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worse.”
    Tower
nodded.
    “I
didn’t rape Susan Arliss,” he said.
    Bird
rolled her eyes. “Jesus Christ, I know that. You think I don’t know how to read
a man? If you were a rapist, you’d have a bullet hole in your head and be
buried back along the trail somewhere.”
    “That’s
comforting,” Tower said.
    “You’re
not evil,” Bird said. “Boring as hell, yes. But evil? No.”
    Tower
put his hands around the bars of his cell. “Now what?” he said, as much to
himself as to Bird.
    Before
Bird could answer, the sheriff spoke from the outer office.
    “Visitin’
time is over, folks,” he said.
    “I’ll
poke around, see what I can find out,” Bird said to Tower. “Try not to cause
any more trouble while I’m gone.”
    She
left him there, then walked into the main room, where the sheriff stood leaning
against the edge of his desk. His arms were folded across his chest.
    “Don’t
know I’ve ever seen anything quite like this,” he said. “A preacher accused of
rape, and the crime happened some time ago.”
    “So
what are you going to do about it?” Bird responded. “I assume you’re getting
plenty of pressure from the menfolk around town.”
    “I
put a request into the territorial marshal of Texas, where the original crime
happened — ”
    “Supposedly
happened,” Bird interjected.
    “I’m
waiting to hear back from them.”
    “So
what can you tell me about this Susan Arliss?” Bird said.
    The
sheriff shrugged his shoulders. “Not much to tell. She and her husband bought a
place out near Rifle Creek a couple months back, and she’s only been into town
a few times.” He cocked his head at Bird. “Why are you asking?”
    “Just
like to know more about the woman who says the innocent man sitting in your
jail did something horrible to her way back when. Ordinarily, I would tend to
believe her. But I don’t think Mike Tower has it in him to do such a thing.”
    “I
don’t need you out there stirring up trouble,” Sheriff Ectors said. “There’s
already plenty of that going on right now.”
    Bird
smiled at him. “Wouldn’t want a little thing called the truth to get in the way
of that now, would we?”

Twenty-Four

    H appiness
was a bottle in the saddlebag, Bird thought. A full bottle.
    She
stopped on the first rise outside of town, pulled out the bottle, popped the
cork, and took a long drink.
    Rifle
Creek was northwest of town, a few miles over slightly hilly terrain. Bird set
the Appaloosa at a slow trot and headed in that direction.
    Her
thoughts turned to Mike Tower.
    For
the most part, she was openly skeptical of all men, for good reason. Most of
the men she’d known in her life had tried to hurt her in one way or another.
    But
there was something different about Mike Tower. Because, in reality, she had no
reason to believe him. Maybe he really did rape that woman. However, Bird had
survived as long as she had by being able to read other people, mostly men. And
there was something about Mike Tower, his foolish notions of religion aside,
that spoke to Bird’s intuition.
    She
believed him.
    The
curve of water presented itself over the next rise. Bird stopped and let her
horse drink. The current was swift even though the creek was merely a few yards
wide.
    When
the Appaloosa lifted her head and waited, Bird nudged the horse forward. They
climbed several ridges; the grass was dry but thick. Swaths of purple clover occasionally
interrupted the broad expanses of green and light brown.
    According
to Larkin, the dry goods store owner, Susan Arliss and her husband lived on a
spread less than a mile from the creek’s first big bend. Bird passed the bend
and within minutes had spotted a flash of white set back from the creek on a
raised shelf of land.
    Bird
slowed the Appaloosa to a walk and approached the camp. She had been expecting
a house, perhaps a sod house or at least a hastily built home of fresh lumber;
after all, she’d heard that the couple had only arrived a few months