“I was a complete asshole to you that day. You should have beat me to a pulp.”
They heard Clem arguing then.
“Ride off now, or we’ll finish what Jake started!” Cole yelled.
There came the sound of a horse riding at a gallop then, the hoofbeats quickly fading.
Lloyd closed his eyes and shook his head. “Pa, if I didn’t butt in just now, you’d be in trouble, like when you were out to kill young Ben’s father back in Oklahoma. You would have killed Clem if I hadn’t stepped in, and you’d go back to prison.”
“Which goes to show you I am like…” He turned away again. “My father.”
“Your father was a drunk and a rapist who beat and killed his own wife and forced himself on the young girl you loved. But when it comes to your loved ones, you go into that protective rage, probably because you love too much. So no, you’re nothing like him!”
Jake took a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “It’s the rage part that reminds me of him. Part of me says I didn’t really have to kill all those rustlers, but they threatened to come for Randy, and when it comes to her, something just…snaps.” He lit the cigarette. “Jesus, I screamed at her.”
“You were protecting her. You wanted her away from the men just then because of what was said. She knows that, Pa. Mom knows you better than you know you.”
Jake took a drag on the cigarette. “Yeah, she keeps telling me that, too.”
“And she has stayed with you through everything all these years. Getting yelled at once in all those years isn’t going to bother her one little bit.”
“I heard that…little gasp…like I’d hit her or something.” Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Goddamn it! I screamed at my wife. I didn’t just raise my voice. I screamed at her. The minute I did that, I saw him screaming at my mother.”
“Pa, you have to get over all that. Don’t fall back into that awful place where you’re the kid getting beat on and you think you have to fight back all the time.”
Jake smoked quietly. “Go saddle a horse for me, will you?”
“Why?”
“I just need to be alone, that’s all.”
“Don’t you be thinking about riding off, Pa. I know you.”
“I can’t talk to your mother right now.”
“But you should talk to her. She’ll want to talk to you.”
Jake took a last drag on the cigarette and stepped it out. “I can’t. I’m still too angry: not so much over what happened, but angry with myself. I don’t want her to tell me it’s all right, and I don’t want her forgiveness, because I don’t deserve it. What that man said…it’s too personal. I never should have touched that woman thirty years ago. Who the hell was I to think I could bring a woman like that into my fucked-up life? She deserves so much better.”
Lloyd sighed. “Damn it, Pa, give her some credit for knowing a good man when she sees one. And if you hadn’t come along back then, she’d have died from snakebite, remember? Did you ever think that maybe God deliberately put her in your life to save your sorry ass?”
Jake faced him, shaking his head. “I don’t deserve you, or Evie either.”
Even in the moonlight, Lloyd could see tears in his father’s eyes. “Well, whether you like and accept it or not, we both think we couldn’t have asked for a better father.”
Jake wiped at his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “I’ll go get my horse.”
“You need to go get Mom and talk to her.”
“I can’t right now. I can face ten men with guns, but that woman can completely undo me with one look or one word. That little gasp she made when I yelled at her—it was like somebody planting a knife in my heart.”
“Pa—”
“Lloyd, normally she’d already be looking for me and wanting to talk. In case you haven’t noticed, she didn’t this time. That tells me I hurt her way worse than I ever have before. As far as I’m concerned, yelling at her like that was the same as hitting her. That man took something beautiful and made it ugly. Randy doesn’t deserve that, and it’s because of who she’s married to.”
“And married is the key word here, Pa. She’s your wife. So nothing he said matters.”
Jake turned away. “It does matter.” He walked off into the darkness.
“Pa, what about your hand? Don’t tell me it’s not hurting. You should let Brian look at it.”
Jake just kept walking.
“Damn it, Pa,” Lloyd muttered. He turned to go back to the women’s wagon when he saw Randy walking toward him, her robe wrapped tightly around her. Lloyd reached out and grasped her arm.
“Leave him alone, Mom. He’ll come around in the morning.”
“Where is he?”
“He just needs to be alone.”
“No! That’s the worst thing he can do.”
“Well, he wouldn’t listen to a damn thing I told him. In his mind, he as much as hit you.”
Randy closed her eyes and turned away.
“You do know why he screamed at you, don’t you? It was just his way of protecting you. That man he beat on…” He closed his eyes. “Shit,” he said softly. “He called you a name.”
“A whore? I’ve heard it before, Lloyd. In spite of explaining the truth a thousand times over, some think that’s how Jake and I met, because of the life he lived then.” Randy shook her head. “I know him. He blames himself for every hurt or insult to someone he loves. And when he’s that angry, it makes him think about his father screaming that he’s worthless and no good, and then he starts thinking his father was right.”
“I talked to him. He’ll get over this.”
Randy wiped at her eyes. “He’s riding away, isn’t he?”
“You know Pa. I know you want to go talk to him, but this time you really need to leave him be and let him come to you when he’s ready. He needs to learn how to deal with the bad memories on his own.”
“But I’ve always been there for him.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he needs you to not be there for him. Maybe he needs to face his demons on his own. And you need to get some sleep.” Lloyd led her toward the covered wagon.
“How can I sleep? He’s out there alone. When he gets like this—”
“Let him be alone, Mom. He’ll be back. You have that man so hog-tied he can hardly breathe without you. Remember what he told Jeff for that book? You are the air he breathes.”
Randy looked up at him. “Doesn’t he realize I feel the same way about him?”
“Sure he does, but this one ran really deep. He needs time to deal with it.”
Randy looked off into the darkness. “That’s what worries me.” She turned away. “This was so…personal. Sometimes an insult can hurt worse than a bullet. And I have a feeling what that man said hit some kind of chord—something Jake has never told me, probably about his father.” She sighed and shook her head. “I hate it when he leaves without talking to me. That’s when he goes to that lonely place where I can’t reach him.”
“Then you need to pray for him. That’s all you can do.”
“I’ve been praying for Jake Harkner for thirty years. I hate his father so much for all the damage he did, Lloyd. Not just the physical beatings, but the mental ones.”
“And God brought you into his life. He’ll be okay.” Lloyd urged her back to the wagon, hoping he was right.
Fifteen
The men sat quietly around the morning campfire, drinking coffee and eating biscuits and bacon. There was very little conversation. Jake never came back the night of his confrontation with Clem, nor last night. All wondered the same thing: Was he coming back at all?
Lloyd only drank coffee. He didn’t eat. He threw the remains of his coffee into the fire, making it hiss, then tossed the tin cup at a man named Moses Crenshaw, who was their designated cook. He stood up and lit a cigarette, then noticed a
rider in the distance. He knew his father’s silhouette well enough to realize it was Jake.
“Well, what do you know?” Pepper muttered.
“Don’t anybody say a word to him,” Lloyd warned. “Just let him ride in.” He leaned against the cook wagon while others finished eating and lit their own cigarettes.
Jake rode closer and dismounted, obviously weary. He pulled his rifle from its strap on the saddle, then removed the saddle and set it in the grass along with his gear. He took off the horse’s bridle, then smacked the animal on the rump. “Go get some rest,” he called to it. He walked into the circle of men and sat down, pouring himself some coffee. “Pepper, I’ll need a fresh horse.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jake swallowed some coffee, glancing at Lloyd with bloodshot eyes.
“You look like shit,” Lloyd told him.
Jake set down his coffee cup and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. “I don’t doubt that,” he answered. He lit the cigarette.
“I only want to know one thing, Pa.”
Jake took a deep drag on his cigarette, blowing out smoke as he answered. “No, I didn’t go find Clem and kill him, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Good.”
Jake looked at the others. “We should be in Denver by this afternoon. Pepper, you and Cole herd the cattle to the stockyards and—”
“I already gave those orders,” Lloyd interrupted. “Don’t be concerned with the cattle, Pa. Be concerned about my mother. She’s a wreck. She thought maybe you wouldn’t come back.”
Jake slowly rose, keeping his cigarette at the corner of his mouth. “From the look on your face, maybe I shouldn’t have come back!”
Lloyd just shook his head. “And you’re a damn fool!” He turned and walked away. Jake watched him. He’d never seen his son quite like this.
“Jake, he’s just upset about his mother and sister,” Pepper said cautiously. “I think it hit him hard, thinkin’ he might be responsible for takin’ care of the whole family on his own.”
Jake rubbed at his eyes. “Sorry you men had to witness any of this. I have a bit of a problem with my temper.”
“No kidding?” Cole answered. “We never noticed.”
Jake looked at him and saw a grin on his face. He smiled a little himself before taking another drag on the cigarette and then gulping down the rest of the coffee. “There’s something down inside me that’s kind of like a dragon coming up from a dungeon to roar and spit fire once in a while. All of you know how I feel about my family. The anger is at myself and my…father…not at any of them.”
“We know,” Pepper told him. “And by the way, we, uh, yesterday we rode through an area filled with wildflowers—every color in the book—so we all picked some for your wife and daughter. ’Course they cried, but I think it made them feel better.”
“Thanks,” Jake answered quietly.
“Jake, it’s like we told you the other night,” Cole told him. “Your wife is one fine woman. We hold you and your whole family in high regard.”
“That son of yours is a hell of a man,” Moses put in. “He’s got his head on straight. And your daughter is like a damn angel. I ain’t never met a woman more gracious and kind. It’s just a reflection of the kind of woman who mothered her, and you raised a fine son.”
Jake glanced over to where Lloyd was still walking away. “He is. We’ve had our differences, though, as you just saw.”
“You know, Jake, that’s how sons are about their mothers,” Pepper told him as he rose. “If they have to choose which one to defend, they’ll always choose the mother first. Ain’t nothin’ much more sacred to a boy than his ma.”
Jake thought about his own mother, murdered before his eyes by his father when he was too little to defend her. He took another drag on the cigarette. “Yeah,” he said quietly.
“I’ll go get you that fresh horse,” Pepper told him. “Time to get moving.” He stopped in front of Jake. “And your son was right. You look like shit. You okay?”
Jake smiled sadly. “I’m okay.” He rose with a deep sigh, aching all over, both his heart from regrets and his body from the raging fight and no sleep. Men began cleaning up as he walked out to where Lloyd stood next to his horse. Lloyd was untying his hair, which hung nearly to his waist now. “Someday you’ll get mistaken for a renegade Indian and get yourself shot,” Jake told him.
Lloyd smoothed back his hair and retied the strip of leather at the nape of his neck. “You keep telling me that. And with this dark skin from the sun and my Mexican blood, I guess I do look like I should be wearing buckskins.” He turned and faced his father, his eyes still showing anger.
“Are you going to forgive me anytime soon?” Jake asked. “I’d like us to have a good time in Denver, for the women’s sake.”
Lloyd closed his eyes and shook his head. “Pa, when you disappear like that, it hurts mother, and that hurts Katie and Evie. And it hurts me. And it makes me wonder sometimes who the hell Lloyd Harkner is. I’m always Jake’s son, and that’s fine with me. You know how I feel about that, but I’m also my own man, and I have a son and a daughter and a good wife and a ranch to run. I can’t always be there for my mother when you decide you’re not good enough for her and think she’s better off without you. She’s loved you for thirty years, Pa, so accept that love. She’s nowhere near as upset about what Clem said as she is about you leaving without talking to her after yelling at her like that.”
Jake took a last drag on his cigarette and stepped it out, turning away. “Lloyd, there are things about me I try to change but can’t. That’s just me. And you are damn well a lot like me except for that real, real deep ruthlessness that I lived with the first fifteen years of my life. You have my temper, but you know how to check it when things get really bad. I don’t. Randy knows that.”
“But it still hurts her, Pa, especially this time, because of how you yelled at her.”
“And I never will again.” Jake removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair before replacing it and turning back to face his son. “You asked who Lloyd Harkner is. Apart from being my son, I see him as a damn fine man who is all the good things I never was, the man I wish I could have been at your age if not for the kind of life I fell into. Someday the J&L will be yours, and it’s most likely I’ll go before your mother, considering the kind of life I’ve led. I have enough aches and pains for ten men. You have no idea how comforting it is to know you’ll be there for your mother when I’m gone.” He looked away. “God gave you to me to make up for my own lost years, and I can’t figure out why He thinks I deserve such things.”
Lloyd took his hat from where it hung on his saddle horn and put it on. “Well, maybe you should just face the fact that the Good Lord saw the good in you, but He couldn’t figure out how to make you see it yourself.” He mounted up. “So he brought Mother into your life. Accept that and be happy. Not everything bad that happens is your fault.” He leaned down a little. “And I love you, but you cast a long shadow. I’m moving out from under that shadow. I’ll always have your back, and I’ll never desert you like I once did, but when you told Stephen and Ben about your father, I knew you’d moved on from the horror of that man and were a lot stronger—on the inside. God knows how strong and able you are on the outside, but it’s the man on the inside that is wearing Mother down. It hurts her to see you like that, because she can’t stand to see that little boy in you come out all lost and alone. The woman in her loves the man you are. She’s your wife and proud of it. So nothing anybody else says is going to bother her one bit. Understand?”
Jake folded his arms. “When in hell did you get so wise?”
“Since I had to figure out my father so I’d understand him instead of wanting to hit him.” Lloyd turned his horse and rode off, shouting orders to the men. Jake wanted to hug him for the child he used to be, but he most certainly was his own man now.
Go ahead and get out from under my shadow, Son. It’s time.
By then Pepper approached with a freshly saddled black gelding for Jake. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Jake mounted up.
“You and Lloyd get things straightened out?”
Jake lit another cigarette and caught Pepper’s gaze. “He’s quite a man all on his own, you know.”
Pepper nodded. “That he is.” Pepper sobered. “He was awful worried about you, Jake. Don’t let him make you believe otherwise. He’d be real lost without you.”
Jake nodded. “I feel the same way about him.” He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “Right now I have to straighten things out with the wife. That might be a bit more difficult than talking to my son.”
Pepper laughed. “I don’t envy you there.” He laughed again as he rode off.
Jake rode ahead of camp to the covered wagon and the women’s buggy a good half mile ahead. He could see the three women and Brian were dressed and ready to go. Brian was cleaning up a cook fire. Randy glanced at Jake, then turned away. Jake dismounted and walked up to Brian. “How bad is it?”
Brian’s eyebrows raised as he half grinned. “You’re in deep this time, Jake. Even Evie is mad at you for yelling at her mother and then riding off for two nights. Considering the fact that my wife is the most forgiving woman who ever walked, let alone knowing how much she worships her father, it takes a lot of hurt for her to be upset with you.”
Jake sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Do me a favor and take all the women to the Brown Palace when we reach Denver and get rooms for all of us. Lloyd will make sure the cattle get counted and corralled. I’m going on in and get a bath and a shave and some clean clothes.”
Brian looked him over. “Good idea. You look like hell.”
“Yeah, well, you’re the third or fourth person who has told me that.”
“How’s that hand? I see some swelling.”
Jake flexed his hand. “It’s been better, but I’ll live.”
“I’m a doctor, remember? I can tell it hurts like hell. Need some laudanum?”
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