Peter looked at Marshal Graham. “Send a wire to Katie that Randy knows what’s happened and is coming home as soon as she can. We’ll leave by the day after tomorrow.”
“No! Tomorrow!”
“Absolutely not! Your getting home in a couple of days won’t make any difference if they already have Evie. Jake and Lloyd will go after them the minute Jake knows, and there won’t be a thing you can do until they all get back. And they will all come back. You have to believe that, Randy. Jake won’t give himself up to those bastards. He’ll find a way to bring them all down.”
“If I hear anything before you leave, I’ll let you know, Mrs. Harkner,” Marshal Graham told her.
Randy turned away again. “Thank you.” She walked back to her room, feeling as though she were in another world. Evie! Her beautiful, sweet, still-naive Evie.
Peter caught up to her and took her arm.
“Peter, she worships Jake. Evie absolutely thinks he is incapable of some of the things he’s done. She’s going to see a side of him that will shock her. She sees only the good in him, but I know what this will do to him. If he manages to get her out of this, he will execute every one of those men left alive. I saw what he did to some of the Kennedy gang. And these men…they will rape her, Peter. That will put Jake into a world Evie has never seen. He might even do things that will send him back to prison.” She collapsed onto her bed.
“Randy.” Peter knelt in front of her. “Evie means everything to him, so maybe he’ll do this right—the way he should handle it as a marshal—for her sake. And I’m betting plenty of people are praying for your family, Randy. You remember that Evie, sweet as she is, is also a Harkner. She’s stronger than you think, because she has two very strong people for parents. I think you’re wrong about her not being able to stop Jake from doing something that will get him killed or sent back to prison. All she has to say is that word Daddy, and he’ll do anything she asks. You know that. I have a feeling that word totally undoes that man—not Pa, not Father, or Dad. She calls him Daddy, and that just turns him into a piece of clay she can mold any way she wants.”
Randy managed to smile a little through her tears. “Everyone thinks it’s so funny that she still calls him that.”
Peter squeezed her hand. “And when she calls him Daddy, it’s so endearing.”
Randy nodded. “It is, isn’t it?” She covered her face. “Evie has no idea the things Jake is capable of.”
“And he won’t want her to know.”
“It might not matter—not if they kill him, Peter. Not if they kill him. That will be horrible for Evie. She’ll not get over the fact that her father gave his life for her.”
Peter pulled the covers over her again. “I’ll have the doctor give you something to help you sleep. I’ll see if he’ll let you leave a few days early and let Dr. Rogers take out the stitches. Then we’ll head back to Guthrie, if he gives the go-ahead. But I’m getting you a sleeper car on the train so you can lie down most of the way, and I’ll hire a stagecoach that’s just for us—no other passengers—so you can have one full seat to lie down on there too. I’ll get you home, Randy, but you have to promise me you’ll let the doctor give you something to help you sleep tonight and most of tomorrow.”
“But we should leave tomorrow.”
“No. It won’t help. One more day, Randy. Even then, we can’t leave unless the doctor says it’s all right. I’ll try to get you home within four or five days.”
“I should be there for Jake. He’ll need me, Peter. If Evie is badly hurt or killed, he’ll go insane. Even I won’t be able to help him. The Jake I married will be lost forever.”
“And you won’t be able to be there for him or Evie or any of them if we don’t handle this right. You have got to do what the doctor says, Randy, so you’ll be there when they all get back.”
When they get back. “They might never come back, Peter. They might never come back.”
Thirty-two
They stopped every few miles wherever they could find fresh horses, leaving promissory notes to either return the horses or pay for replacements if necessary. There was no time to dicker with the owners, and seeing the look in Jake’s eyes, none argued with him. They rode into dark, rested only four hours, then left again, arriving in Guthrie at sunrise in four days instead of the six or seven it should have taken all the way from Hell’s Nest.
They rode past a burned-out barn, and up the street were more burned businesses, some still smoldering. Someone had shot out the windows of Brian and Evie’s house, as well as Lloyd and Katie’s home…and Jake’s. With an aching heart, Jake noticed some of Randy’s rosebushes were trampled, and the front door was kicked down. He didn’t need to go inside to know the house had been ransacked.