“But, Pa—” Stephen begged.
“I’m not putting any of you in that kind of danger,” Lloyd interrupted. “If your grandmother lives through this, it would break her heart to realize one of you was hurt or killed over it.”
The three boys pouted. “We can do it, Pa!” Stephen declared boldly. “We can ride, and we know all about takin’ care of cattle and horses, and you’ve been teachin’ us how to handle rifles and how to handle the men.” He sat straighter in his saddle in an effort to seem bigger than he really was. “You gotta see we’re getting to be men now, too. Grandma says we are.”
“And you took us hunting last fall,” Ben put in. “If I can shoot a deer, I can handle a rifle good enough to help give cover for you and Jake once Stephen and Little Jake chase off those men’s horses.”
“You gotta let us do this, Uncle Lloyd,” Little Jake added with a dark, determined look in his eyes. He glanced at his own father, sure Brian was just as against this as Jake and Lloyd were. “We know how to herd cattle and rope calves, and we know you have to make sure they don’t overgraze certain sections, and we know how to store feed and hay and how much to give the horses,” he said proudly, turning to his grandfather. “You and Uncle Lloyd don’t realize how much we already know, Grampa. And we’ll be safe in that crack in the rock. They’ll never know we’re there.”
“Yeah!” Stephen put in. “We promise to come right back out if we can’t make it through. We won’t do anything stupid. Please, please let us do it. You said we could help save Grandma.”
“You gotta let us help,” Ben spoke up. “We saw what they did to her, and I don’t think I can ever forget not bein’ strong enough to help her. If you ride up to that cabin to help and they shoot you dead before you can even get there, then nobody can help her. And if you go around behind and start shootin’ from there, they can run out and ride out through the valley before you get all of them. By the time you got your own horses to go after them, they’d have a big head start.”
“With Grandma inside the cabin, you wouldn’t have time to go after them,” Stephen added.
Jake looked at Lloyd. “They have a point. We can’t waste one extra minute getting your mother out of there. Going up through the valley will take longer, and we risk being target practice for them.”
Lloyd turned to Brian. “You’re Little Jake’s father. You have just as much say in this as anyone.”
Brian sighed, turning to Little Jake and seeing the excitement in his eyes. “I haven’t been able to stop my son from doing much of anything he really wants to do.” He looked at Jake. He remembered the time in Guthrie when Little Jake was much smaller. He’d run out of the house and down the street when Jake was in the middle of a shoot-out. Little Jake had thought he could help his grandfather. “You know how stubborn he is. If I don’t let him do this, he’ll grumble and stomp and pout for weeks. And be that as it may, I think these boys need and deserve to help any way they can. They need to feel they’re an important part of this. I can’t believe my own words, but that’s how I feel.”
Little Jake grinned. “Thanks, Pa! Grampa will make sure nothin’ happens to us.”
Brian kept his gaze on Jake. “You know how it feels, Jake, to not be big and strong enough to stop your father from what he did to your mother. You’ve lived with that your whole life. Maybe we should take the chance on the boys not having to live with the same memories.” He shifted his gaze to Lloyd. “I hate to say they’re right, and I hope to hell I don’t live to regret it, but I think you should let them try this.”
Lloyd studied the boys, then turned away for a moment, torn with indecision. He looked at Jake. “What do you think?”
Jake looked down at Ronald Beck’s body. He shivered from the bitter cold, again feeling sick at how cold Randy might be right now…if she was still alive. “I think we don’t have a whole lot of choice.” He met Lloyd’s gaze, his eyes bloodshot from no sleep. “And I think we have to hope this is due to your sister praying over this. Maybe the boys finding that crack was a godsend.” He shared with Lloyd the weight of what this could mean—both of them feeling the horror of what it would mean if they lost one of the boys over this.
Lloyd took a deep breath and looked across the open land toward Little Jake’s Valley. “I’m going to trust in Evie’s prayers.” He walked over to his horse, pulling out his repeating rifle. He handed it out to Stephen. “Take this with you—just for protection in case it’s needed.”