Twenty-five

Most of Evie’s Garden valley was gone. Jake felt sick at the sight.

“Looks like the fire is out,” Ben commented. “But Lloyd lost most of his emergency grass.”

“There’s a whole bunch of men over there, Grampa,” Little Jake said, pointing to what looked like a camp far to their right.

“You boys hang behind me, all right? I don’t know what we’ll find when we get there,” Jake told them. He urged Outlaw forward to what appeared to be a rather quiet camp full of men from the Twisted Tree ranch, located east of the J&L. He recognized the owner, Henry Till. With them were the J&L men who’d gone to Denver with Lloyd. Jake’s grandson Stephen sat on a rock, tracing in the dirt with a stick, his arms and hands filthy. Brady Fillmore was tied to a pine tree that had somehow avoided being burned. He gave Jake a pleading look. “Untie me, Jake! I didn’t do anything!”

“Shut up, Fillmore!” Cole snarled. “When Jake finds out the truth, he’ll agree with all of us about stringing you up!”

Jake dismounted. Cole was one of the J&L’s best hands and damn near as ruthless as Jake and Lloyd could be. He walked with a limp from an old war wound, but Jake knew little else about his past—even which side he’d been on in the war. All that mattered to him was that Cole was honest and a hard worker, a hardened man who was nearly Jake’s age. He liked to drink but never got mean with it. Jake had always been good at reading men, and he’d been right on Cole. If Cole thought Brady needed hanging, he probably did.

Every man there was black with soot and ash, and the ground was dug up all around the nearly mile-wide east edge of Evie’s Garden. It was obvious these men had worked like demons to save as much as they could of the valley. When riding in, it looked as though part of the western end of the nearly two-mile-long valley had never burned, thanks to the wind blowing the flames eastward. Sheer rock walls on either side of the valley had kept the flames from spreading north and south.

Jake was greeted with bloodshot, tired eyes, coughing, and a few nods. About fifteen men sat around a morning campfire, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

“Jake.” Henry Till greeted him.

“Henry.” Jake came up beside Stephen and looked around. “Where is Lloyd?”

“He’s over behind that big boulder, taking a pee,” Stephen answered. “He’s real mad, Grampa.”

“I don’t blame him. I’m getting real mad myself, and I don’t even know the whole story yet.” Jake looked at the others. “Looks like all of you helped put this fire out. I’m grateful. This is going to be a hot, dry summer, or so it seems, so feel free to water your cattle in Horse Creek if need be. It’s little enough pay for helping out. Just take it easy, though, or the creek will run dry if we don’t get more rain.”

“We’ll be careful,” Henry told Jake. “Thanks for the offer.”

“It’s the least we can do.”

Cole spoke up. “At least no cattle were lost.”

Lloyd came out from behind the rock, and Jake felt sorry for the look in his eyes. His son had worked his ass off building the J&L. The ranch had been his dream through the dangerous, trying years he’d ridden with Jake as a U.S. Marshal in one of the most dangerous, godforsaken places on the face of the earth. Jake ached inside at realizing how many enemies they’d made because of the job. His reputation had done so much damage to the family. Now this. “I’m sorry about this, Lloyd.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. That sonofabitch tied to that tree over there is the one who should be sorry. He started the fire deliberately!”

“It’s your pa’s fault,” Brady tried to explain. “He shouldn’t have pushed me back in Boulder last month! He shamed me in front of a barroom full of men and accused me of being a cattle thief!”

“You are a cattle thief,” Lloyd roared, “and now you’re apparently an arsonist!”

“I…I was gonna make a campfire, that’s all. It got out of control!”

“Does someone here want to explain this?” Jake asked. “How did all of you end up here together like this? And how do you know Brady set the fire on purpose?”

“We saw him,” Henry told Jake. He sipped some coffee and looked up at Jake. “Me and the boys were coming through your property as a shortcut to Brighton. I was supposed to pick up quite a few cows and yearlings there that I bought from a rancher up in Wyoming; he shipped them down to Brighton by train. We ran into your Mexican on the way, and he was all panicky and carryin’ on about Evie’s Garden being on fire, so we headed there, and he rode to your homestead to let you know. That was early yesterday.”

“If the fire was already going, how do you know Brady did it?” Jake crouched near the campfire and lit a cigarette.

“They caught him making off with one of our steers again!” Lloyd answered for Henry, his dark eyes on fire with anger. Jake saw himself in his son’s eyes. The Harkner temper was one thing that seemed to run in the blood.

“I was rescuing that steer from the fire!” Brady argued.

“Your face was black from smoke! And when you saw Henry and his men, you turned and ran. What more proof do we need than that?”

Brady hung his head and started crying.

“Rustling, in itself, is a hanging offense, Jake,” Cole told him. “You know that.” He tossed a cigarette butt into the campfire. “But starting a grass fire, especially with the dry summer we’ve had—that’s unforgiveable. I don’t see where we have a choice.”

“It’s your fault, Jake Harkner!” Brady yelled between sobs. “You pushed me into it back when you broke my nose! You Harkners think you own Colorado, and neither one of you deserves what you’ve got! You’re outlaws, that’s what! I don’t care if you did ride as lawmen once. You got no right hangin’ a man when you’re the ones who ought to hang, especially you, Jake! You’ve done a whole lot worse things than take one lousy steer from a man. Shit, you killed your own pa! Who are you to sit and judge?”

Lloyd walked up to Brady and backhanded him, splitting his cheek open. Brady screamed from the punch and then cried more. “You bastard!”

“You shut up about my father! You don’t know a goddamn thing about the man! There’s not a better man who ever walked, you stupid sonofabitch! I waited for him because I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself to him so we could make the right decision! He just might have helped keep us from hanging you, but now you’ve lost your chance!”

Jake just smoked quietly, staring at the fire. All the men waited for his reaction with bated breath. Lloyd walked over to stand behind him, his long hair blowing in the hot wind. “Pa? You all right?”

Jake sighed deeply, putting his cigarette between his lips and rising. He looked over at Ben and Little Jake still on their horses, and his other grandson, Stephen. He could see they would drink in his every word. Little Jake’s jaw was set, his eyes narrowed in fierce anger, and Jake knew it was because of Brady’s words. The kid was always one of the first to defend his grandpa. “Go ahead and hang him, Grampa! He didn’t have no right sayin’ those things about you.”

“They’re all true, Little Jake.” Jake turned his gaze to Lloyd. “I’m not one to judge any more than I deserved that Pinkerton money. This place is more yours than mine, so I’ll leave it up to you and these other men. I think you should let him go.”

“What?” Lloyd tossed his cigarette into the campfire. “Pa, he stole another steer and burned up half of Evie’s Garden! We needed this extra grazing area more this year than we ever have before. We’re going to run out of good grass and won’t have any to store up for the winter.”

“You have my ten thousand dollars,” Jake told him. “With that, you can store up all the feed you’ll need. The Twisted Tree can use our water and some of the grass that’s left if they run out before summer is over. And you won’t have a hanging on your conscience!” Jake turned to look at the rest of them. “Take it from me, boys. You don’t want to live your whole life regretting things you’ve done. It makes it pretty hard to sleep at night. And when you do sleep, you’ll keep waking up with nightmares.” He turned back to Lloyd. “If this involved any physical abuse to you or any member of the family, I’d gladly hang the sonofabitch. But if this came up in front of the law, what actual proof would we have? Remember that the boys are watching. There’s nothing much uglier than a hanging, and they already saw enough last—” He checked himself. Last winter. What he and Lloyd did to Brad Buckley and his men last winter had surely left an impression on Stephen and Little Jake and Ben. But it was something none of the other men here knew about, and he intended to keep it that way. “It has to end somewhere, Lloyd, or you’ll end up with a lot of the same regrets I have,” Jake continued, sighing deeply. “And those boys will walk right into all of it and think this is how things get solved. One of them will end up in prison, and we both know who that would likely be. I don’t want to go to my grave thinking that my grandsons might end up like me. Let him go. But he has to promise to get the hell out of Colorado. He has to promise to sign his land over to the J&L, for nothing! It will be payment for the loss from the grass fire and for any unbranded yearlings he might have stolen and sold that we don’t even know about.”

Lloyd shook his head. “This sure isn’t like you, Pa. And after those things he said—”

“They’re all true and we both know it. I’ll never live down killing my own father, in spite of the brutal, worthless, drunken rapist he was! I just got my wife back, and I need some peace. You do what you have to do.” Jake walked off, and Lloyd turned to the others.

“You boys heard him. What do you want to do?”

Henry Till rose. “It’s your land, Lloyd. I say he hangs, but I’m not the one who suffered the loss.”

Lloyd nodded. “I can make up for that. I agree you can use my water, Henry.” He pulled his hair behind his back and glanced at Brady. “The Cattlemen’s Association will hear about this, Brady Fillmore!” he said louder. “And I’m requesting that if any of them sees you anywhere on my land or any other rancher’s land, they have a right to hang you, understand? I’m letting you go, but you’re going to sign a deed giving me your land, got that? You’re going to leave Colorado, and I never want to see your face anywhere again. If I do, I’ll hang you myself, law or no law!”

One of the men from the Twisted Tree walked over and cut Brady’s ropes.

“You’d better never say bad stuff about my grampa again!” Little Jake shouted to him. “If I was bigger, I’d sock you a good one, you sonofabitch!”

Some of the men snickered, and Brady glowered at the boy, then turned to Lloyd. “The bad blood just trickles right down, doesn’t it?” He started for his horse, when out of nowhere, Jake was there with his rifle. He bashed the butt of the gun across Brady’s head, sending him flying, then walked up and planted a foot on his neck, forcing the man onto his back as he half choked him with a big boot. He swung the repeater around and pressed the end of the rifle against one of Brady’s eyes.

“That was for the things you said about my wife back in Boulder,” Jake growled, “and for what you said about Little Jake. I just let you off from a fucking hanging, you ungrateful bastard, so I’d be careful insulting my offspring. They’re the only good thing that’s ever come of my blood, and you’re goddamn lucky I don’t do a repeat of what happened last year to Mike Holt. So get your ass off this land, and don’t say another word doing it. You ride your ass back home, and you write up something saying you’re giving your ranch over to Lloyd. In a couple of days, some of my men will be over to your place. You had better be gone, and the right paperwork had better be there, or I’ll change my mind about not hanging you. By God, I’ll hunt you down and make sure it gets done!”

The three boys looked at each other and grinned. “I knew he’d get real mad before he let him go,” Little Jake said quietly.

“Get up and get the hell out of my sight!” Jake roared at Brady, taking his booted foot away from the man’s neck.

Brady choked and coughed, rolling to his knees and finally getting up. He stumbled to his horse and managed to climb into the saddle. He turned and faced Jake, who raised his rifle and aimed it at the man.

“Not a goddamn word,” Jake warned. “I’ve killed enough men that it won’t bother me to kill one more.”

Brady sniffed and wiped at his eyes. Blood poured from cuts on both sides of his face. He glanced at Lloyd and started to say something, but Jake retracted the lever on the rifle.

“Not a word,” Jake repeated. “And do as I say, or you won’t live to tell how you narrowly missed being hanged. There isn’t a cattleman in Colorado who would blame us for putting a noose around your neck.”

Brady turned and rode off.

Jake lowered his rifle. The rest of the men sat quietly, never sure what to do or say around an angry Jake Harkner. Lloyd stood there, feeling torn, wanting to hang Brady but realizing his father was right about hanging a man in front of the boys. They’d already seen plenty of brutality. He was more concerned at the moment about Jake. He’d be fighting that dark place that always tried to pull him in whenever the subject of his father came up.

Jake walked to his horse and shoved his rifle into its boot. He mounted up and rode off.

“Grampa?” Little Jake called to him.

“Leave him be, Little Jake,” Lloyd warned. “Sometimes Grampa just needs to be alone. You help us clean up this campsite, and you thank the men from the Twisted Tree for helping put out the fire. This is our land, and they didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boys walked up to Henry Till to thank him. Lloyd ordered Cole to follow Fillmore and make sure he did what Jake told him to do. Deep inside, he was surprised Jake had refused to hang the man. He turned to watch his father ride off, headed in the direction of the homestead, which, thank God, was in the opposite direction from Brady’s trail back to his house. This was the first time he’d sensed a real tiredness about Jake—tired of all the turmoil in his life. Jake wanted something better for his younger son and grandchildren. Lloyd supposed letting Brady Fillmore go was one way of doing that.