by dcat
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.
It was so late, well past 1am, as the blond cowboy padded
down the still unfamiliar staircase.
In stocking feet, he had pulled on a pair of tan jeans, and remaining
shirtless he walked downstairs through the quiet house. So big and so empty, even though each
bedroom had an occupant. Maybe it
wasn’t just about taking up space, maybe some substance was needed in the mix
as well. It had been a tense time for
all of them. Even though time seemed to
be moving ahead like it always did, the days he’d been at the Barkley Ranch
wore on, in a never ending sort of foggy haze.
24-year-old Heath, kept his guard up all the time, afraid of what
letting it down might do to him. He
took responsibility for claiming his heritage on that God forsaken night, not
sorry for a second that he had, but apprehensive still about how he’d be
treated and how he’d respond back to people who were strangers, and now, in a
flash become blood.
Nowhere and in no one was this more evident with than
28-year-old Nick. He had confounded
Heath from the moment the two laid eyes on each other. Every day was a new challenge, a new ram to
batter against, another way to find out how to stand up for what was right and
for what a person believed in and there seemed to be no compromise between the
two of them. It just always seemed to
be the same thing with Nick. If he said
white, Nick would say black, if Heath went up, Nick went down. Truth be told, there was right to what both
of them said, felt and did. A near
constant battle faced him at every corner and it was near impossible to get
away from. Nick ran the ranch and as
much as Heath longed to be everything that Nick was to the ranch, Nick just
wasn’t ready to relinquish his hold just yet.
Heath didn’t want to take Nick’s place, he just wanted to share it.
Sleep came hard to Heath during these early times and he’d
found himself wandering around the house during these late hours, thankful for
the calming, peace and tranquility he could find, when he could relax and think
of how things had turned out and wonder how he could adapt to what lay ahead.
This particular late hour, he re-played the day before in
his head over and over, trying to make sense of it and trying to get a clearer
picture of one Nick Barkley. He
unconsciously made his way to the gunroom, where a fire still clung to life in
the fireplace. He grabbed a couple of
logs from the nearby pile and stoked it up to brighten up the room. He stood staring into the shooting flames, warming
up his body, hands and sock feet before taking a few steps back to gaze into
the eyes of Tom Barkley’s portrait that hung over the fireplace. He backed his way to the nearby sati and sat
down, all the while keeping his fixation on the painting of this man, his
father. It didn’t even seem right to
say the words. He’d seen it nearly
every day since he arrived at the ranch.
It was a dominating picture of a dominating man. They all spoke about the legend that was Tom
Barkley. The valley practically
belonged to him. He touched all that he
had passed by. He held the world in
his hand, when he spoke, people listened.
Tom Barkley was a man of strength and compassion. A seemingly perfect man in an imperfect
land. He would stand by you or oppose
you and it was all based on his terms.
And he’d left that legacy in each of his children, a fiery, stubborn,
yet strong and caring group of individuals who thought for themselves and for
causes they believed in.
And yet looking at the portrait and knowing himself, Heath
wondered what the old man had exactly left for him. He hadn’t even known that Heath existed. He felt no tie to him, no bond was in place,
he had no pride in what Tom Barkley had done to him or to his mother and had
left him with nothing. Heath had
searched out this family himself and now that he had found them, he was lost,
not knowing what to do next. How would
he learn how to belong? Surrounded by a
family now, he never felt more alone in his whole life.
As he sat there and wondered about all of this, the door
to the room burst open suddenly and there, big as life itself, was Nick
Barkley, looking disheveled, wearing a pair of black jeans, his long-john
undershirt and his boots.
“Uh, I heard something down here, thought maybe someone
broke in,” he said, running his hand through his thick hair, trying
unsuccessfully to tame it. The quiet
had been broken. Heath doubted Nick
would ever have anything to do with the word quiet. They obviously were mortal enemies.
Heath had jumped a bit, startled by the intrusion. He didn’t speak at all. Nick watched him turn his head back to the
painting and as he did Nick noticed that his eyes wore a look of sadness.
Nick had seen him staring at the painting of his
father. HIS father, there he’d gone and
thought that again. It was their
father, not his father. Try as hard as
he could, this particular change wasn’t coming to him as quickly as other
changes in his life had come. And Nick
Barkley didn’t understand why. He
wanted to understand it and make it work for both their sakes. And every time he thought he was making
headway with Heath, something else just got in the way and set the brakes to
stopping the progress. It was like this
for weeks. And yesterday was the same.
He stood in the doorway and stared at the face of Tom
Barkley. “I’m sorry for disturbing ya,”
he said, hoping his father could materialize before the both of them and give
them both the answer to whatever it was that continued to cause the rift that
ran parallel to both of them. “I’ll
leave ya be.” He studied his new
brother’s profile and then gazed up at the picture of Tom Barkley. He wondered what he was looking for.
Just as he was about to leave the room he made what he
thought would be a simple, yet genuine statement to his younger sibling. “Whatever questions you got, I always found
our father to have the answer.”
Heath still stared at the portrait. “I ain’t looking for the answer to any
questions. Least ways not from him.”
There, that irritable, uncomfortable place had been
breached again. Nick, always fast to
jump to conclusions, took the comment as an instant insult. Heath on the other hand, was slow to explain
things. His meanings were often vague
and open-ended. Fire and grease
collided again.
It was too late to start a fight, even for Nick
Barkley. He managed a heavy sigh
instead and said, “What’s that supposed to mean?” His tone, abusive and defensive.
Heath broke his stare and turned his face to look at his
brother. He studied him intently. “I’m trying to find us.”
“Us?” Nick questioned.
Heath stood up and walked over to the fire and motioned
toward the picture. “We’re brothers,
he’s our father, but I can’t find either one of us up in that picture, can
you?”
Nick took a few more steps into the room, now intrigued by
the dialogue. “I can, I think we all
resemble him, in different ways of course.”
He’d let go of the anger he held just a few seconds earlier. It was all about finding common ground. “I’d say you and Jarrod and Audra have his
eyes,” Nick began. “Me, well, I guess
maybe the nose and the coloring,” he continued.
Heath tapped his hand on the mantle. “That’s not what I mean,” he said.
Nick wore a look of puzzlement and waited for Heath to
continue.
“There’s nothing in that picture, cuz it’s not real, it’s
not in here,” he pointed to his heart.
“Don’t you get it? You can take
me into this house and let me carry the name, you can even tell me I have the
same eyes he has, but until we can both find out how to make us brothers in
here,” he emphasized by patting his chest once again, “it won’t mean
anything.” Heath walked by him as if he
were going to leave the room.
Nick was going to let him pass by, but at the last moment
he spoke out, “Heath, wait,” he said.
Heath stopped but didn’t turn around.
“What happened yesterday, well it was wrong. I’m sorry.
I’m not gonna make excuses for myself.”
“I’m not blaming you Nick, I had a part in it myself.”
Heath now spun around and faced him.
Nick walked over by the painting. “I think if he were here right now, he’d
take both of our heads and knock ‘em together,” he said with a laugh. The smile quickly left his face, “he’d tell
us time and time again, me and Jarrod that is, about brotherhood and just how
special it is. It drove him crazy every
time the two of us tangled. He’d fill
our heads with stories of the crusades and of pirates and explorers and stories
from the bible. Stories of brotherhood
and what it meant,” he paused, “I forgotten them all I think,” he added sadly.
“And I never got to hear them at all,” Heath said.
“Maybe we’ll have to create our own stories?” Nick
proposed.
Heath’s lip curled up to form a shy smile.
“Our father was NOT a perfect man,” Nick began.
“And neither are we,” Heath added walking back into the
room close to the fireplace and the portrait hanging above.
Both brothers studied the picture carefully and
closely. Each could see the other’s
likeness next to that of their father, a perfect reflection of the visual image
and an imperfect reflection of the man that Tom Barkley was.
THE END