Love's Sweet Revenge (27 page)

“Your Honor, what on earth can Miss MacBain paying Jake Harkner a visit in a clothing store have to do with the shooting in question?” Peter interrupted.

The judge looked at Prescott. “You want to answer that?”

“I am establishing Mr. Harkner's well-known penchant for running with lawless, sinful people of ill repute, Your Honor.”

The judge frowned, and Jake rubbed at his mouth in an effort not to laugh.

“I still fail to see a connection,” the judge told Prescott.

“Judge, men who run with the worst of them might think nothing of murdering someone. It's all part of their lifestyle.”

The judge shook his head. “Step down, Mr. Porter.”

“But…that man spent time alone in my back room with Denver's most famous harlot!” Porter argued.

“Step
dow
n
!” the judge said louder.

A shaking Henry Porter left the stand, and Judge Carter frowned at Prescott. “I want an explanation.”

Prescott sighed, his face flushed. He was a thin, balding man with not an ounce of fat on him, which made his face muscles visibly flex in his frustration. “Your Honor, Jake Harkner has run with the worst of them. Practically the first thing he did after coming to Denver was meet up with none other than Gretta MacBain, and the next thing you know he blows a man's brains out in front of a crowd of innocent people. I am just showing his basic makeup, an ex-outlaw who once rode with the worst of humankind and had a bounty on his head.”

Peter rose. “Your Honor, this is enough! Mr. Harkner's past is his past, something he paid for years ago. He's broken no laws since then.”

“I agree,” the judge told Peter. “Do you want to cross-examine Mr. Porter?”

Jake wrote something on notepaper and shoved it in front of Peter. Peter turned to him with a frown. “You sure?”

Jake motioned for him to lean closer. “How well do I know women like Gretta?” he spoke quietly in Peter's ear.

Peter sighed. “I won't argue that one.”

“Call her as a character witness. Ask her why she was in that dressing room.”

Peter hesitated, and Jake just grinned. “Ask her.”

Peter straightened and faced the judge. “No, Your Honor, I have no questions for Mr. Porter. I think we've established that he's a useless witness.”

A few people snickered, and the prosecutor glared at Peter.

“I would, however, like to call Gretta MacBain to the stand,” Peter added.

That brought a mumbling throughout the crowd, and the judge pounded his gavel to quiet them. A few women gasped with indignation when they realized Gretta was indeed in the room, sitting in the balcony. Some of the women got up and left, as though Gretta would somehow taint them. Gretta marched down the steps to the main room and up to the witness stand, swearing to tell the truth. She looked at Jake and smiled. Peter remained seated as he questioned her.

“Miss MacBain, I think most people in this room know who you are and what you do, so I'm not going to ask you to repeat either one.”

Gretta scanned the crowd. “A lot of men in this room are
very
familiar with who I am and what I do,” she answered, grinning at a round of nervous laughter. A few women glanced at their husbands questioningly. Even Peter grinned. Again, the judge had to pound his gavel.

“Miss MacBain, tell us in your own words about meeting Jake Harkner in that clothing store.”

“Sure.” Gretta crossed her legs. “
I
looked
him
up. Jake didn't seek me out. He was very gracious, and he didn't chase me out of that dressing room because he is well acquainted with women like me, but not for the reasons the dirty-minded men in this room are thinking. Anyone who's read the book about Jake knows he grew up with women like me. They often took him in as a boy and protected him from a brute of a father who beat him regularly, so he sees women like me as friends and even as good people.”

“And why did you go looking for Jake?” Peter asked.

“Because I knew he was in town to sell cattle, and not long before that, I'd had a customer named Mike Holt, who—” Gretta hesitated and lost her smile, glancing at Evie. “He bragged about the fact that he was going to go after Jake's son, Lloyd—claimed Lloyd had shot his brother in the back. He also bragged about…things he'd done to Jake's daughter in Oklahoma. Vile things no woman should have to suffer, not even women like me. I thought Jake should know Holt was out there somewhere looking for his son, so I followed him into that clothing store to warn him. That's all there was to it.”

“And how long were you alone in that back room with Jake?”

Gretta grinned. “Not long enough. I mean,
look
at the man! If I could talk a handsome, well-built specimen of man like Jake Harkner into my bed, I sure as hell would take a lot longer than five minutes with him in a back room.”

The room erupted into laughter, and a few more women walked out. Jake glanced sidelong at Randy and noticed she was smiling. She squeezed his hand. The judge pounded his gavel again. “This is not a circus!” he again reminded the crowd.

Peter quickly tried to smooth things over. “Your Honor, I only wanted to establish the fact that Miss MacBain wasn't in that room long enough for anything of an illicit nature to take place.”

“Well, I have a feeling Mr. Jake Harkner is a man who takes his time with a woman,” Gretta repeated, “but I can name a few men in this crowd who
would
only need a couple of minutes.”

Even more laughter filled the room. Evie covered her face, and Lloyd just shook his head and grinned.

“Lord help us,” Brian muttered.

Katie couldn't help smiling.

Again came the pounding gavel. Jake leaned over and said something more to Peter.

“I think we get the picture, Miss MacBain,” Peter spoke up when things quieted. “You only sought out Mr. Harkner to warn him about Mike Holt, a man who had bragged about violating a decent, Christian, young wife and mother, and bragged about intending to murder Lloyd Harkner, which establishes the fact that Mike Holt was a reprehensible rapist and murderer and a man the world is better off without! And I believe you mentioned another name to Jake that day.”

“That's right. Mike Holt had a friend with him named Brad Buckley. When I told Jake, he said as how this Buckley fellow was as bad as Mike Holt and that he, too, might be out to get him and Lloyd.”

“Just a minute!” Prescott rose. “This is completely out of order! Mr. Brad Buckley happens to be one of my character witnesses! Jake Harkner must have gotten wind of it and thinks he can malign my own witness before I get a chance to call him!”

“Cattlemen call it cutting a man off at the pass,” Jake said wryly.

A few people laughed, and the judge again had to pound his gavel to quiet the crowd. He sighed, telling Gretta to step down. Gretta rose, then hesitated. She looked straight at the judge. “Judge Carter, I want to add that when I told Jake about Mike Holt, the first words out of his mouth were to ask me if that man had hurt me—me, the kind of woman most people don't care about! He was worried about how Holt had treated me. That's the kind of man Jake is. He actually cared I might have been hurt. And I'm telling you right now that nobody knows men better than I do, and that man over there is a good and honest and caring man. He might be a bit brash and waste no words when it comes to his opinions, but he's a good father and a good husband, and apparently a good grandfather. Just look at that beautiful family sitting behind him. Does that look like a family that belongs to a cold-blooded killer?”

“He
is
a cold-blooded killer!” Prescott protested. “He proved it at that ball when he held Mike Holt to the floor and put a gun against his forehead and pulled the trigger! Then he stood up and told the crowd that if they wanted to know Jake Harkner the outlaw, they'd just
met
him! The man killed his own
father
, for God's sake!”

The crowd broke into bedlam, and Jake squeezed Randy's hand so hard it hurt. She could feel him wanting to charge right into the prosecutor. Peter reached over and pressed on Jake's forearm. “He's doing this on purpose,” he reminded Jake. “You'll get your turn, I promise.”

Randy fought tears, and Jeff scribbled wildly in his notebook.

Harley Wicks just sat quietly grinning.

“Did your father beat you near to death almost every day of your life as a young boy?” Gretta yelled at Prescott.

The judge pounded his gavel fiercely for a good thirty seconds until the crowd finally quieted again. “One more outburst like this one, and I will clear this room!” he announced. He turned to Gretta. “Miss MacBain, you will please step down.” He turned his attention to Prescott. “And you, Mr. Prescott, will refrain from referring to things that happened thirty to fifty years ago and refrain from spouting your own opinions about Jake Harkner! You are the
prosecutor
, not a witness! Am I understood?”

His face much redder now, Prescott nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“I don't give one whit about Jake Harkner's past. I only care about the here and now. What happened at that shooting and
why
it happened! Now—do you have any other witnesses? If you do, they had better have more to offer than gossip and personal opinions and jokes.”

Prescott raised his chin and ran a finger under his collar. “Your Honor, I would like to call Mr. Brad Buckley to the stand.”

Jake started to rise. “Damn it, stay put!” Peter told him.

“That man shouldn't be in the same room as my family,” Jake growled.

“Jake, please stay calm,” Randy whispered. “They want you to get angry.” She clung tightly to his hand.

Lloyd leaned forward and touched Peter's shoulder. “That sonofabitch has nothing to do with any of this! Get him out of here!”

“Lloyd, please!” Katie grasped his arm. “You still aren't completely well.”

“Do we have a problem, Mr. Brown?” the judge asked Peter.

Peter pushed down on Jake's shoulder as he himself rose. “Your Honor, Brad Buckley comes from a family of outlaws Jake had to deal with in Oklahoma. His word can't be trusted.”

“Mr. Buckley can testify as to Jake Harkner's brutality,” Prescott insisted.

“I'd like to show him some of that brutality right now,” Jake muttered under his breath.

“I will allow Mr. Buckley's testimony,” the judge told Prescott, “but if one person in this courtroom bursts out with disruptive argument, he or she will be evicted.” He looked directly at Jake. “I will remind you, Mr. Harkner, that you will have your turn to rebut any comments made against you.”

Jake shifted restlessly.

“Grampa, you said to sit still,” Little Jake blurted out.

The whole courtroom roared with laughter. Even the judge laughed. The whole Harkner family covered their faces and laughed, and Jake looked back at Little Jake and winked. “You're right. Thanks for reminding me.”

Peter grinned and shook his head, scribbling the words “Score One!” on his notepaper and shoving it over to Jake. Jeff laughed as he frantically wrote down what just happened.

Randall Prescott scowled. Brad Buckley took the stand as the judge managed to quiet the crowd again. Brad glared at Jake and Lloyd, a victorious look on his face as he grinned at them.

“Hello, Jake. Good to see you and Lloyd again.”

Jake could hear Lloyd breathing heavily behind him, and he knew it wasn't just from pain. He wanted to land into Brad Buckley, and it was all Jake could do himself to hold back.

“The witness will refrain from addressing the defendant directly,” the judge ordered Brad.

Brad just kept grinning. “Yes, sir.”

Prescott asked Brad how he knew Jake.

“He killed my pa
and
my two brothers,” Brad sneered. “He used a marshal's badge to give him permission, but he killed them nonetheless—carted my pa into Guthrie wrapped up like a sack of potatoes and dumped him in the street. The man is a killing machine. He killed more of my relatives and half the Bryant family when he went after them for a robbery, and more of them when they shot it out with him in Guthrie. Jake Harkner doesn't shoot to wound. He shoots to
kill
, and he doesn't feel a thing afterward. Any man who kills his own father isn't gonna have any feelings for any other man he kills, reason or not. And he nearly beat me to death once back in Guthrie—broke my breastbone with the butt end of his rifle and then fired that rifle right next to my left ear so's now I can't hear out of it. He killed a
lot
of men when he was a marshal back in Oklahoma. He don't give a man a chance, and he used that badge to be nothin' more than an executioner. Don't let his family fool you, Judge. Jake Harkner ain't got no heart. I didn't see that shooting at the Cattlemen's Ball, but I'm guessin' he could have let Mike Holt live. Yet he went ahead and blew his brains out anyway 'cause that's how it works with Jake.” He leaned forward, sneering. “Ain't that right, Jake?”

A look moved into Jake's eyes that made Brad sit farther back in the chair again.

“You see that, Judge?” Brad said. “See that look? That's Jake Harkner, the outlaw, and if you let him go, he'll kill again.”

And it will be you
, Jake wanted to reply. He forced himself to look away and wrote something on Peter's notepad.

Brad stood up. “If they let you go, Jake Harkner,” he shouted, “and something happens to me, everybody will know who did it, and you'll
hang
!”

Again the crowd mumbled, and women drew in their breath. The judge pounded his gavel.

“That will be enough of your antics,” Judge Carter ordered Brad. “Sit down!” He turned his attention to Prescott again. “Mr. Prescott, I expect your witnesses to just state facts, not stand and point fingers and shout their personal grudges.”