“And she has stayed with you through everything all these years. Getting yelled at once in all those years isn’t going to bother her one little bit.”
“I heard that…little gasp…like I’d hit her or something.” Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Goddamn it! I screamed at my wife. I didn’t just raise my voice. I screamed at her. The minute I did that, I saw him screaming at my mother.”
“Pa, you have to get over all that. Don’t fall back into that awful place where you’re the kid getting beat on and you think you have to fight back all the time.”
Jake smoked quietly. “Go saddle a horse for me, will you?”
“Why?”
“I just need to be alone, that’s all.”
“Don’t you be thinking about riding off, Pa. I know you.”
“I can’t talk to your mother right now.”
“But you should talk to her. She’ll want to talk to you.”
Jake took a last drag on the cigarette and stepped it out. “I can’t. I’m still too angry: not so much over what happened, but angry with myself. I don’t want her to tell me it’s all right, and I don’t want her forgiveness, because I don’t deserve it. What that man said…it’s too personal. I never should have touched that woman thirty years ago. Who the hell was I to think I could bring a woman like that into my fucked-up life? She deserves so much better.”
Lloyd sighed. “Damn it, Pa, give her some credit for knowing a good man when she sees one. And if you hadn’t come along back then, she’d have died from snakebite, remember? Did you ever think that maybe God deliberately put her in your life to save your sorry ass?”
Jake faced him, shaking his head. “I don’t deserve you, or Evie either.”
Even in the moonlight, Lloyd could see tears in his father’s eyes. “Well, whether you like and accept it or not, we both think we couldn’t have asked for a better father.”
Jake wiped at his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “I’ll go get my horse.”
“You need to go get Mom and talk to her.”
“I can’t right now. I can face ten men with guns, but that woman can completely undo me with one look or one word. That little gasp she made when I yelled at her—it was like somebody planting a knife in my heart.”
“Pa—”
“Lloyd, normally she’d already be looking for me and wanting to talk. In case you haven’t noticed, she didn’t this time. That tells me I hurt her way worse than I ever have before. As far as I’m concerned, yelling at her like that was the same as hitting her. That man took something beautiful and made it ugly. Randy doesn’t deserve that, and it’s because of who she’s married to.”
“And married is the key word here, Pa. She’s your wife. So nothing he said matters.”
Jake turned away. “It does matter.” He walked off into the darkness.
“Pa, what about your hand? Don’t tell me it’s not hurting. You should let Brian look at it.”
Jake just kept walking.
“Damn it, Pa,” Lloyd muttered. He turned to go back to the women’s wagon when he saw Randy walking toward him, her robe wrapped tightly around her. Lloyd reached out and grasped her arm.
“Leave him alone, Mom. He’ll come around in the morning.”
“Where is he?”
“He just needs to be alone.”
“No! That’s the worst thing he can do.”
“Well, he wouldn’t listen to a damn thing I told him. In his mind, he as much as hit you.”
Randy closed her eyes and turned away.
“You do know why he screamed at you, don’t you? It was just his way of protecting you. That man he beat on…” He closed his eyes. “Shit,” he said softly. “He called you a name.”
“A whore? I’ve heard it before, Lloyd. In spite of explaining the truth a thousand times over, some think that’s how Jake and I met, because of the life he lived then.” Randy shook her head. “I know him. He blames himself for every hurt or insult to someone he loves. And when he’s that angry, it makes him think about his father screaming that he’s worthless and no good, and then he starts thinking his father was right.”
“I talked to him. He’ll get over this.”
Randy wiped at her eyes. “He’s riding away, isn’t he?”
“You know Pa. I know you want to go talk to him, but this time you really need to leave him be and let him come to you when he’s ready. He needs to learn how to deal with the bad memories on his own.”
“But I’ve always been there for him.”