Thirty-two

Jake jammed the posthole digger into the ground with all his strength, prying the handles apart to hold the next scoop of dirt for the pile. A few feet away, Lloyd, Ben, and Stephen were working on the same thing.

“I can’t get it deep enough, Pa,” Stephen called to Lloyd. “I wish I was as strong as you.”

“You will be, sooner than you think, and probably stronger,” Lloyd answered. He glanced at Jake and shook his head. “Don’t you ever age? I was all set to outdo you, and you’re digging these damn holes as fast as I am.”

Jake grinned. “Believe me, I’ll pay for this later. Your mother better not expect any big hugs tonight, because my arms might be dead meat.”

Lloyd shoved his digger into the ground and left it there, walking over to a flatbed wagon full of posts and wire. He took a canteen from the back of it. “It’s hotter than hell out here.”

“Something tells me hell is a lot hotter. I’m likely to find that out some day.” Jake shoved his digger into the ground and walked over to wait for Lloyd to take a long drink before he took the canteen from him and poured water over his head and shoulders. Then he put it to his lips and drank some. “You boys can take a break if you want,” he told the younger ones.

They worked with their shirts off. It was hot, and no women were around, and the boys already knew about the scars on Jake’s back. They drank water, and Ben sat down in the high grass and lay back in it.

“This grass stayed pretty green, Pa,” Ben told Jake.

“That’s why we’re fencing off this area, so stray cattle from other ranches can’t come and overgraze it. Eventually we’ll put ole Gus out here to graze on his own, away from the females. That poor old bull shouldn’t have to suffer watching the cows shake their hind ends in front of him when he can’t do anything about it.”

The three boys giggled, and Jake took another swallow of water, grinning as he capped the canteen. “Everything all right with you and Katie now?” he asked Lloyd, handing back the canteen. “She’s looking awfully happy.”

Lloyd finished retying his long hair behind his back and took the canteen. “Yeah, well, speaking of bulls…” He turned and put the canteen back in the wagon.

“Jesus, Lloyd, don’t tell me.”

“Yeah. She’s pregnant again.”

Jake shook his head, smiling. “If you two don’t learn to control yourselves, you’ll end up with fifteen kids.”

“Easy for you to say.” Lloyd put his hands on his hips. “If Mom could have kids, you’d probably have about twenty-five by now. I’d like to see you have to abstain for very long.”

Jake looked around at the fencing they had already managed to put up. “Lloyd, when you get my age, abstaining gets a little easier. Pain has a way of spoiling the passion.”

“Something tells me you just grin and bear it.”

Jake chuckled. “Most of the time.” He sobered, facing his son. “Katie okay with this?”

Lloyd nodded. “She is. I can tell the mother in her is excited. She’ll just need some extra help from Teresa at first, what with Donavan still being a baby himself. At least she’s weaned him onto cow’s milk.” He leaned down to pull up a piece of grass to chew on. It was too dry to smoke, and chewing on something was all that helped. “I love having another kid, Pa. I wanted a big family, and Katie knows it. To me, she just gets prettier with every one.”

Jake walked over to his posthole digger. “You just make real sure she’s rested and healthy and that she really wants more. It can’t be easy on a woman to pop out a baby practically every year.”

“Hell, there’s four years between Tricia and Donavan. Could be after this one, we’ll go another four years. We’re just taking what God gives us and thanking Him for it.”

Jake shoved in the posthole digger again. “That’s one way to look at it. Your mother loves it when there is a new baby around to love on. Gives her another sprout to hold and rock.” Jake pounded the digger a little harder, hating the fact that Randy had gone through Evie’s birth and that awful surgery alone. He paused. “I should have been with her, Lloyd. Instead, I was raising hell up in Wyoming, trying to forget her.” He angrily slammed the digger together and ripped out more dirt, releasing it on the pile next to the hole.

“Don’t go there, Pa. That was a good twenty-seven years ago, if you go by Evie’s age.”

“Sometimes it seems like yesterday.” Jake walked down to where Ben was starting to dig again. “That’s quite a pile of dirt there, Ben. Go ahead and start another hole down past Stephen.”

“Yes, sir.” The kid’s hair was whiter than ever because of exposure to the sun, and his ruddy complexion just made his hair look even lighter. He walked farther down to start digging another hole while Jake checked Stephen’s. “You did a good job getting this one started, Stephen. Makes my job easier. Go ahead and start a new one.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You going to give me an order too, Pa?” Lloyd teased, walking past him with his own posthole digger.

“Yeah. Give poor Katie a rest.”

Both men laughed. They walked together past the boys to start their digging again.

“You should know that from their letters, Katie and I are pretty sure her folks are going to sell their farm next year and come out here to live on the J&L,” Lloyd told his father. “You know Mrs. Donavan. She’ll take over the mothering to the point that Katie will have hardly anything to do. She’ll be a big help.”

“Good! That’s real good, Lloyd, for Katie’s sake. I love that beautiful woman to death, and the Donavans will be a big help in a lot of ways. Those brothers of Katie’s too, if they come. If they’re sure, we should start building a place for them to live in.” He shook his head. “There will be enough family on the J&L to start a small town,” he joked.

“Looks that way.”

They both started digging again.

“You okay, Pa? Seems like you’re doing a lot of thinking about the past lately,” Lloyd said before ramming the digger into the earth. “You be careful about going too far back in that mind of yours.”

Jake dug quietly for a few minutes. “Just a lot of things catching up with me for some reason. Maybe that’s what old men do—think about the past and all their mistakes.”

“Well, there is nothing old about those muscles I see you using to dig these holes. You’re lean and mean.”

Jake jammed the digger down again. “No doubt about the mean part.” He grimaced with pain in his left shoulder, a leftover ache from a gunshot wound in Denver. The memory stabbed at him like a sword in the heart, but he’d never regret putting a hole in Mike Holt’s head. He paused a moment to wait for the pain to go away. That was when he noticed it…a fancy buggy coming from the southwest range. At the moment, it was nothing more than a wavy silhouette, almost unreal, but it definitely was coming toward them. “Who the hell do you think that is?” he asked Lloyd.

Lloyd stopped digging to look. He shaded his eyes and squinted. “I don’t know, but it looks like two people, and I think one of them is a woman.”

The boys stopped digging as they waited for the buggy to come closer. As always, out on the open range, it took close to twenty minutes for the rig to get close enough to make out who it might be.

“Jesus,” Jake muttered. “If I see who I think I see, that’s Gretta MacBain.”

“What the hell would the richest whore in Denver be doing coming out here?” Lloyd commented.

Jake grinned. “I guess we’ll soon find out.” He turned and walked to the supply wagon to grab his shirt.

Lloyd shook his head. Only Jake Harkner would respect a whore enough to go put a shirt on. “Get your shirts on, boys,” he told his son and Ben. “As far as your grandfather is concerned, there’s a lady coming.” He smiled, walking to the wagon to get his own shirt.