by Dani Amore
Then she saw another hint of movement just inside the long grass on the opposite side of Killer’s Draw.
Bird quickly climbed into the saddle and steered the Appaloosa toward the grass. In the air above her, she could hear something soft and faint. A high tone too thin to be a voice.
Her horse shifted its feet and flared its nostrils.
The sound died away quickly, but not before Bird was convinced.
She could be wrong, she told herself. After all, nearly the entire contents of a bottle of cheap whiskey was now inside her, and the sun was back out from behind the clouds, bearing down relentlessly.
But for a moment, she knew what she’d heard.
It was a voice.
And it belonged to a little girl.
Twenty-Two
“We’re being watched,” Jeffire said, glancing over Tower’s shoulder to the Big River Club’s wraparound porch. “Someone is always watching around here.”
“Where can we talk?” Tower asked.
“Come by the newspaper office after dark, tonight. I’ll tell you what I know. In the meantime, have you talked to Walter Morrison?”
Tower shook his head. “No. Who is he?”
“He’s the church secretary.”
The papers Silas had given him said nothing about a church secretary named Walter Morrison. If he’d known there even was an employee of the church, he would have started there.
“Have him tell you what he knows; it will be good background for when we chat tonight.” Jeffire tipped his hat. “Until then.”
He began to turn and walk away but Tower stopped him.
“Does it have something to do with the disappearance of Ronald Hale’s daughter?”
Jeffire gave Tower a curious smile. “No. Probably because Ronald Hale doesn’t have a daughter. He lives alone.”
Seeing no response coming from Tower, Jeffire departed, whistling as he went.
What is it with this town? Tower thought. He hadn’t seen this many liars since his last card game on a Mississippi riverboat near New Orleans.
He sighed, felt eyes staring at his back, and at first stifled an urge to look behind him to see who had an interest in the conversation. He then turned, as if to relight his cigar, and spotted two men on the club’s porch. They were opposites. One was small and thin, dressed like an Eastern dandy, while the other one was huge, easily six inches taller than Tower and much wider. The little man had a foot raised and resting on the porch’s railing. The bigger man just stared at Tower.
Tower blew smoke into the air and smiled at them. The little man nodded. The big man clenched and unclenched his ham-sized hands. Tower thought he heard a knuckle crack.
He turned his back on the men. He had no idea who they were, but made a mental note to eventually put names to the faces.
He walked down a side street and made his way to the church. The structure, although substantial, still somehow conveyed an impression of humility. Maybe it was the simple flower beds around the front steps or the unadorned sign telling parishioners the schedule of services.
Tower finished his cigar, dropped it into the dirt and ground it down with his boot heel, then climbed the stairs and went inside the church.
Two sets of benches twenty deep ran from the front of the church to the back. They were made of simple pine, stained dark with use. Off to one side was a row of candles. The other side held a few tables with stacks of papers and several dog-eared bibles.
Near the front of the church were two confessional booths—both doors were open.
The altar was on a slightly raised platform, and was relatively ornate for such a simple room. It was made of a blond wood, with hand carving on the legs and front edge of the altar’s top.
The ceiling above the altar was painted a unique grayish-blue that Tower had never seen before and the borders of the ceiling and the wall where they met were inlaid with a delicate gold finish.
In Tower’s estimation, it was a beautiful church.
A door at the rear of the altar opened and a man stepped out. Tower instantly assessed him as one of those people you would never remember; one who would blend into a crowd completely.
He was of average height and average build, had light hair, and wore dark clothing.
“I thought I heard someone come in.”
Tower nodded and walked toward him.
“You’re Walter Morrison?” he asked.
The man looked at Tower more closely.
“I am,” he said. “And you’re the preacher I’ve heard about?”
“That would be me.”
Morrison stepped aside, and gestured toward the open door behind the altar.
“Come in, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Twenty-Three
The top of the grass brushed against the chest of the Appaloosa as Bird nudged the horse forward. It seemed like a crazy idea. What would a girl be doing out here alone? There were no ranches or farms nearby. There was nothing but a broad, flat valley until you got to Big River.
So had she really seen someone?
Bird wondered if there was something strange in Axelrod’s whiskey. Maybe it was one of those newfangled concoctions made with strange pharmaceuticals. Bird had heard some interesting stories about creative chemists back East and the crazy things people did when they ingested their creations.
She pulled the bottle out and looked again at the label. No, just straight whiskey. And the bottle had been unopened; she’d broken the seal herself.
A firm wind was blowing down the length of the draw. Small rocks moved beneath the horse’s hooves. A bird flew high overhead, its shadow briefly moving across Bird’s path.
She rose slightly in her stirrups and looked out over the top of the grass. It was especially thick here, probably because part of the stream branched off and provided extra irrigation to the ground nearest the stream. Where the grass extended, it slowly declined in height as it radiated out from the streambed, forming a gentle slope, barely perceptible from a distance.
Bird studied the ground but saw nothing that seemed unusual in its presence. She saw no clues, no tracks of any kind, animal or human.
“Hello?” Bird shouted. Her voice echoed across the valley in waves.
There was no response.
She sank back into her saddle, pulled out the bottle of whiskey and drank. It was nearly empty.
Bird waited.
Another bird flew overhead.
And then someone laughed behind her.
Bird twisted in the saddle, bringing her gun out with the motion. She brought the Appaloosa around with a start.
There was no one behind her.
Bird felt a moment of confusion that instantly morphed into anger. She did not enjoy being toyed with.
Bird dug her heels into the Appaloosa’s sides and charged ahead, back to the riverbed.
No one was there.
Bird again studied the ground, walking her horse in tight but expanding circles. There were no tracks other than her own.
And then Bird realized something else.
Downwind Dave and his horse were gone.
She rode over to where she’d left the pair, but there was no sign of them. Bird scanned the surroundings.
“Goddamn, this is really starting to annoy me,” Bird said.
There would have been no reason for the horse to run off. There was water and plenty of grass. Plus, Bird had glanced over less than a minute ago and seen the horse right there. Now, there was nothing, just the tracks from where they’d come in, but no sign of the horse leaving. Bird kept studying the ground until she spotted something at the edge of the stream.
It was faint, and probably nothing, but it caught Bird’s eye.
She dismounted the Appaloosa and studied the small indentation not more than two inches from the water’s edge. Bird looked into the water, at the smooth stones and small pebbles that lined the bed of the river. Their general color and sediment was uniform. She reached in and tur
ned one over, noting the darker and rougher rock bottom.
No one had walked through the stream recently. If they had, some of the stones would certainly have been turned over.
Bird looked back at the mark, and realized it was really two small marks.
Both seemed to hint at an edge of some sort. If it was the mark of a boot, it would have to be a very small boot. Much too tiny to be a man’s.
Which meant it was a woman’s.
Or a child’s.
Twenty-Four
“Father Silas sent you out here?” the man asked.
“He did,” Tower said. He stuck out his hand. “Mike Tower.”
Morrison shook Tower’s hand and said, “You’re a circuit rider? Is that what I heard?”
“I am … or was. It depends, I guess, on what Silas has in store for me. Right now, he wanted me to come out and see if I could shed some light on what happened to Egans. Seems like he wasn’t getting enough answers from the sheriff.”
Morrison frowned. They sat at a rickety wooden table on equally rickety chairs. An unlit candle sat on the center of the table. A lopsided bookshelf was the only other item in the room. The shelf was crammed with small books bound in leather, all of them well-worn.
Tower looked at Morrison. Closer up, Tower could see he was much older than he first guessed. Late sixties, maybe even early seventies.
“Chesser doesn’t like to share information, or really do much of anything,” Morrison said. “Never has, never will. I’m not surprised Silas was frustrated. I’ve tried to find out what I can, but I’m an old man. No one’s got much to say to me, especially knowing how I feel … felt … about young Bertram.”
“And how did you feel about Egans?” Tower asked.
“I liked him, of course!” the old man practically barked at Tower. “He was a great kid. Wanted to help. Cared about people. He was a fine young man. Don’t let these mealymouthed yokels tell you any different.”
“Oh, they’ve been telling me a much different story than you are, that’s for certain. They all seem to think that whoever killed him deserves a giant thank-you. Maybe even a street named after him, the way they talk.”
“They’re full of manure.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they don’t know what they’re talking about. Bertram had big ideas for this town, and for this church. He was very curious about what made people tick. Why they made certain choices in their lives. He was a very passionate young man. I admired him. When he was engaged, he was very passionate.”
“What do you mean by ‘when he was engaged’?”
Morrison shrugged.
“I guess I’m referring to the times he seemed like he had something else on his mind. Like he had a secret. He would never tell me about it, though. Even if I did ask, which was only once or twice.”
Tower thought about that.
“You think highly of him. No one in town apparently feels that way. So, who do you think killed him?”
Morrison’s shoulders slumped. “I have no idea.”
“What do you know about Ronald Hale? He tried to tell me that Egans killed his daughter, but then I heard that he doesn’t have a daughter. In fact, no kids at all, not even married. Why would he lie about that?”
The old wooden chair creaked as Morrison got to his feet. “I have no idea why Mr. Hale would say such a thing. Don’t know the man, to be honest. But it sounds to me like someone knows why you’re here and is maybe trying to confuse the issue.”
“That occurred to me,” Tower said.
Morrison put his hands on his hips. “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you become a preacher, Mr. Tower?”
He’d been asked that before, but still, Tower paused before speaking. “I think because I spent a good amount of my life hurting people. And at some point, I wanted to help them instead.”
“I thought about becoming a man of the cloth, too,” Morrison said. “But I just never felt the calling. I think a lot of men choose the profession, or the profession chooses them, for the same reason you just described to me.”
Morrison put his hand on the back of his chair and leaned forward.
“I think that was the case with Mr. Egans. That feeling I had that sometimes his mind was somewhere else? I think he was somewhere else. I think he was in the past. His past.”
Tower thought back to the letters he’d read from Egans’ mother. The hints at a troubled past.
“I think you are probably right, Mr. Morrison.”
“And if I am, I think there’s a good chance that whoever wanted him dead knew something about his past, too.”
Twenty-Five
The town of Big River appeared between her horse’s ears, and Bird felt a mixture of relief and unsettledness. It felt like a long time ago that she had ridden out to Verhooven’s mine with Tower.
Now, she trotted her horse back to the hotel, flipped a couple bits at the hotel manager, and asked for beer and whiskey to be sent to her room, along with hot water for a bath. Once she’d dropped her gear off, the beer and whiskey arrived first, so she filled a mug with beer, then dropped a couple shots of whiskey into it, sat on the edge of the bed, and waited for the hot water. It arrived several minutes later, and her tub was filled. She shucked her clothes, hung her gun belt next to the tub, grabbed the beer and whiskey, and slid into the soapy hot water.
It felt wonderful.
Bird sank into the water and rinsed her face. She reached out for the mug with a fresh serving of beer and whiskey, then sunk far enough into the water that the scar on her chest wasn’t visible.
She closed her eyes, pictured the odd images back at Killer’s Draw. The voice seemed so clear. If it was the voice of a child, where had the child gone? And was that the print?
Bird glanced down and saw the scar on her chest now peeking out just above the waterline. It had been carved there years ago by a man known as Toby Raines. A man who was now dead, thanks to the gun hanging within inches of her hand.
It was a violent country. Almost everyone she had ever known had either killed someone or knew someone close to them who had been killed. She had a feeling things would change eventually. Already, it seemed more law and order was visible, especially now that the railroad had made its full circuit across the country.
Bird drank again.
She wondered what she would do. How long would she ride around with Tower? It still seemed odd to her. A woman like her—bottle in one hand, gun in the other. Piles of dead men behind her. And now she was working side by side with a preacher?
She didn’t believe in God.
But she sure as hell believed that life enjoyed making every day a mystery.
The knock at the door came after Bird had gotten out of the tub and changed into clean clothes.
“Who is it?” she asked. The gun was already in her hand before the words left her mouth.
“Lynching party,” Tower said.
Bird rolled her eyes.
“Come in,” she said.
Tower opened the door and came into the room. He looked at Bird and she saw him hesitate. There was a chair next to the washbasin so he pulled it out and sat on it.
“Want some beer or whiskey?” Bird asked.
Tower looked. “Beer, please.” She poured a glass and handed it to him.
“So, you go first,” he said. “What did you find out?”
“Well, I found out who killed Verhooven. A man named Downwind Dave Axelrod.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You won’t be hearing anything from him now, either.”
Tower looked carefully around the room, as if she’d stashed the body under the bed.
“No, he’s not here. I lost his body at Killer’s Draw, but that’s another story,” Bird said. “What about you?”
Tower set aside his curiosity, filled her in on his meeting with the reporter, and Morrison.
“Sounds like the Big River Club is my kind of place,” she said. She p
ut her head back on the pillow and stretched out on the bed. She felt very tired all of a sudden. Probably the combination of a bath and a boatload of whiskey.
“Probably not, the bar was pretty small,” Tower said.
“Was there a bartender?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’ll do.”
“So, it sounds like Axelrod was hired by someone to kill Verhooven,” Tower said, after Bird explained the discovery of the note and what it said.
“That’s how it was signed?” he asked. “With just a P?”
Bird nodded.
“Plenty of people in town with a P in their name,” Tower said.
“Yeah,” Bird said. “But how many with enough money to hire their very own gunfighter?”
Twenty-Six
They walked into the hotel lobby and Tower immediately spotted the two men who’d been watching him from the porch of the Big River Club.
They sat at a table facing the stairs, the little one with a cup of coffee in his hand. The big one sat in what looked like a dollhouse chair beneath his immense bulk.
Since they were situated facing the stairs, Tower figured they were now keeping a more direct eye on them, so he approached the table.
“May I help you gentlemen?” Tower asked.
The big man lifted his head and looked at Tower, his eyes peering with apparent boredom from beneath heavy eyebrows. The little man smiled, put down his coffee cup, and traced a pattern on the tabletop with his index finger.
“Now why would you be asking if we need help? Do we appear to be in need of assistance?” the man asked. His voice was high and chirpy. Tower thought he sounded like a ten-year-old boy.
“I’m a man of the cloth, sir. I’m always looking to help people,” Tower answered.
Tower sensed Bird behind him, moving away to the side.
“No, there is nothing you can do to help us, Mr. Tower,” the man said. “I am simply enjoying a cup of this fine hotel coffee. And Carl is busy … being Carl.” The big man displayed no apparent recognition that he had been mentioned. He continued to look at Tower with tired indifference.