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.
“Oh Mother, how could they? All four of them? I’m so
humiliated I can’t even think straight,” Audra cried as Victoria came through
the front door. She rushed into her
arms. “Where are they now?” she asked.
“They’ll be along shortly, they had some apologizing to do
in town too.”
“Didn’t they know how important this was to me today?”
Audra continued to ask Victoria questions.
“Yes darling, they knew, they just made some bad choices. They didn’t do it on purpose.”
“They ruined the whole day. I’m embarrassed to say that they’re my brothers, I’ll never be
able to go into Stockton again, ever,” she flopped onto to the sati and buried
her head in her hands crying.
Victoria watched her daughter for a moment and knew things
weren’t as bad as she’d made them out to be, but Audra clearly did have a right
to be upset over her brothers’ behavior.
She went and sat beside her and took her into her arms. “Now, now, it’s not that bad, everyone will
forget it even happened by tomorrow.”
Audra sniffled, “I won’t forget, ever. If I could, I’d throw them so far out of
this house and maybe even this valley,” she said angrily. Just as she did, her four brothers entered
the house. Oldest Brother Jarrod led
the pack followed by Gene, Heath and finally Nick pulled up the rear.
Victoria braced herself for a long Sunday afternoon.
Each one of the boys placed his hat delicately on the
table in the foyer and proceeded to follow behind Jarrod into the sitting room.
“Mother, we all apologized to Reverend Croom,” Jarrod
began. Victoria nodded at them. “And to most of the people who were at the
service.”
“We even rode out to Lunigan’s place,” Gene chirped in.
Victoria gave her youngest son a hint of a smile.
“Now, we’d like to talk with Audra, if we could?” Jarrod
continued.
Audra’s head was buried in her mother’s lap. Victoria stroked her long blonde hair. “Audra, your brothers want to talk with you,
are you ready to listen?”
“I don’t think I ever want to see any of them ever again,”
her muffled voice cried out.
Heath and Nick looked at each other with somber eyes.
“Come on Audra, please?” Eugene begged, kneeling down at
her feet.
“I’ll let you children talk this one out,” Victoria said,
rising from the sati.
Audra slowly lifted herself up and dabbed at her
eyes. “I’m really not in the mood for
any excuses from any of you. What you
did was rude, impolite and downright horrid.
I don’t know if I can forgive you ever,” she said.
Nick let out a heavy sigh, “I need a drink,” he pronounced
as he walked over to the liquor table and began to pour.
Eugene stood up and went and grabbed his arm, “that’s what
started this whole thing.”
Nick shook off his hold, “Listen, little brother, when I
need your advice on holding down liquor, I’ll ask for it. Seems to me you should listen to what your
saying yourself. Right now, I need to
take off this edge.” He poured a
healthy glass of whiskey for himself.
“Heath? Jarrod?” he asked. Much as the two of them wanted to join in,
they both declined. “Suit yourself,”
Nick said, pouring down the fiery liquid.
Audra watched the whole thing in amazement, “None of you
understand, you never will, I hate all of you,” she said, knocking into Heath
on her way up the stairs. He tried to
grab her and keep her in the room, but she slipped through his grasp and up the
stairs she ran.
“Just great Nick, having yourself a whiskey is a great way
to start an apology,” Jarrod said.
Nick poured himself another one. “I don’t know why we’re running around apologizing anyway. What did we do that was so bad?”
Heath mumbled something incoherent and sat himself down in
a chair, before he was about to fall down.
Gene and Jarrod quickly followed.
Jarrod began to rub his temples.
Victoria heard Nick’s comment as she hurried back into the
room, when she heard Audra run up the stairs.
“What did you do that was so bad?” she asked loudly.
Heath shut his eyes and cleared his throat, the noise hurt
so bad and he braced himself for his mother’s wrath.
“Nicholas Barkley, if you have to ask that question, maybe
I should give you lessons on how we behave in church.”
“I’m sorry Mother,” he said.
“You should be. As
you know, you should be apologizing to your sister, not to me. This was a big day for her this
morning. I think the four of you ought
to be ashamed of yourselves. Do you
really think some insincere words mean anything?”
“Mother, we’re trying to rectify the whole situation,”
Jarrod said as he now began to loosen his tie.
“Last night just got out of hand.”
She held up her hand to quiet him. She was through listening to their
excuses. “I suggest the four of you
figure something out right now, right here, together, because otherwise you’ll
all be sleeping out in the north pasture tonight.” She calmly walked upstairs to comfort her daughter.
“That’s the last time I ever celebrate Gene’s birthday,”
Heath said, trying to pull off boots, which he was barely able to do, while
expending a lot of effort. He was still
slightly blitzed from the all-night celebration.
“Oh come on, you’re blaming me?” Gene said, happily, still
totally zonked from his impromptu party at the Stockton Saloon. “I only get one birthday a year!”
Heath started to laugh and he couldn’t stop.
“I should have stopped it, we knew Audra was being
confirmed this morning, and Reverend Croom came all the way from Santa Fe.”
Heath continued the giggle as he heard Jarrod say, ‘all
the way from Santa Fe.’ “Jarrod that
rhymes,” he said, giggling. Jarrod
smiled at his younger brother.
“We gotta get these two up to bed,” Nick said angrily, his
hangover was giving him a heart-pounding headache.
“We all need some sleep, believe me, after that train ride
from San Francisco yesterday afternoon, then drinking till what was it, 5:30
this morning, I’m way too old for this.
But we need to find a way to sincerely apologize to Audra,” Jarrod said.
“How ‘bout if we say, ‘Audra, we sincerely apologize?’”
Heath said with a straight face.
“Nick, pour me a shot of that whiskey,” Jarrod said,
leaning his head back on his chair, knowing he needed to take off the ‘edge’
too.
“Pour me one too,” Gene shouted.
“Make it a round,” Heath added.
Nick started pouring his brothers drinks. “I think this is what got us into the mess
we’re in,” he said, handing them each a glass.
“I want to make a toast,” Gene said, trying to stand, but
not accomplishing the feat. “To my
brothers, for the best birthday and the best day after a birthday ever! And to Audra, we sincerely apologize.”
They raised their glasses and drank down the whiskey.
Nick filled up their glasses again.
“My turn,” Nick said, “To everyone in Stockton, especially
the saloon keeper, thanks for keeping the whiskey coming! And to Audra, we sincerely apologize.”
They drank down another shot in unison.
Heath scooted himself to a standing position and giggled
all the while he prepared his toast, “To Reverend Croom, all the way from Santa
Fe,” they all laughed and Heath fell backwards into the seat. And then he quickly jumped up to add, “And
to Audra, we sincerely apologize.” The
whiskey went down smoother than ever.
Nick quickly walked from brother to brother and filled
each glass, when he got to Jarrod he said, “your turn for a toast, older and
wiser brother.”
Jarrod slowly stood, as the effects of three straight
shots of whiskey after the all night blowout began to take effect again. “To the Barkley boys who all carry one
common trait,” he paused and looked at each one of them, “falling asleep in
church and snoring. We inherited a good
one from our Father there boys,” he said.
At the top of the stairs, looking down on the boys’
shenanigans, stood Victoria and Audra, they’d heard the entire spectrum of
toasts. Watching them, both women got
smiles on their faces as they heard the boys loudly toast one last time
together in unison.
“And to Audra, we sincerely apologize.”
“I don’t think they’ll be coming up to talk to you anytime
soon darling,” Victoria said.
Audra looked at her mother and smiled, “I don’t think they
need to anymore.”