Outlaw Hearts(110)

Jake was screaming for Miranda to hit the ground as his next bullet hit Kennedy. It all happened in perhaps three seconds, and Clarence realized how good Jake had to be to risk shooting at Juan when he could easily have missed and shot his own wife. The rest of the men were firing back at Jake, who scrambled on the ground clinging to his son with one arm and keeping the boy under him for protection. He moved around, bent over, trying to use the frightened, pacing stallion as a shield. Several of the bullets from the other men’s guns hit the horse, and it crashed to the ground, whinnying and kicking wildly. Jake kept firing, even though it looked as though he’d been hit. Joe and Jeb cried out and fell, and Oran and Cliff started running. His shirt stained with blood, Jake rose, and Clarence noticed more blood near his hip. Jake raised his revolver and fired, hitting Oran in the back. He whirled, getting a shot off at Cliff, also in the back.

Six shots, six men. Clarence realized that meant Jake’s gun was empty. If he moved fast enough, this was his chance for fame—to be the man who killed Jake Harkner. He could collect three thousand dollars! He would never go up against him if Jake had a loaded gun, but now…

Miranda was screaming Jake’s name. “Stay there!” he ordered, not sure he’d gotten all of Kennedy’s men. He let go of Lloyd and scrambled to reload, got only one bullet in the gun’s chamber when he saw someone running toward the corral. He ducked over a violently sobbing Lloyd when a seventh man started firing at him. The first two bullets missed, the third grazed across his shoulder but did little damage. The man hesitated then, and Jake took advantage of the moment. He rose and fired. The man grunted, his body jumping slightly into the air before crashing backward into a watering trough with a splash.

Jake quickly reloaded again, waited, saw no one else who looked eager to challenge him. He looked down at Lloyd, while a dazed crowd gawked at the bloody sight around them. Two innocent bystanders were groaning with bullet wounds they had suffered from stray bullets. Jake reached for Lloyd to get the baby to his feet and take off his gag, but the boy screamed and fought him, afraid of the blood on his father, and of the smoking gun in Jake’s hand that had roared in his ears. He sensed his father’s fury, and he looked at him with terror in his eyes.

Devastated, Jake watched his son scramble over to his mother…his mother, her dress soaked in blood. Kennedy had destroyed all that was dear to him, and in spite of his bleeding wounds and the fiery pain in his right hip, he managed to stay on his feet and walk over to where Kennedy lay. He stared down at the man, heard him moan. So, he was still alive. He finished reloading his revolver.

Onlookers remained stunned, hardly able to believe what had just happened. Jake Logan, or Jake Harkner as the outlaws said he was called, had taken down six men without a miss, even though one of them held his wife as a shield, and even though Jake himself was wounded. He’d hardly had time to reload more than one bullet when he shot down the seventh man. Now that the gun battle was apparently over, they all remained rigid and staring, still trying to grasp all that had happened. They watched Jake point his gun at Kennedy’s head, and no one made a move to stop him.

“You’ll never do this to me and my family again,” he said gruffly. People gasped when Jake deliberately fired the gun.

Miranda jumped at the roar of yet another gunshot. “Jake, you can’t—” she protested.

Jake turned to her, panting and bleeding. “Never again,” he repeated. He limped to every man he had shot, and wherever he walked, people backed away. He looked down at the man who had fallen into the watering trough. He was wounded and struggling to get out. Jake recognized him as Clarence Gaylord.

“You little sonofabitch!” he snarled.

“Please! Let me go!” the young man begged.

“You did this, didn’t you? You knew Miranda. You pointed her out to Juan! You little bastard!”

“Please, wait—”

Jake jammed his revolver into the man’s mouth. “I told you what I’d do if you ever messed with me or my family again!” He fired, and blood poured into the trough water as Clarence’s body slumped.

“Oh, my God,” someone said softly.

Jake dipped the barrel of the gun into the water to swish off the blood, and the hot metal hissed. He turned and staggered back to Miranda and Lloyd, looking horribly tired and beaten, blood oozing from several wounds. He slipped the revolver back into its holster, and as he came closer to his wife and son, the dreadful look in his dark eyes turned to one of great sorrow. “Look at you,” he groaned, his eyes tearing. “Hurt and bleeding, my own son afraid of me. I did this.”