Outlaw Hearts (31 page)

“You
liar
!” Miranda shouted.

Kennedy lashed out and backhanded her, and blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.

“Don't you move, Jake,” Jeb called out when he saw Jake stiffen. “You just drop that gun.”

Jake stood still, weighing his chances, telling himself to hang on and make every shot count.

“Jake's a wanted man back in Missouri,” Jeb shouted to the others. “Don't any of you be feelin' sorry for him. There's five thousand dollars on his head alive, three thousand dead.”

People mumbled. More women had scurried away, herding their children with them, taking a chance on being shot rather than letting their little ones witness what might happen.

“Joe! Joe!” Hetta Grant was running toward her dead husband, but several men grabbed her and held her back.

“Don't go over there, Hetta!” one of them pleaded.

The woman began sobbing and crumpled to the ground. Lloyd kept up his screaming, the sobs muffled now by the hideous gag on the child's mouth. He arched wildly to get away, and the man who held him had trouble keeping hold with one arm while he held a gun in the other. Suddenly the baby wiggled loose and started crawling under the railing.

“Let him go,” Kennedy ordered, grinning. “Let him go to his daddy.” The words were sneered sarcastically. “If Jake doesn't want to give up his gun and come with us, the boy can be shot down just as easily there in the corral.”

“You're making a mistake thinking I'll go anywhere with you, Kennedy,” Jake answered, forcing himself to concentrate in spite of Lloyd running up and grasping his leg. He wanted desperately to get the gag off the boy, get him out of the way. He saw the terror in Miranda's eyes, worried about the stallion hurting Lloyd, but he noticed by an alert side-vision that someone had grabbed the horse and tied it to the fence rail. The animal was whinnying and jerking his head, trying to get loose. “If you want me dead, do it right here.”

“Why, hell, Jake, then we wouldn't get the pleasure of having a little fun with you and the woman first.”

“Exactly. You're going to kill her and my kid anyway, so why not get it over with? I'd rather they died right here on the spot than suffer what you'd do to them if you took us away with you.”

Kennedy's smile faded. This was not working out quite like he had expected. In his desperate desire to show Jake up in front of these people for what he really was, and to corner him and make sure he didn't get away again, he realized he had not taken enough time to plan this. He knew how fast Jake could be, had watched this man shoot it out with more men than this and live to tell about it. Still, every man he had was a good shot, except Clarence still needed some practice. And where in hell
was
Clarence? He couldn't see him, but then he couldn't take his eyes off Jake right now either.

“What's it going to be, Kennedy?” Jake asked.

Miranda watched him, saw in his face the old Jake. He was on even ground now with men he used to ride with. This called for the old ways, and the look in his dark eyes would have frightened her if she didn't know him better. The meanness was back, the aura of danger.

“I'll tell you what, Kennedy,” Jake was saying. “You go ahead and shoot me and my son. But I guarantee something. I guarantee that today
you're
going to die too! No matter what else happens, before I go down, you'll be
dead
, and I'll shoot my wife myself if I have to, to keep your men from getting her. Make your choice, Kennedy! Back off and get the hell out of here right now, or
die
, because I'm not going anyplace with you, and neither is my wife!”

The few people left backed farther away, and Miranda's heart beat so hard her chest ached. Lloyd! There he stood, hanging on to his father's leg and sobbing, his little lips stretched tight from the cruel gag.

“What do we do,
patrón
?” Juan asked.

“Shut up!” Kennedy barked.

“I say I slit the woman's throat right now!”

“I said shut up!”

“Don't listen to him, Bill,” Jeb spoke up. “He knows he's a dead man.”

Jake noticed the man's left arm hung limply at his side. He took note of it, realizing Jeb could shoot only with one hand. He recognized Joe Stowers and Jeb Donner, but not the other two men who stood to his left and his right. He kept them in his side vision, counting. Six. Kennedy, Juan, Jeb, his front tooth still missing, Joe Stowers, and the two new men. Was that all?

Clarence watched from a barn behind Kennedy. He had never forgotten Jake's gun in his mouth. He wanted to be in on this, but only if and when Jake went down or was taken away by Kennedy. Then he could strut in front of Jake and get back at him for the way he had humiliated him back in Virginia City; he could help torture the man and he could finally have a turn at the woman who had spurned him. He had never gotten used to these shoot-outs, was still nervous about such things after their narrow escape from the Wells Fargo men. He would stay near the barn until most of the shooting was over.

The young man's eyes widened then when the black stallion suddenly broke loose and reared, running between Jake and where Kennedy and Juan stood with Miranda. After that everything happened so fast he could hardly believe what he was seeing. With the speed of lightning, Jake ducked down, his gun drawn and fire spitting from its barrel. More people screamed and ran, and in spite of his wife being used as a shield by Juan, Jake's first bullet hit the man square in the forehead, knocking him backward.

Jake was screaming for Miranda to hit the ground as his next bullet hit Kennedy. It all happened in perhaps three seconds, and Clarence realized how good Jake had to be to risk shooting at Juan when he could easily have missed and shot his own wife. The rest of the men were firing back at Jake, who scrambled on the ground clinging to his son with one arm and keeping the boy under him for protection. He moved around, bent over, trying to use the frightened, pacing stallion as a shield. Several of the bullets from the other men's guns hit the horse, and it crashed to the ground, whinnying and kicking wildly. Jake kept firing, even though it looked as though he'd been hit. Joe and Jeb cried out and fell, and Oran and Cliff started running. His shirt stained with blood, Jake rose, and Clarence noticed more blood near his hip. Jake raised his revolver and fired, hitting Oran in the back. He whirled, getting a shot off at Cliff, also in the back.

Six shots, six men. Clarence realized that meant Jake's gun was empty. If he moved fast enough, this was his chance for fame—to be the man who killed Jake Harkner. He could collect three thousand dollars! He would never go up against him if Jake had a loaded gun, but now…

Miranda was screaming Jake's name. “Stay there!” he ordered, not sure he'd gotten all of Kennedy's men. He let go of Lloyd and scrambled to reload, got only one bullet in the gun's chamber when he saw someone running toward the corral. He ducked over a violently sobbing Lloyd when a seventh man started firing at him. The first two bullets missed, the third grazed across his shoulder but did little damage. The man hesitated then, and Jake took advantage of the moment. He rose and fired. The man grunted, his body jumping slightly into the air before crashing backward into a watering trough with a splash.

Jake quickly reloaded again, waited, saw no one else who looked eager to challenge him. He looked down at Lloyd, while a dazed crowd gawked at the bloody sight around them. Two innocent bystanders were groaning with bullet wounds they had suffered from stray bullets. Jake reached for Lloyd to get the baby to his feet and take off his gag, but the boy screamed and fought him, afraid of the blood on his father, and of the smoking gun in Jake's hand that had roared in his ears. He sensed his father's fury, and he looked at him with terror in his eyes.

Devastated, Jake watched his son scramble over to his mother…his mother, her dress soaked in blood. Kennedy had destroyed all that was dear to him, and in spite of his bleeding wounds and the fiery pain in his right hip, he managed to stay on his feet and walk over to where Kennedy lay. He stared down at the man, heard him moan. So, he was still alive. He finished reloading his revolver.

Onlookers remained stunned, hardly able to believe what had just happened. Jake Logan, or Jake Harkner as the outlaws said he was called, had taken down six men without a miss, even though one of them held his wife as a shield, and even though Jake himself was wounded. He'd hardly had time to reload more than one bullet when he shot down the seventh man. Now that the gun battle was apparently over, they all remained rigid and staring, still trying to grasp all that had happened. They watched Jake point his gun at Kennedy's head, and no one made a move to stop him.

“You'll never do this to me and my family again,” he said gruffly. People gasped when Jake deliberately fired the gun.

Miranda jumped at the roar of yet another gunshot. “Jake, you can't—” she protested.

Jake turned to her, panting and bleeding. “Never again,” he repeated. He limped to every man he had shot, and wherever he walked, people backed away. He looked down at the man who had fallen into the watering trough. He was wounded and struggling to get out. Jake recognized him as Clarence Gaylord.

“You little sonofabitch!” he snarled.

“Please! Let me go!” the young man begged.

“
You
did this, didn't you? You knew Miranda. You pointed her out to Juan! You little bastard!”

“Please, wait—”

Jake jammed his revolver into the man's mouth. “I
told
you what I'd do if you ever messed with me or my family again!” He fired, and blood poured into the trough water as Clarence's body slumped.

“Oh, my God,” someone said softly.

Jake dipped the barrel of the gun into the water to swish off the blood, and the hot metal hissed. He turned and staggered back to Miranda and Lloyd, looking horribly tired and beaten, blood oozing from several wounds. He slipped the revolver back into its holster, and as he came closer to his wife and son, the dreadful look in his dark eyes turned to one of great sorrow. “Look at you,” he groaned, his eyes tearing. “Hurt and bleeding, my own son afraid of me.
I
did this.”

“No, Jake,” Miranda sobbed. “Kennedy did this. Not you. All you did was defend yourself.” She sat there in her bloody dress, holding Lloyd close. She had taken the gag from the boy's mouth, and he clung to her, screaming. Jake went to his knees, reaching out to touch the baby's dark hair, and Miranda supposed she would never forget the look in Jake's eyes when Lloyd curled up tighter against her, still seeming terrified of his own father.

Jake closed his eyes and put his head down against the earth. Miranda wept his name, moving to touch his hair. “It's not your fault, Jake,” she repeated. She looked up at the crowd of people that had gathered. “Please find a doctor.”

“I'm right here,” the town doctor spoke up, pushing his way through the crowd. He knelt over Jake, who rolled to his side, grimacing with pain.

“Help my wife first,” he groaned. “Juan…stabbed her…I think.”

“Somebody help me get them over to my office,” the doctor barked. “And bring those other two wounded men.”

A few people began moving to help them, everyone acting slowly as they came out of the shock of what they had just witnessed. Four men picked Jake up, and two others helped Miranda get to her feet. Betsy came running up to her, trying to take Lloyd from her, but the still-crying child would not let go of his mother. They walked past Hetta Anderson, who stood looking helplessly at Miranda, her eyes full of questions and disappointment and not a little animosity.

“I'm so sorry, Hetta,” Miranda said, her throat aching with grief.

“That won't bring back my Joe. You lied to us! And now my husband is dead because of your lies!” the woman sobbed.

The words cut deep. Hot pain pierced Miranda's right side, and nausea grabbed at her stomach. She felt the whole world closing in on her. The day had started out so happy and peaceful. Now it was all destroyed, the friendships she had valued, the love they had felt in this little town. Maybe she would even lose the precious baby in her womb, the baby none of these people even knew about yet.

And Jake. What would this do to him? It had taken so long to teach him that he could be as good as the next man, that he could have a happy life, a family, love. These people would turn against them now. She knew it in her heart. His prize stallion lay dead in the corral, and his son had recoiled from him, terrified of the look on his own father's face. More than the fair had been ruined. Lives had been ruined. Perhaps some of these people would even hold Jake prisoner after his wounds were tended to, take him back to Missouri and collect the reward on him.

Jake had been right. Bill Kennedy was a damn good tracker. The only good thing that had come out of this day was that the man and those who rode with him were dead and could never hurt them or anyone else again. But the way Jake had cold-bloodedly killed the two wounded ones had surprised even her. In that moment she had seen the worst of the old Jake. Could she ever get back the man she had loved these last three years? Could life ever be as sweet and peaceful for them again? Maybe he wouldn't even live. Maybe he had hung on just long enough to kill Kennedy and his men and make sure they could never hurt her or little Lloyd.

People surrounded her, talked among themselves. She kept hearing Jake's name, heard someone else crying in the distance. She felt consciousness slowly leaving her as the loss of blood drained her of strength. Finally her world went black and Lloyd slipped away from her. Someone took him and someone else lifted her. She slipped into a kind of dreamworld, where she saw Jake coming toward her, holding Lloyd. Both were smiling. Jake reached out to her and enfolded her into his arms with their son. She was safe there, wasn't she?