Outlaw Hearts(109)

People mumbled. More women had scurried away, herding their children with them, taking a chance on being shot rather than letting their little ones witness what might happen.

“Joe! Joe!” Hetta Grant was running toward her dead husband, but several men grabbed her and held her back.

“Don’t go over there, Hetta!” one of them pleaded.

The woman began sobbing and crumpled to the ground. Lloyd kept up his screaming, the sobs muffled now by the hideous gag on the child’s mouth. He arched wildly to get away, and the man who held him had trouble keeping hold with one arm while he held a gun in the other. Suddenly the baby wiggled loose and started crawling under the railing.

“Let him go,” Kennedy ordered, grinning. “Let him go to his daddy.” The words were sneered sarcastically. “If Jake doesn’t want to give up his gun and come with us, the boy can be shot down just as easily there in the corral.”

“You’re making a mistake thinking I’ll go anywhere with you, Kennedy,” Jake answered, forcing himself to concentrate in spite of Lloyd running up and grasping his leg. He wanted desperately to get the gag off the boy, get him out of the way. He saw the terror in Miranda’s eyes, worried about the stallion hurting Lloyd, but he noticed by an alert side-vision that someone had grabbed the horse and tied it to the fence rail. The animal was whinnying and jerking his head, trying to get loose. “If you want me dead, do it right here.”

“Why, hell, Jake, then we wouldn’t get the pleasure of having a little fun with you and the woman first.”

“Exactly. You’re going to kill her and my kid anyway, so why not get it over with? I’d rather they died right here on the spot than suffer what you’d do to them if you took us away with you.”

Kennedy’s smile faded. This was not working out quite like he had expected. In his desperate desire to show Jake up in front of these people for what he really was, and to corner him and make sure he didn’t get away again, he realized he had not taken enough time to plan this. He knew how fast Jake could be, had watched this man shoot it out with more men than this and live to tell about it. Still, every man he had was a good shot, except Clarence still needed some practice. And where in hell was Clarence? He couldn’t see him, but then he couldn’t take his eyes off Jake right now either.

“What’s it going to be, Kennedy?” Jake asked.

Miranda watched him, saw in his face the old Jake. He was on even ground now with men he used to ride with. This called for the old ways, and the look in his dark eyes would have frightened her if she didn’t know him better. The meanness was back, the aura of danger.

“I’ll tell you what, Kennedy,” Jake was saying. “You go ahead and shoot me and my son. But I guarantee something. I guarantee that today you’re going to die too! No matter what else happens, before I go down, you’ll be dead, and I’ll shoot my wife myself if I have to, to keep your men from getting her. Make your choice, Kennedy! Back off and get the hell out of here right now, or die, because I’m not going anyplace with you, and neither is my wife!”

The few people left backed farther away, and Miranda’s heart beat so hard her chest ached. Lloyd! There he stood, hanging on to his father’s leg and sobbing, his little lips stretched tight from the cruel gag.

“What do we do, patrón?” Juan asked.

“Shut up!” Kennedy barked.

“I say I slit the woman’s throat right now!”

“I said shut up!”

“Don’t listen to him, Bill,” Jeb spoke up. “He knows he’s a dead man.”

Jake noticed the man’s left arm hung limply at his side. He took note of it, realizing Jeb could shoot only with one hand. He recognized Joe Stowers and Jeb Donner, but not the other two men who stood to his left and his right. He kept them in his side vision, counting. Six. Kennedy, Juan, Jeb, his front tooth still missing, Joe Stowers, and the two new men. Was that all?

Clarence watched from a barn behind Kennedy. He had never forgotten Jake’s gun in his mouth. He wanted to be in on this, but only if and when Jake went down or was taken away by Kennedy. Then he could strut in front of Jake and get back at him for the way he had humiliated him back in Virginia City; he could help torture the man and he could finally have a turn at the woman who had spurned him. He had never gotten used to these shoot-outs, was still nervous about such things after their narrow escape from the Wells Fargo men. He would stay near the barn until most of the shooting was over.

The young man’s eyes widened then when the black stallion suddenly broke loose and reared, running between Jake and where Kennedy and Juan stood with Miranda. After that everything happened so fast he could hardly believe what he was seeing. With the speed of lightning, Jake ducked down, his gun drawn and fire spitting from its barrel. More people screamed and ran, and in spite of his wife being used as a shield by Juan, Jake’s first bullet hit the man square in the forehead, knocking him backward.