by Tony Healey
“You sound sure of yourself,” April said.
“Because I am.”
“This could end up bad for us, June. You ever consider that? Ever give thought to us gettin’ a less-than-favorable outcome from all this?”
“No, because if Jack goes back on anything he says, we’ll take what we’re owed anyway. We can’t lose here,” she said. “Now clean your ax and get this blood up somehow.”
“How am I meant to do that?”
June walked past her into the house. “How about you use your initiative instead of just relyin’ on mine—you know, prove you ain’t dumb as you look?”
“In case you ain’t noticed, we’re identical!” April lifted the ax and threw it.
It slammed into the timbers to June’s left, embedding itself. It had missed her by inches. She whirled back around.
“You might wanna rethink calling me dumb,” April said.
June smirked. She looked at where the ax had struck and pouted. “Maybe you wanna work on your aim,” she said, and went inside.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Counting out her money, Bobby Denton felt Rosa’s hands slide around his waist. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, and she’d scooped in from behind, legs on either side of him, her hot breath on his ear.
“You know you’re my favorite customer, don’t you?” she purred.
Bobby wished he could’ve stayed there all night and then some. But while he’d given his father the slip earlier that day after a spell in the clink, he knew he had to return to the ranch and face the music.
He wasn’t sure how much his father knew of his visits to the bordello at the dusted outskirts of town, in particular his repeat custom with Rosa, the prettiest working girl in the place. Right now he had his shirt and pants back on and sat there with her money in his hands, eyes closed as she pressed herself against him, her hands under his shirt. It would have been so easy to get back out of his clothes and lie down with her.
Secretly, Bobby harbored a dream of cutting loose with Rosa. Heading off somewhere together and remaking themselves. But the notion felt foolish to him, and he didn’t dare entertain it, because he knew it for what it was: a fantasy. “I gotta go,” he said reluctantly.
“Don’t leave,” Rosa entreated.
“I can’t stay,” Bobby told her, pushing the money into her hands. She took it and lay back on the bed. He stood and turned around, stuffing his shirt into his pants. Rosa positioned herself on her side, propped up on one elbow, looking at him with want and need in her eyes. At least that was his reading of her expression. Bobby saw hunger and wondered if it in any way matched his own.
She patted the empty half of the bed. “Come on. . . .”
“I have to get back,” he said dejectedly.
Rosa pouted. “Next time, stay for the night, okay?”
“Okay,” Bobby said, brightening at the thought of spending an entire night with Rosa. “I’d like that.”
“It won’t cost you too much extra,” Rosa said.
Bobby pulled up his suspenders and slipped on his jacket and hat. Next came the boots. He stamped his feet into them until they were snug. “I miss seeing you, you know, when I can’t get here as often as I’d like,” he told her.
“Me, too, baby,” Rosa said, counting her money.
Bobby Denton’s spirits sank at the sight of her with the money she’d earned from sleeping with him. Dirty money for a dirty deed . . . but a deed done well, nonetheless. His empty pockets were testament to that.
Bobby was besotted with her and at the same time wary of giving her too much of himself. Everything between them was a transaction, and despite his fantasy of running away with her, Bobby knew that was all it would ever be. “I’m off, then,” he said.
Rosa got up, kissed him on the lips. “Next time,” she said.
“I’ll hold you to it.”
Bobby trotted down the bordello steps to the accompaniment of the sounds of patrons making love with the other working girls. Grunts and groans coupled with sighs and moans of pleasure and bed frames slamming against walls in a common primal rhythm. Bobby wondered how much the noise he and Rosa made carried through to the rest of the building, and hardly cared. It was what places like this were meant for.
The night air stirred and he felt a distinct chill work its way inside his jacket. Bobby unhitched his horse from out back, where it was out of sight from the main road. He climbed up into the saddle and turned the horse toward the road. A glance up at Rosa’s window, and sure enough, there she was, watching him leave.
She blew him a kiss.
Bobby raised a hand, and against all instincts to stay and give in to his desires, he spurred his horse on and headed for home.
* * *
* * *
Jack Denton looked into the fire. It was already dark, the edge of the horizon a dull green color as the last embers of the sun died beneath the lip of the world. He was not in the best of spirits and had taken himself outside to be alone with his thoughts. The fire crackled and the burning wood popped as the heat consumed it.
He was angry that the girls had seen fit to kill Sheriff Abernathy. He hadn’t minded the old man too much—his time was pretty much at an end anyway. His deputy, on the other hand, would prove to be a problem if he got promoted to sheriff. But there were ways to ensure that did not happen. The fire that had consumed Abernathy’s body still raged behind the orchard, in the fallow field where Mikhail and Randy had set it going. Reducing the old man’s bones to charred sticks by the time it was through. June, in particular, was the focus of Denton’s ire. She hadn’t asked his permission or so much as run it past him. She’d just killed the sheriff and burned his body with no thought to the consequences. And there could be no doubt that there would be consequences if the sheriff did not return to town.
June appeared on the other side of the fire, dressed for her night’s work. “We’re about ready.”
“Good.”
June sighed. “Look, we did what we did to protect you, Jack,” she said. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“Spare me,” Denton said. “Ain’t it about time you and your sisters rode into town?”
“Are you gonna come see us off?”
Denton looked up at her, the fire in his eyes. “I don’t think you want me anywhere near you right now,” he said. “Best make sure you take care of that Ethan character tonight. Because of your impulsive actions, we have to wrap things up. It’s not how I wanted it done. But here we are, eh? Here we are.”
June scowled. “Was it not you who had us go and kill that family, Jack? Don’t lecture me about being impulsive.”
He glared at her. “Get going.”
June walked away, merging with the darkness as she fell under the shadow of the house. Moments later, Denton heard their three horses make a start, hooves thundering away from the ranch at speed. It wouldn’t take them long at all. No way could Ethan get the better of the three of them.
After discovering that the girls had killed Abernathy, Denton had ordered Randy to release the sheriff’s horse into the open range beyond the ranch. Just let it go, liberated of its saddle and tack. “And do the same with Glendon Hart’s horses from the barn.”
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t,” Denton barked. “Just do it.”
May had told him how she’d found Abernathy in the barn, poking his nose where it wasn’t wanted. Denton knew straightaway that he’d have been in there identifying the horses that were taken from the Hart place. It had been a mistake for the sisters to steal them. He’d said that at the time, but they hadn’t listened. Now he’d had to cut the horses loose, too.
But what he hadn’t admitted to June was that he knew she’d been left no choice but to kill the man. Once he’d discovered Glendon Hart’s horses, the game was up. He was dead before
June ever got him with the ax.
Denton went back inside the house now that the sisters were gone. On the kitchen table, the sheriff’s scored and scuffed star caught the lamplight. Denton picked it up, turned it over in his hands before slipping it into his pocket. He’d see to it the deputy never got to wear it. Who knew? He just might take to wearing it himself. . . .
* * *
* * *
Boyd Mitchell stood by the window watching the street. No sign of Henry’s horse. No word from him. No note left at the office. He paced back and forth, trying to figure out what to do.
Last thing Henry had said was that he was heading to the Denton ranch to look around. Mitchell was conscious of his responsibility. He knew he should head out there, see what was up. But if something had happened to Henry, who was to say it wouldn’t happen to him, too? Then where would that leave the people of Amity Creek?
But he couldn’t just let it rest. What if Abernathy had had an accident of some kind and was in need of assistance? Waiting around here could mean the difference between the sheriff making it or perishing out there in the dark.
Mitchell clicked his fingers as he paced, considering his options. Of all the actions he could take, simply waiting to see what happened seemed the most wrong of them all. But he was outmatched, outgunned. And potentially walking into a dangerous situation.
But I can’t just sit here, he told himself, already decided on a course of action. He grabbed his jacket off the peg, then pushed his hat down on his head.
* * *
* * *
Bobby heard approaching horses and immediately tensed in his saddle. The Proctor sisters tore past him, jeering at him as they did, the noise sending his own horse into a frenzy. It reared up, making a racket, batting at the air with its forelegs before he calmed the animal and got it to settle again. Bobby looked back toward town, where they were headed, then spurred his horse onward. They had a while to go yet, and he had to decide what he was going to tell his father about his disappearance earlier. He could just imagine the course their conversation would take. Best to do it while those three witches weren’t around, listening in and passing judgment.
Where did you go? his pop would ask.
The bordello, he’d say.
And at that point in their conversation, he’d receive the first of many fists to the face. His father had a fiery temper and sometimes acted in a way that he appeared to regret afterward. But it was hard to tell sometimes if such regret was genuine. Jack Denton was a hard man to read. He might have just been pained that his son was inconveniencing him somehow.
Bobby didn’t want to talk about Rosa. Not to his old man. He had to come up with something else. Something that didn’t make mention of the bordello or Rosa. And he had until he reached the front entrance of his father’s ranch to think of it.
At first he couldn’t tell what the light was that lay ahead of him. Then, as he rode closer, he saw that it was a woman holding a lantern away from her body so as to illuminate herself fully to whoever happened to be approaching. As Bobby got even closer, he realized the woman was wearing a covering over the lower portion of her face to mask her identity. It dawned on him—too late by then—that he was about to be held up.
She was in the middle of the road, the lantern in one hand, a long-barreled pistol in the other.
Bobby pulled up in front of her. “If you’re after money, I just spent all mine. I’m not even kidding.”
The woman aimed her pistol at him. “Get down off the horse.”
“What for? I just told you I ain’t got nothing on me.”
“Get down or I’ll shoot you and drag you down.”
Bobby said, “To hell with you, lady,” and brought the horse around to head back the way he’d come. But from the stand of trees next to the road, a man with a similar face covering emerged, a shiny pistol in each hand.
“Going somewhere?”
Bobby stopped in his tracks. His horse was breathing hard from the ride and he could feel the heat rising from its flank. “Damn it,” he said. “I swear I don’t have a dime.”
The man gestured with his guns. “Get down. Leave any weapons on the ground.”
“This is pointless. I don’t have anything on me. No money, no gun.”
“Lead your horse into the trees.”
“What’re you going to do?” Bobby asked as he climbed down.
“Lead your horse into the trees,” the man repeated.
Bobby took his horse by the reins. “Okay, okay.” He considered running away, using the cover of the trees to mask his escape. But he knew he’d get caught. Or land a bullet in the back. It’d be just his luck to run, trip on something and break his ankle.
When he’d hitched his horse to a birch and walked back out onto the road, the woman tossed something floppy and beige at him. A potato sack.
“What the hell is this for?”
“Put it on your head,” the woman said.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
She just stared at him.
Bobby sagged. He looked at the sack in his hands. “Really?”
The man smacked the back of Bobby’s head, open handed. “Hey, listen to her! Do it, or I’ll knock you out cold and do it myself.”
“Okay,” Bobby said, slipping the sack over his head. The woman took his hands in hers, brought them together, then bound them with thin rope so tight, the rope bit into his skin. “Hey, does it have to be so tight?”
Another open-handed smack. Bobby recoiled.
“Stop complaining,” the man told him. “You could be dead. Now walk.”
“Where to?”
“Never mind that. Just work those legs of yours and we’ll do the rest. Slack off or try to run, I hit you. Do something worse than that, well, I use my gun. I’m sure you don’t want that, do you?”
“No,” Bobby said. He thought of Rosa. Should’ve stayed in that bed, he told himself. The bordello suddenly seemed a million miles away.
A gun jabbed him in his lower back.
“Move!” the man growled.
* * *
* * *
They reached the top of the hill. Ethan had built a small fire. It was so far from the ranch that there was no danger of anyone there spotting it. They were enclosed by trees, too, shielding any illumination conjured by the firelight, not forgetting the noises a man might make when he’s being interrogated against his wishes. The smoke that carried from the fire was barely noticeable. Besides, there could have been anyone up there on the hill camping out for the night. Denton owned a lot of land, but he didn’t own everything. Not yet.
“Sit,” Ethan said, leading Bobby to the fireside.
He plopped down onto the dead leaves and dirt. “Can you let me lose the potato sack?”
“Not just yet,” Ethan said. “Let’s see how you do first.”
“How I do? What are you expecting from me?”
“I’m expecting to hear the truth, Bobby Denton. Your experience tonight will be dictated by how you conduct yourself. Understand?”
Bobby’s head moved beneath the potato sack. “No, I don’t understand. . . .”
“You will.”
“Who are you people?”
Ethan said, “We ask the questions.”
“How many work at your father’s ranch?” Myra asked.
Bobby shrugged. “Six or seven permanent, I guess.”
“We want definite answers,” Ethan said.
“I’m sorry I don’t ride around with a list of employees in my pocket!” Bobby snapped.
Ethan hit him around the face, this time with the back of his hand. “We’ll have less of that. Just answer the damn question so I can quit hitting you, kid.”
“I think you split my lip.”
“I’ll split your head in a minute. Answer the question!
” Ethan yelled.
Bobby flinched, moaning under the potato sack. “Uh . . . there’s me, Mikhail, Randy, the girls, a couple of other guys who don’t stay there—they come and go as needed. You know, when my pa needs them. There’s about a dozen of them, but they don’t stay at the ranch, like I said.”
“Mikhail. Tell us about him.”
“Big, Russian. Can’t remember where Pop found that one. He kind of picks people up along the way sometimes.”
“Why don’t they stick around?” Myra asked.
“They just don’t work out. Pop’s hard on people,” Bobby said, and it sounded like the most genuine thing they’d heard yet.
Ethan folded his arms. “What does Mikhail do at the ranch?”
“Manual labor, mostly. Sometimes some other things. Guy can ride and everything, but he’s not quick. He moves slow because he’s so damned big.”
Ethan and Myra exchanged looks.
“And this Randy character?”
“Kinda does odd jobs. Whatever my pop asks him to do, I guess.”
“You mentioned girls?” Myra asked.
Bobby didn’t respond.
Ethan nudged him with his boot. “Hey, answer her.”
“I’m not allowed to talk about them.”
“Why not?”
Bobby hesitated. “Because they’re wanted, that’s why.”
“How many of them?” When Bobby didn’t answer straightaway, Ethan gave him a short kick in the side to spur him on. “How many?”
“Three sisters. They’re identical triplets,” Bobby said, his voice strained. “But I’m not giving you a name.”
“Why not?”
“Like I said, they’re wanted.”
Ethan sighed. “You’re not makin’ this easy, kid. I hit you. I kick you. I don’t have to tell you what I’ll do next. Now what do these triplets do around the place?”
“To be honest, I don’t really know.”
