Outlaw Hearts

by Rosanne Bittner

  “I’ll smoke my own. Right now my chest hurts too much.” Jake coughed again, wondering if he could get himself well enough to break out of this place and get to Lloyd. “What about my son?”

  Peterson lit his cigarette and sucked on it for a moment. “I seen your boy at Brown’s Park, on the Outlaw Trail. The kid has taken to drinkin’ rotgut whiskey, pretty heavy.” He saw the pain in Jake’s eyes. “Maybe you don’t want to know it all, seein’ as how you’re cooped up in here and can’t do nothin’ about it.”

  Jake turned away. “You can tell me.”

  Peterson sighed. “Well, he’s carryin’ a big chip on his shoulder. Goes around spoutin’ to everybody about how his father is the notorious Jake Harkner, how he killed a lot of men, killed his own pa, robbed trains and banks. He wears your guns, shows them off to people, brags about how he’s just as good with them as you were.”

  Jake felt the nausea growing in his stomach. Lloyd was doing the very thing he had dreaded most, doing it just to hurt him, he was sure. “Is he as good?”

  “Well, I ain’t never seen you in action, so I can’t compare. I will say, the boy’s good. He killed two men who tried to prove otherwise. He’s ridin’ with cattle rustlers now.”

  Jake literally bent over in pain. He moved back to his cot and sat down, putting his head in his hands.

  “Hey, I’m sorry, Harkner. You asked.”

  “It’s all right.” Jake coughed again. “I’ve got to find him,” he said then. “I’ve got to get out of here somehow and find him, stop him from throwing his life away.”

  “You ain’t gonna get out of this place except by some miracle, mister. Do you know how fast they’d shoot you down if you tried to escape? Besides, you don’t look in any shape to be tryin’ to break out of here and run. Fact is, you don’t look too good at all.”

  Lloyd! Jake hardly heard what the man was saying. Lloyd was out there somewhere, asking to get himself shot or hanged or thrown in prison just like himself. What was he going to do with Jess dead? Who was there to go and find Lloyd? He didn’t dare tell Miranda what he knew. The damned, stubborn woman would be crazy enough to try to find Lloyd by herself. It would be just like her to take that Winchester and that stupid little pistol and ride into outlaw country to find her son. She was brave enough and he knew she’d do anything to find the boy.

  Boy. He wasn’t a boy anymore. He was twenty-two years old and asking to die young. Things were different now than when he was Lloyd’s age. There was more law now. Men didn’t get away with things like they used to. If some gunslinger didn’t get Lloyd, some lawman would, if he wasn’t stopped.

  What the hell was he going to do? God, how he missed Jess! Jess would have gone after the kid if he could have. There was no other man he knew who could have gone into outlaw country and knew how to handle himself. Jess had lived in those places before, knew how to handle those kind of men. He sure couldn’t expect that Eastern doctor husband of Evie’s to go after Lloyd. Brian wouldn’t last two days in country like that, around men like that.

  He lay back on the cot, wishing his chest didn’t hurt so much, wishing he didn’t feel so dizzy all the time. He needed to be stronger, needed to get out of this place and find Lloyd. It had been hard enough keeping insanity away, penned up in this place, but now, knowing where Lloyd was, what he was doing, he really would go crazy being stuck here and unable to do anything about it. The hell of it was, he couldn’t even tell Randy.

  “Damn!” he groaned. He sat up again, and Peterson backed into a corner at the dark look in Jake’s eyes. Jake walked over and picked up the short stool Peterson had sat on earlier. He slammed it against the cell door, busting it into several pieces. “Guard!” he screamed. He turned and ripped the mattress off the top bunk, threw it down. He lifted the frame, springs and all, and threw it at the bars. “Get me out of here!” he roared.

  Two men came in to see what the commotion was about. “What the hell—”

  “Get me the hell out of here!” Jake yelled. “I’ve got to go find my son!” He grasped the bars, his eyes wild and menacing.

  “Hey, do somethin’ with this maniac before he turns on me,” Peterson hollered.

  “Calm down, Harkner! You’ve got four years to go before you get out of here! Pick up that bunk and put it back where it belongs!”

  Jake reached out and grabbed the man’s shirt, slamming him up to the bars. “You get me out of here—now!”

  One of the other guards slammed a nightstick down over Jake’s wrist, bringing new pain to the already partly crippled hand. He cried out and let go of the first guard’s shirt. He turned then, picking up the slop bucket and throwing it at the guards, showering them with urine and excrement.

  “Goddamn sonofabitch!” one of them cursed. He unlocked the cell door, and the second guard called for help, then joined the first man in trying to wrestle Jake to the floor to get handcuffs on him. Other men in the prison began rooting for Jake as he fought the men wildly. Peterson moved out of the cell and backed away as more guards rushed in. Jake held his own for the first few seconds, getting in some solid blows with a fierce strength few thought he had for being so sick; but there were too many guards and he was too weak to hold up for long.

  Jake was quickly showered with fists, feet and nightsticks until he lay groaning in a pool of his own blood. The prison warden hurried into the wing where he’d heard there was trouble, and he winced at the sight and smell. “What the hell happened here?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know,” one of the original guards answered, his mouth bleeding badly. He wiped at the blood and turned to Peterson. “What the hell did you say to him when we put you in here?”

  Peterson shrugged. “I just told him I’d seen his son at Brown’s Park, told him he was good with guns now, shot two men in a gunfight. He went crazy.”

  “What a damn mess,” the warden growled. “Hell, everybody knows he asks about that son of his all the time.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Damn. His wife is due to visit him tomorrow. What’s she going to think when she sees him like this? That woman can be a real she-cat when it comes to how we treat her husband.”

  “We’d better get him to the hospital ward. He’s been burning up with fever as it is,” one of the guards told him.

  “Why wasn’t I told?”

  The man shrugged. “Men get sick all the time. You know that, Warden.”

  The warden stepped closer, glowering at the guard. “Yeah? Well, they aren’t all Jake Harkner either. They don’t have the public asking about them all the time, or a watchdog of a wife coming to see them.” He sighed, looking down at Jake’s battered face. “Get him to the hospital ward and see what you can do with him. Find that doctor we use, and I’ll try to find some excuse to keep his wife from seeing him tomorrow.”

  Four men moved to pick up Jake and they carried him out.

  “Clean up this mess!” the warden barked to those remaining. He turned to follow the others. “I’ll have one hell of a time keeping this from his wife.”

  Thirty

  Miranda ignored the cold mountain wind that chilled her to the bone. It seemed that winter just did not want to let go this year, and the weather over the last couple of warm spring days had turned again to a damp cold, with a mixture of sleet and snow spitting through the air. For the moment she was too angry and worried to care that she was standing in the ugly weather while Brian and Evie waited in Brian’s enclosed buggy at the prison gate.

  “I want the truth,” she demanded of the guard at the gate. “Why can’t I see my husband? I’ve never been refused before!”

  “Ma’am, it’s the warden’s orders, that’s all.”

  Miranda saw the look of nervousness and guilt in the guard’s eyes. She stepped closer, her eyes on fire. “Well, you go back and tell the warden that I am going to stand right here until I’m allowed inside! I don’t care if it takes
all night or if I die from the exposure! And you tell him that if I’m not allowed in by morning, I will phone or wire or write every damn newspaper in every major city in this country, as well as the judge for Jake’s case and Congress and anybody else who will listen! I’ll tell them all kinds of stories about this place, some true and some not true; but by God, your warden will get more attention than he’ll ever want! Something has happened to my husband that he doesn’t want me to know about, so you just tell him that if he’ll let me see him, I’ll keep quiet! If he doesn’t, he’ll be out of a job! I’ll make sure of it! I have already been writing letters to Washington about prison reform, mister, and Wyoming is going to become a state soon. When it does, I’ll be among the first to see about better treatment for prisoners at this facility! You tell your warden he can save himself a lot of headaches if he lets me see my husband right now!”

  The man scowled at her, then turned and left.

  “Mother, what’s wrong?” Evie shouted.

  Miranda walked back to the carriage. “I don’t know yet. Something has happened to Jake. They won’t let me see him, but I’m not leaving until they do! You two wait here. I’m staying right at that gate!”

  Miranda stormed back to the gate and Brian shook his head. “She’s something, isn’t she? It’s not good for her to be out in that cold, you know.”

  Evie smiled. “She’d walk through fire to see my father. I guess it’s her love for him that helped me forgive his past. If she could love him that much, marry him in spite of his past, I guess as his blood child, I certainly had no reason not to love and forgive him. He was always good to me and Lloyd, Brian. I just don’t understand how Lloyd could stay away. It’s killing Father.”

  “Feelings are different sometimes between men than women. I think a boy expects more of his father than a girl. There’s a special bond between a father and a son. From what you tell me, your father and Lloyd were pretty close. Lloyd must have felt betrayed when he heard the truth, maybe thinks he’s no good now because his father and grandfather were no good.”

  “But Father is good. He was always good to Lloyd. I think Lloyd is angrier over losing Beth because of all this than anything else.” Evie watched the guard return and begin unlocking the gate. She smiled. “I don’t know what Mother told him, but they’re letting her in.” A few more words were exchanged between Miranda and the guard, and then Miranda turned and walked back to the buggy, a kind of terror showing in her eyes.

  “You can both come. Bring your bag, Brian. Jake’s been hurt, and he’s even sicker than the last time I was here! The guard says you can look at him. I don’t trust the prison doctor.”

  Brian and Evie climbed down, and Brian tied the buggy horse. They followed the guard inside, and Evie shivered at the cold dampness of the place, wondering if all the cells were this cold. They were led through a narrow hallway to a door where a man in a suit waited for them.

  “Mrs. Harkner.” The man nodded.

  Miranda folded her arms. She had met the warden a few times before, and there were no good feelings between them. She saw the look of anger mixed with worry in his dark eyes. He was a short, balding man, with a hard mouth and a round, fat face. It irritated her that he obviously ate well, while most of the prisoners looked malnourished after several months in his prison. “Warden Pruett,” she acknowledged. “What has happened to my husband?”

  The man glanced at Evie and Brian, then back at Miranda. “I trust you will keep your word, about not spreading lies and rumors about this place?”

  “I will. But I’m not so sure I can keep quiet about the truth,” Miranda answered boldly. “What is the truth, Mr. Pruett?”

  The man sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “The truth is your husband brought this on himself. I was about to put him here in the medical ward anyway because of his cough and fever, but he went into a rage yesterday, tore bunks apart, broke a stool to pieces, threw a chamber pot at the guards and showered them with the filth in it. He had to be stopped before he hurt the other man in his cell or hurt himself.”

  “Stopped? What did your guards do to him? He’s fifty-three years old, for God’s sake!”

  Pruett scowled. “Look, Mrs. Harkner, when your husband loses his temper, he fights like a twenty-three-year-old! I have a few guards with split lips and cracked ribs to prove it! It took six men to get him under control, and the only way they could do it was to beat him into unconsciousness. I’m sorry, but they had no choice. He’s come around a little, but he’s in pretty bad shape. If you’ll keep quiet about this, I’ll let your son-in-law here take a look at him, and I’ll allow you to stay with him through the night, if you like.”

  Miranda put a hand to her chest, feeling literal pain. Jake, sick and beaten. She struggled against tears. “I would like that very much. What brought this on, Mr. Pruett?”

  The man ran a hand over his balding head. “I’m not sure. We brought in a new prisoner to his cell yesterday. The man apparently had some news about your son Lloyd.”

  “Lloyd!” Evie stepped closer. “What about him? Can we talk to this other prisoner?”

  “We’ll see. All I know is what he told me—that he’d told Jake he’d seen Lloyd along the Outlaw Trail, at Brown’s Park, I think. Said Lloyd was drinking heavily, wearing his father’s guns. He shot two men in two separate gunfights and he might be riding with rustlers. Your father just went kind of crazy then, yelling for the guards, demanding he be let out so he could go to his son.”

  “My God,” Miranda whispered, turning to Evie. “It’s all the things he dreaded most, that Lloyd would turn to the kind of life he once led.” She closed her eyes. “With Jess gone, he must feel he’s the only one who could find and help Lloyd now. He’ll want to stop him before it’s too late for him. He must feel so helpless, so desperate.”

  “He’s going to have to live with it or be chained in solitary,” Pruett told her. He opened the door to a long, narrow room with ten cots in it. Only three of the cots were occupied. A guard stood at the other end of the room. “He’s in the third bed over there.”

  Miranda hurried inside, her whole body aching with dread, for both her son and Jake. Lloyd! Her little boy, that was how she still thought of him, her precious son. She could still remember vividly the look on Jake’s face when he first held him, the desperation in his eyes when he made her promise never to tell his son about his past. What a terrible mistake that had been! Now Lloyd was out there risking being shot, drinking heavily. It wasn’t the Lloyd she had always known, her sweet, trusting, loving son. If only he hadn’t lost Beth on top of everything else. He might have been all right if not for that.

  She drew in her breath and made a little choking sound at the sight of Jake, his face bruised and swollen. “Oh, God, Brian, look at him! God only knows where else he’s hurt.”

  Brian quickly moved to Jake’s bedside and opened his medical bag. He pulled the covers away to see the man was shirtless. His arms and chest were covered with bruises, but Brian noticed with a bit of surprise that Jake’s body still had a hard, lean look to it, the chest and arms of a much younger man. He’d never met his notorious father-in-law. He was a big man, dark. There were several scars on his body. He’d heard about some of them, how Jake’s own father had put that scar on his neck, that there were more on his back from belt-whippings. He had laughed and shaken his head when Miranda told him and Evie how the first time she’d met the man she’d shot him. There was the scar from that wound, on his lower left side.

  He moved his hands over the man’s arms, ribs. “I don’t feel any broken bones,” he told Miranda, “but I don’t doubt he’s got more than one cracked rib. His ribs should have been wrapped.” He took out a stethoscope and listened to Jake’s breathing.

  “He’s so hot, Brian, and his breathing sounds so labored.” Miranda smoothed Jake’s still-thick, dark hair back from his face. She leaned close. “Jake? You’ll be all rig
ht, mi querido. I’m here with you and I’m not leaving.”

  Brian examined Jake for several minutes, pressing the stethoscope to his chest again. He looked across the bed at Miranda. “Sounds like pneumonia, Randy. We’ve got to get him into more of a sitting position or his lungs will fill and he’ll suffocate.”

  Evie hurriedly gathered pillows from some of the empty beds and the three of them worked to prop Jake up higher. Randy and Brian wrapped his ribs, and Randy shivered with fear when he began coughing, a deep, prolonged cough that was obviously painful, from both the pneumonia and the cracked ribs. The pain was written on his face, and he groaned with every breath for several minutes after the coughing stopped.

  “Dear God, don’t let him die,” Randy whispered, kneeling beside the bed. She took hold of his hand, which was closed into a tight fist, tighter than she had ever seen him close the crippled hand. He was clinging to the rosary beads.

  “Lloyd,” Jake muttered. “Got to…help…my son.”

  ***

  Jake breathed deeply for Brian, who held a stethoscope to his back. “He sounds a little less congested,” Brian told Miranda, who sat on the other side of the cot. He still could not get over feeling a chill at the sight of the scars on Jake’s back, always recalling the horrid vision of a grown man beating a little boy with the buckle end of a leather belt.

  “This is one hell of a way to meet your father-in-law,” Jake said, lying back against the pillows. He glanced at Evie, overwhelmed by her utter beauty and by the realization she was a grown, married woman. “Have you really all been here for three days?”

  “Slept right on the empty cots over there,” Brian answered. “Can’t you tell by our wrinkled clothes? They at least gave me shaving equipment. Randy and I used it to shave that grizzly beard of yours.” He grinned. “Randy told me what a handsome man you were. I knew you had to be because of how beautiful Evie is, but under that beard and all those bruises, it was hard to tell.”

  Jake put a hand to his hair. “I’m a beat-up, half-crippled old man is what I am.” This morning was the first he’d awakened knowing who and where he was, and who had been talking to him in his dreams, that the woman he had thought was his mother was Evie.