by Dani Amore
“Branding, huh?” she asked. “That’s what you call it?”
A sneer crossed Branson’s face. “What, is the famous Bird Hitchcock going to shoot me because I lied to her?”
“Why did you go through that whole charade?” she asked. “I’m curious. And you did it with such gusto—you really got into the part, didn’t you?”
Branson sighed like he was tired of the conversation.
Bird drew her gun and shot him in the foot.
Branson screamed, toppled onto his back, and writhed on the ground. Bird walked past him, found the rope he’d used to tie up the cow, picked it up, went back to Branson, and kicked him in the ribs.
He howled, one hand on his ribs, the other trying to reach his bloody foot.
Bird used her boot to roll him onto his stomach and then put a knee in his back and tied his arms behind him. He struggled against her, but she ground her knee directly into his spine, then stepped back and kicked him in the ribs again, this time hard enough to flop him onto his back.
“He’s going to kill you, you dirty whore!” Branson yelled. Flecks of foam were on his lips, and his face was red. The leg with the damaged foot was twitching.
“Dirty whore?” Bird asked. “I resent that as I bathe regularly and take pride in my appearance.”
Bird went to the fire, pulled out one of the branding irons, studied the glowing red tip, and walked back to Martin Branson.
“No!” he shouted.
“It’s called branding, you stupid bitch,” she said and then jammed the tip of the brand into the side of Branson’s face.
He screamed again, and struggled to get to his feet. Bird stepped back and kicked him in the face, her boot catching the tip of his jaw and snapping his head back.
Branson plopped back onto the ground.
He was whimpering.
“Who hired you to come to the hotel and tell me that Bertram Egans killed your daughter? You know, the daughter that doesn’t actually exist.”
Branson let out an incoherent string of words that may or may not have included curse words.
Bird stepped around him, spotted the burn wound on his face, and kicked him square on the damaged flesh. The toe of her boot caught and pulled a chunk of charred meat out of his cheek.
“It’s called telling the truth, you dirty whore,” Bird said.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” he said. Tears streamed down his face and gobs of spit hung from his lips.
“You’re a real mess, Mr. Branson. But I’m probably not going to kill you, even though you deserve it. I may just spare your life, on one condition,” Bird said. “As long as you tell me the name. I just want one name.”
Branson stopped squirming, went still, and finally gave her the name.
Bird walked to the cabin, took the Winchester, then went to the makeshift corral and freed all of the animals. Then she kicked dirt over the fire and heaved the branding irons into the trees behind the cabin.
She walked back to Branson, jacked a shell into the Winchester’s chamber, and put the muzzle next to his temple.
“You know how I said I wouldn’t kill you?”
He didn’t answer.
She pulled the trigger.
“You’re not the only one who can act.”
Fifty-Two
According to the hotel’s proprietor, Joseph Parker spent the most hours of his days between an office at the Wyoming Cattlemen’s Association office, and the Big River Club, conveniently located two blocks from each other. Tower figured Parker had ceded the day-to-day responsibilities of his ranch to someone else, possibly a family member or a longtime employee. It sounded like he was enjoying the good life in town.
The WCA building was stout and formidable, probably meant to represent the reputations of the men who headed the organization. Two stories, wide wood planks, and leaded-glass windows faced the street. An ornate door of dark wood sat beneath an overhang supported by two stone pillars.
Tower climbed the steps and knocked on the door.
A woman with gray hair piled high and wearing round spectacles answered.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“I’m here to speak with Joseph Parker,” Tower said.
She hesitated, but Tower knew Parker was there. He’d watched him leave the Big River Club and amble over to the WCA just after lunch. Tower figured he was either working or napping.
“Is he expecting you?” the woman asked.
“Yes, he is,” Tower said. It wasn’t a lie. Parker had to know that sooner or later he, Tower, would show up.
The woman let him inside through the spacious front room that held a secretary’s desk and a giant clock over which hung a set of longhorns. Windows with thick glass let natural light into the space and heavy wood beams ran the length of the ceiling.
There were several offices in the rear of the building, and the woman took Tower to the one at the very end of the hall. She knocked, then opened the double doors.
“A Mr.—”
She turned to him.
“Tower.”
“A Mr. Tower is here to see you. He says you’re expecting him.”
A baritone voice thundered. “Let the sonofabitch in here, Dorothy.”
Dorothy scurried away as Tower walked into the office. It was a sprawling room with a thick carpet over polished wood floors. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf took up one entire wall. A massive desk dominated the center of the room, accented by a thick cloud of cigar smoke. A side table held a decanter filled with liquor.
If Bird was here, that whiskey wouldn’t last long, Tower thought.
“First of all, Mr. Parker, I want to offer my sincerest condolences—”
“Oh, go to hell, preacher.”
“—on your loss.”
Parker gestured with the cigar. “I let you in here to tell you if you ever come near me again it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
“Why the hostility?” Tower asked. “What have I done to offend you?”
Joseph Parker got to his feet. Not an easy process. Tower remembered how big the man had seemed when he’d seen him at the club after his wife’s murder. But now, in a closed space, he seemed even bigger. His hands were like giant slabs of meat, and his head looked like a granite boulder. Parker’s immensity was stuffed into a white shirt that struggled to contain the man’s mass, paired with charcoal pants and red suspenders. The man was simply a giant, and he seemed to swallow all of the open space in the room.
“You’re here to try to exonerate that dirty preacher who got what he deserved,” Parker said, his voice as cold and hard as canyon rock. “And in the process, you want to rile up Big River, splash a bunch of stories everywhere about us, and drive business away. Well I’ve got news for you, Mr. Tower. The only thing being driven away will be you. In an undertaker’s wagon if it comes to that.”
The man’s face was a deep crimson.
Tower smiled at him. “You gave a speech in which you encouraged people to take up arms and defend the town. What was that speech for? Why did you make it?”
For a moment, Parker seemed off-balance. He straightened further, looked at Tower, and slid open a drawer. He pulled out a long-barreled pistol.
“I’m not sure if you understood my point,” he said. “Your time in Big River is over. Some of the sheep in this town have played with you and let you run your little game of investigating. Well, that’s over.”
He popped open the cylinder of the revolver, showed Tower that it was fully loaded, then snapped it back into place. He held the gun at his side.
“My investigation will be over when I decide it’s over,” Tower said. “The funny thing about searching for truth? The ones who oppose you the most are usually the ones living a lie.”
Parker’s face turned so red it appeared to be on fire.
“It’s well known that we have a safe here. Trail bosses sometimes bring their cash for safekeeping before they pay their riders. I always wondered what would happen
if someone came in and tried to rob the place.” Parker smiled at Tower. “You have three seconds to leave or I will take your presence as a sign you want to rob the place. And believe me, money is something I defend with vigor.”
Tower tipped his hat.
“I’ll leave you alone now,” Tower said. “With your money.”
Fifty-Three
Bird had been surprised by Branson’s answer.
Not by the name.
But by the number.
Because Branson hadn’t given up one person, he’d named two.
Thomas and Andrew Conway. The lawyers.
Bird vaguely remembered Tower pointing them out to her in the crowd of men at the Big River Club after Mrs. Parker’s murder. She tried to look at the different angles as to why the Conway brothers would pay Downwind Dave to kill Stanley Verhooven. Had the old miner seen something that compromised the lawyers? And were the lawyers really pulling the strings, or had someone hired them?
Questions continued to enter her mind rapidly as Bird slowed the Appaloosa and reentered the outer limits of Big River. It had been a hard ride and she’d pushed the horse in order to get back to town before nightfall to tell Tower what she’d learned.
She rode directly to the livery, and paid the man well to give her horse some extra oats and a thorough rubdown.
Bird went to the hotel, knocked on Tower’s door, and tried the handle. It was unlocked so she stuck her head inside.
He wasn’t there.
Bird went back to her room, splashed some water on her face, drank two glasses of whiskey, and sat on her bed. She still had some aches and pains from being tossed out the window, but her body was recovering. Her stomach felt tight, with the occasional sharp pain reminding her of what the doctor had said.
After finishing the whiskey, she stood, left the hotel, and went back out to the street. She thought about food. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The problem was, she wasn’t hungry. In fact, whenever she thought of food, her stomach actually hurt more, which killed any hunger she might have had.
It worried her a bit. Recently, her clothes felt very loose. She’d always been thin—hence the name. But now, it seemed like everything about her was becoming harder, leaner, more finely etched.
Even her anger.
She decided to head to the saloon for some whiskey to soothe her stomach. Maybe afterward she would think about food, if she felt up to it.
The Iron Spike Saloon was relatively quiet. No big herds had arrived in the past few days, and most of the cowboys had spent their wages and moved on, heading back to Texas for a new drive or hoping to hire on at a ranch.
The bartender placed a bottle and a heavy glass in front of Bird.
She looked at the glass, hefted it.
“I like this,” she said.
He filled her glass. “You must be a connoisseur. We had those shipped in from St. Louis. They’re not cheap, I can tell you, but whiskey just tastes better in them.”
Bird sampled the amber liquid she thought of as her partner in life, smacking her lips after she drank.
“It does just that,” she said. “Most of the time, I don’t use a glass.”
“You should, the air mellows it.”
“You learn something every day,” Bird said. “Speaking of which, have you seen that preacher around here? Mike Tower is his name. You’d recognize him from the silly expression on his face, like he’s always looking for someone to help. It’s annoying.”
The bartender laughed.
“No, ma’am, haven’t seen him around. Then again, most preachers don’t cavort in these premises very often.”
“Cavort. I like that word.” She looked at her glass. “Can you cavort with whiskey?”
“I expect if you try hard enough, you can.”
“Here’s to cavorting,” she said, and found the bottom of her glass. She helped herself to another.
The bartender left her to tend to other customers, and Bird felt the warmth in her stomach. It was comforting. Her appetite returned.
She drank a third whiskey, put some more money on the bar, corked the bottle, and took it with her. She thought about taking the glass, too, but decided against it. What did sound like a good idea was a thick, juicy steak. The thought of it made her mouth water. She needed to find Tower, head to a restaurant, and order some food. Wash it all down with some whiskey.
Bird walked to the church, looking up at the night sky. The stars were out in full force. One thing she had to say about Wyoming: it had no shortage of stars.
She made her way to the church, looked around, and saw no one. She then walked up and down the main street and side streets, with no sign of Tower. She went back to the hotel, checked his room again, then went down to the front desk. They had seen him leave the hotel earlier on foot. That was not news to Bird, as they had told her the same thing the first time she asked.
A long drink of whiskey straight from the bottle burned Bird’s throat, and she felt a cough start, but she suppressed it, then drank again.
Damn, she thought.
Where the hell was he?
She couldn’t think of where else to look. Bird wondered if he had gotten some new information and went off on his own. Or maybe he’d run into trouble. Either way, Bird decided to give it some time. He would show up sooner or later.
The stairs creaked beneath her feet as she went upstairs to her room. She pushed the door open and saw the Conway brothers in her room. One was sitting on her bed, the other was standing by the chest of drawers, with his back to her, watching her in the mirror.
The brother on the bed had a shotgun pointed at her chest.
“Welcome home, Bird,” he said.
Fifty-Four
Tower pondered as he walked. Parker’s reaction wasn’t all that surprising. Men like him, with absolute power and great wealth, are used to everyone doing exactly what they want them to do.
Apparently, the murder of his wife hadn’t changed Joseph Parker’s attitude.
Tower decided it was time to nose around the sheriff’s office to see if they had found anything out. There had to be a whole group of men feverishly working to find Mrs. Parker’s killer, but so far, Tower had seen no sign of them.
“Mr. Tower!” a panicked woman’s voice called out from behind him.
He turned to see two men pulling Evelyn Egans toward the cattle yards. Before Tower could answer, they turned a corner.
He took off on foot, running to catch up to her.
The implications ran through his mind as he ran. Was this another case of mistaken identity with the woman? Or had the hate-filled people of Big River decided to award the same fate they’d given Bertram Egans to his mother?
Tower raced around the corner.
The three had disappeared.
Where had they gone?
The cattle yards spread before him as far as the eye could see. A long, low barn ran to the left, and a corral for horses stood off to the right.
They couldn’t have gone far. If they had climbed into the cattle pens, the cows would be making plenty of noise at the disturbance. All was relatively quiet.
The horse corral held only one animal and he stood still, eating from a feed bag.
That left the barn.
Tower unconsciously reached for the gun he used to wear on his right hip. But all he grabbed was air. It was one of only a few times since becoming a preacher that he really questioned the decision not to wear a pistol.
Well, he had made his choice and now he had to live with it. Tower raced toward the barn.
He crossed the distance quickly. It was close to dark now, and although he tried to study tracks in the ground he could see none in the poor light.
Tower got to the barn and hesitated before going in. The giant doors were slightly ajar and Tower could see nothing but pure darkness in the gap between them.
He wished Bird was with him.
Tower stepped back, put his shoulder into the door and pushed. He drove it
forward, his legs pushing his body inward and his momentum carrying him several feet into the barn.
Evelyn Egans stood staring at him, a gun to her head.
Two men, both wearing flour sacks with holes cut out for the eyes, stood behind her, each holding one of her arms.
Tower put up his hands.
“Please,” he said. “If you’re after me, let her go. She’s done nothing wrong.”
He heard the soft rustle of fabric behind him, the subtle scrape of a boot on dirt, and he turned to his left, instinctively bringing his hands up.
But the wood plank caught him square on the side of the head and he heard a sickening thud, realized it was his head hitting the ground.
Fifty-Five
A shotgun never failed to command Bird’s respect. Mainly because if it was close enough, there was no hope for a miss. Even a trigger pulled by a spasm from a dead man could result in an explosion of death at its most bloody.
Bird, despite an inborn confidence in her ability to get a gun out and a bullet in the lawyer’s brain before his mind actually registered the action, held back.
“This is just one of the many surprises we have for you tonight,” the brother with the shotgun said.
“Wait, which one of you is which?” Bird asked.
“I’m Andrew,” the one facing the mirror said.
“That would make me Thomas,” the one on the bed said. “But you can think of me as the handsome brother.”
“Is that why he’s looking in the mirror?” Bird asked. “To try to figure out how he became the ugly one?”
Andrew Conway turned away from the mirror. He had a gun in his hand, and like the shotgun, it was also pointed directly at Bird.
“Actually, I’m the handsome one, and the smart one. He’s stronger than me, which is why I use him to haul firewood up large hills.”
The bed squeaked as the brother with the shotgun ignored his brother and said, “First of all, we’d like you to know that we are in possession of your preacher friend.”
The other brother turned back to the mirror.