Do Not Forsake Me(100)
They rode on in silence while Lloyd smoked.
“What do you know about the big Kennedy shoot-out back in California?” Jeff asked him then.
Lloyd kept the cigarette at the corner of his lips. “You’ll have to ask my father about the details. I was the baby in his arms then, younger than Little Jake. That’s why it upset Pa like it did. Anyway, I guess he got shot in the hip, and my mother suffered a stab wound. Pa left her again because he knew bounty hunters would hear about the shoot-out and come looking for him. He hid out in Wyoming in Outlaw Trail country for almost two years. My mother gave birth to Evie while he was gone.”
Jake continued riding ahead of them.
“Mom suspects, and so do I, that he lived pretty wild for a time…maybe even was with other women as he tried to forget my mother, thinking it was best that way. But he loved her too much to stay away, and she damn well knew that if he could find a way for them to be together again, she’d go to him. He changed his last name and found a job on a ranch in Colorado, and he sent for her…and we had about fifteen years of a good life there. Pa thought he’d finally found a way to live peacefully and not be found, but some soldier who remembered him from his gunrunning days during the war came for him. That was the first time I even knew about his past. He’d never told me. He was scared I’d be ashamed of him.”
Lloyd finished his cigarette and threw it down. “The sad part is, I was ashamed. I thought my pa was the greatest man who ever walked, and then I found out he was a wanted man. I abandoned him while he was in prison—left for almost four years. I headed out to prove I was just as worthless as my father—learned how to use his guns, got into a lot of trouble. My pa got released and he came for me.”
He stopped and eyed the woods around them. “I’ll never forget letting them all down for four damn years. I should have been there for my mother and my sister, let alone my pa. I was the man of the family.” He shook his head. “Now we’re closer than ever, and I’ll never abandon or forsake Pa or my mother or Evie again, Jeff. Never. Period.”
Jeff tried to put it all together timewise. “Those two years he was gone…your mother forgave him for…you know…?”
Lloyd shrugged. “I think it’s just an understanding between them—a bad time that neither of them likes to talk about. Pa tried to pretend he could forget her. He’s done that a couple of times, but it never works. Anything he might have done didn’t matter, because the man is crazy in love with my mother and always will be. Under normal conditions, he’d never cheat on her. He loves her too much.”
Jeff nodded. “From the short time I’ve known them and seen them together, I can tell there is something really special there. It doesn’t take long to see it.”
They exited the woods and rode into more open country. Lloyd rode at a faster trot to catch up with Jake.
“We need to make camp soon,” Jake told them. “I’m figuring we’re close enough to Dixie’s place to sleep there tonight if we push the horses a little this time. We wouldn’t lose any time and we wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground. And Dixie’s men can tend the horses there, rub them down, give them good feed, and shelter them in the barn.”
“Dixie’s place? Hell, Pa, I’m a married man now.”
Jake gave him a wink. “Jeff isn’t.”
Lloyd grinned, then laughed. “You wouldn’t really do that to him, would you?”
“Why not? The kid needs a lesson in women.”
Jeff rode closer. “What’s going on?”
Jake grinned. “I just figured that since it’s on our way and we need to make camp, we’ll sleep at a house called Dixie’s Place tonight. We’d have real beds for the night, and we won’t lose any time.”
Jeff studied Jake’s grin. “Wait a minute. Is this Dixie’s Place what it sounds like?”
“You bet,” Jake told him. “You are going to learn what to do with a woman, Jeff.”
“I’m not going to any whorehouse.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jeff. You’ll be just fine,” Jake told him, laughing again. “You do plan to get married someday, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Don’t you want to be the one to know what he’s doing on your wedding night?”
Jeff reddened. “I know what to do.”
“Jeff, don’t pretend you’ve been with a woman, because I know you haven’t. If you’re going to travel with me and write a book about me, you’re going to learn about that side of my life. And who knows? You just might enjoy it.”