The Devil's Snare

by Tony Healey

  * * *

  At the back of his property, far from view of anyone rolling up to the ranch unannounced, Denton’s men worked under the cover of a dozen or so trees, in a lightly wooded area that had proven useful in concealing what was taking place within it. Enough trees had been cleared to permit a wagon to pass through one side of the wood and out the other. The lower branches of all the trees had been trimmed back and maintained so that they would not prove an obstruction. It had been Denton’s idea—one that had its foundations in the past, in his youth as a bootlegger knowing what to run, where to run it and, most important of all, how to hide it. Denton strode into the wood, mopping at his brow with a handkerchief. It was a hot day, and the air among the trees was close and sticky.

  In the woods, Bobby Denton assisted Mikhail and Randy Nillson, another of Jack’s employees, moving barrels of spirits from the back of one of Denton’s wagons. Where Denton’s son struggled to lift a keg to his chest and walk six feet with it before tiring, Mikhail simply carried one under each arm without so much as breaking a single bead of sweat.

  “That the rum you were telling me about?” Denton asked, patting one of the barrels.

  Randy gasped for breath. “Yeah. Worth every cent, too, once we water it down and get it moving out of here.”

  “It’s neat?”

  “Just like on the ships. Strong enough it’ll preserve a body for the voyage home. I heard tell the sailors get ill from it because it needs cutting with water. But they’re not deterred by what might happen to ’em. I guess, being on one of those ships, you take what you can get. Not much else to do but drink. Take that away from a man, what the hell else he got?”

  “Whole lot of nothing,” Denton said. They’d intercepted a shipment intended for a merchant vessel down south. Denton had the idea of selling it to the prospectors who’d established watering holes in the mountains. Those intrepid men and women often had no choice but to accept gold nuggets as payment from prospectors instead of legal tender. Proof that sometimes the tender of the land is whatever you say it is. Those shopkeepers, entrepreneurs who’d flocked to join the gold rush and realized they’d make more money selling booze and stores, were practically printing their own money. When the craze ran out, and the gold could no longer be found, they would be the ones who walked away rich men and women. It didn’t matter what Denton charged them for each keg; it might as well have been liquid gold for what it would earn in return. Those men in the mountains would drink anything after a long week of prospecting. Whiskey, rum—they’d have drunk urine so long as it was strong enough and staved off the cold.

  “Get this out of sight quick as you can, boys. Last thing I need is the sheriff riding up in here and seeing it. I’d hate to have to retire the old geezer sooner than expected.”

  Randy cackled at that. “You kill me, boss.”

  “Hey, Pa,” Bobby said.

  “Son. Working up a sweat, I see.”

  Bobby stood with his hands braced at the bottom of his back. “That’s what you wanted.”

  “It sure is.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson now, Pa. I’ve realized where I was goin’ wrong here. Is there really a need for me to carry on with the grunt work?”

  Denton shook his head. “Bobby, you asking that question proves to me you need to do this kinda work a while longer. You ain’t learned half of what you think you’ve learned.”

  “I’ve learned a lot doing this stuff, Pa. I ain’t like I was. I stopped all that silly behavior. I’ve grown up,” Bobby said.

  “You still visiting that bordello, son? Or has that stopped, too?”

  Bobby’s face burned bright red and he looked away, unable to hold his father’s gaze.

  “Just as I thought,” Denton said with relish. “Best get back to helping Randy move those barrels. They won’t move themselves.”

  Bobby turned back to the wagon and walked off, dejectedly.

  “Mikhail, a word,” Denton said, ignoring his son’s sulking. Mikhail set the keg he was carrying down on the ground, then walked over.

  “Boss?”

  Denton leaned against the wagon. “That thing you did for me.”

  “The house,” Mikhail said, his voice devoid of emotion.

  “Yes, the house. What happened there the other night. Did that bother you at all?” Denton asked.

  Mikhail thought for a moment. “No boss. Killing man or woman is all same to me.”

  “Kids, too?” Denton asked.

  “All same,” Mikhail said in the same flat tone.

  Only it’s not, Denton thought. “Good to hear,” he said, and proceeded to tell the giant about the new assignment he had in mind.

  Mikhail was clearly taken aback. “You want me to go to . . . town?”

  “In the middle of the night. Trust me, you won’t see a soul. That place is a ghost town come bedtime.”

  “Yes, boss. But what for?”

  Denton relayed what the sisters had told him when they rode back from the Hart place the other night. How Myra Hart had had someone with her, and he’d stood there in the dark with guns at his sides, waiting for the sisters to approach. A little digging had determined this newcomer was staying in the blacksmith’s livery. He’d been seen coming and going by Sally Greenacre, the local busybody who was scared out of her wits by what had happened at the Hart place. A stranger hiding out in a barn had left her more paranoid and rattled than ever before.

  “Go to the livery and break him like a biscuit.”

  “No guns?”

  Denton smiled. “No guns. Like it used to be. Remember those crocs I saw you tear apart with your bare hands?”

  Mikhail looked down at his hands then, as if rediscovering that they were there. When he flexed them, his knuckles popped. “It would be good to use the old ways.”

  “Use a gun, the whole town will be on top of you in an instant. It’d be foolhardy,” Denton explained. “But use your hands, they’ll wake up to find a bloodbath.”

  Mikhail’s expression tightened. “I will see it done, boss. Tonight?”

  Denton agreed. “Sooner rather than later.”

  “It will be done.”

  He slapped the Russian’s upper arm. “Just what I like to hear.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Denton left Bobby, Randy and Mikhail to finish unloading the wagon, and went in search of the Proctor sisters. He found May Proctor in the kitchen of the big house stirring a stew over the fire. The sisters had taken to wearing wigs in an attempt to conceal their true identities. When Denton thought about it, Mikhail’s historic offenses of years ago were small fry compared to what the Proctors were responsible for.

  “May,” Denton said, stamping the dirt off his boots outside the door, spurs jingling. May Proctor turned and gave him a look. She still had her wig on, even though she was inside the house. “You know you don’t have to wear that thing inside, away from prying eyes, right?”

  She shrugged. “Used to it now.”

  “Whatever you’re cookin’ there sure smells good,” Denton said, stepping inside. He pulled up a stool and sat with a sigh. “I didn’t realize I was hungry till I came by here. You’ve got a talent, May Proctor.”

  “There’ll be plenty for everybody.”

  Denton nodded slowly. He twirled the ends of his mustache with the tips of his fingers. “Where’s your sisters at?”

  “Checking on the henhouse. I think you’re gonna lose a couple, sad to say.”

  “Rot’s a hell of a thing to get rid,” Denton said. “Guess we’ll be having chicken tomorrow.”

  “Most likely,” May said, turning back to the stew.

  Denton found her peculiar. April and June were easy to figure out. In many ways they were open books, especially April, since June was the smartest of the three. But May—she was virtually unreadable. He coul
d not get comfortable with her. In fact, whenever he was alone with her, she immediately put him on edge. And he was not a man who got put on edge easily, nor was he a man known for having a weak disposition. But May Proctor—who he knew was capable of great evils—rattled his cage for sure, and he was not afraid to admit that.

  If he could have gotten by with just having June at the ranch, he would have. But they came as a triple bill of horror, and there was no separating them from one another. They might as well have been joined at the hip. Denton had slept with all three, at one time or another. When he’d been with May, their union had never felt right. Lying next to her, he’d felt as though he were in bed with a bear that could wake any second and tear his throat out. He’d never felt that way before, and he broke things off at his earliest opportunity. May was not too fussed either way. The sisters did not mind sharing a sexual partner, which was another aspect of their bond that he found strange yet unsurprising, given they shared everything else under the sun. Besides, the sisters knew that Denton could never love them. He was incapable of loving anybody or anything. He did not have the capacity for love, only the capacity for desire. And when all was said and done, love and desire were not the same thing.

  “Listen, May, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The other night, when you three rode past the Hart place, you said the newcomer was there.”

  May turned back to him. The ladle dripped on the floor next to her feet. “Like we done told you already, Jack. We could see him, but he sure as hell couldn’t see us. Not for want of trying, though. He stood there a long time trying to make us out, but April and me were too far back in the shadows for that.”

  “It was too dark.”

  “That’s right.”

  Denton chewed it over. “And later, you spoke to Sally Greenacre in town? Did you follow Ethan into Amity Creek then?”

  “Early hours. Don’t fret. It was just me. Less suspicious that way. I know you don’t care for us going to town, so I thought this way, less questions would be asked. I told April and June to head back here and I went on ahead. I wanted to know where he was staying.”

  “You’re sure he went to the livery?”

  May grinned lopsided and showed her skewed teeth. “Sure as night follows day. That’s when I ran into that Greenacre woman. She kinda fell over herself to tell me she’d seen ‘the stranger’ comin’ and goin’ from the livery. Stupid old broad. Why? What you got planned?”

  Denton stood. “At this moment in time, that’s my concern. But soon as you need to know, I’ll let on. Don’t you worry about that.”

  “As you like. Keep your secrets,” May said, unfussed.

  “You’re sure he didn’t know he was being followed?”

  “Nobody knows when I’m on their tail,” May told him, “not until I’m on ’em with my knife, cutting ’em a new face.”

  “A wonderful image,” Denton said, and left. “Real civilized.”

  “Hey, shall I tell my sister where you’ll be if she comes by?” May called after him, but Denton ignored her and kept on walking.

  * * *

  * * *

  When he’d found Jack Denton, the man had been shot through the chest twice with arrows. They jutted out of him, the feather quills fluttering as his chest rose and fell from his ragged, labored breathing.

  Back then he had been Bertrand Woodward, born in Kansas to a farmer and his schoolteacher wife. Bertrand’s mother died early on, from a chest cold that never got any better. His daddy found salvation at the wrong end of a shotgun less than a year later, leaving Bertrand to fend for himself.

  He was twelve.

  By the age of seventeen, he was riding with a gang and had blood on his hands. When he found Jack Denton on the ground next to a horse that had been shot through the neck and killed, Bertrand knew he was at the end of his run. His gang had disbanded, each of them gone their own separate ways, and Bertrand knew he needed to go underground, hide himself away. There’d been too much blood. Too much rampaging and terrorizing for ten lifetimes. He’d had his fill and now it was time to either face up to what he’d had a hand in or try to run. The bounty on Bertrand’s head was getting bigger and bigger.

  Luckily, Denton looked just like him.

  It was an easy swap to make. He learned later that Denton had no wife, no offspring. No extended family. He had money, and he had resources. Bertrand did not know the whole story. Did not know how Denton had come to be so successful, how he’d ended up with so much in a world that sought only to take what you had away from you. There was only so much he could find out. Not that Bertrand much cared for the how and the why. The only thing that mattered was what was there: wealth and an identity to take. And there could be no mistaking Jack Denton was going to die. No doctor Bertrand had ever met could’ve saved Denton in that moment. The way he saw it, why waste the product of a man’s life just because he’s dead?

  “Help . . . ,” Denton gasped at the sight of Bertrand going through his things.

  “You’ll go a lot easier if you just lie there and be quiet,” Bertrand told him, not unkindly. After all, he’d seen a lot of men and women die. It seemed to him the more of a fuss they kicked up over what was inevitable, the harder it was when the time came. When death closed its icy hand over them and dragged them off, they did not go with grace, but kicking and screaming. That was wrong. Better to accept what was coming and let it take you.

  “Please . . .”

  “Look, mister. I can’t help you. You’re dying. Who was it? Commanche? Apache? Cherokee? I suppose it don’t matter. Whoever it was got you good, friend. Killed your horse, too.”

  Denton just looked at him, his face turning deathly pale. He did not speak further. He was listening. Listening to Bertrand speak. The last voice he’d ever hear.

  “Tell the truth, I’m surprised they left you intact. I’ve known ’em take the scalp. God knows what for.”

  Denton gasped. When he breathed in and out, there came a rattle from deep within.

  Here it comes, Bertrand thought. He squatted down next to the man so that he wouldn’t die alone. Least I can do if I’m going to steal his name and everything that comes with it.

  “Listen to me,” Bertrand said. “I’ll see it don’t all get squandered, all right?”

  Denton’s eyes widened. Bertrand did not look away. Not as the man in front of him sucked in his last breath. Not as his eyes locked in place, focused on some distant point only he could see. His chest did not rise or fall anymore; the arrows might as well have been stuck in wood.

  “Now, weren’t that easier?” Bertrand asked, shaking his head. He went through Denton’s saddlebag, leafing through the papers there. Satisfied with what he found, he looked at Denton lying there. Almost like he was looking straight at him, watching Bertrand pilfer his belongings. He leaned across, closed Denton’s eyes so he at least looked peaceful.

  Much better, he thought.

  Bertrand closed the saddlebag and checked Denton’s money. He had savings in several banks all over the West. Bertrand would enjoy walking in and making a withdrawal without having to draw his pistol for once. Heaven knew he’d done that enough times.

  It was so easy to take a man’s life and then adopt what was left of it. Especially when there wasn’t anyone around to remember who the individual had been in the first place. It dawned on him then that his life had just changed and for the better.

  He stood up and felt changed already. All the years of killing and robbing, all the bad he’d done, and he’d finally made it. Fate had brought him here to Jack Denton’s side as he lay dying. Fate had seen fit to bestow on him this chance at a new life, and Bertrand knew he’d be a fool not to take it.

  “Fare thee well, Bertrand Woodward,” he said, a thin smile spreading across his lips. “You had a good run.”

  Later, he bu
ried the real Jack Denton in the desert and Bertrand Woodward along with him.

  * * *

  * * *

  The papers dubbed the three women the Siren Sisters because they’d been leading men to remote locations with the promise of devilment, only to rob and murder them as soon as they saw fit to do so. Like the Sirens of the sea, they were beautiful yet deadly. It often amused Denton to think that someone could be so beautiful, so alluring, that they could kill you. Beauty that was truly a poisoned chalice. A Pandora’s box of desire a lot of men ended up regretting having opened.

  They were hard to tell apart until you’d known them a while and noticed their individual characteristics. Jack had been a partner to all three, at one point or another, but never all at once. He was not young, and he knew he was not desirable to women. Oh, he was wealthy and powerful, but not even that was enough to stir true feelings in April, May or June Proctor.

  What made them take him to bed was that he was a killer himself. They knew his kind. He’d killed, and he understood the excitement of it. The thrill of holding so much power in the palm of your hand. In one pull of the trigger, one slash of a knife blade across vulnerable, yielding flesh. The power of determining whether somebody lived or died. Feelings that might plague a man after the fact did not take away from what was felt in the moment. In those few seconds when a man knew how it felt to be a god. Nothing compared to taking a life, except for the act of making love. On that, he and the Proctor sisters were in agreement.

  He sat up in the bed following his latest entanglement, a cool breeze coming through the open window, the sweat drying on his chest. June Proctor lay in repose on her side with her back to him, one hand tucked under the pillow. Not asleep but satisfied.

  Though they were identical triplets, they were not created equal. May was the prettiest, her features the most delicate. April was the most willing to take a chance and do something completely reckless. But June . . . June was the coldest, the most ruthless. What attracted Jack to her the most was that cold heart of hers, that ball of ice in her chest. He appreciated it, and most of all he understood it.