Randy came closer and put a hand on Jake’s forehead. “There’s no fever. His body is just exhausted from working so hard to build his blood back. I’m making sure he drinks as much water as possible. Brian said that will help. And he said your father could slip in and out for another day or so.” She looked at Evie, ached at the tears in her eyes. “Oh, Evie, he’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
Evie nodded, wiping at more tears. “He said he believes his mother lives inside of me. That makes me so happy. He even told me her full name. I’ve never even known what it was. All you ever told me was her first name, because you gave it to me.”
“I never told you because it hurts him too much to hear it, and he was afraid if you knew it, you’d ask more about her. It’s very hard for him to talk about, because it means bringing up his father.”
Evie nodded. “He told me what happened. I never thought he’d tell me himself. He didn’t know I already knew about it.” Evie took a handkerchief from a pocket in her skirt. “Mother, if he’d just open up about things, it would help people truly understand him better. Maybe having that reporter write a book about him will help. It will make him talk about things he normally never talks about. It seems like it’s already making all of us talk about things we never did before.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Some things are so deeply hurtful, Evie, that the person hurting has to choose his own time and place to talk about them, if at all.” Randy grasped her hands as Evie got up, and they embraced. “You’d better go home now. Tomorrow things will be even better. You can bring Little Jake over so he can see his grandpa is just fine, and Jake in turn can see his imp of a grandson is still in one piece.”
Evie nodded. “Are you all right alone with Daddy? He said he didn’t trust himself yet—something about floating between this world and a darker one.”
“I can handle Jake, Evie. Surely you know that by now.”
Evie leaned down and kissed her father’s cheek. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“After twenty-six years together, I’ve never seen him quite this bad either.”
Evie embraced her once more. “Are you sure you don’t want me to send Brian over right now?”
“Yes. I’ll be sure to come and get him if I think it’s necessary. I think I’d like to be alone with Jake.”
“If you say so.” Evie left, rather reluctantly. Randy followed her to the door and bolted it. She walked into the kitchen and took down Jake’s rifle from the rack, where someone had put it after Tobe took it off Jake’s horse and brought it to the house. She checked to see that it was loaded, then carried it to the bedroom, worried about the fact that there were still Buckley and Bryant family members left who would not be happy about what had happened.
She laid the rifle on the floor on her side of the bed, then undressed and pulled on a flannel gown. She felt suddenly exhausted herself. She turned down the oil lamp near the bed and carefully crawled into bed, moving beside Jake and putting an arm over his chest to make sure he was still breathing.
He stirred and moved one hand up to grasp her arm.
“You’re awake?” she asked softly.
“Where’s Evie?” His voice sounded so weak, so unlike Jake Harkner.
“She went home, Jake. She feels much better after talking to you. Everyone is gone and you need to get more sleep.”
He lightly squeezed her arm and managed to open his eyes, turning his head slightly to look at her. He sighed. “If I’m dead, I must be in heaven, because I just saw you and Evie…but how in hell did I make it to heaven?”
“God put you here,” Randy answered. “It’s his punishment, because in heaven you’ll have to listen to my nagging for the rest of your eternal life.”
“Never thought of it that way. That…would be more like hell.” He stirred more. “What time is it?”
“For you, it doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep. You must lie still, Jake.”
“…mi querida…esposa,” he mumbled. “Lo siento. Favor perdóname.”
Randy leaned closer and kissed his cheek. “What on earth do I need to forgive you for?”
“Everything…everything…for being…who I am.”
“I love you for who you are, Jake Harkner. Go to sleep.” Randy wiped at silent tears, still shaken at coming so close to losing him. Please, God, not yet. Not yet. I need him so.
The nagging, intermittent pain deep in her belly was still there, though usually it was gone quicker than this. She was so intent on helping Jake that she’d decided to continue with her secret. Brian was worn-out. She hated burdening others. She thanked God Jake was still with her. He’d predicted once that he would never die of old-age ailments. I’ll go down with guns blazing, or from a bullet in the back. Be ready for it, Randy, because we will never know when it’s coming.
She kissed the strong arm around her, and in his sleep he pulled her even closer.
Thirteen
Jeff made a note that it had been eight days since the shooting. He’d stayed away from the family, realizing they needed time alone. He knew the prison wagon would arrive today for Marty Bryant, and he wanted to witness the man’s departure. The formidable-looking iron wagon sat in front of the jail as he hurried over to watch the proceedings. He noticed Katie Harkner sitting in the seat of a small supply wagon, which was tied across the street in front of the very hardware store where Jake had been shot down. She wore a lovely pink dress.
“Mrs. Harkner,” he greeted, tipping his hat. “You look very pretty this morning.”
She’d been staring at the jail and seemed startled when he greeted her. “Oh! Mr. Trubridge.” Katie glanced back at the jail. “Thank you. Lloyd is in the jail right now, signing some papers. The prison wagon is a few days late, and he has to officially put Marty Bryant on it.”
“I’m sure Lloyd will be all right,” Jeff told her. “I’ll go see what’s going on.”
“Thank you.”
Jeff walked across the street, wondering how the shooting had affected Lloyd’s new wife. She’d surely never expected to see her husband in a shoot-out on the first day of their marriage.
As he neared the jail doorway, he heard Marty Bryant cussing a blue streak. “I’m still wounded from when you and that sonofabitch you call a father brung me in,” he growled. “I can’t ride in that wagon.”
Jeff walked inside to see Marty’s wrists and ankles were cuffed. He was the one originally brought in seven days ago with a wounded arm. He still wore the filthy clothes he’d had on then, as well as his eye patch. He needed a shave, and his hair hung in oily strands over bloodshot eyes.
“Dr. Stewart said you were good enough to travel,” Lloyd told him. He was bent over the sheriff’s desk signing papers, and Sheriff Sparks stood holding a shotgun on Marty.
“’Course he’d say that. He’s your goddamned brother-in-law!” Marty argued. “Don’t put me in that wagon, you asshole!”
Brad Buckley groaned from the jail cell, where he still lay with a cracked breastbone.
“You’ll pay for this, kid,” Marty threatened. “You and your pa both. You tell him that! My family will figure out a way.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before, Marty.” Lloyd straightened. “Get your ass outside.”
Jeff stepped aside, observing quietly.
“How in hell am I supposed to walk with these things on my ankles?” Marty barked.
Lloyd stepped closer. “Let me help you.” He turned the man around and kicked him in the rear end, sending him sprawling out the front door and down the steps.
More like something Jake would do, Jeff noted. He cautiously walked to the doorway and watched Lloyd pick Marty up and give him a shove toward the wagon, where two other hapless-looking men sat inside. The wagon guard opened the barred door at the back of the wagon, and Lloyd literally threw Marty inside. The man landed facedown on
the floor between the benches on either side of the wagon. He screamed another round of curses, yelling that his eye patch had come off.
Jeff dared to step closer as the wagon guard locked the wagon doors. He grimaced at the sight of Marty’s eye. It bore an ugly scar that was stitched shut, and the socket was caved in, the eyeball completely missing.
“Someone will put it back on when you get where you’re going,” Lloyd told him, seemingly unaffected by the man’s misery. “This is what happens when you put your filthy hands on an innocent young girl, Bryant. You’re goddamn lucky Jake didn’t shoot your balls off. He doesn’t care so much about following federal marshal rules, so be glad you’re alive and your privates are still attached and not stuffed in your pockets.”
Jeff’s eyes widened at the words.
“You just remember, you and your pa are gonna have to go after the Daltons again, boy,” Marty yelled. “That will leave your family all alone. I’ll get out, Harkner. Somehow I’ll escape, and I’ll pay Jake back for putting my eye out! And I’ll pay you back for treatin’ me this way!”
“You’re going to prison, Marty, probably headed for a hanging. Jake and I can handle the rest of your worthless family.”
“You’re a dead man, Lloyd Harkner! So is your pa. Too bad he didn’t bleed to death this time around. I hope it was my bullet that hit him!”
Lloyd stepped back and waved at the wagon driver, who nodded to him. “Afternoon, Lloyd. How’s your pa?”
“Mean as ever,” Lloyd answered.
The driver laughed as the guard climbed up beside him.
“Watch for an ambush, Ken,” Lloyd warned. “You can’t trust the Buckleys or the Bryants.”
“Marshal Dexter Lace will meet us in Edmond. We’ll be okay.” The driver snapped the reins, and the four horses pulling the wagon made off. Lloyd lit a cigarette as he waited for it to disappear around a corner. He turned, just then noticing Jeff. He nodded. “Mr. Trubridge. You going to the house today?”
“If it’s okay with you. Brian told me Jake is awake and asked to see me.”
“Climb in the back of our wagon. Katie and I are headed for her folks’ place, but I can drop you off at Pa’s on the way.”
Jeff climbed into the back of the wagon, where Stephen sat playing with a wooden gun. “Is Jake still in bed?” Jeff called to Lloyd as Lloyd climbed into the seat beside Katie.
“Yes, but he’s already turning into a damn grump about not being able to get up. We’re having a hell of a time keeping him there. He’ll listen to Brian, though, and Brian has told him that if he gets up and around too soon, he’ll just end up back in that bed, for even longer next time. So far, he’s staying there.”
Jeff grinned, glad to hear Jake was being obstinate. That meant he was definitely better. He hung on to the side of the wagon as it bounced over holes and ruts in the dirt street. “Do you expect trouble from the Buckleys or the Bryants?” Jeff asked.
Lloyd glanced at his wife, who grasped his arm. “I doubt it,” he answered, casting a slight scowl at Jeff.
Jeff realized he shouldn’t have asked the question in front of Lloyd’s new wife. The day of the shooting must have been quite an awakening for her. He looked away, feeling like an ass.
“Men like that talk big, Jeff,” Lloyd added. “Marty will be completely out of commission for quite a few years now, and young Brad is still in a bad way. He might be moved to a doctor’s office or a boardinghouse, but he’s in too much pain to stand a wagon ride all the way home. The ones we took down were the worst of the bunch, so I don’t think there will be any more trouble.”
The hell you don’t. “I hope you’re right.” Jeff suspected what happened at the shoot-out would only make things worse with what was left of the two families. “What happened to Marty Bryant’s eye?” he asked.
“Marty got in a bar fight a few months back, and Pa broke it up. Marty went after Pa with a knife, and Pa smashed a beer mug in his face. It shattered and cut into Marty’s eye. A doctor had to remove the eye. It wasn’t Brian, though. There are quite a few other doctors in town.”
Jeff shook his head. “Marty Bryant has more than one reason to want Jake dead, then.”
“Well, like I said, men like him are more mouth than action.” Lloyd pulled up in front of Jake’s house but stayed with Katie on the wagon seat. “Jake will be glad to see you, Jeff.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
“Sure. Katie and I have already seen Jake this morning, so we’re going on out to the Donavans’.”
Jeff jumped down and nodded to Stephen. “Have fun, Stephen.”
The boy grinned. “I will.” He waved at Jeff as Lloyd drove off. Jeff went to the front door and it opened before he even reached it. Randy stood there in a lovely green dress that made her eyes look green too.
“I heard the wagon outside,” she told Jeff. “Please, come in. Jake is in the bedroom, and he’s been giving me a hard time all morning. I’m glad for the company.”
Jeff removed his hat. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“You can call me Randy.”
“Well, actually, I’m not quite ready to call you by your first name yet. Seems kind of disrespectful.”
“Well, it isn’t at all, but you do whatever feels right.” Randy led Jeff to the bedroom. Jeff felt a bit uncomfortable going into a man and woman’s private bedroom, but Jake had to stay in bed, so that was it. To Jeff’s surprise, Jake was sitting up, shirtless and smoking a cigarette. On top of that, he was fidgeting with one of his guns.
“Come on in, Jeff,” Jake told him. “Pull up a chair.”
Jeff had a feeling it didn’t bother Jake one bit to be sitting shirtless in his own bed, welcoming someone who was still mostly a stranger. Jake held up the six-gun and seemed to be aiming it at something.
“I wish I could go out and shoot this thing to make sure the barrel is straight after all that gunplay. All that heat sometimes warps a gun.”
“Yes, sir. In fact, when I picked one of them up by the barrel the day of the shooting, I burned my hand. I had no idea they got that hot.”
Jake set the gun aside. “They get hot, all right,” he said rather absently.
Jeff opened his briefcase to take out a tablet. “How are you doing, Jake?”
Jake scowled. “As well as can be expected for a man who has to depend on his wife to feed him like a kid. It’s downright humiliating, and I intend to be out of this bed tomorrow.”
“You’re a man who says exactly what he’s thinking, aren’t you?”
“You bet. And I’m thinking you pretty much saved my life, Jeff.”
Jeff met his eyes, and Jake was smiling a little.
“I owe you. So you’ve got your book.”
Jeff couldn’t help a huge grin. “Thank you, but if we could do it over, I wouldn’t want to earn that right the way I did. I’d rather you were up and walking around and that this never happened.”
“Thank you.” Jake smoked quietly. “Why me, Jeff? What’s in it for you? You must have some kind of angle. Lord knows there are other outlaws still alive you could write about.”
“But I’m not writing about an outlaw. I’m writing about a man—complicated and notorious and outspoken and intimidating most of the time, but a man who loves his family. That’s not something you can usually say about someone with your kind of reputation.”
Jake nodded. “Good answer.”
“Besides that, you’re a dying breed, Jake. There are few men left with your reputation, few who ever live to tell about it. The world out there is changing, full of laws and courts and jails and advanced machinery and inventions. It’s nothing like the world you rode in as an outlaw. That fascinates me. I’m only doing this out of my own personal curiosity and my desire to understand men like you.”
“Yeah, well, dying breed was almost a literal description after the oth
er day.” Jake drew on the cigarette. “And don’t kid yourself, Jeff. Don’t make me out to be more than I am. I’m just a man who had about as messed up a childhood as any man could have—one who took the wrong path and committed pretty much every rotten crime imaginable and isn’t proud of it. I robbed trains and banks and ran illegal guns during the war. Then I just got lucky and found a woman who changed it all for me.” He sighed. “At any rate, I like your choice of words, and I think you’re sincere in telling the truth. Just don’t ever use the word hero any place in that book, or I won’t let you publish it. I’m no goddamn hero. And don’t have me shooting ten men when I only shot five—or whatever.”
Only five?
“And don’t turn it into one of those ridiculous dime novels.”
“I would never do that. I’m not that kind of writer.”
Jake reached over and put out his cigarette. He winced as he shifted in bed. “Damn,” he muttered. “Feels like somebody stuck a bowie knife in my leg and never took it back out.”
“I’m sorry you still have a lot of pain.”
“Well, pain means you’re still alive, so I guess it’s a good thing.”
Jeff nodded.
“I don’t want to go into much detail today, Jeff. I still get tired when I talk too much. I just want you to know that I want some kind of contract giving me and Randy final say in whether that book gets published, plus we need a trust drawn up, and all that bullshit. Peter Brown can take care of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Meantime, I’d like to know a little more about you,” Jake continued. He shifted, and Jeff couldn’t help but notice the scars—one at Jake’s shoulder, another farther down on his chest, a deep white scar on one arm, another one farther down on his belly.
Jake caught him studying his scars. He pointed to the scar at his shoulder. “Bullet wound—” His chest. “Bullet wound—” His arm. “Knife wound from a bar fight. All from the old days, Jeff. I have a scar down low on my right hip from the bullet I took at the Kennedy shoot-out back in California. I have scars on my back too, but I don’t talk about those.”
Do Not Forsake Me Page 13
