The Circuit Rider

by Dani Amore

  “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.

  Twelve

  The minute she peeked into the cabin, a chill shot through Bird’s body.

  Without a thought, both guns were in her hands.

  The place stank of filthy men, rotting food, and smoke.

  Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light and she ducked in through the doorway.

  The cabin was empty. She holstered her left gun, but kept the other in her right.

  A long narrow table, poorly built and sagging, dominated the room. On it was a picked-over rabbit carcass, along with several empty whiskey bottles. Three bedrolls took up one side of the cabin, a rusty, sagging potbellied stove the other.

  None of the furnishings held any interest for Bird, though.

  What caught her eye were the walls.

  More accurately, what was on the walls.

  Drawings.

  Sketches.

  Ripped-out pages from a book tacked on to the wall.

  Most of the imagery seemed to be of the Devil in all of his various incarnations. Some of them were animal in form, others more human, albeit with horns.

  There were also crude sexual drawings.

  And pentagrams.

  Lots and lots of upside-down pentagrams.

  “You bastard!” a voice shouted behind her, and then Bird heard the sound of wood smacking flesh.

  She walked back outside and saw Hockings, holding a long piece of firewood, standing over the man Bird had shot. A fresh blood smear streaked the length of the wood.

  “Let me ask you a question,” she said to the man on the ground, now sporting a huge gash along his forehead.

  “What’s your name?” Bird asked.

  “Paulson.”

  “Well, Paulson, you’ve got a choice. I can let Mr. Hockings here beat you to death, or you can tell me exactly what happened between you, Flom, Ike Daniels, and Toby Raines.”

  Paulson shook his head. “I’m dead either way. Raines will kill me.”

  “That’s right, so you’ve got nothing to gain by keeping secrets from us. Just spill your guts, or we’ll spill them for you.”

  Paulson blinked, and Bird worried he might pass out. The man wiped away the blood seeping into his eyes. His chin sank to his chest.

  “Ike and Nancy liked to come out here and get drunk and do it, you know?” he said.

  Bird heard Hockings gasp behind her.

  “Sometimes, she’d let us join in.”

  “Bullshit!” Hockings said and lunged at Paulson. Bird held the man back.

  “Then one night, this Raines shows up out of the blue. Things got really weird then. He had these crazy potions that made you see weird things, and he said he was in contact with the Devil.”

  Paulson licked his lips. “Nancy fell in love with him, which pissed Ike off. Then Raines said rather than fighting over her, they should just kill her. So that’s what they did.”

  “Any idea where Raines went?” she said.

  “No, he just disappeared after we . . . after they killed the girl.”

  Bird stepped back and turned to Hockings.

  “He’s all yours.”

  Thirteen

  Prescott’s General Store was at the end of Green Spring’s Main Street. By Mike Tower’s estimation it was a humble enterprise as far as most general stores went.

  He had gone in to talk to the owner about setting up a Mass for the town. A vigil of sorts for the slain Nancy Hockings. But while he waited in line behind two women ahead of him talking at great length about fabric, a voice rose from the street.

  “The preacher in there?” someone shouted.

  Tower left his place in line and stepped outside.

  Ike Daniels stood in the street, with two other men who hung far back.

  “Need to talk to you for a minute,” Daniels said.

  Tower looked at the men behind Daniels, then finally let his gaze rest on Ike.

  “And who are you?”

  “Ike Daniels,” he said with a laugh. “Not sure I ever had to tell anyone my name before!”

  Tower ignored the joke. He studied Daniels, saw the arrogance in his stance, the cocksure confidence in his eyes. He also saw the man’s inner doubt. Tower had spent years perfecting his ability to judge other men. He was pretty sure he knew what Ike Daniels was made of.

  “Why don’t we take a walk,” Daniels said, his voice a little less certain. Tower could see his silence was bothering Daniels.

  Tower stepped down into the street and met Daniels face to face.

  “Not much in the mood for a walk, to be honest,” Tower said. “What is it you need?”

  Daniels laughed. “Not very accommodatin’ for a preacher, got to say,” he said.

  Tower didn’t laugh. Or smile. He read the lack of character in the face of Ike Daniels. Tower had met many, many men like this one. Weak, except when it comes to people who are even weaker.

  “Fine, we’ll talk right here,” Daniels said, as if the decision was solely his. “So, I know you’re busy spreadin’ the Word of God and all that good stuff, but I prayed to the Lord and asked him when you might be leavin’ town.”

  The men behind Daniels were close enough to hear, and they snickered.

  “And you know what? The Good Lord actually spoke to me! He said you’d be dragging your sorry hide and that drunken whore of yours out of town tonight!” Daniels said, a big smile on his face. “Yes, sir. Straight from the Lord’s lips. What’s that make me, some kinda angel? Or a prophet? Ooh, I like that. The book of Ike Daniels, man of the cloth!”

  Daniels was playing to his little crowd, and Tower was running out of patience.

  “Did He tell you to beat Nancy Hockings, too?” Tower said.

  He watched the smiles fall from the faces of Daniels’ men. Ike himself seemed to take a step back.

  “What was that, Preacher? Not sure I heard you right,” Daniels said, the bravado now gone from his voice.

  Tower stepped closer to Daniels so they were inches apart.

  “I think you heard me just fine,” Tower said. He felt the old anger rise inside him and he tried to tamp it down, but the heat was radiating through his body.

  “I asked you, Did God tell you to smack around Nancy Hockings? Or was that something you just felt entitled to do?”

  Daniels glanced down at Tower’s hips.

  “You’re lucky you ain’t carryin’ a gun, otherwise you’d be meeting your precious Maker right about now,” Daniels said. His face was flushed with the knowledge he was being humiliated in front of his men.

  “You’re lucky you
’re carrying yours right now,” Tower said. “Otherwise I’d give you a taste of what you’ve given Nancy, and who knows how many other young women?”

  Daniels’s face went rigid.

  “Yeah, I figured that would scare you,” Tower said. “I’m a man. Fighting girls is more your style.”

  Daniels fumbled at the buckle of his gun belt, unhooked it, and let it fall to the ground.

  He swung from the hip. It was meant to be a surprise punch, but Tower saw it coming.

  He caught the punch under his left arm and threw his own right, not from the hip. Instead, it was a short, brutal punch that Tower added leverage to by redirecting the force of Daniels’ own strike.

  Tower’s fist connected with the chin of Ike Daniels, and Tower saw the man’s eyes roll back into his head and he went limp.

  Tower let him sink to his knees, then, with Daniels’s arm still trapped, he corkscrewed his body and felt Daniels’s arm break.

  The snap was audible and the pain briefly brought Ike Daniels around, long enough for him to moan.

  His men surged forward to help their boss, and Mike Tower turned his back on them.

  And then he walked away.

  Fourteen

  A dust devil welcomed Bird Hitchcock back into the small town of Green Spring. The miniature cyclone seemed to come out to greet her, Clyde Hockings, and the two horses, each carrying a dead man.

  A few people came out of the saloons and stores to watch the procession as it made its way to the sheriff’s office.

  Hockings, by prior agreement with Bird, left the group and headed home.

  Dundee wasn’t at the sheriff’s office, so she tied the two horses with the dead men to the nearest rail and headed to the saloon for a drink.

  There were more people in the place this time, Bird noted, as she walked to the bar.

  “Give me some of that good stuff . . . the whiskey Van Osdol drinks,” she said to the bartender.

  She took out some of the money the lawyer had paid her in advance and set it on the bar.

  When the bottle came, she drank three straight shots in a row, each filled to the brim. The scalding welcome of the booze filled her stomach and she felt an eerie calm seep through her body.

  She was reaching for the bottle again when a hand tried to cover hers. Instantly the muzzle of her gun was firmly planted beneath the chin of the man who had suddenly appeared behind her.

  “Easy now,” Van Osdol said.

  Bird holstered her gun. “Does your brain realize how close it came to becoming a part of the chandelier?” she said.

  The attorney laughed.

  “Pretty close, I believe,” he said.

  He filled Bird’s glass, signaled the bartender to bring another, and then filled his own. He raised his glass in a toast.

  “To the end of Corey Flom,” he said. “Your little parade couldn’t be missed.”

  She raised her glass. “And to the prompt payment of my remaining fifty dollars,” Bird added.

  They each tossed back their drink.

  “A job well done,” Van Osdol said, handing Bird the second fifty dollars.

  Bird nodded and tucked the money into her pocket. “How about a bonus for his buddy? Do you know if he helped kill that little girl? You know, the five-year-old you said Flom murdered?”

  Van Osdol shook his head.

  “No, I’m positive that was Corey Flom all by himself.”

  Attorneys are the best liars, Bird knew. And Van Osdol was lying through his perfect teeth. The cabin had been a setup, she knew that. Raines had wanted Bird out there, and hoped that Flom and Paulson would kill her.

  “Hey,” Bird said. “They find her body yet? That little girl’s? Five years old, you said?”

  A look of grief came across the attorney’s face. “No such luck. And I get the feeling the authorities aren’t looking all that hard,” he said. His voice filled with sadness and disgust. “She was the child of a whore, and the whore is gone. No one cares.”

  “Except you,” Bird said.

  Van Osdol shrugged his shoulders. “Only me.”

  Bird glanced around the saloon. Everyone seemed intent on what they were doing; drinking, playing cards, or negotiating with a prostitute.

  She stepped away from the bar, made a cross-hand draw, and smashed the gun into the side of Van Osdol’s temple.

  He sank to the floor.

  Bird hopped over Van Osdol’s body so she faced the room and the bartender, who had moved to the end of the bar.

  She slapped Van Osdol until his eyes opened.

  Bird put the muzzle of the gun against the man’s temple and cocked the hammer.

  It was the only sound in the entire saloon.

  “Listen you filthy sonofabitch, I know there was no girl,” Bird said, her voice calm and measured. “There is no body, and there is no whore that left town. Toby Raines paid you to hire me to go out to Flom’s place, foolishly hoping those two jackasses would take care of me. I want to know where he is, and I want to know now.”

  Van Osdol made some dry clicking sounds in his mouth before he was finally able to speak.

  “He . . . he didn’t, he didn’t tell me where he was going,” he gasped. “But he may have mentioned to someone else that he was possibly heading toward Lincoln. Nebraska.”

  Blood ran down the side of the attorney’s face, and the eye nearest the point of impact with Bird’s gun began to cloud with pink fluid.

  She slid the muzzle of the gun to the lawyer’s injured eye. She pushed it underneath the eyelid he tried to clench together, then ground it firmly against his bare eyeball.

  Van Osdol squirmed.

  “Always a pleasure doing business with an officer of the courts,” Bird said. She stood and hauled Van Osdol to his feet.

  “Please,” he said.

  Bird pistol-whipped him again.

  He dropped to the floor, out cold.

  Bird snatched the bottle of whiskey from the bar, tipped her hat to the bartender, and left.

  Fifteen

  Mike Tower sat at one of the tables in the hotel’s lobby. It was quiet, the only sound the faint clatter of dinnerware as the kitchen staff prepared for the evening.

  Tower’s pen scratched furiously along the sheet of paper as he composed the sermon he planned to deliver that evening to the folks who would come to his service.

  Like most of his thoughts, the focus of his writing was on redemption. On forgiving. And on healing.

  But it would also be on with taking responsibility for past actions.

  “Preacher,” a deep voice said from behind him.

  Tower turned to see an older man with broad shoulders and a jaw that could only mean he was the father of Ike Daniels.

  “My name’s Garrett Daniels,” the old man said. “Seems you hurt my boy pretty bad. Broke his arm and his jaw. Never heard of a preacher who could hit like that.”

  The old man touched the lower part of his face. “And breaking a Daniels’s jaw ain’t exactly an easy thing to do.”

  Tower watched the desk clerk slink out the hotel’s back door.

  From behind the old man, Ike Daniels and two more men fanned out.

  “He went at me first,” Tower said. “You do understand that?”

  Daniels raised an eyebrow, glanced at Ike, who shook his head.

  “That’s bullshit, Pa,” he said.

  The elder Daniels had a rifle in his right hand; the thumb of his left was hooked in his gun belt. He stood with a confident ease, exuding a presence that Tower hadn’t seen in the man’s son.

  “That don’t matter to me. You sure as hell can’t threaten my family, son,” he said. “Not going to apologize for the language, either.” Suddenly, the old man’s face brightened. “However, you can come back to the ranch, and we’ll hold a little service out there. And then we’ll all forgive and forget.”

  “I appreciate the invitation, Mr. Daniels,” Tower said. He knew a visit to the Daniels ranch would be a one-way trip. �
��But I’m holding a service in town tonight.”

  Tower turned back to his paper and began writing.

  The lobby was silent; even the rattling of dishes had stopped.

  And then Daniels worked the lever of his rifle, cocking it. The sound was almost as loud as if he’d fired the gun.

  “You’re going to get out of that chair, walk outside with us, get on a horse we brought just for you, and come back with us to the Rockin’ D,” the old man said. His voice had lost the pleasant banter and now had the consistency of gravel. “I ain’t asking you. I’m telling you. Pray all you want, but that’s what’s gonna happen.”

  Tower put the pen down. He studied the men surrounding Garrett Daniels and let his gaze linger on Ike.

  “You're a dead man, Preacher,” Ike said.

  Tower smiled. “A lot tougher around your daddy.”

  Tower stood, walked past the men, and stepped out onto the hotel’s boardwalk. The Daniels horses were all tied to the right of the hotel. Tower counted one extra horse, knowing that it was for him.

  He heard boots sounding on the wood planks behind him.

  And then he saw Bird.

  She was coming from the saloon with a bottle in her hand, walking directly toward the hotel.

  “Perfect timing,” Tower heard the old man say. “Spread out.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tower saw Ike and the other Daniels men take positions on either side of the old man.

  “So, you are a drunk,” Daniels shouted at Bird.

  Tower knew Bird had already seen them, that she had just wanted to get closer. He was still getting to know her, but he could read body language. He had done a lot of that in his past, before he hung up his own guns in favor of the Bible.

  Bird looked up and acted as if she hadn’t seen the men standing there, waiting for her.

  She smiled, but Tower saw through it. Still, she was a beautiful woman, and he marveled at her ability to use it to her advantage. He could practically feel the men around him relax.

  She put the bottle down next to her feet. She pointed at it.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” she said.

  One of Daniels’s hired hands laughed.