Outlaw Hearts

by Rosanne Bittner

  She hated the thought of his being gone so much, but he wanted so badly to earn all that he could so they could live well in California. “Will you come and stay when the baby is due? I don’t want to have it alone, Jake.”

  “I’ll be here. Nothing can keep me away.” He turned and folded her into his arms. “I don’t like it much more than you do, Randy, but I can’t turn this down. If I’m going to work to earn money legitimately, I might as well be doing what I do best, and making as much as I can.”

  “If you feel right about the job, then take it.” Her eyes rested on the guns that lay in the chair, and she thought about the promise she had made not to tell their children about his past. Could they really keep that past a secret like he wanted? The only possibility of doing that was if he hung those guns up forever. She felt like part of this was her fault for having brought him here. They should have headed north to Oregon.

  ***

  April 1867

  The smell of spring was pungent in the mountain air, and Bill Kennedy wondered how soon it would be safe to travel on to Nevada. The cold and snowstorms had lasted into April, and they were all anxious now to be on their way. He stepped off the porch of the small cabin he and his men had taken over since the owner, an old trapper, had died, and he thought how good the air smelled compared to the stink of eight men sleeping practically on top of each other inside. At least most of the time two or three of them were gone, sleeping with the few whores in the little town of Bear River, women who by now were beginning to look pretty ugly.

  Word was a transcontinental railroad would be coming through here in a couple more years. That was hard to believe, but if it was true, the town was sure to grow. Trouble was, with a railroad, more people would come, meaning more lawyers and judges and civilization and lawmen and all the things that would give them trouble. They had come out here to be free to do whatever the hell they wanted and live off what they could take from others. In little towns like this, he and his men could rule like kings. All winter they had eaten and drunk and slept for nothing, holed up here while they waited for the vicious Rocky Mountain winter to end so they could go on to Nevada. There wasn’t one person in this town brave enough or skilled enough to stop them from whatever they wanted to do, and he figured that before they left, they would clean out the town and take as much food and money as they could get off the “generous” citizens of Bear River.

  He stretched, then scratched at his beard. There had been no reason to shave while they were here, and he supposed he could use one now, maybe a bath too. As soon as the danger of avalanches was past, they would be on their way. He’d been told there was also the danger of spring flooding, small streams turning into rushing torrents in minutes. It was a chance they would have to take. The longer they waited, the more risk they took that Jake Harkner would leave Virginia City. Once he did, he’d be harder to find.

  He thought about the wide-eyed soldier back at Fort Laramie who had cried, begging Juan not to slit his throat when Juan and the others had got the young man alone and forced him to tell them what he knew about the destination of Jake and Miranda Turner. They had inquired when first arriving at the fort, but the commander had refused to give them the information. Kennedy had not bothered to tell the man who Jake really was, but later that night he and Juan and the others had caught a young private alone and forced the information out of him. He figured that soldier had never told his commander how he had been threatened. After all, Juan had described to the young private just exactly what he would do with his knife when he came back for him if they discovered soldiers were on their tail.

  Now they at least had a definite destination. If the woman’s brother was in Virginia City, it was likely she and Jake would settle there. Hell, there must be plenty for a man to do in a place like that if he knew how to use his weapons.

  “Do we go soon, patrón?”

  Kennedy turned to see Juan standing behind him, looking uglier than ever from having just awakened. He turned back around to study the foreboding mountains ahead. “Yeah. Soon. Six months in this dead little town is too much for any man.”

  “Sí. It is time for some action.” Juan fingered the handle of his knife. He never slept without it. All winter he had only used it to clean animals, each time imagining it was Jake Harkner or the man’s wife at his mercy.

  “You’ll get your action, soon as we find Jake,” Kennedy told him. “Some old scout offered his services last night to ride out and check the trails, see if maybe we can get started. I expect he volunteered only because the people in this town are anxious for us to leave.” He chuckled. “Chickenshit bastards. We’ll go, all right, but not before we clean them all out good. I just hope that scout says we can ride. I don’t want ol’ Jake to get away from me. If he slips through our fingers this time, we might never find him.”

  ***

  Jake charged up to the boardinghouse on Outlaw, jumping off the horse before it even came to a complete halt. He whirled the reins around a hitching post and rushed inside, not bothering to clean off his wet boots this time. He trooped down the hallway, a man who just didn’t quite seem to fit in the tidy home with its lace and knickknacks and flowered wallpaper and plants. His canvas duster brushed against a fern as he hurried into his and Miranda’s room to see the doctor bent over his wife, taking her pulse. Mrs. Anderson was gently washing perspiration from Miranda’s forehead.

  “Randy!” Jake threw off his duster and moved closer. Mrs. Anderson moved out of the way, and he looked down at Miranda’s pale face. He put his hand to her cheek, and in spite of the perspiration that showed in her hair and on her neck, she felt cold. It startled him so that he drew his hand away. “What’s happened?” He looked at the doctor.

  The doctor straightened. “The baby came a little early. It’s a boy. I think he’ll be all right, and your wife should be too, now that we’ve stopped the bleeding. She had a bad time of it. For a while, there, I was afraid she would bleed to death, but it’s stopped now. She’ll be pretty weak for a while.”

  “You sure? You’d better be a real doctor like you said! You’d better know what you’re doing! If she dies…”

  “Jake,” Mrs. Anderson interrupted. “Don’t talk to him that way. He did the best he could. These things happen.”

  Jake glared at the doctor, who had paled from the threat. The man stood there wide-eyed and practically shaking, and Jake realized the reputation he had developed after foiling the bank robbery and making a living with his guns since then. He realized he had behaved for a moment like the old Jake, his fear of losing Randy outweighing all reason. He removed his hat and hung it over the bedpost. “I’m sorry,” he told the doctor.

  “You should take those guns off, Jake,” Mrs. Anderson told him. “You’re in the presence of your new son, and you know I don’t like them worn in the house anyway.” Jake began unbuckling the guns, wondering how it was some women had a way of ordering around men who could probably kill them with one swipe of the hand. They had grown close to Mrs. Anderson, who sometimes seemed more like a mother to them—at least that was what Miranda had said. Jake felt it but wouldn’t admit it. He slung the guns over a nearby chair and returned to bend close to Miranda. “Randy? Can you hear me?”

  She opened her eyes and managed a weak smile. “You have…a son,” she whispered.

  No. He couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t really have a son of his own. It was all so unreal. Maybe if he didn’t look at the kid, this would all just go away. “You hang on, Randy. Don’t you dare leave me with a kid to raise on my own. You know I can’t do it.”

  She smiled more. “Yes, you…can.”

  He put his hands to either side of her face and bent down to kiss her forehead. “You listen to me. I love you like I never thought I could love another human being.” He felt a lump rising in his throat, a desperate fear at the thought that he could lose her. “I need you, Randy, and you know all
the reasons why. Don’t you go and die on me, you hear? If I lose you, I’ll go right back to that old life. You don’t want me to do that, do you?”

  “You talk…big,” she whispered. “Don’t…mean it… Got to take care of…our little son.”

  He brushed her cheek with his own, tears forming in his eyes. “Damn it, Randy, don’t you leave me,” he said, his voice raspy. “Don’t you dare leave me! I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I was going to come down tomorrow to stay. I should have been here, should have been with you through all of this.”

  “It’s…okay. Get the baby, Jake. I want…to see you…holding your son. Please, Jake.”

  “Come and see your son, Jake.” Mrs. Anderson touched his arm.

  Jake straightened, looking over at the cradle he had asked a local carpenter to build for the baby. He had brought it home two weeks ago, finding it difficult to picture a child of his own lying in it. Why did he dread this? What if he really did love the child? What if he found out his son meant more to him than his own life, more even than Randy? That meant he couldn’t bear for anything to ever hurt the child, especially not his past.

  The sins of the father are visited upon the son. He remembered hearing a street preacher shout that to a crowd once back in Missouri, recalled how he had applied those words to his own father, figuring it must be true. Look how he had turned out, just as mean and unfeeling and murderous as his father. To think his own past could somehow scar his son…

  Mrs. Anderson was lifting the child from its cradle. She handed him out to Jake, smiling. “He won’t break. Just let him rest in the crook of your arm, Jake.” The woman wondered if this man had ever held a baby in his life. Lawman or not, this Jake Turner had surely led a wild, violent life. It was written in his eyes, and in the scar on his neck. She and the others who lived at the boardinghouse had talked about Jake and Miranda a few times when the couple was not present, trying to figure how they had ended up together. The big, dark, dangerous-looking Jake Turner simply did not seem to fit with the tiny, pretty, quiet woman he had married, yet they seemed very much in love.

  Jake took the baby into his arms. Mrs. Anderson signaled the doctor that they should leave the couple alone for a few minutes, and she and the doctor left. Jake just stood there staring down at the red-faced, dark-haired infant that looked back at him with big, nearly black eyes. So, he thought, the kid even looks like me. Was this real? God, what if he hurt him? His legs actually felt weak, and he walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Never had he had such a feeling. It was all he had dreaded. He had a perfect, beautiful son, and already he knew he would die for the kid. He didn’t want to feel this way. It just wasn’t a feeling he was used to. A father! This kid was going to call him Pa, was going to look up to him for guidance. Who the hell was he to give direction to another human being when his own life was such a mess? Who was he to teach a child about tolerance and living right?

  “Jesus,” he whispered. He stuck a big finger against the baby’s tiny palm, and the child grasped at it lightly. “I never saw anything this little in my life,” he said a little louder.

  “Let me…see,” Miranda spoke up, her voice a little stronger.

  Jake held the child up slightly so she could look at him. Miranda smiled. “Jake, he’s…so beautiful!”

  The boy made little gurgling sounds, and Jake quickly wiped at his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “I can’t do this, Randy. He deserves better than me.”

  She managed to move her hand to touch his arm. “He’s got…the best father any child…could want. You’ll…try harder than most, Jake. It’s going to be…so good for us now. We’ll go…to California…as soon as the baby is a month old…and we can get through…the mountains. We’ll have a good…life there, Jake. You’ll see. Now…let me have…my baby.”

  Jake carefully laid the infant beside his mother, and the child started to squall. Jake felt a chill at the memory of how his father used to toss his little brother around when he was hardly any bigger than this, roaring at the child to stop crying.

  “He’s hungry. Help me…roll onto my…side, Jake.”

  “Are you strong enough?”

  “I…don’t know, but…he’s hungry…no choice.”

  He leaned over and propped some pillows behind her. He opened her gown and positioned the baby so that the infant could reach a full breast. As soon as he found his mark, the child stopped crying and sucked away contentedly. Jake watched, never believing he’d see such a lovely, intimate moment, let alone know the mother and baby belonged to him. That promise Randy had made not to reveal his past to this child meant more to him than ever now.

  “I want…to name him Lloyd,” Miranda spoke up. “Your name…is Jackson Lloyd. His will be…Lloyd Jackson…Lloyd Jackson Harkner.”

  A rush of regrets over a past he could never erase whipped through Jake with near pain. “Turner,” he corrected her. “Lloyd Jackson Turner.” That was the only name his son would ever hear. “Don’t ever mention the name Harkner in front of him.”

  Miranda looked at him in a way that told him she still thought he was wrong. “If that’s how you want it.”

  “That’s how I want it.”

  She smiled a little. “You love him…already…don’t you?”

  Jake touched her hair, leaning down and kissing the baby’s soft cheek, then kissing her breast. “I love you both. You’ve got to help me on this, Randy. You’ve got to live and get stronger.”

  “I’ll be fine…now that I’ve seen…how you look…at your son.” She touched his hand. “Jake…my Jake. You’ll be a good father. You’ll see.”

  She closed her eyes and seemed to drift off. The baby kept nursing, and Jake watched, wondering if a man could experience anything more wonderful than this. But then he wasn’t just any man, and he didn’t deserve to have this happening to him. He rose and went to a chest of drawers, opening one and taking out his mother’s rosary, which he kept under his shirts. He had never felt much need for it until now. He grasped it tightly and closed his eyes. “God help me,” he muttered. He didn’t know what else to say, how else to put it. He just squeezed the jeweled cross and hoped that by some miracle there was a God who did listen to men like him.

  ***

  Mellie sauntered up to the tall, sandy-haired man at the bar who was throwing money around as though its source was endless. She thought how he could be considered good looking, if not for the chilling meanness in his icy blue eyes, and the fact that he needed a shave and a haircut; but, then, most men in this town needed that. She had gotten used to the smell of whiskey and perspiration, had a lot of money in the bank from putting up with those very things. Someday she intended to start a business of her own, maybe a restaurant or something, anything to get away from this miserable life. In the meantime, she would do what she did best. There were plenty of other men she could approach tonight, but she had heard this one asking about Jake Turner, and that got her curiosity going. She rubbed a hand over his bottom, and he turned to look at her, grinning, a stub of a cigar between his teeth. “Well, hello there, honey.”

  Mellie smiled. “Can I do something for you tonight?”

  He set down his glass of whiskey and his eyes fell to her exposed bosom. “I expect so. You cost much?”

  She looked past him at a dangerous-looking, scarred Mexican who stared at her in a way that made her shiver. That one she would definitely not do business with. “Five dollars,” she told the first man. “But first you have to tell me your name and why you’re looking for Jake Turner.”

  He took the cigar from his mouth. “You know him?”

  Mellie noticed the Mexican lean closer, a murderous glint in his eye. She had no doubt that their reason for finding Jake was not a friendly one. She never had been able to determine the truth about Jake, had always wondered about him. She knew men pretty good, and if Jake Turner was an ex-lawman, she was a nun. Had he on
ce run with the likes of these two? If so, how had he ended up with a woman like Miranda Turner?

  “I knew him. He’s not around here anymore.”

  “Shit!” the Mexican cussed. “I knew it!” He pulled out a big knife and slammed it into the bar, making Mellie jump and a few people nearby turn and look. Some of them quieted, feeling uneasy even sitting close to the dark man with the crazy eyes.

  “Relax, Juan,” Kennedy told him, his gaze on Mellie. “Why don’t you go find a card game or something? This lady and I have things to talk about.”

  Juan jerked the knife out and shoved it into its sheath, turning and stalking out.

  “Don’t mind him,” Kennedy told Mellie. “He’s a little short-tempered from that long journey through the Nevada desert. I never knew it could get so hot in June. Never been in country like that. At any rate, it was a journey through hell, and we’re all exhausted. Had mountains to cross first. We’ve been looking for Jake for a long time. He’s an old friend. The rest of my men are spread out in town, asking at other saloons about him.”

  “An old friend?” Mellie looked him over. “Why do I doubt that?”

  Kennedy laughed. “You know people pretty good, don’t you?” He ran a finger over one milky shoulder. “You, uh, knew Jake real good? I mean, I heard he got married, but then I’ll bet that wouldn’t stop the Jake I knew from goin’ ’round with somebody like you now and again.”

  Mellie decided that the less this man knew, the better for Jake. “I just saw him around a few times. I don’t know much about the wife. She never showed herself much.” Why was she so sure it was best this man did not know that Jake Turner had a son? She glanced at Clarence, who was working behind the bar tonight. She knew he had heard, knew he hated Jake. She took Kennedy’s arm and pulled him toward the stairs to get him away from Clarence. “You still haven’t told me your name. Mine’s Mellie.”