Nearly a week passed. On this sunny morning, Victoria was sitting by her lonesome at the dining room table. Silas had slaved over a hot stove since dawn’s early light to prepare a nourishing breakfast that she felt remorseful to let it go to waste. However, her nose crinkled at the mere scent of hot crispy bacon and sausages and made her gorge rise. She knew that the tiniest bite would rush back with a vengeance. Her knotted stomach would only tolerate the aroma of a steaming coffee, of which she hazarded a few sips.

The emotionally drained matriarch was fretting over her children’s mental stability, particularly Nick’s who fell prey to recurrent nightly psychotic episodes that required heavy sedation. She was tormented by the sight of her son’s arms flailing about, his body writhing while crying out his late brother’s name. The hollow feeling of helplessness invaded her.

Jarrod rounded the corner and walked up to her.

“Good morning, Mother,” he greeted, giving her a wonted kiss on the cheek.

“Good morning, Jarrod. Sleep well?”, she asked dozily.

He sat next to her and poured himself a cup of coffee. “ I managed to doze off three hours ago,” he answered yawningly, with bloodshot eyes and eyelids drooping. “ I was worried about Nick. What did Dr. Merar say?”

“That time will ease the pain and heal the wounds.”

“He certainly can’t keep this up. This is the third night in a row. He’s liable to have a heart attack on us.”

Nick trampled down the staircase. The house reverberated with his heavy footsteps. Astonishingly enough, the roaring lion was back to his old buoyant self. He jauntily walked into the dining room.

“Good morning, Mother,” he emoted, planting a sonorous peck on her cheek.

Nick sat next to Jarrod and leaned forward to catch a whiff of the mouth-watering brunch. “Hummm, smells great!” He rubbed his hands together enthusiastically.” I’m famished!”

Jarrod and Victoria exchanged astounded looks. They gawped at Nick already stuffing himself.

In the corner of his eye, Nick caught their bewilderment and asked airily, “What? Why are you eyeballing me like that?”

“Are you feeling alright, Nick?” asked Jarrod in disbelief.

“I’m feeling great! Got a full day ahead of us. I’m supposed to mend the broken fence on the south range and Heath volunteered to round up the loose cattle that escaped.”

“Heath?”

“Yeah. Hopefully he’ll get them all. That kid can do anything once he put his mind to it.” Nick frowned inquisitively at Jarrod’s mystified expression. “What, you don’t think he can do it?”

“No...no, no of course, he...he can do it,” Jarrod stammered, taken aback by Nick’s odd behavior.

“Are you both okay?” Nick asked of the two flabbergasted people staring at him.

Nick raised his eyes and caught Eugene walking in. “Well, look who’s here?” He sprung to his feet and clasped Eugene in a brotherly hug, lifting him up. “You son of a gun, Gene. When did you get in?”

“What?” Eugene exclaimed, stunned by Nick’s ebullient welcome.

“Ah...he, he arrived early this morning.” Jarrod hastily improvised. Nick’s peculiar boisterous spirits were indicative of a psychological disorder called Traumatic Amnesia. Jarrod recalled the exhibited signs from a previous court case and remembered how to handle the situation, hence his impromptu replies.

“Why didn’t you tell us? I would have picked you up at the train station.”

“He wanted it to be a surprise.” Jarrod humoured, goggling at Eugene, motioning him to sit down and remain quiet.”

Nick resumed his seat by Jarrod’s.

“Well, I know Heath’s going to be mighty happy to see you. By the way, where’s that brother of mine?” he asked gruffly, somewhat concerned by his absence at the table.

“Ah, he...he rode out early this morning,” Jarrod informed, his mind pacing to contrive a plausible story.

Victoria was in turmoil, sitting mute with consternation. She repelled the insinuation that Nick’s blunt disregard for other people’s feelings was wilful, which he’s not accustomed of doing. Had he merely put on a bold front or had he actually dismissed the ghastly events of the past?

“Early? Heath? I’M the early riser. Heath tends to oversleep.” Nick stated. “I know what it is.”

“What?”

“He’s avoiding me on purpose.”

“Why is that?”

“You know the black stallion we roped in three days ago?”

“Three....days?”

“Yeah, well... two and a half.”

“Okay. Yes.”

“Well, we’re at loggerheads about his ownership. I say he’s mine because I spotted him and lassoed him. Heath says he’s his because he broke him.”

“I see.”

“I’ve been thinking. Since the kid almost broke his back busting him, it’s only fitting that he should have him. I guess it’s the brotherly thing to do. They’ll be other stallions.”

“That’s very nice of you, Nick.”

“Yeah, I know,” Nick grinned complacently. “I guess I gorged myself plenty. I’ll be going, now.” He stood from his chair, snatching a few more slices of bacon off his plate. “If any of you see Heath, tell him I want to have a talk with him.”

Nick left the room. A deathly silence ensued.

“What has just happened?” asked a very disturbed Victoria.

“I’ve seen this before, in a court case in San Francisco about six months ago. My client was adamantly positive he was innocent of his wife’s murder. Turned out her accidental death was so grisly that his subconscious mind blocked it out completely. It’s called traumatic amnesia,” Jarrod explained.

“What is that?” Victoria asked, puzzled.

“A memory block in the aftermath of a traumatic event. When the pain becomes insufferable, instead of prolonging the torment, the brain just turns off the memory of the stressor and the person becomes numbed to responsiveness.”

“Are you saying that he’s forgotten about Heath’s death?”

“No, not forgotten, just stored in his memory bank. But I’d say it’s only a partial amnesia because he remembers us, this house... He’s regressed nearly three weeks into the past,” Jarrod pointed out. “He mentioned the stallion that he and Heath brought in three days ago. Well, that happened eighteen days ago.”

“We have to do something. We can’t keep up this charade. What should we do?”

Jarrod rubbed his chin, thinking. ”Doctor Cranston. He’s the doctor that helped me on that case. He’s in San Francisco. I’ll wire him this morning. Perhaps he can give us some tips on how to handle the situation.”

“I certainly hope so, Jarrod.”

“In the meantime, we have to humour Nick. Act as if nothing happened and most importantly, we have to coordinate our stories on Heath’s whereabouts.”

Victoria buried his face in her hand and cried, “ I don’t know how much more I can take.”

Jarrod wiped his mouth dry and stood from the table. He went to Victoria and laid his hands on her shoulders. “He’s going to get through this.”

Jarrod kissed her on the cheek and left.

Audra rode out to meet Nick and to bring him a lunch she had whipped up especially for him. She had been made aware of her brother’s frail state of mind and irrational behaviour, but blinked at the fact that Nick would intentionally allow his psyche to draw a blank on such a senseless tragedy, that Heath’s untimely demise was so easily obliterated from his memory.

She reached her destination but Nick was nowhere in sight. She reined in her horse.

“Nick,” she called out, her eyes scanning the area.

She kicked her horse into a dogtrot alongside the fence. As she cast around uneasily, she discerned the tip of a dark-haired tuft protruding from behind a boulder. She squinted and blinked away the dust in her eyes to establish focus. She tugged at the reins and dismounted. She untied the picnic basket on her saddle and started towards the immobile form.

She edged up to Nick who was sitting on the grass with an empty gaze in front of a brook. The vacuity in his eyes was chillingly frightening. His stare was voided of any expression. There was something unnervingly peaceful about him. He had withdrawn in a vacuum, a state of isolation from outside influences, in which the entire world was of no moment.

Audra stood a few feet away in complete dismay. She ventured to break him out of his trance by calling his name, but Nick remained cataleptic.

‘Nick!” she uttered louder.

In a slow motion, Nick raised his head and peered at her. The distant look in his eyes suggested a fleeting memory gap as to Audra’s identity.

“What are you doing here?” Nick asked icily.

She held out the picnic hamper in front of him. “I brought you something to eat. You left home this morning without packing a lunch.”

She kneeled down and spread out the tablecloth onto the grass.

“I’m not hungry,” Nick replied curtly, turning his gaze back to the brook.

“You have to eat something.”

“Listen.”

“What?”

“Quiescence, the peaceful streaming sound of the water. It fills you with a sense of serenity.”

Audra was disturbed by Nick’s atypical melancholia. Her brother was seeking asylum in a faraway realm and felt helpless in preventing him from sinking deeper. She continued to unpack the lunch.

Nick continued his wandering. “ I could sit here all day...listening...drifting with the current of...”

“Stop it, just stop it!” she bellowed, thumping a plate against the ground.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Me? What’s the matter with you?” She moved closer to Nick and stared deeply into his eyes. “Don’t you remember anything? How can you forget something like that?

“What are you talking about?”

“Our brother, Heath.”

“What about him?”

“Oh God, Nick!” Appalled by Nick’s aloofness, she rose and ran off, crying.

Nick shrugged off Audra’s temper tantrum and leaned back against the rock.

Back at the ranch, Audra stormed into the house as Victoria was coming down the stairs.

“Audra?”

“Mother!” She threw herself into Victoria’s arms, her body racked with sobs. She tried to speak but was too choked up.

Victoria cupped her head in her hands. “What is it, Sweetheart?”

“Nick..how..how can he do this to us?” She fell back into her mother’s comforting arms.

“It’s his way of dealing with the pain”, she explained calmly, dabbing the back of Audra’s head.

“I need him,” she wailed.

“I know.” They disengaged the embrace. Victoria dried Audra’s tears with her thumbs. “He will come back to us. We just have to allow him a little more time.’

Audra clasped Victoria in a bear hug, afraid to let go.

Jarrod entered the house, He stared, worried, at the two teary-eyed women.

“Mother, Audra. Anything wrong?”

“No, it’s okay.” Victoria answered, sniffing back her tears. “ Were you successful in reaching Doctor Cranston?”

“Yes I did. He said we should help Nick by exposing him to specific situations, objects or places associated with the event to hopefully elicit some kind of response.”

“What should we do?”

“He suggested we start by bringing him back to the place where it all happened and see if he recoils, feels uneasy or reacts strangely in any way to the surroundings. If so, then it’ll be safe to jump to the next level of showing him Heath’s grave.”

They unanimously agreed to feed Nick the story of Heath being out gadding about town all night with some friends.

Next morning, Jarrod roused earlier than usual to intercept Nick before he left to tend to his ranch work. He donned his riding gear and went downstairs to look for the early bird.

He entered the kitchen where Silas was preparing breakfast.

“Good morning, Mister Jarrod.”

“Good morning, Silas. Have you seen Nick this morning?”

“He said he was going to the stables to check on the horses.”

“Thank you.”

In the barn, Nick was nowhere to be found.

Nick!” he called out.

“Down here!” Nick shouted back from Charger’s stall. He was crouched by the animal, probing his legs for any possible gash or fracture.

“What are you doing?”

“I found it peculiar that Heath should leave without Charger. So I figured there might be something wrong with him and he’s gone to fetch the vet.”

“Probably.”

Nick levered himself up onto his hands. “Heath apparently took off with the stallion instead.” He felt the horse’s flanks. ”I don’t understand, everything seems okay aside from the fact that he’s off his feed.”

“Perhaps he wanted to work him out.”

“Yeah, well...he could have asked me. We still haven’t resolved the issue of his ownership.”

“Nick, could you spare me a few hours?”

“What for?”

“There’s a parcel of land I’m interested in acquiring and I’d appreciate your expert opinion.”

“Right now?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Well, alright but do you have any objection of going after breakfast?”

“Of course not.”

Nick grabbed his apple on a wooden shelf and fed it to Charger. The horse caught one whiff and bit hungrily into it.

“Yeah, never fails to please you, doesn’t it Big Fellow?” Nick bantered, clapping Charger on the neck.

Later that morning, once Nick assuaged his appetite over a hearty breakfast, he followed Jarrod to the scene of the sordid crime.

“How much further?” Nick lamented.

“We’re here.”

Both dismounted and Jarrod started down to the clearing. Nick, however, was rooted to the spot, chilled with a feeling of déjà vu that made his flesh crawl.

“Nick, are you alright?” Jarrod asked, realizing that the settings were visibly disturbing his brother.

“Yeah...yeah, I’m fine,” Nick answered queasily.

The flustered man reluctantly trailed Jarrod down to the area where the carnage occurred.

With each step, Nick’s heartbeat climbed, attaining an alarming rate once they reached destination. He broke out in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. His heart pulsating out of his chest. He wrestled with a lurking demon slowly groping its way to the surface at the sound of Jarrod scuffing through the withered leaves.

“Well, this is it. What do you think?”

Nick shrunk back in fear, blenching with terror. “Yeah...yeah it’s great. Let’s go back.”

“Something wrong?”

Nick ran his quivering hands through his hair. No, no...every...everything’s fine. Let’s go.”

“Wait! Do you think I should purchase the land?”

“Sure. Whatever. Let’s go.” Nick turned back and hurried to Coco.

Jarrod shut his eyes and heaved a sigh of relief at Nick’s reaction, a definite indication that the visit had contributed to the unlatching of a door within his subconscious.

...Continued