Killer's Draw: The Circuit Rider (14 page)

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.”

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.

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.

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.

“Well that doesn’t sound very friendly,” Bird said. “Or
legal. Aren’t you two supposed to be lawyers?”

“We are.”

The brother facing the mirror practiced putting his gun in
his waistband, taking it out quickly, then putting it back. He adjusted the butt
of the gun, changing the degree to which it stuck out.

“And as a lawyer, I want you to know the importance of a
verbal contract in a court of law,” the other one continued. “The average
citizen isn’t aware of it, but a verbal contract can be just as legally binding
as a written contract. Therefore, when you agree to leave Big River now, and
wire us when you get to the telegraph office in Mumford, which is two hundred miles
away, and agree to stay away from Big River for the rest of your life, you are
in fact, entering into a verbal contract with the two of us.”

“You sure are a bag of hot air,” Bird said.

“And since my brother and I are both barristers, pointing
this out to a judge in a court of law will land you in a great deal of trouble
with a fair amount of jail time,” the one by the mirror said.

“Part two of your sentence will be the untimely demise of
your preacher,” the other one said. “I’m afraid you will only get jail time,
but he will most likely receive the death penalty.”

“I see,” Bird said. “And you swear all of this is true,
under oath?”

The brothers hesitated.

“Miss Hitchcock, now is not the time for trite attempts at
humor. I sincerely hope you understand the gravity of the situation.”

The brother with the pistol pushed Bird’s belongings across
the floor to her with the tip of his boot.

“Time for you to leave,” he said.

“Please don’t come back,” the other brother said.

Bird smiled and picked up her things.

“So, you two are the big lawyers in town, is that right?”
she asked.

“While an understatement, that would be true.”

“Don’t most lawyers have one really big client who pays most
of the bills?”

The brother on the bed thumbed back both of the shotgun’s
hammers. The sound of them clicking into place seemed very loud to Bird.

“If there’s one thing I have the utmost respect for, it’s
the law,” Bird said.

She nodded to the brothers, although the gesture was really
directed at the shotgun, and left.