town.
They were all heavily armed with both pistols and rifles, looking as if they
would like nothing more than for a target to ride up and present itself.
On that very thought, Bird and Tower came to a stop and the
sheriff approached them.
“Whoa, hold up, what are you people doing out here?” he asked.
“Seems like every time there’s a murder you two are close by.”
“We heard you had another murder on your hands, sheriff,”
Tower said. “Same place as Bertram Egans. Figured the two killings might be
related.”
“I think that’s a pretty big assumption, preacher,” Chesser
said. “I’d advise you to stay clear of this area until we’re done.”
Bird and Tower left their horses east of the draw, and
walked toward the crowd of men standing around two dark shapes on the ground.
“Don’t touch anything, you two,” Chesser said to them, as he
retreated back to the group surrounding the bodies. Bird noted that he didn’t
go to the front of the group, but assumed a position in the middle, as if he were
just another one of the crowd.
Bird wove her way until she could get to the front of the
group.
The body closest to her was that of a woman killed with an
extreme amount of violence. There were deep slashes in her body and great
chunks of flesh were ripped from her. Her dress, what was left of it, lay in a
heap next to the body. Her legs were spread. And stuffed into the space between
her legs was a giant river rock.
Next to her, Bird heard Tower take a deep breath.
Bird knelt down and studied the woman’s feet. She had one
shoe on and Bird immediately knew it was too big to be the one that left the
track she’d seen earlier.
Tower moved down to examine the next body, and Bird
followed.
This one she recognized.
Downwind Dave Axelrod.
There was a knife in his hand. Both the knife and Axelrod’s
hand, along with the front of his clothes, were covered in blood. Bird could
tell the blood wasn’t from the two gunshot wounds that she’d personally
delivered directly to his heart.
Tower looked at her.
Bird glanced behind them, saw that no one was listening.
“Believe me, when I kill a man, he’s killed,” she whispered.
Tower surveyed the distance between Axelrod and the woman,
then looked back at the dark water gushing through Killer’s Draw.
“If it’s possible to hate a place,” he said, “this is the
place.”
EPISODE THREE
Twenty-Nine
It started just after dawn. Tower, always an early riser, was up and had walked the town, going over what he knew so far about the murder of Bertram Egans. Now, he leaned on the top rail of a cattle fence, one of thousands at the Big River cattle yards, watching some of the longhorns being herded into the nearest enclosure. The scene was oddly quiet. It seemed that both the cowboys and the animals were too tired from the long drive to make much noise.
“Preacher,” a voice behind him said.
Tower turned and looked into the faces of two men who clearly had been up all night drinking, and most likely, discussing the murder of Mrs. Victoria Parker, whose body had just been found in Killer’s Draw.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” Tower asked. He stood casually, hands at his side, measuring up the pair that stood before him. They were about the same height, but one was a little thicker in the chest and a couple years older. Neither looked like a cowboy just in from the trail, which told Tower they were probably locals. Their clothes were clean, though, and they wore gun belts. Tower figured they just might be ranch hands working for Mr. Parker.
He could also tell by the set of the older man’s jaw that he would be the first to act. And Tower knew these boys were here to act, not talk. Maybe he could change that, though.
The second one just stared at Tower, but there wasn’t as much hostility in his face; he seemed the drunker of the two.
“You can tell us why you think running around and acting like a damned preacher is going to fool this