In the cool of the evening, following a copious meal, Nick and Heath engaged in a friendly game of poker with Logan’s father and Johnny Pratt, a young drifter, a soldier of fortune living by his wits, seizing every available opportunity to make a quick buck either through some clever finagling or by brutally murdering his victims and taking off with the loot. Thus far he’d managed to elude the law by carefully covering his tracks. Unbeknownst to him that his chance encounter with the Barkley brothers was fate dealing him a bad hand.

Throughout the whisky-drinking and cigar-smoking game, Pratt would needle the Barkleys into revealing far more than he needed to know on the purpose for their trip to Morganville. They were to pick up a parcel containing an exquisite, custom-made pearl-diamond necklace for their sister Audra, a gift that all three brothers intended to present her on her twentieth birthday. He tucked that information neatly under his hat as the present company decided to call it a night.

The next morning, the boarders were risen out of bed by the tantalizing aroma of crisp bacon and freshly baked corn bread. Heath walked out of his room with a yawn and a stretch, meeting with Nick halfway to the kitchen.

“Boy Howdy Mrs. Coles, I tell ya if ya don’t stop stuffin’ our bellies with that mite fine cookin’ of yours, we might just decide to bunk here for a week.”

“I wouldn’t mind. You boys are great company. I’m just sorry I don’t have a daughter,” she jested with a flirtatious wink. “Sit down, breakfast’ll be ready in a minute.”

As Nick and Heath straddled their chairs to sit, Johnny walked out of his room with his saddlebag and bedroll. His plan was to tag along with the Barkleys to Morganville and wait for them to pick up the priceless item before springing into action. He was prepared to resort to murder to snatch the necklace he knew was worth its weight in gold.

“Hey Barkleys, ya don’t mind if I tread on your heels to Morganville? Might try to find me a job there.”

“Not at all! The more the merrier. B’sides I might need somebody to argue with on the trail since my brother Heath here’s a tad on the quiet side.”

“And you’ll know why, Johnny. Nick here does the prattling for ten men.”

A ripple of giggles ran through the room at Nick’s expense who leaned back in his chair with an unyielding jaw and arms crossed against his chest. “Heath when are ya finally gonna learn that you’re not funny?”

“I reckon I didn’t hear them laughs then?”

“No you didn’t”

“If ya say so, Nick.”

Logan came bursting in, huffing and puffing. “Pa, them cows gone loose again.”

“Jesus Christ!” the father cursed.

“Anythin’ we can do to help ya?” Heath asked.

“Don’t fret about it none, boys. Just eat your breakfast. I’ll handle it. Probably just a break in the fence.” He put on his hat and stomped out to the corral with his son in tow.

After gorging themselves on Mrs. Coles’s hearty breakfast, the boys gathered their belongings, paid the cost of their stay, adding an little extra for the charming hospitality, before heading out to the barn to saddle their horses.

Logan and his father were returning with two stray cows as they came out of the barn.

“Did ya get ‘em all?” Heath asked.

The father dismounted angrily. “Not nearly. Still got five loose steers and that damn fence to mend.”

“Maybe we could give ya a hand,” Nick proposed, glancing at Heath for approval.

“I’d be much obliged to ya, but I wouldn’t wanna to keep ya from your trip none.”

“A few more hours won’t hurt, will it Heath?”

The sudden change of plan made Heath ill at ease. He gnashed his teeth “ Nick, the depot closes at five. If we don’t get to Morganville b’fore then….”

“We can pick up the parcel tomorrow. We’re staying in town overnight.”

“It would make no diff’rence to me if it was a plain ordinary package, but since it isn’t, I don’t feel safe leaving it at the depot all night.”

“Are ya sure it’s gonna be there?”

“Arriving by the ten-thirty train. Look, ya stay here and help Mr. Coles with the fence. Me and Johnny will ride on ahead. I’ll get us a couple of rooms and wait for ya at the saloon.”

“Sounds great.”

“B’sides, it’ll give our ears a chance to rest from all your jabbin’”

Nick fashioned a broad annoyed toothy grin. “Getta of here!” he snarled with a jerk of his finger.

Heath’s shoulders shuddered with suppressed laughter as he and Johnny mounted their horses.

“I’ll see ya in a few hours, Nick.”

“Leave some whisky for me!”

Heath and Johnny took off at a canter.

“That’s mighty nice of ya, son. Appreciate it.”

“It’s the least I can do after all that great food and soft beds. Alright, let’s get to work!”

As he kept up the pace with Heath riding at a steady amble, Johnny quickly contrived an alternate scheme to get his hands on that precious necklace. With Nick back at the Coles place, Heath was at his mercy. He eyed him from head to toe, realizing that they were roughly the same height and similarly built. Both had light-blond hair and were fast on the draw. Although Johnny’s mustache and clothes were two attributes clashing with Heath’s appearance, he wasn’t going to allow those silly details interfere with his plan to switch places with Heath.

“Ya and your brother, ya seem to get along pretty good,” Johnny casually broached the subject to sever the silence that had fallen between them.

“Yeah, he’s the best. But dontcha go yackin’ to ‘im I said that or he’ll puff up like a gobbler and I won’t ever hear the end of it.”

“Promise. And your sister, ya guys must love her an awful lot to give her such a pricey token?”

“I reckon love ain’t measured by the size of a gift. She’s real sweet, mite neighborly and generous to a fault. Throws a few temper tantrums and I got the scratch marks to prove it,” he grimaced, prompting Johnny to snicker. Then he finished on a tone thick with pride, “but aside from that, she’s the best sister a man can ever have.”

“Ya’re lucky.” He allowed a short beat in the conversation before following on with his next question. “Heath, can ya answer me another question?”

“If I can.”

“Ya mentioned one of the reasons ya and your brother was goin’ to Morganville was to attend the cattle auction, but why’s that package gettin’ there? Reckon it’d be less a drag to sent it straight to your town of Stockton?”

“Normally we would’ve but since this item cost a pretty penny, we want it appraised, make sure them gems are the real deal and ain’t been swapped for fakes b’fore we write out the bank draft for the balance. And we know of a man in Morganville who does this job. We sorta killin’ two birds at one stone.”

“Ya’ve been to Morganville often?”

“Only Once. Two years ago.”

“Know anybody there?”

“Hardly.”

“I see,” Johnny sneered as this last tidbit of information dealt him the ace he needed to bring home the pot. He reined in his horse and feigned a stomachache.

Heath halted his horse alongside Pratt. “What’s wrong?”

“Ain’t nuthin’” Johnny affected with a groan. “Just my belly actin’ up.”

“Wanna rest for a spell?”

“No. Just need to get my wind back is all. Ya go on ahead. I’ll catch up with ya.”

“Ya sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on!”

“Awright.”

As Heath turned his back to Johnny and nudged his horse forward, Johnny slowly unsheathed his gun, pulled back the hammer and steady it at Heath, shooting him off his saddle. Heath fell to the ground with a thud, smashing the back of his skull open on a rock, causing him to black out instantly.

With a complacent grin on his face, Johnny slid down his mount and crouched down by Heath’s body. He gripped a lock of blond hair and yanked his head forward to peer at the deep gash, oozing blood. Then he let the head drop back onto the rock. He lifted Heath’s shirt at his left collarbone to examine the damage inflicted by his bullet. Satisfied with the results, he grabbed a hold of Heath’s wrists and dragged him bodily across the grass to a nearby shrubbery, behind which he stripped his victim down to his waist to switch shirts with him. The tan vest was to cover the bloodstain on the light blue shirt.

Johnny substituted his gun with Heath’s and picked him clean of all his money and identification papers. “Sorry to be doin’ this to ya, friend. Nuthin’ personal. Just gotta hold my own and that pricey necklace is gonna buy me some fancy livin’.”

He walked over to Charger and seized the reins to steer him near his horse. He reached inside his saddlebag for a razor and a pocket-sized mirror and started shaving off his mustache. Once finished, he admired the result with a malicious glee. “Perfect!” He placed the items back into the saddlebag and slung it over Charger’s neck, then swung on his back.

Heath’s horse bridled and stepped backwards, neighing, snorting and shaking his head as a warning to Pratt that he didn’t appreciate the weight on an unknown rider on his back. Pratt dug his spurs into Charger’s flanks, causing him to rear up on his hind legs. “Come on, ya stupid critter,” he cursed, yanking at the reins. Charger reluctantly yielded to his new master who spurred him at a full gallop toward Morganville.

A good two hours had elapsed since the shooting. Heath was prodded out of unconsciousness by the sound of thudding hooves. Nick was riding past on his way to Morganville unaware of his brother’s presence, as Johnny Pratt had taken care of hiding his body behind a thick shrubbery.

Heath slowly pried open his glassy blues a slit, squinting at the ribbon of intense light streaming through the branches. The twittering of birds reverberated against the walls of his dull mind, as he lay, lethargic, on a bed of withered leaves. He moistened his parched lips and dry gulped before he took a painful deep breath that sent involuntary spasms coursing through his chilled body. He allowed a few minutes for his vision to adapt to light before he lifted his head an inch forward. A searing pain shot down the back of his neck, prompting him to lay it back down on the rock with a loud groan and a crumpled face. He made another feeble attempt at heaving himself up on his elbows, but found his left arm to be completely numb. His mind was in a clutter, whirling with blurred images and faces that held no meaning.

He took another smarting lungful of air to summon his strength to swing over on his right side. Snarling in agony, he channeled all of his might into elbowing himself up. His head started spinning, causing him to retch. His heart hammering against his ribcage, he clamped his eyes shut and took another deep breath, then started to crawl laboriously out of the bushes to the main road, often pausing to garner his last ounces of energy to make it the rest of the way.

Exhausted, he lay on his back, his glazed eyes staring at the cloudless sky. “Help!” he whimpered faintly before he lapsed into unconsciousness.

At that moment, Nick pulled at the reins when he felt a sudden twinge. He glanced around with a gnawing feeling that someone was in need of assistance, but he shrugged it off and spurred his mount forward.

Nearly an hour later, a middle-aged couple, Jim and Georgia Whitfield, were driving back to their home in the Morganville’s neighboring town of Edgell, oblivious of the jostling motion of their wagon as they mused over their newly acquired fortune, a sizeable inheritance that Georgia’s mother had bequeathed to both her daughters. Georgia’s older sister, Julia, and her husband Charles had graciously offered the hospitality of their home for the reading of the will. Although both sisters were raised in wealth, Georgia had chosen to live a staid and simple life with her second husband on a small spread a few miles outside Morganville. Jim was a carpenter by trade and a skillful rancher. They both intended to invest part of their money in a small hardware store up for sale.

Although they were God-abiding citizens, they stopped being churchgoers the day after their only son went missing three years ago. Despite the fact that David was merely Jim’s stepson by marriage, he had come to embrace the boy as his own. He watched the fifteen-year-old rebel grow into a passionate rancher. His mind would rove back on those days and leave traces of heavy melancholia behind.

“Georgia, you’re not sore at me for making you leave early?” Jim asked his daydreaming wife, breaking into her thoughts.

“Not at all. In fact, if it hadn’t been such a long road from my sister’s house to ours, I would have insisted on leaving last night.”

“Been married ten years and she still doesn’t approve of me.”

Georgia entwined her arms with his and cuddling up to him, she said, “What’s important is that I approve of you. Besides, Julia has always been jealous of my boyfriends.”

“Do you think she’s jealous of me?”

“It’s plain to see. I myself would be jealous of her had you been her husband.”

He gazed down at her and kissed her forehead. She nuzzled up to his shoulder as he flicked the team at a light trot. His elated smile shaped into a squint at the sight of a man’s listless body lying on the side of the road.

“I think someone needs help.”

“What? Who?” Her eyes searched around until Jim reined back the horses next to Heath’s body. He jumped down and assisted his wife in alighting from the wagon before he squatted by Heath to take his pulse.

“Oh, my God!” Georgia gasped in shock, clamping her hands over her mouth. “Oh, my God!” Her voice cracked with emotion and sobs racked her body when she identified the deathly pale man as he long-lost son, David. “What have they done to him?”

Jim pressed his ear against Heath’s chest. “He’s breathing, but just barely. He must have lost an awful lot of blood.” He brushed his hand against Heath’s forehead. “He’s icy cold.”

She slumped to her knees. “My poor little boy,” she wailed with tears gushing to her eyes as she started rubbing his hand between hers. “I knew he was still alive.”

Jim was astounded by the striking resemblance with David. Save the absence of a small mustache, Heath’s features were nearly a perfect match. “He does look like him.” He raised an eyelid to check the color of the eyes. “Same coloring, eyes, nose, hair.”

“It’s him!” She placed a hand on her heart. “I feel it right here. It’s my David.”

“We’d better get him to a doctor. In the shape he’s in, I wonder if he’ll survive the trip into town.”

“Let’s bring him to the house, it’s closer. That way I can begin tending to his wounds while you ride for the doctor.”

“Good idea. First, we’ll wrap him up real good. Could you fetch me a blanket from the wagon?”

“Yes, sure.” Georgia hoisted herself on to the palms of her hands and hurried to the back of the wagon to grab a saddle blanket that she spread over Heath. While Jim busied himself tucking the edges underneath the legs and arms, Georgia went back to the rig to fashion a bed of blankets, making it cushiony enough to insure a smooth trip home.

She returned to Jim who was giving Heath’s head a cursory examination to assist him in carrying the dying man to the back of the wagon. Once Heath was settled onto the makeshift bed, Georgia knelt down beside him and mantled his body with an additional blanket, drawing it up around his neck. She gently brushed her hand on his forehead, feeling the frigidness of his skin burning through her fingers. “Hang on, son. We’ll get you home,” she sobbed, a tear trickling down onto Heath’s cheek as she bent over to kiss his nose.

Jim noticed a horse grazing a few feet down. “Must be his horse over there,” he motioned to Georgia who didn’t pay any attention. He took the reins and hitched the animal to the rig. He then hopped in the front seat and cast an eye back at his wife before flicking the team at a steady amble.

Over an hour later, Jim arrived at his ranch with the doctor. Heath had been settled into David’s old room that Georgia had kept intact since the day of his disappearance. She had nurtured high hopes that one day, he would return. Although Jim harbored some doubts about the true identity of the victim, he refrained from voicing them to his wife who had blindly convinced herself that Heath was her long-lost son.

Georgia was sitting on the rim of the bed, rubbing Heath’s cyanotic fingers to restore the blood flow when Jim ushered Dr. Verner into the room. After examining and binding the wounds, he stood to face the anguished ‘parents’.

“Well Doctor?” Georgia asked apprehensively, her mind already prepared to refute any grim diagnostic.

The old weatherworn doctor removed his gold-rimmed spectacles and folded them inside his chest pocket before heaving a dismal sigh that filled the couple with dread.

“I won’t lie to you…it’s serious. Judging by the core temperature I’d say he’d been lying in this pitiful condition for a good three to five hours before you found him. The bullet did go straight through the shoulder and missed any major artery, so the damage was minimal, and the hypothermia impeded the spread of infection. But the lost of blood must have been staggering, oozing from both the bullet wound and the head gash. And the fact that he hasn’t shown any sign of regaining consciousness since you brought him leads me to believe there could be some brain damage.”

Georgia raised a hand to her mouth to curb her emotions. With a forlorn expression, the doctor stared into her teary eyes and said, “I wouldn’t pin too many hopes on his surviving the next twenty-four hours.”

“What about a blood transfusion?” Jim suggested.

“With whose blood? I can’t take yours because you’re not his biological father.”

“What about mine?” Georgia piped up.

“Out of the question, Georgia. You’re too weak. This would kill you.”

“We can’t just let him die!” she lashed out in a voice broken with sobs.

Dr. Verner laid a sympathetic hand on the grief-stricken mother’s shoulder. “Believe me, I’ve done everything I could for him.”

“No,” she wailed with tears streaming down her cheeks as she edged her way to the bed where she sat and cradled Heath’s hand in hers.

The doctor picked up his medical bag and followed Jim into the living room.

“There’s really nothing more that can be done?”

“I’m sorry Jim. It’s totally out of my hands. I am hoping his strong constitution can carry him through this, but I’m pessimistic.” He glanced back at the bedroom door still ajar. “Life can be cruel sometimes. All those years, your wife believed her son was still alive. Now he comes back home only to die.”

“I’d hate to think what this will do to her. In the meantime, is there anything we can to?”

“Keep him swathed in blankets and try to trickle a few drops of water into his mouth to keep him hydrated. Massage his neck to trigger a gulp.”

“All right. Anything else?”

“A few prayers wouldn’t hurt. I’ll check back later in the afternoon.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Jim said as he walked Dr. Verner to the door. “Doctor, do you really believe that boy is David?”

“Don’t you?” he replied with eyes narrowing inquisitively.

“I don’t know,” he sighed.

“He does look an awful lot like him. Same color of hair, eyes; the nose he broke when he was twelve. Even the marks on his back that were left courtesy of his father.”

“You saw them?”

The doctor nodded.

“Then there’s no doubt about it. It’s David. Anyway we’ll know when he regains consciousness.”

“If at all.”

Jim nodded and opened the door. Once the doctor left the house, he walked back to David’s room where Georgia was gingerly rubbing Heath’s cheeks.

“Look Jim…he’s getting some color back. Don’t you believe everything the doctor said. David will be just fine.”

Jim flashed a contrived smile and sighed ruefully.

Pratt made good time on his Pegasus that rode the wind. He casually ambled through town, heading straight for the hotel in front of which he dismounted and tethered the panting horse chewing on his bit. He rented two rooms like Heath was scheduled to do, so not to arouse suspicions when Nick shows up. He then headed on down to the freight yard. He crossed the threshold with one stride and entered the front office. Giving a quick glance around, he walked up to the counter where the proprietor, Albert Cummings, was thumbing through a stack of vouvhers

“Howdy! My name’s Heath Barkley. I believe ya got a package for me?”

“Mister Barkley, yes of course. Arrived this morning.” He checked his book of deliveries “It’s in the back, on a shelf marked ‘31’. You can go pick it up and come back here to sign the register.”

Pratt tipped his hat in acknowledgment and made his way to the backroom where he avidly sought package 31 located on a top shelf. He fashioned a grin as he walked up to the shelf to retrieve the precious brown paper-wrapped box. He stood on his toes and stretched his fingers to reach the parcel. He inadvertently knocked it off the shelf and toppled over backwards. Before his back could hit the floor, the package exploded, blowing the depot to pieces and spawning a raging fire that quickly engulfed the remaining skeleton.

Cummings had mistakenly given the wrong number to Pratt. 31 was a package that illegally contained two bottles of nitroglycerin, hence the reason why it was placed so high up.

The force of the blast hurled Cummings clear across the street where his horrific mangled body came to rest. The deflagration lured the town people to the street. Men bounced into the hardware store to grab pails that they hurriedly dunked into the horse trough to douse the roaring flames, while the sheriff and his deputy carried Cummings down to the doctor’s office.

Thick clouds of smoke could be seen billowing in the dusky-pink sky as Nick rode in the outskirts of Morganville. He momentarily halted his mount to stare into the distance at the dense charcoal-black whirls before spurring Coco forward at a full tilt.

He reined in his horse as he saw a sea of flames engulfing the freight yard, where Heath was to pick up the package.

Throngs of curious onlookers flooded the street, the unwavering fire mirroring in their terror-stricken eyes. Men were toiling to douse the roaring flames with pailfuls of water, but their efforts were fruitless. Realizing they were fighting a losing battle, they bow down to the raging inferno doggedly intent on devouring every inch of the warehouse to level it to the ground.

Nick jumped down his mount and tethered it to a hitching post, his heart throbbing against his ribcage at the thought of Heath trapped in the burning hell. He stepped up to a stable boy sitting on a bale of hay, wiping his puffy-red eyes of the stinging tears that were leaving grubby streaks down his soot-covered cheeks.

“What happened?”

“There was an….” His voice tailed off as he ran out of breath. He inhaled deeply to finish his sentence, “an explosion. Blew the warehouse to smithereens.”

Nick glanced back at the ferocious fire, swallowing hard the growing lump rising to his constricted throat to ask the dreaded question. “Was anyone in there?”

“Mister Cummings, the proprietor. They brought him to the doctor’s.”

“How is he?”

The boy looked up at Nick with a forlorn expression and gave a despondent shake of the head.

“Anyone else in there with him?”

“If there was…” the boy needed not continue for Nick instantly translated his thought.

Nick was a heartbeat away from a panic attack when he caught sight of Charger in a sidelong glance. His eyes raked the crowd, seeking a fair-haired man clad in a light blue shirt and tan vest. He unhitched Charger from the post and steered him and Coco further down the street to tether both horses in front of the doctor’s office. He came bouncing inside, anxious to enquire about Cummings’s condition.

The attendant nurse stepped in front of him to deny him access to the examining room. “I’m sorry, sir. No one is allowed in the examining room while the doctor is treating a patient. You’ll have to wait here.” Her imperiousness stung Nick momentarily whose anguished mind was a maelstrom of questions desperately seeking answers, the most important being if his brother had been inside that warehouse when it exploded.

In a mollifying tone, she reasoned with the distraught man to sit and wait for the doctor to finish. No sooner had she disappeared behind the curtain that Nick sprung to his feet and began pacing the floor while wringing his hands and trying to regulate his breathing. He eyes flew wide open when it suddenly dawned on him that Heath could be at the saloon. He dashed out of the office and up the street to the saloon where he flung open the swing doors and discovered the room empty.

He ran down to the hotel where he spoke with the clerk standing outside on the front porch about his brother renting a room.

“Yes. I remember a man by the name of Heath Barkley. He asked for the two best rooms in the house.”

“When was that?”

“’Bout half an hour ago.”

Nick clamped his eyes shut and his heart sank deep as the evidence thus far placed Heath at the site of the devastating blast.

He hustled his way through the crowd back to the doctor’s office, where he found the physician conversing with his nurse.

“Doc, how’s the patient?”

“Are you family?”

“No. I just want to talk to him if I can.”

“I’m afraid you’re too late. He died. What did you want to know, mister…?”

“Barkley. Nick Barkley.”

“Barkley. Cummings mentioned someone by the name of Heath Barkley.”

“He’s my brother.”

The doctor lowered his eyes while the nurse gazed despairingly at Nick.

“What?”

“Cummings said your brother came to see him about a package. He went inside the depot to get it when…”

Nick was flabbergasted. He stood transfixed with prostrating grief, his body racked with involuntary tremors.

The doctor edged up to him and placed a sympathetic hand on his quivering shoulders. “I’m sorry for your lost.”

Nick stared vacantly at him. “Lost? No, he could still be alive.” He searched the doctor’s eyes for a flicker of hope. When he failed to find any, he felt his body and soul raring to burst apart.

With leaden steps, he slouched out of the office, picking up speed as he bolted down the street to the scattering crowd. He homed in on the smoldering flames, knocking down people as he streaked past them.

“Heath!” he bawled his lungs out, throwing himself into Satan’s Hell to search for his brother.

The flames were beginning to lick at his flailing arms when the sheriff and his deputy grabbed him from behind to wrestle him out. They hurled the hysterical man to the ground and covered him with a blanket to stifle the flames already singeing his shirt and skin. Nick put up a struggle against the men’s weights pinning his body down on the ground.

“Listen to me!” the sheriff yelled over the roaring fire.

“No, let me go! My brother’s in there. I’ve got to get him out!”

“There’s nothing you can do for him now.”

“Please,” Nick begged with tears streaming down his face.

“I’m sorry, son. There’s nothing more anyone of us can do.” The heavy-hearted sheriff stared into Nick’s pleading eyes to send the message across.

Both men hoisted Nick to his feet, taking hold of his arms to help him stand on his shaky legs. They felt him going limp and let him slump to his knees. The shimmer of the dwindling flames in his tear-glistened eyes ate away at his heart and soul. The fire had not only claimed his brother’s life but had destroyed the very core of Nick Barkley.

“Noooooooooooooooooooo!”

The sheriff gave Nick a few seconds before asking if he had a place to sleep, but his question was left unanswered as Nick’s addled mind could not process the spoken words. He remained stock-still, with a dull stare riveted on the haunting fire. The sheriff tugged at his shoulder. “Son, can you hear me?”

“What?” Nick answered absentmindedly.

“Do you have somewhere to bunk down?”

Nick blinked heavily. “Yeah. I…I have a…a room at the…the….”

“Hotel?” The sheriff finished.

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you go get some sleep. We’ll call on you in the morning when we start sifting through the rubbles.”

“Sleep? No.” Both men assisted Nick as he staggered to his feet. “The saloon, that’s where you’ll find me,” he heaved out before shuffling toward the establishment.

He nudged open the swing door and headed to the counter. The bartender absent, he grabbed a bottle of whisky and slouched over to a table, where he flumped down in a chair and took a long swig. He stared catatonically at the bottle, caressing its alluring curves and marveling at its power to deaden his pain. He took another gulp and choked back his tears before he pillowed his head on his arms to sob himself to sleep.

The next morning, the bartender plucked at Nick’s sleeve to rouse him. “Hey mister. Wake up!”

Nick’s head shot straight up. With his eyes half-mast and a brain dulled by liquor, he asked dozily, “What? What is it?”

“The sheriff asked me to tell you they’re starting to comb the scene of the fire.”

Nick bolted upright and dashed out the door. His knees buckled halfway down the street, but he heaved himself up and pressed on to the smoldering ruins, where he saw the sheriff and his deputy hunched down in the pile of rubbles.

“Sheriff, did you find something?” Nick asked in a frenzy.

The sheriff hoisted himself up, not unfastening his eyes from the startling discovery. “Yeah.”

Nick strode over the debris to reach the two men. His heart leapt to his throat upon seeing the charred human body.

The sheriff produced a half-burned colt revolver and handed it to a dumbstruck Nick. “We found this by the body.”

Nick examined the gun. He felt the bile rise to his throat when he saw the golden eagle on the singed stock.

No more doubt lingered about the identity of the corpse: it was Heath Barkley’s.

Nick stood transfixed, eyes riveted on Heath’s gun.

“Son, you’d better let the doctor take a look at those burns,” the sheriff advised to the shattered man, staring catatonically at the marking.

“I’m not hurting,” Nick answered tonelessly, feeling totally numb.

“That may be, but infection can set in if it’s not treated properly.” The sheriff turned to his deputy. “Mike, see that he gets to the doctor’s, will ya?”

“Sure thing, Bing.” Mike stepped up to Nick and placed his hand on his arm. With a light tug, he tried to nudge Nick out of his torpor. “Come with me, Mr. Barkley.”

“Go with my deputy, son. We’ll make sure the remains are put in a casket for you to take home,” the sheriff explained solemnly. “Go on now.”

With eyes brimming with tears, Nick clutched the gun to his chest and heaved a long shuddering breath before following the deputy down to the doctor’s office.

Charger’s snorting roused Nick of his apathy. He turned to Heath’s cherished bay and slouched over to him. He ran his hand across the mane and gave the neck a few strokes. Then it struck him: tremors racked his body as he gripped Charger’s mane and buried his face in the neck where he burst into tears.

...Continued