“Five plus Marty,” Lloyd muttered. “That’s six in the cabin. We took down four plus Hash. With the man I just shot, that makes twelve in all accounted for. There must be more in that wagon and more in the barn.”
“We need to get Marty outside,” Jake told Lloyd and the others. “If I can take him down, the others will try to run off. That’s when we get every last one of them.” He aimed his rifle again. “Marty!” he shouted.
“I’m listenin’!”
“I want to see my daughter again, and my grandson! You bring them out, and I’ll come down.”
“No, Daddy, don’t you come down here!” Evie screamed out the window.
Someone jerked her away. More screams. Little Jake kept crying for his “gampa.”
“Jesus, I have to go down there,” Jake told Lloyd.
“No! Every man there will take a shot at you, Pa. You’ll be riddled with bullets before you ever reach bottom. Every damn one of them wants to say he killed Jake Harkner.”
“I don’t have any choice.”
“Try once more to get him to come out. The man is stupid, Pa. We can flush him out.”
More screams.
“My God, they’re hurting her,” Brian agonized.
Jake struggled not to give in to his own personal horror. “Stay calm, Brian.” He fired into the wagon and someone cried out. Things quieted again after that, and it sounded like men were arguing inside the cabin.
“They’re starting to get real scared, Brian,” Jake told his son-in-law. “A scared man makes stupid mistakes, and he won’t take the time to mess with a woman. He’ll be more concerned with how to save his neck.”
Little Jake had stopped crying, which worried Jake.
“Bring them out now, Marty, and I’ll come down!” Jake shouted. “That’s a promise! You’ll never get me down there otherwise, no matter what!”
“I’ll kill her right now if you don’t come down!”
“No you won’t!” Jake answered. “You kill her or my grandson, and you know for a fact that you’re a dead man! I’ll starve you out of that cabin, and then I’ll do things to you that you can’t even imagine before I kill you! Understand?”
“Holy shit,” Red remarked.
“Bring them out, Marty! You’re trapped in there! If you want me down there, I need to see my daughter and grandson first!”
Things quieted again. Finally, the cabin door opened.
“Get ready, boys,” Jake told the others. “Remember what I told you about choosing your man.”
One man jumped out of the wagon and started running.
“I’ve got him,” Red St. James declared. He fired his buffalo gun. The man’s head literally disappeared.
“Red, I think you should keep that deputy’s badge,” Jake told him.
Red grinned. “I just might do that.”
“You goddamn murderin’ outlaw!” Marty screamed.
“That one was on Red St. James!” Jake yelled back. “I have plenty of help up here, Marty, but I told these men up here to save you for me!”
“You ain’t gonna do nothin’,” Marty all but screamed. “I’m gonna take your daughter with me for protection! I’m bringin’ her out, Harkner, and she’s stayin’ right with me till I get to my horse. The rest of my men will cover me. You let me go and I’ll drop her off a few miles north of here.” He dragged Evie outside. She wore only a man’s shirt. It kept falling open because the buttons had been ripped away.
A furious Brian started to charge down the hill, but Lloyd leaped up and managed to tackle him to the ground as bullets flew their way.
“Damn it, Brian, we’ll get her away from there! You have to stay calm!”
Brian fought him, and Lloyd ordered Harry Wilkes and Ruben Tate to come and hold him down.
“Brian, we can’t do our job if you don’t stay put!” Jake told him.
Brian turned away, staying on his knees. The other two men let go of him.
“Brian, we need to be able to use our guns to help Jake. We can’t be spendin’ time holdin’ you down,” Harry told him.
Brian nodded, grasping his middle and bending over.
Jake watched as a second man came out of the cabin holding a wiggling Little Jake in front of him.
Marty started dragging Evie toward the barn. “Cover me, boys!”
“I have to go down there. It’s the only thing that will distract him,” Jake told Lloyd.
“No! Pa, look at Evie! She keeps moving her head to the side. She thinks you can take him, Pa. She’s trying to keep her head out of the way!”
Jake followed Marty with his rifle.
“See? She’s not fighting him.”
“But she’s tall and Marty is short, so their heads are even. One jerk the wrong way and I’ve killed my own daughter!” Jake lamented.
“Bullshit! You can do it, Pa! And I can take the other one. Little Jake is too small to give the man decent cover.”
“Look how he’s wiggling,” Jake answered. “Jesus, Lloyd, you could kill Little Jake.”
“I won’t! I can take that man, Pa, and you damn well can take Marty.”
Jake blinked back tears. “Jesus God, if it was anybody else but Evie…”
“Do it, Pa! She’s counting on it! She’s a Harkner. She’s giving you a target!”
“It could be like with Santana all over again. I can’t do it, Lloyd.”
“Yes, you can, goddamn it! Shoot him!”
Jake struggled against tears. “God help me,” he whispered, raising his carbine and taking aim.
Thirty-five
“I’m takin’ her, Jake!” Marty screamed, his voice ringing in Evie’s ears. “If you want her back, you’ll have to come and get her, and there’s eleven other men down here with me who will blow you to pieces!”
Don’t do it, Daddy! Don’t come down here! At first Evie tried to strain against Marty’s tight grip around her chest and arms, then realized that fighting him meant making it harder for Jake to shoot him. She felt ill at the smell of Marty’s foul breath, refused to look at his ugly eye. She kept her head turned away as far as possible.
“Hold your fire, Jake, else you’ll kill your own daughter!” Marty continued screaming. “You’ll never—”
Evie felt it then, an odd buzzing sound so close to her ear that it hurt. Instantly Marty’s hold on her loosened. He fell, taking her down with him. At almost the same time, the man holding Little Jake slumped to the ground. Evie couldn’t even remember hearing gunshots. She grabbed Little Jake then as the air exploded with gunfire, so much of it that it was painful to her ears. The shots became muffled then, her ears shutting down on her.
After that, everything seemed to happen like a strange dream. She saw men pour out of the cabin, the wagon, the barn…running past her…shooting…shooting…shooting! She stayed on the ground, keeping a tight hold on Little Jake, who struggled to get away and run to his grandfather. The boy covered his ears.
Then she saw them. She recognized their size, and Lloyd had lost his hat. His long hair was flying behind him like an Indian’s as he charged down the hill as if he was some kind of warrior, making quick stops to shoot his rifle. The tall man beside him in a black shirt and hat was unmistakably her father. They deliberately made difficult targets as they ducked and wove behind and around shrubs and small trees. Evie felt the terror of possibly seeing her father and brother both shot down before her eyes. She managed to crawl behind a barrel, looking around the side of it to see fire spitting from the ends of her brother’s and her father’s six-guns, which they now used instead of rifles. She noticed more puffs of blue smoke coming from up on the ridge…more men who must have come to help Jake.
They had all seen her mostly naked. She leaned over Little Jake, sick with humiliation, devastated that her own brother and father had seen her this way. She ope
ned her eyes then to see Lloyd go down.
“No! No!” She thought she was screaming the words, but couldn’t hear herself. “Lloyd!” Then Jake went down. “Oh, God, Daddy!”
Jake rolled over and got up again and kept shooting both guns. Evie couldn’t tell for sure exactly where he’d been shot. She saw Lloyd get to his knees, a bloodstain at his lower left side. He, too, kept shooting. More men came down the ridge then, and bodies lay strewn everywhere.
Evie couldn’t be sure how long the shooting went on before suddenly, like magic, everything quieted. She thought she heard men shouting orders but was afraid to raise her head and look—afraid she’d see her father and brother dead. In the next instant, someone grabbed her and Little Jake. Evie instantly recognized those arms. “Daddy!” she screamed. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging tightly. “You’re hurt!”
“I’m all right. I’m all right.” His voice sounded so far away.
Evie curled against him, and Jake held her tight while Little Jake wiggled free and hugged his grandpa around the neck from behind.
“Gampa kill the son-o-bisses!” he yelled, grinning and squeezing Jake’s neck.
“Little Jake, go find your uncle Lloyd,” Jake told him as he clung to Evie.
The boy ran off, still shouting that “Gampa’s guns hurt the son-o-bisses.” Jake ordered someone to see if there was a blanket in the wagon, and in the next moment a blanket came around her. Jake leaned against the barrel and sat all the way down, holding her close. He kissed her forehead and grasped her hair, pressing her head against his chest.
“Jesus, Evie.” He kissed the top of her head, and Evie felt instantly calmer…safe…loved…
“I knew you’d come,” she sobbed.
“I never should have left town.”
“Daddy, you’re hurt…”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s hardly more than a cut on my arm.” He held her close. “My God, Evie, I’m so sorry! I failed you! I failed the most precious person in my life.”
“You couldn’t have known. You came for me. That’s all that matters.” Evie heard a voice in the distance then.
“Brian! Lloyd is back down! Come and help him!”
Evie turned her head to see Brian coming down the hill. “He’s alive? Brian is alive?”
“He’s fine. He came with us so he could be with you right away.”
“Lloyd!” She tried to pull away.
Jake hung on tight. “Stay still, Evie. Brian will take care of him.”
“I should go to both of them, but I can’t. I can’t look at Lloyd again…and Brian…” She covered her head with the blanket. “He can’t see me like this! Their filth is all over me.”
“It’s all right, baby. We’ll take care of that.” Jake watched Brian bend over Lloyd. Lloyd! Not Lloyd! God, don’t take my son! He sat there torn in a thousand pieces…Evie’s devastation, Lloyd possibly dying, Randy…was she home yet? What was going through her mind? God, how he needed to hold his wife!
“Daddy, I’m going to be sick again—” In the next instant, she leaned away from him and vomited. Jake fought tears as he held her hair away from her face.
“Jeff, bring me a canteen!” he yelled.
“Don’t let him see me.”
Jeff ripped a canteen from a horse that lay dead near the cabin and ran it over to Jake, aching at the look in Jake’s eyes. He uncorked the canteen and held it out.
“Thanks. You’d better go after Little Jake before the kid picks up somebody’s gun and starts trying to shoot it,” Jake told Jeff. “Brian brought clothes, so take Little Jake up the ridge and bring Brian’s horse down here. Keep that little hellion occupied.”
“Sure, Jake.” Jeff didn’t know what to say to Jake or to Evie, so he left to corral Little Jake, who still ran around with just a little shirt on, pretending to shoot the men who were already dead.
Jake helped Evie rinse her mouth. “That damn kid thinks this is all a game,” he tried to joke, secretly wanting to cry with joy that Little Jake was alive and all right. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a piece of peppermint. “Chew on this.”
“Daddy, you always have peppermint with you.” She gratefully sucked on the candy. Jake thought about how he and Randy liked to use it in the mornings, and he couldn’t help wondering if they would get that chance again. Randy seemed so far away.
“I’m such a mess! I’m such a mess!” Evie lamented. “How can you stand to hold me?”
Jake closed his eyes and kissed her hair. “Baby girl, you have never looked more beautiful. You’re alive, and that’s all that matters. I’m just so sorry! I never thought they would raid the town like that. I should never have left. If I’d been there—”
“Daddy, please stop blaming yourself. I was just so scared you’d come down and they would kill my father in front of my eyes—and maybe Lloyd too.”
“Lloyd will be all right. I see him moving around right now. He’s trying to sit up.” He held her tight, never wanting to let go and thanking God Lloyd was moving. “Evie, tell me you haven’t lost the baby.”
“No, but only because…oh, God, I just lay there and didn’t fight them, because I was afraid they would beat me more and I would lose the baby.” She curled into an even tighter ball. “Was I wrong to do that? Does that make me bad?”
Jake wanted to scream in rage. “Jesus, no, Evie. It makes you damn smart and damn strong.”
“It was so ugly…so ugly…”
“Hush, Evie. Brian loves you more than ever, and you have to let him love you, understand? You remember what you and Brian have. Your baby is just a symbol of how right and good it can be between a man and a woman. No man but Brian has ever touched you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“But he’ll wonder—”
“He won’t wonder!” He squeezed her tighter. “You listen to me, because I’ve seen every ugly thing a man could possibly see in a lifetime, and I sure as hell know men. They don’t come any better than Brian. He’s a good and patient man who loves you deeply and can make it all beautiful for you again. Let him do that for you, Evie. All he wants is his wife back and that baby you’re carrying.”
She clung to his shirt, crying. Jake put his cheek against Evie’s hair as he watched Brian wrap gauze around Lloyd’s midsection. “He’s okay, Evie. Lloyd is moving around more. He’s okay. Brian is going to come over here soon, and you go to him, all right? And don’t you dare show any shame, because you don’t have one goddamn thing to be ashamed of. Understand?”
She wiped at her tears, smearing the dirt on her face. “I understand that you’ll never stop cussing, no matter how much mother and I ask you to. Some of those awful words are already coming out of Little Jake’s mouth. You should have heard some of the things he said to those men, Daddy. Once he pouted those little lips and called them goddamn fucking bastards. A little three-year-old!”
Jake almost laughed at the vision of Little Jake talking back to such vile men. “Evie, I hope the baby you’re carrying turns out to be a sweet, quiet little girl, because if you have another kid like Little Jake, you’ll end up in a madhouse.”
The remark brought the intended tiny laugh. “He’s tough, like his grandpa. You have to stay alive for a long time, Daddy, just to help me raise him. He hangs on everything you tell him. So does Stephen.”
Brian rose from helping Lloyd and walked over to where Jake sat with Evie. “You’d better let me look at that arm, Jake.”
“Not now. It’s just a flesh wound, and the bleeding is already slowing. I can take care of it. What about Lloyd?”
“He’ll make it. A bullet went right through the flesh at his left side—knocked him sideways and took his breath away, but the bleeding has slowed. The pain will be worse than what the actual wound is.”
“I told Jeff to take Little Jake to get the horses. I was afrai
d he’d pick up a real gun and start shooting it in all directions. Jeff will get him some clothes. I swear that kid thinks this was all fun and games.”
“They hurt Little Jake to make him shut up,” Evie lamented, her face still buried against her father’s neck. “But he only cried for a minute, and I swear he got that same dark, angry look in his eyes you get sometimes, Daddy. He wasn’t scared at all.”
Brian met Jake’s eyes, and Jake saw the agony Brian felt at the thought, and at Evie’s condition. “He might be my son, Jake, but when it comes to not giving up on anything, Little Jake is definitely a Harkner.” He reached out and caressed Evie’s thick, dark hair, leaning closer to kiss her forehead. “And so is this daughter of yours.” He pushed some hair behind Evie’s ear. “I brought clothes, Evie, in case you would…need them. Jeff will bring them down.”
Evie kept the blanket over most of her face when she turned to look at her husband. “I was so scared they’d killed you and I’d never see you again…but now…”
“I am very much alive, Evie. Come, let me hold you. I’ll clean you up and you can get dressed. Let’s just go home, honey.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Are you still carrying our baby?”
Evie pulled the blanket back over her face. “Yes. I didn’t fight them, Brian. I didn’t fight them because I was afraid they’d beat me more and I’d lose the baby. And if I screamed and fought, Little Jake would try to defend me, and then they’d hurt him, so I stayed still.” She broke into tears of shame and horror again.
Brian closed his eyes and looked away for a moment, struggling against the worst rage he’d ever known. This was the first time as a doctor that he wanted to kill men rather than help them. He touched her hair again. “Evie, you were protecting our son and that baby inside you. You survived! God means for you to have this baby, honey. It’s a symbol of what we have…you and me and nobody else.” He pulled the blanket away from her face. “You and me, Evie. Absolutely nothing has changed about how much I love you and that baby you’re carrying. Those men couldn’t take that away, could they?”
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