Do Not Forsake Me

by Rosanne Bittner

  Jake’s eyes closed. “Randy…don’t leave.”

  “Jake?” Randy leaned closer. “Brian, he’s passed out! He’s bleeding to death! He’s bleeding to death! Do something!”

  “I’m trying!” Brian answered. “Where’s the blacksmith?” he shouted.

  “He’s coming!” someone yelled back.

  Brian ripped open Jake’s pant leg with a scalpel. “Damn, the blood is flowing like a fountain!” He looked around. “I need something to tie this off!”

  Randy leaned down and kissed Jake’s forehead. “Jake? Please wake up!”

  A storekeeper ran out with a piece of rope. Brian tied it tightly above the wound. “It’s slowing now.” He looked up “Where’s Pete?” he shouted again.

  “Here, Brian.” A sweaty, soot-covered, bearded man barged through the crowd yelling for people to watch out for the hot poker he carried. “What do you need?”

  Brian quickly cut open the wound more. “There! Press the hot end of that poker right into the wound! I don’t know how else to stop it but to cauterize it.”

  Jake roused again and began struggling.

  “Jesus,” Lloyd groaned. “Mom, get away! Somebody lay across him with me. I can’t hold the stubborn bastard down by myself!”

  The storekeeper pulled Randy away as quickly but as gently as he could, then bent down to press on Jake’s shoulders while Lloyd continued to lie across his middle, trying to keep Jake from flailing his arms. Jeff moved closer to Randy, just staring.

  “Do it!” Brian ordered Pete.

  Randy turned away, clinging to Jeff, who stood there not knowing quite what to do. He still held one of Jake’s guns but moved his other arm around Randy to comfort her as best he could, wondering if she even realized she was clinging to a complete stranger.

  “I knew this would happen,” Randy wept. “I knew it would. I felt it when he left the house this morning.” She shriveled against him and grasped the front of his jacket at the awful hissing sound. Jake screamed from the pain as Pete burned out the wound. People gasped and some turned and walked away.

  “Once more!” Brian ordered the blacksmith.

  “Pa, hang on!” Lloyd yelled. “It’s the only way to stop the bleeding.” He stayed on top of him but grabbed one of Jake’s hands and held on tight as the blacksmith again laid the hot iron against the wound.

  Jake screamed again.

  “Damn it, Pa, why didn’t you come and get me first?” Lloyd growled, voice hitching as if he were fighting an urge to cry. There came no reply. Jake had passed out again.

  “Let’s get him to my office,” Brian said then. “I can clean and stitch up the wound there.”

  Fenton Wales, the farmer who’d driven by earlier, came clattering back in his wagon. “Put him in here!”

  Brian, Lloyd, and the storekeeper loaded Jake into the wagon. Pete backed away, shaking his head. Lloyd walked up to Randy and pulled her off of Jeff. “Come on, Mom. I’ll help you into the wagon.”

  Clearly shaken by the pitiful cauterization, Randy stumbled to the wagon and Lloyd lifted her into it, then climbed in with Brian. The wagon driver charged off toward Brian’s office, which was adjacent to his house. They passed Evie walking with Little Jake, who was still sobbing. Evie hurried to catch up with the wagon. Katie had reached the scene by then and stood there in a housecoat looking scared and confused. She turned to follow the others back to Brian’s office.

  Jeff just stared after them for a moment, then turned to pick up the gun he’d thrown aside. He made the mistake of grabbing it by the barrel. “Ouch!” He was surprised at how hot it still was from being fired so many times. He carefully picked it up by the handle instead, then just stared down at the guns.

  I’m holding Jake Harkner’s guns, he thought. They had just been used to kill five men, faster than the eye could follow. One of them, the man in the alley who’d dared to stir, had been shot as casually as blinking. He couldn’t get over the contrasts in Jake Harkner—a murdering wild man one minute and clinging to his grandson the next.

  He had a lot of things to process, and he decided the best thing he could do was to go back to his room and write all this down while it was still fresh in his mind. He headed for the Guthrie Inn, still carrying Jake’s guns, which were far heavier than he thought they would be. How did the man draw and fire them so easily, let alone actually hit his targets?

  He passed a man standing on the boardwalk and studying the bloody scene in the street. It was the same man Jake had had a few words with on Sunday when he came out of church holding Randy Harkner’s arm. The man reached out to stop Jeff.

  “Did you see what happened?” he asked.

  Jeff looked down the street where the wagon was stopped in front of Brian’s house. “Yes.” He looked back at the man Jake had called Peter. He had blue eyes and sandy hair that showed a touch of gray at the temples. He was very good-looking for his age, clean shaven, his hair perfectly combed—a man Jeff guessed to be close to Jake’s age, maybe a little younger. He wore what Jeff recognized as an expensive suit, the kind normally found only in bigger cities.

  “You’re Peter…Brown, is it?” Jeff spoke up. “I saw you yesterday after church, when you were talking to Jake.”

  Brown studied him quietly for a moment, then nodded. “Randy Harkner works for me off and on, mostly when her husband is gone. It keeps her busy. At any rate, I’m good friends with the woman. Is she all right?”

  Interesting, Jeff thought. The man seemed far more concerned about Randy than Jake. “She’s fine. Badly shaken, but fine.”

  “Jake?”

  “Bad shape. He took a bullet in his right thigh. I guess it went through but it hit a vein or something. He lost a lot of blood and they had to cauterize the wound. It was a pretty ugly thing to see. They took him to the doctor’s place to sew up what’s left of his skin.”

  “I’m surprised he even was shot. Harkner is too good in these situations to let himself get hit.”

  “One of his grandsons ran into the street and got mixed up in the mess out there. That changed everything. Jake ran out into the street to protect him—took a chance getting shot to death doing it.”

  Brown sighed. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Actually it could have been a lot worse if I hadn’t been up and out earlier. I saw those men go into the jail, and I figured they were up to something, so I told Jake. They were ready to blow him to pieces the minute he walked into the jail this morning. I sure didn’t want to see that happen, so I told him they were inside. He actually had the drop on them until Little Jake showed up.”

  “Well, I’m just glad the kid and Randy are both all right, although I’m sure Randy is beside herself with worry.” The man frowned and studied Jeff. “And you know my name, but I don’t know yours. You’re new in town.”

  “Jeff Trubridge. I’m a reporter from Chicago, here to write a book about Jake. I’d shake your hand, but I’m holding Jake’s guns.”

  Brown glanced down at the guns. “Rather formidable, aren’t they? How in heck did you get hold of them?”

  “Jake was out of his mind from loss of blood. I think he’s probably mostly in shock. His son yelled at me to take his guns—afraid he’d start shooting randomly, I guess.” He looked at the guns. “Feels kind of weird to hold them. These guns are pretty famous.”

  Brown looked at them again. “Yeah, I suppose so.” He rubbed at his neck. “Did you say you were writing a book about Jake?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Well, good luck with that. It won’t be an easy project. After today you’ll have a heck of a time getting Jake to talk about anything. He shuts down when anything happens involving his family.”

  “Oh? You must be pretty close to them to know that.”

  “I’m not really close to any of them, but Randy has told me a few things. When Jake is gone, I th
ink it makes her feel better to talk about him—and the family in general.”

  “Yes, she must get pretty lonely. From what I can tell, there were times when Jake was gone from her life for two years or more.”

  Brown folded his arms. “Well, that was back when the law was after him. Now he is the law, so things are a little better, but being a federal marshal still takes him away for longer than Randy would like.”

  And you feel sorry for her because you’re in love with her. “Do you have a wife, Attorney Brown?” Jeff dared to ask.

  Brown shook his head. “My wife died three years ago. I came out here from Chicago myself to get away from bad memories. I figured with the land rush there would be a need for lawyers out here. I have no children, so it doesn’t matter much where I land myself.”

  “I see.”

  Brown kept glancing up the street toward the doctor’s office. “I hope Jake will be all right.”

  Do you? Maybe you’d like to see Randy Harkner become a widow. “Are you worried about Jake’s wife?”

  Brown frowned with a quick and wary irritation in his eyes. “I’m worried about both Jake and Miranda. And don’t be reading something into my concern, Trubridge.” He stepped back a little and studied Jeff a moment longer. “Good luck getting your story. I wouldn’t want to be the one who had to ask Jake Harkner any personal questions. You never know what will trigger that dark anger inside him. I’d advise you to never ask him about his father. He did kill the man, you know.”

  “I know that.”

  “That remark Brad Buckley made yesterday was meant to rile Jake. You saw what happened to Brad.”

  Jeff nodded. “It must take a lot of anger for a man Jake’s age to throw a two-hundred-pound man off the boardwalk like that.”

  Brown tipped his hat. “That’s what I’m talking about. Everything about the man is intimidating. He is a formidable presence. You and I walk into a room and no one notices. But when Jake Harkner walks into a room, he immediately fills it up. Everyone stops talking and turns to look.” He glanced down at the guns again. “Don’t you wonder how on earth a woman like Randy puts up with the man?”

  Jeff nodded. “One can’t help but wonder. But there is something special there, I can see that. And I think when he’s with his family, and especially his wife, he’s a completely different man than what I saw on the street today.”

  Brown’s eyes flickered with what Jeff read as envy and despair. “Randy has said as much. The woman is still crazy about that man, after twenty-six years of hell. Go figure that one out.” Brown started to turn.

  “Do you care if I use your words in my book?” Jeff asked before he could get away.

  “What words?”

  “About Jake being a formidable presence and filling up a room when he walks into it. I like that description.”

  Brown turned away. “Fine with me.” He walked off toward his office, and Jeff watched after him, thinking that if the man was trying to hide the fact that he was in love with Jake Harkner’s wife, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Though apparently he knew better than to act on his feelings…so far.

  Ten

  Jeff stood at the front door of Jake’s home, fighting down nerves, when Lloyd opened the door and looked past him cautiously before he let Jeff inside.

  “Trubridge,” he greeted, nodding.

  “Hello, Lloyd.” Jeff looked behind him, then back at Lloyd, who looked very tired and disheveled. His hair was still loose but tucked behind his ears. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  Lloyd sighed. “Just still a little wary after what happened this morning. There are more Bryants and Buckleys out there—big families, both of them. They aren’t going to be happy about what happened this morning.” He waved Jeff toward the parlor. “Have a seat.”

  Jeff felt like a little kid in the presence of the tall, dark, and at the moment, still-dangerous-looking Lloyd. He noticed the younger Harkner had a split lower lip from Jake’s blow. His pants were covered with dried blood, but now he wore a shirt. He figured the shirt might be one of Jake’s, since it appeared he’d never gone home to clean up and change after his father was hurt.

  “I, uh, I didn’t come here to bother anyone. I just came to return these.” Jeff held up a pillowcase. “Your father’s guns are in here. You asked me to take them off him this morning. Having them around makes me nervous. I keep thinking one of them is going to come alive and shoot me for looking at it.”

  Lloyd grinned and took the pillowcase from him. “Well, Pa did modify the triggers to pull way easier than the common single-action .44. But no, they won’t explode all on their own.” He reached inside the pillowcase and pulled out the guns, carrying them to a tray-top table near a stuffed chair, then checked each one. He shook his head. “Empty,” he said quietly after opening the first gun and spinning the cartridge chamber. He turned the chamber of the second gun. “Four bullets in this one. I figured that. He’d reloaded one gun for the face-off with that hired gun. That took one bullet, and then he shot that man in the alley. That left four. That’s why I asked you to take his guns. Pa was out of his head from such a sudden loss of so much blood. I was afraid he’d grab for them again.” He shook out the remaining bullets into his hand and laid both guns back on the table, shoving the bullets into a pocket of his denim pants.

  “How is he?” Jeff asked.

  “Brian and my mother are in the bedroom with him now.” Lloyd shook his head. “Jeff, my pa has been wounded before, but this one—it really put him down. I think this time around was harder on my mother too. This is the closest my dad has come to dying from a gunshot. He’s been hurt before, but not like this. If Brian hadn’t been right there to move as fast as he did to stop the bleeding, Jake would be dead. But then, this is Jake Harkner we’re talking about, so you never know.” He smiled sadly, and Jeff detected tears in Lloyd’s eyes. “He’s pretty much too damn stubborn to die,” he added. “Brian says it could take several days, maybe weeks for Pa to get his strength back.”

  Lloyd sat down in the stuffed chair and waved Jeff over to a paisley-patterned sofa with rolled, stuffed arms. Jeff secretly observed items in the room. The furniture was clean and neat but nothing of extraordinary value—just tidy and well-placed. Doilies graced the side tables and what looked like a hand-embroidered small tablecloth decorated the low cherrywood table that sat between him and Lloyd. A lovely lamp with a colorful stained-glass shade sat on an end table beside the sofa, the only item Jeff knew had to be expensive. A rosewood clock chimed softly from its perch on a mantel over the fireplace.

  Lloyd took a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “The hard part will be keeping Pa down once he comes out of this. He isn’t much for being bedridden.”

  Jeff felt nervous being in Jake’s house. His eyeglasses had slipped down a little, and he pushed them back up his nose as he again apologized for intruding. “I really don’t need to stay. I’m sure you don’t feel like company right now. I just wanted to return the guns and check on your father.”

  Lloyd lit his cigarette and drew on it. “No. Stay. Peter Brown stopped by earlier today to see how he was doing. Actually, I suspect he stopped by to see how my mother was doing.”

  Jeff wondered if that remark meant that even Lloyd suspected Peter Brown was in love with Randy Harkner.

  “Anyway, Peter told me he talked to you after the shooting and that you’d warned Jake those men were in the jail.” He drew on the cigarette again. “I want to thank you. I’m not ready to lose my father, Jeff. I just got him back only a year and a half ago. I still have a lot to make up for, so I need a lot of years to do that. If he didn’t know those men were waiting for him inside that jail, he’d have been blown to bits as soon as he opened that door.”

  Jeff was touched. Earlier today this young man had shot down one of the prisoners with no hesitation, and now he sat here talking about how much he loved his f
ather—a man with a reputation that sent chills down most peoples’ spines. “I have to say that in just the three days since I met Jake, I find myself really liking him,” he told Lloyd, “although he still scares the hell out of me.”

  Lloyd grinned again. “You don’t need to be afraid of him, after what happened this morning. I’m pretty sure after what you did, he’ll let you write that book.”

  Jeff could hardly hide his excitement. “Well, I hope so, but I can’t rejoice in how it all came about. I’m really sorry Jake got hurt.” He removed his hat and set it beside him. “I hope Jake told you yesterday after the wedding that I mean to do things right—just the truth—not just about Jake but about the rest of the family…unless of course some of you don’t want to be mentioned.”

  Lloyd smoked quietly, studying Jeff so intently that Jeff swallowed nervously. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Lloyd shook his head. “No. I’m just making up my mind.” He leaned back in the chair. “In two words, Jeff—how would you describe my father?”

  Jeff thought a moment, afraid he’d choose the wrong words and lose his chance at a book. “Well…to be honest with you, I’ve already contemplated the best words to describe the man. I came up with just one word. Nitroglycerin.”

  Lloyd actually laughed lightly. “Nitro!” He laughed again. “That’s the best description I’ve ever heard.” He took another drag on his cigarette, and Jeff breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s like nitro, all right. Keep him calm, and he’s fine. Shake him up, and pow! And even nitro is harder to ignite than my father.”

  Jeff grinned. “Well, I suspect you run a close second to him as far as personality and temper go.”

  Lloyd smiled and shook his head. “If you want a comparison, I’m just dynamite. He is nitro. I lack my father’s meanness. It comes from way deep inside, mostly from his past.”

  “That first day I saw him, I realized that he can back a man down with just a look. When he’s angry, there is fire in those eyes. It’s unnerving.”