The Circuit Rider (6 page)

M
ike Tower sat at one of the tables in the hotel’s
lobby. It was quiet, the only sound the faint clatter of dinnerware as the
kitchen staff prepared for the evening.

Tower’s pen scratched furiously along the sheet of
paper as he composed the sermon he planned to deliver that evening to the folks
who would come to his service.

Like most of his thoughts, the focus of his writing
was on redemption. On forgiving. And on healing.

But it would also be on with taking
responsibility for past actions.

“Preacher,” a deep voice said from behind him.

Tower turned to see an older man with broad
shoulders and a jaw that could only mean he was the father of Ike Daniels.

“My name’s Garrett Daniels,” the old man said. “Seems
you hurt my boy pretty bad. Broke his arm and his jaw. Never heard of a
preacher who could hit like that.”

The old man touched the lower part of his face. “And
breaking a Daniels’s jaw ain’t exactly an easy thing to do.”

Tower watched the desk clerk slink out the hotel’s
back door.

From behind the old man, Ike Daniels and two more men
fanned out.

“He went at me first,” Tower said. “You do
understand that?”

Daniels raised an eyebrow, glanced at Ike, who
shook his head.

“That’s bullshit, Pa,” he said.

The elder Daniels had a rifle in his right hand;
the thumb of his left was hooked in his gun belt. He stood with a confident
ease, exuding a presence that Tower hadn’t seen in the man’s son.

“That don’t matter to me. You sure as hell can’t threaten my
family, son,” he said. “Not going to apologize for the language, either.” Suddenly,
the old man’s face brightened. “However, you can come back to the ranch, and
we’ll hold a little service out there. And then we’ll all forgive and forget.”

 “I appreciate the invitation, Mr. Daniels,” Tower
said. He knew a visit to the Daniels ranch would be a one-way trip. “But I’m
holding a service in town tonight.”

Tower turned back to his paper and began writing.

The lobby was silent; even the rattling of dishes
had stopped.

And then Daniels worked the lever of his rifle,
cocking it.  The sound was almost as loud as if he’d fired the gun.

“You’re going to get out of that chair, walk
outside with us, get on a horse we brought just for you, and come back with us
to the Rockin’ D,” the old man said. His voice had lost the pleasant banter and
now had the consistency of gravel. “I ain’t asking you. I’m telling you. Pray
all you want, but that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Tower put the pen down. He studied the men surrounding
Garrett Daniels and let his gaze linger on Ike.

“You're a dead man, Preacher,” Ike said.

Tower smiled. “A lot tougher around your daddy.”

Tower stood, walked past the men, and stepped out
onto the hotel’s boardwalk. The Daniels horses were all tied to the right of
the hotel. Tower counted one extra horse, knowing that it was for him.

He heard boots sounding on the wood planks behind
him.

And then he saw Bird.

She was coming from the saloon with a bottle in her
hand, walking directly toward the hotel.

“Perfect timing,” Tower heard the old man say. “Spread
out.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tower saw Ike and the
other Daniels men take positions on either side of the old man.

“So, you
are
a drunk,” Daniels shouted at
Bird.

Tower knew Bird had already seen them, that she had
just wanted to get closer. He was still getting to know her, but he could read
body language. He had done a lot of that in his past, before he hung up his
own guns in favor of the Bible.

Bird looked up and acted as if she hadn’t seen the
men standing there, waiting for her.

She smiled, but Tower saw through it. Still, she
was a beautiful woman, and he marveled at her ability to use it to her
advantage. He could practically feel the men around him relax.

She put the bottle down next to her feet. She
pointed at it.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said.

One of Daniels’s hired hands laughed.

“Mind telling me what you’re doing with Preacher
Tower there, sir?” Bird said. “Maybe going to confession?”

“Oh, we’re going to confession, all right,” Daniels
said. He clapped his hand on Tower’s shoulder. “But he’ll be the one admitting
his wrongdoing.”

“Afraid I can’t let that happen,” Bird said. “It is
my job to get this man to San Francisco. Unharmed. Sort of a religious mission.”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to live with being a
failure,” Daniels countered. “Seems like you’re used to it already.”

Bird smiled again. “You seem upset, Mr. Daniels. Are
you bothered that this here preacher slapped around your son in the same way
your son slaps around young girls?”

“You bitch!” Ike Daniels shouted.

“Bird,” Tower said.

“Hell, he couldn’t even do that by himself,” she
continued. “He needed help. That’s probably why you brought extra men for this
job, because you can’t count on that useless, pathetic son of yours.”

Garrett and Ike Daniels roared in anger and went
for their guns.

Tower watched Bird and saw her hands blur with a
speed that shocked even him. Flames erupted from her guns as she fired so fast
the gunshots merged into one continuous sound, like rolling thunder.

Tower shouldered his way into Garrett Daniels,
knocked the old man off balance, and wrenched the rifle from his hands.

He shot a quick look at the street as a bullet
kicked up dirt near Bird’s feet and another one shattered the whiskey bottle.

Tower brought the rifle to his shoulder and glanced
down the line.

All of the men were down, including Ike Daniels,
who was now missing half of his head.

The only sign of movement was from Garrett Daniels,
who had struggled back to his feet after Tower knocked him down. Blood seeped
through the old man’s shirt and vest.

Daniels swayed as he tried to draw the pistol from
its holster. He got to his feet and faced Bird.

“Put that gun down, you drunken bitch,” Daniels gasped.
A long string of blood dangled from his lips.

Bird stood still, both guns now trained on Daniels.

The old man’s hand shook as he tried to clear
leather with his pistol.

“She’ll kill you,” Tower said to Daniels. “Drop
your gun. Do it now. You don’t have to die.”

The old man took a quick breath and tried to cock
his gun.

Bird promptly shot him in the head.

The old man staggered, then fell face-first into the
street.

Bird looked at Tower, then down at the broken
bottle and the big wet patch where the whiskey had spilled.

“Now that was totally unnecessary,” she said. “Who
would shoot such innocent whiskey?”

B
ird awoke in the morning, a gun in her hand, two
bottles of whiskey on the table next to her, one empty, one full.

The second had been courtesy of a happy townsperson
who appeared extraordinarily joyful that the town’s de facto ruler was dead.

She cracked open the new bottle of whiskey, poured
two fingers’ worth into a glass, and drank it down. Then she crossed the room
and dipped a toe into the bathtub, which had been filled for her free of charge
by the hotel’s manager. The water was still warm.

Bird sighed. She felt dirty, but not from killing
the Daniels men.

It was the name.

Toby Raines.

The man who had set her on the course for what she
had now become.

She lifted her head and looked into the mirror. She
saw the same woman who’d grown used to the killing lifestyle, now with a few
more corpses to her credit.

Bird stepped back and took off her nightclothes.

She glanced at the door, made sure it was locked,
then stood naked before the mirror.

Bird Hitchcock then did something most people
thought she was totally incapable of doing.

She cried.

And as the tears streamed down her face, they ran
along her beautifully defined chin, down her strong neck, toward her chest.

Where they stopped.

Because they ran into the raised ridges of
something that had been carved into her chest years before by a man named Toby
Raines.

A pentagram.

T
he
fire was a small one, placed near the base of a scrub oak whose branches served
to break up what little smoke the tiny burning twigs created.

Bird
Hitchcock and Mike Tower were in a narrow hollow, protected from gusty winds
and hidden from the view of any riders. They were on opposite sides of the
fire, their saddles and saddle blankets serving as their beds for the night.

The
horses were staked not far from the fire, munching on a thick swath of buffalo
grass.

Bird
leaned back against her saddle. She loosened her shoulders and felt the gentle
ache of a long day’s ride catch up with her.

They
had ridden two days with only one dry camp to break up the monotony. Now,
confident there were no Indians nearby, she and Mike Tower had agreed that a
humble fire, only big enough to heat up some coffee and fry a bit of bacon,
would not put them in any danger.

“Time
for a drink,” Bird said. She slid the bottle from her saddlebag and eyed the
amount of whiskey that remained. Rationing alcohol had never been her strong
suit, but there was nothing Bird hated more than being completely without
whiskey, so she kept the desire to binge in check.

“It’s
not holy water. It’s better,” she said and held out the bottle toward Mike
Tower.

He
was stretched out next to the fire, his head on his bedroll, his legs crossed
at the ankles. He was a big man with long legs, narrow hips, and broad
shoulders.

Too
bad
, Bird thought.
All
that man, going to waste.

“No,
thank you,” he said.

She
shook her head and drank from the bottle. It smoked through her mouth, the
liquor cutting a swath of fire through a day’s worth of trail dust.

Bird
felt the muscles in her body relax as the alcohol worked its way through her
system.

She
knew they were only a half day’s ride from their next stop, Prosperity, Kansas.

“Well,
Preacher, you surely are a bundle of fun,” she pointed out to Tower.

“Thank
you kindly,” he said without looking at her. His hat was slid forward over his
face.

Bird
took another drink from the whiskey bottle.
This is going nowhere
, she
thought.

Somewhere
beyond the hills to the east, she heard a coyote howl. The night air was still;
the heat of the day had departed, leaving crisp coolness in its place.

It
was a new experience for Bird. A man seemingly not interested in her. Well, he
was a preacher, after all. But Bird had known some religious men who hadn’t let
their proselytizing get in the way of their fornicating.

“Don’t
mean to insult you, but I think there’s something unnatural about your line of
work,” she said. “A man has urges.”

“A
desire to help people? That’s unnatural?” Tower said.

Bird
took a drink of her whiskey. She was building a nice warm fire in her belly.

“For
most men I’ve known, the answer is yes.”

“What
about being a gunfighter? Does that seem natural to you?” Tower said.

“Absolutely,”
Bird said. “The most natural thing in the world.”

“How’s
that?”

Bird
almost answered. She thought about her youth, being shuttled to different
homes, different families. The home on the edge of the frontier where she’d
hunted and become the provider of meat for the household while her foster
parents drank themselves into oblivion. And then her encounter with Toby Raines
that changed everything.

“So
what’s the plan in Prosperity?” she said. She raised the whiskey bottle and
took three long gulps. Bird wanted the fire in her belly to consume her, to
reach her head with its soothing ability to shut off thought and memory.

“See
who needs help, I guess,” Tower said. “Remind them to treat others the way they
would want to be treated.”

“And
does it work?” Bird said.

“Sometimes,”
Tower answered. He slid the brim of his hat back so he could glance at Bird. “I
can help them see a better way, but it’s up to them. Most folks have good
inside them, but they don’t want to admit it. It’s buried deep.”

He
peeked out from beneath his hat. She saw his face was blank, but she easily
detected the trace of curiosity mixed with amusement in the tone of his voice.

“Sounds
like a wagon full of shit to me,” she said.