Lloyd glared at Cole as he jerked away from the men who held him. He grasped his middle and turned away. “Where’s my father?” he groaned.
“I did every goddamn thing I could do, Lloyd. You gotta know that! It came down to a choice of me and him both dyin’ and a Mexican don getting his hands on Annie…which would have defeated the entire purpose of Jake riskin’ his life like that. Jake even gave me his guns to keep for Little Jake. I tried my best to save him, but I couldn’t! Do you understand? I couldn’t! If I could go back there and trade my life for your father’s, I would, because my life ain’t worth a shit. I’d die for any member of this family, and you goddamn well know it. You know there wasn’t one damn thing I could do, or I would have done it!”
Lloyd stumbled away from them, then went to his knees. Pa! He heard his mother then, screaming for him. “Oh, my God,” he moaned. After a moment, he managed to get to his feet and turned to see the men standing in a group, surrounding Cole as though they feared Lloyd would charge into him again. Blood streamed from a cut on Cole’s cheek, mixed with silent tears that came from Cole’s eyes. Cole, a man seemingly immune to softer feelings—a crusty cowboy as tough as nails, crying. Cole, a hardened ex-outlaw, much like Jake…the kind of man Jake would be if not for—
“Lloyd, where is Jake?”
Randy screamed the words as she headed up the hill. Lloyd hurried down to intercept her. A moment later, she screamed Jake’s name loud enough for everyone around the homestead to hear.
“No! No! It’s not true!”
Lloyd had to keep an arm around her to keep her from collapsing as he helped her back to the house.
Evie came running, then folded to her knees. Katie came out of her and Lloyd’s house and ran to Lloyd. He put his other arm around his wife and herded her and his mother inside. Peter came out to help with Randy, and Brian ran to Evie, helping her up. She turned and collapsed against her husband, weeping.
Cole looked away and walked to his horse . He studied the vast expanse of the J&L spread out in all its glory beyond the hillside. “This place ain’t never gonna be the same,” he told the other men. “Not ever.”
“What happened down there in Mexico, Cole?” Terrel asked.
It took Cole a moment to answer. “I think he just gave up.” Cole swallowed and sniffed. “Jake Harkner has been fightin’ his own demons his whole life, and he finally stopped tryin’. That’s the only way I see it.”
A couple of the other men turned away with tears in their eyes.
Terrel spoke up. “This will kill his wife. She won’t survive this. Last winter was bad enough, but she only got through that because of Jake. She ain’t gonna get through this.”
Fifty-one
After everything had calmed down some, Lloyd had someone get Cole and bring him to the house. The whole family sat in stunned silence as Cole explained exactly what happened, fighting his tears as he did so.
“Poor little Annie is so devastated. She can’t get over what he did for her. He was so nice to me, she kept sayin’. He spent the whole night with me, and all he did was put his arm around me and tell me not to be scared. She feels horrible about having to leave him behind.”
Brian spoke up. “Then we need to have her come out here to the J&L. She needs to know none of this is her fault, and I think the family will feel better if they can meet her.”
Cole nodded. “She’s a beautiful, beautiful girl. Incredibly innocent for what she went through.” He glanced at Randy. “She said as how Jake said how much he loved his wife. She couldn’t get over the fact that he paid three thousand dollars for a night with her and then sat there and talked about his wife and grandchildren.”
That brought a few smiles, a welcome break from the heartache they were suffering.
“Gretta’s in a bad way too,” Cole told them. “She’s just flat-out destroyed. She said she’s closin’ up her place and turnin’ it into a legitimate roomin’ house, but right now I’m worried about her state of mind. She’s so happy Annie is back. She just wants her daughter to have a normal life and fall in love and marry like a natural woman ought to do, but she’s sick about Jake. She’s so damn sorry to all of you, and she feels so guilty. I promised her nobody would blame her, but she’s a mess.”
“Then you need to go back to Denver, Cole,” Evie told him. “We’ll give you a letter to take to her.”
Cole sighed, nodding toward the cloth bag he’d laid on the table. “There’s Jake’s guns,” he told them. “He half threw them at me and said as how he’d promised them to Little Jake. I think he just didn’t want them men who was after him to get hold of them, ’cuz they’re famous and all. He wanted them to stay in the family.”