Killer's Draw: The Circuit Rider (12 page)

“Can’t you just tell me?” Tower asked as they ran toward the newspaper office. Jeffire ran with a wobble and massaged his wrists where the ropes had bound him.

“It’s a very big story,” Jeffire huffed. “It would be much faster for you to see some of what I’ve found, and then I can fill in the rest of the details. Plus,” he said. “If I didn’t show you, you probably wouldn’t believe it.”

They emerged from the side street onto the town’s commercial block.

“Is Martha going to be all right?” Tower asked. They had walked Jeffire’s wife over to a neighbor’s and given her a gun. The neighbor had been a cavalry officer and knew how to handle a weapon.

“She’ll be fine,” Jeffire said. “They only got me because we were surprised. They won’t catch us off guard again.”

“Who were they?” Tower asked.

But Jeffire was done talking, and the two men took a circuitous route toward the newspaper’s office.

A group of cowboys had spilled out of a saloon into the street. Two were fighting, although to Tower it looked more like a drunken wrestling match than fisticuffs.

He and Jeffire skirted the crowd and soon reached the headquarters of the
Big River Bugle
.

The sounds of late-night drinkers shouting and cavorting filled the air, and in the distance they could hear the cattle bawling in their pens, protesting their newfound confinement.

Jeffire fumbled in his pockets for a key, his hands shaking. Tower worried about the man collapsing. He himself was out of breath, and he leaned his back against a stout wooden pole that helped support the overhanging roof.

Jeffire cursed under his breath as he struggled with the keys.

Somewhere, a door opened then closed, and Tower cocked his head. It had sounded like it came from the other side of the building. But the only door on the other side of the building was the door to the
Bugle
.

“Could there be someone else—” he began to say to Jeffire but just then the journalist turned the key in the lock and the entire night lit up in a blinding flash of white.

Tower felt himself flung backward as something immense and powerful hit him with a force unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

He had the sudden sense that he was airborne and all of the night sounds were gone, replaced by utter and complete silence.

And then he was on the ground, stunned, his body a confusing mixture of pain and numbness. Tower thought of Jeffire, of how the man had been right in the front of the door while he, Tower, had been behind that post.

The idea that Jeffire might not have survived hit him like another blow, as the memory of the door opening and closing rushed back at him. Someone had been inside, waiting for them.

Tower thought about Bird back at the doctor’s office and how he might soon be joining her there.

The smell of smoke surrounded him, along with shouts of people spilling out into the street.

He recognized something about the smell of that smoke. Something mixed in that he’d gotten to know a long time ago when he had briefly worked in a mine.

The scent was unmistakable.

Dynamite.

EPISODE FOUR

“You’ve got a problem, young lady,” the doctor said. Bird
was oddly captivated, either by his bright-green eyes and their intensity, or
the compassion that was on full display. Whichever it was, it was a sentiment she
wasn’t accustomed to having directed at her.

“Don’t we all, Doc?” Bird asked.

Bird glanced at the young woman on the other side of the
table. The doctor’s daughter, she assumed. The thin, pale girl paid no
attention to Bird as she methodically stocked the doctor’s medical kit.

“When I saw all that blood on your front, I was certain you
had been shot, most likely by a shotgun,” the doctor said. “Much to my
surprise, you didn’t have a mark on you, other than some bruises on your side,
some shallow lacerations, and a few deeper cuts from glass. As I understand it,
you were thrown through a window?”

“Through a window, and over a second-floor balcony,” Bird
said. “It was a rather unpleasant evening.”

“So, then I wondered,” the doctor continued. “Where did all
this blood come from?”

Bird sat up.

“I believe I’ll be on my way, now,” she said.

The doctor put a hand on her shoulder as she began to get to
her feet. Ordinarily, Bird despised anyone touching her, but for some reason,
her temper didn’t flare with the old doctor.

“Not so fast, young lady,” he said. “I figured out the
source of that bleeding.” He pointed toward Bird’s stomach. “It’s coming from
right in there.”

Bird pushed his hand away and got to her feet.

“That’s an interesting theory,” Bird said.

She snatched her gun belt off a hook by the door and
shrugged it on around her hips.

“I heard a rumor,” the doctor said, “that a certain Bird
Hitchcock was in town. A woman as famous for her drinking as for her ability
with a pair of those.” He pointed at the guns Bird was now tying down to her
legs.

“Well you shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Bird said.
“Didn’t they teach you that in medical school?”

“I suspect it’s the drinking,” the doctor continued. “You’re
shredding your insides.”

Bird was about to respond when the door banged open.

Two men carried in the body of Roger Jeffire, while a second
set of men carried in Mike Tower.

Jeffire was unconscious; Tower’s eyes were open and focused
on Bird.

Bird looked at Tower.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

Tower awoke in the morning after a long and mostly sleepless
night. He’d tossed and turned, alternately feeling dizzy and nauseated from the
explosion, which caused a constant ringing in his head that increased and
decreased in intensity with every restless turn.

Now, the pounding in his head was finally gone and though
exhausted, he felt steady.

The bed was actually one of four glorified cots in a small
room in the doctor’s house, located next door to the actual doctor’s office. The
other three beds were empty. On the wall was a painting of a flower, with
deftly defined shadows that bespoke of talent. Tower wondered who had painted
it.

He stood, steadied himself as a mild wave of dizziness came
and went, put his clothes on, and left the room.

The doctor was sitting at his desk. He looked up at Tower’s
entrance.

“Frannie!” the doctor called out. The young woman who
assisted the doctor hurried into the room.

“Find the pain medicine for Mr. Tower,” he said. Then he
looked at Tower.

“Have a seat on the table, preacher,” the doctor said. “You
aren’t going anywhere until I say so.”

Tower hesitated, then sat on the table, feeling a bit
relieved to sit down after the long trek of ten feet from the spare room the
doctor’s table. He knew he was a long way from feeling like himself.

The doctor stood in front of Tower and looked at Tower’s
eyes.

“You were knocked unconscious and judging by your condition
last night, I would guess that you suffered a concussion.”

“Wonderful,” Tower said.

The young woman reentered with a tiny glass bottle containing
a brown liquid.

“It’s good,” the doctor said as he took it from her and
handed it to Tower. “I mix it up myself.”

Tower slipped the bottle into his pocket.

“Your pupils appear normal,” the doctor said, “and I see no
signs of lingering problems. How do you feel?”

“I feel fine. Just a little tired.”

“That’s to be expected. Get plenty of rest for the next few
days and you should be fine. Take a sip of that syrup as needed. Just don’t
drink it all at once.”

Tower hesitated and then looked around the room.

“What happened to Jeffire?” he asked.

The doctor shook his head. “He didn’t make it. It appears he
took the brunt of the blast. Were you standing behind him?”

“No, I was standing behind a post.”

“It must have protected you. Jeffire wasn’t so lucky.”

Tower got to his feet, a bit unsteady.

“Go back to the hotel. Rest. Forget about all of this
nonsense going on in town,” the doctor said, waving his hand in the general
direction of Main Street. “All of that can wait.”

Tower went to the door.

“I’m not so sure it can, doctor.”

“You sure know how to have a good time without me,” Bird
said.

They stood in front of the remains of the
Big River Bugle
.
The outline of the structure was still there, but everything inside was gone. What
hadn’t been destroyed by the blast had been consumed in the ensuing fire. A
pile of charred lumber occupied the former site of the newspaper’s office and
the air was ripe with the smell that reminded Bird of a freshly doused
campfire.

She turned and looked at Tower. He was pale, but standing
straight.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine. You?”

“Fine,” she said. “Now that we’re both done lying to each
other, what the hell are we going to do?”

He didn’t answer and Bird looked at the saloon that was two
doors down. She stretched and felt a pain in her ribs. The doctor had told her
he didn’t think they were broken, but they still hurt like hell. A few glasses
of whiskey would make the pain go away and an entire bottle would make her
forget she’d even been hurt in the first place. And forgetting hurts was what whiskey
was all about.

“I’m going to—”

Before she could finish what she was about to say, a woman’s
voice called out.

“Here, take this.”

Bird looked over Tower’s shoulder as he turned to face
Martha Jeffire.

If it was possible, the woman looked even worse than they
did. Her hair was in disarray, her dress was dirty, and her eyes were
disorganized and unfocused.

Martha Jeffire had a battered envelope in her hand. Behind
her, a horse and buckboard were piled high with a couple of suitcases and some
furniture, all of it looking as if it had been gathered and loaded with great
abandon.

Tower moved to embrace her but she held up her hand.

“I’m leaving,” she said and thrust the papers to Tower.

“My deepest prayers—” he started to say.

“I’m leaving now,” she repeated, cutting him off.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Back home to Kansas,” she said. “There’s no reason for me
to stay here. I don’t believe in God so I won’t be staying for the burial. I
hate this place and all it stands for.”

Bird saw Tower look down at the papers in his hands.

“I’m sorry about your husband,” Bird said quickly, before
the woman could cut her off.

Martha Jeffire shrugged her shoulders. “I always knew there
was a chance we wouldn’t grow old together,” she said. “Roger took too many risks,
no matter how often I tried to ride herd on him. Mind you, I’m not blaming him,
that’s just who he was.”

She didn’t wait for a response, just turned and walked back
toward her buckboard.

Tower looked down at the envelope in his hand.

“If you need me, I’ll be getting medical treatment in bottle
form,” Bird said. “Doctor’s orders.”

Bird sat on the front porch of the hotel with her feet up on
the railing and a bottle of whiskey in her lap. The sun was setting, and she figured
the best way to watch night fall over Big River was to sit here and drink to
the end of the day.

Her body was recovering as the aches and pains of being
thrown out of a second-floor window were fading now, aided in no small part by the
liquor. Her mind was at ease. Tower was off doing something with Jesus she
guessed; probably trying his best to make sure Roger Jeffire was allowed into heaven.
Bird wondered if Tower would do the same for her. Probably, but she had a
fairly good idea that instead of being surrounded by angels in the afterlife,
she would be surrounded by dirt.

Bird drank from the bottle, loving the way the liquor felt
as it worked its way through her body. That doctor didn’t know what he was
talking about. She felt fine. One day they’d probably recognize her as the
medical marvel she knew herself to be.

Bird’s mind drifted and she found herself thinking back to
her drink at the Big River Club. There was something about that place; something
that kept irritating her and she couldn’t figure out why. All those pompous men
sitting in their private club with pictures of themselves on the wall …

Bird sat up straight, dropped her feet onto the hotel’s
porch.

The goddamn pictures
.

Bird jumped to her feet, got her horse, and shot over to the
Big River Club. She hitched the Appaloosa to the rail, then pushed her way
through the front door and headed for the bar.

“Whiskey and a beer chaser,” she said to the young bartender.
He was a peach-faced young man with corresponding fuzz on his chin.

He looked at her and hesitated, then poured the whiskey and
fetched a beer.

“You have to be a member to drink here, but I know who you
are,” he said, his voice surprisingly deep and robust. “I figure it would be
easier to serve you than to try to throw you out of here, Miss Bird Hitchcock.”

He beamed with pride at his cleverness.

“Smart man,” she said.

She tossed the whiskey back and carried her beer with her to
the wall. It was a collage of rough sketches, a few pictures of the important
people of the club—Mr. Parker being at the top—and a few others.

Bird had spotted the collage when she and Tower burst in
just after Mrs. Parker’s murder, but had merely glanced at the display.

Now she knew what had been bothering her.

It was a picture near the bottom of three men standing near
a trophy elk they had shot. Their names were written under each.

The man on the far right was familiar to Bird.

He had called himself Ronald Hale.

But the name under his picture said something else.

Martin Branson.