The doctor straightened. “The baby came a little early. It’s a boy. I think he’ll be all right, and your wife should be too, now that we’ve stopped the bleeding. She had a bad time of it. For a while, there, I was afraid she would bleed to death, but it’s stopped now. She’ll be pretty weak for a while.”
“You sure? You’d better be a real doctor like you said! You’d better know what you’re doing! If she dies…”
“Jake,” Mrs. Anderson interrupted. “Don’t talk to him that way. He did the best he could. These things happen.”
Jake glared at the doctor, who had paled from the threat. The man stood there wide-eyed and practically shaking, and Jake realized the reputation he had developed after foiling the bank robbery and making a living with his guns since then. He realized he had behaved for a moment like the old Jake, his fear of losing Randy outweighing all reason. He removed his hat and hung it over the bedpost. “I’m sorry,” he told the doctor.
“You should take those guns off, Jake,” Mrs. Anderson told him. “You’re in the presence of your new son, and you know I don’t like them worn in the house anyway.” Jake began unbuckling the guns, wondering how it was some women had a way of ordering around men who could probably kill them with one swipe of the hand. They had grown close to Mrs. Anderson, who sometimes seemed more like a mother to them—at least that was what Miranda had said. Jake felt it but wouldn’t admit it. He slung the guns over a nearby chair and returned to bend close to Miranda. “Randy? Can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes and managed a weak smile. “You have…a son,” she whispered.
No. He couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t really have a son of his own. It was all so unreal. Maybe if he didn’t look at the kid, this would all just go away. “You hang on, Randy. Don’t you dare leave me with a kid to raise on my own. You know I can’t do it.”
She smiled more. “Yes, you…can.”
He put his hands to either side of her face and bent down to kiss her forehead. “You listen to me. I love you like I never thought I could love another human being.” He felt a lump rising in his throat, a desperate fear at the thought that he could lose her. “I need you, Randy, and you know all the reasons why. Don’t you go and die on me, you hear? If I lose you, I’ll go right back to that old life. You don’t want me to do that, do you?”
“You talk…big,” she whispered. “Don’t…mean it… Got to take care of…our little son.”
He brushed her cheek with his own, tears forming in his eyes. “Damn it, Randy, don’t you leave me,” he said, his voice raspy. “Don’t you dare leave me! I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I was going to come down tomorrow to stay. I should have been here, should have been with you through all of this.”
“It’s…okay. Get the baby, Jake. I want…to see you…holding your son. Please, Jake.”
“Come and see your son, Jake.” Mrs. Anderson touched his arm.
Jake straightened, looking over at the cradle he had asked a local carpenter to build for the baby. He had brought it home two weeks ago, finding it difficult to picture a child of his own lying in it. Why did he dread this? What if he really did love the child? What if he found out his son meant more to him than his own life, more even than Randy? That meant he couldn’t bear for anything to ever hurt the child, especially not his past.
The sins of the father are visited upon the son. He remembered hearing a street preacher shout that to a crowd once back in Missouri, recalled how he had applied those words to his own father, figuring it must be true. Look how he had turned out, just as mean and unfeeling and murderous as his father. To think his own past could somehow scar his son…
Mrs. Anderson was lifting the child from its cradle. She handed him out to Jake, smiling. “He won’t break. Just let him rest in the crook of your arm, Jake.” The woman wondered if this man had ever held a baby in his life. Lawman or not, this Jake Turner had surely led a wild, violent life. It was written in his eyes, and in the scar on his neck. She and the others who lived at the boardinghouse had talked about Jake and Miranda a few times when the couple was not present, trying to figure how they had ended up together. The big, dark, dangerous-looking Jake Turner simply did not seem to fit with the tiny, pretty, quiet woman he had married, yet they seemed very much in love.
Jake took the baby into his arms. Mrs. Anderson signaled the doctor that they should leave the couple alone for a few minutes, and she and the doctor left. Jake just stood there staring down at the red-faced, dark-haired infant that looked back at him with big, nearly black eyes. So, he thought, the kid even looks like me. Was this real? God, what if he hurt him? His legs actually felt weak, and he walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Never had he had such a feeling. It was all he had dreaded. He had a perfect, beautiful son, and already he knew he would die for the kid. He didn’t want to feel this way. It just wasn’t a feeling he was used to. A father! This kid was going to call him Pa, was going to look up to him for guidance. Who the hell was he to give direction to another human being when his own life was such a mess? Who was he to teach a child about tolerance and living right?