Love's Sweet Revenge (35 page)

“You're easy to love, Jake Harkner.”

“Yeah, well, not many people would agree with that remark.”

“They don't know the Jake I know.”

They lay there quietly together, nearly asleep when they heard it—the signal bell at the bunkhouse. It began clanging wildly.

“Fire! Fire!” someone was screaming.

Jake jerked awake. “What the hell?” He jumped out of bed, and Randy followed close behind, grabbing her robe and holding it against herself as she rushed with Jake to a window. “The horse barn!” he exclaimed.

Jake ran over to the bed to find his long johns and yanked them on while Randy stared in horror. Already she could see Lloyd running from his house toward the fire as someone kept clanging the bell and more men surrounded the barn. She turned to see Jake jerking on his denim pants. He buttoned them, sat down to yank boots over his bare feet, and grabbed a sheepskin jacket from a hook on the wall. “Make sure the boys stay in this house!” he yelled to her. “I don't want to have to worry where they are!”

“Jake, be careful!” she called after him.

Randy ran to the bathroom and quickly cleaned herself with a washrag, then pulled her heavy flannel robe over her nakedness and tied it tightly. She heard the boys talking excitedly downstairs. She hurried down. “You boys stay right here!” she ordered. “I mean it! Don't go out that door!”

“Grandma, the horse barn is on fire!” Stephen yelled.

All three boys stood at the front window. Randy rushed over to join them. “I know. Those poor horses! Midnight is in there! And some of the best mustangs they brought in the other day!”

Someone ran past the house. It was so quick Randy couldn't tell who it was. She frowned, wondering why one of the men would be so close to the house when he should be running to the fire.

“Get Midnight out of there!” Jake charged toward the flames, and Lloyd caught up with him just in time to keep him back.

“Pa! Nobody can go in there!”

“Pepper's in there!” one of the men shouted.

Three horses came galloping out, the whites of their eyes filled with terror. One of them was Midnight. The black gelding reared and whinnied wildly as Jake tried to grab hold of him. One hoof came up and caught Jake under the jaw, sending him sprawling as the horse tore away and ran off.

“Pa!” Lloyd ran over to where Jake lay rolling on the ground. He could tell his father was momentarily stunned and dizzy. Lloyd leaned over to help him up. “Pa, take it easy.”

“Got to help—”

“I don't think it's going to make any difference.”

Brian reached them, wearing woolen pants and a corduroy jacket and leather dress shoes he'd thrown on at the last minute. They weren't high enough for the snow that collected inside them as he ran, but he paid no heed.

“Jake!” He looked at Lloyd. “What happened to him?”

“Got kicked under the jaw by Midnight.”

“Jake, stay down a minute. There's nothing you can do about that barn!”

“No.” Jake moved to his hands and knees. “Pepper's in there…the horses!” He managed to get to his feet while hanging on to a fence post. For several minutes he stood there, trying to clear his head.

“What can I do to help?” Brian asked Lloyd.

Lloyd just watched the out-of-control fire consume his best barn and best horses. “Sonofabitch!” he roared.

“We have to…get the horses out,” Jake repeated, still clinging to the fence post.

“It's too damn late, Pa!” Lloyd kicked at a fence board and cracked it, then paced. “Midnight got out with a couple of the mustangs,” he told Jake, sounding ready to cry. “I think that's all that will make it out.”

For nearly an hour, men continued their fruitless effort to put out the fire. Jake struggled against blacking out from the blow to his jaw. Dizziness kept overtaking him, so he could barely walk in his efforts to help the other men. When his head cleared more, he stumbled toward the barn again.

“What about Pepper?” He grasped another fence post to keep from falling again. “Pepper! Pepper!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Brian hurried up to him, grabbing his arm. “No one can help him now, Jake!”

“It's too damn late!” Cole could be heard shouting to the others. “Let it go! Let it go before somebody else gets hurt!”

“Pepper! Where's Pepper?” Jake roared.

“Jake, give it up,” Brian told him. “You're too injured to do anything about this.”

Lloyd left him there and ran all the way around the barn, searching for more horses that might have escaped and hoping to see Pepper. By the time he made it back to Jake and Brian, the barn was beginning to creak, and the flames had reached the highest loft.

“Pepper never came out!” Vance Kelly shouted. “And most of the horses are still inside.”

The continued, near-screaming whinnying of the trapped horses stabbed at Lloyd and Jake like a dagger in the heart. For a few more agonizing minutes, the gut-wrenching sounds continued, until finally there was nothing but the roar and crackle of the fire as the barn became completely engulfed in an orange glow. All any of the men could do was watch while the building they'd helped construct creaked and groaned, until it finally collapsed with a huge rumble that hurt the ears. Glowing sparks spiraled high into the sky, accompanied by black smoke that enshrouded the sparks as the rubble continued to burn.

“Jesus God Almighty,” Jake groaned.

Lloyd held his stomach and turned away. The rest of the men filled the air with curses and shouts.

“That beautiful bay I cut out of those wild mustangs the other day was in there!” Terrel Adams groaned.

“Thank God there's plenty of snow on the ground, or that fire might have spread through the grass to other buildings,” Cole commented.

They all stood around in stunned disbelief, most of them wearing nothing but long johns, boots with no socks, and an array of fur or buckskin winter jackets.

“What the hell happened here?” Lloyd seethed. “Who saw the fire first?”

“Pepper! Goddamn it! Pepper!” someone yelled. “He never came out!”

Cole noticed Jake's jaw was turning so purple it could be seen even at night by the light of the fire.

Again Jake bolted for the barn, his injury leaving him still confused. “We have to get Pepper out of there!”

“Pa, get back!” Lloyd grabbed him and pulled him back. “It's too goddamn late! There's nothing we can do!”

Jake ran a hand through his hair and turned in a circle. “Sonofabitch!” he roared so loud everyone jumped. “Who the hell was in the barn last?”

“
Nobody
was in there,” Cole answered. “We was all sleepin' when Pepper suddenly yelled that the barn was on fire.”

“Jesus, we've lost over half of our feed hay,” Lloyd lamented.

“And most of the best horses you were going to sell,” Brian added.

“Jake, that fire went too fast to be natural,” Cole told him. He turned to Lloyd. “Seems like it was all around the whole barn right away, not in just one spot. No fire breaks out everywhere at once like that unless it was set.”

“Who in hell would do that?” Terrel asked.

Suddenly, Jake grabbed Cole's arms, his dark eyes on fire with rage. “You really think it was deliberately set?”

Cole cringed. “Jesus, Jake, let go of me!”

Brian and Lloyd pulled him off Cole.

“Are you sure?” Jake repeated, yanking his arm away from Brian and Lloyd.

Cole put his hands on his hips, stepping back a little. “It's the way it went,” he told Jake. He turned to Lloyd. “It just didn't seem like no ordinary fire.”

“I found an oil can layin' outside,” Terrel told them, “and it ain't the brand we use to fill lamps and burn brush.”

Jake looked at Lloyd, still seeming confused at first, then stumbling backward. He looked toward the house, then back to Lloyd. “Sonofabitch!” He began running toward the house. “Brian, go check on Evie and Esther and Sadie!” he screamed.

“Pa, I left Katie and Tricia at the house with the baby!” Lloyd yelled, hurrying to catch up with him.

“Go make sure they're all right!”

Most of the men ran right behind them.

“We have to make sure all the women and kids are accounted for!” Jake roared. “All three boys are at my house!” He ran toward the main house.

Lloyd grabbed Jake's arm. “Pa, what are you thinking?”

“Brad
Buckley
!” Jake roared. “
That's
what I'm thinking! That fucking sonofabitch did this! You can bet on it!” He turned and kept running.

Lloyd made a beeline for his house. “Katie!” he screamed.

When he reached his front porch, Katie came out of the front door. “Oh, Lloyd, the horses! The barn!”

“Never mind that! Are you and the baby and Tricia okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

Lloyd turned and screamed for one of the men to get over to his house. One called Til Reed came running.

“Stay here! There's a rifle inside over the front door!” Lloyd told him. “Keep Katie and my daughter and baby in the main room with you, and don't let anybody in!”

“Yes, sir. What's goin' on?”

Lloyd struggled with rage. “If you'd been at Dune Hollow, you'd
know
what's going on! I can't explain right now.”

He heard gunshots. More shouting. “Randy!” his father was screaming.

“Please, God, no!” Lloyd groaned. “Stay here and together!” he told Katie. He ran off the porch, shouting at Vance Kelly to get over to Brian's house and stay with Evie and the girls. “Send Brian to the main house! Somebody might be hurt!”
Stephen!
Were the boys okay? He hurried toward Jake's house, where Jake was stumbling around outside like a crazy man, shooting his rifle into the air and screaming Randy's name.

“Cole, help me stop him!” Lloyd shouted, running up to Jake and grabbing him around the middle. “Pa, calm down!”

“They took her! They took Randy!” Jake shoved him away, but Lloyd charged into him again.

“Goddamn it, Pa, you're going to shoot somebody by accident! Let go of the gun!”

Jake staggered and dropped the rifle, grasping Lloyd's arm for support. “They took her! They took your mother!”

“Pa, let's think this out! Get your head together!”

“They took her!” Jake repeated yet again, total devastation in his eyes.

“Come on inside, Pa. Maybe you're just all mixed up. Maybe she's in there. And what about the boys? Are Stephen and Little Jake still in there with Ben?”

Jake went to his knees. “Yes,” he groaned. “I left Randy…in our bedroom in the loft when I ran out…”

“Well, maybe she's still up there.” Lloyd struggled not to think the worst as he handed Jake's rifle to Cole.

Jake shook his head. “Just a little while ago…I was holding her. I'm supposed to keep her safe. She says she always feels…safe…with me…but I ran out…and they took her. They took my Randy.”

“Pa, you're all mixed up from Midnight's kick.” Lloyd helped him to his feet. “Come on inside.”

“The boys…they hit Stephen…Little Jake…”

“Cole, come inside with us!” Lloyd ordered, feeling as though his head would explode. He tried to keep hold of Jake's arm, but Jake jerked away as he stumbled up the veranda steps. He turned to Cole.

“Give me my goddamn rifle!”

“Jake, we ain't the enemy. You gotta calm down.”

Jake just stared at him a moment, then turned away and stumbled to the door. Lloyd followed him inside, where he reeled with horror at the sight of tumbled furniture and broken lamps. The three boys sat near the fireplace of the great room, sobbing and looking terrified. He glanced at a small table near the front window where his mother always sat to write letters. He could tell she'd started another one. A fountain pen lay near a still-open bottle of ink.

Jake screamed Randy's name, stumbling up the stairs to their loft bedroom. Even Lloyd was temporarily stunned, trying to get his thoughts straight, wondering if this was real.

“Pa?” Stephen sniffled, his nose bleeding. “They told us if we ran out…to get you…they'd kill Grandma.”

“Stephen!” Lloyd felt like he was coming out of a trance. He rushed over to where Stephen sat on a ledge in front of the huge stone fireplace and knelt in front of him. “My God, Stephen, what happened?” He smoothed back the boy's hair as he leaned in and kissed his forehead.

Little Jake shivered and cried, a dark bruise forming on his right cheek, blood running from a cut on his head. Ben held his left arm.

“I think my arm's broke,” he told Lloyd.

“They took her!” Little Jake seethed. “I'll
kill
'em. We were gonna go after 'em, but they said if we went out of the house they'd know…and they'd kill Grandma.”

“We weren't sure,” Stephen added, “and Little Jake, he was knocked out for a while.”

“Heck, I'm okay now,” Little Jake insisted, his lips pouted with determination.

“Pa's gonna hate us,” Ben wept. “We shoulda been able to help her. Pa's gonna give me away now. He won't want me anymore.”

“Jake won't blame any of you for this,” Lloyd soothed. “He'll likely blame himself, but he'll never blame you boys.”

“The light from the barn fire must have helped them see to get away,” Cole surmised. “They knew once that fire was over it would be too dark for us to follow.”

The three boys jumped, and Lloyd looked up when Jake roared Randy's name from the upstairs bedroom. Minutes later he came stumbling out, and Lloyd saw him—the fire in his dark eyes, the thunder in his presence, the dark aura that seemed to hover around the man. His heart fell when he saw that Jake Harkner the outlaw had returned full force.