by Tony Healey
“You know you’re my favorite Siren of the sea, don’t you?”
Without turning over to face him, June said, “I bet you said that exact same thing to my sisters, too, when they shared this bed.”
“No, I did not.” It was not a lie. May and April had never lain with him afterward, not like June. To her sisters, sex was a carnal act that, when finished, they’d been happy to walk away from. They’d had no desire to sleep next to him. But June was different. Perhaps the fact that she slept next to him after making love was a calculated move intended to lure him into a false sense of security. Get him to let his guard down. Denton did not rightly know. What he did know was that it felt good to have a woman in his bed at night, after all that time alone, though he would never have admitted as much to anyone.
June didn’t say anything. After a moment had passed, Jack shifted over to his side and scooped in behind her, his arm around her waist. His mouth was close to her ear, and he spoke softly, in a way he’d spoken to her before, in a way she liked. “I’m serious. Your sisters are pretty. They’ve got many qualities that a man can appreciate. But you are different, June.”
“How so?”
“Well, you three may be identical in many respects, but when it comes to intelligence and cunning, you got the lion’s share when they were parceled out. When I’m with you, I am complete, June Proctor. When I’m not with you, you’re all I’m thinkin’ about.”
June placed her hand on top of his. “Do you mean that, Jack?” she asked, a tenderness in her voice he’d not heard before.
“Of course I do,” he said, hearing the tenderness in his own voice and hardly believing it.
They lay in silence a while. Jack contemplated getting out of bed, heading downstairs and fixing himself a drink. Sleep was not coming his way anytime soon, he knew. But for the moment he was content to lie with June. Feel her breathe against him and wish that he were younger. Wish that the pair of them were better people so that they could make something between them. A child. A family. Have another shot at being a father after he’d failed so miserably with Bobby.
Would a woman like June even want to settle down? He was not sure. The Proctor sisters had always done their own thing, followed their own course. For now they’d thrown their lot in with his. But how long before something changed? Jack Denton decided to make the most of a good thing. Three sisters and he’d slept with all of them, and now he had his favorite of the three in bed with him, holding his hand, talking softly to him in the dark. This was a kingdom of his making and June could be his queen if she so desired.
“You know you’re the leader, don’t you?” Jack said.
“It just worked out that way.”
“Someone has to be alpha,” Jack told her, kissing the top of her shoulder. “Otherwise nothing would ever work. Gotta have wolves to keep the flock moving.”
“I like that analogy.”
“You’re welcome.”
June inhaled deeply, then sighed. “Do you think Hart’s sister will sell to you?”
“If she knows what’s good for her, she will,” Jack said. “In truth I had not known about her. If I had, I would’ve dispatched her first.”
Her hand tightened on his. “If you want, we can go out there tonight. Catch her in her sleep.”
“June, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
She was undeterred. “They all died in that house. She should die there, too. There’s a kind of poetry to it, don’t you think? That way the original plan still stands. The place gets put up for sale and you snap it up cheap.”
“June, it won’t be long before it’s all mine anyway. With Hart out of the way, there’s just the sister. And she won’t want to stick around here. Not with the kind of memories and feelin’s they conjure. A clean break is what’s needed, and I’ll be the man to offer her a means of achieving that.”
“It’d be so easy, Jack. I could go by myself.”
He removed his hand and lay on his back. “June, the answer’s no. Not yet.”
She turned over, looked at him. “She’ll be asleep. I’ll just slit her throat,” she said, tracing a fingertip slowly across his own throat to illustrate what she meant. “Have you ever seen them die that way, Jack? It’s so quick.”
“No.”
She looked disappointed. “Well, if that’s what you think . . .”
“It is. Old Sheriff Abernathy is a fool, and so is that dullard of a deputy he’s got. But the two of ’em must have their suspicions. I don’t want to rouse them any further.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I’ve got Mikhail going into town tonight. He’ll deal with the stranger holed up in Warren’s barn.”
“The one April and May spoke about,” June said.
“That’s it. I told Mikhail no guns. Just his hands.”
“Really? And you’re balking at me cutting that woman’s throat?” June shook her head. “Anyway, are you sure this can’t come back on you?”
“No one knows who he is or that he works here. It’s perfect.”
“If you say so.”
Denton snorted. “This dude’s getting involved where he’s not wanted. I don’t need him loitering about, disrupting things.”
“So in the morning, he’ll be dead.”
“That’s the general idea, yeah.”
“What about Myra Hart?”
“Same as it was with Glendon. Apply pressure to make the sale. Keep pushing at her until she has no choice but to give in.”
“And if she doesn’t budge like her brother?” June demanded. “That dragged out so long, and we ended up killing them in the end anyway. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, Jack, because I did. A night like that is as nice as Christmas.”
A part of Jack Denton felt repulsed by June Proctor’s words. He thought of the Hart children and how they’d been dispatched and his thoughts turned to Celia Hart, killed protecting them. But their deaths were not the worst of his sins, and their ghosts would only join the many who followed him wherever he went already. He had committed deplorable acts before he’d become Jack Denton, wealthy cattle rancher. He understood the joy of killing, and despite himself, he felt excitement wash through him in the wake of the repulsion. Back in the day, that would have been him walking in and shooting Glendon. That would have been him going upstairs to silence the wife and children. It was so easy, if only you had the courage to follow it through. That was something he’d never had trouble with.
“Jack, come on. It’s gonna end up there anyway. Her holding out. Us killing her. You buying it all and owning it anyway. The story writes itself.”
“You don’t know. She may yet accept my offer,” Jack said.
“Maybe,” June said, now running her fingernail slowly down his chest, as if she were gradually peeling him open. “And we’ll get our part of things, right?”
“I told you already.”
“I know, but I like hearing it.”
Jack sighed. “You’ll have land of your own. With a house and whatever else you need.”
“You promise?”
“I already did, didn’t I?”
“Promise again.”
He rolled his eyes. “Damn it, June. You don’t trust men much, do you?”
“In my experience, men aren’t to be trusted,” June told him, her voice flat. She sat up now. “You told me if we helped you out with a few things, you’d give us land and help us make something of it.”
“And have I reneged on that promise? Damn, girl, you don’t have much faith in me, do you?” Jack demanded.
June reached up to place her hand over his heart. Her fingers became claws, and she dug them into his left breast, building pressure. Soon she had a fist of his flesh, and her grip tightened. Jack looked into the mystical abyss of her cold, dark eyes. It hurt so bad, but he couldn’t w
ill himself to make her stop. Because the hurting was good somehow—good in a way he could never describe or make sense of.
June snarled at him like a wild animal, her beauty gone and what was within on show for all the world to see. “Go back on it, and I’ll tear your damn heart out, Jack. I’ll reach into your chest, pull it free and hold it up for you to watch it stop ticking.”
Jack winced but did not attempt to get free. “If I were younger, June Proctor, I would marry you and you’d have my heart anyway.”
She was unmoved by this. “Swear on it.”
“I swear. Whatever I promised you and your sisters, you’re gonna get. When I get mine, you’ll all get yours. That’s the deal. I done some terrible wicked things in my life, but I ain’t ever gone back on what I said I was gonna do. Now let go before I have to knock you on your ass, girl.”
Her hand relaxed, and she leaned up to kiss him. Her lips met his, and Jack Denton felt the gust through the open window once more, the cold and lonesome breeze making his skin prickle. He forgot all about getting out of bed to fix a drink. When he gifted the Siren Sisters their bit of land, he would at least have them close by. Perhaps that was as good as being married to one of them and perhaps it was as good as settling down.“Lay down and sleep now. Big day tomorrow,” June said, turning back over.
Denton remained on his back, feeling his chest burn from where she’d grabbed him, listening to the sigh of the house in the night breeze. Thinking of the Hart family, all in their matching caskets. All going into the ground at the same time. There was a symmetry to it that was almost poetic.
He wondered if, this late in the game, he was developing something akin to a conscience but knew he must have been mistaken. Bertrand Woodward was turning in his grave at the very notion, and Jack Denton, the man he had become, was no different.
CHAPTER NINE
Mikhail pulled up short of Amity Creek and hitched his horse to a thin stand of trees by the side of the road, out of sight of anyone casually riding by. It was completely dark out, save for the pale light of the stars and the silver aura of the moon. Mikhail cautiously walked back to the road to survey the town. Very few lights burned in the buildings, so the structures themselves were barely visible in the darkness. Most of the townsfolk would be sound asleep in their beds, not suspecting such a man would be out on the road at midnight. How long had it been since he’d done something like this? Too long, really.
Of course there was the affair at the Hart place, but that hadn’t required much of him. He’d simply had to batter down the door, then stand by as the whole family was slaughtered. He hadn’t minded too much—Mikhail had not been put off by the noise. Everybody made a racket when they knew they were going to die.
Glendon Hart had pleaded for mercy that did not come. Celia Hart had screamed and tried to protect her children from something she could not protect them from, shielding them with her body and merely delaying the inevitable. Matthew and Maria Hart hadn’t known what was happening until they’d been shot, their frightened cries suddenly silenced.
Within seconds, the house had gone from a tumult of confused terror to no sound at all. Silence, dead in every respect. All of it over and done with in moments. The gunshots, the screams, the low laughter of the Proctor girls—none of it had caused Mikhail to so much as flinch. But the giddiness of the sisters after the fact had confused him. When he killed, he experienced a void of emotion. Nothing during the act nor in the wake of it. He’d once broken a man’s fingers, one by one, feeling the emotions drain out of him like water with each snap. As if the very essence of pain and suffering made him all the colder.
Mikhail assessed the location of the livery stable and figured out a path to follow that would avoid him crossing paths with anyone. Although the town seemed dead to the world, he knew it was best to err on the side of caution. He began making his way, bent low but moving fast, using whatever he came across for cover. Knowing that whatever scant light there was from the town could not illuminate his position gave Mikhail confidence to move more freely. Within ten minutes, the livery barn was in sight and he was close enough to hear the two men inside.
* * *
* * *
The hooch tasted the same coming back up as it had going down, a testament to its quality. Warren stood with his hands on his knees, doubled over, riding the wave of his subsiding stomach cramps. He’d drunk too much, too quickly. Everything he’d eaten that day had come shooting back up. Now his mouth burned with acid.
Ethan fetched him water. “There you go.”
“Much obliged,” Warren said. He sipped the water and winced. “Damn hooch.”
“It’s probably not too bad in moderation,” Ethan said. “But the way you were chugging it back there, it’s no surprise it shot back up.”
“I noticed you weren’t drinking too much of it,” Warren noted, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Ethan chuckled to himself. “Well, it’s a pretty awful brew.”
“How can you tell?”
“I’d say the foul taste clues you in some.”
Warren waved his hand in Ethan’s direction as he staggered across the barn to a chair on the other side. “Last time I play you at cards.”
“You did insist on drinking every time you lost a hand.”
“My biggest mistake.”
“Listen, it’s the funeral today. I want to get some shut-eye so I can be up and ready for it. You know, pay my respects.” Ethan stood, stretching.
Warren eyed him with suspicion. “You’re going to the funeral?”
“I thought I would, yeah.”
“Why? Did you know them?”
“No, but I’ve got to know Myra Hart a bit since collecting her from the station. Besides, you don’t have to know somebody to pay your respects. Are you going?”
Warren shook his head. “Not for me. I ain’t been nowhere near a graveyard since I was a kid. Probably won’t again until I’m the one in a box getting lowered into the ground.”
“That’s pretty morbid. Any particular reason you’re not inclined?”
“Yes, but it ain’t one I wish to share.”
Ethan smiled. The blacksmith seemed to find his nerve when he had something to drink.
“Well, I’d better turn in,” Ethan said. “It’s past midnight as it is.” On cue, somewhere in the town a stray dog howled, the mournful sound followed by a similar howl farther away. He climbed the ladder to the upper floor of the barn.
Warren said, “G’night,” extinguished the lamp down there on a crate and sauntered off, mumbling something to himself under his breath. The blacksmith was more than three sheets to the wind—he would have a sore head the following day.
Ethan reminded himself to pour the rest of the hooch away in the morning so Warren couldn’t get at any more of it. The blacksmith liked his liquor; that much was evident.
It’ll be the undoing of him, Ethan thought. The booze had a way of pickling a man, and oftentimes the damage could not be reversed. He’d seen it happen again and again. Men—and women—who had nothing better to do. Who used the booze to lessen their doubts, their fears, their sadness. Used it to become comfortably numb to the world around them. He didn’t want that fate for Warren, but could see it happening.
Ethan could have followed that path if he’d allowed himself. Even thinking of the past made him feel like he’d been sucker punched in the gut. Sometimes the easier path presented itself to him, and he was tempted to take it. But he’d vowed to ride until the deed was done, and that was what he’d do, come hell or high water. The easier path could wait.
Ethan lay back on his bedroll, sighing with relief at finally resting properly. He thought about the funeral later that day, the coffins all going into the ground at the same time. A whole family wiped out of existence in one fell swoop. He turned his lamp down low, got comfortable on the bedroll and felt slee
p wash over him, warm and soft. He fell into it, snoring quietly within minutes—
—only to wake at the sound of movement down below in the barn.
Ethan opened his eyes and lay there listening. The barn door was still open a shade. Sometimes a cat wandered in to inspect the place. One time he’d watched a fox stroll through, check the place out, then leave as silently as it had entered. It was pitch-black down there tonight; Warren had snuffed out the lamp. Ethan could hear only his own breathing and, somewhere far off in the distance, another dog howl.
Losing your mind, he told himself. Go back to sleep.
Perhaps he’d simply imagined it.
But then he heard another noise, and there could be no doubt that someone or something else was in the barn with him. The horses in their pens stamped their feet and snorted, confirming his suspicions. Ethan rolled over to peer past the edge of the loft into the inky black below. The silhouette of a man stood at the foot of the ladder, a gigantic specimen of at least seven feet with a head that resembled an anvil. Even in the darkness, Ethan saw the knotted muscles along the man’s shoulders and the thickness of his neck. As his sight adjusted to the dark, he could make out the man’s primitive, blocky features. The small eyes, the bulbous ruin of a nose, the huge chin. He looked like a man who had been sculpted from crude material and left unfinished.
“I see you,” the man said in a thick Russian accent.
Ethan glanced at his gun belt strewn across his belongings. He looked back down at the man. “I see you, too.”
“Are you going to come down? We have business to discuss.”
“Do we?”
The Russian nodded. “We do.”
“How’s that, friend?”
“Come down and I will explain.”
Ethan moved back out of sight. With one swift movement, he extinguished the flame from the gas lamp. He took the gun belt and removed one of the pistols, then returned to the edge. Aiming the pistol at the Russian, he said, “Now, how you about explain right now before I blow your brains out with this pistol? You can start by telling me who sent you here.”
