by
Christy
Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the TV program
"Big Valley" are the creations of Four Star/Republic Pictures and
have been used without permission. No
copyright infringement is intended by the author. The ideas expressed in this story are copyrighted to the author.
The two horses with their two very different riders sat on
the ridge overlooking the ranch below, the big white columned house, the out
buildings, the bunkhouse, and all the golden rolling land that sprawled around
them. The first rider took in a deep
breath of fresh country air. His hazel
eyes searched the horizon and found home, home, a place he never thought to see
again.
“Ready?” his companion asked.
“I don’t know.
Been away a long time, Heath.
Not sure I’m ready yet to go back.”
Heath hid a smile. Their roles
were almost reversed. Here he was
convincing his brother to go home.
Usually it would have been Nick trying to persuade him.
“Nick, they’re your family. They love you. They want
you home.”
“I’m not dense, Little Brother,” Nick retorted. “You’re a smart ass ya know that.”
“No more than you, Big Brother,” came the sassy reply that
only Heath Barkley would give the older man.
“You’re not having second thoughts now about having left in the first
place.” Nick looked down at the place
that had been home and more to him all his life. He loved the ranch. He loved his mother and sister and brothers,
and he loved life. That life had almost
been taken from him by a rabid wolf.
Rather than subjecting the people he loved to the headaches and temper
brought on by the wolf’s rabid venom, he had gone away to a place that meant a
great deal to him. Now, 60 days later,
he was home and he was well, except for a headache now and then.
“No, I don’t regret it.
I couldn’t subject the family to what I was going through. I couldn’t
stand to see the pity on their faces and the fear that I might hurt someone and
then die. I couldn’t do it, Heath.”
“Jarrod might give you a hard time, but Mother and Audra
will forgive you I’m sure. Best get to
facing the music.”
“How about you, Little Brother?” Nick asked as the two men
started to amble down the hill.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. Heath I made you promise not to tell them
where I was. That was a pretty big
favor I asked. You mad?” Heath pulled Charger up. Nick turned Coco to face the younger man.
“I dunno, Nick.
Guess I made sure I was too busy to think on it much. This is a workin ranch you know.” Nick burst
out laughing at his brother’s dry wit.
“Ranch doesn’t run itself that’s for sure. Is that your way of asking for a vacation?”
“Well now that you mention it Brother Nick,” Heath grinned
with his lopsided smile. “Not a bad idea.
You owe me.”
“Oh that’s just great.
I’ll never hear the end of this is that it?”
“You got it. Come
on, I’ll race you home. First one there
gets to stable the horses.”
“Boy you got that backwards,” Nick hollered taking off
after the blond. Heath’s laugh rang
through the air as the two of them charged down the hill and through the gates
of the Barkley ranch. Heath beat his
brother by about ten yards. He was
already off Charger and banging on the front door by the time Nick
arrived.
“Boy, you are going to be one sorry cowboy.”
“Not me, Nick. I’m home,” Heath shot back. “Gimme your rein. I’ll take the
horses.” Before Nick could protest, his
brother had taken both horses, leaving him to face his brother and sister and
mother as they poured out of the house.
All three froze on the verandah at seeing the one family member they had
worried about night after lonely night, each in their own way. Victoria Barkley resisted the urge to slap
her son for his actions. Instead, she
walked up to him. Cupping his rugged
face in her small refined hands, the mother tiptoed up and kissed him on the
cheek.
“Don’t ever do that to us again, Nicholas,” was all she
said before hugging him close.
“Oh, Mother,” he sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” she told him.
“You’re home. That’s what matters. We missed you so much.”
“I know, Mother. I missed you.”
“Fine way of showing it,” Audra objected joining her
mother. Nick grabbed his sister in an
ebullient hug, twirling her around as he hugged her.
“Glad to see you too, Little Sister.”
“Nick, put me down, you big oaf,” Audra laughed in spite
of herself. She found herself gently
deposited on the ground, her brother kissing her cheek, and then bowing
gallantly before her.
“My utmost apologies, Sis. I hope you’ll forgive me for being a lout?”
“A lout? Well, I suppose,” Audra smiled. “But I’m with Mother. Don’t ever do that
again.”
“On my honor,” Nick promised. He turned to Jarrod who was not smiling. Nick swallowed hard. Of all people he dreaded facing upon his return
home, Jarrod was the one. Jarrod who
believed that family stood together in times of trouble. Jarrod who would be hurt the most that his
younger brother had left him in the dark.
He held out his hand.
“Jarrod.” Nick was
surprised when the hand was extended then wrapped around him to pull the
brother into a warm hug. He breathed a
sigh of relief a little too soon, comforted by the hug, and put on alert by the
voice.
“Welcome home, Brother.
Meet me in the library after you clean up.” With that, Jarrod turned on his heel and went back into the
house. If Nick had seen his mother, he would have known something was up. Instead he was diverted his sister.
“Where’s Heath?” Audra queried. “That’s who we were
expecting. We didn’t know you’d be with
him.”
“Right here, Sis,” Heath answered walked down the verandah
towards the family. “Diego is finishing stabling Coco. Charger’s fine. So now that the horses are
taken care of, I’m starved. Mother, tell me you’ve got something good for
supper.” Heath was warmly welcomed by his
mother and sister. When Victoria pulled
back, Nick saw that since he had been gone an even closer relationship had
grown between Heath and his mother. A
twinge of jealousy raced through his soul, but then he realized he was being
foolish. Victoria kissed Heath’s cheek
as she’d kissed Nick’s. She never had
favorites and Nick knew it.
“After you both get cleaned up,” she told him. “There’s a
roast for supper. It’ll be ready in about an hour.”
“I guess that’s our cue, Nick,” Heath said. “Come on, Brother. You can have the tub first. I want to rest a little. Boy Howdy, I’m tired from riding.”
“You?” Nick asked. “You could ride from here to kingdom
come without getting tired.” Audra and
Victoria had gone into the kitchen while the two men were walking up
stairs. Heath turned to his brother at
the top of the stairs. He put his hands
on Nick’s shoulder.
“Truth is, Nick, I’m tired from worrying. I was real
scared there. I’m glad you’re home, but I’m more glad you didn’t…well up and
die on us.”
“You and me, both, Boy.”
“So go take that bath or I’ll beat ya to it.”
“I better hurry. Jarrod wants to talk to me.”
“Go easy on him, Nick.
You know what he told me while you were gone, remember?”
“I remember.” Nick
nodded as he went into his room. Heath
had sat with him by the campfire telling him how Pappy wanted Nick to come home
to share his trouble. Nick wasn’t
supposed to go off and isolate himself when he needed help. He was supposed to let his family help him
through the hard times, like the one he was apparently in, Jarrod told
Heath. Nick was supposed to let him
help.
“Tell him Pappy said so,” Heath had repeated for
Nick. Nick sighed. Pappy.
They didn’t use that name near enough for the role Jarrod played in the
family. If Heath and Nick ran the
ranch, well Jarrod was the undisputed Patriarch, the one the two young men and
Audra turned to when they needed advice or assistance. But Nick hadn’t turned to Pappy this time. Heath was right. If Jarrod was angry, he had a right to be. And Nick would take his scolding gladly or
so he thought.
Downstairs a half hour later, Nick’s spurs announced him
as he walked into the library. To his
surprise, Jarrod wasn’t alone. Both his
mother and Audra were in the room as well.
Jarrod shut the door behind him.
Nick was trapped. Heath was no where to be found.
“What in the hell?” he stormed for a second.
“Nicholas, watch your tongue,” Victoria scolded. “Sit down.”
“Mother I don’t know what is going on, but if you’ll just
listen, I can explain.” Nick’s natural
instinct to defend himself was quickly obliterated when his tiny mother rose to
her full height, pointed to a nearby chair and said.
“Sit down, Nick.”
“Mother…”
“I said!” Victoria told him. With a monstrous glare, the young man sat. Jarrod stood in front of his brother making
him feel very uncomfortable. He spoke
before Jarrod could.
“Jarrod what is this about?” Nick asked his brother from
the chair he sat in. From where he sat,
Nick thought he was in for the Spanish inquisition. With a face of stone, Jarrod moved his desk chair to sit in front
of Nick, about five feet away, while Victoria and Audra sat in the settee next
to Nick. With the door firmly shut,
Jarrod started to speak.
“This is about family, Nick,” he started.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Nick bellowed.
“Nicholas, you will be still and listen to your brother,”
Victoria intoned in a voice Nick knew better than to refuse.
“Fine, but I better have my say before this is all done.”
“You will, Brother Nick. Never fear. Now is it true or is it not that you left
home without explaining to us why you were leaving?”
“Yes, it’s true, but…”
“Yes or no, Nick. That’s enough.” Nick glowered at his brother while Audra
fought to keep a straight face. She was
grateful Heath wasn’t in the room or the pretty blond girl would have lost it
completely.
“Yes!” Nick ground out.
“Now correct me if I’m wrong, Little Brother, but in this
family, leaving without a word is usually not acceptable. True or false.”
“Jarrod!”
“Nick!” Jarrod shot back. “Answer the question please.”
“True.”
“In this family we help each other get through our
troubles, true or false?”
“True.”
“In fact, isn’t family dependency something we’ve been
encouraging Heath to do? What kind of
example are you giving him by running off without so much as a by your leave
may I ask?”
“Is that yes or no?” Nick countered. Audra giggled. Victoria put her hand to her mouth. Jarrod maintained a stony face. His shoulders shook with
suppressed mirth.
He walked over to the desk, then back to his brother, his
stance severe and formal.
“Nick, do you know how worried Mother, Audra, Heath and I
were about you? Yes or no?” Nick’s hazel eyes went to his mother and
sister. The humor was erased from
their faces.
“I was trying to keep you all from worrying,” he muttered.
“What? I didn’t hear you.” Nick stood up in his own defense.
“I was trying to keep you all from worrying. I didn’t want you to have to go through
watching me…” When he realized he had
almost blurted out why he had left, Nick sat back down.
“Go through what, Nick?” Jarrod wondered out loud. Nick didn’t reply. A knock on the door startled everyone. The door opened. Heath
stuck his head inside. He was cleaned
up and in fresh clothes.
“Somethin going on in here I should be aware of?” he
wondered.
“Come in, Heath. We’re almost ready for you.”
“Oh, now don’t blame Heath for this,” Nick put in.
“Nicholas!” Nick put his arms across his chest at his
mother’s tone. Heath stepped into the
room. Looking at the serious faces
around him, he leaned against the desk behind his brother.
“Nick, I asked you a question, and I expect an
answer. What were you going through
that you couldn’t let your family help you?”
Nick looked down.
“Nick, tell them,” Heath’s soft voice urged. “It’s over
now. They need to understand.”
“The hell they do,” Nick shot back. “Not that.”
Heath was by his brother’s side in an instant. He knelt down in front of the older man, trying to take away some
of the anguish Nick was still feeling.
“Nick, you have no idea what was going on here while you
were gone. I tried to tell you, but you
wouldn’t listen.”
“I did listen!”
“No, you didn’t.
You were still thinking about all that had happened. Nick, we need to put it behind us. You’re making it worse than it was.”
“You weren’t there!”
“Wasn’t I?” Heath demanded his voice rising just a
tad. To Nick he sounded like
Jarrod. “I felt you, Nick!” Nick froze.
Jarrod sagged back in his chair while Audra sought her mother’s
hand. The women held on to each other
as the truth of Nick’s ordeal was verbalized, not by Nick, but by his own
brother.
“You what?” Nick gapped.
“I felt you! I
felt when you were having those attacks.
You called out for Mother and you called out for me.”
“How did you know?” Nick’s voice was filled with awe. Heath patted his brother’s knee, giving him
a grin that said it all, the blue eyes bright with emotion. Nick saw his own family was amazed by
Heath’s revelation. They were further
amazed by Nick’s words.
“I thought I could hear you,” he answered. “I thought I
could hear you telling me to hang on, to not give up, but I thought I was
hearing ghosts.”
“You sure were, Big Brother, me.”
“Can’t even go off on my own to die,” Nick joked before he
realized what he was saying. Heath sat
back on his knees his grin growing broader while Nick groaned. The cat was now out of the bag.
“To die? Nicholas, did I hear you correctly?” Victoria
Barkley cried. She stood up, her hands
on her waist. Heath stood in front of
his brother.
“Now, Mother, you might want to think before you get mad,”
the blond cowboy warned. Normally, Victoria might have melted in front of her
golden son, but this time she didn’t.
She stood her ground, a tiny woman determined to deal with her towering
wayward sons.
“I have thought,” she snapped. “Heath, you’re as much to
blame as Nick. He almost died and you
did not tell us? How could you?” Nick stood coming to stand beside his
brother. Victoria was quickly flanked
by her oldest and her youngest as the five family members faced each other.
“Mother, why don’t you sit down? I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You’ll see that Heath is not to blame in any way. I extracted a promise from him. He was only keeping his word.”
“Start talking, Nicholas.” Victoria didn’t move. Nick rolled his eyes in frustration. The mother’s gray eyes shot daggers at her
son as she spoke.
“Do not give me that look either. You’re scaring me to death. Are you all
right now?”
“Yes, Mother, I’m fine.”
Nick’s heart almost broke at the relief on Victoria’s face. For a minute he saw the worry she had
carried with her. He was sorry for her
pain. Still he wouldn’t change his
action. He bent over and kissed her
lightly on the cheek.
“I still think we should all sit down if you are done
putting me through the inquisition. It’s a long story.” Jarrod grinned.
“I’m not done putting you on the hot seat, Brother Nick,
if that’s what you’re implying, but if halting my questions will get you to
speak up, by all means, sit down and talk already.”
“Imagine having to encourage Nick to talk,” Audra
mumbled. Heath flashed her a grin. Victoria shook her head, and then sat down
with Audra again on the settee. This
time, Heath sat in Nick’s chair and Nick paced while Jarrod stood by the
fireplace. Heath listened to the story
while watching the family’s reaction.
Their faces went from anxiety related to the wolf that had bit Nick to
pure horror at the news that Nick might have caught rabies from the animal to
confusion and sadness that Nick had left them to die. When he was finished with the story, Heath figured all hell was
going to break loose. In a way it did,
but not the hell he figured. Now,
Victoria stood. She came over to her
son. Taking his strong hands in her,
she squeezed them, and then hugged him close.
“Nick, if we had lost you…” she murmured.
“You didn’t, Mother.
I’m fine.” She stepped back, the
mother’s emotions taking over as a fire of fear raced through her at the near
miss her son had encountered and handled with the help of strangers.
“Now, Mother…”
“Don’t now Mother me, Nicholas Jonathon Barkley,” Victoria
reproached. “Do you fully realize what
you have done?” Nick took a deep
breath.
“I saved the family from needless misery. Mother, it’s not just that. You have to understand. I couldn’t control my anger. What if I had stayed? What if I had hurt
Heath or Jarrod or you? I couldn’t live
with myself.”
“So you were afraid,” the mother told him. “You were afraid you couldn’t control
yourself and you ran off.”
“No! I wanted to see what I had accomplished with my
life. I was facing death in the eye
and…”
“That’s exactly the point, Nick. Forget for a minute that you left. I don’t have a problem with that so much. My problem is that you didn’t tell us. You let all of us suffer in silence
wondering what was so terribly wrong that you couldn’t share it with us. Don’t you realize how senseless it was?”
“Would you have felt better with me away, and knowing what
you do now?”
“I don’t know that answer, Nicholas. I only know your
family needed to know the truth. On top
of that you put Heath in an impossible position. He couldn’t tell us and he had to keep his thoughts to
himself.” Nick groaned knowing his
mother was turning the tables on him. And she was.
“Knowing what you know now, wouldn’t you rather he was
able to talk to us about his nightmares?”
Nick looked at Heath. The blond
shrugged. For the first time, Nick saw
what his mother was getting at. He had
been trying to keep his family from going through the hell of watching him
die. Instead he had put them through
the hell of not knowing if he what kind of trouble he was in. The point was if he had been up front with
them in the first place, they might have worried just as much, but they would
have known what they were worried about.
There was still one more point he had.
“Mother, if I had told you, you would not have let me
leave.”
“Of course we wouldn’t,” Audra stated with her own firm
voice. “We would have helped you, Nick.”
“You couldn’t give him the help he needed, Sis. What Nick did, he had to do himself. That’s why I kept quiet. If I thought for one minute that Nick was
wrong, I would have told him, but he was right. He had to do what he did and we have to respect his wishes.” The blond’s wise words caused Victoria to
spin around, her glistening skirts swirling around her. She clenched her fists so tight her knuckles
turned white. Jarrod put his arm around
his sister.
“He’s right, Mother,” he told her. “I guess this is one case I’m going to
lose.”
“Not exactly, Jarrod.”
“How’s that, Brother Nick?”
“You made your point.
I’m sorry for putting you through that.
I just didn’t see another way.
Now I see there were two sides.
I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. I still would have
left…maybe.” Heath took a few
steps. Victoria was looking from one
erring son to the other. Tears slipped
down her cheeks.
“Now, Mother, don’t cry,” Nick bellowed.
“I’m not crying,” Victoria retorted. “I’m…confused. What am I going to do with you two?”
“Feed us,” Heath cried. “I’m starved.”
“Heath’s hungry, Mother.
We need to feed the animals,” Nick said straight faced. Heath’s whack on Nick’s shoulder made him
glare at Heath in pretend anger.
“If the animals are being fed, Brother, you’d best get in
line.”
“Boys, boys, do mind your manners,” Jarrod teased. Nick took Victoria’s hands in his
again. This time he bent down and
kissed her on the forehead, then kissed Audra on the cheek. He addressed his brothers and the family at
the same time.
“I’m sorry I hurt you all. I mean that sincerely.”
“Yeah, yeah, fancy words from a poor rancher.” Heath
laughed.
“Poor rancher?” Nick hollered again. “Boy you sure do have
a wise mouth on you.”
“That he does,” Victoria agreed. “Heath shall we go before your brother puts his foot in his
mouth?”
“Gladly, Mother.”
Heath took his mother’s arm.
Jarrod took Audra’s. Nick
brought up the rear.
“Excuse me, Heath, we’re not finished.”
“Jarrod, you want to call your next witness?”
“Who would that be Brother, Heath,” Jarrod chuckled.
“Me! I’m going to
tell you how to get back at Nick for the last sixty days.”
“I’m all ears, Heath.”
“Yes, Heath, do tell,” Audra begged as the family entered
the dining room. Heath pulled out the
chair for his mother while Jarrod seated Audra. The men sat down around the table as Nick spoke one more time.
“Boy you try anything and we’re going to finish this
outside.”
“I’ve heard that before.
You never did have much of a punch, Nick. Too old I guess.”
“Boy…”
“Nick, it’s time for Grace,” Victoria interrupted. Respectfully the family bowed their heads in
prayer. While all Jarrod did was say
Grace, the rest of the family had their own prayers to say to the Lord and the
prayer was amazingly similar among all five of them, a prayer of thanks that a
rabid wolf hadn’t taken away the big bluff Nick Barkley, their brother, their
son and their friend. Nick realized how
very much he meant to his family that day…and never again would he leave them
in the dark when he really needed them.
In his own way, Nick had learned a lesson…a lesson in appreciation for
the truly unique and wonderful family he was part of.