Do Not Forsake Me

by Rosanne Bittner

  “They’re after my Evie, Dixie,” he groaned in her ear. “They might already have her and my grandson…my Little Jake! And Katie! Katie and Stephen! My whole goddamned family is in danger, and my wife might be dying, and I…I can’t…feel anything. Just rage! Just rage!”

  “My God, Jake, calm down! Calm down!” Dixie managed to push him off of her, then stepped back. “My God, I’ve never seen that look on your face before, Jake Harkner. For the first time since I’ve known you, I’m afraid of you!”

  Jake turned away and stumbled again. “They’ll rape her, Dixie. They’ll rape my angel. And she’s pregnant and sick! She’ll lose the baby! Se la llevaron! Quiero morirme! Quiero morirme! And they’ll do the same to Katie—maybe kill Stevie and my Little Jake.”

  There was no controlling him. Dixie looked helplessly at Lloyd, who looked hardly any better than his father.

  “Marty Bryant,” he explained. “We found out at Hell’s Nest that he has a lot of men with him and he’s headed for Guthrie to kill or take somebody in the family to get back at me and Jake.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Dixie, we have to leave a young boy here. It’s a long story, but Jake will come back for him once this mess is over with. His name is Ben. We came across the kid’s father beating him with a belt, and Jake went kind of crazy. I guess I don’t have to explain to you why, and the details don’t matter right now.”

  “Sure, he can stay here. I’ll make sure he doesn’t see anything he shouldn’t.” She touched Lloyd’s arm. “My God, Lloyd, you poor thing.”

  Lloyd grasped his stomach as though in pain. “With my mom down in Oklahoma City, that leaves Katie, Stephen, and Little Jake for Marty’s rotten plan. We were told he’d take somebody in the family as a way to get Pa to come to him.” He grimaced. “They’ll kill Pa. They’ll kill him if he gives himself up to them. I’m going to lose my whole family!”

  “You calm down. The both of you look like you need to eat and rest. If you kill yourselves trying to get to Guthrie, you’ll be no good to anybody.”

  “No!” Jake roared. “We have to leave again. We only stopped to drop Ben off, and I’m doing that because I don’t know what we’ll find in Guthrie and don’t know who will be there to take care of Ben. I trust you, Dixie. You’ll take good care of him till we come back for him. And if we don’t make it, you take him to Lloyd’s in-laws—the Donavans.”

  “Jake Harkner, you won’t make it to Guthrie in your condition! If you really love your daughter and want to help her, you need to rest before you go any farther. You know I’m right.”

  “No! I have to go on.”

  “Jake, you’re no good like this. You aren’t thinking straight, and riding half the night again could kill you.”

  “I’m too goddamn thirsty for blood to stop for anything, and I’m too fucking mad and mean to die! If I do, it won’t be until after I’ve destroyed Marty Bryant and every last man with him!”

  “At least eat something, Jake.” She turned to Lloyd. “You too. Let me get you some biscuits and jerky.”

  “Forget it!”

  “Jake—” Dixie grasped his arm, but he half pushed her away. She stumbled slightly and Jake turned away.

  “Jesus.”

  “I know you, Jake Harkner! You’re in a rage, but you know goddamn well that if you don’t eat something and get some water down your throat and get a couple hours of sleep tonight, you’ll die! You’re going to take some biscuits and jerky with you, and you’re going to promise me you’ll stop long enough later to sleep a little, you black-hearted sonofabitch! Are you really so stubborn and thirsty to murder those men that you’d risk not even making it there? If you love that daughter of yours and those grandchildren and that new daughter-in-law, you’ll do what you need to do to stay alive and get to them! You’ve always listened to me, Jake Harkner, and you know goddamn well your wife would be telling you the same thing!”

  Jake faced her, his eyes still looking like the devil’s, but Dixie faced him squarely, her hands on her hips. “You wait right there while we get you fresh horses and some food!” Dixie turned to go into the house, and Jake glanced down at Ben, who stared at him with wide-eyed terror.

  “Are you mad at me for making you stop here?” the boy asked Jake.

  Jake closed his eyes and turned to lean on a hitching post. “No, Ben, I’m not mad at you, but some very bad men have taken my daughter and my grandsons and maybe Lloyd’s wife, and I’m so full of hatred for them that it seems like I hate everybody. You have to trust me, Ben. Either I or some really nice people will be along to take you in and give you a damn good life.” He looked at the boy. “You’ll be loved, no matter what happens to me, understand? I promise you, you’ll be loved and cared for. Don’t be afraid of how I look right now. I just…I need to be this way to do what I have to do. So you stay here with Dixie. She’s a nice lady and she’ll be good to you.”

  Lloyd turned away, feeling helpless and angry and frustrated and wanting to explode with his own need to get back to Guthrie. He walked up to Jeff. “I don’t know what the hell to do, Jeff. There is only one of me, and my mother needs me, my father needs me, my sister probably needs me by now, maybe my wife…or my son…or both.”

  Jeff dismounted. “Lloyd, Dixie is right. You and Jake need to eat and get some real rest.”

  “I’ve got no appetite and neither does Pa.” He wiped at tears. “Jesus, I’ve never seen him this bad, and I’ve never felt this much…I don’t even know what to call it. It’s worse than rage. There isn’t even a word for it.”

  “You’re your father’s son, Lloyd. Right now you’re closer to nitroglycerin than dynamite.”

  Lloyd threw his head back, shaking his hair behind his shoulders. “The trouble is, I can probably take this constant riding and no sleep better than Pa. If he keeps this up, he’ll die. If he does, I’ll go after Katie and Evie on my own, and there’s going to be a bloodbath like you’ve never seen, because I might not have anything left to live for!”

  Dixie came back out with a gunnysack of food. She handed it to Lloyd, then stepped back, seeing the same broiling storm in Lloyd’s eyes as the one in his father’s. “My God,” she muttered. She turned to Jake. “You listen to me, Jake Harkner! You get hold of yourself and you get your thoughts together. You need to plan this. You need to calm down and plan this. And you have to forget you’re a marshal and go back to the outlaw inside of you. That’s how you will do what you have to do. You have to forget your feelings for Evie and those grandbabies and just act, Jake. No feelings! Feelings are killing you! Use your goddamn good sense and your great skills and those famous guns and go get your daughter and whoever else they might have taken. That’s the only way you will be able to help her, Jake. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  He met her eyes, and Dixie saw the Jake she’d never really known in his early days, the one she knew dwelled deep inside Jake Harkner the U.S. Marshal—now just a man on a mission of murder and revenge. “I almost hurt a woman back there, Dixie…a whore who wanted me to screw her for information about my own family—information she wasn’t going to tell me otherwise. You would never do that.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t. If I knew something like that, I’d ride to hell and back to find and tell you.”

  “I’ve never hurt a woman in my life, but I hated her for that. For a minute I wanted to strangle her. It was like…like…”

  “Your father? No, it wasn’t, Jake. Your father didn’t need a reason to hurt a woman. You had a reason—and you know down deep inside you never really would have hurt her. It sounds to me like she would have deserved it, but mean as you are, you never would have gone that far. Jake, you have to reach down inside and use that meanness the right way—use it to go find your family and do what you have to do to get them back. You need to be cold, Jake—colder than the man who used to ride with outlaws, colder than the man who killed the
whole Kennedy gang and killed all those men when you went after your son.” Dixie kept her distance, truly taken aback by his demeanor. “And you have to remember what your son is going through right now, Jake. I know how bad you’re hurting over this, but Lloyd’s own wife and son might also be involved. That kid is living in hell right now with worry. He’s hurting just as much as you are, and you need each other. You can’t think this is just your own agony, Jake, because it’s Lloyd’s too. You need to be strong for each other.”

  Dominic came outside to tend to the horses. Jeff dismounted and explained what was going on, and the stable hand ranted in Spanish over Jake’s dilemma. He took Ben’s hand and asked if he would help with the horses. “Jake, I will bring you fresh horses as fast as I can.” Dominic headed for the barn with Ben. Jeff followed to help.

  Jake sat down on the steps to wait, and Lloyd joined him. Neither spoke for a few minutes. Both smoked.

  “Don’t let them take you, Pa,” Lloyd finally spoke up. “They’ll kill you sure as shit, and they won’t be quick about it. There has to be a way out of this without you giving yourself up like a goddamn martyr.”

  “They want you too.”

  “I fucking know that!” He wiped at his eyes again. “Sweet Jesus, I’ve had trouble helping Katie face what I do for a living. Now this. If they…” He got up. “Our marriage will never survive this.”

  “You just remember that those men can’t really touch her. Understand? Katie Harkner is yours! Just like Evie will always belong to Brian, no matter what happens. If a woman’s not willing, she hasn’t been touched!” Jake growled the words angrily.

  “Well, life still won’t be worth living if something happens to my son…and to Little Jake.”

  Dixie walked closer. “You two keep in mind that if Evie and Katie get through this, and your grandsons are all right, they will need you more than they have ever needed you, so you need to get your heads on straight and not do something that could get you sent to prison. I know you need to reach down inside to the mean snakes that dwell there, but you have to also be smart about this. And, Jake Harkner, it’s very possible your wife will come home just fine. And if something terrible has happened to your daughter and grandsons and Katie, she’ll need you worse than she ever has her whole life…and you’ll need her. Don’t do something crazy. Go get your family and get yourself back to Guthrie in one piece.”

  Jake met her eyes, and Dixie hardly recognized him. His entire countenance, even his looks, were different. “I see what the old outlaw Jake Harkner must have looked like at one time, Jake,” she told him. “How that wife of yours managed to tame you, I’ll never figure. But now you have to think about her and what she’d be telling you right now. She’d be telling you to eat…and rest at least a little…and to keep your head on straight and not let rage make you do something foolish. A man doesn’t think right when he’s in your state, and that won’t help your family. Do you understand? Calm down and think this through.”

  Dominic and Jeff returned with fresh horses, Ben walking beside them. Without another word, Jake mounted up. Dixie hurried up to him and handed up the gunnysack. “Eat,” she ordered.

  Jake took it. “I’ll try. Thanks for the food. And I’m sorry…for that little shove. I didn’t mean it, Dixie.”

  Dixie patted his leg. “I know that. Go get your daughter and Katie, Jake, but use your head. Promise me.” She could almost hear thunder and see black clouds hovering over him.

  “I’ll do what I have to do. I’m not even sure what that is yet, but I’ll damn well get them back, and Marty Bryant might as well already count himself as dead.”

  Jake rode off.

  “Bye, Dixie.” Lloyd followed, as did Jeff.

  Dixie looked at young Ben. “You poor kid.” She walked up and touched his hair. “Ben, he’s a good, good man—really. He’s just gone off to a deep, dark place for now. But he’ll get his family back and he’ll come for you. I just know he will.”

  Ben nodded, tears running down his cheeks. “He called me his son.”

  Dixie smiled for him. “Then that’s what you are, Ben, no matter what happens. You’re Jake Harkner’s son.”

  Ben watched the three men disappear over the horizon. “I hope he doesn’t get killed.”

  Dixie smiled. “Ben, it takes an awful lot to bring down Jake Harkner.” She wanted to sound hopeful for the boy, but the man she’d just seen hardly seemed human. How long his body could keep up with such abuse was what worried her more than the outlaws he was after.

  Thirty-one

  Randy!

  She saw him…falling…falling into blackness. He reached for her, but only the tips of their fingers touched…and then he slipped away.

  And who was that with him? Evie? Why was she with Jake, falling into that black hole?

  Gampa’s guns! Gampa’s guns!

  Little Jake? No! She couldn’t see him at all. She could only hear his voice. She cried out to them, the family she loved.

  Someone grasped her shoulders.

  “Jake?” she muttered.

  “Randy, wake up.”

  Randy gasped and started awake to see Peter bent over her. It took her a moment to remember where she was. The dream had been so real, she thought she was back home and Jake was calling for her. She looked around, coming to the reality that she was still in a hospital bed. She looked back at Peter.

  “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong!”

  She reached up and he pulled her into his arms. “Randy, what is it? Are you in pain?”

  “No!” She clung to him. “Take me home! Take me home! Something terrible has happened!”

  “Randy, you were just dreaming.”

  “No, it’s more than that!” She pulled away and tried to get up.

  “Randy, don’t get up.” Peter held her down. “You have another week before the stitches come out. Maybe not even then.”

  “No! He has to take them out now! Today! We have to go home, Peter. Something awful has happened. I feel it! It isn’t just the dream. I feel it. Jake needs me. They all need me.”

  “Randy, stop this! You’re getting yourself worked up to where you’ll just make things worse. If you break open those stitches, you’ll have to stay here even longer. I already wired home three days ago that you came through everything okay and that it’s not cancer. I haven’t heard back that anything is wrong. We’ll go home in just another week, and you’ll see that everything is fine. I think you’re just having nightmares from too much medication.”

  Randy grasped his arms. “You don’t understand! I wouldn’t have this feeling if there wasn’t something terribly wrong at home. Jake is hurting in some way, Peter. I don’t know if it’s an emotional hurt or if he’s hurt physically. I just know that he’s hurt! And Evie might be too. And Little Jake! I heard his voice, Peter. I heard Little Jake talking about ‘Gampa’s guns.’”

  “It’s just a mixture of memories and medicine, Randy. Please lie still.”

  “I can’t rest until you go to the sheriff’s office or the telegraph office and find out if anyone has sent us a message from Guthrie.” She sat up on the edge of the bed, refusing to lie back down. “Please go and see, Peter. I have this awful, awful feeling!” She folded her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth. “Dr. Rogers can take out the stitches after we get back. That way I can leave sooner. I can’t wait around here another whole week!”

  Peter grasped her shoulders. “I’m not leaving until you lie back down and promise to stay down!”

  She moved back into bed and Peter pulled the blankets over her and bent close to kiss her forehead. “I’ll see what I can find out. Will you lie still until I get back?”

  “Yes. Just go and see! Ask at the front desk first. Maybe someone already brought us a telegram.”

  Peter straightened with a sigh and picked up his hat from a chair. He
put it on and went out, hoping she was wrong about all of this. He hated seeing her so upset. She’d been through so much already.

  He started for the front door of the small, brick hospital when a man wearing a badge came through the door. He was decked out with guns much as Jake dressed for the job, and he had a waxed mustache that curled on the ends.

  Peter hesitated, listening to the man ask if there was a patient there named Miranda Harkner. Peter’s chest tightened. Good God, please don’t say Jake is dead! He did not want to be the one to give Randy that kind of news. It would kill her!

  “That gentleman is a friend of Mrs. Harkner, and is here to watch over her,” a nurse told the man with the badge. She nodded toward Peter. “That’s Attorney Peter Brown. Perhaps he can help you.”

  The stocky man of perhaps forty years walked over to Peter and introduced himself. “I’m a U.S. Marshal,” he told Peter. “Bill Graham. I, uh, have some rather sad news for Marshal Jake Harkner’s wife. I was told she was here.”

  “She is.” Peter felt sick. “You can tell me, and I’ll give her the news. She’s not completely healed yet. You can’t just go in there and blurt out whatever you have to say.”

  Marshal Graham removed his hat to reveal thinning, sandy-colored hair. His blue eyes revealed a deep sadness.

  Not Jake! Not Jake!

  “Mr. Brown, something has happened back in Guthrie. This won’t be easy for Mrs. Harkner. I know Jake real well, and I’ve met his wife. She’s a good woman, very devoted to her family.”

  “And?”

  “And, uh, maybe you know that a few weeks ago, a prisoner by the name of Marty Bryant escaped. Jake killed a couple of his brothers, and we all figured he was headed back to get some kind of revenge against Jake. A lot of men, including Jake, have been looking for him, but to no avail.”

  Peter rubbed at his eyes. “My God,” he muttered. “What’s happened, Marshal?”

  Bill Graham sighed. “Mr. Brown, Marty Bryant and a whole gang of men raided Guthrie, burned some buildings to create a diversion while he took Jake’s daughter Evie…and his grandson…the one they call Little Jake.”