Do Not Forsake Me(50)

Jake set the gun aside. “They get hot, all right,” he said rather absently.

Jeff opened his briefcase to take out a tablet. “How are you doing, Jake?”

Jake scowled. “As well as can be expected for a man who has to depend on his wife to feed him like a kid. It’s downright humiliating, and I intend to be out of this bed tomorrow.”

“You’re a man who says exactly what he’s thinking, aren’t you?”

“You bet. And I’m thinking you pretty much saved my life, Jeff.”

Jeff met his eyes, and Jake was smiling a little.

“I owe you. So you’ve got your book.”

Jeff couldn’t help a huge grin. “Thank you, but if we could do it over, I wouldn’t want to earn that right the way I did. I’d rather you were up and walking around and that this never happened.”

“Thank you.” Jake smoked quietly. “Why me, Jeff? What’s in it for you? You must have some kind of angle. Lord knows there are other outlaws still alive you could write about.”

“But I’m not writing about an outlaw. I’m writing about a man—complicated and notorious and outspoken and intimidating most of the time, but a man who loves his family. That’s not something you can usually say about someone with your kind of reputation.”

Jake nodded. “Good answer.”

“Besides that, you’re a dying breed, Jake. There are few men left with your reputation, few who ever live to tell about it. The world out there is changing, full of laws and courts and jails and advanced machinery and inventions. It’s nothing like the world you rode in as an outlaw. That fascinates me. I’m only doing this out of my own personal curiosity and my desire to understand men like you.”

“Yeah, well, dying breed was almost a literal description after the other day.” Jake drew on the cigarette. “And don’t kid yourself, Jeff. Don’t make me out to be more than I am. I’m just a man who had about as messed up a childhood as any man could have—one who took the wrong path and committed pretty much every rotten crime imaginable and isn’t proud of it. I robbed trains and banks and ran illegal guns during the war. Then I just got lucky and found a woman who changed it all for me.” He sighed. “At any rate, I like your choice of words, and I think you’re sincere in telling the truth. Just don’t ever use the word hero any place in that book, or I won’t let you publish it. I’m no goddamn hero. And don’t have me shooting ten men when I only shot five—or whatever.”

Only five?

“And don’t turn it into one of those ridiculous dime novels.”

“I would never do that. I’m not that kind of writer.”

Jake reached over and put out his cigarette. He winced as he shifted in bed. “Damn,” he muttered. “Feels like somebody stuck a bowie knife in my leg and never took it back out.”

“I’m sorry you still have a lot of pain.”

“Well, pain means you’re still alive, so I guess it’s a good thing.”

Jeff nodded.

“I don’t want to go into much detail today, Jeff. I still get tired when I talk too much. I just want you to know that I want some kind of contract giving me and Randy final say in whether that book gets published, plus we need a trust drawn up, and all that bullshit. Peter Brown can take care of it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Meantime, I’d like to know a little more about you,” Jake continued. He shifted, and Jeff couldn’t help but notice the scars—one at Jake’s shoulder, another farther down on his chest, a deep white scar on one arm, another one farther down on his belly.

Jake caught him studying his scars. He pointed to the scar at his shoulder. “Bullet wound—” His chest. “Bullet wound—” His arm. “Knife wound from a bar fight. All from the old days, Jeff. I have a scar down low on my right hip from the bullet I took at the Kennedy shoot-out back in California. I have scars on my back too, but I don’t talk about those.”

The father?

“This one—” He pointed to the scar low on his belly. “That’s where Randy shot me the first day we met.”

“So—she really did shoot you?”

“She sure did. First time I ever laid eyes on her, I got in a shoot-out in a supply store. She was there. It scared the shit out of her, and she pulled a little gun from her purse and shot me. I couldn’t believe it. I just ran out and rode off. Took shelter in what I thought was an abandoned house—figured I’d die there. Next thing I knew, I woke up naked and with the bullet dug out of me, and there stood Miranda Hayes. It was her house. She felt sorry for shooting me, so she turned around and took out the bullet—and hid my guns.” He laughed lightly. “I was so mad at her for hiding those guns I could hardly see straight, but I was too weak to do anything about it. She fed me and nursed me and I was mean as hell to her the whole time…mostly because I felt myself falling in love with her, and God knows I had no right loving something like that. And nothing I did or said made her back down.”