Outlaw Hearts(211)
Hank Downing mounted his horse, and Charlie stood at the door to the whorehouse, chuckling. “Now I know why you married her,” he told Jake with a wink. “You finally come across somebody you couldn’t whip. Takes a strong woman to handle the likes of you. I reckon you found one.” He laughed again, going inside.
Jake turned to Miranda, edging his horse closer. “I reckon I did,” he mimicked Charlie. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out his mother’s cross and rosary beads. He put them into Miranda’s hand. “Keep these for me. Your prayers seem to have a lot of power, woman. Let’s hope they’re more powerful than Jube Latimer and my guns put together.”
***
They stopped near the waterfall under which Charlie claimed Miranda could hide. The Bighorn River rushed past them as everyone dismounted and Charlie knelt to the sand along the bank of the river and began drawing a layout of Latimer’s ranch.
“We’re here, to the southwest,” he explained. “The ranch is just on the other side of them bluffs we come past. The bluffs is what hid us. Now we’re close to a couple of isolated buttes that form the south entrance to the ranch. They ain’t very high, but big enough to shelter the entrance. There’s always a man up top of each one keepin’ watch. We’re still safe along the river here where there’s so much overgrowth.” He pointed to a flat-topped butte just to the north of them. “That’s the last barrier that’s keepin’ them from seein’ us. I’m gonna move across the river, get your wife and her horse hid under that there waterfall. There’s plenty of room underneath. She’ll be safe there.”
He looked at Miranda. “If nobody comes for you by nightfall, you head back come mornin’. The river will take you right back to Hole-in-the-Wall. You go to Ella’s place. They ain’t your kind of women, but Ella will see that you find somebody you can trust to take you back to Laramie. Nobody around Hole-in-the-Wall will give you trouble on account of you’re Jake’s woman.”
Miranda tried to control the sick feeling the man’s words had brought to her stomach. If nobody comes for you by nightfall…
“Do exactly what he says,” Jake told her. “And don’t you move from under that waterfall.”
Their eyes held for a moment before he looked back at Charlie’s drawing, and Miranda knew there would not even be a chance for a last good-bye, one more embrace.
“I’ll head up the west butte the back way,” Charlie was saying. “I think I can get to the guard there from behind. I’ll knife him if I can, keep things quiet a little longer to give you time to position yourself to shoot down the man at the top of the east butte. Once you’ve killed your man, Hank can ride around the east side of the butte where you’ll be and come in on the east side of the ranch. There’s trees and fencing there to hide behind, and there’s bound to be a couple of men out in this area where they keep stolen horses. Hank will take care of them, if he can keep himself from gettin’ shot. From then on it’s every man for himself. Jake, you can ride straight in. Hank will be to your right, I’ll be to your left comin’ in on the west side here. I’ll head for the bunkhouse. It’s right here.”
The man drew a square at the northwest corner of the ranch. “To the right of that is a barn, and then a shed. There’s liable to be men in every building and in the main house, which is right here in the center. We’ll just have to take down whatever comes at us. Our only advantage is surprise, and your accuracy with them guns, Jake. Ordinarily I’d say we should just ride in there and demand Latimer hand over your son, but he don’t behave like other men. We’d just end up with ourselves surrounded, and he’d have the pleasure of sayin’ he killed both the Harkners. He thinks he’s a big man. Fact is, I have a feelin’ he didn’t go after Lloyd just because the boy shot a couple of his men. He’s probably figurin’ like some of the rest of us, that you’d come after the kid once you was freed. He’d like to have your head mounted on his wall so’s he can say he was the one to shoot Jake Harkner, even though he don’t even know you. It’s the name that counts.” The man rose, looking from Jake to Hank. “You two ready?”
“You bet,” Jake answered. He drew his shotgun and rifle from his horse and handed the shotgun to Miranda. “You use that if you have to, and remember what I said about not hesitating. These men will kill anything, including women and kids, so don’t feel sorry for them. Just remember they’ve hurt our son.”