Outlaw Hearts

by Rosanne Bittner

  “I’ll always remember it too. We’ll have good memories to take with us when we have to be apart. We’ll write every day. It will be like my mother says about my pa when he’s gone. She says they’re together in thought and dreams and in the heart. She says they’re never really apart.”

  “That’s how I feel about you. We were friends for so long before we were lovers. We understand each other, Lloyd. It’s like we’re one person.”

  “We are one person.”

  He rolled on top of her again, and she studied the handsome face, traced her fingers over his lips. “I’ll wait forever for you, Lloyd. Promise me you’ll wait for me too.”

  “You know I will. I don’t know why you even ask.” He smoothed some of her hair back from her face and kissed her tenderly. “One more time,” he whispered. “We can’t stay much longer. You’d better get back before they come looking for you.”

  “I wish you could come tomorrow again.”

  He sighed. “I have to take that horse to Pueblo. It will just take a few days. I’ll come see you soon as I get back and we’ll meet here again.”

  “Then come back just as fast as you can.”

  “You know I will.” He met her mouth once more, and she eagerly gave him his pleasure. Lloyd Hayes was her friend, her lover, her man. He would always come first in her life.

  ***

  Zane Parker shaded his eyes as he stepped away from the veranda of his sprawling ranch house. Jess York had ridden in to tell him Lieutenant Gentry and twelve of his men were riding onto Parker land and wanted to talk to him about “one of his men.”

  Jess waited now beside his horse, wondering himself what was going on. The lieutenant had brought along a prison wagon, and the sight of it gave him a sick, uneasy feeling. He remembered a conversation with Jake only two weeks ago about meeting the lieutenant at Parker’s hoedown last month. Jake had been worried Gentry might know him from somewhere, but Jake couldn’t quite place him. Jess stood prepared now to ride out and warn Jake if this visit involved him.

  Parker took a cigar from his mouth and walked a little farther away from the house, his balding head shining in the sun. “Hello, there!” he called out in greeting as the lieutenant rode up close to him. “You’re lucky I was here. I’ll be heading for Denver tomorrow on business.”

  Gentry nodded to him, looking serious. He dismounted, shaking Parker’s hand. “Good to see you again, Mr. Parker, although my reason for coming isn’t sociable.” He glanced at Jess, remembered seeing Jess and Jake Hayes talking and laughing the day of Parker’s party. Men who worked together on a ranch often stuck together in other ways, and he had a feeling taking Jake Hayes might be a difficult enough task in itself. He didn’t need or want to go up against half the men on the Parker ranch. “Can we go inside? I need to talk to you in private.”

  Parker shrugged. “Certainly.” He turned and led the man inside, and Jess mounted his horse, riding over to where Gentry’s men waited.

  “Any of you know what this is about?”

  They looked at each other before one of them answered. “We ain’t supposed to say. The lieutenant would have our hide. Besides, he hasn’t even told us the name of the man involved.”

  Jess glanced back at the house. He had a feeling he already knew the name. “You boys just might have your hands full,” he told the soldiers. He turned his horse then and rode off, deciding maybe he’d better try to find Jake.

  Inside the house, Parker started to close the doors to his parlor when Beth appeared at the doorway. “Father, what are those army men doing here?” She spotted the lieutenant and smiled. “Hello, Lieutenant Gentry.”

  The man nodded, but did not smile.

  “Beth, I want you to go to your room for the moment. The lieutenant wants to talk to me in private,” Parker told her. “Go on with you now.”

  Beth wished her father would stop treating her like a child. She was old enough to be at his side, helping him make decisions like her mother used to do. She was a woman now, in every sense, and she felt like telling him so, but she was afraid it would turn him against Lloyd. “Yes, Father,” she answered, turning and heading toward the stairs.

  Parker closed the doors and faced Gentry. “Would you like a drink, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir,” the man answered. “I don’t want to waste time, Mr. Parker. Every minute I’m on this ranch the word will spread through your men that we’re here. One of them, the one I’m after, is going to find out and I could lose him. I just came to explain to you first so you can order your men to stay out of this. I don’t want innocent people to get hurt. This is army business, and I’d like to keep it that way, but in a sense it does involve your daughter too. What I’m doing is for her good as well.”

  Parker set his cigar in an ashtray, frowning. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Outside the doors, Beth snuck back to listen. She could see just a little through the crack between the doors.

  Gentry took a yellowed piece of paper from inside his shirt. He unfolded it and held out an old wanted poster to show Parker. “It’s about this man, Jake Harkner. You know him as Jake Hayes. The reward on him is still good, and I aim to collect it.”

  Parker’s eyes showed shock and disbelief as he took the poster and studied it. He shook his head. “I…I don’t believe this. How do you know this is even Jake, with that long hair and that beard?”

  “I know because during the war I was a Confederate agent. I bought guns from him. He didn’t have all that hair on him then, but it was Jake. He was bad, Mr. Parker, as bad as they come. He killed men at the drop of a hat. It was wartime, so we didn’t particularly care how the man got us the guns, and I suppose the war can be used as an excuse for some of the things he did, but not the things he did before and after the war. He was a murderer and an outlaw from the time he was just a kid, when he murdered his own father.”

  Beth stifled a gasp, a sick feeling engulfing her. Beyond the doors Parker took his eyes from the poster and looked at Gentry, stunned. “What!”

  “Most men who ran with him back then knew. I don’t know the circumstances, but I know he killed the man and continued killing after that. He rode with some of the worst outlaws, including Bill Kennedy and his gang, who were wanted in Missouri for robbery and murder and rape, just like what Jake’s wanted for on this poster. I did some thorough investigating for this, Mr. Parker. This isn’t just a hunch, it’s a fact. Before coming here, there was a big shoot-out between Jake and Kennedy’s bunch out in California. I don’t know what the beef was, but Kennedy went after Jake, and Jake killed Kennedy and every last one of his men. He’s good with those guns of his, as good as they get. That’s why taking him isn’t going to be easy. I hope twelve men is enough.”

  Parker let out a gasp of shock and sat down in a silk brocade chair. “This is incredible! Jake is the best man on this ranch! He’s been my right-hand for fourteen years now. I’ve known him even longer. He worked as a payroll guard for me up at the mines before he came here. Why, he even risked his life saving the payroll, and my life! That doesn’t sound like this man.”

  “And how many men did he shoot it out with to save the money?”

  “Why there were at least…” Parker hesitated, realizing what Gentry was telling him. One fact was indisputable, Jake was damn good with those guns.

  “I don’t know or care what the man has been doing the last twenty years, Mr. Parker,” Gentry told him. “I only know what he did before that, and bad is bad. Maybe he’s married and got kids, but that doesn’t erase what he did. You ask his wife about it. I’ll bet she knows.”

  Parker kept staring at the poster. Robbery, murder, rape! Jake? “Miranda Hayes is a wonderful woman. She wouldn’t marry a man who did these things.”

  Gentry sniffed. “Who knows what attracts some women? Maybe she had some big idea she could change him, or maybe she didn’t fi
nd out the truth about him until after they were married. All I know is she was already married to him when he got in that shoot-out back in California. That was back in sixty-nine, and that son of his is older than that. Think about it. Why did he come here after that? Was his family with him when he worked for you at the mines?”

  Parker ran a hand through his thinning hair. “No. He sent for them later.”

  “Because he was trying to find a place where he could start over, hide his identity. He got found out in California. He left his family out there so they’d be safe till he knew it was all right to be together again. Don’t you see? Working here on this ranch, hardly ever leaving this land, changing his name, it was his way of hiding out. He didn’t count on running into somebody who would remember him.”

  Parker just kept shaking his head, an anger beginning to build toward Jake. It wasn’t so much that he cared what the man did twenty years ago, but his own daughter was in love with Jake’s son! Didn’t Jake realize what it would do to the Parker name if society found out his daughter was married to the son of a wanted man, a man who had robbed and raped…raped! Good God, he had let Beth go over there to visit so many times over the years! And what about Lloyd? Was he as trustworthy as he had first thought? Bad seed usually begot bad seed. Jake had killed his own father! What worse crime could a man commit? He couldn’t have Beth getting involved in this sordid mess.

  Gentry came over and took the poster from the man, refolding it. “You’re thinking of your daughter, aren’t you? I remember from your party that she was sweet on Harkner’s son. I don’t know what the boy knows about any of this, Mr. Parker, but once I arrest Jake, who knows what he’ll do? Maybe he’s a good kid. I don’t know him. But I do know it would be best for your daughter’s reputation if she quit seeing him.”

  Parker rose. “Yes, I agree.”

  Beth walked a few feet away, grasping a stair rail and bending over to try to find her breath. Lloyd! Did he know about this? Surely not! He thought the world of his father. If only he were here on the ranch so she could ride out and find him, warn him, but he had taken that horse to Pueblo.

  Her father had actually agreed with the lieutenant that she should no longer see Lloyd! She could not let that happen! She just couldn’t! Tears of horror and disappointment welled up in her soul, and she ran up the stairway, ignoring one of the maids who tried to stop her as she ran to her room.

  In the parlor, Parker slowly rose. “Yes. I agree Beth should not be seen with the son, once this gets in the news. If the boy doesn’t know about this, it will be hard on him too. Maybe it’s a good thing that for the moment he’s in Pueblo.” The man’s pale complexion showed he was still bewildered.

  “It’s a good thing for more reasons than one. He’ll be out of the way when we go after his father. He might try to defend the man, and someone could get hurt.”

  Parker rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling numb. “You going after him right away?”

  “Right away. I just need to know where you think he is.”

  Parker shook his head, walking to look out a front window at the waiting soldiers outside. “I’m not sure. This is a big ranch, Lieutenant. You could ride for days and not find him. He could be anywhere. I sent him out to check again for sheepherders and squatters. I suppose the only thing you can do is go to his house up at the northwest section. He’s been such a good man I let him build a home up there and use a piece of land like it was his own.” He turned to face Gentry. “Whatever he’s done, he does seem to care deeply for his wife and children. If he thinks they’re threatened, perhaps he’ll turn himself in to you to keep them safe.”

  Gentry sighed. “I’d rather not do it that way, but so be it. You just be sure to send a messenger out to tell your men to stay out of this.”

  “Yes. Yes, I will.” The lieutenant started to leave, and Parker touched his arm. “Be careful, Lieutenant. Whatever Jake has done, he has a lovely family. I don’t want to see them get hurt.”

  “They won’t, if they stay out of my way; but if his wife knows about his past, then she knows the risk she takes being married to him. If she chooses to expose herself and her children to that danger, then that’s her problem.”

  The man walked out, and Parker followed, watching him mount up. “Where’s the man who brought us here?” he asked the others.

  “He was askin’ questions, Lieutenant,” a sergeant answered. “We didn’t tell him anything, but he rode off like he was in a hurry.”

  “Damn! The sonofabitch probably knows who I’m after!” He looked at Parker. “The man who rode in here with us—who is he?”

  “Jess York.”

  “He good friends with Jake?”

  “Best friends.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Gentry mumbled. “What’s the quickest way to Harkner’s place?”

  Parker stepped away from the house again, pointing to a road in the distance to the west. “Ride back out of here and head up to that right fork you see up there. That takes you right to his place. It will take you a couple of hours.”

  Gentry turned his horse. “Follow me, men!”

  The soldiers rode off, and Parker watched them for several minutes, until they headed out on the right fork and disappeared over a rise, carting the prison wagon behind them. He turned and walked slowly back into the house, wondering how he was going to break this to Beth, how he was going to convince her to stay away from Lloyd Hayes, or Lloyd Harkner, as the lieutenant claimed he should be called.

  With the lieutenant on his way to arrest the man, he supposed he should tell the girl right away. The charge of rape was difficult to believe. In fact, none of the things he had heard seemed to fit the Jake he knew, but then the man’s past had always been a bit of a blur, and when Jake did use his guns, he could be ruthless. He had proved that up at the mines, and again when he’d had that shoot-out with the squatters.

  Lloyd had killed that night too. Was it in his blood to become like his father? He seemed like such a good kid, but this could set him off in a whole different direction. He was going to be an angry, shocked, confused young man, maybe turn to Beth for something more than friendship. There were things Lloyd was going to have to learn to live with, and he simply could not have Beth involved in the drastic changes that would take place in the boy’s life.

  Thank goodness Lloyd was in Pueblo right now. If he had been home, it would be just like Beth to try to ride out to him once she heard about his father. She would have gotten involved in the whole dirty mess and the dangerous arrest. He decided he had better get her out of here as fast as possible, and he had to convince her to stay away from Lloyd. Neither task was going to be easy, but it was for her own good.

  Thank God the relationship to this point had not seemed to grow too serious. Both still had plans to go off to school in the fall. Once Beth met some of the refined young men in the eastern schools, she would forget about Lloyd Hayes soon enough.

  Twenty-five

  Jake listened to the birds of summer, watched them flit about. He loved these mountains in summer, loved the smell of the pine, the beauty of gray and purple rock still glazed with snow at the peaks. This particular spot was his favorite, a rocky foothill that overlooked a wide, green valley and a small, blue lake. Behind him the bigger mountains loomed like fortresses.

  He missed Lloyd. He had let his son head home a couple of days early, knowing he was anxious to see Beth before he took that horse to Pueblo. He still worried about Lloyd’s intense feelings for Zane Parker’s daughter, hoped the boy was being smart enough not to let himself get carried away physically.

  He drank down the rest of his coffee and began breaking camp when he heard a gunshot echo through the valley below. Alarmed, he walked to a rocky ledge to see who had fired the shot. “Jake!” someone shouted, the voice barely discernible. “You up there? Got to talk to you!”

  Jake recognized Jess York’s hors
e, pulled out one of his handguns and fired a shot in the air. “Here!” He watched Jess turn his horse and head toward him. He slid his gun back in its holster, wondering what was so urgent that Jess had come looking for him. He would have been home by tonight, wouldn’t even have stopped to make himself any lunch if his horse hadn’t bruised his leg.

  He stayed in sight while Jess made his way up the steep pathway, which took several minutes. From the urgent, almost careless way Jess headed up the slope, he suddenly worried something had happened to Randy, or to Lloyd or Evie. “What the hell is wrong?” he shouted anxiously.

  Jess kicked his horse into a loping gait until he reached Jake. By the time he came close, his horse was lathered and breathing heavily. “Soldiers!” Jess told him. “I think they’re comin’ for you.” In spite of Jake’s dark complexion, Jess watched the man visibly pale. “I just come from Parker’s place. That Lieutenant Gentry was there with twelve men, said he’d come for one of Parker’s men, went into the house with Parker to talk private. You said Gentry seemed familiar to you, so I figured you’re the one he’s after. I tried to get it out of his men, but they wouldn’t tell me. I figured you’d be somewhere in this section. Just wanted to come and warn you. He’s got a prison wagon with him, Jake.”

  Jake turned away, a feeling of numbness moving through his entire body. Suddenly there were no birds singing. Suddenly the beauty around him existed no more. He didn’t want it to exist, for then he would have to face the fact that soon this freedom, the enjoyment of these simple things, all the love he had found these past years with his work and his family, all of it was going to be taken from him. “Lloyd already left for Pueblo, didn’t he?”

  “He left early yesterday.”

  Jake closed his eyes. “Good.” Lloyd! His son was going to discover the awful truth now! In the blink of an eye all their lives would be changed. What was it Randy had said all those years ago? Something about the truth catching up with you and hurting more than if it was told in the first place. As usual, his wise, patient, devoted wife had been right, and oh, how it would hurt Lloyd and Evie!