Outlaw Hearts(39)
That’s not why I saved your life, Jake Harkner, so you could go back to stealing from other people. He could just hear the words, and he knew that something had changed inside him since knowing Randy, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what felt different.
“Might as well eat an early breakfast, boy,” he told Outlaw. “We’re heading out, see if we can find that Mrs. Hayes and still help her get to Nevada. I just hope I don’t get recognized. Maybe it’s like Randy said. Maybe if I leave these guns off in town and stay cleaned up and shaved and smile like an ordinary happy man, I won’t get caught. It’s pretty bad when you have to shave off a beard to disguise yourself.”
Lord, he suddenly felt good inside, better than he had felt in a long time. It didn’t matter if Miranda didn’t need his help anymore. He knew somewhere deep inside that he wasn’t even doing this just to act as a guide or to repay her for helping him. He was doing it because he couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing Miranda Hayes again. Something felt unfinished, and he knew that whatever it was, it would stay unfinished if he didn’t find Randy.
***
Miranda followed the Reverend Wilbur Jennings to the docks on the banks of the Missouri River. The little gathering of travelers was made up of Jennings’s wife and children, two brothers, his father, a nephew, a brother-in-law, and a friend, all headed for Miranda’s own destination—Virginia City, Nevada.
Upon arriving in Independence, Miranda had been directed to a local Presbyterian church, where “good, Christian people” gathered who wanted to travel together to points west. The minister there, a Reverend Harold Bishop, had told Miranda about his fellow Presbyterian minister, Wilbur Jennings, from Missouri, who was headed with his family to the “wild silver town” of Virginia City to “bring Christ to its wayward, sinful citizens.”
“The town is growing,” Reverend Bishop had told her. “We have received letters from a former church member who went there to preach the word, and he tells us there is a great need there for missionaries and the like, people who can build a church and bring some order and civilization to what he calls ‘Hell on Earth.’ The Reverend Jennings has volunteered to take his entire family there and see what he can do about the sin and corruption that abound there.”
What better kind of people to travel with than dedicated Christians led by a minister, Miranda thought. Reverend Bishop agreed with her before she could voice the words. “Not many heading for Nevada these days but prospectors and drifters,” the reverend had warned her, “single men looking for gold or silver or the profits to be made from miners needing supplies or a night of drinking and women. And the only women heading there are the kind with whom a decent woman should never be seen, painted women who welcome single men into their dens of iniquity.”
Bishop had invited Miranda to meet the Reverend Jennings and his family at a church potluck being held just two days after she’d arrived in Independence via a short train ride from Kansas City. Church members had found various ways to raise money to sponsor the trip, and Miranda was welcome to go along so that Reverend Jennings’s wife would have a woman companion. They were also pleased that Miranda had a background in medicine that could be of help to them on the way, as well as in Virginia City.
The fact that Miranda had bravely shot the notorious outlaw Jake Harkner made her even more welcome. The citizens of Kansas City had made an embarrassing fuss over that fact once more before she left, throwing her a huge farewell party and saying she would be one of their most famous citizens. “You’ll go down in the history books,” one man told her, “especially once Harkner’s body is found.” Again a feeling of traitorousness had plagued Miranda as she accepted everyone’s best wishes, gifts of quilts and food for her journey, and even money that had been collected for her.
The news about the shooting had traveled to the Independence newspapers, and someone at the church where she had been directed recognized her name. Again she became a celebrity, and the Reverend Bishop had given a sermon about how sometimes God’s children are forced into violence. “Perhaps it was God’s hand that directed Mrs. Hayes that day, ridding Kansas and Missouri of a man who was a plague to society.”
Miranda’s heart only ached at the very words Jake would probably use on himself, words she felt now were so unfair. What did these people know about how or why a man turned out the way he did? A few weeks ago she would have been as quick to judge as they were, but no longer. Her only secret redemption was the fact that she had been able to help the very man whose possible death these people were celebrating.