“No! He has to take them out now! Today! We have to go home, Peter. Something awful has happened. I feel it! It isn’t just the dream. I feel it. Jake needs me. They all need me.”
“Randy, stop this! You’re getting yourself worked up to where you’ll just make things worse. If you break open those stitches, you’ll have to stay here even longer. I already wired home three days ago that you came through everything okay and that it’s not cancer. I haven’t heard back that anything is wrong. We’ll go home in just another week, and you’ll see that everything is fine. I think you’re just having nightmares from too much medication.”
Randy grasped his arms. “You don’t understand! I wouldn’t have this feeling if there wasn’t something terribly wrong at home. Jake is hurting in some way, Peter. I don’t know if it’s an emotional hurt or if he’s hurt physically. I just know that he’s hurt! And Evie might be too. And Little Jake! I heard his voice, Peter. I heard Little Jake talking about ‘Gampa’s guns.’”
“It’s just a mixture of memories and medicine, Randy. Please lie still.”
“I can’t rest until you go to the sheriff’s office or the telegraph office and find out if anyone has sent us a message from Guthrie.” She sat up on the edge of the bed, refusing to lie back down. “Please go and see, Peter. I have this awful, awful feeling!” She folded her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth. “Dr. Rogers can take out the stitches after we get back. That way I can leave sooner. I can’t wait around here another whole week!”
Peter grasped her shoulders. “I’m not leaving until you lie back down and promise to stay down!”
She moved back into bed and Peter pulled the blankets over her and bent close to kiss her forehead. “I’ll see what I can find out. Will you lie still until I get back?”
“Yes. Just go and see! Ask at the front desk first. Maybe someone already brought us a telegram.”
Peter straightened with a sigh and picked up his hat from a chair. He put it on and went out, hoping she was wrong about all of this. He hated seeing her so upset. She’d been through so much already.
He started for the front door of the small, brick hospital when a man wearing a badge came through the door. He was decked out with guns much as Jake dressed for the job, and he had a waxed mustache that curled on the ends.
Peter hesitated, listening to the man ask if there was a patient there named Miranda Harkner. Peter’s chest tightened. Good God, please don’t say Jake is dead! He did not want to be the one to give Randy that kind of news. It would kill her!
“That gentleman is a friend of Mrs. Harkner, and is here to watch over her,” a nurse told the man with the badge. She nodded toward Peter. “That’s Attorney Peter Brown. Perhaps he can help you.”
The stocky man of perhaps forty years walked over to Peter and introduced himself. “I’m a U.S. Marshal,” he told Peter. “Bill Graham. I, uh, have some rather sad news for Marshal Jake Harkner’s wife. I was told she was here.”
“She is.” Peter felt sick. “You can tell me, and I’ll give her the news. She’s not completely healed yet. You can’t just go in there and blurt out whatever you have to say.”
Marshal Graham removed his hat to reveal thinning, sandy-colored hair. His blue eyes revealed a deep sadness.
Not Jake! Not Jake!
“Mr. Brown, something has happened back in Guthrie. This won’t be easy for Mrs. Harkner. I know Jake real well, and I’ve met his wife. She’s a good woman, very devoted to her family.”
“And?”
“And, uh, maybe you know that a few weeks ago, a prisoner by the name of Marty Bryant escaped. Jake killed a couple of his brothers, and we all figured he was headed back to get some kind of revenge against Jake. A lot of men, including Jake, have been looking for him, but to no avail.”
Peter rubbed at his eyes. “My God,” he muttered. “What’s happened, Marshal?”
Bill Graham sighed. “Mr. Brown, Marty Bryant and a whole gang of men raided Guthrie, burned some buildings to create a diversion while he took Jake’s daughter Evie…and his grandson…the one they call Little Jake.”
“No!” A woman behind them nearly screamed the word.
Peter turned to see Randy had come out of her room and heard what the marshal said.
“No! No! No!” She screamed the words over and over as she crumpled to her knees. Peter ran over and grabbed her up, holding her in his arms so she wouldn’t fall. “Tell me they’ve already found Little Jake and my daughter!”