by Dani Amore
“I’m not, but you are.”
“Why me?”
“I think it’s imperative that we talk to Mr. Parker,” Tower said. “I know he threw us out of the Big River Club, but he’s got to know something about why his wife was murdered. I think I can get him to talk to me. I thought I could do that—he seems the kind of man more likely to talk man-to-man—and you could ride over to Harlan’s Crossing. See if you can track down Jeffire, or the girl, or both.”
“I don’t mind that plan at all,” Bird said. “I’m getting real tired of Big River.”
Tower got to his feet. “I’m going for a walk, sometimes it helps me think. Care to join me?”
“I believe I’ll stay here and see if this whiskey has any ideas.”
Tower tipped his hat to her and left. She watched him leave the saloon, standing tall, with his broad shoulders and easy gait. He was a man very comfortable with himself.
Bird looked at the bottle.
Other people found their comfort outside themselves.
She poured another shot and drank.
Thirty-Six
The next morning, Bird stood before the Big River General Store, trying to forget about the dream she’d had: a woman with a pentagram carved into her chest was following her through the long grass near Killer’s Draw. She hadn’t slept well, and there was a crick in her neck. She rolled her head from side to side, trying to loosen up her neck muscles, and regretted passing on that second cup of coffee at the hotel restaurant.
Bird went inside, bought a few minimal provisions, mostly ammunition, then saddled up for her ride to Harlan’s Crossing.
The morning was dull and gray; a thick sheen of metal spanned the sky, and the air was heavy and still. Bird tried to judge how quickly the layer might burn off, or if the thickness meant heavier weather was on the way.
She was glad for the respite from Big River. New country never meant anything really new to Bird, but at least it was different. In her opinion, people were the same everywhere regardless of location and typically expected the same of her by reputation.
It didn’t matter to Bird.
She’d never encountered any type of situation she couldn’t shoot her way out of.
Martha Jeffire had underestimated the amount of time it took to get from Big River to Harlan’s Crossing. Rather than a half day, Bird arrived in the late afternoon. She hadn’t bothered to stop either, her lunch having been a bite of hardtack washed down with whiskey. A tension remained between her shoulder blades that the whiskey hadn’t eased. But this was different from the morning neck ache she’d had, and even after the liberal application of alcohol, its failure to relax typically meant one thing: she was being followed. Despite pauses on the trail to look back over her route, Bird saw no sign of anyone coming after her—but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
For the time being, she ignored her suspicions and continued on into Harlan’s Crossing.
Three saloons formed the nucleus of the town and Bird chose the one with the most horses in front, which meant the bar was mostly likely being actively tended. Unfortunately, it didn’t mean the establishment served the best merchandise. But Bird would take a cheap, busy saloon over an expensive, unmanned bar any time. Hardworking bartenders were of utmost importance to serious drinkers.
Bird climbed down from her horse, looped the reins over the hitching post, and glanced back again toward the trail into town. She saw no signs of movement, but it wasn’t like the desert where even one man on a horse would raise a small cloud of dust. She saw nothing but grass and mountains in the distance.
Still, the feeling was there, between her shoulders and creeping up toward the back of her neck.
She looked at the saloon, then noticed a general store next door. The whiskey was calling to her, but perhaps more than the sheriff or a popular bartender, the owner of a general store would know what was going on in town, and more important, whether Roger Jeffire had been by. Unlike her, she figured, Jeffire would start somewhere other than the saloon.
Bird made her way to the store and stepped inside. A man wearing a white apron over a blue shirt and peering through horn-rimmed glasses glanced up at her. He had a thick black pencil in his hand and had been squinting at a long, narrow sheet of yellow paper.
“Howdy,” he said. “Help you?”
“I’m looking for two people,” she said. “One is a reporter named Roger Jeffire from the Big River Bugle who would’ve come up here looking for a girl. The girl, now, she was supposedly seeing the young preacher who was murdered a couple weeks back. Have you seen Jeffire or know the girl?”
He made a checkmark on the sheet of paper with the pencil, then set both down.
“I don’t,” he said. “No reporter came by here, and believe me, if there was a girl in town who’d been seeing this preacher, I would’ve known about it. Big River isn’t that far away and Harlan’s Crossing isn’t that big. We all heard about that killing—and the new one.”
“I see,” Bird said.
“If Jeffire had stopped by here but didn’t talk to you, is there anyone or anywhere else he would have gone?”
The man thought for a moment and then shook his head. “No, sorry,” he said.
Bird thanked him, left the store and went to the saloon. The place was about half full but the end of the bar was open, so Bird took up position there where she could see the whole saloon.
When the bartender came over, she ordered whiskey and asked him about Jeffire and the girl. The bartender had the same response as the general store owner: no sign of the reporter and no information about a girl who might have been involved with Egans.
Bird drank her whiskey and thought back to the meeting she and Tower had had with Martha Jeffire. Bird liked the woman but wondered if she had been telling them the whole story. But why lie? What benefit would she have to send them off on a wild goose chase?
She drank another whiskey and refilled her glass, trying to get the tension out from between her shoulders, but that nagging feeling wasn’t going away. And Bird sensed that no matter how much good whiskey she poured down the hatch, something else was going to have to happen to put her mind at ease.
Bird thought again of the reporter. If Roger Jeffire hadn’t come out to Harlan’s Crossing, then where was he? And if there wasn’t a girl from Harlan’s Crossing who had been seeing Bertram Egans, why had Martha Jeffire said there was?
She nursed the questions in her mind, poured another whiskey, and a very simple answer appeared.
At the same time, two men pushed their way into the saloon.
One small. One big.
Henry Jones. And Mr. Seven.
Thirty-Seven
Mike Tower and Walter Morrison stood by the platform at the train station. There were a dozen people milling around, some with bags and others checking their pocket watches, wondering how much longer before loved ones would arrive.
Morrison had tracked down Tower and urged him to meet the afternoon train, which would be carrying a passenger of great interest. Tower had pressed for more information but Morrison hadn’t divulged any additional tidbits.
They were several minutes early, and Tower studied the handbills posted along the ticket office’s exterior walls. There were signs for a show that was coming to Big River, the usual advertisements for the saloons and land agents. There was also a sign warning rustlers and horse thieves to stay clear of Big River. The image on that one was a crude drawing of a man wearing a flour sack over his head with eye holes cut out.
“Yes, Big River has never had much of a problem with rustlers,” Morrison said. “Unlike other boomtowns profiting from the cattle industry. I’ve heard stories of rustlers practically bankrupting a town with their thievery.”
“So, how has Big River solved the problem?”
“Only one way to do it,” Morrison said. “Like you mean it.”
“You mean like this kind of thing?” Tower asked, gesturing toward the poster.
�
�That, and the harshness with which the guilty are treated. From what I understand, Big River has a reputation as a place cattle thieves avoid.”
Tower was about to ask more, but in the distance, they heard the whistle of the train.
“Right on time,” Morrison said.
The church secretary had been circumspect when Tower tried to find out who was arriving. He half wondered if Silas came out from San Francisco to see how the investigation was going. It would surprise him if that was the case, but then again, Big River had been full of surprises so far.
The train pulled into the main platform and the folks with luggage moved toward the cars, ignoring the fact that those onboard would have to disembark first. Tower and Morrison stood off to the side.
As passengers began to emerge from the train, Morrison walked forward, looking for the person he was expecting.
By now, Tower’s curiosity was thoroughly piqued.
The stream of passengers exiting the train began to thin, until finally, one last group emerged. In the middle of that group, a woman stepped through the train doors. She was older, with stylish gray hair swept back beneath a floppy purple hat. Morrison approached her, said something, and then extended a hand that she took.
The woman stepped onto the platform and Morrison led her to Tower. Tower watched her walk toward him. She carried herself well, with excellent posture and square shoulders. The expression on her face wasn’t haughty, however; if anything, it was open and welcoming.
Tower knew at once that he was going to like her.
“I will retrieve your suitcase, ma’am, while I leave you in the goods hands of Mr. Mike Tower,” Morrison said.
He turned to Tower.
“Mr. Tower, I would like you to meet Evelyn Egans. Bertram’s mother.”
Thirty-Eight
“Ever rent out your shotgun?”
The bartender looked at Bird.
“Pardon me?” he asked.
“I know you’ve got one, probably a double-barrel, underneath the bar,” Bird said. “I’m hoping it’s loaded with double-aught buckshot.”
The man refilled Bird’s glass and looked at her. He had a square jaw and fierce green eyes that had seen plenty of bends in the trail. He moved down the bar and poured drinks for two other customers who had just come into the saloon.
Bird drank her whiskey in one smooth pull and licked her lips after it went down. She had been mulling over her options ever since her old friends had entered the bar and made a point of not looking her way.
It was clearly her move.
The bartender finished with his customers and slowly made his way back to Bird, wiping down the bar on his return trip.
“I can see you’ve got two guns already. What do you need a third for?”
Bird smiled. “Most of the time, the firepower I bring to a party is more than enough to do the job. But occasionally, I come face-to-face with bigger game. The kind that that can eat a couple of .45s and keep coming. For those unpleasant creatures, I need something that’ll bring them down without too much trouble. Your shotgun, for instance.”
“The thing is, I don’t want ‘my’ shotgun to get me into trouble. Even if someone else is using it.”
“Believe me, that shotgun and I will be keeping whatever happens between us.”
“I don’t want any trouble here in the saloon,” he finally said.
“You won’t get any from me,” she said. “Especially if you rent me that shotgun right now.”
She had already done the calculations in her head. There was no way she was going to try to ride back to Big River tonight. She’d bunk up in Harlan’s Crossing—there had to be a room somewhere, and head back in the morning. But she had a pretty good idea that she could expect company tonight. A part of her was impressed with the brazen manner in which Henry Jones and Mr. Seven made no attempts to conceal their presence.
They wanted her to know they were here.
Daring her to do something.
Bird laid ten dollars on the bar.
“For the shotgun and a bottle of whiskey. I’ll bring the shotgun back but not the bottle.”
He got her the whiskey first, then brought the shotgun out from underneath the bar. It looked ugly and totally utilitarian. Just greasy, worn wood on the stock, and a dark barrel that had never seen a rag and a bottle of polish. It looked exactly like what a bartender’s shotgun should look like.
She took it from him and Bird figured it was good deal for him—he probably had another one stashed somewhere.
The gun was sawed off but still impressive in its heft.
“Need more shells?” the bartender asked.
Bird shook her head. “If I can’t do it with two, more won’t help.”
She grabbed the bottle and the shotgun, and walked past Henry Jones and Mr. Seven without looking at them.
Bird figured she’d see them soon enough.
Thirty-Nine
The three of them sat in the parlor at Mrs. Wolfe’s Boardinghouse. Mrs. Egans had insisted on heading directly there, whereupon she deposited her luggage in Bertram’s former room, freshened up, and met Tower and Morrison for afternoon tea.
Tower had received a chilly reception from Mrs. Wolfe, but he ignored her obvious distaste at his presence. The woman seemed to relax her negative attitude toward Mrs. Egans, although clearly she was a bit put off.
Now, they sank into their respective chairs around the fireplace. There was wood in the hearth, but it hadn’t been lit, as the day was still warm. Mrs. Egans set her teacup on the black lacquered table that was between the chairs, then folded her hands in her lap.
“I suppose the shock has worn off,” she said, answering Morrison’s question as to her general condition. “Now all that’s left is sadness. Bertram did not have an easy life. I thought he had finally found his way with his religion, and it certainly seemed that he had. Now this.”
Tower wondered about what kind of reception the woman would receive from the townspeople of Big River. He hoped they would temper their obvious disdain for the woman’s dead son.
Mrs. Egans’ refinement came as a bit of a surprise to Tower. Judging by her letters, he had not expected the woman now in front of him to speak with such a deep and richly cultured voice.
“I made arrangements to come as soon as the news reached me,” she said. “But even a woman like me with a simple life can encounter complications with getting away for an extended period of time. It took more planning that I would have thought.”
“How were you notified?” Tower asked. “About Bertram?”
“Father Silas sent word.”
She sighed, picked up her teacup, and sipped as Tower wondered if the woman knew he was in possession of her letters. He considered telling her and offering to return them but something held him back.
“May I ask why you ultimately decided to come to Big River?” Tower asked.
“I felt I owed him that, Mr. Tower,” the woman said. “I may not have been there for him at certain points in his life, but I felt that we had made a tentative connection again and that our bond was healing. I wanted to be here for him now, even though he is gone.”
She set down her teacup a bit too firmly on the table. The sound seemed to startle her.
“Have they found the person responsible?” she asked.
Tower glanced at Morrison, who caught the nonverbal suggestion that he answer the question.
“The short answer is that they have not caught your son’s killer,” Morrison said. “Yet.”
“Somehow, I knew that would be the answer,” she said. “I assume that would have been the first thing you would have told me.”
“I wish we were able to give you that good news,” Tower said.
“You should know, Mrs. Egans, that the investigation is continuing,” Morrison said. “In fact, Father Silas has asked Mr. Tower here to look into it as well.”
“Are the local authorities not up to the job?”
Morrison shifted
uncomfortably in his chair.
“The local authorities are doing the best they can,” Tower said. “However, before I answered my calling, I worked for some time as an investigator. I believe Silas thought I might be able to help. And if not, he may have simply sent me out here for a second opinion.”
“It doesn’t sound like there is a first opinion yet, though; am I correct?”
Smart woman, Tower thought.
“That’s correct,” he said.
Forty
Bird was surprised by the patience displayed by Henry Jones and Mr. Seven. When she hunkered down in her room in Harlan’s Crossing, she figured they would come for her around midnight or so. In their minds, that would have given her plenty of time to get even more drunk and then pass out, dead to the world. At which time, they could make her dead to the real world.
But they hadn’t made their move by one o’clock in the morning.
They actually waited until three.
And when they arrived, they did it in style. There was the faintest creaking of floorboards just outside her door, followed by a scrape then a thunderous crash as the door was knocked completely off its hinges. The door fell forward amid shouts and grunts and dark shadows accompanied by a cacophony of gunfire. Bullets exploded all around Bird, but she held steady until she could make out the clear definition of a man, then unloaded both barrels from the rented shotgun, figuring the man assigned the door-breaking task would be Mr. Seven.
She was wrong.
The double-aught shot obliterated the first man in, painting the wall behind him with an explosion of dark blood. But Bird had caught a glimpse of the man’s face and recognized him to be one of the two men she’d seen in the restaurant while defending herself from the man calling himself Ronald Hale.
Dammit, she thought.
Bird tossed aside the shotgun, drew both pistols and shot the next man through the door, who turned out to be the first man’s dining companion from the restaurant.
And then two things happened.