Love's Sweet Revenge (37 page)

Jake remained turned away. “My God, Evie, this has to be hard on you. Brian, too.”

“We'll get through it, Daddy. I'm a lot stronger now. And maybe…” She wiped at sudden tears. “Maybe it won't be…as bad. I'll be here for Mother when you get her back.”

Jake just shook his head. “She's twenty-four years older than you, Evie. When you're older…”
Sometimes things…hurt more.
“And what happened to you…there is no comparing any of it. It
never
should have happened in the first place! You could have died, and so could your mother. She's so…fragile. And in the end, this all comes back to
me
!”

He turned and walked past them into the kitchen to start loading his repeater and his shotgun. “Lloyd, you tell the men that as far as the outside world is concerned, we went after more rustlers. I don't want your mother's name mentioned in any of this. We couldn't keep Evie's name out of the news because the whole town of Guthrie knew what happened, but this is right here on the ranch, and it's going to
stay
right here on the ranch! I don't think your mother could take that kind of publicity…not that kind. You make sure the men understand that.” He glanced over at the boys. “Do you boys understand what I'm saying? We're going after
rustlers
.”

The boys nodded.

“Your grandmother is a beautiful, proud woman who can be just as…sophisticated and refined…as the best of them. She's smart…and she's…” Jake began angrily ramming cartridges into his repeater. “Hell, she…taught me like a kid who'd never been to school. She used to teach me words I called fancy. She actually made me
enjoy
learning new words. She took a worthless, no-good outlaw and showed him…”

He glanced at a fresh loaf of Randy's homemade bread sitting near the stove.

“Evie, she's so…small. But she…stood right up to me.” He kept shoving bullets into the repeater. “When she took that bullet out of me all those years ago, she hid my guns. Can you believe that? She hid my guns, and no matter…how much I threatened her…she wouldn't tell me where they were.”

He angrily retracted the repeater so a bullet would be in the chamber, then set it down and opened the shotgun. “I found my guns…in a potato bin, and when she came in and saw me holding them…” He smiled through tears as he shoved slugs into the shotgun. “Her beautiful eyes…got so big…and then she just…
looked
at me…and I knew I was falling in love…but I also knew nothing
worse
could happen to her than for a man like me to love her.”

He slammed the shotgun closed. “And I was fucking right!” He took one of his .44s from its holster and checked to be sure it was fully loaded. “And right now, I don't much care if I go to prison or the gallows. I'm getting my wife back, and no man who touches her wrongly is going to live to talk about it!” He got up, shoving the gun back into the holster. “And Brad Buckley isn't going to die easy! If he thinks me slamming that rifle butt into his chest and breaking his breastbone was bad, he'll find out that was like a slap on the hand compared to what I'll do to him if he's…” He couldn't finish. “I'll have him wishing he was never born!”

“I ain't never seen nobody who looked more dangerous than Jake right now,” Vance Kelly said quietly to Cole.

It was barely light enough to see. Cole, Terrel, Rodriguez, and Vance rode out with Jake and Lloyd. Both grandsons and Ben were also with them, and Jake had asked Brian to come along in case Randy or one of the men should need medical help.

“He was pretty wild-looking that day he beat Clem for insultin' his wife,” Cole answered. “This is gonna be a hell of a lot worse.”

“The son ain't any less scary-lookin' right now than the father,” Terrel added. “I reckon that's what made them a team to deal with when they were marshals in Oklahoma. I didn't know a man could tote that many weapons neither.”

The three men hung back as they talked, steam coming from their mouths because of the cold air.

“I still say the look in his eyes is more intimidating than the way he's armed,” Vance added.

“The whole thing is a shame,” Cole grumbled. “Ain't a finer woman than that man's wife. I don't blame him for wantin' to kill those men. I want to kill them, too.”

Jake rode in the lead on Midnight. One of the men had managed to find the horse before they left. Part of his tail was burned off, but the horse was fine otherwise.

Those men left behind would bury what was left of Pepper once the barn ashes were cool enough to sift through them. It was a job none of them relished. Teresa would clean up the mess left at the house. Jake had ordered two of the men to take at least two weeks' worth of heating wood and supplies up to the line shack in the northwest quarter of the J&L. “Randy wanted me to take her back there for months, and I kept putting it off,” he'd told them darkly. “I'll damn well take her there when we get her back, and we'll stay there as long as it takes to—” He never finished.

After the few words Cole and Vance exchanged, no one else spoke. Even Stephen and Little Jake and Ben were somber, Little Jake's countenance almost as dark and menacing as his grandfather's. Cole admired their determination. All three boys had bruises and stitches—Stephen with a swollen lip and nose, Little Jake with a bruised cheek and a bandage around his forehead from the bad cut there, which had also puffed out into a mean bump. Ben had a black eye and could hardly pull himself up on his horse because of a badly bruised arm and shoulder.

The ride was eerily quiet because of how the snow muffled the sound of their horses' hooves. There was only the squeak of saddles and the occasional snort of one of the horses, whose nostrils flared and steamed against the cold air. Rodriguez led two spare horses packed with supplies, including clothes for Randy and a rabbit-fur coat she favored. Jake insisted on bringing it, afraid she wasn't being kept warm enough.

Jake kept up a steady pace for the next two hours, not saying a thing, keeping his eyes either straight ahead or looking down at tracks. Lloyd rode right beside him, thinking how the men they were after had left a trail that was too easy.

Jake finally slowed up, looking around.

“They didn't try hiding their trail even a little,” Lloyd spoke up. “It's a setup. Mom is just the bait for the bigger prize.”

“
Me
,” Jake answered in a deep growl. He dismounted and studied the tracks closer. “Hard to tell which horse is carrying your mother. She's so small her weight doesn't make much difference when with a man on a big horse.” He stayed knelt beside the tracks for a moment, then cleared his throat and wiped at his eyes. “Jesus,” he said in a near whisper. “You could break that woman in half so easy, Lloyd. She could have broken bones.”

“Pa, stop torturing yourself. Mom is way stronger than you give her credit for.”

“You know the Buckleys, Lloyd. You were there when I killed Brad's father for abusing a fifteen-year-old girl. And your mother isn't fifteen. She's fifty, Lloyd.
Fifty!
No one would ever guess it to look at her, but it's a fact. How many women are that beautiful at fifty?” He rose, wiping at his eyes again. “The fact remains she might not…make it through something like this. I know every tiny inch of her body and how easily she bruises. For God's sake, even her
bones
are tiny.” He remounted. “God knows if they're keeping her warm enough,” he added.

“Pa, don't forget that when we went after Evie, they had a good three- or four-day start on us. This is all fresh. We'll find her a lot quicker than we found Evie. And it looks like they've kept a pretty steady pace themselves, which means they haven't had time to stop and—” He didn't finish.

Jake paused to light a cigarette. “It's like Gretta said in that courtroom, Lloyd. Some men don't
need
much time.”
And your mother isn't made for that. You have to treat a woman like her with gentleness.
How many times had he worried he'd hurt her? He'd left little bruises on her bottom once from grasping her too tightly when making love to her. She said she never noticed, but that had always bothered him. He knew an older woman needed special handling. Things hurt that never used to hurt. He knew every inch of her body and every sound she made, and he damn well knew things were a little different. He hadn't missed one beat with her, and the thought of men manhandling her made him crazy.

“Keep an eye out!” he shouted back to the others. “They just might leave her off somewhere because she'll hold them up. A person can freeze to death in no time out here! We'll rest the horses five minutes and get going again!”

“They're headed south,” Lloyd commented. “Looks like maybe for Little Jake's Valley. That's wide-open country. If we go riding into that valley, they'll be waiting for us and pick us off like shooting tin cans off a fence.”

“None of it makes any sense,” Jake commented. “They know how well we know this country—know we'll catch up to them. How can they possibly think they can get away with this?”

“Because Brad Buckley doesn't have a brain in his head,” Lloyd answered. “You know he doesn't think beyond the end of his pecker. The fucker just wants revenge, and he thinks because of what happened in Denver, you can't do anything about it.”

“He'll damn well find out different!”

“You still need to be careful, Pa. Mom will need you in the worst way, so you'll need to be here for her, which means not doing something that will get you arrested.”

Jake glanced sidelong at him, the cigarette between his lips. “I think you tried convincing me of that back at the house last night.”

Lloyd pulled a cigarette from inside his sheepskin jacket. “I couldn't let you just go riding off in a rage without thinking this out. And it was too damn dark to follow any tracks.”

Jake quietly drew on the cigarette. “Are we okay?”

Lloyd frowned as he struck a match and lit his cigarette. “What do you mean?”

“You were pretty serious back there. I think you really wanted to land a fist into me.”

Lloyd took a deep drag on the cigarette. “Well, Pa, sometimes I love you so much I really
do
want to land a fist into you just to straighten your ass out. If you will recall, you clobbered me pretty good when I visited you in prison.”

Jake turned away.

“Why did you do that, Pa? Think about it.”

Jake took another drag on his cigarette and watched the smoke combine with the steam his breath made in the cold air when he exhaled. “Because I loved you, and I wanted to stop you from going off and doing something stupid.”

“And there you go. Sometimes you love somebody so much you want to hit them because you're scared for them.”

Jake shook his head and put the cigarette back between his lips. “Well, if hitting means loving, then my father must have loved the
hell
out of me,” he said, obvious angry sarcasm in the words.

“Yeah, well, that was a bit different.”

“Oh, it was a bit different, all right.”

Lloyd smoked quietly for a few seconds, aching for his father. “Do you think he loved you at all—I mean, even a little?”

“Hell no. Not even a little.”

“Why do you think he let you live? He killed the rest of his family, but not you.”

An almost evil darkness moved into Jake's eyes. “He kept me around for something to beat on. I was his entertainment.”

Lloyd closed his eyes, finding it hard to imagine such hell, especially for a child. He couldn't even come close to imagining being that cruel to Stephen.

Jake looked over at Ben and his grandsons. “You three staying warm enough?”

“We're okay,” Stephen answered.

“I want you to be prepared for just about anything. I don't know what we'll find or how I'll react, but you boys wanted to come along, and you deserve a piece of this. Just don't be surprised by anything I do, and remember that no matter what I do, you boys have to handle things like this the right way when you take over this ranch someday.”

“We understand, Grampa,” Little Jake told him.

Ben nodded.

“And I don't blame any of you for what happened, okay? Don't ever think I blame you or that I don't understand how you're feeling, because I damn well do.”

“Thanks for letting us come, Grandpa,” Stephen spoke up.

Lloyd took a good look at them as Jake remounted. “You boys sure you can do this? You're pretty beat up. Little Jake, how's that cut on your head? Do you have a headache or anything like that?”

Little Jake shook his head. He'd been in a constant pout ever since everything happened. “You're talkin' like Grandma would if she was here, Uncle Lloyd, askin' us if we're okay. She's the best grandma in the whole world.”

Lloyd nodded, as scared for his mother as Jake was. “Yes, she is, Little Jake. And she's a real strong woman, stronger than your grandfather gives her credit for.”

Jake shifted in his saddle, reminding Lloyd of a tightly wound spring about to release an explosion of emotional rage. He decided to try to lighten the mood, at least for the moment, partly for the boys, who still looked so brokenhearted. He wanted to cheer them up, at least a little. “Your grandma jokes with your grandpa about other women,” he told them, raising his voice a little more to deliberately goad Jake.

Jake turned and scowled at him.

“You've heard stories about Grandpa and bad women,” Lloyd teased.

The three boys tentatively smiled.

“Grampa says there's no such thing as bad women,” Little Jake reminded Lloyd.

“Yes, well, that's your grandfather's weakness. He
does
have his weaknesses, and women is one of them. But if your grandmother ever caught him really misbehaving with some other woman, she'd give him a black eye.”

“Nuh-uh,” Little Jake protested.

“Oh, you bet she would. I told you she's stronger than she looks. Little as she is, she can handle your grampa like a puppy dog. She's got him right here.” He held up his hand and made a fist. “Right in the palm of her hand. Big and mean as he is, she can rope him down like a calf.”

The three boys giggled.

“
Can
she, Grampa?” Little Jake asked.

Jake gave the boys a half smile, as if realizing, like Lloyd did, that they needed some uplifting. “Sure she can,” he answered.

“How can she do that?” Stephen asked.

Jake turned his gaze to Lloyd. “I'll let Lloyd answer that one.”

Lloyd put on a very serious look. “Oh, a woman has her ways, Son. You'll find out when you're a little older.”

“It's a very hard question to answer,” Brian told Stephen. He smiled a little himself. “Let's just say a happy woman is much easier to live with than one who is mad at you.”

Some of the men chuckled, and Lloyd thought about Katie and how just last night everything was beautiful and peaceful. Before the fire broke out, he'd been watching Katie breast-feed their new son. It had been such a sweet moment. He'd meant to make love to her when she was through. They hadn't made love since the baby was born, and right now he'd never wanted her more. He already missed her and the baby, missed the smell of the baby's little neck, missed how Katie smelled, how utterly beautiful she was when she was nursing.

Jake threw down his cigarette. “Let's get going,” he told them, kicking Midnight's sides and riding off again.

“Time to get serious again, boys,” Lloyd told the younger ones. “Don't any of you make one move on your own once we find Grandma. You let me and Grandpa take care of things.”

“But we wanna help, Uncle Lloyd. Those men hurt Grandma.”

“You just wait till Jake or I tell you what to do. I mean it, Little Jake—you most of all. You mind what we tell you. And your father has a say in this, too. Your mother is probably worried sick right now.”

Brian nodded. “You mind your business, Little Jake.”

Disgruntled, Little Jake got his roan mare underway to follow Jake as they took off again.

Within a half hour, Jake, who rode well ahead of the others, gave out a shrill whistle. Lloyd saw him riding hard, toward what looked like a horse—and a man on the ground beside it.

“Stay behind me!” Lloyd ordered the boys. “Rodriguez, stay with them!” He galloped ahead, and Cole, Terrel, and Vance charged their horses ahead to catch up. Rodriguez hung back with Brian and the boys, looking around cautiously. They were on open range now, with nothing for cover. “Come slowly,” he told the boys. “Looks like Jake found one of them. That means we are getting closer.”

Lloyd rode hard. “Holy shit,” he muttered. Jake had already charged Midnight right into whoever was on the ground, deliberately trampling him.