by Tony Healey
“I think you’re right,” Myra said, going through to the kitchen. Mitchell stood at the threshold and watched her pour the coffee. “Do you take sugar?”
“No, ma’am, not for me. I’ll just take it as it comes.”
“As you like,” Myra said. She handed him his cup of steaming black coffee and they went back to the table. “I like drinking coffee in the evening. Keeps me alert.”
“I guess you feel you need to be alert out here at night.”
“I do. There were riders came by here, but they did not present themselves.”
“What do you mean?”
“They came by the house, but they couldn’t be seen clearly.”
Mitchell cocked his head. “Then how do you know they did?”
“Ethan was here. He saw them off. I don’t think they expected a man to be on the property. Probably just expected me to be sitting here.”
The deputy blew across the surface of his piping hot coffee and took a tentative sip. “The sheriff already suggested you stay in town, right?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Is there anything I can say to make you reconsider not staying at the guesthouse? We can protect you there. We can’t do that out here in the sticks. Hate to say it, Miss Hart, but you’re kinda isolated, you know, out here all by yourself. It’s dangerous.”
Myra snorted. “My brother and his family learned about the danger the hard way.”
He looked away. “I only wish I could have saved them.”
“I know, Deputy,” Myra said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to throw the responsibility of this at the feet of the law.”
Mitchell looked around. “This is a nice place. I heard he built it all himself with just a few hired hands.”
“He did,” Myra said. “By the way, on the subject of hired hands, do you have any idea who he employed out here to help him work the land?”
“I can get you the names. Local boys. They wouldn’t have anything to do with murder, Miss Hart, believe me. Just in case you’re thinking that maybe they might be involved.”
“No, not at all. I was beginning to think about the upkeep of the place, is all. I figured he had to have had help out here.”
“I see.”
Myra drank some of her coffee, then set the cup down. “By the way, I noticed that there wasn’t anything in the stable.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, precisely what I just said. No horses, no donkeys, no mules. What you’d expect to find. It’s an empty stable. No wagon, either. Last summer he came to get in me in a wagon pulled by two horses. But now . . . both are gone.”
“You’re certain?”
“I cleaned it out myself not long before you arrived. Hence why I was washing up out there at the well.”
Mitchell looked perplexed. “Either the murderers stole them, or they got out somehow and escaped. But that second scenario doesn’t really apply to the wagon.”
“So they were taken.”
Mitchell held up his hands. “Well, hang on there, Miss Hart. Everything we say here at this table is little more than a theory until we have something with which to prove it.”
“Of course. I am not naive, Deputy.”
Mitchell bowed his head a little. “I never said you were,” he told her, returning to his coffee.
“Did you know my brother at all?”
“A little. We spoke on occasion,” Mitchell said. “He was a good man.”
“I was wondering, Deputy Mitchell, if he ever mentioned to you that Jack Denton was harassing him to sell this place. He was telling me about it the last time I was here,” Myra said with a little shake of her head. Her hands found the cup of coffee, and she took comfort from its warmth. “I have to admit, I was concerned but not worried. Businessmen get where they are by pushing people out of their way. I understand that. So I thought Glendon would simply refuse, and this Denton character would move on. But clearly he did not.”
“You believe Jack Denton is responsible?”
“I think he may be.”
Mitchell sighed. “Glendon never aired any concerns about Denton to me. But strictly between us, I carry no affection for Denton or his tactics. That man came here to carve out his own empire, and far as I can see, he doesn’t care who gets trampled in the process. Did you tell Sheriff Abernathy about any of this?”
“I regret that I did not.”
“Why?”
Myra thought for a second. She didn’t want to say anything about Deputy Mitchell’s boss that might offend or insult. “I don’t know. . . . Abernathy is a lovely man—I’m not disputing that—but I guess I wondered how effective he was as sheriff, given his age and everything.”
For his part, the deputy took her comment in his stride. “I’ll admit that the sheriff’s best days are far behind him now. You still could’ve trusted him with this information.”
“I know. I am sorry about that,” Myra said. “So what do you think?”
“About Denton murdering your brother and his family?”
“Yes.”
Mitchell lifted his cup, swirled it around a little, then drank. “I would be cautious in accusing an influential man like Jack Denton of anything, Miss Hart. Very cautious.”
“Aren’t there any grounds to arrest him?” Myra demanded, feeling her stomach flutter with a mixture of fear and excitement.
“The sheriff and I are investigating, Miss Hart. Please bear with us. In the meantime, you have plenty to concern yourself with. You have the burial of your family. And there is plenty to be done here, of course. While all that is happening, we are working to get to the bottom of this. We just need time.”
“But you don’t have evidence.”
“We do not.”
“So how can you be working toward anything?”
Mitchell seemed taken aback for a second. “Well . . .”
Myra stood. “I don’t intend to insult you, Deputy Mitchell. That is not my intent. But you have to acknowledge that from whatever angle you view this tragedy, it does seem that Jack Denton has both the motivation and the capacity to carry it out. Evidence or not.”
“Miss Hart, please sit,” the deputy said softly. “I understand completely why you feel as you do. And if it were down to me . . .” His voice trailed off.
He’d said far more than he intended to.
Myra sat back down. “Go on. Tell me. It’s only us here.”
“If I were sheriff, I’d be riding out there to arrest Denton and question him. But, Miss Hart, I am not the sheriff. There is an order to these things, and I’m afraid that Henry’s approach is far more nuanced than my own. He is very much for biding his time, whereas I am more inclined toward action. Perhaps that’s because of the age difference between us. I don’t know.”
“So what do you suggest?”
Mitchell stood, pushing his chair back in. The table was missing a few chairs, but was still very much as it had been when Myra had sat around it with her brother and his family.
“Bury the dead, Miss Hart. Give them the very best burial you can. Honor them and hold them near. Leave us to deal with Jack Denton. And if there is justice to be dealt out, trust me when I say it will be dealt in good measure.”
Myra saw him out and watched him free his horse. He climbed up into the saddle. She handed him his hat.
The deputy said, “If there is something the sheriff and I are in agreement on, it’s this: whoever is responsible for what occurred here will not make it to prison. They will face execution. It won’t be easy on them, either. You have my word on that.”
In an ordinary world, the deputy’s words should have horrified her. They should have left Myra feeling terrified. But this was no ordinary world. The rule book had to be thrown out. That was how Myra saw it. Forget the rules, the conventions, the limitations on propo
rtionate action. “I’ll trust your word, Deputy Mitchell,” she said.
“Please do,” he said, bringing the horse around. “And watch out for that new fella, Ethan. I’m uncertain as to his motivations. Seems okay from what I hear. But you never know.”
“I don’t think he is anyone to worry about,” Myra said.
The deputy pushed his hat down. A cool wind rose then, and Myra felt a shiver course down her spine like an icy fingertip. “Do not make the mistake of trusting anybody. It’s the only way to keep yourself safe,” Mitchell said.
He snapped the reins and Myra watched him ride off. She retreated inside the house and shut the door behind her. It was getting dark now. She secured the house the best she could, the deputy’s words ringing in her head. Could she trust Ethan? She certainly thought so. And yet she thought the young deputy was right. He said not to trust a soul, not even him, and she thought that given the circumstances it was probably the way to be.
Her brother, Glendon, had trusted Jack Denton not to do anything to him and his family. To accept his refusal and move on. Clearly Denton had had other ideas. But he probably hadn’t reckoned on Glendon having a sister. Now, she feared, he would hound her for the sale. Not before the funeral, because that would look very bad for him in the eyes of the town. But soon after her family was laid to rest, Myra expected to hear from Denton about the sale of her brother’s property. The cattle rancher would be ready with an offer or ready with a threat.
Either way, Myra Hart was waiting.
* * *
* * *
The sheriff was on his front porch, asleep. He had the remnants of a bottle of bourbon on the deck and an unlit pipe in his hands. Abernathy’s chin rested on his chest, and he was snoring like a freight train. He stirred awake as Mitchell rode up, the sound of approaching hooves rousing him from his slumber.
“Bit early to retire for the night, isn’t it, boss?” Mitchell said.
Abernathy scowled at him as he stood and stretched. “Coming up on a man like that . . . I could’ve woken not realizing it was you and shot you, Boyd.”
“Not without a gun you couldn’t,” Mitchell said, indicating the lack of a gun belt around Abernathy’s waist.
The sheriff checked himself and rolled his eyes. “Oh, hell.”
“Happens to the best of us, sir,” Mitchell said.
“Will you quit being so damn appeasing all the time?”
Mitchell frowned at him. “And here I was thinking the majority of your complaints against me were because I was confrontational and quick to temper, sir.”
“Well, it just so happens a man can contain multitudes, Deputy,” Abernathy said. “Where you been anyways?”
“Out to the Hart place.”
His grouchiness at being woken dissipated immediately. Abernathy leaned on his porch rail. “How was she?”
“Doing well. That newcomer, Ethan, helped her sort the place out. I guess that puts paid to any doubts of his alibi.”
“Not that I had any,” the sheriff said. “Warren is a trustworthy soul, like I done told you before. Trustworthy as any I’ve ever known. What was her take on this Ethan character?”
“I think she liked him.”
Abernathy spit on the ground. “He come to see me.”
“Ethan?”
The sheriff nodded.
“How did it go?”
“We spoke. I let the fella know we don’t want no trouble around here. Told him you’re a good shot—let’s put it that way.”
Mitchell nodded slowly. “And what did he say?”
Sheriff Abernathy shrugged. He packed his pipe with tobacco as they conversed. “Not a whole lot, to tell the truth. I guess he either will make trouble, or he won’t. Boyd, there’s no countin’ on what a man with a grudge might do, and he’s definitely a man with a grudge.”
“How can you tell?”
Abernathy lit the pipe. “There’s something about a man with revenge in mind—a different look, you could say. It’s hard to describe. Years ago, I saw it in the eyes of the men around me. You know, men who’d seen battle and had a score to settle with the other side. I’ll tell you something: I saw it in the ones we went up against, too.”
“Must’ve been a helluva thing, sir,” Mitchell said.
“Once you notice it, you can’t not notice it, if that makes sense. When the devil’s got his fix on you, it’s hard to look like you ain’t caught up in something you can’t get free of.”
“Like a rabbit in a snare.”
Abernathy looked at him, eyes weary. “Yeah, just like that. Only time will tell who gets to be the rabbit. . . .”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Unwavering loyalty. That is what Jack Denton demanded of his people, and he would not accept any excuse for exhibiting traits to the contrary. “When you come to work for me, know that if you double-cross me in any way, I will not hesitate to plant a bullet in your head,” he’d told Mighty Mikhail when he took him on. The seven-foot giant was monolithic in everything from his hands to the gargantuan buckled ruin of his nose. He’d run with a Russian circus roaming the backwater towns of Texas as “Mighty Mikhail the Muscleman.” The old geezer who ran the operation had had Mikhail performing acts of showmanship like bending iron bars with his bare hands or lifting the back end of a carriage full of people—without so much as breaking a sweat. His most famous stunt—and the part of his act that generally drew the most applause—also happened to be his most unsavory. Mikhail would wait for the audience to quiet; then he would lead them from the tent to a tank outside containing a full-grown crocodile. In stunned silence, the audience would watch as he climbed into the tank and wrestled with the crocodile, using his brute strength to prize its jaws wide open. He’d then proceed to pull the creature apart, tearing it wide open. The shock of witnessing such a thing would cause gasps and startled cries from the assembled townsfolk, swiftly followed by thunderous applause for such a feat of strength.
Mikhail grew tired of traveling with the circus. The pay was good, but not enough to convince him to stick around. Besides, he’d gotten into a few scraps with the locals in different towns and had the blood of several unwitting combatants on his hands. And the thing with blood was, it washed away easily enough, but it was never truly gone. It was a stain that could not be erased. Mikhail knew the law would catch up with him eventually, and he’d find himself swinging from the end of a very strong rope. So he began looking at ways of leaving. Ways to get out of sight for a while and lie low until the heat from his indiscretions cooled off. Thus he approached Denton about a job when the circus set up camp less than ten miles from Amity Creek one summer and he heard that the man with power, with influence in Amity Creek, was Jack Denton.
“I sure could use a man of your size,” Denton said, looking him up and down. He whistled through his teeth. “Boy, are you a specimen!”
Mikhail laid out his reasons for wanting to leave the carnival and do something different. He said he was getting restless and would most likely leave, regardless of whether he had a job lined up or not.
“Don’t be so hasty,” Denton told him. “Man should never just walk out of a job unless he’s sure there’s other employment. Or at the very least, some other way of making a living.”
The giant stared at him dimly. “What should I do?”
“I don’t know, Mighty Mikhail. You came to me and asked me for a job. I didn’t seek you out. What can you do for me?”
Mikhail frowned at him. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice deep and thick, as if the words had trouble lifting themselves from his tongue.
“You say you got yourself in some trouble a couple of places.” They were standing at the back of the main tent, where it was dark and they could talk without interruption. It was hard to go unnoticed when you were with Mighty Mikhail, due to the sheer size of him. “Are you saying you killed people?”
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“Yes, but it wasn’t my fault,” he said, looking at his hands. “Sometimes I forget my own strength.”
“Don’t matter to me if it was your fault or it weren’t. If you come to work with me, a bit of hurting might be in the cards. I’d be taking you on as muscle. Do you understand?”
Mikhail nodded once. “Yes.”
“If that bothers you, speak up.”
“It is not a bother.”
“Now, when I say a bit of hurting, let me clarify. On occasion it might be necessary to make that hurtin’ permanent-like. The kind of hurting a man don’t walk away from. Know what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
Mikhail thought for a moment. Then he shrugged. “I feel nothing.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
He shook his head. “No.”
That was when Denton had explained to the big Russian his policy of ensuring obedience from those under him. And his methods of enforcing that policy. “I like to say it how it is, so tell me now if you have an issue with that policy.”
“Not at all.”
Jack Denton grinned up at him. “I think you’re gonna work out just fine, son.”
“I have the job?” Mikhail asked.
Denton extended his hand and watched as the giant’s enveloped his.
That was ten years ago. A whole decade in Denton’s employ and Mighty Mikhail was still with him. Like the majority of the people he took on, Denton forbade Mikhail from going to town for any reason. The sheriff didn’t have a clue who worked for Denton and who didn’t, and that was how Denton liked to keep it. He could picture the locals going into a frenzy at the sight of Mikhail strolling down the main street. That was not what he wanted. Besides, no one outside of the ranch knew what had become of Mighty Mikhail since he walked away from the circus that night. Which was just as well—Jack Denton had learned through various channels the truth about the murders Mikhail had committed and they were not pretty. . . .
* * *
