“Not bad enough to not be there for my wife. She’ll not only need me as her husband, but she’ll need a doctor. She’ll probably lose that baby, Lloyd, and God knows how bad they might beat her, maybe even Little Jake…” He turned away in agony. “God, my son!”
“I’ll talk to Pa about it,” Lloyd promised. “I’m so goddamned sorry, Brian.” Lloyd turned to see Jake now storming toward a side street down which was Dr. Keller’s office. He ran after him. “Pa!”
“Don’t you get in my way, Lloyd. You let me do what I have to do!”
Lloyd could barely keep up with him. A bigger crowd had gathered, yet the air hung oddly silent. Everyone knew instinctively that Jake Harkner was not Marshal Harkner now. He was someone else…perhaps the notorious Jake Harkner they all knew he once was. The handsome smile was gone. The affable man was gone.
Jake walked so fast that Jeff had to ride his horse to catch up to him and Lloyd. Whatever Jake was going to do, he wanted to be there. Right now he missed Jake the family man, the father and grandfather and loving husband, the Jake who’d kidded him about never being with a woman…the Jake who dreamed of going to Colorado and living in peace.
There would be no peace today or for the next several days—however long it took to find Evie and Little Jake. And if they were found dead, the Jake that Jeff had met on the church steps would be gone forever.
“Pa, Brian wants to go with us,” Lloyd told him as they approached the doctor’s office.
“No!”
Lloyd finally reached him and yanked on his arm. “Goddamn it, Pa, he’s Evie’s husband! He has a right! Besides that, he’s a doctor, and she’ll damn well need one by the time we reach her.”
Jake glared at him. “He’ll get in the way.”
“He won’t! He’ll do whatever you tell him to do, and he’s got to be there for Evie. You know I’m right, Pa.”
Jake turned away again. “I can’t think about that yet. Give me a minute with the man they captured.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find out where they took Evie!” Jake started walking again. “Don’t come in with me if you don’t have the stomach for it.”
Lloyd followed him up the steps of the doctor’s office. “She’s my sister!” He stepped in front of Jake, glaring at him with fire in his eyes. “And they have Little Jake. I damn well do have the stomach for it. This is my fight too—and Brian’s! You listen to me, Pa. Brian needs to go with us!”
Jake rubbed at his eyes, and for a moment he seemed to soften toward his son. “First let’s see what this man knows.” He pushed past Lloyd and charged into Keller’s office, where Sparky lay unconscious on one bed in the corner, and a man Jake had never seen before lay on another. Dr. Keller looked up from a desk. “Jake!”
Jake looked at Juan, the man who’d volunteered to keep an eye on the prisoner. Juan stood there with a shotgun.
“Señor Jake! I am so sorry about your daughter.”
“Right now you need to leave, Juan. Wait outside.”
Juan stepped back, his eyes wide. “Sí, mi amigo.” Juan left, and Jake looked at Dr. Keller.
“This the man who was part of Bryant’s gang?”
The doctor slowly rose, looking pale. “Yes.”
“Who’s that?” Bryant’s man asked. “Harkner? Jake Harkner? Don’t you let him near me! Get him out of here!”
“I want your scalpel, Keller, and then you can leave,” Jake told the doctor.
“No!” Bryant’s man screamed. “Don’t you leave me to that murdering sonofabitch!” He tried to get up. Jake saw a bloody bandage around his middle and one around his arm. He walked up to him and jerked the man out of his bed, deliberately letting him fall to the floor on his back. Then he took a booted foot and pressed it on the wound at the man’s middle. The man began screaming for help.
Jeff cautiously stepped inside, his eyes widening.
“Your scalpel!” Jake ordered Keller.
“Jake—” The doctor made a weak protest.
“Give me the goddamn scalpel, Keller! I don’t want to hurt you too!”
Keller went to his desk and opened his doctor’s bag, taking out his scalpel. He handed it to Jake, his hand shaking. Jeff just stood there, frozen in place.
“No! Don’t do this!” Bryant’s man screamed again.
“How is Sparky?” Jake asked Keller.
“He’ll be all right. He took a bullet in the chest, but it missed his heart. He’ll have lung problems for a while, but he’ll recover. He’s dead out on laudanum.”