Everyone jumped at the gunshot, and a couple of women screamed and ran into a store. Harkner reached down with his free hand and grasped the younger man by the shirtfront. He jerked him up and slammed him against the remaining barrels, sending more of them flying. “Thank your God you’re still alive, kid!”
Brad stood there shaking and sweating. He opened his mouth, and Jeff realized the young man couldn’t breathe. The blow to his chest had probably knocked the air out of him.
“Take his gun, Sparky,” Harkner ordered the sheriff, seemingly unaffected as Brad’s face started going white with the struggle for air. A huge split in the skin at the right side of his face bled profusely, and the whole side of his head was already turning purple.
The sheriff ran up and took Brad’s gun from its holster. Still using only one arm, Harkner threw Brad violently off the boardwalk and into the street. “When he can breathe again, somebody help him up and take him over to the jail,” he ordered.
Brad rolled over with an ugly gurgling sound. He held one hand to the ear that had taken the brunt of the rifle shot, blood dripping into the dirt from the gash at the side of his face. Harkner glanced up then, his dark eyes boring into Jeff’s. Jeff stood there frozen in place as the man stalked closer.
“You’ve been watching me. Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
Jeff swallowed. “I…my name is Jeff Trubridge, and I’m…I’m a reporter…from Chicago. I didn’t mean any harm.” He held out his arms, his small pad of paper in one hand and a pencil in the other. “I don’t even own or know how to use a gun.”
Harkner glanced over at Brad, who was now crying as he got to his feet with the sheriff’s help, then crumpled to his knees again. The marshal turned back to Jeff. “I’m not in a very good mood right now, Trubridge, so whatever you want, it will have to wait a couple of days.”
“But—”
“Monday!” Harkner growled. “Tomorrow my wife goes to church, and I need some time with my family.”
“Yes, sir.” Jeff was glad to realize the man actually meant to hear him out. He felt a now-painful need to urinate as he watched the marshal walk away. His wife approached him with a devastated look on her face. Jeff could see the love there and realized her concern was over how Brad’s remark about fathers might have hurt her husband. Jeff started after him, but the young man with the doctor’s bag put out his arm.
“Leave him alone,” he warned. “This isn’t a good time. Surely you can see that.”
Jeff faced the sandy-haired and very handsome young man of medium but sturdy build. The doctor’s blue eyes showed deep concern and something else. Love? For his father-in-law? Jeff found all of it hard to believe—his wife’s loving concern, the doctor’s, the friendly manner in which Sparky and the Mexican spoke with Jake Harkner… “Are you Jake Harkner’s son-in-law?”
“Dr. Brian Stewart, and I have some prisoners to tend to. I want your promise to stay away from my father-in-law the rest of today, though. The man has been on the trail for over three weeks, and I suspect he’s damn tired. Combined with what just happened, that isn’t a good mix for a man like Jake.”
Jeff watched Jake and his wife walk up the street. “Will his wife be okay?”
“What?” Brian looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Well, Jake Harkner is in one hell of a bad mood. Is she safe?”
Brian grinned and shook his head. “Mister, I don’t know everything you’ve heard about the man, but Jake would slit his own throat before he’d raise his hand or even his voice to that woman. She’ll be just fine. Times like this, she’s the only one who can calm him down. That woman has my father-in-law wrapped around her little finger so tight, he couldn’t cut himself away with a bowie knife.”
It struck Jeff again how badly he needed to urinate. “I, uh, I need to find a privy.”
Brian chuckled. “Yeah, Jake does that to a man sometimes.” He nodded toward a building across the street. “There’s a privy over there behind that store.”
Jeff nodded, embarrassed. “Thanks.” He hurried away, stepping around barrels that still lay in the street and thinking how there was nothing old or soft or weak about Marshal Jake Harkner. He was every bit the notorious, hardened ex-outlaw he’d expected. He had to urinate so badly that he unbuttoned his pants as he half ran to the privy, and he’d barely made it inside before his bladder let loose, spilling out pent-up anxiety and fear along with urine.
He wondered if any man had literally wet his pants when faced down by Jake Harkner.