“Nick, will you tell us what’s going on?” Heath asked while he untied the bedroll from his saddle.

“We had to get away from those three vamps.”

“What for? They looked appealing to me,” Jarrod commented.

“Yeah I thought so too,” Heath echoed with a mischievous smile.

“Lovely but deadly. Believe me, you don’t want to mess with them,” Nick explained while he unfurled his bedroll and spread it on the ground.

“You know them?” Jarrod asked.

“Kinda.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Alright if you must know, I had a dream about them the night before and…”

“A dream??????” Heath exclaimed.

“Will you let me finish!” Nick bellowed, a bit miffed by the interruption. “One of them…well…actually all three wanted to marry me...” Heath’s and Jarrod’s sneers cut him off in mid-sentence. “That ain’t funny!” Nick snarled at his brothers whose shoulders heaved with repressed laughter. “Do you want to know the story or what?”

“Go on, Brother Nick,” Jarrod egged on between unrestrained titters.

“Well anyway, two of them set their caps on you two guys and they dragged us all to church where a preacher and their old man were waiting with a shotgun.

“Nick, they were merely figments of your imagination.” Jarrod tried reasoning with his brother who remained intractable.

“They look exactly alike. They probably have the same names and same stubbornness.”

“Stubborn, hum….sounds like a good catch for you Nick,” Jarrod teased.

“Boy Howdy Nick! I tell ya you’ve got some nerve hauling us away from the three prettiest gals I’ve seen in a long time on account of a stupid dream,” Heath derided as he bent sideways to reach a small pail.

“May I call your attention to the fact that my stupid dream as you so affectionately call them have often got us out of tight spots.”

“He’s got a good point there, Brother Heath.”

“Humph!” Heath snorted and shook his head in disbelief. “I’ll fetch some water. Meantime Jarrod don’t let dreamer boy here wander off in the Land of Nod ‘cause I kinda want to get hitched before I croak.”

Nick grabbed a fistful of dirt and playfully threw it at Heath. “Get out of here!”

Heath descended upon an untrodden path to a stream to fill his pail of water. His ears suddenly pricked up at the sound of gurgles. He stood and followed the sound to a nearby boulder behind which a newborn, bundled up in an afghan, was lying next to a sleeping woman. Heath tried to nudge her awake, but the sluggishness of her body and her ashen face told him she might be literally dead to the world. He groped her neck and recoiled in shock at what he didn’t feel. “Nick! Jarrod!” he shouted.

Back at the campsite, Nick was kindling a fire while Jarrod was gathering twigs when their brother’s call urged them to drop everything and dash to his rescue.

“Heath, where are you?” Nick called out.

“Over here!”

Nick and Jarrod veered to the right to meet with their brother kneeling near the corpse.

Nick bolted to Heath and squatted down beside him. “Heath are you alright? Nick asked frantically while he gave Heath’s body a cursory examination.

“I am but I don’t think she is,” he replied with his head motioning to the woman.

Nick fingered the woman’s neck for a pulse. “She’s dead.” He scanned her body from head to tow for bruises, gashes or bullet wounds. He noticed a smudge of blood on a cushiony bed of leaves underneath the woman’s head. He gently turned her over.

“She must have skidded on the wet grass when she went to get water and smashed her head on that rock,” Heath surmised with disdain.

“I think you’re right. What a shame.” Nick glanced around for a horse. “Did you see her horse?”

“No. Could have come on foot or the horse got back to her house.”

Nick’s brows suddenly furrowed and his nose crinkled at an offensive stench. “What’s that smell?”

Jarrod smiled at the baby whom he suspected from the squeal of delight had just pooped in his diaper. “Guess Brother Nick.”

Nick looked at the baby who wore a toothless grin. “Ah s…..”

“Exactly.”

“Well I ain’t going in there!” Nick grouched before any of his brothers could volunteer him for the job. He glanced up at Jarrod.

“Don’t look at me! I’m not the expert in the family.” He pointed a finger at Heath.

Nick turned to Heath with a smug. Heath’s eyes first registered puzzlement then terror. “Oh no!

“Oh yes!”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the perfect man for the job. Weren’t you the one who bragged about having to diaper in self-defense when you once lived with a family of twelve?”

Heath’s cheeks flushed scarlet and he flashed a dry grin at his brothers as an acknowledgement of defeat.

“Me and Jarrod will handle the woman while you…scoop,” Nick chaffed with a squeeze at the back of Heath’s neck.

Heath heaved a loud grunt and shot daggers at Nick who was basking in triumph. “I’ll get you for this Nick Barkley,” Heath muttered beneath his breath.

Heath took the woman’s haversack, strapped it around his shoulder, then picked up the baby and carried him to the campsite at arm’s length. He laid him gently on the ground by the fire and settled down to the task at hand. He knelt down next to the child and rummaged through the sack for a diaper. “Yeah, yeah, it’s coming! Gimme a minute here,” Heath groused good-naturedly while he removed the dirty diaper from the squalling baby’s buttocks. “Phew! Boy Howdy this smells worse than cow dung.” Heath’s grimace made the baby giggle “Oh you think that’s funny, huh? I’d like to see you do it sometimes.” Heath made another funny face that elicited a shriek of joy. “You like to see me suffer, don’t you?” Heath was wreathed in smiles before this tiny papoose who was after his own heart. He deplored her mother’s tragic death and nurtured high hopes in locating her father or any relative that would take her to avoid sending her to the orphanage.

Once the mess was cleaned and a fresh diaper was secured in place, Heath held the dirty package in his hand and dangled it over the baby with an ear-to-ear grin. “What do you say we ask Uncle Nick to dispose of the spicy load?” The baby squealed with delight with his tiny hands excitedly flapping on his belly. “You’d like that? So would I.”

After finishing prepping up the corpse for its journey into the nearest town tomorrow morning by wrapping it in the blanket Heath had found in the woman’s bag, Nick and Jarrod returned to the campsite. Nick threw the last twigs into the shimmering flame to keep the fire ablaze. He volunteered to gather some more wood but before he left, Heath held the loaded diaper in front of him at arm’s length.

“What’s that? You’re beans?” Nick bantered. “Get that out of my face!”

“She pooped, I scooped now you boot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out. That’s for cunning me into the job.”

“I didn’t Jarrod did,” Nick defended.

Heath narrowed his sharpened eyes at Jarrod who held his hands in the air and stated innocently, “No comment.”

“If that’s true, you’ll get yours too, big brother,” Heath warned with a sly smile.

At the crack of dawn, the three brothers saddled their mounts. Heath took the baby in his arms while Nick slung the corpse across his horse’s neck and all three headed to the nearest town to enquire about the baby’s parents. They dropped the body at the undertaker before walking down to the sheriff’s office with a description of the woman.

At some point, Heath was lagging behind his two siblings, cooing over the baby girl he held in his arms, whom he showered with kisses about every other minute.

“Heath if you keep smooching that baby you’re going to wear out her skin.”

“Can’t help it Nick. I have it bad for her.”

“Well don’t get too attached.”

The baby’s tiny flailing hand brushed against Heath’s cheek as he playfully nuzzled her nose. “Uncle Nick is jealous because he knows you’re my baby girl.” She attached credence to Heath’s statement by uttering an ear-splitting shrill. “Yes you are, you’re Heath’s precious girl.”

“Stop that drooling will you!” Nick winced in disgust at Heath’s billing and cooing.

“Nick, I think we should move on to the next town. We questioned half of the people and no one seems to know this woman,” Jarrod remarked.

“Perhaps we gave a bad description,” Nick ventured a hypothesis.

“Mr. Barkley?” came the angelic voice from behind.

All three brothers turned around and chorused “Yes!”.

Heath and Jarrod were bowled over by the beguiling Peterson daughters standing before them, whereas Nick’s jaw dropped to the ground and the blood drained from his face at Amelia’s cajoling smile. The girls were passing through town on their way to the Barkley ranch to deliver the stallions. Their father was visiting the sheriff to report horse rustlers loitering about in the area, while the three young maidens strolled about to do some window-shopping.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Katherine said. “Oh, who does that lovely baby belong to?” she asked with drooling admiration.

“Me!” Nick promptly replied. He squashed a muddled Heath with a shut-your-face look as he held out his arms to take the baby. “I’m babysitting while her mother is away,” Nick explained nervously. With a deceptively calm exterior, he strived to mask the lie he was feeding the girls, confident that they would leave him alone if they knew he was spoken for.

“Oh,” Amelia was disheartened to learn that Nick had a family. It crushed all hopes of her catching the tall handsome cowboy she had set her sights on.

Jarrod and Heath were obviously unattached and their countenances showed their high interest in getting better acquainted.

“Well, if you ladies will excuse us, me and my brothers must be heading back.” Nick hinted his two brothers who remained spellbound by the enthralling beauties.

“Barkley!” Peterson exclaimed as he walked over to his daughters. “You left without your stallions. We have them with us if you want to take them with you?”

“Thanks, we’ll do that,” Nick answered with a speck of embarrassment as he dandled the cranky baby in his arms.

“Here let me hold her,” Amelia offered Nick with her arms outstretched.

“That’s okay. I think she’s hungry. I’ll get her back home.”

“You’re married?” Peterson asked with surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

“Neither did we,” Heath mumbled before Nick elbowed him in the side.

“Where’s your wife?”

“She’s back east visiting her mother. I left Libby here with her aunt. She hadn’t seen her for a while and offered to baby-sit while we went to your ranch,” Nick fibbed, amazed at his ability to contrive a plausible story.

“We were just about to invite your lovely daughters to dinner at the hotel, that is if you can spare the time?” Jarrod asked Peterson.

“Can we father?” Becky pleaded with eager expectation.

“Since we don’t have to ride all the way to Stockton, I don’t see why we can’t prolong our stay in town.”

“Thank you Father.”

Amelia and Katherine draped their arms around Jarrod’s while Becky chose Heath as he escort.

“Don’t you want to join us, Mr. Barkley,” Peterson asked Nick who refused to follow.

“No, you go on ahead. I have to go by my sister-in-law’s place and feed Libby before the trip back to Stockton.”

While Heath and Jarrod were enjoying dinner with the Petersons, Nick tended to the horses in the livery stable. He tethered the stallions to Coco, Charger and Jingo and then went to sit on a bale of hay where he bounced the baby on his knee. “I’m giving them ten more minutes,” he confided to the gurgling tot, squeaking with delight.

Fifteen minutes later, Jarrod and Heath were seen walking briskly out of the hotel and quickening the pace toward the living stable. “What took you so long?” Nick bantered as he slowly rose with the baby cradled in his arms “So what happened with the daughters?” he sneered. Heath and Jarrod mounted their horses and threw Nick a withering look. “Next time will you believe me?”