“Jesus, I never thought about that. We’re dead meat.”
“Not if I threaten to shoot any man who dares to bring it up.”
“Good idea.” Lloyd put an arm around his father’s shoulders. “Magnificent, huh?” He burst into laughter.
Jake gave him a shove. “Don’t make me beat up on a Greek god.”
They walked off together.
Randy watched them from the veranda. “Magnificent, indeed,” she said softly. She shivered, secretly thanking God that Jake turned down the cattlemen’s offer of range detective. She couldn’t take one more day of watching him ride off into danger and wondering if he’d make it back.
Thirty-four
February 1897
Randy finished her letter to Jeff Trubridge by the dim light of an oil lamp. She’d always felt obligated to keep him updated on what was happening with the family. They’d received another royalty check for the book about Jake’s life, and she thought how that life was still unfinished, an unfolding story that brought Jake farther and farther out of the pits of hell in his mind and saw him rise above all of it into a much stronger human being on the inside. She wrote:
On January tenth, Lloyd and Katie had a little boy they named Donavan Patrick after Katie’s father. Just a month earlier, Evie gave birth to a beautiful little girl with light hair like mine. They named her Esther Miranda after my mother and me. Goodness, if someone had told Jake back when we first met and he was still a wanted man that someday he’d have six grandchildren, he would have shot them for lying.
A grandfather clock in a corner of the great room ticked softly. It was night and very quiet. Ben was sleeping, and even Little Jake and Stephen, who were staying the night, were sleeping soundly. Jake was finishing a bath upstairs.
I suppose I sound more like I am reminiscing in a diary than writing a letter, but I know you understand like few others would. I guess age is getting to me. My Jake is sixty now, and I’m fifty. No one who doesn’t know better would believe Jake’s age, and he remains an energetic man who is hard to keep up with. He has his aches and pains, but he’s as hard-edged as ever, still strong and sure. The streaks of gray in his hair just make him even more handsome. He still has that beautiful smile that few men his age can boast about. His secret is scrubbing his teeth every day with baking soda. I have no idea how he learned about that, but I think he is secretly egotistical about that smile of his. Some people are just blessed with certain attributes, and good health and good looks seem to be Jake’s. I cringe to think I might show my age before he does, but he teases that I have ten years on him, so that will never happen. And, being Jake, he has his way of always making me feel beautiful.
Our grandsons are getting tall, and so is Ben, who has turned out to be such a blessing. I think the day Jake rescued him from his father’s beating was the day Jake started growing stronger on the inside. Ben was a healing for him, his chance to live his own boyhood over as someone loved and wanted. Stephen is a young man, and Little Jake goes around holding his chin up and strutting as though he’s trying to look much older. He so wants to be like his grandfather, and he will be, because that boy has Jake’s spirit in him. When my Jake is gone from this earth, he will live on in Little Jake. And I surely will live on in my granddaughters, and I guess that’s what family is all about.
I am happy to know you have a son now, which makes me smile when I remember the nervous young reporter who came to Guthrie with a dream of writing a book about Jake Harkner. I’ll bet you never thought you’d be a part of all the things that happened after that. Once a person gets to know Jake, he or she never forgets him. It’s impossible. When he rode into my life back in Kansas, I knew even then that I was lost forever…and there would be no turning back.
She stopped to reload her fountain pen, thinking about Evie and how happy she’d been to have another girl.
The ranch is doing well, but it’s been a bitterly cold winter with a lot of snow, so we’re worried about how many cattle we might lose.
She secretly lamented that she and Jake never went back to the line shack like they’d planned. After Denver, things got busy, because they’d been gone so long, and before they knew it, snow was falling and the holidays came and babies were born. Jake had promised that this summer, after roundup, they would finally spend time at the line shack while the men took the cattle in to Denver. Randy couldn’t think of anything better than spending time alone with her husband instead of going into the city again. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to go back to Denver.