Outlaw Hearts(226)

The man wore the signature duster of a U.S. marshal. The spring morning was heating up, and as he rode in, he removed the coat, reaching around to lay it over his horse’s rump. Now Jeff could see his weapons—the Colt .44 revolvers holstered on each hip, a Colt Lightning magazine rifle and a sawed-off ten-gauge shotgun resting in loops on either side of his saddle. An extra cartridge belt hung across the man’s chest, and a third handgun rested in a holster behind the marshal’s back.

Jeff knew what kind of guns Harkner wore because he’d already spoken to Guthrie’s local sheriff, Herbert “Sparky” Sparks, and had interviewed several others in town. He’d arrived two days earlier to discover the marshal was not back yet from his latest manhunt. During his wait, he took advantage of various citizens’ eagerness to share stories about the man. Aware that people tend to exaggerate such things, Jeff was not about to rely on hearsay. He wanted only facts, which was why he needed to hear the story straight from the marshal himself. Countless men had gone down under his guns, including—most shocking of all—Jake’s own father.

Jeff desperately wanted to know why. He intended to get to know the man some had nicknamed the Handsome Outlaw, but it wasn’t going to be easy. He needed to talk to Harkner’s family too, but had so far stayed away. The fact that Harkner even had a family was amazing, considering the things Jeff knew about him. How did a man so notorious end up having anyone?

What he observed now only confirmed that his quest for a story had been worth the trip. Harkner was back from No Man’s Land—a place most men feared to tread. Those prisoners still alive were in a bad way. All rode with hands tied to saddle horns with rope that was then looped up under their horses and tied to their ankles under the horse’s belly. One had a bloody bandage around his forehead, with dried blood on the side of his face. Another wore an eye patch and looked ready to fall off his horse. The third prisoner just hung his head but occasionally gave Harkner a dark look of hatred. The left sleeve of his shirt showed a huge bloodstain. All were filthy—hair matted, faces showing several-day-old beards as well as cuts and bruises. Had Jake Harkner put those there?

Jake’s son, Lloyd, a deputy U.S. marshal, was nowhere to be seen, and Jeff wondered why. He’d been told that Lloyd had ridden out with Jake to track down these criminals.

“Lloyd okay, Jake?” someone from the crowd called. Apparently Jeff wasn’t the only one wondering. “Where is he?”

“He’s fine,” Harkner answered. “He stopped off at the Donavan place.”

Jeff took more notes and wrote a brief description of Jake’s clothing—denim pants, dusty boots, black bib shirt, black wide-brimmed hat from which his nearly black and slightly wavy hair hung just past his shoulders. From what Jeff could tell, there was just a touch of gray in it despite the man’s age. He wore a brown leather vest with a six-point marshal’s badge on it…and those threatening guns. Jake Harkner was still a very handsome man, but hard lines about his dark eyes spoke of a man who’d led a very rough life. Everything about him spelled toughness—a man with not a soft spot on him. He kept a cigarette between his lips now as he answered more questions. The scene reminded Jeff of the pied piper, as the crowd following Harkner kept growing. Suddenly, a stocky young man exited a saloon not far from the jailhouse and called out, “Jake, you bastard! I don’t see my pa! Is he the dead one? Is that my pa’s body draped over that horse?”

Jake didn’t even look at the young man. “It is,” he answered casually.

“You murdering sonofabitch!” the young man screamed. “I should kill you!”

It looked to Jeff as though the young man meant exactly what he said. Harkner continued to ignore him as he stopped in front of the jail.

“How’d you do it, Jake?” the young man screamed. “Did you put your gun in his mouth and blow his fucking brains out? Ain’t that the way you usually kill a man?”

“Mind your business, Brad!” someone in the street yelled. “Your pa was no good, and you know it!”

Two more young men came out of the saloon and flanked the one called Brad. All three just stood watching for the moment, but the air was tense and people backed away. Jeff suddenly felt too hot in his neatly tailored suit, and he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, wondering if bullets were about to fly.

Then…there she was. He’d never met her, but the woman hurrying down the street from the other end of town had to be Miranda Harkner. She’d apparently heard her husband’s whistle. The look of both relief and concern in her eyes said it all: even after many years together, the woman was still very much in love with Jake Harkner.