Outlaw Hearts(228)

“Stay back like I told you,” he told his wife. “Go around behind that wagon.” He nodded to a freight wagon parked just a few feet away.

Rather reluctantly, Miranda walked closer to the wagon, still holding Jake’s shotgun. Jeff scooted a bit closer to her as Jake walked back to the men he’d brought in. The young man on the boardwalk let out a blistering tirade of threats and insults as Jake untied the dead body and yanked it from the horse, letting the body fall to the street. It landed stiff and still bent.

“Somebody take care of this one,” he ordered. “Take him over to the undertaker.”

“Murderer! That’s what you are, Harkner! A murderer with a badge!” Brad continued screaming. “Everybody knows you’re nothing more than an outlaw with permission to kill!”

Jake walked back to the other three men, Guthrie’s Sheriff Sparks walking with him, holding his shotgun ready as Jake untied each man and jerked him off his horse, in spite of their injuries. He seemed to be ignoring the young man on the boardwalk, but Jeff suspected he was very much aware.

“Someone go get my son-in-law to take a look at these men,” Jake spoke up. A young boy ran off.

Son-in-law is a doctor here in Guthrie, Jeff wrote. That was something else he already knew. It was so hard to imagine Jake Harkner had a lovely daughter who was married to a doctor. They had a son named after Jake, or so Jeff had been told. Jake’s own son, Lloyd, also had fathered a little boy.

A grandfather. Jake Harkner is a grandfather. I can’t seem to put the two together—the grandfather and the mean-looking cuss I am watching right now.

Brad continued to harass Jake. “Harkner, you can’t throw my pa down like so much garbage! I’ll kill you for that!”

The crowd quieted. People backed even farther away. Jeff glanced at Miranda Harkner and saw the worry in her eyes. How many times had she been through something like this?

“You want me to arrest that smart-ass kid, Jake?” Sheriff Sparks asked him.

Harkner watched Brad a moment. “No. Just get those three prisoners into the jail. Brian will be here soon to take a look at their injuries.”

Sparks sighed. “If you say so.”

“Juan, come take these horses over to Tobe’s,” the marshal ordered, and the old man eagerly obeyed. He led all five horses away, and Sheriff Sparks herded the three prisoners into the jailhouse, nudging them with his shotgun. Jeff’s heart pounded with anticipation as Harkner, still carrying a repeating rifle, walked closer to the angry young man on the boardwalk.

“Your pa robbed a bank and killed two men,” he announced loudly enough for all to hear. “Then he took refuge with some innocent ranchers, and he and his men defiled their fifteen-year-old daughter. Did you expect me to feel sorry for him? I threw your father down like a piece of garbage because that’s what he is.”

Brad’s eyes spit fire. “Anything my pa did ain’t no different from things you’ve done yourself,” the young man sneered, “including defilin’ women. Somebody should have shot you dead a long time ago, Harkner, and I aim to do it today!”

People mumbled.

“Sweet Jesus,” a man near Jeff muttered. “You stupid ass. You lookin’ to die?”

Jeff shot the man a glance and happened to spot a very nice-looking young man with a doctor’s bag standing near the marshal’s wife. He put an arm around her. The son-in-law. Harkner’s wife didn’t take her eyes off of her husband for one second as he stepped even closer to the much younger and very stocky man who had challenged him.

“Your father already tried shooting it out with me,” the marshal told his accuser. “You can see how that turned out.”

The two men behind Brad backed away.

“You’d better back off, Brad,” one of them told his friend.

“Your friends are talking sense,” Harkner told him. “Fact is, I’d suggest all three of you lift your guns and drop them. Sheriff Sparks can hold them for you until you cool off.”

One of them obeyed. “I don’t want no part of this,” he muttered as he unbuckled his gun belt and let it drop. He hurried around behind Brad and jumped off the boardwalk.

Jeff watched, spellbound. He’d never expected to see Jake Harkner in action today.

“I’m really not in the mood for this, Brad,” Harkner told the young man. He threw down his cigarette and stepped it out. “You’re young, and you don’t want to die yet—and I don’t want to be the one responsible—so why don’t you hand over that gun and go home?”

“You don’t scare me, Harkner.”