Love’s Sweet Revenge(110)
“Yes,” Prescott answered. “This is not a hostile witness, obviously, but I have a couple of questions for him. I’d like to call Lloyd Harkner to the stand.”
More gasps and whispers moved through the crowd, and Jake grabbed Peter’s arm. “What the hell does he want with Lloyd?”
“I don’t know.” Peter scowled. “Stay calm, Jake.”
“I can’t!”
Randy felt panic rising. “God, keep him calm,” she prayed.
Twenty-seven
“Leave my son out of this!” Jake spoke up. “He’s just recovered from the brink of death and is still in pain.”
“He made it to this courtroom,” Prescott reminded Jake.
Peter rose. “Your Honor, I fail to see why I should allow the prosecution to question someone who is obviously here for the defense,” he argued, “let alone the fact that it’s a miracle Lloyd Harkner is here at all. He is still far from recovered from a grave wound that should have killed him.”
“Your Honor, I don’t intend to badger the young man,” Prescott retorted. “I just have one or two questions to clear something up about Mike Holt.”
“Leave him alone!” Jake repeated. “He’s in a lot of pain!”
“It’s okay, Pa,” Lloyd spoke up. He grimaced as he stood up. Brian rose with him and let Lloyd lean on him as he walked to the stand. Lloyd sat down as people whispered and waited with baited breath to see what Prescott intended to do.
“Lloyd—let’s establish that you are Lloyd Harkner and that Jake Harkner is your father, right?” Prescott asked.
“Well, Mr. Prescott, look at Jake, and look at me. I don’t think there is much doubt about who my father is.” A few more people chuckled.
“And when you lived in Oklahoma, you rode with Jake Harkner as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, is that so?”
“I did.”
“So you learned a lot on the job, so to speak, from your father?”
Lloyd shrugged. “I already knew a lot about guns and outlaws from when I—” Lloyd hesitated. “I went down the wrong pathway myself for a while after my father went to prison. I never knew about his past, and I was angry and young and stupid. But yes, I learned a lot riding with my father. For over three years we had each other’s backs in some pretty dangerous situations.” He looked at Jake. “If you’re going to be caught going up against a gang of thieves and killers, you can’t do any better than to have Jake Harkner backing you up.”
“And did your father teach you that it was all right to shoot a man in the back?”
People gasped, and Jake went very still. Lloyd didn’t seem at all ruffled. He glared at Prescott, and the room was completely and uncomfortably silent for a few seconds.
“Hell no,” Lloyd finally answered. “I’m not even sure my father has ever shot a man in the back, so if you’re trying to accuse him of that, you’re barking up the wrong tree. There isn’t a man living who can outdraw my father straight-up! Jake Harkner doesn’t need to shoot a man in the back!”
“But you did, didn’t you? Back at Dune Hollow, you shot Mike Holt’s brother in the back, and that’s why Holt was determined to seek you out and kill you. Fact is, his brother wasn’t even armed when you shot him, was he?”
More silence. Jake straightened in his chair, his fists clenched.
Like father, like son, Jeff quickly wrote, observing a sudden darkness in Lloyd’s eyes. When Jake Harkner dies, he won’t be gone from this world at all. He’ll live on in his son.
“Answer the question,” the judge told Lloyd.
“Yes,” he said flatly, “I shot the man in the back, and he was unarmed. He’d given up his weapon, but then he decided to run, and under the law, when you run from a lawman, you risk being shot, so I damn well shot him.”
“Without hesitation?”
“You bet! He and about fifteen other men had violated my sister in the worst ways, for days, and they tortured my little nephew by burning him with cigarettes—so yeah, I shot the sonofabitch without hesitation! And that was my decision, and I was within my rights as a lawman! So don’t go trying to make this out to be a father teaching his son to kill, because it’s never been that way. My father would have preferred I never even held a gun, because he knows the heartache that can come with violence. And when it comes to being a father, there isn’t a man in here who can hold a candle to Jake Harkner. They don’t come any better, and I was proud as hell to ride with him. You got any more questions? Because as far as I know, I’m not the one who is the subject of this hearing!”