Jake rolled over and got up again and kept shooting both guns. Evie couldn’t tell for sure exactly where he’d been shot. She saw Lloyd get to his knees, a bloodstain at his lower left side. He, too, kept shooting. More men came down the ridge then, and bodies lay strewn everywhere.
Evie couldn’t be sure how long the shooting went on before suddenly, like magic, everything quieted. She thought she heard men shouting orders but was afraid to raise her head and look—afraid she’d see her father and brother dead. In the next instant, someone grabbed her and Little Jake. Evie instantly recognized those arms. “Daddy!” she screamed. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging tightly. “You’re hurt!”
“I’m all right. I’m all right.” His voice sounded so far away.
Evie curled against him, and Jake held her tight while Little Jake wiggled free and hugged his grandpa around the neck from behind.
“Gampa kill the son-o-bisses!” he yelled, grinning and squeezing Jake’s neck.
“Little Jake, go find your uncle Lloyd,” Jake told him as he clung to Evie.
The boy ran off, still shouting that “Gampa’s guns hurt the son-o-bisses.” Jake ordered someone to see if there was a blanket in the wagon, and in the next moment a blanket came around her. Jake leaned against the barrel and sat all the way down, holding her close. He kissed her forehead and grasped her hair, pressing her head against his chest.
“Jesus, Evie.” He kissed the top of her head, and Evie felt instantly calmer…safe…loved…
“I knew you’d come,” she sobbed.
“I never should have left town.”
“Daddy, you’re hurt…”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s hardly more than a cut on my arm.” He held her close. “My God, Evie, I’m so sorry! I failed you! I failed the most precious person in my life.”
“You couldn’t have known. You came for me. That’s all that matters.” Evie heard a voice in the distance then.
“Brian! Lloyd is back down! Come and help him!”
Evie turned her head to see Brian coming down the hill. “He’s alive? Brian is alive?”
“He’s fine. He came with us so he could be with you right away.”
“Lloyd!” She tried to pull away.
Jake hung on tight. “Stay still, Evie. Brian will take care of him.”
“I should go to both of them, but I can’t. I can’t look at Lloyd again…and Brian…” She covered her head with the blanket. “He can’t see me like this! Their filth is all over me.”
“It’s all right, baby. We’ll take care of that.” Jake watched Brian bend over Lloyd. Lloyd! Not Lloyd! God, don’t take my son! He sat there torn in a thousand pieces…Evie’s devastation, Lloyd possibly dying, Randy…was she home yet? What was going through her mind? God, how he needed to hold his wife!
“Daddy, I’m going to be sick again—” In the next instant, she leaned away from him and vomited. Jake fought tears as he held her hair away from her face.
“Jeff, bring me a canteen!” he yelled.
“Don’t let him see me.”
Jeff ripped a canteen from a horse that lay dead near the cabin and ran it over to Jake, aching at the look in Jake’s eyes. He uncorked the canteen and held it out.
“Thanks. You’d better go after Little Jake before the kid picks up somebody’s gun and starts trying to shoot it,” Jake told Jeff. “Brian brought clothes, so take Little Jake up the ridge and bring Brian’s horse down here. Keep that little hellion occupied.”
“Sure, Jake.” Jeff didn’t know what to say to Jake or to Evie, so he left to corral Little Jake, who still ran around with just a little shirt on, pretending to shoot the men who were already dead.
Jake helped Evie rinse her mouth. “That damn kid thinks this is all a game,” he tried to joke, secretly wanting to cry with joy that Little Jake was alive and all right. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a piece of peppermint. “Chew on this.”
“Daddy, you always have peppermint with you.” She gratefully sucked on the candy. Jake thought about how he and Randy liked to use it in the mornings, and he couldn’t help wondering if they would get that chance again. Randy seemed so far away.
“I’m such a mess! I’m such a mess!” Evie lamented. “How can you stand to hold me?”
Jake closed his eyes and kissed her hair. “Baby girl, you have never looked more beautiful. You’re alive, and that’s all that matters. I’m just so sorry! I never thought they would raid the town like that. I should never have left. If I’d been there—”