Killer's Draw: The Circuit Rider (18 page)

Despite the pain, Tower was able to hoist himself onto the Appaloosa, with only a tiny bit of assistance from Bird, who swung on behind him and got the horse going at a half-canter, which ate up the miles yet provided an easy rhythm to keep the pounding to a minimum for Tower.

As they rode, Bird looked for signs of people but saw no one. She figured the men who had tortured and dumped Tower would be headed for Harlan’s Crossing, based on the false information Tower told her he’d given them. They had a good head start on them, but that was okay. Bird hoped they would quickly discover that Tower’s information was invalid, and that they would have come and gone by the time she and Tower finally made it to Harlan’s Crossing themselves.

They actually reached the small town by noon, sooner than she had figured, and Bird took great care in skirting the town before choosing a spot to enter. Having been there before helped her approach the hotel from the rear. She left Tower on the Appaloosa, then walked around to the front of the hotel.

It was mostly empty, save for a clerk at the front desk and an ancient woman sweeping the lobby. Bird paid for a room, then went back out onto the street.

Unlike the booming Big River, Harlan’s Crossing survived mostly from overflow traffic from the bigger, neighboring town. Still, a few people milled about. She looked for anyone who appeared to be watching the hotel, but they appeared preoccupied with whatever they were doing. Bird glanced across the street, scanning windows for flashes of movement, but saw nothing.

As yet, she saw no sign of a group of men from Big River, so she brought Tower around to the front, and straight up to their room on the second floor. A first-floor room had been offered, but she didn’t like it for defensive purposes, which meant Tower had to climb the stairs. He succeeded at the chore, but sweat broke out along his brow and his face returned to the pale shade he’d been wearing when she’d found him by the side of the river.

In the room, she got him into bed, then gave him a loaded pistol, which he laid by his side. Bird filled the empty whiskey bottle from the water pitcher by the door, and placed it next to Tower.

She dug out her own bottle of whiskey, sat down, and looked at Tower while she took a long drink.

“Try not to get into any trouble while I try to find you a doc,” she said. “Knowing you, you’ll probably ignore that order.”

Bird was relieved to have Tower in a proper bed. Now, she could concentrate on finding out who was responsible, not just for the state Tower was in but for the entire situation.

“I can’t make any promises,” Tower said. And then he smiled.

Bird was surprised to find that she liked the sight of it.

The whiskey bottle on the table next to his bed took on new meaning for Tower. In the war, the doctors had repeatedly used morphine for pain. Now, he didn’t have anything. The only thing he could think of to dull the pain was the bottle Bird had thoughtfully left for him.

He popped the cork and took a long drink. He winced as it burned his throat. He didn’t see how she could drink so much, and all the time. The idea of pouring this down his throat in the morning made him feel sick.

He leaned his head back onto the pillow, the bottle of whiskey in his left hand, which was still swollen and tender but didn’t seem to be permanently damaged, and the gun in his right. He lifted the gun and took a good look at it. A Colt .45, impeccably cleaned and oiled, every bullet in the chamber. Some cowboys liked to keep one chamber empty, the one the hammer rests against, in case they hit a particularly hard jolt riding and the round goes off. But Bird, as in everything else she did, preferred to override caution in favor of more firepower. Tower couldn’t blame her; she’d survived plenty with that strategy.

He put the pistol back down and drank again from the bottle. It was working, the pain was subsiding and a pleasant blanket of fuzziness descended on his brain and his body.

Tower closed his eyes, saw the big man in the barn coming at him, and felt the whacking of the wood planks on his body. The axe handle that had been jammed up against his throat. He wondered about Evelyn Egans, or, actually, Rose Sutton. He prayed that they let her go. Too many people had been killed already. Besides, why wouldn’t they release her? She had nothing to offer them, just an actress playing a part.

His thoughts returned to the men who had beaten him and the flour sacks they wore. Something about them tugged at his memory. They were nothing new in terms of disguises. Lynch mobs were known to use them. As were vigilante groups.

Tower’s eyes snapped open. Hadn’t he seen a vigilante poster at the train station? When he had waited there with Morrison for Mrs. Egans’ arrival?

Something else clicked in Tower’s mind. He tried to sit up, but the pain forced him back into bed. He drank again from the whiskey bottle.

He remembered the men driving him out to where they’d dumped him. He recalled being pulled from the wagon, lifted into the air, swung back and forth, and then thrown off a ledge into the water below.

But they had yelled something, at least one of them had.

What had it been?

His brain had been numb with pain from the beating and the loss of blood.

He thought he’d been in and out of consciousness during the time, but he could have sworn that one of them men had yelled—

Rectified
.

That’s what the man had yelled.

Something about being rectified.

Vigilantes. Wearing masks. The poster at the train station.

The Rectifiers?

The Harlan’s Crossing general store was in the same place it had been when she’d first come here looking for Bertram Egans’ phantom girlfriend. Bird had seen virtually no one on the walk over from the hotel. Now, she entered the store, spotted the proprietor, and approached him.

“This town have a decent doctor?” Bird asked. Her eyes immediately found the row of whiskey bottles behind the counter.

“That depends. What’s ailing you?” The store’s owner looked like a former rancher. He had on the apron of a store clerk, but his broad shoulders and weathered hands spoke of a life lived in the open.

“Well, right now I’m thirsty,” Bird said. She pointed at one of the bottles, which the owner retrieved. Bird paid, opened the bottle, and took a long drink, feeling the man’s eyes upon her.

“You don’t need a doctor for that. You need a bartender,” he said.

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

Bird took another swallow.

“No, I need a doctor for someone else, not for me,” she said. “Cowboy I ride with got himself thrown from a horse. Probably broke a few ribs, among other things.”

“Where is he?”

“In the hotel. I left some whiskey with him. That’s the best medicine.” She threw back another drink.

“Well, the way you’re taking that medicine you must be awfully ill,” he said.

“Not at all, sir. This whiskey is preventive medicine. Soon as I stop I get sick.”

The owner nodded.

“Harlan’s Crossing isn’t big enough to merit a doc,” he said. “But I’ve learned a thing or two over the years about patching up cowboys so I can probably help your friend.”

“I would very much appreciate it, sir,” Bird said. She was eyeing another bottle on the shelf. “And I’ll take a bottle of your best, most expensive whiskey. The other stuff isn’t good for you.”

The store owner handed Bird a bottle, then called out. “Jimmy!”

A young boy emerged from a stockroom at the rear of the store.

“Mind the store,” the owner said. “I’ve got to wrap up a cowboy’s ribs.” He turned to Bird.

“Thank you kindly,” Bird said. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Theodore Putti,” the man said. “Call me Theo.”

“And you can call me Bird.”

Putti removed his apron and handed it to the young man at the counter. He walked over to a shelf, and began picking supplies and putting them into a leather case.

When he was done, he turned to Bird.

“Okay, let’s see a cowboy about some ribs.”

Bird knocked on the door, recalled the last time she’d entered a hotel room only to find the Conway brothers with a nice surprise for her, and pulled her gun from its holster.

“Come in,” Tower said from the other side of the door.

Bird nudged the door open with her boot and peeked around the corner. Tower sat in bed, the gun in his hand pointing directly at her.

“That’s better,” she said. “See, you’ll get captured a lot less if you always have a gun in your hand.”

She stepped aside and let a visibly nervous Putti into the room, then shut the door.

“Mr. Theodore Putti, man of many trades,” Bird said. “Meet Cowboy Mike, thrown from a horse last night, probably because he was half drunk to begin with.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Putti,” Tower said. He started to sit up, winced, then fell back against the pillows.

“What the lady is trying to tell you,” Putti said. “Is that I own the general store but am occasionally pressed into service for medical assistance. I don’t claim to be a doctor, but I can usually handle something simple. A long time ago, I was a trail boss and had plenty of practice tending to injuries.”

“I appreciate it,” Tower said. “It’s mostly my ribs that hurt.”

“Did this horse kick you in the face, too?” Putti asked. He looked first at Tower, then back at Bird.

“It always looks that way, doc,” Bird said. “It has since birth.”

She crossed the room to Tower’s side and pulled the bottle of whiskey from his hand. She looked at how much had been consumed since she’d left. She nodded at Tower with respect, as if she was impressed.

“Looks like I’m making progress with you,” she said.

“Do you want to stay for this?” Putti said to Bird.

“What the hell, I think I’ll stay.” She leaned against a table holding a washbasin, and drank from the bottle. “I always love a good show.”

Putti went to Tower and together they managed to remove his shirt. Bird saw the pale skin of Tower’s back, inlaid with a wide swath of deep bruising and a variety of cuts.

“Jesus Christ,” Bird said. “That’s going to take a long time to heal.”

Putti rubbed some ointment on a cloth and dabbed the open wounds on Tower’s back. He did the same with some of the cuts on Tower’s face. He then wrapped long strips of white cloth around Tower’s body, pinning them together at the front.

“She’s right,” Putti said. “You definitely have a broken rib or two, but they don’t appear to be horribly damaged, no bones poking through the skin, so I think they’ve stayed in place. And that’s the important thing. It’s when they break loose and start cutting up your insides that the real trouble starts. From what I can tell, you aren’t bleeding inside. Just keep these around your ribs for as long as you can and gradually they’ll heal. It’ll take at least a month or two. There’s no way to hurry it along.”

Tower got his shirt back on and leaned against the pillow. Bird brought the bottle of whiskey over to him and he took a drink as Putti began gathering the items he’d brought.

“How long have you lived here in Harlan’s Crossing, Mr. Putti?” Tower asked.

“Oh, I suppose it’s been about ten years.”

“Ever hear of a vigilante group called The Rectifiers?”

Bird looked at Tower, wondering where this line of questioning was going.

“Sure have. Everyone has around these parts,” Putti said.

“Who are they?”

“Well, no one knows for sure. But they cleaned this area up a few years back. They’d finally had enough of rustlers operating around the big herds near Big River, so they put a stop to it. And then some.”

“What do you mean by ‘and then some’?”

Putti held up his hands. “Just rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?” Bird asked.

“Look, I don’t want to say anything against them, they did a lot of good for this area, it’s just …” His voice trailed off as he searched for the right words.

“They just what?” Tower asked.

“Word was they took no prisoners, which is true for any vigilante group of course, for the most part. But some folks thought they didn’t work too hard to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent.”

“Sounds like every vigilante I ever knew,” Bird said. She looked at Tower and noticed that he was watching Putti intently.

“What happened to them?”

“No one really knows. Their last roundup got a lot of attention because they shot a couple of rustlers, one of them a woman, and then no one ever heard from them again. But they didn’t need to go out and do any enforcement. Their reputation was known all over this part of the country. No cattle thief wanted to come within a hundred miles of Big River after that one.”

“So, did they operate mostly around Big River?” Tower asked.

Putti nodded.

“Yes, sir. They even had a place named after them. All those people they killed? They dumped their bodies in the same place.”

He went to the door and opened it, turned back to Bird and Tower.

“Came to be known as Killer’s Draw.”

Bird and Tower decided to hole up at the hotel long enough for the preacher’s ribs to begin to heal and the bruises on his face to fade. They couldn’t go anywhere without attracting attention the way he looked now.

In the mornings, Bird would get the supplies they needed, then return to the hotel. Tower had begun to get up and pace back and forth, as much as his ribs would allow it.

Most of the time he was thinking.

About what the store owner had told him. About the papers Jeffire’s widow had given him. About Killer’s Draw.

He had returned Bird’s whiskey to her as the pain was now relatively mild compared to those first few days. The absence of alcohol made his mind clearer, sharper.

But something danced just around the periphery of his intellect that he couldn’t wrangle into a cohesive thought.

He needed just one final bit of information.

Tower returned to the bed, sat on the edge, and then swung his feet up. The pain had dulled.

Tower thought about the people he’d met in Big River. Mrs. Wolfe. Morrison. Chesser. Parker. The Conway brothers. Martin Branson.

As a group, they left a lot to be desired—

And then the pieces came together so firmly that his body jolted. He got to his feet, walked as quickly as he could to Bird’s room, knocked, and went in.

She was on the bed cleaning her gun and looked up at Tower’s entrance. The other gun was loaded and in her left hand, pointed at Tower’s chest.

“This better be important,” she said.

Tower looked at her.

“I know who killed Bertram Egans, and you’re not going to believe it.”