Outlaw Hearts(190)

“I’ll be damned,” the one called Peterson answered. “Ain’t that a coincidence? I get put in with Jake Harkner. Hell, man, you are famous! I read about your trial and all.” The man rubbed at the scratchy prison suit he’d been given to wear. “These things ever get any softer?”

“Never,” Jake answered, lying back down, shivering in spite of the sweat on his brow. “You’ll get used to it.”

Peterson looked around the small cell. “I don’t think so.”

Jake watched him a moment, always hating having to get used to some new man. Peterson was perhaps a little younger than he, not quite six feet tall, he guessed. He was freshly shaved, a requirement of every new prisoner, although once inside, the opportunity to bathe and shave came up only once a week. He looked like a man who had led a hard life. His face showed several scars from cuts, probably from fights, and two teeth were missing on the bottom. His dark hair was thinning, and he had the paunchy look of a man who drank too much and didn’t take very good care of himself.

“This is what I get for stealin’ a few horses,” he grumbled, standing at the bars and trying to see down the narrow hallway of cells. “I couldn’t help killin’ that damned rancher. The guy was shootin’ at me. What was I supposed to do?” He turned and faced Jake. “Hell, there was a time when a man could get away with murder out here. Not anymore. The West is gettin’ too damned civilized, you know it? Too damned civilized. I expect you feel that way too.” He rubbed at his chin. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Men on the old Outlaw Trail talk about you a lot.”

“I said I didn’t want to carry on a conversation right now.” Damn the pain in his chest. God, it hurt just to breathe.

Peterson shrugged. “Fine with me.” He sat down on the one stool in the cell. “I guess that means you don’t want to hear about your son.”

The mention of Lloyd made Jake sit up so suddenly that he hit his head on the frame of the top bunk. He winced and put a hand to his head, glaring then at Peterson, forgetting about his cough, his fever and chills, the pain in his chest. “My son? You’ve heard of him? Seen him?”

Peterson grinned. “I figured as much. The kid ain’t been to see you, has he? How long you been in here?”

“Four years.” Jake rose, walking over to stand at the cell door, grasping one of the bars. The cough overcame him again, and it took him several seconds to find his breath again. “What about Lloyd? What do you know?”

Peterson frowned at the sudden desperate look in Jake’s eyes. He shook his head. “The kid ought to come see his pa. He’s carryin’ a big grudge, ain’t he? That’s too bad. You don’t look too good, Harkner. You got TB or somethin’? The boy ought to know you’ve got that cough.”

Jake ran a hand through his damp hair. “I’ll be all right. Just tell me what you know about my son. Where is he? I’ll give you a month’s ration of cigarettes if you’ll tell me what you know.”

Peterson chuckled. “Hell, you don’t have to pay me to tell. Men like us, we have to stick together. Hell, I feel honored just bein’ in the same cell with you. How long you in for?”

“Four more years. You?”

“Ten. Ten fucking years.” The man let out a sigh and rose. “You want a smoke?” He walked over to his little sack of supplies and took out a cigarette.

“I’ll smoke my own. Right now my chest hurts too much.” Jake coughed again, wondering if he could get himself well enough to break out of this place and get to Lloyd. “What about my son?”

Peterson lit his cigarette and sucked on it for a moment. “I seen your boy at Brown’s Park, on the Outlaw Trail. The kid has taken to drinkin’ rotgut whiskey, pretty heavy.” He saw the pain in Jake’s eyes. “Maybe you don’t want to know it all, seein’ as how you’re cooped up in here and can’t do nothin’ about it.”

Jake turned away. “You can tell me.”

Peterson sighed. “Well, he’s carryin’ a big chip on his shoulder. Goes around spoutin’ to everybody about how his father is the notorious Jake Harkner, how he killed a lot of men, killed his own pa, robbed trains and banks. He wears your guns, shows them off to people, brags about how he’s just as good with them as you were.”

Jake felt the nausea growing in his stomach. Lloyd was doing the very thing he had dreaded most, doing it just to hurt him, he was sure. “Is he as good?”

“Well, I ain’t never seen you in action, so I can’t compare. I will say, the boy’s good. He killed two men who tried to prove otherwise. He’s ridin’ with cattle rustlers now.”