Christmas in a Cowboy's Arms

by Leigh Greenwood

  Tears streaming down her chubby cheeks, Sadie Mae nodded. “I remember your name. You’re Tommy Tyler, and you’re a bad man,” she told him, jerking with sobs at the words.

  Tyler poked at her chest. “So is your grandfather! He killed his own daddy! Did you know that? He killed a lot of men and did a lot of bad things. And if you tell on me and he comes after me, the law will hang him! He’ll—”

  Tommy didn’t finish. He heard the click of a gun hammer behind him.

  “Touch my granddaughter again and you’re a dead man!”

  Jake Harkner’s deep, hard words interrupted Tommy, who froze, still kneeling.

  Sadie Mae burst into tears. “Grampa, he said he was gonna kill you and me and Mommy! And he said if you hurt him, somebody will hang you!”

  Jake kept his gun pressed against the back of Tommy’s head. “Nobody is going to hang me, Sadie Mae. You go find Grandma and tell her to get the sheriff. Right now, Sadie Mae. Do as I tell you!”

  The girl’s whole body jerked in a sob as she wiped at her tears, then ran off.

  Jake pressed the barrel of his gun to the back of Tommy’s head. “Pull that gun out and throw it aside,” he told the young man.

  “Shoot him, Harkner!” Tommy’s bloodied victim demanded as he got to his feet. “The sonofabitch deserves it!”

  “Stay out of this!” Jake ordered. “If you’re able, go help my wife find the sheriff so he can throw this bastard in jail!”

  The wounded man ran off and Jake kicked Tommy’s gun aside.

  “How…how did you find us?” Tommy asked.

  “I’m not easily fooled, Tommy Tyler!” Jake growled. “A man like me is always aware of his surroundings, and I keep a close eye on my family! I saw Sadie Mae run into this alley and I came over here the back way because it was quicker. It’s a damn good thing I did! Do you have any idea how badly I want to pull this trigger?”

  Tommy closed his eyes and swallowed. “Please don’t.”

  “It wasn’t that many years ago that I would have!” Jake growled. “You ever touch my granddaughter again—or scare her or make one wrong move against any member of my family—and before I kill you, I’ll make you wish you were dead! If we were alone right now, I’d blow your goddamn head off and bury you out in the foothills, and no one would ever know what happened to you! Right now you’re the luckiest man who ever walked, but this is the last time I’ll let you live! One more incident like this and I’ll kill you in the slowest, most painful way possible, even if it means prison or a hanging! Understand?”

  Tommy slowly nodded.

  Jake suddenly jerked him up by the back of his collar and literally threw him against the wall of the dry-goods store. With a strength that surprised Tommy, he stiff-armed him, pinning him to the wall and half choking him while he held his six-gun against Tommy’s eye. “If you have a grudge against me, then you face me with it, understand? Not a little girl! Come against me in an honest gunfight again, Tommy Tyler, and I’ll put a hole in you so big, people will be able to see through you! Nobody makes my little granddaughter cry!” he growled. He shoved the gun barrel harder, making Tommy grimace with pain and terror. “Maybe if all I do is push this eye out, they won’t hang me! What do you think?”

  Tommy fought tears. “Go ahead! I can take it! My pa beat me plenty, so I’m tough, like you!” His words came out in a raspy whisper because he couldn’t take a full breath.

  Jake just stared at him a moment, then pulled the gun away. “Where is your father?”

  “He’s dead! Killed by another drunk two years ago, and I never shed one tear!”

  Jake towered over him. “How the hell old are you?” he asked.

  “Eighteen!” Tommy sneered. “Old enough to take care of myself and to carry a gun!”

  “Well, let me tell you something, Tommy Tyler! When I was your age I was a lot like you, and it would take me days to explain the hell I’ve been through my whole life because of it! If I can save even one kid from that hell, it’s worth it.” He kept Tommy pressed against the wall, glaring at him to get his point across. “I’m trying to teach my sons and grandsons the right way, so they never have to go through what I’ve gone through! And I’m telling you right now to change your ways or you’ll be damn miserable and alone your whole life! Even if you’re surrounded by people who care about you, you’ll be alone. Alone because you’ll live with black memories that never let go. So I’m giving you a chance to think about that! I’ve let you live twice. Don’t count on that happening three times, understand?”

  Tommy slowly nodded.

  “Keep your sorry little ass away from my family! I’m giving you the best damn Christmas present you’ll ever get! I’m giving you your life!”

  “Pa!” Lloyd came running down the alley. “Mom said—”

  “He made Sadie Mae cry!” Jake told his son, keeping his dark eyes on Tommy.

  “Leave this to the law, Pa. Sheriff Bosley is coming. Some man with a face all bloodied told him Tommy Tyler beat on him and held a gun on him. Bosley will arrest him for assault, and he’ll be out of our hair.”

  Jake just remained standing there with a tight grip on Tommy, finally lowering his gun into its holster.

  “Pa, we’re in town and there is law here!” Lloyd reminded him. “Don’t do something crazy.”

  In moments, Sheriff Bosley and Tommy’s victim came running down the alley, followed by a small crowd of onlookers. The news that Jake Harkner had a man pinned down in an alley had traveled as fast as a bullet.

  “Jake, let the sheriff take care of this!” Randy pleaded then. She appeared at the end of the alley and slowly walked closer. “Sadie Mae is fine.”

  Always calmed by his wife’s voice, Jake finally let go of Tommy, who stood there sweating and now crying.

  Jake glanced at the sheriff. “Lock him up, and don’t let him out until my family and I leave town, understand? I can’t guarantee I won’t shoot the little bastard next time!”

  “Sure, Jake.”

  People whispered and stared as Jake walked past them and up to Randy, who saw an odd devastation in his eyes. “I just saw me,” he told her. He grasped her arm and pulled her away from the crowd. “He’s a cocky, angry little shit like I was at his age—full of hate and a desire to feel important because his father beat the pride right out of him! He told me I could beat on him all I wanted and he didn’t care, because his father had toughened him up.” Jake turned away.

  “Jake.” Randy put a hand on his arm. She knew what the ugly memories of his own father did to him…the beatings…the mental abuse.

  “I’m all right,” Jake told her. “I tried to tell him…to explain the hell he’ll always live with if he doesn’t straighten himself out. I don’t know if it helped. I just know it’s almost Christmas and maybe…I don’t know…maybe I was supposed to say something to him. I hope I won’t regret letting him go.” He lit a cigarette, obvious anger and frustration in his dark eyes. “Go rest at the hotel,” he told Randy. “You and the other women can finish your shopping later today and tomorrow morning.”

  “Jake, you did the right thing.”

  “Did I?” He turned away and sighed. “I’d better not see that little sonofabitch anywhere near one member of my family again! But part of me says I should help him.”

  “Good! That’s a good sign of how much you have healed from your past.” Randy moved around to face him. “With Christmas near and the children around, you did the right thing, handing him over to Sheriff Bosley.”

  Sadie Mae stood at the corner between her parents at the end of the alley. She clung to Evie’s skirt and burst into tears. Evie knelt down to try to soothe her. “It’s all right, Sadie Mae.”

  Jake tossed his cigarette into the snow and hurried over to where they stood.

  “Daddy and Grampa will be mad at me,” Sadie Mae whimpered. “Daddy told me
to stay close, but I saw a pretty bird and I chased it. I thought maybe it had little babies like the chick-a-dees at home.”

  Still holding baby Cole in his arms, Brian knelt down to his daughter. “Sweet pea, I’m not mad. But you do have to mind better, when it comes to running off. I only give you those orders for your own good.” He took her hand. “Give Daddy a kiss.”

  Still sobbing, Sadie Mae kissed Brian’s cheek, then looked up at her grandfather, who sometimes seemed like a giant to her. “I’m sorry, Grampa. Did that man hurt you?”

  Jake rubbed at his eyes and sighed before leaning over to pick the girl up. “No, Sadie Mae, he didn’t hurt me. And the sheriff took him away, so everything is fine.”

  “I’m sorry, Grampa,” she whimpered. “I got you in trouble.”

  Jake wrapped his arms around her, looking at Randy as he patted her back and let her cry on his shoulder. “Sadie Mae, Grandpa gets himself in trouble. I don’t need someone else to do it for me. You didn’t do anything wrong, and nobody can hurt Grandpa, so you stop crying, okay? If you keep crying, you’ll make me cry.”

  “Big men like you don’t cry, Grampa.” Sadie Mae’s words came out slowly as she kept her head on his shoulder.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised, Sadie Mae.”

  “Did you cry when your daddy used to hit you?”

  Pain stabbed at Jake’s heart. Did she remember Tommy Tyler’s words? That he’d killed his own father? “Sometimes,” he answered. He could tell the girl was getting sleepy, exhausted from the emotional ordeal. “Did you get that present for your mother?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she answered drowsily. “Don’t…tell her, Grampa. It’s a secret.”

  “I won’t tell.” Jake kept Sadie Mae in his left arm and reached out with his right to put an arm around Randy. “Come on. I’ll go to the hotel too, and we’ll all rest.”

  “I’m for that,” Brian answered. “This son of mine needs to be fed.”

  “It’s not that far,” Jake told Brian. “Let’s just walk there. You can leave the sleigh hitched right here for now.”

  “Let me carry Cole for you,” Lloyd told his brother-in-law. He took the sleepy boy into his arms.

  Randy stood on her tiptoes and kissed Jake’s cheek before ducking from under his arm. “You go ahead. I’ll get Katie and Clara.”

  Evie grasped her mother’s arm as Jake walked off with Brian. “I’m proud of how Daddy handled this,” she told Randy. “He can’t make his own laws anymore.”

  They walked together then with Lloyd toward the rooming house. “He knows things have to change,” Randy answered Evie, “but I think something happened here that hit him deeply, Evie. He saw his younger self in Tommy Tyler. That helped him hold back. He could have shot it out with Tommy again and would have had the right, but he let him go. He still fights that deep anger, but I think he understands himself better, if that makes any sense.”

  “It does. We just have to keep praying for him so we don’t lose him again. It’s just a shame, all of us here to have fun buying Christmas presents, that this happened at all.”

  Lloyd glanced back to see the sheriff marching Tommy Tyler off to jail. He turned to his mother, towering over her with the same big frame his father had. “If Tommy Tyler ever shows his face again around Pa, I’m not sure what Pa will do. He only held back for the sake of Sadie Mae.”

  “I know. Keep an eye on him, Lloyd. He talks to you.”

  Lloyd leaned down and kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’ll go find the boys and herd them over to the hotel after I hand Cole off to Brian again. We all need some rest.”

  “We’ll meet you there with Katie and Clara,” Evie told her brother. “Young Jake won’t like having to nap. He has far too much energy, but he’ll just have to do as he’s told. And he’ll probably wish he’d been here to see his grandfather in action. I swear, I have already lost complete control of my son, and he’s not even quite eleven years old.”

  Lloyd smiled. “Like grandfather, like grandson.”

  “Lloyd Harkner, you belong in that same picture. And the older you get, the more you look like our father in every way,” Evie teased.

  Lloyd turned to watch Jake and Brian nearing the hotel. “Not every way. I don’t have his memories, and thank God I don’t.” He turned to his sister. “Little Sadie Mae sure does love him, though. He’s crazy about her and Tricia. It’s almost comical, when you think about the life he’s led and how ruthless he can be. He has so many personalities, I sometimes don’t know which Jake I’m talking to.”

  “I’m just glad he’s here with us for the holidays,” Randy told her son and daughter. “This will be the merriest Christmas we’ve ever had.” She saw Tommy Tyler resist a little when the sheriff shoved him into the jailhouse. “At least I hope it will be.”

  Six

  “Jake?” Randy called his name in a near whisper. She pulled her robe tighter around herself and retied it. It was 1:00 a.m. and everyone in the hotel was in bed. Somehow she knew Jake wouldn’t be. He stood at the end of the hall looking out a window that faced the side street. He turned to face her, wearing only his denim pants and an undershirt and no shoes.

  “You should be sleeping,” Jake told her.

  “And not you?”

  Jake shrugged. “Too many nights sleeping under the stars over the years and keeping one eye open for varmints, sometimes the human kind.”

  Randy walked silently on her own bare feet to stand next to him so they could talk quietly. “I know you too well to think you’d be sleeping,” she told her husband. “I had a feeling today’s events would eat at you.”

  “Yeah,” he answered. He pulled her close. “But I’m also awake because I miss you too. I’d rather be lying next to you right now instead of having about six arms and six legs tossing and turning in the same bed. I’m too old and have too many aches and pains to sleep with Stephen and young Jake and two-year-old Donavan.”

  Randy smiled and moved her arms around him, resting her head against his chest. “Yes, well, I’m fighting Tricia and Sadie Mae. That’s the only bad part about these trips. The kids are all getting so big, we’ll have to rent more rooms next time.” She leaned up and kissed his chin. “It’s the leg, isn’t it?”

  Jake sighed deeply. “It’s always the leg. Young Jake tosses and turns and ends up sideways, poking me with a foot. It’s impossible to sleep with him.” He moved his arms around her. “It’s also Tommy Tyler. That first time at the ranch, I just reacted to him wanting to get into a gunfight and then the way he talked about you. And today, I saw him making Sadie Mae cry and I wanted to kill him for it. But when he told me to go ahead and beat him…”

  “You saw yourself at his age,” Randy finished for him, still resting her head against his chest.

  “One big difference. I got into gunfights and fistfights and had a smart mouth…but I never would have teased little girls or threatened women.”

  “Even so, there is a lot of anger and rebellion in that young man. Maybe in his case he didn’t have such a loving mother. Maybe he was beaten by both parents.”

  Jake sighed deeply, rocking her in his arms. “Maybe. All I know is, I was just about his age when I killed my father.” He kissed her hair. “Part of me wants to try to talk some sense into that little bastard, and I don’t know why.”

  Randy leaned back and looked up at him. “Jake Harkner, you have changed. Do I dare believe you are actually able to control that anger and funnel it into helping someone?”

  He frowned. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  Randy smiled. “Believe me, after thirty-three years I know better.” She stepped back but kept hold of his arms. “You see a chance to stop a young man from going down the path you took at his age. There is nothing wrong with that. You’re always preaching to our grandsons about the same thing, and you and Lloyd went a few rounds back in the day when you t
ried to stop him too.” She reached up and touched his face. “Jake, do you remember Evie’s words before you left for Mexico? When she was praying for you, she asked God to make you understand that the way you handle guns is actually a talent that can sometimes be used to help someone. You came very close to losing your life to save a girl you didn’t even know. For all the bad in you, there is so much good, and you can help young people. It shows through beautifully when you talk to your grandsons. They are growing up respectful and brave and will be good men who can handle themselves well. Maybe the Good Lord doesn’t want you to stop there. Maybe He sent Tommy Tyler to you. That young man has invaded our lives twice now in just a couple of weeks. Maybe you can help him.”

  “Yeah, well, he needs the shit kicked out of him, and now that I know he’s only eighteen, that’s hard for me to do. He’s just a kid.”

  “Then let the men at the bunkhouse straighten his tail out. Give him a job at the J&L. A couple of weeks living with those tough J&L men will make him see the light, I’ll bet.”

  Jake finally grinned. “You have a point.”

  “Talk to Lloyd about it.”

  “We’ll see.” He pulled her close again. “How about if I go into your room and we make up some kind of bed on the floor so we can both get some decent sleep?”

  Randy laughed. “When those little girls wake up, they’ll be climbing all over us, so if you want to sleep in there, get ready for a rude awakening in the morning.”

  “I’ll manage. At least I can hold you for a while. You always say you can’t sleep without my arms around you.” He leaned down and kissed her deeply. “I’ve gotten so I can’t sleep without holding you. After all those months of pain and missing you, I can’t get enough of you anymore.”

  Randy put her arms around his neck. “Good. I like hearing that.”