Cole nodded. “I understand, but I’m used to havin’ your back, Jake. And huntin’ down Wayland could land you in a Mexican prison, which I hear is worse than death.”
“You just go home and protect Lloyd’s back. I’ll feel better knowing men like you and Terrel and Vance are at the ranch, looking out for my family. As far as I know, my past is done catching up with me, Cole. Maybe my family can have some peace from now on.” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “And after today, maybe I can have some peace too. There’s one more thing left for me to do to get rid of my past.” He turned Outlaw and headed away from the train depot.
Forty-two
Jake was a bit overwhelmed by how much Brownsville had grown. When he’d fled this area at fifteen, the city had been an infant, barely two years officially a town. Before that, it was nothing more than a dusty, lawless, unorganized hodgepodge of farmers, ranchers, outlaws, saloons, and whorehouses, as well as an almost evenly mixed population of whites and Mexicans. He had a vague memory of his father being good-looking, tall and strong…brutally strong. And his personality when drunk had made him an ugly, ugly man. Someone had once said his own toughness came from his father’s beatings…and maybe it did.
He searched the business signs, riding up and down every street until he found what he was looking for…a mortuary. It was set back off the road, several headstones of various shapes in front. He trotted Outlaw up to a hitching post at the front door and dismounted, aware that a couple of women outside, looking at headstones, now stared at him instead. He tipped his hat to them. “Ladies.”
They looked him over, appearing wary of the guns he wore, yet curious. The younger one smiled at him. Jake smiled back and went inside, surprised at how calm he felt. Maybe it was knowing that, if he was lucky, he could finally do something to honor his mother. Or maybe his brain was fooling him. At times like this, he didn’t trust his own emotions.
Inside, he found a tall, bony man dressing out a corpse. He looked up at Jake and nodded, stepping aside. “Doesn’t he look nice?” he asked, indicating the dead man. He smiled through yellowing teeth, and the black-silk suit he wore appeared to have seen better days. “I think the blue suit is best on Mister Clay, don’t you?” the man asked Jake. “Are you a relative?”
“I’m a possible customer,” Jake told him. “I want a headstone made. I just don’t know where it will go yet.” He took a piece of paper from a shirt pocket and handed it to the mortician. “That’s what goes on the headstone.” He lit another cigarette as the man read the note, frowning.
“‘Evita Ramona Consuella de Jimenez,’” he read. “And”—he squinted—“‘Thomas.’” He looked up at Jake. “Just Thomas?”
“I don’t remember his middle name,” Jake answered. “He was my…” There it came. The rage! He had to keep it at bay! He wished Randy were with him. She could always calm him in moments like this. “…my little brother. The woman was my mother.”
“Thomas doesn’t have a last name?”
Harkner. It was my mother’s last name too. “I don’t want the last name shown. It would memorialize my father, and I don’t want to honor the sonofabitch in any way! Just put ‘Beloved Mother and Brother’ after the names and don’t ask questions.”
The mortician scrutinized him, noticing the guns, the size of the man. “I’m Orlando Bruce, and I own this place. And you don’t look like any ordinary man. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Jake Harkner, and I have to get across the border tomorrow, so I need this settled today. How much will the stone cost?”
“Jake Harkner?” The man stepped back a little. “The outlaw? The gunfighter?”
“Once upon a time, mister. I’m just a rancher now. Promise me that stone will get engraved and properly set. My problem is to decide where.”
“Sure, but Mister Harkner, I’m considered the official historian for Brownsville, and you’re a part of the history down here. Nobody ever thought you’d come back, and you never did. Then some of us saw that book about you and learned the truth. I mean, for a while you were wanted for murder, you know. Over your father’s murder, and the young girl he was found with.”
Jake turned away. My God, Randy, I need you. He hadn’t expected this…hadn’t expected to run into someone who knew so much about it. “I figured that story faded years and years ago,” he said, struggling to find his voice. Fifty-four years since I helped bury my brutally beaten mother and brother! How could it possibly suddenly be so clear in my mind? How could it feel like it had been only a few days ago? It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. He’d had it all figured out. It would be easy. He’d just find where his mother and brother were buried and put a headstone there and feel better about it all.