Fifteen

All who were in the house looked toward the front door, a bit startled when it suddenly burst open and Jake walked inside followed by Tricia, who held a basket of eggs. Jake slammed the door against a rising cold wind and turned to hang up his hat.

Everyone stared at the deep scratches on his face and hands.

“Jake!” Randy walked up to him in alarm, glancing at the eggs. She couldn’t help laughing then. “Don’t tell me you went inside the henhouse!”

“I damn well did,” he answered, stomping snow off his feet.

Lloyd burst into more laughter. “What the hell for, Pa?”

“Daddy, you look like you’ve been in a bar fight,” Evie told him. She sat rocking a sleeping Cole.

Even Brian grinned, in spite of still sitting in Jake’s chair holding his unconscious daughter. “Jake, we all needed to find something to smile about. You’ve done a good job of that.”

“Look, Grandma!” Tricia said to Randy. “Look at all the eggs we got!”

“Well, my goodness, that’s wonderful, Tricia! Go set them in the kitchen, sweetheart.”

Tricia headed to the kitchen with the eggs. “Grampa said a bunch of bad words again,” she tattled. “He wouldn’t let me go in there ’cuz of old Outlaw, but he got all these eggs and then he got the baby chicks!”

Randy looked at Jake. “Baby chicks?”

Jake nodded. “Baby chicks.”

“You brought baby chicks into the house?”

“I thought maybe if Sadie Mae heard their peeping…”

“Daddy, that’s a wonderful idea!” Evie exclaimed.

Lloyd rose. “Yeah, well, it looks like our father literally risked his life again for someone he loves.”

Jake grinned. “Just about.”

They all laughed. It felt good to laugh.

Jake leaned down and kissed Randy, then whispered in her ear, “I want to make love to you.”

“Jake Harkner!” Randy exclaimed aloud. “What has gotten into you?”

Jake laughed lightly. “The fresh air, I guess. And I feel good about this.”

“About what?” Katie asked, opening her arms to Tricia as her daughter came bounding up to where she stood in the kitchen. She took the basket of eggs from her daughter and then hugged her.

“We got the baby chicks for Sadie Mae to wake her up!” the girl told Katie.

It was then they all heard the chicks peeping. Jake reached into his coat pockets and pulled a baby chick from each one. “Fix up a basket or a box near the hearth,” he told Randy. “We have to keep these things warm.”

Randy thought what an incredible contrast it was to see her husband so gently holding the baby chicks in his big, rough hands…hands that had fought hundreds of men, hands that had held those infamous guns as an outlaw and then a lawman, hands that could crush those chicks in a second. She hurried into the kitchen to find a basket, then put a towel inside. She brought it back to Jake and he gently set the chicks into it.

“Take them over to the hearth and warm them up a little,” Jake told her. “We’ll hold them close to Sadie Mae and let her hear their peeping.” He removed his coat and sat down to pull off his boots.

“Pa, that’s a great idea,” Lloyd told him again. “And you’d better clean up those scratches on your face. God knows how much chicken sh—” He hesitated. “Chicken droppings that old rooster stepped in on his way to do battle with you.”

They all laughed again.

Jake glowered at Lloyd. “Maybe I should put a few scratches on your face—which Katie thinks is quite handsome, according to Tricia.”

Katie blushed and Lloyd grinned. “I could add something to those scratches, Pa,” he joked.

“Try it. I’m still not so old that you could take me in a fistfight.”

“Oh, you’re old enough. You’re just too damn mean. But something tells me old Outlaw is meaner.”

The entire incident helped bring a little joy and laughter to all of them. Jake just shook his head and grinned. “Pull these boots off, will you?” he asked Lloyd. “It hurts my leg when I bend it up to try to do it myself.”

Lloyd knelt to pull them off and Jake held on to a chair, wincing with pain as his son slid off the left boot. The young man remained kneeling where he was for a moment. “I wish I could take away your pain, Pa.”

Jake raised his other foot. “I know you do, but it’s over and done and I’m alive. Get this other boot off so we can see if those chicks help Sadie Mae.”

Lloyd pulled off the other boot, and father and son hugged each other briefly before walking over to the fireplace where Randy had set the basket of chicks. The tiny yellow birds were peeping nonstop now as they tumbled around inside the basket.

“Stephen and young Jake will probably be over here soon,” Lloyd said. “I’ll have one of them go get some feed for the chicks.”

Jake turned to Tricia. “Come on, baby girl. You take one and I’ll take one, and we’ll hold them by Sadie Mae’s ears.”

Tricia obeyed. “Be careful, Grampa,” she whispered, as though this was a time now to be very quiet and very serious. Jake and his granddaughter took the chicks to the big leather chair where Brian sat holding his daughter. The rest of the family gathered in a big circle around the chair. Tricia stood at the side closest to Sadie Mae’s head and held the baby chick close to one of her cousin’s ears. Jake leaned in and held the other chick to Sadie Mae’s other ear.

All of Brian Stewart’s doctoring and constant love and care couldn’t do for his little daughter what the baby chicks did. Sadie Mae lay there as still as always, at first. Then she moved, just a little. Her eyes didn’t open. She didn’t talk.

But suddenly…she smiled.

Jake knelt down, holding the chick in one hand and taking hold of Sadie Mae’s hand with the other. She wrapped her small hand around one of his fingers and squeezed.

Jake pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it, and quietly wept. Part of him wanted to go out to the henhouse and hug that damned rooster.