The Circuit Rider

by Dani Amore

  She had now slid halfway off her horse, hiding her body from the riflemen. Bird reached down and snagged Tower by the back of his collar, kicked the Appaloosa in the ribs, and dragged Tower behind a ledge of rock a dozen yards from the clearing.

  All the while she cursed herself.

  She’d felt the presence of someone else and had ignored the warning signs.

  She had walked right into the trap.

  Bird knew the shooters had figured she and Tower would stop at the clearing and look at the damn waterfall like a couple schoolkids on recess.

  She turned Tower onto his back and took in the sight of so much blood pouring out of his midsection.

  Goddamn, she thought.

  God damn it to hell.

  Seventy-Four

  Too much blood.

  No getting around it. Tower was losing a huge amount of blood, and way too fast.

  “Damn it,” Bird muttered.

  Bullets ricocheted off the rocks. Bird knew the bullet had been intended for her, and that it had only been her abrupt twist in the saddle reaching for her whiskey that had caused the shot to miss and hit Tower instead.

  She now grabbed the bottle of whiskey from her saddlebag, along with an extra kerchief. She poured some whiskey onto the kerchief and used it to wipe away the blood that covered the side of Tower’s head and face. Bird found a shallow groove about two inches long on the side of Tower’s head, just above his ear. It wasn’t the only bullet that had hit him, but it was probably the one that had knocked him unconscious.

  Bird opened Tower’s shirt where the blood seemed to be bubbling through the material. She saw the second bullet wound. It had hit him between the ribs and hip, going in the right side of his belly and coming out the back. Bird lifted Tower slightly and saw even more blood in the back. She lifted the shirt and saw that when the bullet had exited Tower’s body, it had taken with it a large chunk of flesh and muscle. The hole in the back was triple the size of the entry wound. The one good thing, Bird thought, was that the wound was far enough away from his insides that she was confident his internal organs hadn’t been hit.

  “Your Lord was watching over you, I guess,” Bird said as she doused both bullet holes with whiskey, then took a quick drink herself. “Although he left me untouched, which must mean he likes me more.”

  A bullet pinged off the rock just above her head, and shards of stone scattered onto her shoulders.

  “Sons of bitches,” Bird said. She tore the kerchief in half, stuffed one piece into the bullet hole in the front of Tower’s belly, and jammed the rest into the hole in the back. Still unconscious, Tower moaned.

  “Sorry, but it’s got to be done,” Bird said.

  There wasn’t really enough material to properly fill the opening in Tower’s back, but she did her best.

  Bird looked at the side of Tower’s head. The bleeding was slowing, and she needed to wrap it.

  More bullets ricocheted around her.

  She reached inside Tower’s overcoat, tore out a strip of black lining, and tied it around his head. Bird took another drink of whiskey, slid her rifle from its scabbard, fed shells into the magazine, and leaned against the big boulder.

  There was no doubt in her mind what had happened. But she pushed the thought away. There would be plenty of time to speculate later. She had to survive first.

  Bird glanced over at Tower. He was out cold. The blood had stopped for the most part, or maybe he’d run out. She gritted her teeth.

  It was not going to end this way.

  She pivoted on her heel, ducked to the right of the rock, and brought the rifle to her shoulder in one smooth motion. Through the cloud of mist thrown off by the waterfall, Bird spotted a man running closer to the edge of the ridge, crouched low. Bird measured his speed, put the sight of the rifle on his chest, and fired.

  The round stopped him and stood him up straight, which allowed Bird to put a second bullet into him, this one in the head. The man’s black cowboy hat flipped off his head and spun in the air before landing a few feet from the dead body of its owner.

  Bird ducked back behind the rock as bullets crashed all around her, smashing off chunks of rock, digging up clods of earth. She knew what they would do next. The sons of bitches would try to circle around, pin her down from all sides.

  Bird glanced down the sloping hill that led toward the river. Not a good way out.

  She watched the ridge opposite the clearing. They would certainly send at least one man up on that ridge to flank them and probably another man down below, crossing to the opposite side.

  One thing was clear: they couldn’t stay here. In a matter of minutes they would be pinned down and cut to shreds. Bird had only killed one of the men, and there seemed to be plenty more.

  Bird scuttled back to Tower. His eyes were open.

  “Can you hear me?” she said.

  He blinked rapidly. His mouth formed a word, but no sound came out.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Bird said.

  She hated to do it, but she had no choice. She lifted Tower to his feet, felt him wobble unsteadily, then pushed him toward the dim trail that led to the waterfall, where Bird had spotted a slight overhang. From there, they would be afforded some protection from one side as well as the advantage of slightly higher ground. It wasn’t much, but at least they could make an attempt to defend themselves.

  She unhooked the saddlebag, slung it over her shoulder, and guided Tower up.

  Seventy-Five

  See 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 hor
se 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.

  Seventy-Six

  The 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.

  Seventy-Seven

  Bird 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.

  Seventy-Eight

  “Ah, 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.