancy need protecting?” he finally said,
unable to stop the question from coming out.

Gretchen Hockings sighed. “It doesn’t matter
anymore,” she said. “She used to be in love with Ike Daniels. Even when he was
beating her. She still loved him, despite his countless broken promises to stop
beating her. So she finally left him, told him it was over. And now look.”

“Have you told the sheriff?” Tower said, even
though he already knew the answer.

The woman laughed.

“No need to. He already knows,” she said, her voice
filled with a bitter fatigue. “And he won’t do anything, otherwise his paycheck
from Garrett Daniels will stop coming.”

Tower nodded.

“So Nancy had moved on from Ike Daniels?” Tower
said.

The woman grimaced. “She convinced us she had moved
on, even met someone new and was as happy as could be.”

“Did you know the new man?” Tower said. He wondered
if there really had been someone new, or if Nancy had decided to give Ike
Daniels one more try.

Hockings shook her head. “Never did find out who it
was. Doesn’t matter now. It’s all emptiness now, that’s how I feel. Like the
world is empty.”

“Would you like to pray?” Tower asked, placing his
hand on the Bible. “Nancy’s in a better place now, with God.”

The woman got to her feet.

“No, I don’t feel like praying right now, thank you
very much, Preacher.” Her voice shook. “Not sure He is listening.”

Tower started to speak, but she cut him off.

“You know what, Mr. Tower? I guess I’d like to be alone
for the time being. I don’t mean to be rude, but I think it’s time for you to
go.” Her face was set with grim determination.

He got to his feet.

“Thank you for the coffee. Mrs. Hockings, please let
me know if there’s anything I can do,” he said.

But she had already turned her back on him.