“Grampa!” Tricia cried, looking over to where Jake lay in the street.
It hit Randy only then that Jake had not come running to help her up. Everything had happened so fast she’d not had time to digest it all, and her first concern had been for Tricia. After all, Jake knew what he was doing, and he always survived these things. She looked over to where he now lay in the street. “Oh my God, no!”
“Go to him, Miranda. You can do it,” Teresa told her in her heavy Mexican accent. “I will take Tricia to the hotel room. She should not see her grandfather this way.”
Randy looked at her helplessly. “Don’t leave me alone, Teresa!”
“Your husband is there, and he needs you. You will be strong for him now, no? Go to him.” In tears, Teresa hurried off with Tricia.
Randy turned her attention back to Jake. Surely he was all right. Jake was always all right. He was Jake Harkner.
“Oh my God, he’s dead!” someone shouted.
Randy managed to find her feet. She watched as people gathered around Jake. “No, he’s not!” she said softly before screaming the words as she ran. “No, he’s not dead! He’s not dead!” She pushed people out of the way and crumpled beside his seemingly lifeless body. This was her worst nightmare. How many times had she imagined this happening, her husband shot down before her very eyes? He’d mentioned to her once that someday he would probably go down with guns blazing. And now, here he lay in the street, possibly dead from a gunfight.
Five
People began pouring into the street from their hiding places. Randy knelt beside Jake and lifted his head, scooting close enough to rest it against her dress. Blood poured from a wound across the left side of his skull. At first, Randy thought that was the only injury he had, but then she noticed his shirt was soaked with blood. “Get a doctor!” she screamed. “Jake, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”
He groaned and turned his head slightly, then passed out again. An older man pushed his way through the crowd and knelt beside Jake, ordering people to step back and let him do what he needed to do.
“Don’t let him die!” Randy begged. “I need my Jake!”
The doctor didn’t seem to notice her words. He moved his hands through Jake’s hair to find the head wound, studied it a moment, shook his head. He then ripped open Jake’s shirt and put a stethoscope to his chest. “He’s alive,” he told Randy after listening for a minute. “Looks like the bullet just creased his skull, but it didn’t penetrate. Taking a bullet to the skull is like being hit in the head with a hammer, and he probably has a concussion. Can’t tell about brain damage till he wakes up, if he wakes up. But it’s the wound in his side I’m most concerned about.”
The doctor ordered men to carry Jake’s body to his office just a few doors down. Six men scrambled to pick him up, forcing Randy to move out of the way. Terror filled every part of her mind. What would she do without her Jake? He was her savior—her protector—her lover—the man who would never again let something bad happen to her. He’d saved her all those years ago when she was dying at that awful trading post, back when she thought he’d ridden out of her life forever…but then there he was, holding her, promising her he’d not leave her again. It had been the same last winter. In spite of the horror, she hung on because she knew he’d come for her. And he did come…and she was in his arms again…and every time she asked him not to let go, he’d clung to her and promised he would always be right there for her.
The doctor hurried away, and Randy just sat there on the ground. She stared at the bloody dirt left behind as well as her own bloody dress, while people mumbled and whispered and talked behind her.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” one man said.
“We wanted a show of Harkner’s shooting skills, and we sure as hell got one today!”
A woman spoke up. “He grabbed my little girl and got her out of the way of one of those men’s horses.”
“He saved my wife’s life, but I about passed out from fear when he started shooting,” a man said. He seemed to be standing close. “I really thought Susan would die today.” A woman broke down and wept against her husband’s chest.
Men carried some of the dead outlaws away.
“Find another doctor,” someone shouted, “and have the deputy come keep an eye on this one after we lay him out. He’s still alive. He doesn’t deserve help, but we’ve got no choice.”
Someone groaned, “Help me! I’m shot! That sonofabitch shot me right in the gut!”