Jake quickly wiped at tears, hating to have his son see him this way, needing a bath and a shave, locked up in this hellhole. Would he also have to watch him hang, or be executed some other way? He didn’t mind dying, probably deserved it. He just wished that by dying he could erase all of his past and ensure a happy life for his wife and children.
“They might,” he answered. “But you have to learn to be your own man, Lloyd, to be proud of who you are. You have to be strong, to show them they’re wrong.”
Lloyd closed his eyes, a tear slipping down his cheek. “That night I shot that squatter, you told me you’d killed a few men, mostly in self-defense. How many is a few, Pa? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?”
Jake sighed deeply. “I honestly don’t know.”
Lloyd snickered bitterly and shook his head. “You don’t even know. And they weren’t all in self-defense, were they?”
“Some weren’t, but most were. Men knew I was good with guns. The kind of men I ran with, I was constantly being challenged. Somehow it all got out of hand. I was young, full of hate.”
For the first time, Jake saw that dark meanness in the boy’s eyes that made him look almost like the wanted poster of himself. “Well, that’s how I feel right now! I hate your father, I hate you for lying to me, I hate Lieutenant Gentry for turning you in, I hate Beth’s father for taking her away! I even hate God for letting all of this happen! Why did you even have us, Pa? Why did you let the evil seed of your father be spread any further?”
Jake felt as though the boy had rammed a knife into him. “Because I loved your mother, and she wanted babies. If she could have had more, I’d have let her have ten! She’s a good woman, full of love and forgiveness. Evie is just like her. With you, I can see that forgiveness is not something that’s going to come easy, but in a way I don’t need it, Lloyd. I’ve paid my dues. The things I did were the result of years of beatings from my own father, of being called a bastard and told I was worthless, to the point where I believed it. The man standing before you right now is not the man who committed all those crimes. He died the day I met your mother!”
“Did he? Maybe he lives on in me, Pa! Maybe there’s a side to me I don’t know anything about. Maybe I should put on those guns of yours and go out there and find out who the real Lloyd Harkner is! That’s my real name, isn’t it? Harkner! Lloyd Harkner, son of Jake Harkner, the outlaw!”
Jake’s reaction was instant. It was a quick reflex from a sudden need to stop his son from his foolish ideas. Lloyd was nothing like him! He must never go searching for that dark side! Not Lloyd! With the old force that controlled his reflexes before he could think, he slammed a fist into the boy, knocking him across the cell and against a cement wall. Lloyd slid to the floor, dazed, and Jake looked down at his fist as though it were a weapon that was not a part of his body.
“My God,” he groaned. He looked at Lloyd, saw himself at his father’s hands. “Lloyd.” His breath would not come. He gasped to find it, shook as he knelt to help Lloyd up. The boy shoved at him, turned away. A deep gash on his lip bled profusely as he stumbled to the cell door and yelled for a guard to let him out.
“Lloyd, wait!” Jake growled. “Anything I’ve done was to keep you from suffering, to love you the way I was never loved.”
Lloyd turned as the two deputies came back inside. He wiped at his bleeding lip, his face a livid red. “I’ve got a lot of thinking to do,” he answered, his voice shaking. He gasped in an effort not to cry. “For the first…time in my life…I’m afraid of my own father. I don’t know you, Pa. I guess I never did, did I? Well, maybe…you don’t know me either.”
One of the deputies opened the door. “What the hell is going on here? For Christ sake, Harkner, what kind of man are you, hitting your own son when he comes to visit you?”
“Just shows you the kind of man he really is,” the other deputy put in.
“Better keep an eye on the boy there,” Collier shouted from the other cell. “He’s a lot like his pa, mean and stubborn.”
Lloyd looked back at his father, tears on his face. Part of him wanted to go to the man and embrace him, tell him he loved him in spite of his past. He wanted to hug the father he had always known, but he couldn’t bear to touch the man Jake Harkner once was. He needed him, but he wanted to hurt him like he’d been hurt. The look in Jake’s eyes right now tore at his guts, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter any words of affection. He turned and left.