“Lloyd okay, Jake?” someone from the crowd called. Apparently Jeff wasn’t the only one wondering. “Where is he?”
“He’s fine,” Harkner answered. “He stopped off at the Donavan place.”
Jeff took more notes and wrote a brief description of Jake’s clothing—denim pants, dusty boots, black bib shirt, black wide-brimmed hat from which his nearly black and slightly wavy hair hung just past his shoulders. From what Jeff could tell, there was just a touch of gray in it despite the man’s age. He wore a brown leather vest with a six-point marshal’s badge on it…and those threatening guns. Jake Harkner was still a very handsome man, but hard lines about his dark eyes spoke of a man who’d led a very rough life. Everything about him spelled toughness—a man with not a soft spot on him. He kept a cigarette between his lips now as he answered more questions. The scene reminded Jeff of the pied piper, as the crowd following Harkner kept growing. Suddenly, a stocky young man exited a saloon not far from the jailhouse and called out, “Jake, you bastard! I don’t see my pa! Is he the dead one? Is that my pa’s body draped over that horse?”
Jake didn’t even look at the young man. “It is,” he answered casually.
“You murdering sonofabitch!” the young man screamed. “I should kill you!”
It looked to Jeff as though the young man meant exactly what he said. Harkner continued to ignore him as he stopped in front of the jail.
“How’d you do it, Jake?” the young man screamed. “Did you put your gun in his mouth and blow his fucking brains out? Ain’t that the way you usually kill a man?”
“Mind your business, Brad!” someone in the street yelled. “Your pa was no good, and you know it!”
Two more young men came out of the saloon and flanked the one called Brad. All three just stood watching for the moment, but the air was tense and people backed away. Jeff suddenly felt too hot in his neatly tailored suit, and he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, wondering if bullets were about to fly.
Then…there she was. He’d never met her, but the woman hurrying down the street from the other end of town had to be Miranda Harkner. She’d apparently heard her husband’s whistle. The look of both relief and concern in her eyes said it all: even after many years together, the woman was still very much in love with Jake Harkner.
Jeff had expected a heftier, older-looking woman, but the woman hurrying down the street now had a lovely, slender shape and looked far younger than what Jeff figured she must be—somewhere around forty-five years old. She wore a well-fitted yellow checkered dress, and her ash-blond hair showed no hint of gray.
So small! he quickly wrote. I expected a stout and somber woman; she was somehow bigger in my imagination. How does such a tiny woman handle a man like Jake Harkner?
The rugged, dangerous-looking Harkner finally halted his horse when he saw the woman coming. He dismounted and removed the extra belt slung over his shoulder, hanging it around his horse’s neck. He threw down his cigarette and walked up to her. It struck Jeff then how tall Jake was, perhaps six feet and two or three inches. He towered over the woman, who looked past him at the men he’d brought in, then warily eyed the young men standing on the boardwalk near the jail. Jeff snuck closer, straining to hear.
“Where’s Lloyd?” the woman asked with a worried look.
In a surprisingly gentle move, Jake put an arm around her shoulders and led her a few feet away. “He headed to the Donavans’. He’ll stay there the night, I expect. He was anxious to see Katie again.”
The woman smiled and they said something more to each other. Jeff could hardly believe it when Harkner leaned down and kissed her cheek before grasping her arm and gently steering her aside. “Stay out of the way till I take care of Brad Buckley,” he warned. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
So, Jeff observed, the man’s wife can change him from a cougar to a kitten with one look. It was becoming clear that this book also had to be a love story. How strange that a man like Jake could love anyone. Even more strange that someone could love Jake Harkner, especially someone as lovely and seemingly gracious as Miranda.
“Hey, Jake, I bet the Buckley and the Bryant boys wish they hadn’t gone up against the likes of you, señor, huh?” The words were spoken by an older Mexican man named Juan López.
Jake waved him off as he tied his horse in front of the jail, removing both his shotgun and rifle from the saddle. “Juan, you talk too much,” he told the man. “Take care of the horses once I unload these men, will you?”