The Devil's Snare

by Tony Healey

  “Who are they, Pa?” Ethan asked.

  His father swallowed, the Adam’s apple in his neck bobbing up and down. “Bad news,” he said, casting a worried glance at his son.

  Ethan’s mother shook her head. “You said those days were over, Ed. You promised me. You said the past was in the past.”

  “It is,” his father said, stepping away from the window. “I’m done with it, Ali. I told you that.”

  George fetched the rifle. “I’ll go out with you, Pa,” he said, heading for the door.

  “No, you won’t,” Edward said, snatching the firearm out of his hands and stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t be a damn fool, son.”

  “I ain’t scared,” George said defiantly.

  Edward took his elder son by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. “I know you ain’t. But I need to talk to these men on my own. I need you to look after Ethan. Can you do that?”

  George didn’t answer him.

  “Damn it, boy!” Edward gave him a hard shake. “Can you?”

  “Yes,” George said sullenly.

  Edward turned to his wife. “Ali, get the boys out of the way. Take them to their room. Whatever happens, don’t let ’em come out until I say so.”

  “What’re you going to do?” Alice asked.

  “Make ’em see sense,” Edward said, glancing at the window at the figures of the three men atop their rides.

  Outside, one of them spoke, his voice booming in the soft whistle of the wind-driven snow. “Come on out, Ed. We gotta talk. Ain’t no use hiding in there.”

  Edward looked resignedly at his family, and when he turned to go, Alice clung to his arm. “Ed . . . ,” she said, fearful.

  “It’ll be fine,” Edward said in a way that was less than convincing. “Get the boys to their room like I said.”

  “Okay,” Alice said, ushering George and Ethan to their bedroom, farther back in the house.

  George resisted. “I don’t want to go to my room, Ma.”

  “You just listen to your father,” Alice snapped. “Come along now—Ethan, you, too.”

  “I don’t want to go, either.”

  Alice tutted. She got them to their room, nudging both boys back as they resisted. “Come on, your father knows what he’s doing. Now both of you stay put and do as you’re told.”

  Edward opened the front door, the cold wind rushing in, bringing dusty snowflakes with it. The fire in the grate sputtered and crackled. Ethan and George watched from the open door of their bedroom as their father strode out into the cold, silhouetted by the dim light of the horsemen’s lantern. They could not hear what was said, but after a full minute, their father walked back into the house. The three riders dismounted, then hitched their horses to the post.

  They followed him inside, loosening their furs. As the three men stepped into the light, Ethan could make out their faces—the leader, who set his lantern down on the floor next to the fireplace, had a prominent brow, a bulbous nose, and a thick black mustache that dominated the lower portion of his face. He was trim, with cords of muscle shifting beneath his clothes as he moved. The second man had slicked-back black hair and a gray eye patch covering his left eye. He was thinner than the first man, with a hooked nose like a raven’s beak. As Ethan watched him, the man with the eye patch took in the room quickly, his one good peeper falling on Alice and the shadowy outline of her sons behind her. He smiled at the sight of them, and Ethan felt his stomach twist in a knot of nerves—for reasons he could not comprehend.

  The third man was the biggest of the three, so wide he barely fit through the door. A thick red scar ran down one side of his face, making a jagged fault line across his right cheek, disappearing into the beard that extended down to his chest. He seemed to be the oldest of them, with silver in his hair and beard. He stood in the doorway, his frame barring the only way in and out of the house.

  The snowflakes that had gathered on the men’s loosened furs melted, beading their coverings with tiny droplets of water.

  “Sit,” Edward said, inviting them to the four chairs arranged before the hearth.

  The scarred man at the door did not move or acknowledge Edward’s invitation. The man with the eye patch adopted a corner of the room and stood leaning against the wall, hands clasped before him as if he were delivering a sermon. The man with the mustache, however, sat in one of the chairs and gestured at Edward to sit opposite. “Come. Let us palaver and see if we can’t iron this out.”

  Edward sat across from him as directed. He waited as the man with the mustache filled a pipe with tobacco and lit it. After several draws, he offered it to Edward, who declined. The man shrugged and continued, exhaling through his nostrils like a smoking dragon.

  “How did you find me?” Edward asked.

  “You know as well as I, it ain’t hard to find somebody if you’re real intent on finding them. And I was real intent, Eddie, as you can no doubt imagine.”

  Edward sat forward. “Listen, Bert, I didn’t mean no offense by what I did. . . .”

  Bertrand Woodward laughed and looked at his men. “You hear this, boys? He didn’t mean no offense!”

  The scarred giant in the doorway chuckled, the sound rumbling out of him like distant thunder over low hills. The man with the eye patch, however, did not make any sign that he found the remark humorous or otherwise. He was a blank slate, his immobile features offering no hint at how he felt about the situation.

  Bertrand drew on his pipe again. “I didn’t come here to hear excuses, Eddie. I come here to let you know what you did ain’t right. I come to find out what you plan to do in recompense. You know, to settle the tab, so to speak.”

  “The tab?” Edward asked.

  “I wanna know how you’re gonna make it up to me and the boys.”

  Ethan’s father opened his arms. “All you see is all I have, Bert. I don’t know what you want me to give you. I have a simple life now. I’ve moved on.”

  Bertrand smiled. “You want to know the trouble with you, Eddie, my boy? You never see the bigger picture. You never were a big thinker, were you?” he asked, getting to his feet to lean against the mantelpiece. He observed the flames licking out of the grate, and from Ethan’s perspective, the man seemed like the devil himself, lit from beneath as he stared straight down into the fiery pit of hell.

  “I don’t understand,” Edward said, confused.

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  From the threshold of the bedroom at the back of the house, Ethan tugged at his mother’s dress. “Mom . . . ,” he whispered.

  She pushed him back. “You be quiet. Let your daddy talk.”

  Ethan retreated into the room. George was sitting on the edge of his cot, listening to their father’s exchange with the three men, making no attempt to watch what was unfolding. He was looking at something in his hands—a small figure whittled from a piece of maple. Ethan sat next to him. “Who are they, George?”

  “Men he used to know, I reckon,” he said, turning the figure over and over. Outside, the wind whipped around the house, whistling up into the eaves.

  “Before we came along?”

  “Must be.”

  Ethan swallowed. “What did Pa used to do?”

  “How the hell should I know, Ethan?” George snapped.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  George shook his head. “Best leave Pa to his business and mind our own, Ethan.”

  In the parlor, Bertrand removed his furs entirely. “Toasty warm in here. How about a drink for me and the boys?”

  “Sure.” Edward turned to his wife. “Ali, fetch the whiskey, will you?”

  Alice crossed the parlor and retrieved the whiskey from the sideboard. She set the bottle and four glasses on the little table between the chairs situated around the hearth.

  Ethan slid off the bed and edged near
the bedroom door to get a good look at what was taking place. His father made to take the bottle and pour the drinks, but the man with the mustache clucked his tongue.

  Edward looked up at him, frowning.

  “Let the woman do it,” Bertrand said. With shaking hands Alice poured the whiskey, the neck of the bottle rattling against the glasses; then she moved back out of the way. Bertrand smiled again. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say your woman is nervous, Eddie.”

  “She’s all right . . . just unsettled by visitors in the night, is all.”

  Bertrand wasn’t buying the excuse. “I know a scared woman when I see one,” he said, eyes burning with intensity as he glared at Alice.

  Edward leapt to his feet, voice raised. “Damn you, Bert, leave her the hell out of it!”

  The man with the scar crossed the room in a single bound, the frozen breath of night following him. He shoved Edward back into his chair. “Sit down,” he boomed.

  George sprang from the bed and stood next to Ethan at the door, both boys rooted to the floor in fear but compelled to see what was happening. Alice shrieked as the man with the eye patch slid up from behind her and hooked an arm around her neck to hold her in place. In his free hand, he held a knife.

  “Not my wife!” Edward pleaded.

  Bertrand bent down, picked up a glass of whiskey and tossed it back in one go. He gasped from the burn of it sliding down his throat, then proceeded to pour himself a chaser. All the while Edward sat helpless in the chair next to the fire, the giant with the scar down his face standing guard and Alice held at knifepoint by the man with the eye patch.

  “The way I see it,” Bertrand said, regarding his second glass of whiskey before sinking it and setting his empty glass upside down on the little table, “there’s only one outcome from all this, Eddie, my boy. And like most things, you know this was inevitable. You knew it the day you ran away.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Edward said.

  Bertrand peered past him to the bedroom in back, where Ethan and George stood in the shadows, watching. “Don’t hide your faces, boys. Show yourselves.”

  They walked in, George taking the lead.

  “No! Don’t come in here!” Edward cried.

  The man with the scar hit him around the face with the back of one massive hand to quiet him, and Edward’s entire head whipped to one side from the force of it.

  Bertrand cooed at the sight of Edward’s sons. “Well, look what we have here. If they ain’t the image of you, Eddie. Damn! The next generation of Harpers.”

  “They got no part in this!”

  “Now, you know that ain’t true,” Bertrand said. He reached for his holster and removed his sidearm. He aimed at George and Ethan. “But they’re not gonna cause any trouble. Are you, boys?”

  “Pa?” George said, voice wavering from fear.

  Edward shook his head. “You do whatever you gotta do, George. You hear? Just do as he says. It’ll be all right.”

  “Your father is ever the optimist!” Bertrand cried with relish.

  “George. Ethan. Listen to me. It’ll be all right,” Edward said again, voice calm. “Don’t be scared.”

  Bertrand scowled at the sight of them conversing. “How touching. Get Ma and Pa outside,” he said, face suddenly serious. Voice flat and devoid of emotion. “Let’s not delay the inevitable.”

  The big man hauled Edward to his feet and pushed him through the open door, into the howling wind outside. The man with the eye patch carted Alice out after him, still holding the knife to her throat. The tip of his blade had dug into the flesh of her neck because there were drops of blood on the floorboards.

  Ethan took it all in. Their mother and father marched outside. The man with the mustache holding George and Ethan at gunpoint.

  “What’re you going to do?” George demanded, hands balled into fists at his sides.

  Bertrand did not look away from them. He merely shouted, “Do it!” and a series of gunshots followed immediately, the thunderclaps ricocheting around the property. He held the boys’ gaze as they recoiled in horror at one round and then another.

  Bertrand didn’t flinch at the gunshots. Didn’t feel them in his bones, in his soul, the way Ethan and George did. He just looked at them and basked in their pain. Outside, the light of the house through the open door cast a long, skewed oblong over the snow. The snow out there pooled with blood and Ethan saw his mother’s hand, flailed out as she had fallen onto the snow.

  The man with the scar walked back in. George roared and lunged forward, attempting to charge at Bertrand. But the big man scooped both boys up, one with each mighty arm.

  “What shall I do with ’em?”

  “Take them to the barn.”

  As the big man dragged them outside, they caught brief glimpses of their parents’ bodies before they were swung about and taken to the barn. The man threw them to the floor, then forced them to retreat to the back with quick kicks of his legs. It was impossible to get past him. He was soon joined by the man with the eye patch and last by Bertrand.

  Hugging his younger brother, George demanded, “What do you want with us?”

  Bertrand cocked his head to one side slightly as he regarded them there on the floor, helpless and vulnerable like chicks fallen from a nest. He looked at the stabled ponies and then back. A menacing smile crept over his face. “Let’s play a game.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The wind howled through the gaps in the boards. Each boy stood balancing on the back of a pony, with their necks in nooses. Bertrand emptied the chambers of his pistol into his hand, then inserted just a single bullet back into the chamber and snapped the weapon closed.

  “One bullet, one shot.” He looked at the two boys and grinned. “A game of chance.”

  “To hell with your game! If you’re gonna shoot us, just do it,” George said.

  Bertrand eyed the two boys. “First of all, that’d be far too easy. Where’s the theater in that? Where’s the drama? Second, I’ve loaded my sidearm with only one bullet. I’m a good shot—at least I consider myself to be one. But even I cannot kill two people with just one shot.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” George spit.

  “Who said anything about enjoying it?” Bertrand asked aloud. He looked at the gun in his hand. “I do not enjoy any of this. But there is a code. It says you never abandon your post. It says you see things through to the end, no matter the cost. There’s no enjoyment to be found in the execution of duty, young man. I take no pleasure in any of this. I want you to know that.”

  George struggled against the rope binding his wrists behind his back. The pony shifted beneath him.

  “Now, the bullet in this gun can save one of you. Decide between you which one, and I will shoot their rope. Like I said, I’m a good shot. I won’t miss.”

  George shook his head, the pony moving beneath him, causing him to panic and go red in the face. Next to him, Ethan began to cry. “You can’t make us decide,” George said. “How do you expect us to choose?”

  “If one of you don’t make a decision right now, I’ll fire this round into the roof and set both your horses off.”

  “Save Ethan, then,” George exclaimed.

  “No, George!”

  George ignored Ethan. “Don’t listen to him. Listen to me. Shoot my brother’s rope and let him go.”

  Bertrand cocked his head. “Is that your final answer?”

  “Do it!”

  “No, George, you can’t. You just can’t,” Ethan pleaded.

  His brother’s expression was firm and sure. “You’ll be all right.”

  For a second Bertrand didn’t move, just stared at George with something approaching respect. Then in a flash he aimed the pistol just above Ethan’s head and fired. The shot tore through the rope connecting Ethan to the beam a
bove. The sound of the gunshot reverberating in the closed barn was deafening. Ethan’s horse reared, startled, knocking him backward onto the ground. George’s horse did the same, and he slid, his feet struggling to find purchase on the creature’s back as it moved.

  Ethan scrambled back from the panicked horses into the corner of the barn. His brother tried to keep his feet on the back of the pony, but it was no use, and when the pony moved another couple of inches, he could hold on no longer. His feet slipped, and as the weight of his body snagged on the rope, it ran taut, the noose tightening and snapping George’s neck.

  “No!” Ethan cried, peering up at his brother swinging back and forth like a pendulum over his head, the weight of his lifeless body making the rope creak against the beam.

  Bertrand holstered his piece, turned and left the barn, closing the door behind him.

  The ponies had fled to the far corner, breathing heavily and stamping their hooves. They couldn’t run anywhere; there wasn’t anywhere to go, but they were flighty nonetheless. Ethan got to his feet, staggering because his hands were still bound behind his back. He hurled toward the barn door and threw himself against it, flying out into the freezing night air. He lost his footing and fell on his side in the snow, grimacing from the fresh pain elicited by the impact, but knowing he couldn’t allow himself to feel it yet. He had to get back up. Had to for George. Because his brother had chosen death so that he might live.

  “There he is, boys,” Bertrand said.

  Ethan rolled over, then got to his knees. Panting hard, he watched Bertrand climb up into his saddle. The other two, who were already on their horses, laughed at the sight of him.

  To his left, his mother and father lay in the snow, in their own freezing blood.

  Blind fury rose inside Ethan and he yelled a stream of obscenities at the men at the top of his lungs, so loud it could have been heard for miles if there hadn’t been a storm raging. Bertrand rode over, towering impossibly tall above him.