The Last Outlaw(138)

Little Jake got up from his chair and stormed over to Cole and started hitting him with his fists. “I don’t want ’em!” he cried. “I don’t want Grandpa’s guns! I want Grandpa! You let him die! You let him die!”

Brian pulled the boy off Cole and hung on to him as he kept kicking and flailing his fists. “Stop it, Jake!” he demanded.

“Jake, this is not Cole’s fault,” Evie told him as she joined Brian in trying to calm the boy down. “Your grandfather is probably with God now. He’s in the best place he’s ever been.” She broke down herself, and turned away.

“Apologize to Cole!” Brian ordered his son. “He risked his life trying to get Jake out of there. You know Cole. He wouldn’t leave your grandfather to die unless he had absolutely no other choice!”

Little Jake jerked in a sob, hanging his head. “I’m…sorry.”

Cole grabbed one of his arms and squeezed. “Little Jake, as much pain as he was in, your grandfather thought to give me them guns. Just think what that means. He was thinkin’ about you. You can honor him by taking damn good care of them guns and growin’ up to be a strong, good man like your grandpa was. And don’t use them guns for nothin’ bad. Your grandpa wants you to learn the new ways and be a law-abidin’ man. You’ve seen how your grandpa suffered because of his own past. He doesn’t want that for any of you.”

Little Jake straightened, wiping at his tears. He looked around the table. “Don’t anybody call me Little Jake again,” he told them. “You call me Jake! Just Jake!” He ran out the door, and they could hear his sobs as he kept running. Ben laid his head in his arms on the table and wept, and Stephen got up and walked into the great room to curl up in his grandfather’s chair.

Lloyd stood near Katie, and she reached out to grasp his hand. “Lloyd, I don’t know what to say to you. I’m so sorry for you,” she wept.

Brian sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Evie sank back into her chair and covered her face, breaking into more tears. “Daddy,” she cried.

“I should have gone with him,” Lloyd lamented again. He squeezed Katie’s hand, then let go and turned away. “Ever since the Outlaw Trail, we’ve been together through everything. We’ve had each other’s backs for years, all those times in No Man’s Land back in Oklahoma, going up against the worst of them, we always looked out for each other. And last summer, when I was shot, he stayed right there with me day and night for weeks and took care of me, and he almost got hanged for avenging what happened to me.” His voice broke, and he wiped at his eyes. “Damn it! He can be such a stubborn…sonofabitch! I never should have let him talk me into staying. I should have been with him!”

“You probably would have died with him, Lloyd,” Cole told him. “He didn’t want you to take that risk. Look at that beautiful wife of yours, carryin’ another one of your young ’uns. You couldn’t risk leaving her to raise all them kids alone. And you have a big ranch to run. The welfare of the whole family depends on this place and on you. You gotta know this is what your father wanted…for you to be right here where you belong. He damn well knew you’d have risked your life for him in a second, but he didn’t want that.”

They remained silent for a few minutes, every one of them trying to get control of themselves. Peter took hold of Randy’s hand and squeezed.

“Some of you…uh…aren’t my biggest fans,” he told them, “but”—his voice broke a little—“you have to know I liked the hell out of Jake…and I respected the man for the way he could…keep going in spite of the hard life he led. I saw his goodness, in spite of that gruff facade he had. Surely you know how much I cared about him, or I wouldn’t have done so much for him. Yes, it was for your mother too, but I was proud to call Jake a friend. I wish I knew what to tell you now…how to find comforting words.”

“You’ve been a good, good friend, Peter,” Evie told him. She broke into tears again and couldn’t finish.

“Did he find anything about his past in Brownsville?” Randy asked. She sat rigid, clinging to Peter’s hand, but after her initial screams of devastation and nearly collapsing, strangely, she wasn’t crying now.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cole told her. “He…he found the house where he grew up.”

Nearly all of them gasped.

“What did he do?” Evie asked.

Cole shook his head. “It was pretty bad. He took a sledgehammer to it. It was just stone walls…no roof and nothin’ inside. He battered them walls till they was knocked into rubble. Then he showed me where his ma and brother was buried. He’d already gone to a mortician and ordered a headstone for it. He told me that if he didn’t make it back, I should make sure the headstone was taken care of. I did.”