Peterson shrugged. “I just told him I’d seen his son at Brown’s Park, told him he was good with guns now, shot two men in a gunfight. He went crazy.”
“What a damn mess,” the warden growled. “Hell, everybody knows he asks about that son of his all the time.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Damn. His wife is due to visit him tomorrow. What’s she going to think when she sees him like this? That woman can be a real she-cat when it comes to how we treat her husband.”
“We’d better get him to the hospital ward. He’s been burning up with fever as it is,” one of the guards told him.
“Why wasn’t I told?”
The man shrugged. “Men get sick all the time. You know that, Warden.”
The warden stepped closer, glowering at the guard. “Yeah? Well, they aren’t all Jake Harkner either. They don’t have the public asking about them all the time, or a watchdog of a wife coming to see them.” He sighed, looking down at Jake’s battered face. “Get him to the hospital ward and see what you can do with him. Find that doctor we use, and I’ll try to find some excuse to keep his wife from seeing him tomorrow.”
Four men moved to pick up Jake and they carried him out.
“Clean up this mess!” the warden barked to those remaining. He turned to follow the others. “I’ll have one hell of a time keeping this from his wife.”
Thirty
Miranda ignored the cold mountain wind that chilled her to the bone. It seemed that winter just did not want to let go this year, and the weather over the last couple of warm spring days had turned again to a damp cold, with a mixture of sleet and snow spitting through the air. For the moment she was too angry and worried to care that she was standing in the ugly weather while Brian and Evie waited in Brian’s enclosed buggy at the prison gate.
“I want the truth,” she demanded of the guard at the gate. “Why can’t I see my husband? I’ve never been refused before!”
“Ma’am, it’s the warden’s orders, that’s all.”
Miranda saw the look of nervousness and guilt in the guard’s eyes. She stepped closer, her eyes on fire. “Well, you go back and tell the warden that I am going to stand right here until I’m allowed inside! I don’t care if it takes all night or if I die from the exposure! And you tell him that if I’m not allowed in by morning, I will phone or wire or write every damn newspaper in every major city in this country, as well as the judge for Jake’s case and Congress and anybody else who will listen! I’ll tell them all kinds of stories about this place, some true and some not true; but by God, your warden will get more attention than he’ll ever want! Something has happened to my husband that he doesn’t want me to know about, so you just tell him that if he’ll let me see him, I’ll keep quiet! If he doesn’t, he’ll be out of a job! I’ll make sure of it! I have already been writing letters to Washington about prison reform, mister, and Wyoming is going to become a state soon. When it does, I’ll be among the first to see about better treatment for prisoners at this facility! You tell your warden he can save himself a lot of headaches if he lets me see my husband right now!”
The man scowled at her, then turned and left.
“Mother, what’s wrong?” Evie shouted.
Miranda walked back to the carriage. “I don’t know yet. Something has happened to Jake. They won’t let me see him, but I’m not leaving until they do! You two wait here. I’m staying right at that gate!”
Miranda stormed back to the gate and Brian shook his head. “She’s something, isn’t she? It’s not good for her to be out in that cold, you know.”
Evie smiled. “She’d walk through fire to see my father. I guess it’s her love for him that helped me forgive his past. If she could love him that much, marry him in spite of his past, I guess as his blood child, I certainly had no reason not to love and forgive him. He was always good to me and Lloyd, Brian. I just don’t understand how Lloyd could stay away. It’s killing Father.”
“Feelings are different sometimes between men than women. I think a boy expects more of his father than a girl. There’s a special bond between a father and a son. From what you tell me, your father and Lloyd were pretty close. Lloyd must have felt betrayed when he heard the truth, maybe thinks he’s no good now because his father and grandfather were no good.”
“But Father is good. He was always good to Lloyd. I think Lloyd is angrier over losing Beth because of all this than anything else.” Evie watched the guard return and begin unlocking the gate. She smiled. “I don’t know what Mother told him, but they’re letting her in.” A few more words were exchanged between Miranda and the guard, and then Miranda turned and walked back to the buggy, a kind of terror showing in her eyes.