by Tony Healey
Ethan was sobbing now, tears coursing down his cheeks and freezing there. “You killed them all! You killed my whole family!”
“And yet you were saved,” Bertrand said almost kindly, as if Ethan had been granted a great honor. “Fortune smiles on you, son.”
The three men rode away, merging into the night, lost to the swirling drifts of snow. Ethan stood and made for the house, past the bodies of his parents. He tried not to look, but couldn’t help doing so anyway.
He collapsed by the fire, and when the numbness had left his hands, he focused on working himself free. At first light, he rode to town to fetch the sheriff. The bodies of his mother, father and brother were taken away. The sheriff told Ethan he would send for the boy’s aunt, in the next town over.
“You want to ride into town with me, son?” he asked.
Ethan shook his head. He was looking at the barn where his brother had died. “I’ll stay here.”
“On your own?”
“It don’t scare me.” He looked to the spot where his mother and father had been executed. The snow stained red running to pink.
* * *
* * *
His aunt arrived the next day, and the morning after, a service was held for the deceased. Ethan’s aunt remained in town to discuss matters with the sheriff, and sent Ethan home to grieve.
At the house, he found his father’s old pistols hidden at the bottom of the chest that sat at the foot of his parents’ bed. He held them in his hands and turned them over, enamored by how brightly they shone. He felt their weight, how solid and utterly real they were.
His father had once been an outlaw. He’d changed course and followed another path, but could not escape the past. It had caught up with him in the end. It was always going to. The guns he’d used had brought pain and misery, and yet he’d kept them. Perhaps to remind himself of the man he’d once been. Ethan decided there and then that he would use them to avenge his family’s murder. They were heavy now, but he knew they wouldn’t always be.
One day he would lift them with ease and wield them to balance the scale. . . .
CHAPTER TWELVE
Myra watched Ethan ride away, her emotions churning like a maelstrom within her. After she’d vowed to help him kill Jack Denton, Ethan had insisted Myra demonstrate how well she could shoot. They’d gone out back, and Ethan set an old tin on top of a fence post. She took a stance, drew her pistol and blew the old tin away with her first shot.
“That’ll do,” Ethan said, impressed.
Walking back to the house, Myra looked at the barn once more. “I hate that I don’t know what happened to his horses,” she said.
“Have a word with the sheriff about it, for what good it’ll do,” Ethan said. “Likely they were stolen the night of the murders. Hate to break this to you, but I doubt you’ll ever see them again.”
“Why would they steal them, though?”
Ethan glanced at her. “Why not? You’re tryin’ to find reason in the actions of murderers. When you slaughter children, reason don’t come into things, Myra.”
That hit her hard in the gut and she had nothing to say in response. Instead, she offered Ethan somewhere to stay, since he could no longer reside in the livery in town. Staying at the guesthouse was out of the question. Climbing up on his horse, Ethan readied the reins in his hands. “I’ll be back after dark. I got some things to collect, and I want to repay Warren for his charity.”
Myra told him she would see him later that night.
“You’re a practiced hand with that gun. Anyone comes by here you’re not sure of, don’t hesitate to use it.”
“What if I shoot you by mistake?” Myra asked playfully.
Ethan tugged the front of his hat. “Don’t fret. I’ve been shot before,” he said, and spurred Ruby on with a press of his heels.
As Myra watched him disappear in a trail of dust, she thought about Ethan’s story. The manner in which his family had been killed. Executing his parents first, then making the brothers choose which of them would die at the end of a rope. It was horrific and just imagining it made her feel sick to her stomach. As sick as she’d felt the night she arrived at her brother’s place and found herself confronted with the visceral aftermath of the murders. It brought thoughts and notions to mind she would rather not have entertained. Her nephew and niece, shielded by her sister-in-law. Shot to silence them. Shot to snuff out their light, their hope, their promise. Now their ghosts were with her.
A cool gust of wind rushed up from somewhere and Myra shivered the entire length of her body, the chill reaching into her bones, puncturing her soul. She was still wearing her gun belt over her funeral clothes. She drew the pistol once more and aimed it at a white rock on the ground about a hundred feet away. She pulled the trigger, the crack of the gunshot reverberating throughout the property. The rock leapt into the air from the impact, into the bushes.
Myra felt the gun in her hand. Ethan had said that when he first held his father’s pistols, they’d felt too heavy to carry. Too heavy to hold steady and aim. But he’d grown to heft them with ease and aim straight and true. It had made her feel something to hear Ethan describe using the guns for good. How they’d been instruments of misery in the past but would now be used to right a wrong. She found herself faced with the same mission. The law could not help her. They could not bring Jack Denton to justice because there was not enough evidence. Even if she’d told Sheriff Abernathy what Denton had whispered to her at the wake, it would be her word against his. That was as good as having no confession at all.
But she knew Jack Denton had killed Glendon, Celia, Matthew and Maria. One day very soon, Ethan and Myra would kill Denton and anyone who’d helped him in his act of savagery. In some way, good would be done. Righteous retribution would be visited upon those responsible and Myra would be at Ethan’s side to see it happen.
* * *
* * *
Ethan loaded Ruby with the last of his things. “Thanks for keeping hold of this stuff for me, Warren. I appreciate it.”
“It was no bother,” the blacksmith said, wiping his oily brow. He looked back inside the barn. “Got that loft shored up, too. She’s going nowhere.”
Ethan was sure to look himself. “You wouldn’t even know there’d been trouble in there. You get help?”
“Yessir. Old man Bercow, he ain’t just the undertaker, you know. Ain’t no better carpenter for miles,” Warren said.
“I can believe it.”
“You stayin’ at the guesthouse?”
Ethan shook his head. “Deputy Mitchell warned me against it. Said it might bring trouble to their doorstep, which ain’t exactly fair, I suppose. Gonna board at the Hart place a few nights. See what occurs.”
“The Hart place? People might talk,” Warren warned him.
“Because of Myra?”
Warren shrugged. “Mayhap because of that. But also because of what occurred there. Blood still bein’ fresh an’ all.”
“I hear you,” Ethan said. The sky had darkened toward crimson, the light fading fast. “So what do I owe you?”
“Owe me?”
“For lettin’ me hide my face here.”
“Nothing,” Warren said, waving a hand dismissively at him.
Ethan fixed his gun belt around his waist and slid his pistols into the holsters. He’d felt naked all day without them. Somehow it felt good to have his father’s guns where they belonged. “No, come on. I’ve gotta owe you something.”
Warren stepped back, hands up. “When I do something out of the goodness of my heart, don’t be fool enough to turn it down. I said it’s no bother. Leave it at that.”
“I appreciate it, Warren.” Ethan extended his hand. “You’re a good man.”
The two men shook.
Warren said, “I’ve heard that before.”
“Probably because it’s
true,” Ethan said. “Hey now, let me buy you a drink at the saloon at least.”
Warren didn’t hesitate to slam the barn door closed. He rubbed his hands together with glee and said, “Sure don’t have to ask me twice on that score!”
* * *
* * *
Brett McBride flung his towel over his shoulder and stood with his arms braced against the bar top. “What can I get you fellas?”
The saloon was thick with smoke and filled with the clamor of men drinking away their troubles and celebrating their triumphs. A total change to the saloon that had hosted the wake of Glendon Hart and his family earlier that day. This was the real saloon—the heart of the town. The place where friendships were forged and broken, where schemes were plotted and plans made, where petty rivalries were settled.
“Hey,” Ethan said. “Two whiskeys and keep ’em coming. Pour one for yourself, too.”
McBride tipped his head. “Much obliged.”
He poured three measures of whiskey into glasses scratched and fogged from use. Ethan tossed his back and set the glass down on the counter to be refilled.
McBride toasted their health and drank his. “You know, yourself and Miss Hart left the wake today in a hurry. She never come back, neither.”
“She was too upset. I took her home.”
“Probably for the best,” McBride said mournfully. “Very upsetting for the lady.”
Warren sank his whiskey in one go, the firewater hardly touching the sides on its way down. He immediately set his glass on the bar for another measure. “Hit me, Brett.”
“Still dressed in your Sunday best from the funeral, I see,” McBride commented on Ethan’s formal attire.
Ethan looked down at himself. “I’ve not had a chance to change out of it yet. It’s been a helluva day.”
“I heard there was trouble at the livery last night,” McBride said.
Warren made to answer, but Ethan got there first. “Wasn’t nothing I couldn’t handle.”
A hand clamped down on his shoulder. Ethan instinctively twisted out from under it and came up on his opposite side with his fist raised, ready to strike.
Jack Denton stood behind him, flanked by two women. He took a step back. “I was only gonna say hello. No need to be so on edge.”
“I reckon there is,” Ethan said.
McBride came out from behind the bar. “Gents, I don’t want no trouble in here.”
“There ain’t gonna be no trouble,” Denton assured the man. “Ain’t that right, new kid?”
Ethan didn’t say anything. He allowed his hand to slowly lower to his side, hovering above the pistol on his right hip. It would take less than half a second to snatch it from its holster and shoot. The women on either side of Denton wore nice soft clothes and didn’t look at all bothered by the tension in the air.
“I mean it,” McBride warned them. “No trouble.”
“We heard you,” Denton said dismissively. He thumped his hand down on the worn bar next to Warren. “Three whiskeys.”
McBride eyed them warily. Then seeming to put his feelings aside, he dutifully returned to the other side of the bar and poured the drinks.
Warren turned to face Denton. “Jack,” he said.
“Blacksmith. Heard you had a commotion at your place last night.”
“You heard right,” Warren said. “Got it all fixed up now, though.”
“Fixed up? What happened?”
The two women with Denton chose a table close by, affording them a front-row vantage of whatever took place at the bar. They were both in their early thirties and virtually identical in looks. Were they twins? Ethan thought it had to be nigh impossible for them not to be.
Warren detailed how he’d found the barn in disarray and the loft torn away from the wall. “Had a helluva job getting it back up, I can tell ya.”
Jack Denton nodded thoughtfully. “Had to have been one big fella to rip that down,” he said, his eyes flitting toward Ethan.
Warren laughed, the sound loud and abrupt in the stillness of the saloon. Since Denton’s arrival, the chatter and activity of the other patrons had dwindled to almost nothing. “A giant, I’d say!”
“Imagine that,” Denton replied.
McBride set down Denton’s drink, then carried the other two to the women seated behind him. Denton lifted the glass of whiskey toward Warren. “To your barn,” he said, and sipped. “And no more entanglements with big men.”
Warren lifted his glass and sank the contents.
“I saw the man,” Ethan said, the surety of his deep voice cutting through everything.
Denton faced him, his expression cocksure. “You did, huh?”
“In fact, I fought with him that night. He was as big as a giant,” Ethan said. He stepped away from the bar. “Makes you wonder where a man like that might find employment.”
The two women at the table tensed, drinks halfway to their mouths.
“A circus, maybe,” Denton said easily, sipping more of his whiskey. “Alongside trick riders and lion tamers.”
Ethan smiled, but it was devoid of humor or mirth. “You could be right.”
Denton drank the last of the whiskey from the glass and signaled McBride to refill it.
“Or could be he works for you,” Ethan said.
Denton drummed his fingers on the counter. “That what you reckon?” he said, eyes narrowing to slits. “Grand theories you got there, new kid.” McBride refilled the glass in Denton’s hand, but he did not move to drink from it. “What did you say your name was, again?”
“Ethan.”
“Yeah, I got that part, friend,” Denton said, pushing the glass of whiskey away. He stepped away from the bar and took several steps toward Ethan. The two women he’d brought with him rose from the table. Warren looked like a frightened marten caught between two circling wolves. Denton scowled at Ethan. “You never told me your last name.”
“Harper,” Ethan said without hesitation. He felt a kind of relief at being able to say it out loud. To let Denton see him for who he really was.
Jack Denton’s eyes went wide. “Harper?”
“That’s right. Ethan Harper.”
Denton faltered, all his bluster and ego falling away. “Harper . . . ,” he said quietly, the name dying on his lips.
The saloon doors opened with a clatter. Sheriff Abernathy entered the saloon, followed close behind by Deputy Boyd Marshall. “Evenin’, folks,” Abernathy said, loud enough for all to take notice. He approached the bar, taking in the scene before him.
“Sheriff,” Jack Denton said. He looked blown off course. Derailed by Ethan’s bombshell. “Uh, me and the new kid here were just havin’ a friendly drink.”
“I see that. I happened to look in on my way past, saw you two fellas hittin’ it off. Nice to see these days, I’ll tell you,” Abernathy said. His eyes skirted to Denton’s glass on the bar top. “Maybe it’s about time you finished that drink, Jack, and got yourself on home.”
Denton cocked an eyebrow as he looked at the sheriff. “Are you ordering me out of here, Henry?”
Slowly, the two women’s hands moved inside their bolero jackets. Behind them Boyd racked a shotgun. “Take your hands out of your jackets and off those shooters, ladies. I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from, but I spotted your pieces the moment I walked in.”
“Just gotta itch my side, is all,” one of them said.
“Well, you just let that be,” Mitchell told her.
Denton was on his own now.
Abernathy tapped two fingers on the bar between Warren and Ethan. “Brett, a glass of beer, if you please.”
“Coming right up, Sheriff,” McBride said, voice rattled by what was unfolding in his saloon.
Seconds later, a glass of beer with a head of foam appeared in front of Abernathy, excess suds
running down the sides of the glass. “Can’t beat a tall beer sometimes. Ain’t that the truth?”
“Sure is,” Denton said, finishing his whiskey in one go and slamming the glass back down, loud enough to make several of the patrons in the saloon jump out of their seats. He glared at Ethan. “I knew a Harper once. He was a good man. Dependable. But one day, he turned his back on me. Nobody defies me. Nobody. I didn’t stand for it back then, and I sure as hell won’t stand it for now.”
Ethan glared back at him but did not speak. Could not speak. His rage boiled inside of him, but he knew that it was not the time to allow it to spill out. To let it transform into action. Not yet. He had to keep a lid on it for just a short while longer. Had to suppress it.
“I did for him what he deserved. Fair’s fair, after all,” Denton continued, attempting to goad Ethan further.
Abernathy stepped between them. “I don’t know what this is, Jack, but it’s gotta stop. I don’t want it in this saloon, and I don’t want it in this town.”
“I’ve heard enough, old man.” Denton walked away, snapping his fingers. “Come on, you two, get your sorry keisters up.” At the saloon doors, Denton turned back to address Ethan once again. “When next we meet, I’m bringing everything full circle. Understand what I’m saying, new kid?”
“I understand completely,” Ethan said. “For what it’s worth, I might not be the only man around here sees his life come full circle.”
Denton grinned. “I look forward to seeing it.”
“I’ll be there.”
Everyone in the bar watched Denton and his two henchwomen leave the saloon. Deputy Mitchell followed them halfway out with his shotgun held at the ready. At the sound of the saloon doors swinging shut, Sheriff Abernathy breathed a sigh of relief. He lifted the beer and took a long swallow. Wiping the foam from his mustache, he turned to Ethan. “Mind telling me what the heck that was all about?”
“An old score,” Ethan said. He thought, Now I’ve shown my hand.