“Jake, there’s a man on the roof of the hardware store across from the jail. And one of those men I saw yesterday—he’s inside. I saw him go in earlier and heard a scuffle, but no gunshots. I think they’re waiting for you.”
Jake kept hold of his hand, squeezing it lightly. “Well then, I’m glad you’re an early riser.” He let go and casually dismounted, tying his horse. “Don’t look around,” he told Jeff. “Just go sit back down on that bench. What about the third man you saw yesterday?”
“I don’t know. I only saw two.”
Jake rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, when the shooting starts, you get yourself into that alley and behind some cover.”
“Yes, sir.” Jeff swallowed. “Don’t you want me to go get your son?”
Jake tossed his cigarette to the ground and stepped it out. Jeff couldn’t imagine how he could act so casual knowing several men with guns were waiting for him.
“No,” Jake told him. “It’s too late, and I don’t want to risk my son getting shot on the first day of his marriage. You just do like I said. And if all goes well today, you’ve got your story. I’ll owe you—plenty.”
Jeff nodded. “Thank you, sir.” They both stood at the side of Jake’s horse opposite the jail so they would be hard to see. “Can I help?” Jeff asked. “I could get your rifle or shotgun off your horse.”
Jake actually grinned in spite of the situation he was in. “Jeff, have you ever held or shot a gun in your life?”
Jeff smiled sheepishly. “No, sir.”
“Which means you’d be more danger than good, but thanks for the offer.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll all just start shooting?”
“No.” Jake leaned against a post as though just having a normal, friendly conversation. “They want me to face them down so they can say they shot me in a real gunfight. If they back-shoot me, they can’t take credit for being the brave bastards who killed Jake Harkner.”
“Hell, Jake, my legs feel like rubber. I’m not even sure I can run into that alley. Maybe I’ll die today.”
Jake grinned again. “Don’t worry. They don’t give a shit about you. It’s me they want. You just head for that alley casual-like. I’m going over to the jail.”
Jeff took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.” Casual? Jeff wanted to duck and run. He watched in terror as Jake headed for the jail, crossing the alley and stepping up onto the boardwalk. He stopped before he reached the one small front window of the jail and leaned against the brick wall.
“You in there, Sparky?” he called out.
No reply.
Someone crouched over moved along the rooftop across the street. Whoever it was carefully peeked over the fake front at the top. In almost the same instant, Jake’s gun boomed.
Jeff jumped up and ran into the alley, pulling Jake’s horse with him. He was amazed at how fast it happened. A second later, a body rolled off the side of the hardware store, then crashed into the alley next to it, his rifle tumbling down and landing near him. A passerby who’d been approaching the store ran inside and slammed the door.
Everything fell silent for a moment except for someone shouting down the street. “Someone’s shooting down there!”
“Stay away! Stay away!” another yelled.
“Jake Harkner, you bastard!” someone inside the jail yelled. “How did you know we were in here? Was it that four-eyed shrimp of a reporter who told you?”
Jake recognized Bo Buckley’s voice. “No one needed to tell me,” Jake yelled back. “I saw your man on that rooftop and figured you might be stupid enough to wait inside for me. You’ve trapped yourselves, Buckley, so come on out and give up your guns!”
“Fuck you, Harkner! Come in and get us!”
“If I have to come in there, you’ll die, Bo. That’s a promise. If I go down, you’ll go down with me. Is that what you want?”
Someone threw open the jail door, but no one stepped out. “Come on in, Jake! Me and the boys don’t mind sharin’ a cup of coffee before we blow you to pieces!”
“What have you done with Sparky, Bo?”
“He’s okay—just locked up. It ain’t Sparky we want to kill!”
“I’ll give you one more chance, Bo. You know me. You know I’ll get at least two of you before you have a chance to fire your guns. Stop this now and all it means is a little jail time. At least you’ll be alive.”
“You won’t get off one shot before we blow your ass into the street, Harkner.”
“You willing to bet on that?”
“Gordy, Ted, Marty, and Stu are with me—all armed.”
“Dell didn’t come along?”
“My little brother? He’s too young to blow a man’s head off, but we’ll teach him right and proper.”
“Who was on the roof?”
“A guy we hired last night in a saloon—said he’d throw his gun in with us. Hell, I don’t even remember his name.”
“Well then, at least I shot a stranger and not a kid. I don’t like having to shoot men as young as Dell. That’s why I just smashed Brad’s chest in, rather than blow his brains out.”
“Well now, ain’t that kind of you?”
“I thought it was.”
The men inside laughed.
“Jake Harkner, kind and thoughtful toward kids, and a ruthless, murderin’ sonofabitch toward everybody else.”
“Something like that,” Jake answered. “You try anything, or hurt Sparky, and you’ll see the ruthless, murdering-sonofabitch side of me.”
Five men against one. Jeff wondered how he would manage to find his next breath.
“What about the hired gun, Bo?” Jake yelled. “Who is he?”
“Pierce Henry. He’s out in the street somewhere, waiting to shoot your ass if we can’t do it. One way or another, you’ll die today for killin’ Jack, and for what you done to Brad. The kid is hurtin’ real bad, Jake. He might not live.”
“He made his choice,” Jake yelled back. “Now come on out of there, unless you’re ready to die! Give it some thought.”
It was then that everything changed. A little boy came running down the street on short little legs. “Gampa! Gampa!”
Jeff froze in terror. My God, it’s Jake’s grandson!
“Jesus Christ!” Jake swore.
After that, all hell broke loose. Jeff’s eyes widened at the sight of Little Jake Harkner, still in his pajamas, running toward his grandfather. Jake charged off the boardwalk and literally leaped over a hitching post. He ducked and rolled his way toward his grandson while guns blazed from inside the jail. Jake grabbed Little Jake and rolled the both of them toward a large crate sitting on the boardwalk in front of the hardware store. He kept the boy in one arm while firing his six-gun with his other hand.
Someone inside the jail cried out. Jake stood long enough to literally throw Little Jake into the crate. When he did so, a bullet hit his thigh and Jake went down.
“Oh my God!” Jeff muttered.
Little Jake began screaming and kept trying to climb back out of the crate. “You stay in that crate, Little Jake!” Jake roared at him. He was on the ground but had both guns blazing. Two more men ran out of the jail. Jake fired twice more and that’s all it took. Both men went down.
“Stop! Stop!” someone called from inside the jail.
By then, Jeff saw Lloyd Harkner running from up the street toward his father, wearing only denim pants—no shirt and no shoes, his hair hanging long and loose instead of tied back the way he usually wore it. He was carrying one six-gun, and another was stuffed into the waist of his pants.
“Pa!” he yelled, noticing Jake on the ground.
“Stay the hell back!” Jake yelled.
Someone threw guns out onto the boardwalk from inside the jail. “We’re comin’ out, Jake!” someone shouted.
Jake managed to
get to his feet while Little Jake continued screaming with tearful, pitiful sobs that Jeff suspected must be tearing at his grandfather’s heart.
“Little Jake!” a woman screamed. It was Jake’s daughter, Evie.
“Stay the hell back!” Jake yelled. “He’s okay!”
Jeff saw Evie’s husband, Brian, running up behind her. He grabbed her arm and held her back.
Everything quieted for a moment while the last two men inside the jail slowly stepped out, one wounded, the other still fine. The wounded one had a bleeding arm and wore an eye patch.
Marty Bryant, Jeff noted. He figured the other man to be Stu Forbes.
“Kick those guns off the boardwalk into the street!” Jake ordered, stumbling slightly.
Lloyd moved slowly closer, his other gun drawn and both guns aimed at the two men who’d stepped out of the jail.
“One wrong move, and you’ll join the others,” Lloyd told them.
“Pierce Henry!” Jake roared, quickly adding bullets to his guns. Blood poured down the side of his denim pants.
Lloyd looked over at his father. “Pa, let me handle the rest of this.”
“No!” Jake barked. “There’s one more! He’s a hired gun, so you let me take care of it!” He put one six-gun back into its holster but kept the other one drawn as he looked around.
“Damn it, Pa, you’re wounded!”
Jake paid no attention. “Come on out, Henry!” he roared. “You’re supposed to finish me off! Come on out and take care of business like a man! You either shoot me down the cowardly way—from cover—or come out and face me!”
“Shit!” Lloyd grumbled.
Everyone stood still, waiting. Jeff suspected Jake Harkner very much wanted the hired gun to step out. He even slipped his other gun back into its holster and put his arms out, daring the man to face him.
“Come out, Henry!”
Lloyd kept his guns aimed at the two men who’d given themselves up. Still shaking, and his ears ringing something awful from the boom of so many guns, Jeff rose from where he’d been crouched at the corner of the jail.
“Jeff!” Jake shouted to him. Jeff jumped in surprise.
“Sir?”
“Go inside the jail!” Jake ordered, his eyes still scanning the street. “If Sparky is okay, let him out while Lloyd keeps an eye on those two cowards near the door!”
Jeff wiped at sweat on his forehead and cautiously climbed up the steps. He eyed the two men standing near the door. Both of them looked ready to kill, and not far away, Lloyd Harkner stood with guns pointed at them. Jeff realized he could easily get hit in cross fire, especially if there was still someone armed inside. But Jake Harkner had given him an order, and he suspected it was best to follow it. Across the street, Little Jake continued screaming, and Jake moved right into the middle of the street, arms still held out. “Come on out, Henry!” he ordered again. “Let’s get this over with!”
Stu Forbes made a move and Jeff ducked as Lloyd’s gun exploded. A hole opened in Stu’s chest. He stumbled backward and Marty Bryant held his arms high and screamed, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
A terrified Jeff dashed inside and grabbed some keys from the wall, glad to see that Sheriff Sparks was indeed all right. His hands shaking, Jeff unlocked the cell door and the sheriff charged out, grabbing a shotgun on his way to the jail door, aiming it at Marty.
“Get your ass back inside!” he growled.
The man obeyed, and Jeff peered outside the jail door to see Lloyd lower his guns. He started toward his father.
“Stay there!” Jake ordered.
Just then a man stepped out from an alley, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and two fancy guns.
“This is the day you finally die, Harkner,” he called, stepping closer. “Today I get the reputation of being the man who drew on Jake Harkner and lived to tell about it.”
Lloyd walked past the jail door, a gun in each hand but not aimed.
“Can Jake take him?” Jeff asked quietly.
“Are you kidding?”
“He’s wounded—losing a lot of blood.”
“He’s also in a royal rage about Little Jake ending up in the middle of things,” Lloyd answered softly. “You don’t mess with my pa when he’s this angry.”
Pierce Henry walked closer, then stopped.
Jeff watched Jake, who did exactly as he’d told Jeff a man should do. He glared right at Henry’s eyes and not his hands. It happened so fast then that Jeff hardly realized guns had been drawn, other than he knew Henry drew first. He’d caught the split-second movement, but before the man’s gun was even fully drawn, Jake’s was out and fired. Henry stood there a moment, then wilted to the ground, a hole in his forehead.
Jake backed up and everyone in the street froze, not sure if the shooting was over. Jake holstered his guns, but when he turned to go to his still-screaming grandson, the man he’d shot off the roof moved to sit up, not dead yet. Jeff’s eyes widened when in a whisper of a second, Jake drew his gun and casually shot the man as he passed him by—no aim, no warning, and no true indication the man meant to shoot back. Just a boom, and the man swooned to the ground.
“Any others?” Jake shouted, turning in a circle. “Lloyd?”
“I think that’s all of them, Pa! Sparky is all right.”
Jake holstered his gun yet again, heading for the crate, blood flowing at an alarming rate from his right thigh. Evie also ran for the crate, Brian with her and already carrying his doctor’s bag. Jake reached the crate first and yanked Little Jake out of it, grabbing him close.
“Daddy, give him to me,” Evie asked, running up to her father.
Jake whirled. “What the hell was he doing out here!” he literally roared. “He could have been killed! Don’t ever let him slip out of the house like that again!”
Evie literally recoiled, stunned. Jeff had a feeling Jake had never raised his voice to his daughter that way. Randy was running up the street by then.
Jake leaned against a hitching post, clinging to Little Jake, who in turn hugged him around the neck, sobbing uncontrollably.
“It’s okay,” Jake soothed. Brian walked up and tried to get his son away, but Jake refused to let go. “Don’t anybody come near me or my grandson!” he ordered.
“Jake, you’re hurt,” Brian reminded him. “And that’s my son you’re holding. Give him to me before you end up hurting him yourself.”
Jake tried to walk away and began to stagger.
Lloyd handed his guns to Sheriff Sparks, because he wasn’t wearing his gun belt. “Hold these!” He ran over to his father. “Pa, you’re bleeding bad! Give me Little Jake before you fall on him!”
Jake whirled on him. “He could have been killed today, and it would have been my fault!”
“Pa, he’s fine, and not everything is your fault. Please give him to me. You’re about to pass out.”
Blood ran almost in a stream, soaking the right leg of Jake’s denim pants. “It’s just like with you,” Jake told Lloyd, “back in California. You were little like this.” His eyes actually teared. “I did everything I could to protect you…bullets flying everywhere…your mother…stabbed…” He started going down. Lloyd grabbed at Little Jake, but Jake still wouldn’t let go of him, and the boy kept clinging to his grandfather’s neck, still crying. Lloyd hung on to both of them as they went down, struggling to keep his father from falling on top of Little Jake. Even once he was down, Jake continued clinging to the boy.
“Brian, get over here!” Lloyd yelled. “He’s bleeding to death!”
Jeff also ran over to the site. “What can I do?”
Lloyd was trying to get Little Jake from his father’s grasp. “Take his guns!” he ordered Jeff.
Jeff could hardly believe his ears. “What?”
“Take his goddamn guns! He’s losing blood and it will affect his brain.
He might think we’re outlaws trying to get Little Jake from him.” He wrestled for Little Jake. “Jesus Christ, how can a fifty-six-year-old man who’s lost half his blood still be this strong?” he growled.
Brian straddled Jake’s legs and sat on them, doing his best to press on the wound to stop the awful bleeding. “Somebody go get the blacksmith!” he shouted. “Anybody! Have him come over here with a hot iron!”
Lloyd struggled to pin Jake and the child in his arms to the ground. “Take his guns, damn it!” he ordered Jeff again.
Terrified, Jeff knelt down and yanked one gun from its holster and threw it aside, then managed to reach over and get hold of the other gun, scared to death one of them would go off and he’d accidentally kill someone. He jumped back, one gun still in his hand.
“Damn it, Pa, settle down before I punch you out!” Lloyd yelled. He finally managed to get Little Jake away. He handed him over to Evie, who was crying. By then, Randy reached them as Jake roared for Lloyd to give Little Jake back to him. He swung at Lloyd, slamming his jaw but weak enough to do no real damage.
“Pa, you’re going to bleed to death if you don’t settle down and let Brian look at that wound!” He literally laid across Jake’s chest then, his own lower lip bleeding from Jake’s blow. It clearly took every ounce of strength he had to keep the man down. “Lie still, you sonofabitch! Don’t make me hurt you!”
“Jake!” Randy knelt close to him. “Dear God!”
“Get out of the street!” Jake told her, his voice growing weaker. “You’ll get shot!”
“Jake, it’s over. Little Jake is fine. And I’m fine.” She leaned closer, placing her hands on either side of his face. “Jake, it’s me—Randy. Let Brian help you. You’re bleeding to death!”
Just the sound of her voice seemed to help him relax. “Randy? I told you…not to come out here.”
“I’m fine, Jake. It’s over. Please, please lie still.”
“Little Jake…”
“He’s okay!”
“Jake saved the boy’s life,” Jeff spoke up, not even sure why he felt compelled to say it. “I saw the whole thing. He got shot protecting Little Jake.”
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