In an instant, Jake was there, lifting her up with strong arms and carrying her to their own room. He kicked the door shut and sat down on the bed, holding her tightly on his lap. “I’m sorry, Randy, not just about your brother but about all the rest. Just tell me what you need, mi querida.”
“I just need you to hold me,” she sobbed. “I need you to want our baby.”
He kissed her hair. “I told you I do want the child. It’s just that my whole life I never gave one thought to being a father, figured I’d never be very good at it. I just don’t know if I’m even worthy to have a kid call me Pa.”
“You are, Jake. How many times do I have to tell you you’re as worthy as the next man? I know you love me, Jake, and you’ll love our baby. But you’ve got to learn to love yourself too.”
He felt an ache in his chest at the remark. He realized how right she was. It was hard learning how to love and be loved, harder still to learn to love himself; but then he figured if a woman like Randy could love him, there must be a part of him that was worth something.
“It’s more important to me now than ever for us to be family, Jake,” she was saying. “You and the baby are all I’ve got, and we’re all you have.” He smelled of whiskey and smoke, and she clung to him. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.”
He stroked her hair. “I’ll do and say a lot of things that don’t make sense sometimes, Randy, but one thing I know is I can’t be without you. There are times when I might leave because I’ve got to be alone to think things out; but I’ll always come back. Always.” He began unbuttoning her dress. “Let’s get a nightgown on you so you can get some rest. Tonight I’ll just hold you, and tomorrow we’ll have a nice breakfast and go visit Wes’s grave. When you feel stronger, we’ll talk about the baby.”
He undressed her and put on her gown, insisting she stay in bed while he went to the kitchen to see about bringing her something hot to drink. Miranda pulled the pillow to her, her emotions torn. The news about Wes was so disappointing. She had gone through so much to get here. The only thing that made the grief more bearable was the fact that Jake was here. She had trusted that he would come back, and he had. She put a hand to her belly, realizing her waist had gotten thicker. If Jake Harkner didn’t fully understand about love, the baby would teach him the rest. “You’ll be the best father who ever walked the earth, Jake. I know it in my heart.”
***
Miranda laid some flowers on Wes’s grave as Mellie left them. She put a hand to her aching chest, her grief more piercing at having never gotten to see her brother again. It felt strange to know that all that had been a part of her blood and her past was gone.
“There is nothing left now, Jake.” She rose and faced him. “No past, for me or for you. This is a sign that we have to go on and look only to the future, our baby, a life together. All we have is each other.”
They stood high on a hill that overlooked Virginia City. With the influx of thousands to the silver town, the graveyard had also quickly expanded, filled mostly with men killed in mining accidents or in fights in town. In the distance someone was conducting a funeral. A hawk flew overhead and screeched, and Miranda thought what a sad place this was, full of the graves of lonely, forgotten men come here in search of a dream and finding only death.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of being a father, Jake,” she told him. “You know exactly what you would have liked to have for a father, and I know in my heart you’ll do everything you can to make life very different for your child than it was for you. You think you know what love is all about now, but you won’t know until you hold this baby in your arms. I have a feeling our biggest problem will be you spoiling him or her to death.”
Jake walked a few feet past her. “I’ll tell you what bothers me most, Randy,” he said, his voice strained with emotion. “It’s the same thing that hurts the most about my own pa. It wasn’t the beatings so much as the fact that I hated him so much, was so ashamed of him. A kid needs to be proud of his pa, Randy. If I ever saw that same hate and shame in my own kid’s eyes…” He turned to face her. “That’s why this baby and any others we have can’t ever be told about my past. If they find out what I used to be, find out I killed my own pa, they’d look at me with those same eyes, and any love they had for me would be lost.”
“I don’t believe that, Jake.” She drew her coat closer around her neck, a cold mountain wind blowing her hair away from her face. “We’ll make them understand.”
“No.” He came closer, his dark eyes determined. “I don’t want you ever to tell them. We’ll find a peaceful place in California to settle. They don’t ever need to know.”
She frowned. “Jake, my own father used to say that telling the truth right away was always better than letting it be found out some other way further on in life. It saves a lot of hurt and misunderstanding.”
“I mean it, Randy. If you ever say anything, I’ll leave, because I’m not going to stay around and have my children look at me with that shame. I don’t ever want them to know. You’ve got to promise me.”
“Jake—”
“Promise me! I never want them to know about my past.”
She folded her arms, seeing again that little-boy fear in his eyes. “All right. I think you’re wrong, Jake. If they find out later, it will be worse, but if that’s what you want, I’ll agree to it.” The wind suddenly blew a little harder, and she shivered, something deep inside telling her the promise she had just made was a decision they would both one day regret.
Jake breathed deeply in relief. “I found an honest-to-goodness doctor in town,” he told her. “I think you should go and see him, get to know him. At least you’ll have some help when the time comes. Soon as that baby is born and you’re both strong enough, we’ll get the hell out of this place.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry about Wes.”
Miranda looked back at the grave. “We used to be close when we were little. Now that I think about it, he seemed to start drawing away after Mother died. My father was so lost in his own grief, he didn’t pay any attention. I don’t think any of us realized how much her death affected him.” She looked back at Jake, realizing how much more traumatic for him the death of his own mother had been. She reached out and took his hand. “Let’s go back.”
Those who had attended the funeral nearby had broken up and were also leaving. Miranda glanced their way, only then realizing that the preacher for the service had been Wilbur Jennings. She drew in her breath, and Jake frowned. “What is it?”
“It’s Preacher Jennings!” She left him and briskly walked closer to the man. Jennings and his wife stopped still when they saw her, and Miranda noticed that one of the man’s brothers was also with him. She saw no sign of Clarence.
“Mrs. Hayes!” Preacher Jennings looked startled and immediately began to redden.
“Well, if it isn’t the fine preacher,” Miranda said, loud enough for some of the other people leaving to hear. They stopped and turned. “Have you told the people here the truth about the kind of man you really are?” Her grief and the strain of the last two days made her want to lash out at someone. What better target than this man who had left her to die! She turned to the rest of them. “You can tell any others who listen to this man preach about God and faith and goodness that he’s a hypocrite! I traveled partway here with the good preacher and his family from Kansas—”
“Please, Mrs. Hayes,” Opal spoke up, her face pale.
Miranda glanced at her. “You’re as guilty as your husband,” she sneered. “And my name is Turner, Mrs. Jake Turner. It’s only thanks to my new husband that I am alive today! He found me at that trading post, dying, being abused by those horrible men you knew good and well wouldn’t take good care of me!” She looked at the others again, as Jake stepped up behind her. “The Reverend Jennings left me behind at a stinking, dirty trading post back in Nebraska after I had been bitten b
y a snake,” she told them. “His own nephew tried to rape me before that, and the preacher chose to believe the boy when he said I had done the seducing! It was a lie! That is how forgiving the preacher is. Even if it had been true, a true Christian would have given me the benefit of the doubt, would have still seen to my safety until others came along with whom I could travel. Instead he chose to leave me behind like a dying mule!” She looked back at Jennings. “Never have I known such pain and humiliation. Mr. Turner came along and rescued me from that filthy place and lanced my wound to drain the infection! He saved my life, while you continued on as though I never existed!”
“Reverend, is that true?” one of those in the funeral party asked.
“I…it wasn’t quite that way. I mean…” He looked at his wife. “Say something, Opal!” The man’s stammering told the others all they needed to know.
“And we thought somebody had finally come to this godforsaken town who could be trusted,” one of the others said. He and those with him just stared for a moment, shaking their heads. They turned and left, and Miranda enjoyed the withered look on Jennings’s face.
“I’m glad I’ve seen you again.” Miranda was seething. “Every chance I get I’ll tell others about how poorly you practice what you preach! And where is your oh-so-perfect, innocent nephew, Reverend? Is he out preaching too?”
Opal blinked back tears, her hard, thin face showing her sorrow. “Clarence has been taken in by the sin of this town,” she answered, looking embarrassed herself. “He has strayed from us and has fallen into the ways of the wicked.”
“Well, today Clarence isn’t feeling too much like sinning or doing anything else,” Jake spoke up, surprising Miranda. “He and I had a little run-in last night in the Silver Shoes. I found out who he was and I can guarantee he’s damn sorry about what he did to Miranda.”
“What did you do to him?” the reverend demanded, his face livid.
“Nothing he didn’t deserve,” Jake answered.
The preacher literally shook, turning to Opal. “I must try to find him and make sure he’s all right. James would want me to do that much.” He grasped his wife’s arm and stormed off with her, his brother glaring at Jake for a moment, looking him over, studying the guns he wore. The momentary challenge he had shown quickly changed to a look that said he thought better of it. He followed Jennings down the hill.
Miranda turned to Jake. “What happened with Clarence? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He moved his hat back farther on his head. “You had enough to think about last night. He had seen us that first night, knew who I was when I went into the Silver Shoes. Apparently he works there, and apparently it made him angry that the woman who had spurned him turned around and married me. I’m only guessing at how the stupid kid thinks.” He took a cheroot from an inside pocket of his jacket. “The dumb kid decided to challenge me. He insulted you in front of everybody in that saloon, then went for his gun.”
Her eyes widened. “You shot him?”
“Hell no. You don’t want to know what I did, except that I gave him a damn good scare. I have to tell you, though, there was a time when I would have shot him.” He cupped his hand against the wind and lit the square cigar. “On the one hand I feel good about letting him live, but I only did it because he’s a smart-mouthed kid trying to be a man.” He puffed on the cheroot. “The only thing that bothers me is the rage I felt when I lit into him. It reminded me of my pa. I’ve beat the hell out of plenty of men, but never somebody that age.”
Miranda folded her arms stoically. “He deserved whatever you did to him! If he thought he was man enough to try to rape me, then he was man enough to take what he had coming!”
He squinted, keeping the cigar in his mouth and studying her intently. “Well, Mrs. Turner, for such a slip of a woman, you can be pretty damn ornery.”
“If I’m going to be married to you, I expect I have to be, just to keep you in line, if nothing else.”
He grinned a little, stepping closer and putting his arm around her. “Come on. Let’s get you out of the cold.”
Miranda looked back once more at the lonely grave. It broke her heart to think of Wes dying without any family close by, but it had been his choice to leave. She only wished he could have been buried next to their father. She turned to Jake, resting her head against his chest. “It hurts, Jake, to think our once-close family is so scattered and broken now. Mother is buried back in Illinois, Father in Kansas, now Wes here in Nevada. I’ll be moving on to California come spring. It feels strange, like I’m floating on the wind.”
“You’ll feel more secure when you have that baby and have a place to call your own. There won’t be any more wandering after that. I promise. Come on now. It’s getting colder. I think another snowstorm is coming.”
He walked her to Outlaw and lifted her up onto the horse, then took the reins and began leading the animal back to town. An explosion in a nearby mine made Miranda jump, and she looked back at the grave once more, thinking of the awful way poor Wes had died. Her throat ached, and she turned away again. Snowflakes began to take shape, and before the day was out, the graveyard would be buried in three feet of snow. Winter was settling into the Sierras with a vengeance.
Fifteen
January 1867
Miranda read the headlines of the Territorial Enterprise again. Bank Robbery Foiled by Local Citizen. “Oh, Jake,” she whispered. What he had done would be laughingly ironic if it weren’t for the unwanted attention it had drawn. She read on. Local gunsmith Jake Turner yesterday interrupted a bank robbery in progress at the Nevada National, catching the thieves as they came out of the bank and shooting it out with them. Turner, an ex-lawman himself, is known to be an excellent gunman and has worked for Ike Jones, our local gunsmith, since arriving in Virginia City last October. Of the five thieves, two are dead, two wounded, and one is sitting in the local jailhouse. All the stolen money was recovered, and Sheriff Lane is grateful for Mr. Turner’s quick thinking and prompt action.
Quick thinking. The whole town thought Jake’s reaction had been because he was an experienced lawman from back East. That was the only explanation Jake could think of. How else could he explain the wild shoot-out? He couldn’t tell everyone that the reason he had recognized a robbery was in progress was by the look of the men who waited outside the bank; that he knew why they were there because he had robbed more than one bank himself and knew the setup. Miranda had tried to make him feel better by telling him that at least he had had the right idea for once, had stopped a robbery instead of being a part of one. On the one hand he had done a good thing, but he had paced and smoked half the night worrying about the attention he had drawn to himself.
If we weren’t in such a dangerous place where I might run into somebody who knows me, I’d take these damn guns off, he had grumbled. Once we get out of here and settle in California, I won’t wear them anymore. I promise.
Miranda was just as worried about the bold headlines as he was. He could hardly walk out the door without people surrounding him, slapping him on the back, asking about his skill with his guns, wanting to know where he had been a lawman. She knew it irritated him that he had to pile on lie after lie. At the breakfast table this morning, the other guests of the boardinghouse peppered him with more questions.
She set down the paper when she heard the outside door close. She walked from the parlor into the hallway to see Jake hanging up his coat and hat. “You’re late,” she told him. “You know I worry when you’re late.”
He stomped snow from his feet, then sat down on a bench Mrs. Anderson kept in the hall and removed his boots. “I was talking with the owner of the Yellow Jacket mine.” He set his boots aside and rose, kissing her cheek before leading her into the parlor. “He offered me a job, and I think I’m going to take it.” He moved to the fireplace to warm his hands.
“The Yellow Jacket! You won’t be able to come home at
night.”
“I know.” He turned to look at her, still warming his hands. “The pay is good, Randy, five times what I’m making here in town. We’ll need the money if I’m going to set you up right when we reach California. I’ve already let these guns bring me more attention than I want, so I might as well go all the way. Management at the Yellow Jacket wants me to come up there and be a troubleshooter, keep men in line up at the mine, make sure shipments from the mine to town make it without any trouble and that payroll money gets back up there the same way.”
“Jake, that sounds dangerous.”
He laughed almost bitterly. “For me? Hell, I can take on an army, remember? The damage is done now as far as people knowing how I handle myself. If that’s how it’s going to be, I might as well make all the money I can with these things while I have the chance.” He unbuckled the gun belts and threw the weapons onto a chair and held his hands near the fire again. “I’m taking the job, Randy. I want to get us started right when we reach California. We’re going to need a lot of things, a house, furnishings, cattle and such. I don’t have any choice. If I can use what I know for good, then why not do it, especially when it means making a better life for you and the kid.”
He turned, glancing at her swollen belly, loving the sight of this beautiful woman carrying his child. He wanted more than anything to make life good for her, and he hated the disappointed look in her eyes. “It’s just till spring, Randy. I can make a lot of money over the next four months, and I can come home for two days out of every eight. As soon as you’re able, we’ll get the hell out of here and life will be more peaceful, I promise.” He turned back to the fire. “You’ll be fine if you stay right here with Mrs. Anderson. After we get to California and settle into some little nameless town, things will be different. I’ll hang up the guns and just be a common farmer, a man with a wife and a kid who’s no different than the next man.”
Outlaw Hearts Page 24