The Circuit Rider

by Dani Amore

  Bird glanced behind them and scanned the horizon line. Even if it wasn’t an ambush, whoever had done this couldn’t be too far away, judging by the freshness of the blood.

  Bird climbed down from her horse and stood next to Tower. They both studied the dead man on the horse’s back.

  The man’s throat had been slit from ear to ear.

  “That blood is fresh,” Bird said. “He hasn’t been dead long.”

  She noted how the man’s legs had been tied to the stirrups and the hands tied to the saddle’s pommel so he couldn’t fall off.

  “A couple of hours at the most,” Tower said.

  “And whoever killed him, they sure were thorough,” she said. “Looks like he was whipped, beaten, and stabbed.”

  Tower looked down the meadow, toward the direction they had been heading ever since they crossed the Colorado line an hour or so ago.

  “Think he came from Twin Buttes?” Tower said, naming the town toward which they’d been heading.

  Bird nodded. “Most likely. We’re only a couple of hours away.” She weighed their options. “It won’t do to try to bring him along, though. Best we bury him here.”

  Tower nodded. Bird held the horse while Tower cut the man’s bindings free. He slid from the horse and toppled to the ground.

  They looked closely at the man’s body. It had been a gruesome death.

  “I highly doubt this was done by one person,” he said.

  “I’d say this Chinaman was unpopular with a whole group of folks,” Bird said. “The kind with whips, clubs, and knives.”

  They buried him there, in the meadow, and Tower said the appropriate prayers while Bird sat on her horse and toasted the dead man. Tower fashioned a rough cross and pounded it into the ground.

  “Hope you’re in a nice Chinese heaven,” Bird said, hoisting a bottle of whiskey and drinking deeply.

  She thought about it. “Do the Chinese believe in heaven?” she asked Tower.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Virtually every culture believes in some sort of afterlife. They might not call it heaven, though.”

  “If I did believe in heaven, I’d picture it as a saloon with a never-ending supply of free whiskey,” Bird said. “But I don’t.”

  Tower didn’t respond. Instead, he tied the reins of the Chinaman’s horse to the pommel of his own saddle, and they set off for Twin Buttes.

  Thirty-Eight

  The town was on fire.

  Twin Buttes, Colorado, sat in a breathtaking location, built into the crevice between the two towering, majestic peaks for which the community had been named.

  But now a shadow of smoke hung over the town, with an acrid stench filling the air. Shouts and gunshots echoed, overlaid with the sounds of screams and glass breaking.

  Mike Tower and Bird Hitchcock entered the town from the south, leading the third horse behind them.

  “I’m guessing our victim back in the meadow was involved in whatever we’re going to find up ahead,” Bird said.

  “Sounds like he might not be the only one,” Tower said.

  They had tracked the horse carrying the dead man back to Twin Buttes, a relatively simple process as the man had bled out for most of the journey.

  They passed the various storefronts along the street, with faces peeking out and doors slamming shut, as if the town were under siege.

  A crowd had gathered at the end of the street, and as Bird and Tower drew closer, she was able to see over the heads of the mob and get a glimpse of what they were all looking at.

  A makeshift gallows had been constructed, and two Chinese men hung from their necks. No hoods had been placed over their heads, so Bird was able to see quite clearly they were dead. The dead men’s necks were stretched and grossly distorted, the bodies twisting in the wind.

  A second group of men stood nearby holding half-broken pieces of lumber like clubs, watching as another Chinese man was beaten in the middle of the street.

  Tower kicked his horse forward and rode quickly to the aid of the man.

  “Stop!” he called out.

  Bird watched as Tower got between the crowd of men and the defenseless man on the ground, whose face was covered with blood.

  A beefy man with a pistol sporting a long barrel raised the gun toward Tower.

  “Mister, I suggest you mind your own goddamn business,” the man said. “I don’t care if you’re a preacher or not, these Chinamen deserve what they’re getting.”

  “That’s why we have a court of law,” Tower said. He stood over the beaten man, pushing the attackers away.

  The beefy man pulled the hammer of his revolver back. Tower didn’t move.

  Instead, Bird rode forward and put herself between Tower and the man.

  “If you die trying to kill a preacher, you’ll be going straight to hell.” She let go of her horse’s reins and rested her hand on the butt of her gun. “How soon do you want to get there?”

  Thirty-Nine

  Tower looked at the people surrounding him. After he had chased away the attackers, Tower and Bird had spotted a friendly face waving them toward an open doorway. They had dragged the man inside, and now he was being tended to by an elderly Chinese woman.

  The room was dimly lit, and Tower was initially overwhelmed by the strange scents. It was the odor of many people living close together, but also of exotic scents and something both sweet smelling and darkly pungent.

  Tower had heard of opium dens and that they were favored by the Chinese. In fact, opium was known as hop, and in nearly every western town with a Chinese population Tower had been to, the section where they lived was known as Hop Alley.

  But the structure he was in appeared to be more for daily living, with perhaps as many as three families sharing the building.

  Tower looked at Bird.

  “Are they still out there?” he said.

  Bird opened the door a crack and peeked outside.

  “There are still a few milling about, but I think they’ve had their fun,” she said.

  Tower turned to the terrified people in the room. Some of them sat on cots lined up against the wall, but most stood. A pot was boiling on a woodstove.

  “Does anyone here speak English?” Tower said.

  The group put their heads together and spoke to each other in their peculiar, singsongy language.

  Finally, one young man stepped forward.

  “I speak, sir,” he said, his voice halting.

  “What happened?”

  He bowed his head.

  “They say justice,” he said.

  “Justice? For who?”

  The young man seemed unable to answer.

  Tower pointed back outside, toward the temporary gallows.

  “Those men, why were they hung?”

  “White men say they guilty.”

  “Guilty of what?”

  The young man shuffled his feet. He looked over at an older man, who nodded his head.

  “They say the Chinese kill a white woman.”

  Forty

  Once she felt confident there would be no attack on the Chinese and Tower, Bird went looking for the sheriff.

  She found the sheriff’s office, but the door was locked, and after taking a look through the front window, she saw that the place was empty.

  She walked past the gallows, where the dead men were still hanging, and spotted an old man sitting on a chair outside the general store.

  She approached him and said, “Where might I find the sheriff?”

  The old man looked at Bird with a raised eyebrow, taking in her guns.

  “The cemetery. He died about a month ago. Keeled over right here on the street. Not from a bullet but too much bacon and eggs!” The old man guffawed at his own joke.

  “So who’s in charge?” Bird said.

  “We all kind of voted Chuck Adamson to be head of the town until we get it figured out,” the old man said. He leaned over and spit out a long stream of tobacco juice. “Chuck is head of the fire departme
nt, but we don’t have any fire equipment just yet, so he’s got time on his hands. They’re all over at the saloon right now,” he said.

  “The saloon?” Bird said. “That’s perfect.”

  The saloon was easy to spot—it was packed with people drinking beer and celebrating the quenching of their bloodlust. Bird had seen mobs before; she understood how they worked. In a few days, when the dust had settled, a few might look back and feel differently about how they had behaved. But right now, they were literally drunk with power and self-righteousness.

  Bird made her way to the bar and ordered herself a whiskey.

  “Chuck Adamson around?” she asked the bartender.

  The bartender pointed over to a table around which sat at least ten men. The man at the head of the table was bald, with narrow shoulders and a weak chin.

  Bird had a hard time imagining him in charge of a penny, let alone an entire town.

  She approached the table and conversation stopped. Every man turned to face her.

  “You Adamson?” she said to the weak-chinned man.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “And who might you be?”

  “Bird Hitchcock.”

  A little murmur went through the rest of the saloon.

  “Well, welcome to Twin Buttes, Miss Hitchcock. What can I do for you?” Adamson said.

  “Stringing up these Chinamen, is this something you folks do every week? Or was this a special occasion?”

  A few people scoffed, and Bird felt the tension in the room kick up a notch.

  Adamson looked around, and when he realized no one else was going to answer on his behalf, he said, “No, ma’am, this is what you would call an isolated incident.”

  “Them damned heathens got what they deserved for what they done to that poor girl!” one of the men exclaimed.

  Adamson nodded. “It did get a little out of hand, but we got everything under control.”

  “What exactly did they do?” Bird said. She set her empty glass on the table and refilled it from the whiskey bottle sitting in the middle of the table.

  “They killed a sweet little angel of a girl named Sadie Bell,” a man to Bird’s right said. “Somehow they got her down into Hop Alley and had their way with her.”

  “Bastards!” another man shouted out.

  Adamson shook his head.

  “No, they didn’t just kill her,” he said. “They carved her up.”

  Forty-One

  The Sagebrush Boardinghouse was on the outskirts of town, in the shadow of one of the buttes.

  It was a three-story structure, unusual in a town that small, with a wide front porch upon which several rocking chairs were spread out along its length.

  The boardinghouse was run by a woman named Sally Perkins, and, according to de facto sheriff Chuck Adamson, Perkins was the woman who had rented a room to the now-deceased Sadie Bell. Bird had gotten the information, then tracked down Tower and suggested they find out more about Sadie Bell.

  Perkins met them at the front door. A man wearing bib overalls sat on the rocking chair nearest the door. He had a pipe in his mouth, and smoke curled up and hung there, trapped against the beadboard ceiling.

  “Ma’am, my name is Mike Tower, and this is Bird Hitchcock. We’d like to ask you a couple of questions about Sadie Bell,” Tower said.

  The woman looked from Tower to Bird and back again before she said, “Yes, please come in.”

  They entered a foyer with a wide staircase featuring a thick mahogany banister. The stairs wound around the corner at the top, where Bird saw another foyer or landing with a large window with leaded glass.

  To the right of the foyer was a formal dining room.

  To the left, a great room with a huge fireplace, a long couch with magenta upholstery, and several deep leather chairs in a semicircle around the fireplace.

  There was a grand piano and several oil paintings.

  To Bird’s eye, it was one of the finest boardinghouses she’d ever seen. And she’d seen more than her share of them.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee while we talk?” Mrs. Perkins said.

  “Yes, please,” Tower said.

  “Yes, and if you could rustle up a shot of rye to thicken mine up, that would be wonderful,” Bird said.

  A brief look of disapproval crossed the woman’s face, but she recovered. “Of course,” she said.

  Tower looked at Bird and shook his head.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  The woman returned, gave them their coffee, and motioned for them to sit on the couch. She took one of the deep leather chairs.

  “So how can I help you?” she said.

  “What can you tell us about Sadie Bell?” Tower asked.

  The woman shook her head. “So sad.” She brought out a small handkerchief and wiped at the corner of her eye.

  Bird watched the woman, trying to gauge if the emotion was real. It seemed genuine.

  “Sadie was a naive, innocent, and wonderful girl. She originally came to Twin Buttes to be a teacher, but the little school was already staffed, so she worked as a nanny for Mr. and Mrs. Whitcomb. Do you know of the Whitcombs?”

  “No, ma’am,” Tower said.

  “Well, William Whitcomb is the whole reason Twin Buttes exists,” Mrs. Perkins said, with no small amount of pride. The woman was practically beaming at the mention of William Whitcomb. “He discovered silver here, years ago, and built this whole operation. He owns three-quarters of everything here, and the rest pay rent to him.”

  “Does he own this place?” Bird asked.

  “He owns a small part of it. I own the majority. We’re partners.”

  Tower wondered how much Mrs. Perkins had to pay her “partner” to remain the only boardinghouse in Twin Buttes.

  “So do you have any idea of how Sadie Bell ended up in Hop Alley?” Tower said.

  Perkins shook her head. “Knowing Sadie, she was probably trying to help someone. And look at where it got her. Those heathens are good for nothing but doing laundry and smoking opium.”

  Tower offered no comment.

  “Anything else you can tell us, Mrs. Perkins?” Bird said. She drank down the rest of her coffee. She could barely taste the rye. Mrs. Perkins had a very light hand when it came to fortifying coffee, apparently.

  “No, I’m afraid not. But they already found the Chinamen who did this, am I correct?”

  “I believe they found the men they think are responsible,” Tower said evenly.

  “You don’t sound convinced,” Perkins said.

  “I just want to make sure no one else gets hurt.”

  They got to their feet, and Perkins opened the door for them.

  “I hope you can help,” she said. “Twin Buttes is a fine, fine town.”

  Forty-Two

  The weak coffee and even weaker rye, along with Mrs. Perkins’s strange affection for William Whitcomb, all combined to leave a bad taste in Bird’s mouth.

  They left the boardinghouse and were walking back into town when a man stepped out of the barbershop and directly into their path.

  Bird recognized the pipe. It was the same man who’d been sitting on the porch at the boardinghouse.

  “Get your questions answered?” he growled at Bird and Tower. He shot a furtive glance up and down the street.

  “We had a nice talk with Mrs. Perkins,” Tower said diplomatically.

  “Why the hell are you asking?” Bird said. “And why’d you wait for us to leave and ambush us here instead of asking back at the boardinghouse?”

  “I like my privacy,” he said, looking around.

  “The privacy of an open street?” Bird said, the sarcasm obvious.

  “Let’s just say Mrs. Perkins wouldn’t tell you, but something was wrong with Sadie before all of this happened,” the man said. “She spent a lot of time crying in her room. Her appearance was strange. Sadie was always neat as a button, but lately she hadn’t dressed well, and her hair was messy. Something was wrong with the girl.”


  “Any idea what that might have been?” Tower said.

  Instead of answering, the man tipped his hat.

  “Have a nice day, folks,” he said, then turned and headed back up the street.

  Bird watched the man walk away, then turned to Tower.

  “I need to see the girl’s body,” she said.

  Tower glanced back down the street. “I suppose you’re right,” he said.

  “I’m always right,” Bird said. “Sooner you figure that out, the easier your life will be.”

  Bird brushed past him, crossed the street, and walked down the boardwalk toward the undertaker’s shop, which was just past the blacksmith.

  She heard Tower behind her, following.

  Bird didn’t bother knocking, just opened the door and went inside.

  A young man was planing a pair of long boards. He had on a thick wool shirt, the sleeves rolled up. Sawdust covered his forearms, and some was even stuck in his eyebrows.

  He stopped the planer and straightened at the sight of Bird.

  “Ma’am?” he said.

  “I want to see Sadie Bell,” she said.

  The young man took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat and most of the sawdust from his face.

  “Afraid I can’t do that, ma’am, unless you’re family…?” he said. He looked toward Tower, who had stepped in behind Bird.

  “I’ve been asked to bless the body,” Tower said, not exactly a lie.

  The young man was uncertain. “Well, I’m not sure I’m supposed to allow that. You see, my father—”

  “Your father isn’t here. We are,” Bird said. She tried to keep the edge out of her voice but was failing. “And I need to see her body.”

  “Please,” Tower said. “It won’t take a minute or two.”

  The young man set the planer down, went to the back of the room, opened a door, and gestured for them to follow.

  Sadie Bell was laid out on a long wooden bench, with a white sheet over her body.

  “I would prefer it if you didn’t tell anyone I let you back here,” he said.

  “I need to see her chest,” Bird said.