Killer's Draw: The Circuit Rider (21 page)

“Can’t believe you let a youngster like her get the better
of us,” Bird said.

“I made it through just fine,” Tower answered. “You’re the
one who got caught.”

He struggled against the leather strips holding his wrists
together. It seemed like with every effort to make them looser, they actually
tightened.

“She waited for me to come through because she knew I’m
tougher than you.”

“She knew you were armed and that I wasn’t,” he countered.

“Speaking of that, how the hell do you suppose she knew so
much about us? Our names? The fact that I keep all six bullets in my gun
instead of five, like most?”

Tower looked down the trail in the direction the girl had
gone.

“Clearly, she’s wise beyond her years. I think she’s been
studying and planning this whole thing for a long time. She had a chance to
study us because we didn’t know who she was, but she knew exactly what we were
doing, and why.”

Tower heard Bird trying to get to her feet, but she slipped
and fell back down next to him.

“We’ve got to get free. She’s never going to survive this,”
Tower said. “Frannie. I should have known.”

“Should have known what?” Bird asked.

“When the doctor reminded us of her name, I knew it meant
something, but not until now. Francine Pascal was the name of the Baltimore
prostitute in the article Jeffire had hidden.”

“Frannie P.,” Bird said.

“I should have realized,” Tower said.

Bird struggled against her restraints. “Look, we’ve got time
to help her. You tied me up, so you should know how to untie me,” she said. They
struggled to their feet, leaned against each other to gain leverage. Then they
stood, back-to-back. Tower bent at his knees to lower himself so his hands were
at the same level as Bird’s.

She shifted her weight.

“Hold still,” he said.

In the distance, they heard gunfire. One report, followed by
a volley of shots.

“Hurry,” Bird said.

Tower struggled, then finally managed to get his fingers on
the end of one of the rawhide strips wrapped around Bird’s wrists.

Holding it tight, he walked his fingers back to the knot he
knew was less than an inch away. His fingers found it, and scraped at it with
his thumbnail, until he was able to work the edge of his nail inside the loop. Tower
felt the knot give slightly, and his thumbnail pushed through the knot. He
twisted his thumb back and forth until the knot loosened.

“Try it,” he said. “Go slowly, though.”

Bird pulled her hands apart slowly, and Tower felt the knot
loosen as she pulled and then his thumb was free.

“That’s much better,” Bird said. Tower turned, saw her
untying the rawhide strips around her feet, then she was in front of him,
working his hands free first, then his feet.

They turned and ran up the trail toward where Paige had
gone. Ahead, they heard more gunfire.

“I hope we’re not too late,” Tower said.

The girl had been true to her word; they found the horses grazing
under a stand of trees. Tower spotted Bird’s rifle a stone’s throw away,
retrieved it, and handed it to her.

“Well, it’s one more gun than I had a minute ago,” she said.
“Sure wish I had my pistols, though. Feel naked without them.”

She checked the magazine, saw it hadn’t been emptied, and
then checked her saddlebags for extra cartridges. She jammed some into her pockets,
then swung up into the saddle.

Tower got onto his horse, and together they took off toward
the sound of gunfire.

They rode hard, Bird leading the way on the Appaloosa, which
was faster than Tower’s roan. She wanted to make use of what little light remained.
The sun was gone, either sunk below the horizon or buried beneath the black wall
of the approaching storm.

The skies were going to open up with a hellish fury at any
moment. Bird dug her heels into the sides of her horse and charged ahead.

As she rode, she thought about the girl. How old had she
been when her mother had come out West? Had she been there at the murder? How
had she managed to find out what happened?

The trail wound its way around a hill and they splashed
through a shallow stream as lightning lit up the sky and a thunderclap rattled
Bird’s teeth. The first huge drops began to fall.

Bird, still holding the rifle, slid it into the leather
scabbard. No sense holding up a piece of metal during a lighting storm.

The Appaloosa crested a rise and shied from the trail. Bird
snatched the rifle back out, knowing there was something ahead that spooked her
horse. That usually meant the scent of an animal, man, or blood.

Bird was betting on blood.

They pounded down the other side of the rise, and a flash of
lightning lit up the trail ahead where two bodies lay in disarray.

They were men, and Bird breathed a sigh of relief.

There were two flour sacks off to the side, and no sign of
the girl.

Bird rode up to the bodies and looked down.

The men were clearly dead, their eyes wide open, pooling the
fresh rainwater as it plopped down on their faces. Sections of each man’s head
had been blown off, but she would have recognized them anywhere.

The Conway brothers.

Tower circled around the bodies while Bird swung down from
her horse and searched the bodies for guns, but found none. She bent down and
rolled the first one over. All that was revealed was blood and dirt. Bird
repeated the maneuver with the second brother. This time she came up with a
pistol. She snapped open the cylinder and ejected two empty shells.

“I’m surprised he even got a shot off,” she said. She pulled
some shells from the dead man’s gun belt and filled the cylinder, then snapped
it into place. Bird added some more ammunition to her pocket and got back onto
the Appaloosa.

“This girl is taking no prisoners,” Tower said.

“I don’t blame her,” Bird answered.

Tower looked up at the sky, and shook his head.

“I don’t either.”

The darkness was painted with a flickering orange glow. Lightning
split the black sky, and the rain came in waves.

“When the hell are you going to start carrying a gun?” Bird asked
him.

“Same time you quit drinking whiskey,” he said.

She ignored him and handed the dead lawyer’s gun to him.

“What’s this for?”

“I can’t shoot the rifle and a pistol at the same time. Makes
more sense for both of us have guns than for me to have two but only able to
fire one.”

Tower nodded, tucking the revolver into his waistband.

They left the dead men in the middle of the trail as the
rain began to lash them with a brutal intensity.

Within minutes, Bird recognized the formation ahead.

She slid her rifle from its scabbard, and waited for Tower
to ride up next to her, then they both covered the short distance to Killer’s
Draw.

The ravine was choked with water. The rain must have started
earlier, higher in the mountains, because the glorified stream now closely
resembled a raging river.

Unfortunately, they were on the wrong side of it.

The scene revealed itself in yet another blast of lightning
and thunder that seemed to shake the ground.

Across the river, the girl had Joseph Parker tied to the
very tree against which Bird had rested after shooting Downwind Dave Axelrod. The
arrogant bull Parker had always resembled was now reduced to a quivering mass
of bloody wet flesh. Most of his clothes were gone, and his skin bore marks
that could only have been applied by the working end of a bullwhip. His face was
swollen and distorted, smeared with blood.

The girl used Parker’s bulk to hide behind.

She held a pistol, one of Bird’s pistols, with the muzzle
firmly planted against Parker’s temple.

On the other side of the river, the same side Bird and Tower
now shared, were nearly a dozen men, most of them without their Rectifiers
hoods, a few still wearing them. Half of the group swung their guns toward Bird
and Tower, the remaining kept their aim on the girl.

Bird studied the faces of the vigilantes. She recognized a
few of them, but most held no meaning for her. All of them looked scared and unsure
of themselves and she understood why. The Conway brothers were dead, and their
leader appeared to be moments away from the same fate.

“Get out of here, you two!” one of the men yelled. “We are
in control here.”

“Doesn’t appear that way to me,” Tower yelled back.

A thick branch, torn off from somewhere upstream, roared
down the river, twisting and spinning in the wild and chaotic current.

Bird looked across the river at the girl. At her pistols. She
was an expert with the rifle, but those pistols were a part of her. Extensions
of her hands, really.

“Say it again!” the girl yelled. Bird could see Paige’s
face, wild with anger, pale as the moon with her fair hair wet and straggled,
strands stuck to her ghostly translucent skin.

“We killed her,” Parker said.

“Louder!” the girl yelled.

Bird saw the blood on the girl’s shirt. Maybe those shots
the Conway brother had gotten off found their mark.

“Who did you kill, Parker?” Paige yelled again. “Say it. I
want you to say her name.”

Parker thrashed against the ropes that held him in place. The
girl pistol whipped him, opening up a gash along his forehead and leaving a strip
of skin that hung down and flapped as he struggled.

“Francine!” he finally yelled.

“Why? Why did you kill her?”

Parker began to weep.

“I loved her!” he yelled out, his voice hysterical. “But my
wife found out. She arranged it,” he said. “Tried to make it look like she was a
cattle thief so they could kill her,” he said, looking at the group of men on
the other side of the river.

Upon hearing Parker’s confession, a few of the men turned
and rode away.

“This is for her and my brother!” the girl yelled.

“No!” Tower yelled.

The girl pressed the muzzle into Parker’s head and pulled
the trigger.

Instantly, the draw erupted in gunfire with the remaining
vigilantes firing across the river at the girl, and the others opening fire on
Bird and Tower.

Bird had already dropped to one knee, and now she fired with
a methodical precision, working the lever on the rifle so fast the shots came
as a continuous roll of thunder.

Out of the corner of her eye, Bird saw the girl now using
both pistols, firing with unnatural ease and speed.

The rifle’s hammer clicked an empty strike plate. She was
out of ammunition. She dug in her pocket for more bullets, turned to see Tower
firing the pistol she had given him.

There were two men left. One of them turned to ride back to
town, then fell off his horse, shot between the shoulder blades.

Bird didn’t know if Tower or the girl made the shot.

She fed the last bullet into the rifle’s magazine and
brought it to her shoulder just as the last man standing aimed his pistol at
Bird.

They fired simultaneously, and Bird heard a whistle as the
bullet passed within inches of her head.

She didn’t miss. Her round caught the man just under his
left eye and the back of his head blew apart. He toppled over his horse and
into the river, his body catching in the current and taking him away.

Men were strewn about the banks of Killer’s Draw, and even
with the amount of water now roaring down the wash, Bird could make out dark pools
of water along the edge. Once again, she knew, Killer’s Draw was running rich
with blood.

Bird looked across the river and saw Tower emerging from the
other side on his horse. He slid from the saddle and scooped the girl up into
his arms.

Bird ran to the Appaloosa.

She hoped they could make it to Big River in time.

They arrived in Big River just as the storm was leaving. The
trail had been a mess of mud and washouts but it hadn’t slowed them down.

They rode directly to the doctor’s office. At the sound of
their horses, the door opened and the old doctor hurried out.

He took one look at them, at the girl with blood all over
her, and ducked back inside.

Tower carried the girl in and Bird followed with two whiskey
bottles. Tower carefully set the girl on the table where the doctor had put
down clean towels and bandages. He had a stethoscope around his neck.

“Oh, Frannie,” he said.

“Her name is Paige,” Bird said.

“How can I help?” Tower asked.

The doctor cut away the girl’s shirt and looked at the
wounds. She had been shot three times. Once in the shoulder, once in the lower
abdomen, and once in her upper thigh.

The doctor said to Tower without looking up, “Hold her down
if it comes to that.”

The old man went to a table where a row of instruments was
laid out on a towel next to a pot of boiling water. He selected a scalpel and
some sort of tongs.

He came back to the table and began digging through the
girl’s gunshot wounds. Paige opened her mouth and screamed, and the doctor used the
opportunity to place a strip of wood between her teeth.

“So she doesn’t bite her tongue,” he said to Tower.

The doctor studied the first wound. “Passed clean through,”
he noted. He spent more time in the second wound until he pulled out a chunk of
lead that he dropped into a pan next to the table. It landed with a thunk and
Bird saw the blood dripping from it. The third wound had lead, too, but in
several smaller pieces.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” the doctor said. He poured some
of the whiskey from one of Bird’s bottles into each wound, then carefully
stitched the wounds closed before covering them with bandages. The doctor then put
the stethoscope on the girl’s chest. “Her heartbeat is strong. I think if
she doesn’t get an infection, she’ll live.”

Tower closed his eyes, and Bird knew he was praying.

“Help me get her into this bed,” the doctor said, pointing
at the small room just off the main area.

Tower carried the girl to the room. Bird pulled back the
blankets and when Tower placed the girl in the bed, she covered her with the
blankets.

The three of them looked at each other, then left the small
room and closed the door.

The doctor looked at Bird. “By my count, you’ve got at least
one bottle of whiskey we didn’t use. Let’s put it to good use.”