Love's Sweet Revenge (36 page)

Jake came down the stairs, fully clothed, his guns strapped on. He headed for a locked cabinet where he kept his shotgun and repeater, other rifles, and another six-gun. He didn't even stop to unlock it. He kicked in the glass and ripped open one of the doors, nearly making the entire cabinet fall over.

Ben started crying harder.

Jake reached inside and pulled out the extra handgun, shoving it into his belt at the back, then took out an extra cartridge belt, which he hung over his shoulder. He grabbed both the shotgun and carbine, taking them over to the kitchen table and literally throwing them onto it, along with the cartridge belt. He came back to grab boxes of shotgun shells.

The room was full of his presence. It seemed as though the whole house almost shook. Lloyd watched Jake closely.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Lloyd asked, slowly rising from where he'd knelt in front of the boys.

“What do you
think
I'm doing?” Jake answered darkly. “I'm going after my
wif
e
!
My
wife!”

Brian came in with Evie and hurried over to the boys with his doctor bag.

“Daddy!” Evie exclaimed at the sight of him.

“Don't call me Daddy!” Jake seethed. He turned and glared at her. “I'm
nobody
's daddy right now, Evie! I'm nobody's father and nobody's grandfather, and I likely won't be anybody's
husband
after this! I'm a man none of you has ever seen, and who I am has likely destroyed the only person who made me
human
! I felt this coming! I felt it in my
bones
! This is what happens when you let people who wrong you
liv
e
!”

“Pa, you can't go after them in the dark. You'll only mess up good tracks trying to figure out which way they went,” Lloyd argued. “There's enough snow on the ground that they'll be easy to follow by morning. We can—”

“By morning my wife will be dead or wishing she
was
dead!” Jake roared. “My Randy! My reason for living!”

“Pa, use your head!” Lloyd yelled, walking closer. “We need to think this out—get some of the men together. You do this your way, and you'll end up riding into a trap—or if you succeed, you could end up back in that courtroom!”

“If I lose your mother, I don't care if they
hang
me, so do you really think I give a damn right now about going back to jail?”

“No, Jake Harkner, I don't think you
do
give a damn!” Lloyd roared back. “I think of you right now as Jake—not my father—just
Jake
! And if you want to be the man I hated when he went to prison, you go ahead and
be
that man! You show your grandsons how you are when your own father takes over and creates a mean sonofabitch who goes out and kills first and asks questions later and then goes to prison for it!”

Jake charged into Lloyd, and Evie screamed and ducked out of the way when he slammed Lloyd against a wall. Lloyd shoved back, grabbing his father's shirt and jerking him around to pin him in return. “You listen to me, Jake Harkner, or I'll put another bruise on that jaw! I'll fucking shoot you before I let you go out there and destroy everything you've taken thirty years to build—thirty years to overcome—thirty years my
mother
put up with and hung on to and loved you through!”

Jake grabbed his wrists and shoved, but Lloyd hung on, pushing back. “Go ahead! Be your father, Jake!” Lloyd seethed. “Show the boys what he was like! Now your grandsons can
meet
him! And then you can go out there and kill all those men without thinking first—and you can kill
him
all over again, just like you did with all the others!”

“Daddy,” Evie softly whimpered.

Brian tried to comfort the three boys, all of them bleeding and shaking.

Jake and Lloyd just stared at each other.

“
She
said that,” Jake said quietly, obviously speaking only to Lloyd. “That night in the wagon all those years ago when we…” He closed his eyes. “Let go of me.”

“You going to calm down? Your grandsons are watching, Jake!”

“Just let go of me.”

Lloyd watched him closely as he stepped back, letting go of Jake's shirt. He grabbed his hair and pulled it behind his back as they continued watching each other.

“Your mother said that—that first night in the wagon when I thought I could make her hate me by behaving like my father.” He turned away, running a hand over his eyes. “I
wanted
her to hate me. I knew what her life would be like if she stayed with me, but the damn woman…wouldn't go away. Even those two years I left and lived with…whores and outlaws again…she waited for me, and she took me back and never asked any questions.” He grasped his stomach. “Now this. This is what she gets for staying with me. I was crazy to think it wouldn't someday come back to slap her right in the face!” He let out an odd gasp and wiped at his eyes. “Lloyd, they've got my
wif
e
! My
wif
e
! The woman who is my reason for…
breathin
g
!”

“And she's my
mothe
r
! Do you think I don't want to go out there and blow all of them to pieces? You can't do this alone, and you can't do it without a
plan
, which includes taking some of the men with us. At least we'll have witnesses. After what happened in Denver, we can't just go after Mom alone and kill men. Everything has changed, Pa. You're not a marshal, and there are new laws. We've already talked about that. We don't even know for sure who these men are.”

“We damn well
do
know!” Jake looked at the boys. “Was one of them missing some fingers?”

Stephen sniffed and nodded.

“The one who took Grandma said to tell you”—Ben jerked in another sob—“that Brad has your…wife…and he'll make you real sorry…you killed his pa and brothers.” He wiped at his nose with his shirtsleeve. “You can give me back, if you want. You don't have to keep me. I promised I'd help you look after Mom, and I didn't do it.” He started crying harder.

“Grampa, are you mad at us?” Little Jake asked, still shivering in sobs. “We tried to stop them. But they were too strong!” He broke into harder crying. “I wanna
kill
'em! Take us with you, Grampa. Let us go after 'em, too!”

Jake looked at Lloyd, then turned away again. “I damn well know better than most how it feels to try defending someone you love and not be strong enough to do it.” He looked back at the boys. “I'm not angry with any of you. Understand? It's damn obvious how hard you tried to stop them. I know what that's like, and I'm proud of how you boys tried to help.” He looked at Lloyd again. “It's those three we chased off the J&L last summer. That's how they were able to avoid being noticed and how they knew exactly which house to hit. They set that fire as a distraction, only they probably didn't plan on all three boys being here.”

“There were five of them,” Stephen spoke up.

Jake came even more alert. “
Five?
” He looked from Lloyd to Cole. “We only kicked three off this ranch. We know who the fourth one is.” He looked at the boys. “Did you catch names?”

Little Jake nodded. “Yes, there was the one called Brad. I remember those three men we got rid of last summer. They were part of 'em. But there was another one. I think he maybe used to work for us, but I can't remember for sure.”

“I think one of them called him Clem,” Stephen sniffled.

Jake ran a hand through his hair, his whole countenance seeming to actually rumble like thunder. “Clem Sutton!” He looked at Lloyd. “It has to be Clem Sutton, the one who called your mother a—”

Lloyd's jaw twitched in repressed anger. “We should have killed him
and
the other three when we had the chance, but we couldn't, Pa. It just doesn't work that way anymore.”

“A man draws on you—you're
supposed
to kill him! And they have all drawn on me again, in another way. And I'm fucking shooting back!” Jake turned to Cole, who'd watched everything from near the doorway. “You gather some men,” Jake told him. “The best ones! Have them pack some gear and plenty of ammunition and be ready to ride out the minute it's even remotely light out!”

Cole nodded. “Yes, sir. I'm damn sorry, Jake. Every man on this ranch loves that woman.”

Cole walked out, and Jake turned to Evie. “Who's watching the girls?”

“Rodriguez and Teresa.”

“Til Reed is with Katie,” Lloyd told him.

“You go back home and pack your things and get your rifle and handguns,” Jake told Lloyd.

“I'm not leaving this house until I'm sure you won't try to sneak out on your own yet tonight. I know you, Pa, but if you go out there now, you might mess up a good trail.”

“This is
Randy
! She belongs to
m
e
! To
m
e
! I'm supposed to protect her.” He turned away and bent over. “
¡Lo siento, querida! ¡Favor perdóname! ¡Favor perdóname
!
”

“Evie, get some washrags and hot water,” Brian said quietly. “I need to clean the blood off these boys' faces.”

“Grampa, we're goin' with you,” Little Jake spoke up. “You gotta take us!”

Jake breathed deeply and straightened, looking over at the boys. “It might be a hard ride, and I might do things boys your age shouldn't see.”

“We don't care!” Stephen spoke up. “She's our grandma, and they hit her. That one called Brad hit her so's she'd quit fighting them. She fought real good, and she screamed for you, but you couldn't hear because of the fire and all the shouting outside.”

Jake planted an arm against the wall and rested his head on it. “Oh my God,” he groaned. “What was she wearing?”

“Just…her housecoat,” Little Jake answered, breaking into tears again. “It fell open, and they looked at her, but we looked away 'cause she's our grandma.”

“Jesus God Almighty,” Jake whispered.

“Daddy, just get her back here. I can talk to her,” Evie spoke up.

Jake shook his head. “The two most important women in my life—first my daughter, now my wife—and because of me—”

“No, Daddy! Not because of you,” Evie told him. She carried a small pan of water and a washrag over to Brian. “It's because of Satan and the hatred and vengeance he creates in people's hearts.”

“Then Satan is in
my
heart, because no man has ever been more full of hatred and vengeance right now than I am!” Jake looked at Lloyd. “I can't do this. I can't
not
kill them!”

“Pa, we'll figure something out. You just need witnesses. That's all I'm saying. Don't go after them alone. That's what they want. Those three we kicked off the ranch wanted a reputation for killing you, and they're at it again. And Clem just wants revenge for that beating you gave him. I don't know how they hooked up with Brad Buckley, but they did, and we have to be smart going after them. If you go alone, they'll shoot you to pieces!”

“We're goin' with you, Grampa,” Little Jake repeated. “Don't you leave us behind!”

Jake glanced his way, and in that moment he saw himself—the hurt and angry and heartbroken little boy who couldn't stop his father from beating his mother to death—the little boy who had to help bury her and throw dirt on her face. He saw his own soul in Little Jake's dark eyes. He looked at Ben, and he saw a terrified boy who feared losing the only real family he'd ever known.

“Ben, you aren't going anywhere. None of this is your fault, understand? Not any one of you is to blame for this. It's obvious all of you tried real hard, and I know how that feels. You're all going with us because you
need
to go. But it will be hard riding. Do you think you're up to it?”

They all nodded, brightening a little.

“My arm feels better.” Ben sniffled. “I thought it was broke.”

Brian began gently feeling the boy's arm while Evie washed Little Jake's face.

“And you need to do exactly as I say, understand?” Jake ordered.

“Yes, sir,” they answered almost in unison.

“The last thing either Lloyd or I need is to lose one of you over this. You let Brian finish cleaning you up and let him do something about that cut on your head, Little Jake.”

“We jumped on 'em, Pa,” Ben told him. “All three of us. We tried real hard. Little Jake got a poker stick, but they knocked it out of his hands, and they swung it at Little Jake. That's how he got a cut on his head.”

Jake could not control the darkness that engulfed him, remembering his father using a fireplace poker to beat his own little brother to death. Flashes from the horror of his childhood kept stabbing at him, combined with envisioning Brad Buckley and the no-goods he'd chased off manhandling Randy—his sweet, tiny, devoted, beautiful wife—his reason for living.
Randy!
Clem Sutton had called her a whore. Did he intend to try to prove it? Just a little while ago they'd made love, and it was beautiful, and he'd worried about hurting her. Now…

“Pa, I'm staying here with you,” Lloyd told him. “Me and Evie and Brian. One of the men can go to the house and get my gear. Katie knows where everything is, and the men know where my saddle is. Thank God my own horse was in the other barn and plenty more outside. The men can have everything ready by the crack of dawn. I'll tell Cole to try to find Midnight. You have to stay calm and think this out. The way you went after Evie in Oklahoma just about killed you. You didn't eat, and you didn't sleep for days. Dixie thought you were dying, and so did I. If you repeat what happened then, it
will
kill you this time, and if ever my mom needed you, it's going to be after this. You can't die finding her, and you can't risk going to jail or getting yourself hung. Get that through your head!”