Kennedy released her and backhanded her, knocking her to the floor. Mellie lay there a moment gathering her thoughts, putting a hand to her throat and trying to get her breath. She felt Kennedy bend over her then, stroking her hair. “Now don’t make me do anything worse. Where’s Jake?”
“I only know…he went to California,” she gasped, her voice husky from the injury to her throat. “Nobody knows…where in California…I swear it. You can…ask all over town…or up…at the Yellow Jacket. He worked there.”
“How long ago did he leave?”
“Six weeks, maybe.”
“By wagon?”
“Yes.”
“His wife with him?”
“Yes.” He didn’t ask about a baby, so she was not going to volunteer the information.
“What did Jake do when he was here? He have a job?”
“I told you, he…worked at the Yellow Jacket.” She sat up slightly, still rubbing at her throat. “He was…some kind of troubleshooter.”
Kennedy grinned. “So, he made himself a reputation with those guns, did he? I figured as much. I’ll bet there are other people in this town who know as much or more about him than you do. Men like Jake don’t go unnoticed for long.”
“Why don’t you…leave him alone? He’s…happily married…not doing you any harm.”
He grasped her hair and jerked her head back. “The harm’s already done! He stole a good piece from me, shot up a lot of my men doing it, including my stepbrother! He went against my orders. I was head of our gang. Nobody goes making decisions on his own!”
“Gang?”
“I guess out here folks don’t know much about names like Bill Kennedy and Juan Hidalgo and Jeb Donner. But by the time we’re finished out here, they’ll know our names well enough! There used to be another name connected with us—Harkner, Jake Harkner! Your happily married man used to ride right at my side until he turned traitor!”
Mellie eyed him maliciously. “Maybe he rode at your side, but I don’t believe…he was ever the stinking coward you are…beating up on a woman to get…information!”
He grabbed the front of her dress and ripped it away from her breasts. “Honey, I’ve done more than just beat up on a woman, and I don’t generally pay a slut like you to get what I can get for free!” He punched her hard in the side of the face, and Mellie felt a blackness closing in on her, felt her clothes being ripped away. She knew that if she fought him he would only hurt her more, maybe send the scarred one up here. She lay still and let him get it out of his system, wondering how it was that even someone like herself could feel sick and humiliated when she was forced. Whoever these men were, she prayed to God they never found Jake and poor Miranda.
***
Clarence watched the stranger emerge from Mellie’s room, wondered why Mellie herself didn’t come back down. He had not gotten the man’s name, but he was excited that he was asking about Jake. Anybody could tell that he was looking for vengeance, and the thought of bringing harm to that damn bitch Miranda Hayes Turner and the SOB she had married got his juices flowing. He moved out from behind the bar and walked over to the man, grabbing his arm.
“You looking for Jake Turner, mister?”
Kennedy’s steely blue eyes bored into the youngster. He studied the young man’s crooked nose and front teeth that were turning black. The kid might have been good-looking at one time, but he wasn’t anymore. “You heard me askin’.”
“He went to California, him and his wife and their kid.”
Kennedy’s eyes widened. “Kid! Jake’s got a kid?”
“Yes, sir, about two months old by now, a boy. Everybody in town knows, on account of Jake stopped a bank robbery not long after he got here and got a write-up in the Enterprise.”
Kennedy grinned. Jake had a kid! That would slow him up even more, and it would give them yet another way of torturing the man before they killed him. What the hell had gotten into him, marrying and having a kid! That sure didn’t sound like the Jake he had known, but then, Jake had been changing a little those last few months, talked sometimes about getting out of the life they led and maybe settling. He had just never believed Jake would really do it.
He glanced up at Mellie’s room, wanting to hit her again for not telling him about the baby. She’d pay for that one. He looked at the young man standing before him. “You know where in California he was headed?”
“No, sir. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to go along with you to find him. Something tells me you’ve got a big grudge to settle, and so do I.”