Do Not Forsake Me
Do Not Forsake Me - Rosanne Bittner
One
Oklahoma, May 1892
With a reporter’s eye, Jeff Trubridge studied Marshal Jake Harkner as the man rode into Guthrie with four prisoners in tow, three of them looking mean but defeated, their faces bruised and battered. The fourth man was obviously dead, his body draped over a horse and wrapped in a blanket tied tightly with rope.
Harkner put two fingers to his lips and gave out a loud whistle.
“What’s that for?” Jeff asked a man standing next to him.
“The marshal always signals his wife when he’s comin’ in,” the man replied. “She always comes to greet him.”
Jake Harkner looked every bit like Jeff’s vision of a notorious outlaw turned United States Marshal serving in the raw, new, and unorganized territory of Oklahoma. Oklahoma was ripe for men who preyed on Indians and settlers alike. It was a place where such men could hide in No Man’s Land, the name given to the western half of the territory because the government still couldn’t decide what to do with it. It was a place few men dared to tread…except for the likes of Jake Harkner, who was familiar with lawless country and lawless men.
Jeff savored the opportunity to observe Harkner without having to approach him directly…yet. He searched for the right words to describe the man who’d made a name for himself in all the wrong ways yet had become nothing short of a hero in the eyes of the common man. How did someone who was at one time so lawless and ruthless become so well liked?
Notorious reputation, he quickly scribbled on his ever-handy notepad. The way he carries himself—still a tall, slim, solid, hard-edged man with a look about him. What was that look? Danger. That was it. Like nitroglycerin—one wrong move and it explodes.
He liked that word. Nitroglycerin. Jeff carefully mingled into the crowd that followed the marshal toward the jailhouse. It was obvious some of them just wanted to be near Harkner so they could brag about knowing him. Fact was, Jeff wouldn’t mind having bragging rights himself, except his would be that he was the only man who’d convinced Jake Harkner to let him write a book about him. So far the man had refused all other requests to write his story, but Jeff was determined. Still, now that he saw the man in the flesh, his resolve was weakening.
The man wore the signature duster of a U.S. Marshal. The spring morning was heating up, and as he rode in, he removed the coat, reaching around to lay it over his horse’s rump. Now Jeff could see his weapons—the Colt .44 revolvers holstered on each hip, a Colt Lightning magazine rifle and a sawed-off ten-gauge shotgun resting in loops on either side of his saddle. An extra cartridge belt hung across the man’s chest, and a third handgun rested in a holster behind the marshal’s back.
Jeff knew what kind of guns Harkner wore because he’d already spoken to Guthrie’s local sheriff, Herbert “Sparky” Sparks, and had interviewed several others in town. He’d arrived two days earlier to discover the marshal was not back yet from his latest manhunt. During his wait, he took advantage of various citizens’ eagerness to share stories about the man. Aware that people tend to exaggerate such things, Jeff was not about to rely on hearsay. He wanted only facts, which was why he needed to hear the story straight from the marshal himself. Countless men had gone down under his guns, including—most shocking of all—Jake’s own father.
Jeff desperately wanted to know why. He intended to get to know the man some had nicknamed the Handsome Outlaw, but it wasn’t going to be easy. He needed to talk to Harkner’s family too, but had so far stayed away. The fact that Harkner even had a family was amazing, considering the things Jeff knew about him. How did a man so notorious end up having anyone?
What he observed now only confirmed that his quest for a story had been worth the trip. Harkner was back from No Man’s Land—a place most men feared to tread. Those prisoners still alive were in a bad way. All rode with hands tied to saddle horns with rope that was then looped up under their horses and tied to their ankles under the horse’s belly. One had a bloody bandage around his forehead, with dried blood on the side of his face. Another wore an eye patch and looked ready to fall off his horse. The third prisoner just hung his head but occasionally gave Harkner a dark look of hatred. The left sleeve of his shirt showed a huge bloodstain. All were filthy—hair matted, faces showing several-day-old beards as well as cuts and bruises. Had Jake Harkner put those there?
Jake’s son, Lloyd, a deputy U.S. Marshal, was nowhere to be seen, and Jeff wondered why. He’d been told that Lloyd had ridden out with Jake to track down these criminals.