The Giant Pumpkin War

Parts 1-6

by MagdalenMary495

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.

Part 1

Nick Barkley had a dream.

A dream he dare not share with many people. Through the years he’d become hardened to the shocked looks, the loud guffaws that followed the sharing of his secret heart’s desire. He had shelved it away in the back of his mind, accepting that it would never be understood by anyone else. But each spring, as planting time came once again to the Valley, Nick couldn’t deny that the longing was still there. The intense, burning desire to have his dream becomes a reality. He . . . Nicholas Barkley wanted to grow the largest pumpkin in the world.

Nick could still remember the exact second the desire was born. It had begun the year he was six and gone alone with Father to the County Fair. It was a day Nick always looked back to as a shining memory of his childhood. Whether it was the rare pleasure of having Father’s company all to himself, or having Father respect his opinions, that day stood out as one of the best days in Nick Barkley’s life. Overshadowing even the torture of having to wear his blue Sunday suit with the short pants on a Saturday!

On that wonderful day, they’d seen every exhibit, filling their eyes with the finest in horseflesh, purebred cattle, chickens and hogs. Nick ran along beside Father, eyes darting back and forth from one wondrous animal to another, his ears filled with a cacophony of lowing, bawling, snorting, stomping and cackling with an occasional “cock-a-doodle-doo” from a confused Rhode Island Red. And the aromas! Nicks breathed deeply, inhaling a mixture of manure, the sweet scent of alfalfa and timothy hay, horse sweat and the pleasant milky smell in the Dairy Cow exhibits. His heart swelled with the excitement of it all. The County Fair! With Father!

There had been other exhibits to see. Nick strutted importantly through the displays of brightly colored canned goods. Whispering in an aside to Father after inspecting the orange globes of peaches or a particularly appealing jar of apple rings, “Mother’s looks better than those.” In the Floral Hall, Nick squinched his nose at the overpowering odor of the prize winning roses, dahlias, zinnias and a billion other stinky flowers he couldn’t name. He was glad when Father, after a polite nod to several women friends of Mother’s, left the building. Worse than one of Audra’s odorous diapers. It took a few deep breaths of the barnyard aromas before his nose stopped itching inside.

“We’d best go look at Mother’s prize winning quilt, Nick.” Father had said along about the middle of the afternoon. “After that we’ll look at the Fruits and Vegetables.”

Nick groaned inside, wasting time on women’s silly work, but didn’t air his opinion to Father. Mother had put in many long hours of work on her Irish Chain Quilt and had heard through the church sewing circle it had taken the blue ribbon. With baby Audra home teething, Mother wouldn’t be able to come see her ribbon at the Fair. She’d have to wait until Father brought it home.

Dutifully, sighing at the delay, Nick admired Mother’s quilt, the blue ribbon and endured a few thumps on the head from a well-meaning friend of Mother’s who remarked, “My, how you’ve grown Eugene.” It was one of those darned old Montgomery Sisters so even Father dared not tell them they had his name wrong. The Montgomery Sisters were use to being right. To correct them was unthinkable.

“Now, Nicholas,” Father said, at least, “let’s go see the prize you won for your Irish potatoes.”

“Yes, Father,” Nick answered, trying to sound grown up but his voice betraying him with a squeak of excitement. He’d been waiting all day to see his first ribbon. His very First! That darned Jarrod had to tease, “What’s so special about Honorable Mention anyway?” Hiss boo for Jarrod. Honorable Mention ribbons were always green. Nick liked green. Green was the color of the grasses on the ranch, the wheat fields just pushing through the earth, the leaves on the trees he climbed in Sky Meadow. Green was a good color for a rancher which is what Nick hoped to be some day. Wasn’t he lucky, Mother said, that his first ribbon should be his favorite color? What did old head always stuck in a book Jarrod know anyway?

“Look at those fine potatoes,” Father made sure to say out loud as they stood by the display of prize winning tubers. Staring first at his boots, then red faced up at his potatoes, Nick felt a big grin stretch across his face. Self consciously, he looked at the placard with his name in ornate Spenserian Script, Nicholas Barkley, Stockton, Irish Potatoes Honorable Mention. It sure looked fine and important written like that. Everyone who came to the County Fair would know that he, Nicholas Barkley of Stockton had grown such outstanding specimens.

Carefully, to be fair, Nick looked over the First, Second and Third prize potatoes. He pointed out the good qualities of each, thinking he’d take extra care next year with his own potato patch. “How do you think I could improve my potatoes, sir?” He asked Father, listening carefully to his explanations of better fertilizer, perhaps a different type of seed potato or another field. As they left the building, Nick reveling in the “ranch talk” saw it.

“Father,” Nick swallowed twice, tugging on his Father’s trouser leg before he could speak the words, “is that a.. Is that a pumpkin?”

“Yes, it is. Over a 300 pounder too. Must be a world record?”

In that second, without warning, Nick’s heart embraced the dream. He walked around and around the pumpkin while Father waited patiently nearby talking with Mr. Peters from a neighboring ranch. The wonder of it! A pumpkin that weighed more than . . . why it must weigh more than Mother and Father together! Nick’s mind raced with questions. How did you grow a pumpkin that size? Where did you start? However did you pick it up and bring it to the fair? Nick looked and looked until his eyes burned with the image of that bright orange pumpkin.

“Father,” he asked later as they walked back to the buggy after the finest day Nick could ever remember, “do you think I could grow a pumpkin that large?”

Father laughed. “Well, our spread is certainly big enough if you want to try Nick. Yes, I’d say son you can do anything you set your mind to do.”

Nick couldn’t wait to get home that day to share his exciting discovery, the thrill of adventure waiting to happen. Wait, just wait until he grew a pumpkin bigger than 300 pounds! To his deep disappointment, no one else in the family could see the wonderful possibilities.

While Nick danced around the kitchen, dodging Mother’s steps as she walked quickly from stove to the cupboard to table trying to get supper, the plan burst out in ecstatic words. Mother handed him a cookie, patted the top of his head with a distracted, “That’s nice, Nick,” and reminded him to take off his good suit before he went off to play. Not the reaction he’d hoped for after sharing such a big dream. Later, when he told Jarrod, he saw the first stunned look of disbelief and heard the first of many hysterical outbursts. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Jarrod finally stopped laughing long enough to say. “You don’t even like pumpkin pie.”

Dirty darn, brother! Nick made sure he kicked Jarrod hard in the shin, kicked the bed post and ran from the room near tears. It so disheartened him that he couldn’t even suggest to Father the next spring that he’d like to grow a giant pumpkin.

After another spring went by, Nick tried secretly. He hoed and weeded and shaped the best pumpkin patch in the world. He grew some mighty fine pumpkins. Regular sized. The shining light around his dream dimmed just a smidgen in his mind. He should have given up then. Admitted defeat and left the giant pumpkin growing to hardier souls, but he couldn’t.

Just wait. Wait and he’d show them all. One day he’d grow the biggest pumpkin in all of California. One day . . .

Over the years, Nick tried. With the whole ranch at his disposal, he’d grown pumpkin seeds in so many out of the way spots that Father began to say he never knew when his horse would stumble over a pumpkin hidden in the grass. Whenever Jarrod shot a rabbit for stew, Father joked that the rabbits were so plump because they must be feasting on Nick’s pumpkins. As time went by, Nick’s pumpkin dream became a family joke. Let Mother bake a pumpkin pie and sure enough, Jarrod or Audra or Gene were sure to tease, “Say, Mother, how many pies did you get out of Nick’s giant pumpkin this year?”

Nick couldn’t understand why he couldn’t grow pumpkins bigger than regular sized. As the years passed, he watched and studied and made sure he stood near the giant pumpkins at the fair with his ears attuned to the gossip, shamelessly eavesdropping. One day, one day he would grow a giant pumpkin. Still, it might be nice if somewhere along the way someone else in the family could share his dream, give him a nudge of encouragement or cheer him on. The dream of growing giant pumpkins was lonely indeed. But he, Nick Barkley, would not give up. Ever. One day they’d all be sorry for teasing him.

After Heath joined the family, Nick decided that here might be someone who’d understand. One night after dinner, Heath had shared a story from his own childhood about the desire to grow a watermelon he could eat, “all by myself.” His Uncle Matt had been so stingy he’d never given Heath more than half a piece of watermelon to share with his Mother. Nick thought surely, Heath would understand. He just had to wait for the right opportunity to share his dream.

Not long after Heath and Nick had finished their second round up together, they found themselves making camp for the night on their way back to the ranch. Nick built up a crackling fire while Heath started a camp supper of beans and black coffee. Later, stomach’s comfortably full, the brothers lay on pallets, their heads pillowed on saddles, looking up at the stars while the fire spread its warmth and sent sparks shooting toward the sky. As often happened on such nights, Nick found it easy to share confidences with Heath under the anonymity of the night. In many ways, he found talking to Heath easier than to Jarrod.

“Say, Heath?’ He asked, moving his head more comfortably on his saddle pillow, “You ever have a dream . . . something you wanted for a long time?”

“Boy howdy, do I!” Heath agreed enthusiastically, shifting to face Nick on the other side of the fire. “Did you see that set of matched pistols Mr. Simpson has over at the Emporium in Pineville? I’d surely like to own those.”

Pistols! What kind of dream was that? “Not something you buy!” He bellowed, “A Dream, a desire, a longing you have in your heart.”

“Reckon I got a longing in my heart for those pistols. Only thing is, do I wanna pay what he’s asking. Seems to me the price is way too steep.” Heath shifted onto his back, staring up at the velvet sky. “Course. those are some of the finest-made pistols’ I ever seen.”

Thrashing around on the hard ground, Nick’s temper threatened to rise. “Heath, I’m not talkin’ about something like pistols. What I mean is . . . ” Suddenly a little shy, he was baring his soul after all, maybe tarnishing his tough rancher image, Nick stammered softly, “a dream you never wanted to share with anyone.”

“You got a dream like that, Nick?”

“Yeah,” Nick admitted softly, grinning up at the stars.

Heath waited. “Well, are you gonna get that goofy grin off your face an’ tell me, or aren’t you?”

“Ever since I was a little boy, I wanted to . . . ”

“Yes?”

“Aw, you’ll laugh.”

“No, I won’t, Nick. Whatever it is, I won’t laugh.”

Nick, unsure but hoping, divulged his heart’s desire. Rushing out the words, he told Heath, “I always wanted to grow a giant pumpkin and win first prize at the county fair.”

Nick waited. And waited. And waited. Just when he was about to ask if Heath had heard . . .
“I knew it!” He thundered as Heath burst out in uncontrollable laugher. “Forget it! Forget I ever said a word!”

“I’m sorry, Nick . . . ” Heath chuckled, struggling red faced to get himself under control. “It’s just . . . a pumpkin.” He snickered, couldn’t help himself and began to laugh harder than before.

Angered, Nick turned his back on Heath, thumped his head down on his saddle and fumed that he’d opened himself to more ridicule. Well, it wouldn’t happen again. He’d never share that dream with anyone.

“Aw, Nick, I’m sorry . . . ” Heath finally said in a mocking drawl, “it’s just, I was expecting’ you to say you’d found a girl you wanted to marry or maybe you wanted to be Mayor of Stockton but you come out with . . . ” Heath fought to keep from laughing, “ . . . a pumpkin winning a prize at the fair.”

Nick kept his lips pressed tight together, not to be goaded into saying anything else. I knew it! I knew it! Share your dreams and what do you get? Another joker in the family!

“Ya know, Nick, I’ve seen some of those giant pumpkins at the fair.” Heath put his arm behind his head to cushion it on the hard saddle, attempting to placate Nick. Reckon Nick didn’t like to be made fun of, and he surely never had. And truth be told, he did have dreams he’d be scared to admit to anyone else. Nick was more of a man of courage than he was. Still, a giant pumpkin? Nick? Boy howdy, if that wasn’t the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time. “How you reckon they grow’em that big? Must be some trick to it?”

Heath waited, knowing sooner or later Nick would have to speak. Tryin’ to shut Nick up was like trying to lasso a calf without a rope. It just couldn’t be done.

“Pedigree seeds.” Nick spoke the words grudgingly.

“What?”

“Pedigree seeds. If you wanna grow a giant pumpkin, you gotta have special seeds,” Nick explained to his bewildered brother, “you get seeds from another giant pumpkin and plant those. You can’t get a giant pumpkin from regular pumpkin seed.”

Nick didn’t share the fact that this was hard earned knowledge, gained only after five years of using plain pumpkin seeds.

Heath grinned in the dark. Boy howdy, now he’d heard it all. Pedigree pumpkin seeds! Right off he could see the possibilities for some good natured ribbing of Nick. Dare he want to inflame Nick anymore? “Say, Nick, that’s right interesting. What I wanna know is . . . how’d someone grow the first giant pumpkin if they didn’t have no pedigree pumpkin seeds to plant?”

“Now how the devil would I know that?” Nick shouted, realized his leg had been pulled and clammed up. Pulling a blanket over his head, he tried to shut out Heath’s belly laughs filling his ears. Just wait. Just wait. Someday, he would grow a giant pumpkin and they’d all be sorry.



As another spring came along, Nick felt the old urge rise. This year for certain he’d grow a giant pumpkin. He could almost taste the victory, feel the silkiness of that blue ribbon as he rubbed it between his fingers. All he needed to do was to find some seeds. For the first spring, this would be a problem.

Nick had gotten to be quite an expert on growing giant pumpkins over the years of reading, studying and eavesdropping. Through the years, he’d kept up with the names of winning pumpkin winners by reading any newspaper that printed news about a county fair. Knowing he needed seeds from a winner to grow another winner, Nick began a clandestine correspondence with many of the giant pumpkin winners around the country. Clandestine only on the part of his family who wondered often why he received so many small, brown parcels in the mail every spring.

“Just some seed samples,” he’d mumbled as someone handed him another box of pumpkin seeds. An answer they accepted since all agreed that Nick liked to try new plants and varieties of seeds around the ranch.

Each spring he faithfully planted seeds of a winner and ended up with . . . nothing. One year his hopes had soared to unexpected heights as his seeds from “Charles Barttel’s 350 lb.” Winner of the Salinas County Fair grew and grew and grew. Nick knew, as surely as he knew his name was Nick Barkley, that his pumpkin would have won that year. If that darned hailstorm hadn’t severed the vine.

This year . . . yes, this year . . . he could almost feel it in his bones. This year he would win. If only he could get the right seeds. The largest weight pumpkin last year had come from Stockton. It just so happened to have been grown by a rancher Nick knew very well. Franklin Davis. There wasn’t any real reason why Nick couldn’t just go to Franklin and ask to buy some of the seeds from his prize winning pumpkin. No real reason, except . . . the Nick Barkley Franklin Davis knew was not a pumpkin grower. He was a MAN, a rancher, a cattleman. He was not a man who dabbled in growing exotic fruits or vegetables. Nick could barely admit the plain facts to himself . . . he was too embarrassed to ask Franklin and let the family know he still had a burning desire to grow a giant pumpkin.

Nick thought, briefly, of asking Audra to go buys some seeds. Audra looked like the kind of girl who might enjoy raising giant pumpkins. Trouble was, those seeds should be in the ground within the next few days to be ready in time for the county fair. Audra was off visiting her friend, Martha, and wouldn’t be home for another two weeks. Asking Audra was out.

Mother? No. Jarrod? Absolutely not! Nick had once, on one memorable occasion, conned Jarrod into buying some seeds from a Chinese grower on one of his many trips to San Francisco. When the man told Jarrod the seeds were $20 . . . each . . . Jarrod was livid. He’d come home empty handed, shouting, ranting and raving over the folly of PAYING $20 for a pumpkin seed. Heath? No. It hadn’t taken Heath to catch onto the fact that a good pumpkin joke could rile Nick like a cat’s fur rubbed the wrong way. Nick could just hear the guffaws as Heath and Franklin got together. He’d never live down the ribbing. Probably never be able to show his face in Stockton again once the word got around that he, Nick Barkley, had turned into a pumpkin grower.

Walking around the ranch, he worried the problem through his mind. Who? Who? Who? There must be someone on this ranch he could talk into buying pumpkin seeds. As he walked past the gazebo in Mother’s rose garden, a small voice called out to him.


“Hi, Uncle Nick, whatcha doing? Wanna come to a tea party?”

“Not now, Jenny, not now,” he brushed her off impatiently, not slowing down to talk, “I got something important I got to do.”

“Okay.”

It wasn’t until Nick reached the barn, undecided about getting someone to buy pumpkin seeds from Franklin Davis, that the answer fell into his mind like a gift. The one person who wouldn’t laugh, ask stupid questions or grumble about the price.

Jenny.

He hurried back to the gazebo, swung himself up the one step and looked at the answer to his problem. Jenny, wearing an old gardening hat of her Grandmother’s and using a green brocade drapery that once hung in Audra’s room as a cape, smiled back. “You want some tea now? I got plenty. Cookies too.”

He nodded charming her with a beguiling smile. Nick picked up one of the tiny china cups, sprigged with yellow roses. Holding it out for an imaginary pouring, he asked bluntly, “Jenny, have you ever thought of growing a giant pumpkin?”

Part 2

Jenny stared up at Nick from under the brim of Victoria’s tattered gardening hat. Pretending to sip a cup of imaginary tea, she gave the question all of two seconds consideration before answering. “No. You want some more tea, Uncle Nick?”

Knowing he’d never fit in the child sized wicker chairs surrounding Jenny’s tea party table, Nick sat back on his heels. He pinched a tiny cup handle between his thumb and finger, holding it out for a refill, hoping none of the ranch hands could see him in this undignified position. He did have a reputation to uphold.


“You ever seen a giant pumpkin growing, Jenny?”

“No.” Jenny leaned conspiratorially across the party table to whisper, “You can pretend there’s brandy in yours. Daddy always does. Just don’t tell the children.”

Jenny nodded discretely to the two simpering china dolls and battered rag doll sitting in the other three wicker chairs, each with her own cup and saucer on the table before her. Nick smiled, feeling like a fool, in the general direction of the “children.” If they were his children, brandy in the tea wouldn’t help. He let Jenny prattle a few minutes about how rudely Betsy, the china doll with a pink dress, had treated her that day waiting to draw the conversation back to pumpkins.

“You’d love growing a giant pumpkin. They get so big...you never seen anything that big.”

“Do they grow as big as a house?”

“No.”

“Big as a train?”

“Well, no...”

“Hm,” Jenny regarded him with a lofty expression, “don’t sound very big to me then.” She held out a dented silver tray that Silas must have discarded. “You wanna cookie, Uncle Nick. It’s my very best recipe.”

“Sure, sure,” Nick took the proffered tray. Odd looking cookie. He picked one up and took a big bite. Gagging as the mud wet on his tongue, hearing Jenny’s shocked scream of, “Uncle Nick! You aren’t spose to eat it!” too late.

He jumped up, leaned over the gazebo railing and spit out the grit. It took a lot of spitting before most of the mud was off his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Scolding in between spitting, he growled, “You trying to poison me! Why didn’t you tell me they weren’t real?”

Hurt tears wet Jenny’s eyes, “Please stop yelling, Uncle Nick, you’re ruining my tea party. You made all the children cry.” Jenny picked up the well loved rag doll holding her close to her own teary face while she whispered loud enough for Nick to overhear, “Sh, Tamsin, don’t listen to that mean, mean man. He don’t know how to play tea party.”

Nick, realizing he’d better get back in Jenny’s good graces in a hurry, spit a few more times and hurried to make amends. “Sorry, doll.” Nick patted the closest china doll on the head, glancing around nervously. What if any of the hands saw Nick Barkley playing with dolls? He’d never live it down. Never.

“Her name is Betsy,” Jenny informed him icily, “and she don’t like cowboys.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Nick, forgetting himself, began to pat Betsy on the head again. Stopping at Jenny’s angry look, pulling his hand away. What was it about Jenny’s tea party that made him feel all thumbs and clumsy booted?

“Look, Jenny,” he’d come straight out with it, shoot from the hip, “I need you to do a favor for me. You can do a favor for your Uncle Nick, can’t you? Bet Tamsin and Betsy wouldn’t mind would they?”

Wiping her runny nose on the drapery cloak, Jenny sat Betsy back in her chair, lovingly placing a mud cookie on the doll’s plate. “I suppose,” she answered grudging every syllable, “after I finish my tea party.”

“Good, good,” Nick rubbed his gloved hands together happily. Now he was moving Jenny in the right direction. “How soon you wrapping up this party?”

“Grandma said I could play til four o’clock.”

“Four o’clock!” Nick bellowed so loudly the rose sprigged cups rattled in the rose sprigged saucers. “That’s almost five hours away! Ain’t no tea party that lasts that long! I need you to do this favor now.”

Jenny pursed her lips stubbornly almost daring him to make her stop. “Grandma said I could play till four o’clock before I had to get cleaned up and help with dinner. She said I could stay dirty till then too and I am. As soon as Tamsin and Betsy and Agnes finish their cookies, I’m baking them a nice mud pie in a tin Mr. Silas gave me.”

“C’mon, Jenny, I really need this favor done as soon as you can get cleaned up. You come with me now and before you know it, you’ll be back here making your mud pie.” Forcing his hand, Nick spoke sternly, “You come now and do what I say.”

“Is it ranch work, Uncle Nick?” Jenny asked suspicion narrowing her eyes.

“Not exactly.”

“Then I don’t have to. Grandma is the boss of me when Daddy is at work. And if it’s not ranch work then I’m gonna go ask Grandma do I have to go...”

“It’s ranch work! It’s ranch work!” Nick shouted, grabbing her arm as she started to leave the gazebo. Jenny telling Mother he did not need. There was only so long even his Mother put up with her children’s impossible dreams without snickering. Victoria Barkley had long passed the snickering stage. She laughed as long and as loud as Heath, Jarrod or Audra...sometimes louder. Nick didn’t know if he could listen to her demoralizing, “Don’t tell me you still have that ridiculous idea in your head, Nick,” speech one more time.

“You’re fibbing! Uncle Nick, you’re fibbing. Just cause you want me to do something for you.” Jenny’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “I’m shamed of you, Uncle Nick.”

Nick sat on one of the wooden seats of the gazebo, pulling a wiggling, uncooperative Jenny onto his lap. “Aw, listen to me a minute, Jenny. Did you ever have a dream you’ve had almost your whole life? Something you want so badly you can almost taste it? You can feel it in your hand? See it with your mind...”

Jenny stopped protesting her seat on his lap. Taking off her straw hat, she smiled up at him. “Yes, I have. I wanna buy a corset.”

“A corset!” The idea was so shocking, Nick felt as if he’d been shot and were waiting to fall. “What in thunder do you want to wear a corset for? You ain’t even...well...usually ladies are a little older before they think about...” Nick stammered, his face blushing furiously. Jenny? With a corset?

“Oh, I don’t want to wear it. Me an’ Billy wanna buy one so we can make a giant slingshot. We looked at the pictures of corsets in Grandma’s catalog an’ Billy said betcha if we tied the strings to two saplings, we could pull it back, put in a big rock and throw it at Emily Parker when she walked by...”

“That’s an awful idea! What if Emily gets hurt?”

Jenny rolled her eyes at his stupidity, “That’s the whole point, Uncle Nick. You don’t throw rocks unless you want someone to get hurt. Didn’t Grandma ever teach you that?”

“She told me not to throw rocks at people, someone might get hurt.”

“Zactly.” Jenny smiled.

Nick, bewildered by this logic, shook his head in confusion. What bothered him most was that he almost understood her confused reasoning. I am a Rancher. I am Cattleman. I can handle this. I am older and wiser. “You listen, Missy, you just better not try that idea. You do and if Jarrod doesn’t spank you, I will.”

Jenny pouted. Arms crossed over her chest, she mumbled a few imprecations he couldn’t hear. Nick could see himself losing an ally, fast. Where had this conversation gotten out of hand...Nick thought back...the dream...

“I got a dream too, Jenny.” He looked into her face to see a ‘see if I care’ scowl. “It’s like I was talking about awhile ago. Ever since I was a little boy, littler than you, I wanted to grow a giant pumpkin.”

“Why?’ Jenny asked, interested in spite of herself. “You like lots of pumpkin pie?”

“Pappy told you to say that didn’t he?” Nick ranted, never trust a brother not to divulge your secrets to his kid!

“Huh?”

“Never mind...” Maybe it had been a logical assumption. “No, Jenny, it’s because of the prize, or maybe the thrill of victory. Knowing you’ve done something no one else has ever done before. If you grow the biggest pumpkin, you win a blue ribbon at the county fair. A rosette about this big....” Nick exaggerated a little with his hands, holding them higher than any normal ribbon would be.

“Oh,” understanding dawned on Jenny’s face, “Like the ribbons Grandma won for her quilts or Aunt Audra won for her pickles?”

“Right, only bigger and finer. Wouldn’t it be nice to know you won a ribbon for the biggest pumpkin at the country fair?”

“Yes,” Jenny agreed, smiling. Jenny, who was never allowed to touch any of the pretty, glossy ribbons that belonged to Grandma or Aunt Audra, liked the idea of having her own.

“There’s just one problem. To grow a giant pumpkin, you need seeds from a giant pumpkin that grew before. You need giant pumpkin seeds.”

This intrigued her, Jenny’s eyes widened in wonder. Shifting his leg, Nick accidentally knocked Suzie to the floor but Jenny didn’t reach to pick her up. “It sounds like in a story book. Where do you get the seeds, Uncle Nick? From a magic elf?”

“No, you buy them.”

Dirty darn. Didn’t sound like no magic seeds to her if you had to buy them. Just like ordinary seeds.

“I know who has some to sell.”

“Who?” Jenny asked, curious about who would grow a giant pumpkin.

“Mr. Davis. That’s where another problem comes in...see, I just can’t go ask Mr. Davis if I can buy some of his seeds.”
Jenny rubbed her nose. “Why not, Uncle Nick? Mr. Davis is your friend.”

Nick cringed a little, embarrassed even to be telling a little girl his dilemma. “It’s just...well, it’s embarrassing for me to go ask to buy his seeds. Growing giant pumpkins, well, that’s not what most people except of your old Uncle Nick. Know what I’m driving at?”

“No.”

“It’s like...” Nick searched his mind for some example she’d understand, “well, like Pappy. Now most people don’t expect an important lawyer like Pappy to be in the kitchen with an apron tied around his waist making fudge.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not what people would expect of the man they know as Jarrod Barkley, Esq. It don’t fit the kind of man he is,” Nick explained growing impatient with her confusion.

“Are you saying my Daddy don’t know how to make fudge?” Jenny thrust out that mutinous bottom lip again. Nick began to feel as if he’d fallen into a conversation of quicksand. Each time he got his head above ground, Jenny’s questions pushed him down into a quagmire.

“Let’s just forget about the fudge, okay? Just listen. I need you to go to Mr. Davis and ask to buy some of his giant pumpkin seeds. I’ll drive you over there, wait in the buggy while you go up to the door and ask. You just gotta be nice and polite, maybe curtsy. After you ask him how much he’s charging, I’ll give you the money and we’ll come home.”

“Maybe I don’t wanna.”

Nick, desperate to have her agree, decided to appeal to his niece’s greedier nature. “Tell you what, Jenny. You come with me and I’ll give you some of the seeds too. We’ll have a friendly little competition and see who can grow the biggest pumpkin. Maybe you’ll win the blue ribbon.”

His conscience flickered at deceiving her, even if he gave her some seeds he wouldn’t be helping her win. But, she was young, she’d outgrow the disappointment. Probably she’d plant the seeds and get tired of the whole project.

Appearing to think it over, Jenny gave reluctant consent. “Okay, I will...after I finish my tea party.”

“No!” Nick bellowed, dumping Jenny off his lap. “We go now or the deal is off!”

Standing up haughtily, tossing those dark curls, Jenny crammed her tattered straw hat back on her head. “No. I’m finishing my tea party.”

Begging, he’d have to do it. His dignity might be in shreds but he’d have his pumpkin seeds. “If you come now, I’ll give you the pumpkin seeds and a shiny silver dollar.”

“You will?” Jenny’s eyes brightened, “Then me an’ Billy can buy the corset.”

“Jenny,” he began , “you better give that idea up because...”

Eyes narrowing, Jenny stared at him with that bottom lip protruding. Better watch it, Nick, he told himself, or you’ll talk her out of going. Might be better after all to get the seeds before he said another word about the corset. Afterwards, he’d have a discreet word with Mother.

“Here,” he reached into his pocket, brought out a silver dollar and put it into her grubby hand, “you take this silver dollar. Go put it away in your room while you get cleaned up. Put on a pretty dress and wash the mud off your face and hands. Get Mother to fix your hair...but Jenny, don’t tell her where we’re going. It’s a secret.”

Jenny thought it over while Nick mentally bit his lip. Agreeing finally to do as he asked. She moved the doll carriage closer to him with instructions, “Put the children to bed while I’m gone. They have been very naughty children so they don’t get any supper either!”

“Sure, sure,” Nick agreed. He waited until Jenny walked regally toward the house, her drapery finery dragging in the dirt behind her. Nick plunked the dolls into the carriage and went to hitch up a buggy.

Nick rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Those pumpkin seeds were almost in his hands.

Part 3

Knocking on Franklin Davis’ door that afternoon, Jenny scowled. Dirty darn ole Uncle Nick. Who cared about his dumb ole pumpkin seeds? Not her, that was for sure!

When no one answered her first knock, Jenny took a fist and pounded again. She would have liked to reach the door knocker on Mr. Davis’ door. It was a lion’s head with a fierce, savage face. Jenny longed to be tall enough to take the gold ring and pound like Uncle Nick might. As far as she was concerned, that door knocker was the only thing interesting about this whole wasted afternoon. When she’d tried to jump up to reach it, Uncle Nick hissed from the buggy where he waited, “Stop that! Act like a lady!”

A lady? A lady? That made Jenny made enough to spit. She was trying to be a lady in her pretty garden hat and the brocade cloak when he made her stop her tea party to come on what Grammie would call a “fool’s errand.” Only the thought of that silver dollar, hidden in the shoes under her bed, kept Jenny standing on Franklin Davis’ porch, pounding on the door. The silver dollar and the idea of buying the corset to shoot rocks at Emily Parker.

“There isn’t anybody home!” Jenny yelled after her knocks went unanswered. “Can’t we go now?”

Uncle Nick, fidgety and scowling himself, whispered, “Knock again! The buggy and the surrey are both here.”

Dirty darn. Sighing loudly at losing all this tea party time over those dumb pumpkin seeds, Jenny knocked again. While she waited, she took time to scratch at the mosquito bites on the back of her legs. She’d just gotten her dress hitched up good enough to reach that pesky bite on the top of her thigh when the door opened on Mr. Davis’ servant, Ben.

“Yes, Miss,” he answered pleasantly enough, as if seeing a little girl showing her drawers and petticoat were not an unusual occurrence, “what can I do for you?”

Jenny smoothed down her dress after a final scratch. "It's me, Mr. Ben, Jenny. Dontcha remembers when I came with Mr. Silas last week you gave me a gingersnap.”

Ben smiled, showing his white teeth. He leaned over to whisper, “I reckonizes you Miss Jenny but the folks are home an’ I got to announce you all proper like. They like me to ast whose at the door even if I know who it is.”

“That’s stupid,” Jenny stated her opinion, sure of her welcome with Ben whether she was polite or not. Drawing herself up to her full height, holding her chin in the air, Jenny announced, “I am Jennifer Victoria Barkley and I would like to speak to Mr. Davis about buying some of his giant pumpkin seeds. “ As an afterthought, she added, “Please.”

Uncle Nick had warned her on the way over to be polite and use good manners. Mr. Davis, he warned, was a stickler about proper behavior. Jenny figured that was probably the reason she liked to visit Mr. Davis’ house when he wasn’t home. She often came with Silas to visit Ben and was free to be as improper as she liked.

“I’ll tell him rights this second, Miss Barkley.” He bowed, like she was a grown up lady, and went to find Mr. Davis.

Tapping her foot, Jenny waited making sure Uncle Nick heard every sigh. If Agnes and Tamsin were crying for her, no one would hear them out in that ole gazebo. Jenny bet anything Uncle Nick gave Betsy the yellow blanket too. If he did, she’d be fighting with Agnes when Jenny got home. If it wasn’t for that silver dollar, she never would have left her children to come after these dumb ole pumpkin seeds.

“Well, Jennifer Victoria Barkley,” Mr. Davis spoke cheerfully from the open door, “Ben tells me that you wish to purchase some of my giant pumpkin seeds.”

“Yes, sir,” Jenny answered politely, remembered she was supposed to curtsy and bobbed up and down. Turning back to look for Uncle Nick’s approval. He’d told her four times on the ride over not to forget to curtsy. He shook his head ruefully like he could have done it better.

Noticing Uncle Nick sitting in the buggy, Mr. Davis stepped out onto the porch, “Nick Barkley! Get out of that buggy! Come on in and be sociable! I’ve got a new keg of cider ready to be poured.”

Dirty darn! Double dirty darn! Once they got out the cider and started talking, Jenny knew it might be hours before she got home again. Since Uncle Nick was in such an all fired hurry, she hoped he might refuse. But, wouldn’t you know . . . there he was climbing out of the buggy, tying the horse to the hitching post. Jenny sighed as loud as she could. If Betsy and Agnes were fighting over that blanket, it would be all Uncle Nick’s fault.

The men exchanged greetings, hand shakes and jokes about a card game they’d both played a week ago. Sighing, Jenny followed them into the parlor where Uncle Nick motioned her to a chair. Jenny sat down wondering how long this would take. That was the most awful thing about visiting someone with Uncle Nick. Even if he said he was in a hurry, he could talk till the cows came home and let themselves into the barn.

Mr. Davis had Ben bring in the cider and a glass of milk for Jenny. While he poured out the drinks for himself and Uncle Nick, Jenny amused herself by studying Mr. Davis to see if what Uncle Heath said about him could be true. Uncle Heath always said Mr. Davis looked like a keg of cider. “He’s fat, round and he’s got two of the reddest apple sized cheeks I ever saw,” Uncle Heath would say every time he came home from the Davis’. “Pour him in a glass and he sparkles too.”

Jovial, as always, Franklin started Uncle Nick talking about cattle and crops and cider. The same boring subjects they always talked about. And how was she ‘spose to drink this milk without anything to go with it? That sure didn’t seem real polite. If Mr. Davis wasn’t going to let her drink any of his cider, the least he could have done would be to give her a cookie to eat with that milk. Jenny waited for a lull in the conversation, with both men sipping cider to ask, “Aren’t you going to ask if I want any cookies, Mr. Davis? That sure would be the polite thing to do for a guest.”

Uncle Nick chocked on his cider. Sputtering he scolded, “Where are your manners, Miss Impertinence?” He turned to Franklin contritely, “Sorry.”

“But, Uncle Nick,” Jenny sought to explain, as tears welled in her eyes, “whenever anybody comes to our house, Grammie always asks do they want anything to eat. I thought maybe Mr. Davis didn’t remember his manners and forgot.”

“Jenny!”

“Now, Nick,” Mr. Davis laughed, “she’s right. I did forget my manners. This little lady came to see me on a business matter and I ignored her. Then, on top of that, I forgot to offer her any cookies. Miss Barkley, I ask your forgiveness.”

Jenny couldn’t tell if Mr. Davis were teasing or not. Uncle Heath always said most of Mr. Davis’s good humor came from drinking so much “hard cider.” Whatever that was. It looked as wet as any other cider to Jenny, not hard at all. Although it did seem to make Mr. Davis laugh an’ an awful lot. A few minutes later, Ben had been summoned, brought back a nice plate of ginger snaps and even some squares of Mrs. Davis’ famous gingerbread. Mr. Davis minded his manners long enough to let her eat two squares before he turned the conversation back to the pumpkin seeds.

“So, Jenny, you think you might want to try growing giant pumpkins, eh?”

“I ‘spose,” Jenny answered, earning a frown from Uncle Nick. On the way over in the buggy, he’d coached her to act excited and happy when she asked for the seeds. Jenny decided his frown might mean her hidden silver dollar was in danger of being taken back. She put on a big smile, showing all her front teeth and said, “I want to grow the biggest pumpkin in the whole, entire world! So can I buy some of your seeds?”

Uncle Nick groaned a little, putting his head down into his hand. Mr. Davis didn’t seem to notice. He looked instead at Jenny with a sad expression on his usual sunny face. “Well, now, Jenny, that poses a problem. I don’t have any seeds left from my prize winning pumpkin.”

“You sold them all?” Nick sat up straight at this dire news. “They’re gone? All of them? When I’ve . . . when Jenny’s been counting on growing one this year for the fair?”

What a fib! Jenny started at Uncle Nick in shock. Wait, just wait, till she told Grammie about this.

“Sorry, Nick,” he shook his head in genuine regret, “if I’d have known your niece had her heart set on growing them, I’d have given them to her for free.”

Free? Free? Nick felt as if he’d been dropped down a well and was fast losing hold of a life saving rope. In a strangled voice, he asked, “You’d have given them to her for free? You wouldn’t have charged for them?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Davis began to sparkle again, “when I couldn’t use them this year, I figured I’d just give them to some worthy person for free. Always did think folks charged too much for the prize winning seeds. Do you know that I had to pay $36 a seed from a Chinese man in Sacramento last year? Course, look what happened!” Yes, Jenny thought, watching his face wreathed in a big smile again, he does sparkle like a glass of cider, “I got a 400 pounder and the blue ribbon at the fair.”

Nick thought he might be sick. The cider spun waves in his stomach that should only wash up on a beach. “Who?” He could barely get the question out, “Who did you give them to?”

“Oh, now that’s a peculiar story,” Mr. Davis began, folding his hands over his plump stomach, “You might have heard about my daughter, Rosemary?” He waited for Nick to nod, then repeated the glad tidings anyway, “Blessed us with our first grandson last month. The Mrs. and I decided we’d go spend the summer with her. I went to the telegraph office to send her a wire and got to joshing around with Mr. Simons. Told him I reckoned I wouldn’t be entering the pumpkin competition this year, being in Denver and all. Tyler McCain happened to be in there sending off a wire to his brother and you’ll never guess what happened?” Feeling even sicker to his stomach, Nick didn’t have to guess. “ He offered to buy every seed I had for what I’d paid the Chinaman.”

“Tyler McCain?” The cider lurched and swelled like a storm at sea. Tyler McCain. Might as well have given them to old Beelzebub himself. Never, ever, would he, Nick Barkley be able to buy pumpkin seeds from Tyler McCain. Not at any price.

“Oh.” Mr. Davis chuckled. “No love lost between the two of you, huh, Nick? I was just about to suggest you ask Tyler if he wouldn’t sell Jenny some seeds. Then, on second thought, I reckon you’d better not, Nick. Not after that last fight you two got into at Harry’s Saloon. That was some brawl . . . ”

Nick motioned toward Jenny, eyes wide as she listened with a hunk of gingerbread halfway to her mouth. “Not now, Franklin. The kid.”

Dirty darn. Jenny frowned. Just when the conversation might be getting interesting. The grown ups always got really excited about Uncle Nick’s saloon fights but they always stopped talking when she was around.

“Oh, of course.” He lowered his eyes and cleared his throat as he changed the subject, “I’m mighty sorry, Jenny. If I’d have known you were interested, I’d have given you every last seed. As it was, when Tyler asked I didn’t feel it proper to refuse him. No one else had asked and since I’ll be in Denver all summer . . . ” His voice trailed off.

“It’s all right,” Nick tried not to let Mr. Davis see his true feelings. He gave a half smile, beckoning Jenny to come. “Maybe we can get some seeds somewhere else. Since the kid’s got her heart set on it.”

Fib! Fib! Fib! Jenny started at him fiercely. Just wait till she told Grandma about all those fibs. Uncle Nick would be in big trouble.

Mr. Davis bubbled again, “That’s so! You might get some seeds from Chester Williams over in Talooma. I heard he was only asking $45 a seed this year. If he has any left that is. He grew a 359 pounder you know.”

Yes, Nick knew. He could name the weight and size of every winning pumpkin for the last ten years. Sadly, none of them had been grown by Nick Barkley. “Thanks for the cider, Franklin. C’mon, Jenny, let’s go home.”


Sitting at the dinner table that evening, Nick pushed his fork back and forth through a mound of mashed potatoes. He managed to keep his sighs to himself while he pondered the injustice of this latest hitch in his plans. So close. He’d been so close to having seeds from a prizewinner. He held out little hope that Chester Williams had any seeds left.

“Daddy,” Jenny’s voice brought Nick out of his gloom, “you know what Uncle Nick said about you today?”

Jarrod stopped dishing another mound of potatoes onto Jenny’s plate, looked up at Nick and grinned, “No, Jenny, but whatever is was, it’s taken away his appetite.” He passed the bowl of mashed potatoes along to Heath, sharing a teasing smile with his younger brother over Nick’s unusual glum mood.

“Aren’t you hungry, Nick?” Victoria asked, having noticed his loss of appetite too. “You haven’t eaten a bite.”

Nick pushed his plate away. “I’m not hungry. Last I heard it wasn’t a crime!” He glared at Heath and Jarrod. Sitting next to him, Audra snickered. He leveled a fierce glance at her too. "What are you laughing at, Audra?”

“Oh, nothing, Nick, nothing,” Audra said seriously, before bursting into a fit of giggles. "It's just that you’re so angry over something you’re shooting off sparks. Did Miss Angela chase after you this morning when you took that medicine up to the orphanage?”

Nick scowled at her with scorn.

Jenny frowned. No one was still listening to her. “Daddy, don’t you want to know what Uncle Nick said about you today? It was something really bad.”

“Do I want to hear this, Nick?” Jarrod asked, arching his eyebrow at his sullen brother. “You weren’t swearing in front of . . . ”

“No, Daddy,” Jenny interrupted, “he didn’t say any bad words! He said you didn’t know how to make fudge!”

The statement was so startling every sound at the table stopped for a few seconds. Heath and Audra broke the silence by going off into peals of laughter. Audra laughed so hard she began to chock and Nick had to pound her on the back. Smiling herself, Victoria handed her daughter a glass of water and chuckled at her granddaughter’s distressed face. Jenny couldn’t make up her mind to cry or not.

“He did,” she repeated tearfully,” that’s what he said, Daddy.”

“We aren’t laughing at you, honey,” Heath told her gently, “it’s just so funny Nick would tell you that.”

“I don’t know why you’d say something like that anyway, Nick. You know I happen to be an expert fudge maker. Or you should, you ate enough of it.” Jarrod reached over to tug at his daughter’s curls. “When your Mama was expecting you, she wanted fudge morning, noon and night. We were living here at the time and she often complained your Uncle Nick ate more than she did.”

“That’s true, Jenny,” Audra took up Jarrod’s defense, “your father makes better fudge than Mother. He became quite an expert.”

Victoria smiled, passing along the biscuits to Heath, “He does, Jenny.” She gave Nick a sideways look before getting in a sly dig at his expense, “So don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“All right! All right!” Nick shouted, shoving back his chair and throwing his napkin down in disgust, “I didn’t say he couldn’t make fudge! I know he makes fudge! What I said was . . . oh, forget it!”

Spurs jangling, Nick stomped off to the study to take out his frustrations on the billiard balls.

“What on earth has gotten into him?" Victoria asked to anyone who might know. Nick’s grumbly moods weren’t unusual, but she usually knew the cause behind them. Tonight she was perplexed. He and Jenny had gone off on a secret errand earlier in the day and he’d been sulky ever since.

Heath chuckled, “Well, it sure wasn’t any of Jarrod’s fudge. He’s a little too soured to have eaten any sugar.”


After the rest of the family had eaten, they followed Nick to the study. Heath, hoping to gentle Nick out of his grizzly bear mood, picked up a pool stick and joined him at the billiard table. Audra and Victoria settled on the settee by the fire talking over the events of the day. With darning baskets in hand, they began to take up the everlasting mending.

As usual, Jarrod sat behind his desk in hopes of reading the Stockton Eagle. Jenny stopped that plan by climbing into his lap coming between him and the Eagle. A ritual he’d come to love and expect. Chattering about her dolls, her mud pies and fudge, Jenny took his hands, made him fold the paper and lay it aside. Not that he minded. He could always read the paper after she went to bed. After she’d gotten rid of the paper, she made him wrap his arms around her so she could snuggle closer. Settled at last, content as a kitten, she waited for him to squeeze her tight and begin to ask about her day. Tonight, Jenny asked the first question.

“Daddy, did Mama really eat lots of fudge?”

He smiled, whispered into her ear, “Yes. How do you think you got so sweet?”

At the billiard table, Nick overheard and scowled. “Sweet! Hah! She’s got you wrapped around her finger, Jarrod.” He turned to level a withering look at his niece, perched happily on Jarrod’s lap. “You sure can’t keep a secret, can you?”

“I never told your secrets, Uncle Nick,” Jenny protested. Tears filled her eyes, “I didn’t! You never said the fudge part was a secret. You said just don’t tell Grammie we were going to see Mr. Davis to buy some of his giant pumpkin seeds. That’s the only part you said not to tell and I didn’t! I didn’t tell anybody you were afraid to ask for the seeds your own self so you wanted me to do it. I didn’t tell nobody you didn’t want me to tell either. All I told was what you said about Daddy not being able to make fudge!”

Nick’s scowl darkened as she spilled everything. In a tight voice, he told her, “I did not say that Jarrod couldn’t make fudge. You not only don’t listen well. You can’t keep a secret.”

“I can,” Jenny started to cry, “I can keep a secret good as anybody.”

“You can’t! I want my silver dollar back too!”

After a stunned moment while they listened to this exchange, the rest of the family began to laugh and react to the news that Nick was still interested in giant pumpkins. Nick looked at Heath on the other side of the billiard table. At the expression of controlled mirth on Heath’s face, he said, “Don’t say it, Heath. Don’t say it or you’ll be sorry. I’m about one shove away from punching someone.”

Heath shook his head, lips pressed tight together to keep from laughing at Nick’s discomfiture. Jarrod had no such restraint. Annoyed because Jenny began to cry softly, he held her close and turned on Nick, “Nick! I thought you’d given up that stupid idea! You’ve never yet produced a pumpkin with even a chance of winning and now you’re trying to get my daughter involved in your schemes. I won’t have it!”

“Really, Nick,” Victoria took up the argument as she pointed her darning egg for emphasis, “coercing poor little Jenny into doing your dirty work. Then having her lie for you by not telling us. You’ve let this pumpkin growing derange your senses.”

Thinking she might have some support from the grownups, Jenny made sure to chime in, “He told lots of fibs today, Grammie. He told Mr. Davis he didn’t want to grow the seeds. He said I did. Don’t you think you oughta punish him?”

“Why don’t you make that kid go to bed or something?” Nick grumbled in Jarrod’s direction. “Or teach her to keep that saucy mouth shut?”

“I’m really more interested in hearing about all those fibs,” Jarrod gave Nick an infuriating smile. “I’d also like to know how much you had to pay for the pumpkin seeds this time.”

“Oh, he didn’t get any seeds,” Jenny offered the explanation quickly. “Mr. Davis said he gave all his seeds to Tyler McCain for free. He said Uncle Nick can’t ask Mr. McCain either cause they got into a fight in the saloon . . . ”

“That’s enough, Jenny.” Jarrod stopped her. He shot a frown across the room at Nick. “Nick, I would appreciate it if you would remember to watch your conversation around my child.”

Nick waved his concerns away with his hand. “Yeah, yeah, Pappy.” Stiff with anger, he threw the pool stick down on the table. “That kid of yours already knows more than I knew at her age. The only thing she don’t know is how to keep a secret!”

Jenny waited until Nick stamped out the room before she wiped her tears and said, “I can so keep a secret. I never told nobody that Uncle Nick said once he paid over $100 for two pumpkin seeds and didn’t want anybody else to know.”

Part 4

“Nick, if you want those seeds so bad, why don’t you just go ask Tyler McCain if you can buy some?” Heath hefted a bale of hay to his shoulder and walked to the wagon, hiding a lopsided smile at the ‘are you out of your mind’ expression that crossed Nick’s face at the suggestion.

Shouldering his own bale of hay, Nick leveled a withering glance in Heath’s direction. “How soon...” he grunted a little as he heaved the hay into the back of the wagon, “how soon after I open my mouth do ya’ think it would take for Tyler to lay me out on the floor?”

“Just keep a table between you when you ask. He’d have to get up to throw a punch.”

Nick sneered at the idea of him needing to keep a table between himself and Tyler. “I ain’t afraid of Tyler McCain. I’m just sayin’ he’d never let me get around to asking for the seeds. In case you forgot, Tyler hates me pure and simple. He don’t need a reason to pick a fight.”

“Suit yourself,” Heath walked back to the barn for another bale. “Sure never thought I’d see the day when I’d watch Nick Barkley take the easy way out.”

“Whaddya mean the easy way out?” Nick bellowed.

Heath, staggering under a heavy bale, waited until he’d tossed it into the wagon before answering. Keeping a straight face while enjoying Nick’s discomfiture, he drawled, “I mean what I said. Ya got little Jenny all excited about growin’ giant pumpkins, then because Tyler’s the only one who has the seeds, you give up. And I just never thought I’d live to see the day Nick...”

“Yeah, Jenny,” Nick’s interrupted, frowning at the reminder. Silently, he walked back and forth to the wagon loading in hay while he pondered the problem of Jenny’s disappointment versus asking Tyler McCain to sell him pumpkin seeds.

For a few days after he’d conned Jenny into asking Franklin Davis for his pumpkin seeds, his niece had given him the silent treatment. Whether she feared his wrath over spilling his secret, or more likely, the loss of her silver dollar, Jenny made herself scarce when he was around. He’d never expected to have Jenny, when she did deign to speak to him again, pushed to a fever pitch over “growing giant pumpkins with Uncle Nick.” If the truth were told, Nick hadn’t given much thought to Jenny’s role in the pumpkin scheme at all. Beyond getting Jenny to ask Franklin for the seeds, Nick’s plans stopped. Jenny’s plans, he found out, had just begun.

“Uncle Nick,” she’d asked a few days after the disappointing trip to Franklin’s house, “are you gonna make sure you put lots of manure in your soil to grow your pumpkin? Cause if you are there’s a nice, seasoned pile out there by the...”

“Jennifer!” Victoria chided. “Not at the dinner table, please!”

“Sorry, Grammie,” Jenny mumbled, lowering her eyes to the nasty peas on her plate.

Nick paused with a forkful of pork roast halfway to his mouth, “Whadda you know about using manure in the soil to grow pumpkins?”

“Nicholas!”
“Sorry, Mother, sorry,” Nick nodded an apology in Victoria’s direction and gave a snickering Audra a dirty scowl. “How’d you come across that bit of wisdom, Jenny?”

“Mr. Davis told me. He told me all his secrets,” Jenny looked across the table at her uncle with a smug grin. “Betcha I know lots of secrets to grow a bigger pumpkin than you.”

Nick dropped his fork with a clatter on the plate. Jenny? Knowing all Franklin’s secret pumpkin growing methods? Impossible! “Didn’t Pappy ever tell you it’s wrong to lie? Franklin’s gone to Denver to spend the summer with his daughter. You best not be goin’ around telling fibs or I’ll be telling Pappy when he gets back from San Francisco.” Nick picked his fork back up, stabbed a potato and put it in his mouth. “Mother’s already got a list half a mile long of your naughty behavior to tell Pappy. You best not add lying to the list.”

“I’m not lying,” Jenny answered as sassy as she dared, only too aware her grandmother was already irritated over her behavior earlier that day. Like she really planned to walk across the parlor carpet with all that manure on her shoes! “Mr. Davis didn’t leave til’ this afternoon an’ Mr. Silas took me over this morning so we could help Mr. Ben close up the house for the summer. Mr. Silas told me not to get in the way so I went outside an’ talked to Mr. Davis while he was trying to pack all the traveling bags in the wagon. An’ he said if I ever got any seeds and tried to grow a giant pumpkin I could write him any time at his daughter’s house an’ ask him questions!” Jenny’s expression said, “so there!” but she wisely kept the words sealed behind her lips.        Grandma had given her a good scolding about not wiping her shoes before she came in the house.. Jenny wasn’t about to rile her further by being sassy.

Nick glowered across the platter of pork roast at his irrepressible niece. Why hadn’t he asked Franklin to share his secrets? “You probably don’t understand half of what he told you. You never grew pumpkins before. Maybe you better just tell me what he said and I’ll write it down.”

“No!” Jenny retorted loudly before a quick glance in her grandmother’s direction made her lower her voice. Like a proper young lady. “ Mr. Silas done wrote down what he told me. An’ I’d rather not share Mr. Davis’ secrets with you, Uncle Nick. He said giant pumpkin growers never share their secrets.”

“Then why’d he tell you?”

“Cause he can’t grow any pumpkins this year but I can.”

Audra giggled at Nick’s belligerence which earned her a sour glance from her brother and a matching smile from her mother. Heath snickered over a biscuit, smiling at Nick’s shifting discomfiture as he slathered on butter and jam.

“Ya only got one problem I see,” Heath spoke into the fray, as Nick and Jenny glared across the table at one another. "Neither one of you have any pumpkin seeds. Unless, of course, Nick wants to ask Tyler for some.”

“Maybe I’ll go ask Mr. McCain my own self,” Jenny stuck out her stubborn Barkley chin, giving Nick a fierce stare. “I’m not scared like some people to ask for my own seeds.”

With one voice, every other Barkley at the table shouted, “No!” “Absolutely not!” “Don’t you dare!” and “Never!” The forceful words were jumbled together but Jenny got the idea. Dirty darn.

After Jenny had been put to bed, Nick decided to go smooth over the situation as best he could. He’d always had a special bond with his niece and was loathe to let pumpkin seeds come between them.

Jenny was sitting up in bed as he opened the door. The lamp was still lit, waiting for Victoria to come hear her granddaughter’s prayers and tuck her in for the night. As Nick walked into the room, Jenny quickly folded over several scraps of paper and hid them under her pillow. The secret pumpkin growing method no doubt.

“Hey, there, Jenny.” Nick sat down on the edge of the bed, patting her knee though the blanket. Jenny pulled her leg away. Her eyes narrowed. She frowned. “Ah, don’t be like that to your old Uncle Nick.”

“You fibbed, Uncle Nick. You said you were gonna get pumpkin seeds and you didn’t.”

Nick sighed. This was the hard part. “Jenny, I really thought I could get some seeds. I been trying all this week to find someone else who has some to sell.”

“Did you?” She asked suspicion in her eyes.

“No.” Nick shook his head sadly. “Nobody has any left to sell.”

Jenny , looking like a cherub in her white lacy nightgown, spoke like no angel ever had. “Fib! Fib! Fib! Mr. McCain’s got some. You’re just too scared to ask him.”

“Honey,” Nick began then stopped. Explaining Tyler McCain to Jenny would take more than a few well chosen words. He wasn’t certain he could clean up his language enough to put one clean sentence together. “I’m sorry. Sorry you’re disappointed. Maybe next year we’ll get some seeds.”

“I don’t like you anymore, Uncle Nick,” Tears welled in Jenny’s eyes, her pouty lips quivered, “Not ever, ever, ever! You said we could grow giant pumpkins this year!”

Nick reached out to comfort her but Jenny pulled away, making sure she grabbed up the secret pumpkin growing papers as she scooted toward the headboard of her bed. “Aw, Jenny...”

“I don’t!” She shouted again making him feel lower than a worm on the bottom of someone’s shoe. “I love Daddy and Grammie and Uncle Heath and Aunt Audra and sometimes I even like Uncle Eugene. I love Mr. Silas and all the ranch hands too. I love all the horses an’ cows an’ pigs an’ chickens an’ all the other animals on the ranch. I love the skunks and the snakes and even the bee that stung me last week...but I don’t love you anymore, Uncle Nick!”

“Aw, Jenny...”

“I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! An’ I’m never letting you play tea party with me and Agnes and Tamsin and Betsy again. Ever!”


And that, thought Nick as he hefted another bale of hay into the back of the wagon a few days later, was pretty much how things still stood between him and Jenny. Jenny hurt, disappointed. All because he wouldn’t ask the one person in Stockton who had pumpkin seeds to sell.

“I sure hate to have Jenny disappointed,” Nick told Heath. “I just never figured she’d take it to heart. A little girl like her wanting to grow giant pumpkins.”

Heath took off his Stetson, wiped a handkerchief over his sweating brow and tapped the hat back on his head. “Seems I heard somewhere that Nick Barkley was just a little boy when the dream caught hold a’ him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick looked back at the hay still to be loaded. Maybe... “Heath, can you finish up here? I got somethin’ I have to do in Stockton.”

Heath grinned. “Sure, Nick.” He watched Nick head off to saddle Coco. Might be a good idea after he finished loading hay to make sure Silas had bandages ready for Nick’s arrival back home.

Everyone in Stockton, probably even Jenny, knew where to find Tyler McCain on a Saturday morning. He’d be staked at a table in the back right corner of the Empire Saloon. Tyler, as Nick knew well from past disastrous experiences, considered himself a poker expert. Every Saturday he positioned himself at the same green baize table and waited for anyone interested in a game. Since it was also a well known fact Tyler considered cheating part of the game, few were. The lack of players never bothered Tyler. He’d sit at his regular table, shuffling a deck of cards and shouting out witty remarks to anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.

Nick found Tyler right where he expected him to be. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light in the Empire Saloon, he caught sight of the man he loathed chuckling over a joke. He leaned back in a chair with a king of the world air Nick found irritating. Bracing himself for the confrontation, Nick squared his shoulder, walked steadily to the table and leaned toward Tyler.

“Well, well, well,” Tyler’s shifty eyes glittered in recognition. Weasel eyes, Heath called them,
although Nick had seen handsomer weasels. Tyler’s craggy browned face with a twisted lipped smile shoved him miles away from even passable looking. “Nick Barkley!” His chair thumped down on all four feet. “You out lookin’ for trouble?”

Two miners, who well remembered the last scuffle between Tyler and Nick, guffawed. Standing at the bar, they turned to lean back against it, hoping for a repeat performance. “Now that was some fight,” one whispered to another.

“Naw, McCain,” Nick scowled, taking advantage of having Mc Cain look up at him. He’d thought on the ride into town on how to open this subject. No matter what idea he came up with, they all sounded lame. Like thumping along on a horse who’d lost a shoe. Stiffening his back, he took the bull by the horns and plunged ahead. He was doing this for Jenny. Almost. “I ain’t here to fight. Franklin Davis told me he’d given you his giant pumpkin seeds. I need to buy some.”

“You, Barkley? You wanna grow giant pumpkins?” Nick’s statement so startled him, Tyler acted almost human. Incredulous, but close to civil.

“Now do I look like someone who wants to grow giant pumpkins?” Nick tossed the question back at Tyler, looking aggravated at the suggestion. “It’s my niece. You know, Jenny. Jarrod’s kid. Got her heart set on growing a giant pumpkin, entering it in the fair.”

“Is that right?” Tyler lost his human qualities, burrowing back into his chair like the sneaky weasel Nick suspected him to be. If Nick were the rooster in the hen house, Tyler had him right where he wanted him to be. Cornered. Tyler knew he had something Nick wanted. “Well, that’s kinda too bad for the kid. Might be I wanna try my hand at growin’ giant pumpkins myself.”

Nick unclenched his teeth before answering. If it weren’t so important to Jenny, he’d punch Tyler right between his beady, darting eyes. “Dang it all, McCain! Everybody knows you squirreled Franklin’s seeds out of him so you could sell them and make a profit. Okay, so you make a profit. Ask a reasonable price and I’ll pay.”

Nodding as if he agreed, Tyler stacked the deck of cards in front of him. He appeared to think it over as he ruffled the cards and fanned them out on the green felt. Looking up at Nick, he raised a bushy eyebrow. “Maybe I did.” At that moment, Nick loathed every inch of the small, stocky man determined to reel him in like a wiggling fish on a hook. “Then maybe, since I ain’t got many seeds left, I got to charge a higher price.”

Tyler pulled a leather pouch from a grimy shirt pocket. Placing it on the table, he poked at the loaded pouch making sure Nick saw how full of seeds it was. In deliberate provocation he opened the top, spilling a few of the seeds onto the table. Nick’s hands clenched at his sides. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to snatch up the seeds and run.

“Looks to me like you got plenty of seeds,” Nick shot out. “Quit playin’ games and name your price.”

“Might be, I don’t want money for the seeds,” Tyler looked up at Nick with a competitive gleam in his shifty eyes. With a furtive sweep of his grubby hand, he pushed the pumpkin seeds back into the leather pouch. “But maybe...I just might play for ‘em.”

I might have know, Nick thought. With Tyler, everything led back to poker. Nick was no coward but even he doubted his ability to win against Tyler. He’d played Tyler before. Several fist fights later, he considered himself wise enough not to engage the man in another game of cheating poker. Still, if that were the only way to get the seeds. Nick pulled out a chair and started to sit when Tyler’s throat clearing stopped him. “Um, now Nick, you know what’s gonna happen if you play me. Same thing that happened the last three times.” His smirk said it all. “I mighta been born dumb but I don’t gotta stay stupid.”

The miners at the bar chortled in glee, egging Tyler on. Nick darted a fierce warning scowl in their direction before slapping his hands on the table making Tyler jump. “You said you’d play for the seeds! Okay, I’ll play ya for the seeds! But I want someone else to deal.”

Tyler shook his head. With the approval of the two miners, he leaned back again in his chair. “Now, Nick, let’s be reasonable. If we was to play poker, we’d both get the livin’ daylights beat out of us.” His tone implied Nick would take the worst beating. Nick narrowed his eyes at the implication, itching to shove Tyler’s tongue two feet down his throat. “So, I’m thinkin’..just to make it an honest game, I’ll play another Barkley.”

“Who?”

Tyler grinned his weasel sneer toward the miners. “Well, now, Nick, I’m thinking...to make it all proper and fair..maybe I’d best play the kid. The one that wants the seeds so all fired bad.”

Fidgeting to grab Tyler by the collar of his dirty plaid shirt, Nick stopped as if he’d had a pail of cold water thrown in his face. Jenny? Tyler wanted to play Jenny? Instantly, Nick knew this was Tyler’s way of getting him to admit the seeds were not for his niece but for himself. Nick didn’t open his mouth but his thoughts shouted, “You sly, sneaky...” and several other words he’d rather his mother never found out he knew.

“Yup,” Tyler shuffled the deck, spreading out the cards in a fan with his stubby fingers, “I think it’s best I play the kid. Might be she’d win herself some pumpkin seeds.”

“Aw, come on!” Nick exploded. “Jarrod would skin me alive if I brought his little girl in a saloon an’ you know it! He wouldn’t want her in here and he sure wouldn’t let her play poker against a...” Nick bit back the words.

Tyler shrugged casually riffling the deck as if Jarrod’s feelings were no concern of his. “Bring the kid back an’ I’ll play her. No kid, no pumpkin seeds.”

Nick punched one gloved fist into the other, fighting down an urge to shove both fists into Tyler’s squat ugly face. Jenny, playing that cheating weasel! Impossible! Even if Nick insisted someone else deal the cards, Tyler would find a way to cheat. Let Jenny play? Of all the preposterous...foolhardy...senseless....! Jarrod would have his hide nailed to the barn if he found out. Nick stomped away from Tyler’s table, his spurs beating out an angry rhythm on the wooden floorboards. Maybe if he hurried, he could have Jenny back here before Jarrod’s train got in from San Francisco this afternoon.

Part 5

All the way back to the ranch, Nick wrestled with his conscience over taking Jenny into Stockton. While Jarrod had never actually told him NOT to take Jenny into a saloon, it was probably one of those, “Nick! You should have known better!” situations. If there was one thing that ruffled Pappy’s mother hen feathers, it was Nick doing what he should have known better not to do.

Nick wasted no time in brooding over possible consequences. Jarrod, Mother, Heath, no one would understand or condone his behavior. He could already imagine the ear burning he’d get once they found out! Why worry about offering explanations or excuses now? Why borrow trouble? He’d made up his mind. He was taking Jenny. He just wouldn’t announce it until it was a done deal. That way, no one could stop him.

“Senor, Nick, you need me to put your horse away?” Ciego asked as Nick rode into the yard. Keeping a wary eye out for possible deterrents to his plan, Nick shook his head no then thought of a better plan.

“Yeah, maybe you better.” Nick dismounted and handed the reins over to Ciego. “If you’ve got time, can you hitch up a buggy for me? I’m taking Jenny into town.”

“Si, Senor Nick.”

"Gracias."

Nick started to walk toward the house, stopped, turned and asked in an offhand manner, “Um, Ciego, who’s home up at the house? Do you know?”

“Only Miss Audra, Senor Nick,” Ciego explained while holding a fidgety Coco. “Senora Barkley, she go to take food to Mrs. Peters. Senor Heath, he go to take a wagon of hay to the north forty. He say he not be back for awhile.”

“Good, good,” Nick let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. So far, so good. He wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet of Mother or Heath’s disapproval just yet. And Audra..he could handle Audra’s questions. Be firm. Be forceful. Offer no explanations. That was the way to deal with inquisitors.

Nick opened and closed the door with uncharacteristic quiet. Grimacing at a small creak as he stepped into the foyer, he made certain not to announce his arrival in his usual loud manner. Maybe Jenny was inside, cutting out paper dolls in the parlor or playing with her dolls. If he could spirit her away with no one the wiser, he wouldn’t have to deal with any questions. The empty rooms mocked him. So much for being quiet.

An enticing aroma of simmering beef drew him toward the kitchen. As he got near the kitchen door, he could hear Silas’ calm voice explaining, a silly giggle from Audra but no sound of Jenny. Be firm. Be forceful. Offer no explanations. Nick took a deep breath and pushed his way into the kitchen.

Audra looked up from the table where she was mixing dough in a brown bowl. Standing nearby, Silas offered her a spoonful of sugar to dump in the mixture. Silas looked up and offered Nick a reassuring smile meaning he had supervised the mixing. It would be safe to eat Sis’s cooking.

Nick smiled back, feeling like a fool at the questioning looks following their “Hello’s.” They waited for him to speak. Stiffening his back, throwing back his shoulders, he repeated his victory cry. Be firm. Be forceful. Offer no explanations.

“Audra? Where’s Jenny? I need to take her into Stockton with me.”

Good, good. Spoken with firmness, force and no room for questions, or so he thought.

“Why?”

Nick flinched. Why, why, why? Females! They wore born with the question puckered on their lips and branded into their brains. Had to have a reason for everything. “No matter why,” he answered her gruffly. Turning his back on the questioning looks in Audra’s blue eyes and Silas’s brown ones, he went to the cabinet, pulled out a glass and pumped a drink of water just to have something to do. “I gotta go into Stockton, I thought she might wanna go with me.”

“Oh, Nick, you’re just too sweet!” Audra lifted her hands from the dough, wiped them hastily on her apron and stood up to embrace him in a squeezing hug. Before he could figure out what he’d done to deserve this attention, she stood on tiptoe and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “You are sweet and thoughtful and....” She kissed him again. “You know how much Jenny has missed Jarrod this week and you’re taking her in to meet his train.”

Nick smiled a weak smile. Meeting Jarrod’s train was number one on a list of things he did NOT want to happen today. He shifted from boot to boot mumbling an uncomfortable, “Ah, well..um..Sis..you know me too well.”

Meeting Silas’ eyes, Nick caught a shrewd look. Silas knew him too. Well enough to have an ‘I know you’re up to something Mr. Nick’ gleam in his dark eyes. Nick lowered his eyes and tried not to act suspiciously. “So, Sis, do you know where our niece might be?”

“I don’t know where Jenny is,” Audra grinned a saucy grin, sitting back down behind her dough, “but The Princess Gwendolyn told me she’d be in the tree house.”

“Tree house, right.” Nick set the glass on the edge of the table, reaching out with clumsy fingers to catch it as it began to fall. He shoved it back onto the table, bumped into a chair on the way out the door and tripped going down the back step. Act ordinary. Don’t arouse suspicions. Walk slowly to the tree house.

Nick and Heath had built the tree house after the 4th of July when Jenny and Nicky burnt down their playhouse. Louisa, who had a horror of Nicky climbing in high places, would never let him inside. It became Jenny’s private retreat. Her fort. Her castle. Her hiding place when she hoped Jarrod wouldn’t find her.

Walking the well worn trail to the tree house behind the barn, Nick felt a momentary pang of conscience. Louisa. He could well imagine what she’d have to say about Nick taking Jenny into a saloon.

“Boom, boom,” Nick whispered to a squirrel that eyed him with interest from a cedar tree. “Boom, boom, boom.”

He hoped Louisa was too busy telling God how to run Heaven to care about what he was about to do to her daughter. Nick cast a wary eye skyward, squinting to see beyond the clear blue sky and cotton wool clouds. If a storm cloud appeared, he wouldn’t doubt Louisa had commanded God to send a convenient lightening bolt his way to stop him.

Too intent on what Louisa might have said to pay attention, Nick came to the oak quicker than he expected. The tree’s massive branches spread wide to cradle the tree house tucked in it’s leaves. A crudely painted sign at the roots warned: Bewar of the Dragin.

“Halt!”

Billy jumped out from behind a tree to stand in Nick’s path. With a fierce scowl on his face, Billy pointed a stick with a murderously sharp point toward Nick’s middle. “Ya can’t come any closer unless the Princess says it’s okay.”

“Now, listen here, kid,” Nick narrowed his eyes in annoyance at the delay, “I’m in a hurry so get out of my way.”

“You state your business or you don’t come no closer.” Billy growled, daring him to move another step.

Nick reached out to grab him but Billy quickly sidestepped away, dancing circles around Nick with his pointed stick jabbing the air. Nick stopped. Waited. Just as Billy got too close, he grabbed the end of the tattered towel hanging from Billy’s neck and yanked him to a stop. The stick dropped out of his hand. Nick quick stepped on it to keep it on the ground.

“Help! Help!” Billy squeaked in a tiny voice, “I been captured.”

“Jenny!” Nick shouted in a to be obeyed voice, “Where are you?”

Jenny appeared in the open window of the tree house. “I am not Jenny,” she told him in a haughty voice, “I am the Princess Gwendolyn and you have just caught King Arthur. State your business.” In her normal voice, she cautioned, “You better let him loose, Uncle Nick, his face is turning kinda blue.”

“Oh, uh, sorry, kid.” Nick let go of Billy. Frowning up at Nick, Billy rubbed his neck. He looked down at his captured stick then up at Nick. Nick smiled but didn’t lift his boot tip. Kid had no business playing with a sharp stick like that anyway. “If you’re the King, how come you’re out here guarding the palace?”

Billy looked glum. Tossing his towel back over his shoulders, he answered with distaste, “Ah, she made me.” He darted a mean glare in Jenny’s direction. “She said it’s my fault our fire breathin’ dragon got run over by a stagecoach..”

“Was it?”

“Well, Mr. Barkley, what good is havin’ a fire breathin’ dragon if you can’t take it for a walk an let it burn up a few people on the way?" Leaning over to scratch a bug bite on his leg, Billy continued, “ So how was I suppose to know he’d get run over. Then just cause he was dead, all them ogres come out of the swamp and ate up everybody else in the castle.” Billy pointed a dejected hand in Jenny’s direction, “Now there’s just me an’ her left. And she don’t never wanna take our swords an’ have a decent fight with anybody. Can’t even go kill all them ogres cause she might get her fancy dress dirty.” Billy sneered the words 'fancy dress' with such scorn Nick had a hard time keeping a straight face. From her palace window, Jenny darted an impertinent tongue in Billy’s direction.

“Yeah,” Nick said seriously, “that’s gotta be rough.”

“Yeah,” Billy sighed sadness all the way to his dirty bare feet. “Guess I’d better just go on home now. The Princess said iffen I let one more person get through after I said, ‘halt’, she was gonna feed me to the alligators in the moat.”

Nick worked his face to keep from bursting out into laughter. He gave Billy a manly thump on the shoulder. Lifting his foot from the stick, he motioned for Billy to pick it back up. “Here, you better take your spear. You wouldn’t wanna get caught out in the forest without it. I think I saw a couple a knights lookin’ for trouble on my way up here. Maybe even a dragon or two.”

“Really, Mr. Barkley?” Billy’s face lit up like a chandelier with a hundred candles. “Gee, thanks!” He shouted toward Jenny in the tree house, “See ya later, Jenny.”

Nick watched Billy run down the path before turning back to the business at hand. “Jenny, come on down here.”

“Why, Uncle Nick?”

Why again. Females! No matter how old the were it was the same old question. Be firm. Be forceful. Offer no explanations. “You don’t need to know why. When I tell you to come down, you get down here. Now!”

Jenny looked down at Uncle Nick with his stern, I-have-had-enough-Jennifer expression. Dirty darn. First he ran King Arthur off and messed up her game; now she was in trouble and didn’t know why. Jenny gulped over a hard lump in her throat. Uncle Nick let her get away with being naughty more than Daddy but if she went too far, she knew enough to expect a firm reminder on her backside. He sure looked awful mad with his eyes narrowed like that and his lips pressed together tight. Dirty, dirty darn. What did I do wrong now? Jenny started to climb out of the tree house with one thought in mind. She sure wished that fire breathing dragon hadn’t got run over by the Stockton Express.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Nick,” Jenny apologized as he reached up to help her down the last wooden rung of the ladder.

Nick frowned in confusion as he helped her down and stood her on her feet. “Sorry for what?”

“For whatever I’m in trouble for doing. I can’t remember what it was but I promise I won’t ever do it again.”

Laughing, Nick squatted down so he could look her straight in the eye. “You didn’t do anything, honey. I just got a lot on my mind. I needed you to come down here so I can talk to you about something important.”

“What?” Jenny eyed him with suspicion not quite believing she was out of trouble yet. Grown ups could be awful sneaky.

Be firm. Be forceful. Offer no explanations. Stretch the truth...just a little.

“Pappy’s coming home this afternoon.” He offered Audra’s explanation. “How’d you like to go meet his train?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why not?”

Jenny pouted as if she’d rather not say. Nick took both her hands in his and smiled his most charming smile, teasing her to tell, “C’mon, you can tell your Uncle Nick. Why don’t you want to meet Pappy’s train?”

“Daddy told me to be a good girl while he was gone.”

“Weren’t you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Oh.” Nick bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at her. He could well sympathize with his niece. Many times he hadn’t particularly wanted his own father to come home either. Maybe, he decided , the time had come for offering an explanation. “Jenny, going to meet Pappy’s train is just one reason I wanted you to come into Stockton. We don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. I want you to come because...well, because...” He hurried through the words as he watched her face, “Tyler McCain will only give us the pumpkin seeds if you play poker with him.”

“Why?”

Could they never get away from that word? Why, always why? It was enough to drive a man crazy. “Listen, Jenny, because, just because...I told him you wanted the seeds.” Nick dropped her hands, stood up and motioned her to start down the path to the house. Be firm. Be forceful. Offer no...well...that part might not work...”I’m taking you in to Stockton to play poker so you can win the seeds we need. Stop fooling around. We gotta go now.”

“Don’t you want me to change my clothes first?”

“Naw, naw, they’re okay.” Nick took a good look at Jenny, groaning at being so quick to take her as she was. This week she wore an old blue silk party dress of Audra’s. The sleeveless ball gown looked bizarre with the long sleeves of Jenny’s black and white striped school dress sticking out the armholes. Three large cabbage roses across the bodice drooped almost to Jenny’s waist. On her head she wore the remains of a lace curtain. The train of the curtain had evidently trailed through the barnyard at one point and held twigs, leaves and a scent of manure to prove it. Nick could only hope the sight of Jenny in the outlandish outfit threw Tyler off his poker game. It was a cheering thought.

“I don’t gotta change clothes?” Jenny asked incredulously, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Grandma would never let her go to Stockton dressed this way. Neither would Daddy. If Uncle Nick were willing to take her like this, he must want those pumpkin seeds awful bad. Awful, awful bad. “I can wear what I got on?”

“Yeah, yeah, just come on.”

With Nick leading the way, Jenny followed him willingly enough to the corral. Ciego had the buggy waiting. Nick lifted her in, taking a cautious look around before he hopped in beside her.
He breathed easier once they were on the road leading in to town.

“Uncle Nick,” Jenny asked in a timid voice, eying him from the corner of her eye. “Maybe I’m scared to play poker with that man.” She wasn’t really afraid. She just wanted to find out why Uncle Nick was behaving so strangely. First he acted like he was angry with her. Then he told her he wanted to meet Daddy’s train but he didn’t really. He wanted her to play poker for the pumpkin seeds. Then he told her she could wear her Princess outfit. Uncle Nick sure must want her to play poker awful bad if he didn’t even care if she brushed her hair or not.

“Now, Jenny, you play poker as well as anybody. You don’t need to be afraid. Didn’t I teach you myself?” He reached over to pat her knee. “You just play as good as you know how and we’ll have us some giant pumpkin seeds.”

“Yes, Uncle Nick,” Jenny spoke up, letting her voice quaver just the tiniest bit. She’d worked really hard to learn that skill. It came in useful so many times when Daddy was shouting. If she timed the quaver just right, Daddy almost always forgot what he was yelling about and started worrying about making her cry. “What if I don’t win?”

“Now don’t you worry about that. You’ll win alright.”

Jenny looked sideways at Uncle Nick, trying to figure out just how much he wanted those seeds. Well, there was a good way to find out. “Uncle Nick, I think I’m too scared to play poker against that mean old Tyler McCain, unless...” It was good to hesitate like you weren’t really sure the grown up wouldn’t get angry if you spoke up. She bit her lip like she was so, so scared to ask him.

“Unless?”

“Maybe it would make me feel better, Uncle Nick, not so scared if...”

“If?”

Uncle Nick’s voice sounded impatient but Jenny decided to risk it anyway. If he were willing, it sure would show her how much he wanted those seeds. “Oh, Uncle Nick..if I could just feel like a real Princess and have my carriage strewn with flowers, I’d feel ever so much better.”

“Flowers? Strewn with flowers?” He stared at her as if she were a strange bug eating his wheat crop. “Flowers?”

Jenny nodded with a scared smile. Would he?

“Whoa!” Uncle Nick pulled on the reins to stop the horse, pushed on the brake and jumped from the buggy. With a fierce glare in her direction, he walked over to a bunch of Queen Anne’s Lace and yanked up a handful. Stomping back to the buggy, he tossed them at her. “Flowers!” He growled. “A carriage strewn with flowers. You happy now?”

“Thank you, Uncle Nick,” Jenny smiled sweetly, reaching over to pick up a flower and tuck it in her curtain veil. Uncle Nick sure did want those seeds awful bad and he needed her help to get them. If he needed her help that much, she might even get a bag of lemon drops out of him. Maybe a new doll. Or maybe...Jenny’s eyes lit up with anticipation. How often did a kid get a chance like this? Maybe a horse!

Nick held the reins in a tight grip, fuming at himself. Was this all worth it? How much farther would he have to humiliate himself to grow giant pumpkins? Nick clenched his teeth with grim determination. Now that he’d told Tyler he wanted the seeds, he made a resolution to carry it through. It was a matter of Barkley pride. He couldn’t give up now.

Coming into Stockton, Jenny rode beside him with an air of Queen Victoria greeting the peasants. Nick’s fervent hopes that no one would see him were dashed. The Misses Montgomery were just coming out of Perkins General Store when his buggy passed. Nick tipped his hat gallantly. Maybe the nearsighted old biddes thought Jenny was a saloon girl. A very short one.

He deliberately waited until he stopped the buggy in front of the Empire Saloon before telling Jenny of their destination. “Well,” he spoke with a casual calm, “Here we are.”

Jenny’s eyes widened in surprise. Her face glowed with excitement. “You’re gonna take me in a saloon, Uncle Nick? Really? I always wanted to go inside.”

“I’m gonna go inside first and make sure there ain’t anyone in there who’s...who’s...” Nick couldn’t think of a word proper enough to use around Jenny. He finally came up with...”unsavory.”

“You’re really gonna take me in a saloon and let me play poker?” Jenny clasped her hands together in delight. “Can I have a beer? Like you and Uncle Heath when you go in the saloon?”

“A beer!” Nick bellowed. “No, you can’t have a beer! You want Pappy to kill me right here on the street?”

Jenny smiled knowingly, “He’s gonna kill you anyway, Uncle Nick, when he finds out you took me in a saloon.”

“You’re probably right.” Sooner or later, he’d have to face Jarrod.

Be firm. Be forceful. Offer no...aw, shut up!

Part 6

“What’s that?” All four legs of Tyler’s chair thumped to the floor as he gawked incredulously at Jenny. His startled eyes traveled from the torn curtain on her dark curls with wilting Queen Anne’s lace drooping over her forehead to the hem of Audra’s discarded party dress. When his eyes had widened at Jenny, he turned to Nick demanding an explanation. Pointing a handful of cards at Jenny as if she were a foreign breed of cattle he spluttered, “What’s that . . . that . . . what is it?”

“My niece, Jenny.” Holding Jenny by the hand, Nick felt her press back against his leg and hide behind his arm. He squeezed her fingers in encouragement and glowered at Tyler. “You said if I brought the kid you’d play her for the pumpkin seeds.”

“No, no, no,” Tyler shook his head as if he hadn’t spoken the same words a few hours earlier. “I ain’t playin’ no kid.”

“Why you . . . ” Nick stopped himself from grounding out a word he’d rather Jenny didn’t repeat at the dinner table. His heart plunged toward his boot heels at the mocking smile on Tyler’s face. He had a sinking suspicion Tyler had changed the rules or never intended to let Jenny play against him in the first place. “Are you going back on your word, Mc Cain? You said she could play.”

“Aw, Ty,” a lilting voice came from the bench in front of a tinkling piano, “why don’t you let the little girl play?”

Jenny peeked from behind Uncle Nick her eyes wide in fascinated wonder. What a beautiful lady! The lady wore a dress unlike any Jenny had ever seen before all pink feathery and with shiny spangles. Her bare arms and neck were so pure white Jenny moaned in admiration while thinking of her own tanned arms and scabby knees. The lady’s chestnut hair, almost the color of Charger in the sun, was piled on her head in curls that cascaded in little waterfalls around her smiling face. Jenny wasn’t sure, it was a subject only discussed in whispers when Aunt Audra’s friends thought she couldn’t overhear, but the lady’s cheeks were so pink they must be painted. A real painted lady!

“Hi sweeties,” the beautiful lady leaned down to look right in Jenny’s eyes. A lovely scent of gardenias floated from the lady’s hair and Jenny sniffed in pleasure. The lady sure smelled better than the beery, sweaty smells that were making her nose crinkle. “Don’t you look pretty today?”

Jenny preened dropping Uncle Nick’s hand to tug her curtain back onto her head. She whispered politely, “Thank you.”

“Let her play a game, Ty.” Doris crooned, “It can’t hurt nothin’.”

A small crowd noticed the commotion around Tyler’s table. Doris, who Jenny started at in frank admiration, leaned over the back of Tyler’s chair and began to rub his shoulders. Tyler’s rheumy eyed cronies, sitting at the table with him, began to shift and fidget at the murmurs of agreement coming from the bar. Only the cold eye Tyler kept on their haggard faces kept them in their chairs.

“Might be he’s scared of losin’ to a kid,” one grizzled miner spoke up as he cradled a beer at the bar.

A second nodded, “Always bragging he can beat anybody at a hand of poker. Guess he’s afraid the kid might have beginners’ luck, huh, Hank?”

The two laughed long and loud which didn’t improve Tyler’s disposition. Shrugging off Doris’ gentle hands on his shoulders, he shouted belligerently toward the two. “I got my principles an’ playing a kid ain’t one of ‘em!”

Nick folded his arms over his chest and stood his ground. Fixing McCain with a level stare, he spoke in a voice thick with insinuation, “If you’re afraid to play her, McCain, then name a fair price for the seeds and I’ll buy her some.”

“I ain’t afraid to play nobody!”

“Then let’s see you play her,” a quiet rancher sitting at another table spoke out. Several men sitting with him began to murmur opinions. The word “coward” hung in the air like a threat. Tyler’s face mottled with rage as he eyed Nick.

“Poker’s in the luck of the draw,” Tyler argued. “What if the kid loses?”

“She loses in a fair game,” Nick stressed the fair, “she loses. If poker’s in the luck of the draw then Jenny has as good a chance of winning as you do.”

Hot and pinched with indignation, Tyler shifted on his squeaky chair. Sending furtive glances around the room, he grabbed for one last excuse. “Bet she don’t even know how to play poker!”

“I do so,” Jenny spoke up with her chin thrust out in imitation of Nick, blue eyes outraged. “My Uncle Nick taught me how to play! I play good as anybody!”

“Let her play, McCain!” The miner named Hank roared from the bar. “Let’s see if you’re man enough to beat an itty bitty girl at poker!”

The contemptuous laughter of the men at the bar rang in Tyler’s ears as he slammed his palms flat on the green baize covering of the table. “All right! All right! I’ll play the kid. One game. Winner take all.”

Tyler began to shuffle a well-worn deck of cards as Nick pulled out a chair and helped Jenny sit down. Doris smiled encouragement at Jenny, reached over and plucked the cards from Tyler’s hands and flashed Nick a saucy grin. “I expect Harry’s got a new deck behind the bar.”

“Wha . . . wha . . . ” Tyler spluttered. Under Nick’s fierce glare, he couldn’t protest the taking of his desk without causing an uproar. Nick couldn’t help but take pleasure in Mc Cain’s eyes smoldering with suppressed rage and the muscle twitching in his jaw. Sure must goad him having to play a fair game for once. It was probably the first time.

Doris brought the new deck back to the table. “You’ll be needing an impartial dealer too, won’t you, Nick?”

“Yes, Doris,” Nick smiled a wide conspiratorial grin for McCain’s benefit. Everyone knew Tyler considered Doris his girl. He looked around the room for takers. “Anyone want to deal?”

“”I ain’t touching that game!” One man in a bright red plaid jacket yelled out. The opinion seemed to be unanimous. Most of the men in the saloon, even the miners who’d made the biting remarks about Tyler being afraid to play a little girl, weren’t ready to incur his wrath further by dealing Jenny a possible winning hand. The men began to turn back to their beer as Nick looked hopefully from one face to another. He could offer to deal but could hardly call himself impartial.

“Well, now,” Tyler’s face lost some of its anger as he watched one man after another refuse the job as dealer. “Looks like no one wants to deal, Barkley. Guess I’ll have to . . . ”

“Forget it,” Nick growled.

Tyler motioned toward the craggy faced buddy slumped in a chair beside him. “Then Ben can deal if you want the kid to play so bad.”

“You said you’d play a fair game, McCain,” Nick fumed inside at the delay. In less than an hour, the 2:10 from San Francisco would come wailing into Stockton with Jarrod aboard. Finding his daughter and brother inside Empire Saloon would not be the welcome home he’d expect. Nick wanted to get the game over and Jenny out before that happened.

“It’s your choice . . . ” McCain started to puff up with importance, his weasel eyes taking on their usual cocky glint. He gave Nick a you’re-manure-on -the-bottom-of-my-boots look. Nick clenched his teeth as loathing rose like bile from his belly. He didn’t realize he’d stepped forward with murderous intent until he felt Jenny’s small hand grab his clenched fist as he moved past her chair.

“Uncle Nick,” she whispered in a plaintive voice, “don’t I get to play for the pumpkin seeds?”

Before he could answer, a familiar voice caught Nick’s attention as the swinging doors of the saloon announced the arrival of another patron. “ Harry? Have you got a decent pot of coffee brewing? My wife’s gone visiting and I’ve been up all night waiting for the Newcomb baby to arrive.”

“Yes, Jenny, as soon as we get a dealer you can play.” Suddenly lighthearted, Nick patted Jenny on the shoulders and strode across the room to clap a jovial hand on Dr. Merar’s back.

“Afternoon, Doc!”

“Nick. What are you doing in town?”

Before Nick could answer, Jenny bounced up and down in her chair squealing, “Hi, Dr. Merar! I get to play poker in a saloon just like Uncle Nick and Uncle Heath!”

“Nick Barkley,” the older man stared from Jenny to Nick and back again. He shook his head once as if he couldn’t begin to trust his eyes. “Does Jarrod know you brought Jenny in here?”

“Well . . . um . . . well . . . you see, Doc . . . ” He cleared his throat, “Jarrod’s not back from San Francisco yet.”

“He’s going to kill you, Nick. Then when Jarrod gets done, Victoria is going to pulverize what’s left of you.”

“Probably so,” Nick answered glumly. “But before they do, I need your help.”

While Dr. Merar drank a bracing cup of coffee, he listened to Nick’s tale of the poker game for pumpkin seeds with a nonjudgmental attitude that came from long practice as a country doctor. Nick explained the need for an impartial dealer. Clearing his throat and wiping his sweaty palms down the sides of his pants, Nick waited and hoped, squinting a little in case the Doc decided to give him a piece of his mind instead.

“I’ll deal,” Dr. Merar said after a long minute of scrutiny, “but for only one reason, Nick. Jenny. For Jenny and because I feel pity for you once Jarrod finds out about this.”

“Jenny, right.” Nick gave him a sheepish smile as they walked back to the table where Tyler was thumping his fingers up and down on the table. Jenny’s unblinking stare seemed to make him squirm. Nick thought Tyler looked almost relieved to see him coming back.

Dr. Merar looked at Tyler’s two friends with a pointed expression on his face. It finally sank into their thick skulls that he wanted them to get up from the table. After a nod of approval from Tyler, the two lumbered out of their chairs and slunk back into a darker corner of the room. Watching them go Nick figured they were looking for the rock they’d crawled out from under. Over Tyler’s head, Doris gave him a flirty wink that didn’t go unnoticed by Dr. Merar. Ignoring the Dr.’s raised eyebrows, Nick leaned down and whispered a few words of encouragement to Jenny and planted a quick kiss on the top of her head.

The rules of the game were quickly established. Because of the unusual circumstances, everyone agreed to play one hand of five card draw. Each player would have the option of exchanging two cards once or not at all. The person with the highest cards would win the small sack of pumpkin seeds Tyler had lain on the table as the pot.

“Are we agreed?” Dr. Merar asked as he shuffled the desk. “Jenny, you understand the rules?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Agreed, agreed!” Tyler groused. He ran his fingers along the collar of his shirt as if it might be too tight, his eyes seething at the gathering crowd of onlookers.

Nick stood behind Jenny with his teeth clenched. It seemed more than a little blasphemous to pray for Jenny to win a poker game but Nick did it anyway. Jenny could play a decent hand of poker when she kept her mind on the game. A little help from above might come in handy too, Nick reasoned, especially if her mother were watching.

Dr. Merar dealt the cards. Tyler picked his up, looked at them with an unreadable expression. Worry lines began to furrow on Tyler’s brow as he watched Jenny bend over her cards until her nose came close to touching the table.

Jenny picked up the edge of each card and peeked underneath. Although Nick strained and craned his neck to see what kind of hand she had, Jenny kept them carefully hidden. Standing behind her Nick couldn’t read the expression on Jenny’s face either. He could usually tell what kind of cards she had by reading her face.

“You want cards, McCain?” Dr. Merar asked.

“Two.”

He dealt Tyler two and turned to Jenny. “How many for you, Jenny?”

“Two, please.”

Jenny handed over two cards and replaced them with the two she’d been dealt. Nick still couldn’t see her hand. “Uncle Nick,” she turned around to whisper to him, “can I say my poem now?”

“Hey, no helping her, Barkley!” Tyler shot out of his chair.

Nick grinned. He was going to enjoy this even if Jenny didn’t win. “Who says I’m helping her? Jenny always says a poem before she shows her cards. Ain’t nothin’ in the rules says she can’t say her poem is there, Doc?”

“None I ever heard.”

Tyler sat back down heavily. “Poems!” He sneered trying to win the crowd to his side. “I can see you been playing with the little girls too long, Barkley.”

“Go ahead, Jenny,” Nick nudged her to begin.

Leaning over her cards, Jenny began to tap them on the back in a silly ritual she’d made up herself after Nick taught her to play. He and Heath had gotten so use to the poem and elaborate hand motions she made over her cards to amuse herself, they barely noticed anymore. It was an eye-opener to Nick to watch Tyler’s sneer slowly slide from his face as he stared in fascinated horror at Jenny and listened to her singsong rhyme.

“First is worst,
second is best,
third is the one with the beardy chest!”

More than a few mouths hung open after Jenny’s performance. It took the ordinary voice of Dr. Merar saying, “McCain, show your hand,” to snap most of the jaws closed. Nick might have laughed at the expressions of stunned silence if he hadn’t been holding his breath so tight his chest hurt. If suspense could kill, he’d have been stretched out of the muddy floorboards when Jenny peeked at her first round of cards.

“Well, now,” Tyler looked up at the crowd with a jeering smirk on his lips, “I guess maybe I ain’t lost my touch after all. I got a full house.” His face lit with bitter triumph, Tyler began to turn over his cards. Three kings and a pair of sixes.

“Jenny,” Dr. Merar prompted. “Let’s see your cards.”

Jenny’s shoulders slumped. Instantly, Nick was beside her squatting by the chair to put his arm around her. Looking into her tear filled eyes he felt more than a pang of conscience at putting her though this. Her lower lip wobbled. “I wanted to win, Uncle Nick,” she told him, “but I didn’t. I only got two kings.”

Two Kings! Quickly Nick turned over Jenny’s hand of cards. Two kings, a three, a four and an ace. Standing up he towered over Tyler with a forbidding expression in his dark eyes. “Jenny’s got two kings, McCain.” His eyes raked the crowd, drawing them into the anger he felt over a man who would cheat a little girl. “First time I’ve ever heard of a deck of cards with five kings. How about you, Doc?”

Nick saw the look of rage explode on Tyler’s face. Snatching Jenny out of the chair, Nick tossed her into Doris’ outstretched arms right before Tyler shoved the table over and came barreling into his stomach like a charging bull.

To be continued…