by Tony Healey
Soon the noise inside the saloon returned to a steady hum. But Abernathy and Mitchell weren’t going anywhere. They looked at Ethan expectantly.
“Let’s take this outside,” the sheriff said. The other men followed him out to the saloon porch. A couple of mules were hitched to the post at the end. Abernathy leaned back against the railing. “So care to tell us what that was?”
Ethan hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Man can’t hold his drink, is all that was.”
“He was standing up for me,” Myra said, emerging from the saloon. The three men turned to look at her. “Denton was rude to me at the bar and . . . I think Ethan was letting him know I’m not alone here. Weren’t you?”
Abernathy looked from Myra to Ethan. “That how it was?”
“Sure is,” Ethan said.
Mitchell stepped in. “Miss Hart, what exactly did Denton say to you?”
Myra wiped at her eyes. “Nothing I would repeat, Deputy.”
“I have stood many a thing from that man, but I will not stand his acting improper to a lady,” Abernathy growled. “That why you got in his way, Ethan?”
“Yes,” Ethan said.
Mitchell spit on the deck. “I’ve said it before, sir. He’s bad through and through, that one.”
“Quit it, Boyd. I have enough to think on without your words scrambling what’s left of my faculties,” Abernathy said. He turned to Myra, placing his hand on her upper arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, Sheriff, thank you.”
From down at the end of the street, they heard the heavy beat of hooves, and seconds later, Denton hove into view atop his gray stallion. He tore past them at reckless speed, low in his saddle, his steed kicking up a trail of dust in its wake.
“Look at that. Damn fool . . . ,” Abernathy grumbled. “Complete disregard for everybody.”
They watched him go, soon reduced to a black shape on the horizon.
Mitchell clamped his hand on Abernathy’s shoulder. “Come on, boss. Let’s have a drink.”
“I think I need one,” the old man said, following his deputy into the saloon.
Ethan remained on the porch while the two men disappeared inside. Myra looked at him, her face quizzical. “Are you not joining us?”
“I was hoping you’d agree to something, Myra.”
“Oh?”
“Ride with me.”
She looked at him quizzically. “Ride with you? All due respect, Ethan, I just buried my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephew and my niece. I’m not really in the mood for a ride right now.”
“I know that, believe me. And I know how it feels. Believe me on that, too. But I want you to see something.”
“What is it?”
“Ride with me and you’ll see,” Ethan said.
Myra hesitated. “Only if you answer something for me.”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you come?”
“What d’you mean?”
“The funeral. The service and everything . . . why did you attend?” Myra asked.
Without hesitation Ethan said, “I came for you.”
“Why?”
“What happened with Denton back there was inevitable. I guess I wanted you to know you weren’t alone.”
“Maybe so. But you two definitely have history. Not that I think he knows it yet.”
“He will do soon enough,” Ethan said with a shrug. They looked at each other; then Ethan offered his hand. “So you coming or what?”
* * *
* * *
It felt good to ride away from everything. It was not the first time she’d associated the way she felt with the act of escaping. Her hands around Ethan’s waist, they charged out of town on his horse, Ruby. Myra was no stranger to riding herself, but she’d rarely experienced it as a passenger. Feeling the horse move beneath her, feeling Ethan’s body beneath her hands, the wind whipping back her hair. It was exhilarating. The most alive she’d felt in a long time.
“Ruby’s been cooped up a few days,” Ethan yelled into the wind. “Needed to stretch her legs.”
“She’s doing a mighty fine job of it.”
Leaving the funeral, the wake, all the mourners behind was the most freeing part of the ride, however. Allowing herself to think of nothing but the moment. Watching the pastureland slide past under a full sun, dappled light through the canopies of trees as they blew through beneath them. Not thinking about family members in caskets. A house of pain that had been left covered in blood for her to deal with. A cattle rancher who, it seemed, would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. None of that. Ruby trotted through a shallow stream, the cacophony of her hooves against the small rounded stones under the water almost musical to the ear. Presently, Ethan directed her toward a cutting to their right. The horse slowed a little, broke right and then thundered up an embankment into a thicket of trees. Their lower branches were barely above head height, but neither Ethan nor Myra was in danger of dinging their heads as Ruby ferried them through to a clearing on the other side. Ethan snapped the reins, spurring the horse up another embankment, more of a hill this time, steep enough that they had to tackle it in zigzags to allow Ruby to keep her footing.
When they reached the very top, Ethan brought Ruby to a standstill and climbed down. He assisted Myra out of the saddle, then led Ruby to a half-dead tree trunk, the bark turned ash gray. He looped her reins around the jagged upper half, then removed a set of field glasses from the saddlebag at the horse’s side.
“This way,” Ethan said, leading Myra across the top of the hill. There were some bushes and trees, but it was mostly clear. “I have to ask you something.”
“What would that be?” Myra said, falling in step with him.
“What did Denton say to you back at the saloon? What couldn’t you say to the sheriff and Deputy Mitchell?”
Myra studied the ground she was walking on, her mind reeling. She hadn’t told the full story to the sheriff and his deputy because as much as she wanted justice, Myra couldn’t decide what kind of justice she wanted. Did she thirst for the kind of retribution meted out with a gun or a rope?
A bitter part of herself knew the answer. Had known it all along. But then why not just tell the sheriff and have him deal with it? Because deep down, Myra knew she wanted to have a direct hand in that justice herself. At least then she would feel as if she had put her brother and his family to rest. She would feel as if she had honored their memory.
“Myra?” Ethan urged her. “You evaded the question back there at the saloon. The other two might not have seen it, but I did. What was it? You can tell me. You can trust me.”
Myra swallowed. “He confessed to killing them. Or having them killed,” she said, feeling flustered. “I’m not sure which, though the distinction between the two hardly matters.”
Ethan stopped walking. “I’m sorry that he did that.”
“It’s not the first time a man has said something unsavory to me. I doubt it’ll be the last.”
She went to walk on ahead but Ethan caught her wrist. Not hard—just enough to make her stop. “Hey . . . what else? Did he threaten you?”
“Yes.”
His expression remained unchanged, but Myra noted a shift in the intensity of his gaze. As if something within the man had been set ablaze and she could see the heat of that fire in his eyes. His hand remained on her wrist, and Myra was not resisting, not feeling any urge or instinct to break away from him. In fact, she had no desire to shrink from his touch at all. Ethan felt safe to her.
“What did he say?” he demanded.
Myra tried to remember the exact wording, but it was muddled in her mind. When something happens in the space of seconds, on reflection those seconds seem like a lifetime. But there was no detail. Just Denton’s breath on her ear as he whispered. “He said I’d follow them into the ground if I resis
ted him the way my brother did.”
Ethan’s eyes hardened. He let go of her wrist. “That son of a bitch,” he growled.
Ethan exhaled all the way out, then drew in a deep breath. Almost cleansing himself of his rage so that it didn’t run amok. It seemed to settle him and dispel any residual anger. “Come on,” he said.
They continued on until he told Myra to hunker down on the grass, and proceeded to do the same next to her. Lying on his belly, he used the field glasses to see something far below. When he’d studied it for a moment, he passed the field glasses to Myra. “Eleven o’clock. Just beyond a line of trees.”
Myra followed Ethan’s directions. A way farther on, situated directly behind a line of trees, sat a ranch with several buildings, smoke pouring from the chimneys of two of them. There were people milling about, though they were so small from this distance Myra couldn’t see them in definition. “Whose place is that?”
“Denton’s.”
Myra lowered the field glasses. “Really?”
“This is the only spot for miles where you can get a clear view of his place.”
“You’ve been up here before?”
Ethan said, “Yes, ma’am, you bet. Before I rode into town, I was up here watchin’ the comings and goings down there. Seeing what was what.”
“They can’t see us?”
Ethan shook his head. “No,” he said, accepting the field glasses back from her. He studied Denton’s place again. “You know, it surprises me. His ranch is huge. He has all that land. I’m not knocking back your brother’s success, not one bit. But it’s a postage stamp in comparison to this place.” He lowered the field glasses once more and looked at her. “Why would he be so desperate to acquire it?”
“Greed, I suppose,” Myra said. “I’m not sure I want to understand the motivations of a murderer, Ethan. Murderers do what they do because they see no wrong in it.”
“In my experience, they do see the wrong in what they do, Myra. The trouble is, they don’t feel it,” he said, patting his chest. “Saying a thing is so, but not feeling it, well, now, that’s nothin’ but acting like a wolf in sheepskin. We all know what happens when something like that mingles with the flock.”
“Yes, we do.”
Ethan got to his feet and helped Myra stand. “Sorry for getting you to lay in the dirt with me.”
Myra brushed herself off. “Well, as far as propositions go, it’s not the worst I’ve heard.”
It took a second for Ethan to realize the joke. When he did, he had to stifle his laughter, lest it give away their position to anyone passing below. He offered Myra his arm for the walk back to Ruby.
“I noticed the bruising to your face,” Myra said. “Did something happen last night you haven’t mentioned yet?”
“Oh, just a tussle with a Russian fella. Nothing to lose sleep over.”
“Tussle. You mean, you fought with a man?”
Ethan patted her arm. “Like I said, ain’t nothing to worry yourself over. We believe the man works for Denton. No doubt he was sent to kill me, to stop me from doing whatever the hell it is they think I’m doing.”
“We?”
“The deputy and me. Deputy Mitchell saved my bacon last night, would you believe it? Came in the blacksmith’s barn at just the right time. I was about to get my skull crushed.”
Myra held the back of her hand to her mouth. “That’s awful. Who is he, then?”
“No idea yet.”
Myra asked, “Do you think word has gotten around that you helped me out at my brother’s place?”
“Likely. Anyway, my time staying in town is over. I spent last night at the sheriff’s office.”
Myra gasped. “In a cell?”
“No, no, no,” Ethan said with a chuckle. “On a cot they got there. Like I said, I’d have been dead for sure if the deputy hadn’t turned up out the blue and given me a hand.”
“So this Russian, he’s in custody?”
“No, he got away.”
Myra shook her head. “What are they going to do about it?”
“Nothing they can do, except ride out to Denton’s place and confirm the Russian is in his employ. But that ain’t gonna happen. So we just have to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Ethan unhooked Ruby and steadied her, stroking the side of her muscular neck. “Wait for Denton to make his move. Now that he’s revealed himself to you, it won’t be long. You realize that, don’t you?”
“It’s occurred to me, yes,” Myra told him. Ethan hoisted himself up into the saddle, then reached down to help Myra up, hanging by the horn with his other hand. Myra hooked her boot into the stirrup and swung into position behind him. She wrapped her arms around him.
“You got me?”
“I got you.”
“Don’t squeeze too hard. I’m pretty tender after my beatin’ last night,” he said with a chuckle. Ethan clucked his tongue and assisted Ruby in navigating her way downhill, slipping only a little in one place where the ground had turned to mud. They rejoined the road and Ethan half-turned to direct his question to Myra. “Back to town?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you can do whatever you want to,” he said. “You can go back to town, or I can take you home. Whatever you like.”
Myra thought about the people back at the saloon she’d have to face if she returned. “I think I’d like to go home.”
“Home it is, then.”
“I’m really going to have to buy a horse since Glendon’s were taken,” Myra said. “I can’t rely on you to keep taking me places.”
“I really don’t mind,” Ethan assured her.
Behind him, out of sight, Myra smiled to herself. “Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“Will you tell me what happened between you and Jack Denton?”
Ethan was silent a moment. He gave the reins a light snap, and Ruby broke into a trot to get them going. Then he said, “When we get to the house, I’ll tell you if that’s what you want to hear.”
“Is it bad?”
“My story? I suppose it is, yes,” Ethan admitted. “It won’t be easy to hear—let’s put it that way. No easier than it’ll be for me to tell it. But I will, because you asked and because I think you should know.”
“Have you ever told anyone?”
“You will be the first,” Ethan said, and did not speak another word until they reached the house.
* * *
* * *
Ethan stowed Ruby away in the barn and joined Myra in the house, where she made coffee for them both. He watched as she poured a shot of whiskey into each steaming-hot cup, too, for extra kick.
Ethan looked down at himself. “I feel overdressed for talking about my past.”
“I’m glad you came to the service,” Myra said, sitting opposite him. “You know, it’s funny. Even though I’ve only just met you, I feel like we’ve known each other for years.”
Ethan said, “I’m not sure how to respond to that.”
“Me neither.”
“Grief does have a way of binding people, though,” Ethan said.
“Do you still grieve for your loved ones, Ethan?” Myra asked him. “Do you think of them?”
He looked at the tendrils of steam rising from the coffee. “Every day.”
“Will you tell me?”
Ethan looked up at her. Then he began speaking, and the past unraveled like a tightly rolled tapestry that had been stowed away for too long. When he was done, the silence between them became palpable. The two of them had to go outside, breathe in the fresh air.
“So he’s an even worse man than everyone thinks he is,” Myra said.
“And this is why it’s taken me so damned long to track him down. But I knew I would eventually. I just had to keep going, keep searching,”
Ethan said. “And now I’m at the end of it all. The third and final mark.”
Looking out at the horizon, Myra said, “What do you plan on doing?”
“I’ll tell you. I’m gonna do for Jack Denton like he did for them. Like he did for all of them,” Ethan said. “Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say. Well, mine is gonna be the coldest yet, and I’ve waited a long time to serve it up.”
Myra’s grip on the porch rail tightened, her knuckles turning white. “I want to help you.”
Ethan lit a cigarillo and drew on it. He exhaled through his nose, blowing streamers of white smoke from his nostrils. He looked at her, drew on the cigarillo again, the end glowing red and hot. And it passed between them, unspoken. An understanding, an agreement.
PART TWO
BEST SERVED COLD
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EIGHTEEN YEARS BEFORE
A storm blew for three days and three nights, depositing fifteen inches of snow on the Nebraska prairie and transforming huge swaths of land into endless seas of immovable white. When Edward and Alice Harper laid claim to their own part of Nebraska, alongside so many others doing the exact same thing, they found the prairie virginal, much to their surprise and relief. The indigenous peoples had only ever taken what they needed, leaving nature to thrive. The soil was soft and untarnished by previous farming techniques. Edward Harper was used to plowing fields filled with rocks and clay. Not here. His plow moved through the soil like a fork through butter.
His house had been built with the help of some other settlers who’d arrived at the same time. It was a solid affair, capable of withstanding even the three-day storm that had battered their land, smothering it in a freezing white blanket that they struggled to work around. Before it had been built, Alice gave birth to George, and not long after the house was finally finished, she bore Ethan into the world, all nine pounds of him.
On their last night together as a family, the snow fell in drifts from the dark sky. Ethan’s father peered through the window at the three horsemen positioned before the house. The rider at the front held a lantern aloft, casting them in flickering pale light. Their features were hard to define in the murky darkness and swirling snow, but they looked sinister.
