Flash powder exploded as a man with a camera stepped in front of them and took a picture of Randy. She gasped and turned away. “Go away! Go away!” she screamed.
James and Susan glanced at each other uneasily. They didn’t understand like Jake would.
“I have to get to Jake,” she told them, starting to sob. “I have to get to…my husband.”
“Yes, ma’am, we’re almost there,” James told her.
They reached the steps to the doctor’s office, where people milled about outside. Randy hesitated.
“I…I left a hat box. I think it’s by the Silver Saddle. That’s where Jake was standing when…when…”
“I’ll go look for it,” Susan told her.
“Take it to the Gold Dust Hotel. Give it to my housekeeper, Teresa.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Someone brought Jake’s jacket to Randy. “Ma’am, he dropped this when he went runnin’ to the bank,” a nameless man told her. “A bunch of peppermint spilled out. I picked it all up and put it back in the bag and into the pocket of the jacket.” He held it out.
Peppermint! Jake had remembered the peppermint. She took the jacket and held it close to her heart, bending her head and breathing in her husband’s familiar scent. How many times had they shared a stick of peppermint in the morning, biting each end of the candy until their lips met? She raised her head and just stared at the door. “I’m afraid to go inside.”
“We’ll help you,” James told her. “Might be your husband is awake and needs you, so you ought to go in.”
Randy nodded. “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “Just go find the hat box and take it to the hotel, please. And send someone to the J&L. Thank you for helping me. I’ll be fine now.” She had to be brave. She had to.
The elderly couple looked at each other, James shaking his head. They waited while Randy walked inside on her own.
James took his wife’s arm. “We’d better go get a rider to head for the J&L.”
Susan shook her head. “Such a little thing. Her arm felt so thin.”
“I noticed,” James agreed. “The woman has been through so much, married to a man like that.”
Susan nodded. “I’ve read the book.”
James took a deep breath. “Well, that’s a lot for a woman to take, and think of all those headlines last summer. It looks like Harkner will make headlines again. But this time he’s quite the hero, don’t you think?”
“I suppose. But take it from a woman—this might be something his wife can’t handle. A person can take only so much.”
They headed for the train depot, where messengers for distant ranches could usually be found looking for work. Someone had to ride to the J&L.
Six
Randy managed to move her legs to walk inside the doctor’s office. Jake lay on a long table with just a sheet under him. Randy’s first thought was how hard and uncomfortable it had to be compared to their huge, specially built bed made of black walnut…back home on the J&L…in their loft bedroom…where she could lie in his arms at night and feel so safe…where they’d made love too many times to count. Jake always knew how to make it beautiful…knew how to make her feel beautiful. People didn’t understand why he was so protective, how he could be friends with prostitutes without being untrue to the woman he loved far and above all the others. It all came from his childhood, how women of the night had risked their lives to protect him from his devil of a father.
Why did that fill her thoughts now, of all times? Two nurses and the doctor were working frantically getting Jake’s clothes off. He was a big man, six feet four inches, and not easy to work with. Through it all, one of the nurses pressed gauze tight against the wound in his side.
“Oh my! What happened to his back?” one of the nurses commented.
Randy spoke up. “His father did that to him, with the buckle end of a belt.”
The doctor glanced her way. “I saw you out in the street. Are you his wife?”
“Yes.”
“He asked for you.”
Randy held the jacket closer, taking heart in the comment. “He’s conscious?”
“Randy?” It was Jake!
Randy laid the jacket aside and rushed to stand near him, touching his face. “Jake, I’m here!”
A nurse pulled a sheet up to cover him to just below the hip bones, leaving the wound in his left side exposed. The nurse who held gauze against the wound grabbed even more gauze and pressed tightly to stave the continued bleeding. Randy cringed at all the blood, noticing the skin around the outside of the gauze patch was a deep purple. Internal bleeding? The purple was spreading fast. The deep gash across the left side of Jake’s head had finally stopped bleeding, but his eyes remained closed.