Love’s Sweet Revenge(36)

“I wish Little Jake would be as obedient for me and Brian as he is for Daddy,” Evie commented.

“That boy worships the ground Jake walks on,” Katie replied. “So does Stephen.”

“I find it incredibly comical,” Randy put in. “Big, bad Jake Harkner ordering kids around—and if he ever made any of them cry, he’d be completely devastated. Someday those boys will figure out they could likely order Jake around.”

More laughter. “Yes, but Jake has a way of telling the boys what to do without ever raising his voice,” Katie added.

“He doesn’t need to raise his voice,” Randy answered. “He just has a commanding way about him. Even people who don’t know him pick up on that don’t mess with me air about him. You can tell by the way they react to him.”

Katie laughed. “Yes, except for you, Randy. Jake is a big sap when it comes to you. Stephen told me his grampa said the other day that he was more afraid of you than all seven of those cattle rustlers he faced down three weeks ago.”

Randy grinned. “Is that so?”

“Yes, and at the time, they were talking about ‘bad women.’ Stephen wanted to know if Jake still liked ‘bad women.’ Where all that came from, I have no idea, but Jake told him that if he was around women like that he’d have to answer to you, and he wouldn’t want to do that.”

All three women laughed again.

“He would have to answer to me, and I would make him very sorry,” Randy told them.

“Ouch!” An extra hired hand spewed several not-so-proper expletives after being kicked by a steer. “If I had my gun on, I’d shoot your ass, you sonofabitch!”

“Hey, there’s women watchin’,” Charlie McGee shouted. “Watch your language.”

Katie giggled, and Randy just shook her head. At this time of year she was extra grateful to have her physician son-in-law around during roundup and branding, because nearly every day someone was kicked or sometimes thrown by an extra strong and ornery calf or steer, or by a cutting horse that swerved the wrong way. There was an occasional burn from the hot coals of the branding fire, and sometimes one of the men would get something in his eye. She worried about Jake, knowing this wasn’t easy work for him, but he enjoyed it, and he was amazingly tough for a man who’d stood at death’s door too many times to count in his lifetime.

Most of the injuries came from any man who dared to help break one of the wild mustangs that were inevitably brought in with the cattle, and last year Pepper lost a finger when he mistakenly gripped his saddle horn just when he’d roped a calf and it jerked the rope tight. It caught his left index finger between the rope and the saddle horn and cut right through it.

Every man helped, including Charlie McGee from Tennessee and Vance Kelly, a weathered, hard-edged man whose past they knew nothing about. Another man, named Cole Decker, limped from a wound suffered fighting for the South in the big war. Pepper was always chewing tobacco and spitting its juice, but he was a good man. He had a big belly that shook when he laughed. Terrel Adams was nice-looking and rather quiet, a hardworking man who’d appeared one day wanting a job. Right now he was out looking for more strays.

Jake had hired Teresa and her husband, Rodriguez, in Denver when they first went there after moving from Oklahoma. Jake liked having Mexicans around. He spoke Spanish himself and often had long conversations with Rodriguez. Randy supposed being around Mexicans reminded Jake of his mother. Hearing the language probably comforted him. Evita Ramona Consuella de Jimenez. That was her name. Evie was named after her.

“Mother, who’s that?”

Randy looked in the direction of Evie’s gaze to see five men approaching, well armed and dressed in the familiar dusters and hats that signified U.S. Marshals. “Oh no!” Randy gasped. “No! No! No!” She started to climb out of the wagon. “Evie, they’ve come for Jake!”

Evie grabbed her wrist. “Mother, wait! Don’t go over there! The day those soldiers came for Daddy to take him to prison, you got hurt. Stay here!”

“I can’t!” Randy jerked her arm away and climbed out of the wagon.

“Oh no… Daddy…” Evie followed.

Jake noticed the visitors and walked out of the corral where he’d finished branding a calf. “Lloyd, get over here!” he shouted.

Lloyd turned his cutting horse, charging the horse up to Jake when he saw what was happening. He dismounted and walked to stand beside his father. For the next few minutes, things quieted as most of the hired hands ceased their work and began moving closer to Jake and Lloyd defensively. Brian hurried over to stand near Evie. In the more distant corrals, the action stopped completely as more men quit cutting and roping and branding when they saw what looked to be some kind of showdown coming. They all moved beside Jake as though to shield him.