Nine

Lloyd hoisted his saddle to a fresh horse. The animal whinnied lightly and danced sideways.

“Calm down, Strawberry.” He reached under the horse to grab the cinch when the animal skittered a little away again.

“What the hell is wrong with you, girl?”

He heard it then, that buzzing sound of one of those motor engines they’d seen in town. It sounded like it was getting closer, and he heard children shouting excitedly. He scowled as he finished cinching Strawberry. He hated those damn new vehicles as much as his dad did. He could hear horses whinnying in a corral outside, and the bawling of their prize bull, Gus, who was penned up behind the barn.

He led his horse outside to see someone riding down the hill toward the homestead on a motorized bicycle. Now that was one he’d not seen before. A couple of J&L men rode out beside the bicycle, escorting whomever it was. Ever since Randy had been taken last winter, men were posted all over the perimeter of the J&L, as well as at the three houses, rotating turns at different posts. A visitor seldom made it close to the houses or even onto J&L property without anyone knowing it. Lloyd’s wife, Katie, and his sister, Evie, watched the noisy contraption in surprise and curiosity.

Lloyd hung on to Strawberry’s bridle as he hurried toward the women, who stood in front of his house with the three boys. A young man wearing goggles and a leather helmet drove the odd-looking bicycle closer.

“I want one of those!” Little Jake told his mother.

Evie folded her arms, looking unsure. “I think you’d better stick to horses, Little Jake.”

Lloyd tied Strawberry and walked up to his sister and wife, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat as he frowned at the sight. “Damn useless, noisy contraptions,” he grumbled.

“You sound just like Daddy,” Evie told him.

“Well, everybody says I’m just like him in most other ways, so I might as well add this to the list. That damn thing is scaring the livestock. If one of those ever came along while we were herding cattle to Denver, we’d have a stampede on our hands.”

Katie moved closer and stood beside her husband. Lloyd slid an arm around her and bent down to the five-month-old baby boy in her arms and kissed his son on the cheek. “Hey, Donavan, how’s my boy?”

“He’s constantly hungry,” Katie complained. “If he keeps this up, I’ll run out of milk.”

“Well then, we’ll just have to start using cow’s milk, and he’ll have to learn to like it.”

The chunky little boy smiled at his father, and Lloyd kissed his wife’s red hair. “I’ll just have to take over once he’s on cow’s milk,” he teased.

“Lloyd Harkner! Your sister is standing right next to us!”

Evie covered her mouth and laughed. Lloyd enjoyed the sound. There was a time when he thought his sister might never recover from her ordeal. It had taken years of love and support from her whole family, and from her damn good husband, to help her heal. The fact that she, too, had another new baby, a sweet little girl named Esther, proved she’d found a way to be whole in herself again.

“Lloyd, you’re just like Daddy—you do your best to embarrass women.”

“Just expressing my desire for my beautiful wife.”

Katie moved Donavan from one arm to the other. “Yes, well, we need to discuss that. I feel like I’m constantly pregnant, and I’ve gained too much weight.”

Strawberry whinnied and jerked as the noisy bicycle came closer to the house. Lloyd hugged Katie close. “Don’t be worrying about your weight. I’d rather have you strong and healthy.” He gave Katie a squeeze.

Katie looked up at him, and because he stood a good foot taller than she was, she stood on her tiptoes when he leaned down to kiss her lightly.

The conversation ended when the loud bicycle reached the house. Lloyd’s older son, Stephen, along with Evie’s boy Little Jake and Lloyd’s adopted brother, Ben, started asking all kinds of questions about the bike, too many and too fast for the rider to answer all at once. His eyes looked almost comical once he removed his helmet and goggles, white circles in the middle of a face covered with dust from his ride. He shook out his hair, a tangle of wild, dark-brown curls that hung past his collar. “Slow down!” he told the boys. “I’ll show the bike to you and give you rides as soon as I deliver my message.”

“Lloyd, Jake’s been hurt!” Terrel Adams told Lloyd before the messenger could. The ranch hand dismounted, and Lloyd and Evie and the rest of them sobered.

“Grampa’s hurt?” Little Jake asked, no longer interested in the bicycle. “What happened?”

“This kid on the bike here is named Connor Grace,” Terrel told them. “He’s from Boulder, and he came here to let you know. He saw the whole thing.”

“What whole thing?” Lloyd asked, letting go of Katie.

Connor reached out to shake Lloyd’s hand. “There was a big bank robbery in Boulder,” he explained. “Are you Jake Harkner’s son?”

“I am.”

Connor nodded. “At first I thought you were an Indian, what with that long hair and all.”

“Get to the point,” Lloyd told the young man.

“Well, sir, it was something, I’ll tell you! I doubt any man is as good with guns as your father is, except maybe you. I’ve heard—”

“Start from the beginning, Mr. Grace,” Lloyd ordered. “This is my pa we’re talking about! Is he hurt bad?”

“I’m really not sure.” Connor sobered and stepped back a little.

“Oh no!” Evie exclaimed. “I’ll go get Brian.”

Lloyd kept his eyes on Connor Grace as Evie ran off to find her husband. “Details, Mr. Grace, and fast!” he told the young man. “I’ve got to get to Boulder.”

“Well, sir, there was a bank robbery. Your mother and a little girl—one of Jake’s granddaughters, I think, were in the bank at the time—”

“Tricia!” Katie gasped. She looked up at Lloyd.

“That’s my little girl you’re talking about,” Lloyd told Connor. “Is she all right?”

“Yes, sir, thanks to your father.”

“What about my mother?”

“She’s okay, too, far as I know. The whole thing was quite spectacular, actually. I was right there and saw the whole thing!” Connor explained to the last detail what happened as Lloyd and the others stood there in wide-eyed shock.

“Grampa stopped all of them, didn’t he?” Little Jake asked, sticking his chest out proudly.

“He sure did. The whole town watched with their mouths open.” Connor looked back at Lloyd. “Your pa was already shot, but he still came out, guns blazing. Boom! Boom! Boom! Those men were holding that girl and the women right in front of them, but your pa fired anyway! It was something to see! He got all four of them that was holding the hostages, right in the head, shootin’ right straight at his own loved ones like he was damn sure he could get those men without hurting the women. Them robbers didn’t even have a chance to fire their guns, but two others who were standing there with bags of money did get a chance. That’s when your pa took a bullet to the head, I think.”

“Jesus!”

Katie broke into tears. “Oh, Lloyd!”

Lloyd looked at Terrel. “Go saddle a horse for Brian!” He turned to his son. “Stephen, Evie went for your uncle Brian. Run over to the house and tell her he’ll need a change of clothes and his doctor’s bag and that we’ll have to leave for Boulder right away!” He looked back at Connor. “You sure my mother and daughter are okay?”

“Yes, sir. There was bedlam everywhere after it happened, your pa laying in the street and your mother…she was fine…but I sure felt sorry for her. They carried off your father to a doctor, and your mother just kind of sat there in the street for a couple of minutes, like she didn’t know what to do.”

“Damn it!” Lloyd looked at Katie. “You know how she’s been. This must have been awful for her. I’ve got to go to her!”

“Of course you do.”

“My daughter?” Lloyd asked again.

“The Mexican woman carried her off so she wouldn’t have to see her grandfather bleeding and wounded. She was crying, but she was okay.”

“Thank God Teresa was with them! She’ll take good care of Tricia,” Katie told Lloyd.

“And that’s all you know?” Lloyd asked Connor. “You’ve no idea how bad my pa was?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry. I heard the doctor say he was still alive. That’s all I know. I walked over to the telegraph office to tell them what happened so’s they could telegraph the news, and then an old man came over and said as how your mother said somebody should come and get you as fast as possible. I just got my new motorized bike, so I said I’d go. I took the train to Brighton and then rode here from there. I came fast as I could. Without having to rest a horse, I made it in two days.”

There might be an advantage to motorized vehicles after all, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now. Lloyd turned to Katie. “I already have Strawberry ready to ride. I was going to go out to the southeast quarter and check for more strays, but now I’ll have to ride to Brighton and catch that train. Pa would have left our carriage there to store while he and Mom took the train on into Boulder, so we’ll use that to bring him home…if he’s even alive.” His voice broke on the last word.

“Lloyd, Jake is tough as nails. You know that. You have to believe he’s all right.”

Lloyd looked at Connor. “Thank you for hurrying here to let us know. Rest yourself a spell. Katie has lemonade in an icebox inside. She’ll give you some.”

“Lloyd, what about Tricia? I should go with you,” Katie argued. “She’ll need her mommy.”

“You’re still nursing. You stay here. Evie will need your support, too. You know how she is about Pa. And if Brian and I go alone, we’ll be able to travel faster. Tricia is with Teresa, and she loves that woman to death. She’ll be fine.”

By then Evie had come running back. “Brian is getting ready,” she told Lloyd. “I missed what happened.”

“Connor can explain when Brian and I leave. We’ve got to get to Boulder and see about this. Pa is hurt, but this young man here doesn’t know for sure how bad.” He saw his sister’s terror. She worshipped her father, and after everything… He grasped his sister’s arms. “Evie, you know Pa. Is there a tougher man on the face of the earth?”

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “I know, but—he’s still just human, Lloyd. Mother was always so afraid she’d see him killed in a hail of bullets. Maybe—”

“Don’t think that way! They thought I was dead, too, last summer in Denver, but I survived. Right?”

Evie nodded, suddenly hugging her brother. Lloyd put his arms around her. “Don’t you worry. He’ll be just fine.”

“It was quite something!” Connor told Evie. “Your father shot those men even while they held hostages right in front of them! A person couldn’t ask for a better show of gunplay than what people saw during that robbery!”

Evie put a hand to her stomach, remembering Dune Hollow…when her father shot the man holding her, using a rifle from so far away she couldn’t even see him. She’d felt the bullet whiz by her cheek, and the only thing she’d seen just before that was the glint of a rifle barrel. It would be impossible to make out anything else. She knew better than most how accurate Jake Harkner could be.

“I’m sure the papers are full of stories today,” Connor told them. “Jake Harkner, the famous ex-outlaw, foiling a bank robbery!”

“I wish I could have seen Grampa shoot those men!” Little Jake exclaimed.

Evie pulled away from her brother. “Go inside, Little Jake. Set out some glasses for your aunt Katie so she can pour some lemonade for all of us.” She saw a glint of tears in the eight-year-old’s eyes. Her son loved his grandfather beyond measure. He practically worshipped the man, and yearned to be all grown-up and able to carry his own guns. He and Stephen and Jake’s adopted son, Ben, had been hurt last winter trying to defend their grandmother when men came to drag her off. They rode out with Jake and Lloyd and several ranch hands to find and rescue her. They were just boys striving to be men, and the descendants of a man whose reputation would follow them everywhere. She looked up at Lloyd. “What about mother?”

Lloyd sighed, removing his hat and shaking his long, black hair behind his shoulders. “I don’t know. Connor here says when they carried Pa off to a doctor, she just sat there in the street, looking confused. You know what that means. She must be terrified. I’ve got to get there fast.”

Evie looked away. “Poor mother.”

Brian came running, carrying a small carpetbag of clothes and his doctor’s bag. At almost the same time, Terrel came from the barn with a saddled horse.

“What’s going on?” Brian asked Lloyd.

“We have to go to Brighton and catch a train to Boulder. I’ll explain everything on the way. Pa’s been hurt.” He looked at Brian, deciding to make light of it, because at the moment he wanted to cry himself. “So what else is new? The man doesn’t have enough scars already.”

Brian sighed, adjusting his hat. “I’m running out of places to stitch him up.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd sobered. “I have no idea how bad he is, Brian, and it’s been close to three days since it happened. I guess I’ll have to give in and see if we can get a telephone out here so we can find out these things sooner. Go ahead and mount up. I’m going inside to get my rifle and some clothes.” He stopped to shake Connor’s hand. “Thanks for hightailing it out here. It’s a long trip across the J&L, let alone between here and Brighton. My wife will see to it you get paid something for your trouble.”

“Oh, no, sir. It’s an honor to have seen your father in action, and to meet you, too.”

Lloyd just shook his head. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen my father in action one too many times.” He put an arm around Katie and headed for the house. “The women will give you something to eat and drink before you head back,” he called to the messenger. He opened the door, and Katie hurried inside to lay Donavan on a blanket on the floor. She then quickly set a pitcher of lemonade on the table while Lloyd headed into the bedroom to grab a couple of clean shirts. He stuffed them into a small carpetbag and grabbed up his rifle from a corner of the room, then hurried back into the kitchen.

Katie looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “Oh, Lloyd, I hope your father isn’t wounded really bad. The state your mother is in, she couldn’t handle that.”

“Yeah, well, a man can only take so much, and he’s getting older—and don’t tell him I said that. He hates it when I tease him about his age, but God knows he’s tough as ever.” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’m not so sure even I could take it if something happened to Pa. We covered each other’s backs for so many years as lawmen back in Oklahoma.”

“Be careful, Lloyd.” Katie walked around the table and reached up.

Lloyd pulled her into his arms, then kissed her deeply when she looked up at him. “You just sit tight and take good care of our new son,” he told her. “We’ll get back here with Pa as fast as we can. If it’s going to be a while, we’ll send a runner back out to let you know how he’s doing, or if…” He didn’t want to finish the sentence.

“It will be okay,” Katie tried to reassure him. She touched his cheek, then leaned up to kiss him once more. “You’d better get going.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd left her and headed for the door. He took his gun belt and six-gun from where it hung over the doorjamb, where it was always ready to grab in case of trouble. All kinds of things could happen fast on a ranch as big as the J&L.

“Give Connor Grace two or three dollars for his trouble,” he told Katie. He headed out the door, hooking the bag of clothes over his saddle horn and then strapping on his gun belt.

Connor Grace watched him. “Is it true you’re as good with those guns as your father, Mr. Harkner?” he asked.

Lloyd mounted up. “Nobody is as good with a gun as Jake Harkner,” he answered. He rode off, Brian following.