Why did the look on his father’s face that day still make him feel like crying? He didn’t want to feel sorry for him. He didn’t want to care. It seemed he was constantly fighting that side of himself that told him to go back, that tried to remind him of how things used to be between him and his father.
He headed south. What better place to prove his reputation as the son of Jake Harkner than along the Outlaw Trail? He liked whiskey too much to hold a decent job, and he wasn’t about to give up the liquor. Maybe the only way to earn a living now was by the gun, the way his father had once made his money. There were still some pretty lawless places in the West. He’d find them, and the men who ran them. They’d soon learn that the son of Jake Harkner was to be every bit as feared as the father.
He had no idea if Jake was still at Joliet, or where his mother and sister might be. He didn’t want to know. His mother and Evie wouldn’t like seeing him like this. He didn’t like hurting them too, but if that was the only way to hurt his father, then so be it.
He drew his horse to a halt as a wave of nostalgia hit him again. He remembered his fourteenth birthday, the way Beth watched him, giggling and whispering with Evie. He remembered the pretty cake his mother had baked for him that day. Most of all he remembered his father bringing him that rifle. He looked down at his gear. He still carried that gun.
Pa! a voice cried from within.
No, this wasn’t good. He wasn’t supposed to get these feelings. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a flask of whiskey, uncorking it and taking a long swallow. He liked the way it burned from his throat all the way to his aching gut. Most of all he liked the way it helped him get through the painful memories, made him reckless, made him feel like he didn’t give a damn.
He took one more swallow and put the flask away, then lit a cigarette and urged his horse into motion again. From what he’d been told, the Outlaw Trail ended somewhere up here in Montana near the old Bozeman Trail. He’d find it and head down into Wyoming, check out a place called Hole-in-the-Wall in the Wind River Mountains. It was time to start telling men who he really was and see how many wanted to try him out, see if he was as good as his father with the infamous Peacemakers he wore. If he got real lucky, somebody would come along who was faster, and that would be the end of him; he wouldn’t need whiskey anymore to end his pain. There wouldn’t be any pain; just the blissful peace of death.
***
April 1889
A biting mountain wind made Miranda shiver, and she had never felt more alone, never realized just how much she had depended on Jess’s friendship and quiet support. Now a preacher prayed over his fresh grave, and she could not control the tears. So much had been lost to her. She had still heard nothing from Lloyd, and the last time she visited Jake, he had tried to put on a good front for her, but he had a bad cough, and she was terrified of losing him the same way Jess had died.
It had been a long, slow, agonizing death. The man had wasted away, his last days spent in terrible pain, every breath a gasp for air. She had stayed right by his side, held his hand, and he had admitted how much he loved her. She had assured him she loved him too, that if not for Jake, she would have gladly embraced him fully into her life. He had seemed comforted by that, and had clung to her hand in those last agonizing hours.
It didn’t seem fair for a man to die like Jess had. And what if Jake died that way? He would suffer alone in that awful cell without her at his side. Evie wrapped her arms around her mother. Thank God for Evie and her husband. They were so good to her. They were after her to come and live with them, but she refused. Newlyweds should be alone. Besides, she was no shriveled old woman yet. She was only forty-three years old, still slender and strong, still plenty able to take care of herself. She had her work, enjoyed nursing others and birthing babies. She had remained living at the boardinghouse, and Evie had moved into the fine new frame home Brian had built for her.
Miranda did not doubt that before too many months she would be helping deliver her own grandchild. It was obvious Evie was ecstatically happy. She remembered the glow of that first time of becoming a woman. She had felt it with Mack, but that was such a vague memory now. She had experienced it again with Jake, remembered the wild abandon he brought out in her, the almost painful passion and aching need. If he could ever be free again…
Still, even if Jake were freed now, there would be so much healing to do, and there’d always be the pain of Lloyd’s absence that would keep them from being truly happy. Jake simply had to live long enough to be released. His deteriorating condition haunted her nights, and combined with the last two agonizing weeks sitting day and night with Jess, nursing him, bathing him, trying to make him eat, wishing she could help him breathe, she was exhausted.