Outlaw Hearts (39 page)

Lloyd had practiced every day and was proud of his progress, proud to be the owner of such a beautiful rifle, most of all proud to be Jackson Hayes's son. He watched his father light a cheroot, wondering when he'd be old enough to smoke. “How'd you get so good with guns, Pa? Mom told me your own pa died when you were about my age and that your mother was already dead. You didn't have anybody to teach you.”

Jake smoked quietly for a moment, staring at the campfire.
Tell
him
the
truth
, a little voice nagged him.
There
couldn't be a better time.
“I just taught myself,” he answered. “I was orphaned at your age, had no other family. That was down in Texas in the thirties. Things were pretty lawless then. A kid my age had to know how to defend himself, how to provide for himself. You just do what you have to do. I never had a home or anybody to take care of me like you and Evie have, like your mother had. She lost her mother at a young age too, but she had her father and brother until she was about twenty.”

Lloyd leaned closer over the fire and turned the spit. Fat dripped from the rabbit onto hot coals and made little hissing sounds. “You ever have to kill a man back then?” he asked.

Jake met his eyes.
Yeah, my own father. And a hell of a lot of others.
How in hell could he tell him that? The kid looked at him sometimes like he was a god. If he knew the truth… “A few, in self-defense. That's just how it was back then.”

Lloyd shook his head. “I don't think I could ever kill a man.”

Jake watched him lovingly. “I hope to hell you never have to. It can come back to haunt you sometimes, but if you have to do it to save your own life, then you don't have much choice.”

Lloyd remembered something, but he couldn't remember enough to ask his father about it. He recalled guns exploding in his ears, could hear his mother screaming, but it seemed it was only something he had dreamed. He met his father's dark eyes and wondered sometimes about the terrible sadness he saw there. Sometimes he felt like the man wasn't telling him everything, almost like he was afraid of something, but then it was hard to imagine his father being afraid of anything. He'd seen Jake throw out a drifter once who had wandered into the house and threatened his mother. The drifter was a big man, but Jake had picked him up, shoved him right out of the house, then landed a punch that sent the man flying right over the porch railing and into a rosebush. The man had run off cussing a blue streak.

There were other things his father had done that he was proud of, although Jake never seemed to want to talk about them. It was Beth who had told him the story her own father had told her about how Jake had become his foreman—that he'd shot it out with a whole gang of robbers when he worked at her father's gold mine west of Denver. Being foreman of the Parker ranch was a big responsibility, and riding the line presented a lot of dangers for a man alone, but his father always made it back home. He remembered the winter before last, when his mother had wept thinking Jake had been lost in a snowstorm. He remembered how scared he'd been when his father finally made it home and fell ill with pneumonia and frostbite. For a while they were afraid he'd lose some of his toes and fingers, but he had survived.

Jake Hayes always survived. Lloyd had never seen anybody better with guns. Three years ago they had gone to a Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in Denver. It had been an exciting trip for the family, one of the best times Lloyd could remember. Buffalo Bill had asked for challengers to a man who was a part of the show and was his best shot. The challenger would win two hundred dollars in silver if he could beat or even match the showman. His mother had urged his father to take the challenge, but at first Jake didn't want to do it. That was another thing he liked about his father. The man was probably the best shot in Colorado, but he never made a big thing out of it. In fact, it seemed like he didn't even want people to know.

Jake Hayes had won that two hundred dollars that day, hitting his target every time with both his handgun and a rifle, even while riding a horse. He'd been so good that Buffalo Bill had offered him a job in his Wild West Show, but Jake didn't want anything to do with the publicity. It seemed like after that he'd been anxious to just get out of Denver and go home. He hadn't even told his good friend Jess about what had happened when they got back, and sometimes it seemed like even Jess was keeping secrets about his father. He liked Jess York a lot, but the man was always evasive whenever Lloyd asked him questions about Jake.

“I don't want to go to college, Pa,” Lloyd said aloud then. “I want to stay right here and work on the ranch with you.”

Jake leaned back and drew deeply on the cheroot, glad for the change of subject. “Your mother wants better things for you, and so do I. Besides, you want to make a good impression on Beth Parker, don't you?”

Lloyd grinned bashfully. “Beth Parker? Why would I care about making an impression on her? She's only twelve years old.”

“Twelve going on sixteen. She's a damn pretty girl, and she watches every move you make. A man like Zane Parker isn't going to let his daughter get too interested in a cowhand's son, not that you aren't worth more than any young man raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. I just want you to be careful, son. People like Parker can get a little rankled when it comes to who's interested in their children. If you're college-educated, you can get a high-class job, maybe work in Denver—”

“Pa, I don't give a care about Beth Parker, and even if I did when I got older, hell, I wouldn't want her if she looked down on me for some reason. I'm proud of what you do, and if that's what I end up doing, I'll be proud for myself. Hell, you've got a damned important job with a lot of responsibility. How good this ranch does is because of you, not because of Zane Parker. Sometimes you act like you think you're not good enough or something. You're one of the smartest, bravest, most skilled men I know. Every man on this ranch looks up to you.”

There it was again. Jake's eyes held that strange sadness that made Lloyd wonder.

“And you're a good son. Don't put me on such a pedestal, Lloyd.” Jake threw the cheroot into the flames. “I'm just a man, and all men have faults and shortcomings. Nobody is perfect, that's for damn sure.” He looked over at Lloyd and smiled for the boy. “Except maybe you.”

Lloyd laughed lightly then, leaning back against his saddle again. Night was upon them, and he wondered how many millions of stars there were in the sky. He liked looking at that sky, liked the night sounds, even the sounds of the wolves in the deeper mountains. A man might find sleeping out in this wild country at night a little frightening, especially in the spring, when the grizzlies awoke from their long winter's naps and began roaming about looking for food. This was the time of year when bears were their orneriest, according to Jake. He'd had more run-ins with angry bears than he cared to talk about. He'd even lost his beloved Outlaw to one of those bears, but he had managed to shoot the grizzly before it got to him. Outlaw had been tied while Jake went after a buck, and Jake had not been able to get back to the horse in time to save him. Lloyd remembered his father had actually wept over the loss of that horse. Even his mother had felt bad. She said Outlaw was the horse Jake had been riding when she first met him.

That was another subject that was not quite clear to him. His parents always seemed a little evasive about how they met. He only knew it was in Kansas City. They had fallen in love, and Jake had brought Miranda west originally to find her brother, who they discovered had been killed in a mining accident. Then they went onto California, but Jake thought he could do better someplace else and had left for two years to build a better life for them.

Lloyd couldn't quite understand why. He seemed to remember a nice house in California, but it wasn't real clear in his mind. He thought they had been happy there. Still, that dream he had about all the shooting—it seemed like in the dream they were living in California at the time. In the dream his father was kissing him good-bye, and he was crying, as though something terrible had happened. He had wanted to tell Jake about the dream, but it seemed kind of silly.

A coyote yipped not far away, and he watched his father's dark eyes check the shadows beyond the campfire. The darkness and the sound of prowling wolves and coyotes didn't frighten Lloyd, because he was with Jake Hayes. What was there to be afraid of when his father was along? Besides that, he had his own rifle now.

He breathed in the smell of pine and mountain breezes. It was still pretty cold at night around here, and there was still a lot of snow up higher in the mountains. The stream near which they had camped was swollen with sparkling, icy water from spring melt-off, and here in the foothills the lush, spring grass was dotted with brilliant wildflowers.

Jake took a knife from his boot and leaned forward to cut a piece of rabbit off the spit. “This ought to be done. Sure doesn't compare to your mother's home cooking, does it?” He put the meat into a tin plate and handed it over to Lloyd.

“Sure doesn't,” Lloyd answered. “You miss her when you're out here, don't you?”

Jake cut off another piece. “What man wouldn't miss a woman like that?”

Lloyd grinned and bit into the rabbit. It made him happy to think how much his parents seemed to love each other. He remembered once when he was little running into their bedroom when he heard strange sounds coming from there, and he thought maybe his father was hurting his mother. He knew better now, and much as they tried to be quiet and wait until he and Evie were asleep, he still sometimes heard those sounds. Somehow it was comforting to know his parents still made love and seemed to enjoy each other's company so much. He hoped to find someone as good as his mother someday. He didn't very often think about girls, certainly not about marriage and making love. But his father had been more right about Beth than he cared to admit. She sure was pretty, and if the truth was known, he didn't mind the thought of how beautiful Beth was going to be when she was older, or of maybe thinking of her as his girl in a couple more years. In spite of her wealth, Beth was sweet and generous. There was nothing snooty about her, and she treated him and Evie like equals. She was nice, and sometimes she was fun to be with, for a girl anyway.

He chewed on a piece of rabbit and discovered it was a little tough. “You're right, Pa. I think I like Mom's home cooking better.”

Jake chuckled, feeling an ache in his heart to be lying next to Miranda tonight. God, she was nice to come home to after two weeks of sleeping on the hard ground. He'd seen how Jess York looked at her sometimes, suspected how the man felt. Jess didn't come around very often, and Jake figured he knew why. Jess was a good man, had been a good friend, and Jake wished he could have found love again after the brutal way he had lost his wife and daughter during the war. There had not been another woman for Jess, but Jake supposed that if he were out of the picture, it was Miranda Jess would like to be holding. That didn't upset him. In fact, it made him feel a little better. If anything ever happened to him, between Jess and Lloyd, Miranda and Evie would be taken care of, protected, loved.

He heard the snap of a branch then, and he tensed, slowly putting his rabbit meat back onto his plate. “Say, Lloyd, I've got something to show you,” he said, trying to sound casual. Was it a bear sneaking around in the shadows, or wolves? Or was it a man, maybe more than one man? Were they after the horses? Money? He had warned a gang of hunters earlier to get off of Parker land and do their hunting elsewhere. He had been worried then about trouble, feared Lloyd would get hurt, but the men had reluctantly ridden off. Jake had not liked the look of them. He knew that look, men who would shoot another in the back if they could get away with it. He'd ridden with men like that long enough to know one when he saw one.

“What is it, Pa?” Lloyd was asking.

“Come over by the horses.” He picked up his rifle and walked around the fire to a puzzled Lloyd, picking up the boy's rifle also. In the next instant Lloyd heard a shot ring out, and his father tackled him to the ground and rolled with him into the darkness away from the fire. “Stay right here!” he growled.

“Pa! Are you hurt?”

“Just do like I said and stay out of the firelight.” Jake shoved the boy's rifle into his hands and left him, moving off into the trees beyond. Lloyd clung to his rifle, rolling onto his belly, his heart pounding with fear for his father.

“Where'd the sons of bitches go!” someone growled.

“They run off like scared rabbits,” someone else returned, laughing. “Hell, let's finish that fine meal they was eatin' and get their horses and leave.”

Two men stepped into the firelight. “Be careful. That boy's nothin' to worry about, but the pa looked like somebody you don't take lightly.”

“There's two of them and six of us,” came a third voice. Another man stepped into the firelight. “They know it, and that's why they lit out. Probably figured it was us come back and knew they didn't have a chance.”

“Maybe,” the first man answered, looking around. “But they won't go far without their gear. Better keep your eyes open. I'd feel better if you wouldn't have stepped on that branch and given us away, Lenny. We could have shot them both down and made off with their food and gear and horses, and nobody would ever have known the difference.”

A fourth man came into view, and Lloyd forced himself to breathe quietly as he gripped his rifle. Could he really shoot one or more of these men if he had to? Where was his father? Was he all right?

Suddenly he heard two more shots, recognized the loud bang of his father's Winchester. The four men in the light of the fire whirled, and Jake stepped into view then, leveling his Winchester at them and retracting the lever to cock the gun. “All of you shed your guns,” he ordered. “You can answer to Zane Parker for trespassing on his land again and attacking one of his men. This is Parker land, and out here Zane Parker also sets the law! Murderers and thieves can find themselves in a whole lot of trouble!”