Jake urged her to let go. “Let your husband hold you, Evie. Let’s all go home to your mother. She’s home by now and waiting for us and probably out of her mind with worry.”
“She’s okay, Daddy. Before this happened—”
“I know. I heard. So we have a lot to be thankful for, don’t we?”
“Evie, let me help you.” Brian’s eyes teared at the bruises on her face. “My God.” He leaned close and kissed her cheek, and she finally let go of Jake and threw her arms around Brian’s neck.
Jake tucked the blanket around her as Brian picked her up. He put a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Go take care of her. I have some business to settle with those men over there who are still alive.” He began reloading one of his guns.
“What?” Evie caught him loading the gun.
“You go with Brian, baby girl. When I’m through, there won’t be a man left alive to talk about you or—”
“No!”
The darkness moved back into Jake’s eyes. “Evie, I can’t let this go.”
“No! No! Don’t kill them!” Evie clung to Brian as she looked pleadingly at her father. “It’s murder! You’re better than that. You killed so many men today, but only because they were trying to kill you. Don’t turn around and just murder the rest of them,” she sobbed. “That’s what it would be. Murder!”
Jake closed his eyes and turned away. “Evie, they need to pay.”
“Most of them already have, by your guns, and Lloyd’s. Don’t go beyond the law, Daddy. I know Lloyd shot that man on purpose after he gave himself up. Don’t let him turn into someone lawless too! Killing those men would be like the old Jake, the one who led you and mother to so much heartache. And you’ll make Lloyd a killer too! Please don’t kill those men! I’ll never get over this if you do. I’ll feel responsible!”
“Jake, listen to her,” Brian told him.
Jake turned and met his eyes.
“Don’t put this on her conscience, Jake.”
“Promise me, Daddy. Judging them is up to God himself, not you. I forgive them. I have to forgive them to keep my sanity.”
Jake looked at his bruised, violated daughter. Evil can’t touch her. The preacher was right. Why else would she plead for the lives of men who’d done such awful things to her?
“Don’t go over there and execute the rest of them, Jake,” Brian pleaded. “Not in front of Evie.”
Evil can use her to bring out the evil in you…this could be a reckoning…a chance to once and for all cast out that evil. Jake felt a war going on in his heart. Whatever you decide to do to those men, Evie will be watching…
“Evie—”
“I know, Daddy. I know a lot more about you than you think. I’m not blind, but I know part of you doesn’t want to be like that anymore. Don’t make me the reason you go back to prison. And I don’t want Little Jake to see that kind of revenge. You’re wearing your mother’s crucifix,” she reminded him. “I know that means more to you than you let on. And Little Jake needs to know Grandpa’s guns are for good, not for evil—not for revenge. Your own mother wouldn’t want that.”
“Jake, Marty and Hash Bryant are both dead,” Brian reminded him. “Let it go now. I’m taking Evie around back to help her clean up and get dressed. Don’t let her hear any more gunshots.”
Jake reached out and put the back of his hand to Evie’s bruised cheek, then turned away, holstering his gun but struggling with a need to make every last man pay for touching his daughter. Brian turned and carried Evie around a side of the house where others couldn’t see them.
Evil can’t touch her.
Jake kept hearing the preacher’s words. Not only could evil not touch her, but because of her, he realized evil couldn’t touch him either. No longer could his father’s blood influence that dark part of him that was always looking for revenge…for every man he killed was his father, over and over and over again.
His throat hurt as he walked over to Lloyd, who still sat on the ground. Jake slumped down beside him, suddenly weary and realizing that for the last seven days he’d slept the equivalent of perhaps two nights, if that much. He touched Lloyd’s shoulder.
“When I saw you go down too, I thought I’d lost you,” he told Lloyd. “I never want to know that feeling again.”
“You won’t lose me, Pa. I have to be around to keep your ass out of trouble. That’s become my major occupation, you know.” Their gazes held. “How is she?”
Jake let go of him and ran a hand through his hair, realizing he’d lost his hat at some point. “I’m not sure. It’s going to take time, Lloyd, but she has Brian, and she couldn’t ask for a better man to get her through this. And she hasn’t lost the baby.”
Lloyd wiped at sudden tears. “I just…I want to kill every man left.”
“Evie knows that. She asked us not to. She said she’d feel responsible, that she forgives them, and we shouldn’t take any more revenge.”
Lloyd looked over at the remaining five men, who were being treated by Red and Ruben as best they could.
“Ain’t no way Doc Stewart is going to help any of you bastards,” Red was telling them, “after what you did to his wife. You can just suffer!”
“Only Evie would ask us not to make the rest of them pay,” Lloyd said quietly. “How can she forgive them?”
Jake sighed, looking down at the drying blood on his sleeve. “Because it’s not her place or ours to either condemn or forgive them. She said that’s God’s decision.” He met Lloyd’s gaze again. “And she doesn’t want me to lead you down that pathway. That’s exactly where you were going when you shot that unarmed man, Lloyd. I don’t want that for you, and neither does Evie. After what she’s been through, she’s thinking about us.” He looked away. “We have to honor what she wants.”
“I suppose,” Lloyd answered with a sigh. “I saw Dell’s dead body. I hope it was my bullet that got him.”
They sat there quietly for a moment, then looked at each other.
“She only asked me not to kill them,” Jake added. “She didn’t say anything about not kicking the shit out of them.”
Lloyd nodded. “A man needs to unleash his anger over something like this, but I’m hurting pretty bad right now, Pa.”
Jake looked toward the cabin. “Evie can’t see them right now.” He grimaced as he rose.
“You need to take care of that arm, Pa.”
Jake lit a cigarette. “I’ll have Jeff do it after I tend to business.” He walked over to the remaining men, who all looked terrified.
“Pa, maybe you’d better not,” Lloyd called to him. “Remember what you just told me. It’s the same for you.”
Jake kept walking.
“Pa, you could go to prison too, easier than I would!”
Four of the men sat hog-tied, one bleeding badly from a crease to his neck. A fifth man lay on his back, groaning from a bullet to the belly. Jake realized he didn’t know any of them.
“Don’t do it, Harkner,” one of them begged as Jake drew his gun. “You’re a marshal now. Marshals can’t execute people.”
Jake knelt down and pushed the gun under the man’s nose. “Can’t they?” He pushed upward painfully. “I’d like to shove the barrel of this gun into your mouth and pull the trigger, you worthless bastard! I’ve done it before. But my daughter actually forgave all of you. Can you believe that? She forgave you sonsofbitches! And that’s her right. But it’s my right not to forgive! I promised her I wouldn’t blow your fucking brains out, but I didn’t promise I wouldn’t make you suffer.”
Jake’s men stood back.
Jake slammed his gun across the first man’s face, then stood up and rammed a booted foot into his privates. He kicked another one under the chin.
“Pa, don’t!” Lloyd yelled. “Somebody stop him.”
Red and Ruben each grabbed hold of Jake.
<
br /> “Jake, you’ll just kill them another way!” Red told him, both men struggling to keep hold of him. “Your daughter will see them! She’ll know! Stop this—for Evie’s sake!”
Jake hesitated, then shook them off, tears in his eyes. “Nobody knows what she means to me!”
“Pa, you have to stop,” Lloyd called to him from where he still sat. He grimaced as he tried to get to his feet, then sat back down again. “Just…stop…”
Jake looked at the man with the belly wound. The man started crying when Jake approached where he lay. “I’m gut shot,” he whined.
Jake just shook his head. “Did my daughter beg and cry like you’re doing now?”
The man just looked at him and sobbed.
Judging them is up to God, Daddy. I forgive them.
Jake wished he knew how to forgive.
You have to forgive yourself, Jake, and your father. You’ll never be free until you can do that.
They were his father…all of them…every man who’d died by his guns. Jake realized it was done now. Done. He felt strangely relieved.
He turned away.
“Not one man here says a word about this,” he warned. “Or about Lloyd shooting that man earlier.”
“Ain’t a man here who blames either of you,” Red told him.
“Jake, every one of us would like to kill these men, but we just can’t do it, and neither should you,” Ruben told him. “There’s laws now about things like this, and you know it.”
Jake rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah…I know. And I’m forever grateful to all of you,” he told them.
Jeff came back with Brian’s horse, a now-dressed Little Jake sitting in front of him. Harry Wilkes followed with Jake’s horse. Jake stumbled to the animal and grasped the pommel, resting his head against the saddle.
Jeff led Brian’s horse around the side of the cabin. Moments later he rode back to where Lloyd still sat and dismounted, lifting Little Jake down. The child immediately ran to his grandfather.
Jeff knelt in front of Lloyd. “You all right?”
“I will be. Flesh wound, but it knocked me down good. It hurts like hell.”
Jeff watched Jake lift Little Jake with his good arm, and the child hugged his grandfather around the neck and kissed his cheek several times over. “This will bother him for a long time, won’t it?” Jeff commented to Lloyd.
“Pa?” Lloyd smiled sadly. “You never know for sure what’s going through that man’s head. Yeah, it will bother him. He wants real bad to flat-out kill the rest of those men, but he’ll respect what Evie wants. I’d like to kill them too, but that would break Evie’s heart. The hard part for Pa in all of this is Pa figures this is all because of who he is, but being able to hold Little Jake and knowing my sister has a man like Brian to help her… That helps, but he won’t really be okay until he gets home to my mom. She’s his medicine. I guarantee he’s thinking about her right now. Thank God she’ll be all right.” He winced and pressed his hand to his side, then reached up with his other arm. “Help me up, Jeff.”
Jeff took his hand and let Lloyd use him to get to his feet. “Speaking of your mother, Lloyd, I think Jake promised her he’d go to church if she came through her surgery without cancer. Do you think he’ll really go?”
Lloyd smiled more fully, the humor of that promise lightening his mood. “Well, you don’t promise something like that to my mother without keeping the promise. She’ll hold him to it.” He grinned at Jeff. “That will be something to see, won’t it?”
“I think it will be how I end the book…Jake Harkner, notorious outlaw, feared lawman, a man who smokes and cusses and spends time at brothels…taking his guns off and walking into church. Hell of an ending, isn’t it?”
Lloyd smiled sadly. “It sure is. I’ll bet it’s already eating at him that he made that promise. He’ll try to figure a way out of it, but my mom will absolutely hold him to it.” He looked toward the cabin. “And Evie—it will help her a lot to see Jake walk into church. Hell, she holds him right up there next to God to begin with.”
Both men grinned.
“That’s a hell of a comparison,” Jeff remarked.
Jake yelled at Jeff to come and help him wrap his arm.
“I’m not sure it’s safe to go over there,” Jeff quipped.
“I’ll go with you.” They both walked toward Jake, Lloyd leaning on Jeff’s shoulders and grimacing with pain.
“Lloyd, you said once that Jake fills up a room when he walks into it, but sometimes he fills up the whole damn country,” Jeff quipped. He glanced up at Lloyd. “You do know you’re just like him, don’t you?” Jeff added.
Lloyd stopped walking. “I know. I have to watch myself because I’m too much like him.”
“Lloyd, you shot that one man down after he gave up his guns.”
Lloyd gave him a dark look. “It’s done, and the other men here have agreed not to talk about it,” he told Jeff. “Don’t you write about it. And I shot him because he didn’t help my sister, plain and simple.”
“And I’m guessing that’s exactly the kind of thing Jake would have done in his early days.”
Jeff walked off to help Jake, and Lloyd hesitated, watching after him. He studied Jake as he took gauze from his supplies, and all the while Little Jake stood there with his arms wrapped around his grandpa’s leg. The kid was nuts about Jake. So was Stephen.
He glanced at the prisoners. One of those still hog-tied glared back at him. “Which one of you bastards shot my brother while his hands were in the air?” he asked.
Lloyd put a hand to his side and walked closer. “I did,” he sneered. “The sonofabitch didn’t try to help my sister.”
“And you’re just like your pa—a ruthless, no good sonofabitch! My brother was unarmed!”
“So was my sister!”
“You must be Lloyd Harkner.”
“I must be.”
“I’ll remember that name. Someday I’ll come for you, Lloyd Harkner.”
Lloyd just smiled. “Be my guest. I’d like nothing more than a chance to kill you right here and now, but I can’t. You come back at me with a gun and I’ll have my excuse to blow you away.”
“Yeah? Well, if they don’t hang me, I will come back. You can count on it.”
Lloyd nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Holt. Mike Holt. Remember it.”
“I’ll do that.” Lloyd looked back at Jake. Jeff was helping wrap his arm, and Little Jake still clung to his leg. He thought about Mike Holt saying he was just like his ruthless, no-good sonofabitch father. Jeff had made the comparison also, but not in such derogatory words.
“Well, if I’m just like Jake Harkner, I guess I don’t mind so much,” he muttered. “Mean and all.”
Thirty-six
Randy brushed her hair, thinking how Jake liked it long and loose. She’d been home two days and still no word. The constant worry over whether Jake and Lloyd and Evie and Little Jake were alive stabbed at her constantly, leaving her unable to sleep. Everything seemed unreal, and loneliness engulfed her.
Someone lightly knocked at her bedroom door. “Randy? It’s Peter. Can I come in?”
She wrapped her robe tighter around herself. “Yes.”
He opened the door and left it open as he stepped inside, folding his arms. “I know you’d rather I didn’t come into this room, but Katie and Stephen went back across the street to help her parents with more cleaning at her house, and there is a woman here who wants to see you. Now, mind you, I’m not real familiar with her type, but I’m pretty sure she’s a prostitute.”
Randy rose, drawing in her breath. “Then she knows Jake! Maybe she’s seen him!”
Peter shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Let her in, Peter! Have her come in here and close the door.” Randy retied her robe.
> Peter looked her over with a frown. “Randy, she’s a harlot.”
“And she has news of Jake—I’m sure of it. And don’t look down on her, Peter. Jake wouldn’t.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course not. It’s probably Dixie James. They’re good friends.”
Peter’s eyebrows raised in disbelief. “And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Not at all. It’s all right, Peter. This is Jake we’re talking about.”
Peter dropped his arms and then put his hands out as though to give up. “Of course. What was I thinking?”
Her eyes teared. “Peter, she knows something important, or she wouldn’t be here. Whatever it is, I need to know too. Maybe…maybe Jake’s dead and she knows it.”
He reached out and touched her arm. “Don’t think that way. And by the way, she has a kid with her—maybe eight or nine years old, blond hair, kind of shy. Do you know who he is?”
Randy frowned. “No. Maybe he belongs to Dixie.”
Peter sighed and left. Moments later he ushered in a plump woman with faded blond hair that was pulled into a twist at the nape of her neck. She showed subtle signs of having once been pretty. She’d left off the heavy paint such women usually used, other than a little face powder and lips demurely painted with a soft pink color. She wore tiny diamond earrings and a prim, close-fitting dress and straw hat with a blue ribbon that brought out the blue in her eyes. She turned to the boy with her.
“You stay out there with that nice man, Ben, till I talk to Jake’s wife, all right?”
The boy glanced at Randy. “She’s real pretty. I knew she would be ’cuz Jake said so.”
Randy frowned in confusion as the boy turned away, and the woman came inside and closed the door.
“You’re Dixie James,” Randy said matter-of-factly.
“Yes, ma’am. How did you know?”
“Jake tells me everything.” Randy blinked back tears. “Please tell me you haven’t come here to tell me he’s dead.”
Dixie shook her head. “No, ma’am. I don’t know myself what has happened to him. I only came here to tell you about the kid out there…and I was hoping Jake was back by now so I’d know he’s okay.” Her own eyes filled with tears. “I care a lot about that man, Mrs. Harkner, and the last time I saw him he was a mess…a real dark, menacing, angry, starving, sleep-deprived mess.”
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