An Ace in the Hole

by Redwood

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.

This short story offers an alternate ending to the episode called “Court Martial.” The characters are as they were in the series, except there is no Eugene, poor thing!

Chapter 1

Playing poker was a game that came easily to him. His quiet tendency to watch everyone around him was finely-honed by years of having to survive in a sometimes hostile world. He had become adept at determining who he could and could not trust by sitting back, using his eyes and ears, and, occasionally, by testing the actions of others---as if he were calling a bluff at an unexpected moment in an intense game of cards.

By now, analyzing the other players around a poker table was a skill that was second nature to him.

In this situation, however, there was no round, green, felt-covered table, no saloon surroundings, and no cards. There was no talk of money or bets. Yet, the action was clearly high-stakes, the players were seriously intent on the game, and there was, without a doubt, a dealer in charge of it all.

Though he was still struggling to understand the situation, the fact that there was a game being played here, was the one aspect of which he was absolutely certain.

He and Nick had ridden home from the cattle drive two days earlier than expected. From the moment they had entered the house, they had been held at gunpoint by men claiming to be there to “execute a sentence of death.” With them in the downstairs sitting room were Jarrod and a guest, a civilian working for the army purchasing department, and, as it turned out, Nick’s former commanding officer, Ex-General Alderson. Apparently, it was this man the invading group had come to kill.

Now that he thought back, if they hadn’t been so focused on that durn snake repellent story Nick had been chuckling, laughing, and choking over for the last three miles of their approach to the ranch, they might have both realized something was wrong. It was unlike Ciego to not respond to Nick’s bellows at their arrival.

Now as he remembered back, he realized that maybe they had missed some other signs of the invaders while they had stabled their horses. They had just been laughing so hard, . . . all the way up to the moment they had opened the front door and felt the hostile guns thrust into their backs and their own being taken away.

Mentally shrugging and returning his attention to the men in the room, he knew that none of that mattered anymore. The only things of any importance were figuring out a way to gain the upper hand in the situation they were now facing, and the whereabouts of his mother and sister. Because of his nagging worry about Mother and Audra, and his concerns about where and how they were, he knew that they, the three brothers, had to do something soon.

Maybe Jarrod knew where the two ladies were, but he and Nick hadn’t been told anything. How many men were there really? All he had seen were these four. The questions kept hounding him, the lack of information making it difficult for him to feel comfortable with any particular plan of action. For now, these men appeared to be holding all the cards.

Looking around the comfortable sitting area, he knew that only their wits were going to get them out of this. They were out-gunned, out-numbered, and out of the usual Barkley luck.

Now, Jarrod had talked the men into not carrying out the hanging of the ex-soldier immediately. He had at least bought them all some time, saying, “Since you’ve taken the law into your own hands, why not be the judge and jury, too.”

The leader, Macklen, had tried to explain, “We are not the cold-blooded killers you would make us out to be. We are compelled by duty to carry out a death sentence that is eight, long years overdue.”

When Jarrod proposed the trial of sorts, Macklen had jumped on it. Maybe he liked the idea of making Alderson squirm a bit first, but at least it had the effect of prolonging things, of hopefully giving them an opportunity for action before Alderson was hung and all the witnesses shot.

The longer he stood quietly in the background, watching their opponents, the more Heath was convinced that there might be a way out of this. He had participated in enough endlessly drawn out poker games in the past to know that the longer the game went on, the less the players tended to pay attention to each other. They began focusing on the cards and the winnings, letting the heated emotions of the game suck them in.

Fighting that tendency, he relied on the strategy that had worked for him so successfully in the past. He focused heavily on observing the people in the game. He watched carefully, paying less attention to all that was being said, and more to the men in the room. Sure enough, it didn’t take him long to realize that even the guards that were supposed to be watching the prisoners were completely caught up in the events unfolding.

From his vantage point by the large, grey marble mantle, he began watching each of the major players, trying to understand each one’s position, as well as his strengths and weaknesses.

Though Alderson was the victim the vigilantes were here to hang, Heath knew he was the key to all of this; so first, he watched Alderson. The former general, the one Jarrod had said was representing the army as a horse buyer, the one that was Nick’s ex-commanding officer, was a puzzle indeed. Here was a man that seemed to wear his past like a brightly-colored, brand-spanking, new bandana around his neck for everyone to see. He seemed to have no difficulty recalling specific details as Macklen and Jarrod questioned him.

His own years in the war were a blur of torment, torture, and lives taken, events that he had buried deeply and had repeatedly covered over with clumps and clods of anger. Heath only used the memories as an occasional source of inner strength and courage, as a way to remind himself of all that he had overcome. He could not understand how Alderson could talk about the sorry details as easily as he would order breakfast in a fancy hotel.

There the man sat, on one of his mother’s good occasional chairs, their “witness stand,” spewing out descriptions of scenes as if they had occurred yesterday. And, Heath observed, he was sweating like he had crawled out from under a rock in the high heat of a blazing desert sun at midday. Here he was, supposed to be some highly-respected war hero, and the man was crumbling in the face of a few threats and a couple of handguns.

The incongruency of it made Heath narrow his eyes and watch Nick’s former commander all the more carefully. Something definitely was not right.

Macklen, on the other hand, as he addressed his men, first Burough, then Tanner, with question after question, was less emotional and more matter-of-fact than Heath thought he should have been. These men had, from what Heath understood of it all, broken into the Barkley ranch when most of the men were away on a cattle drive and had come to hang the ex-general for crimes against their relatives and neighbors during the war.

And, here he was, letting Jarrod talk him into a mock trial, complete with witnesses. Clearly, while the others were not happy about it, this man was the undisputed leader, and he was relishing the whole opportunity, like he was on a brightly-lit stage and they were all paying spectators.

Intelligence shown in the man’s eyes, and------and something else that Heath could not quite identify. The task they had claimed for themselves regarding Alderson bordered on fanatical—they said they had come to “execute a sentence of death” and were going to hang Alderson, out of duty, for his war crimes. Yet, this man, this leader among them, did not strike Heath as fanatical at all. Instead, he was almost too cool, too unemotional, too in control. While he was passionate, he was not a loose cannon. Along with the intelligence in the dark brown eyes, Heath thought he saw an intense focus and sense of purpose, clearly not the fanaticism he would have expected to accompany the announced task.

And, why was it that they had waited eight years to commute the sentence they planned to carry out? Why here, and why now?

Again, for the quiet, background observer, the words he heard and the actions he saw did not completely match with the explanation of the events unfolding in front of him. The more he heard and the more he watched, the more convinced he became that neither the leader of the invading gang of men, nor their intended victim, quite fit with their stories.

Chapter 2

As he studied the players in this deadly game, Heath realized that he was the only one who would go unnoticed long enough to take any action necessary to help them win with the hand they had been dealt.

Usually, no matter how difficult the situation, he and Nick could figure out a way to proceed, just by making eye contact. They’d developed an incredibly close, working knowledge of each other in the last year, and they were now almost routinely comfortable placing their lives in each other’s hands. If one of them did a particular thing, the other tended to know how to react accordingly to complement it. The result usually kept them both safe, as well as those around who were depending on them.

But this situation wasn’t like anything else they had found themselves facing.

For one thing, Nick was embroiled in the game at a level that Heath was not. Nick did not appear to be contemplating escape or any other action. He was so angry about the versions of events being shared, and so focused on using all of his energy to figure out the facts being paraded in front of them, Heath didn’t think he was concentrating on planning anything right now. Instead, he appeared totally intent on trying to convince the men that Alderson was innocent of the charges they were making.

And, if Nick was involved in the game, Jarrod was now completely immersed in it. Though Heath didn’t have as much experience getting into or out of difficult scrapes with Jarrod, he knew the dark-headed, blue-eyed, oldest Barkley brother would always prefer using words to avoid a confrontation. He would always choose first to exhaust the power of words as a solution, rather than starting with an action that could risk ending the possibility that words, given a chance, could solve the problem.

It occurred to Heath that while Nick tended to prefer action over words, and Jarrod preferred words to action, for himself, he knew he had learned to use whichever method he thought had the best chance of solving the specific problem at the time. With a little lop-sided grin turning up one corner of his mouth, he realized his survival instincts created in him a willingness to use either strategy, and with that willingness, he often built a bridge between the two opposites that were his older brothers, Nick and Jarrod.

Jarrod had had longer, apparently, to understand what was going on here than he or Nick. Maybe Jarrod knew enough to be comfortable that everything was going to work out without the action Heath was contemplating, but Heath was afraid that that might not be the case. Jarrod seemed calm, but Heath could tell he was deeply worried, none-the-less.

Now that Heath thought about it, something else bothered him. He realized suddenly, that Jarrod’s actions did not completely fit with what he knew of him either. Or was it simply that Jarrod was caught up in his self-imposed role of defending lawyer? He seemed to be concentrating completely in the mock-trial playing out before them. He was trying to question “witnesses” and determine facts as if he were safely standing in a courtroom, with the only sign of trouble the angry eyes of a judge, with the only sign of a gun, that of the one in the sheriff’s holster.

The only one of the three brothers that seemed to understand all of what was happening was Jarrod, but instead of offering any sign that he was thinking of a way out of this, he just appeared to remain loyal to ferreting out the truth. Heath was somewhat baffled at this, but excused it as Jarrod’s way of approaching many an abstract dilemma.

When the safety of his family was at stake, though, somehow, Heath had expected his oldest brother to react differently. Though he seemed to have Macklen’s begrudging cooperation, Heath hadn’t heard Jarrod once ask about Audra or Mother, if they needed anything or if they were alright.

Heath couldn’t understand why he hadn’t. He trusted Jarrod, trusted him not to lose sight of what was important. Therefore, the only thing that made sense within the framework of that trust was Heath’s growing feeling that something was not as it seemed, that a game was going on in which some of the players knew more than the others about how it was going to eventually turn out.

Heath was briefly distracted from his unobtrusive observations by the turn of the conversation before him. As he listened and watched the sudden gleam in Macklen’s eyes, he realized Nick was walking right into well-disguised quicksand.

“No!” his mind screamed, as his proud, exceptionally honest, hazel-eyed brother professed his own role in the events of the night in question, the night during the war years ago. Nick shared his part, not with pride of accomplishment, but with the single-minded goal of verifying and legitimizing his former commander’s actions.

“If all you’ve got is your word about what happened there, my proof is just as good as yours. I was in his command in Mayville,” Nick said.

“You had command responsibilities?” Macklen queried instantly.

“I did,” Nick responded with a growl.

“What was your rank?”

“Lieutenant.”

“No!” Heath’s mind yelled again.

It was too late. The room became still, as the gathered vigilantes realized they now had two officers to persecute, or prosecute, rather than just the expected one.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to get another rope, then won’t we?” Macklen said, smiling back at the menacing look from Nick Barkley.

Not wanting to call attention to himself in case his silence could buy them an opportunity later, but unable to stand by quietly, Heath, like Nick, jumped quickly to the defense of someone he cared about.

“Ya know you’ll have ta kill us all, then, don’t ya? ” Heath spat out, his unveiled threat an ominous sound in the quiet room.

The response was instantaneous, and chilling, as Burough, one of the four men Heath had seen so far, spoke up, “We came to do a killing; let’s get on with it!”

* * * * * * * *

Something in the man’s mannerisms puzzled Victoria. Was it his mannerly, Southern drawl, she wondered? But, she quickly dismissed this as the reason, having had over a year to become accustomed to Heath’s similar inflections and gentlemanly actions. But, still, it was a dichotomy that made no sense. Why would this man break into their home, hold them prisoner here in the dark, stuffy attic, and then speak to them as if he were concerned about their welfare?

When his comrade entered the door to the vast, enclosed space, and their guard announced that he was needed below, he first apologized profusely for having to tie them up and leave them alone. She detected no sarcasm in his voice, no condescension, nothing except genuine sorrow at the ropes with which he felt compelled to bind them.

Again, she experienced the feeling that something was not as it appeared. Once started, the questions assailed her. What were they doing here? What had they meant that they were here to execute a sentence of death? And, the question she could not put out of her mind was, whose death did they mean?

Looking over at her beautiful, blond daughter, Victoria felt a shudder that, as bad as all of this seemed, it could be much worse. So far, Audra was safe. Nick and Heath were still away on the trail drive, and only Jarrod’s safety was in question. Oh, how she longed to see him, to make sure he was alright!

Victoria’s eyes rested on the light from the lamp the guard had left burning for them. “Audra, I’m going to try something,” she said with conviction.

She struggled to inch her way across the floor toward the oil lamp. The binding that was cutting into her arms and restraining her booted legs made any forward movement very slow and cumbersome. Finally, she reached the table. Turning from her side to gather her knees and feet under her, she was able, with great discomfort and the groan of effort, to gain her feet and push up off of the floor. Now, she was finally standing. Steadying herself against the table, she turned her back on the lamp and backed up to it.

Trying mightily, she attempted to raise her wrists above the open chimney of the glass globe, ignoring the hot surface of the glass as much as possible.

“Mother!” Audra said, with concern.

“It’s alright, Dear,” came the response.

Suddenly, the heat became too much for her screaming hands, and she jerked away. With a crash, the glass globe fell to the floor and broke into tiny scattered shards. Looking down, she immediately discarded the idea of using one of the pieces to cut the ropes. The glass fragments were too small and too thin to do any good. Instead, she turned back to the open flame of the lamp.

“Mother! You’re hurting yourself!” Audra cried, after a few seconds of watching Victoria’s face as she held her roped hands over the flame.

As she bit down on her lip in determination, Victoria suddenly realized this was never going to work. However, the pain caught up with her before she could move away carefully, and again, an involuntary spasm of her hand knocked into the lamp. This time, however, the results were more devastating and more wide-spread than the simple crash from moments before.

The lamp fell to the floor, spilling oil across some scattered items lying there. The flame immediately ignited the soaked cloth and spread rapidly.

Their cries for help went unheeded, as, despite their attempts to stomp out the flames with the soles of their boots, the items on the floor began to burn in earnest. The flames quickly spread to the dusty drapes on the windows.

Suddenly, the door flew open and the returning guard rushed to assist them, his pronounced limp even more noticeable as he made his way awkwardly toward the drapes, yanked them to the floor, and began stomping out the flames. Grabbing an old blanket covering a nearby chest, he began beating at the burning piles on the floor.

Breathing a sigh of relief as the last spark was extinguished, he sat back on the chest and looked down at both of their faces. “I sure am sorry ‘bout that, Ladies! That wasn’t supposed ta happen,” he said.

As he leaned down to untie first Audra, then Victoria, the woman with the fierce grey eyes watched his face. At his comment, she realized that the other piece of what had been bothering her was that it had been evident all along that these men truly regretted the anguish they were causing the two of them.

But why? What were they doing here, and what was happening downstairs?

Then, suddenly, through the still open door, they heard a crash and shouts from below.

Chapter 3

As the “testimony” continued, the men in the room became more and more focused on the “witness stand.”

Nick, when not testifying, sat at the library table placed in the middle of the floor between the grey settee and the two facing chairs. Heath stood behind him, squarely in front of the fireplace. Jarrod paced in front of each witness, and Macklen stood before the beautiful mahogany of Audra’s piano.

Burough, the horse breeder so anxious to see the ex-general hang for allowing the deaths of 16 civilians, was the most passionate speaker. He was followed by Nick and each of Macklen’s other men, one at a time.

When the one called Tanner rose after giving his “testimony,” Macklen used his head and the pistol in his hand to motion the taller man out of the room. Heath was immediately alert to Tanner’s footsteps on the staircase that he could not see from his position by the mantle. After ten or more minutes, and with the sound of heavy steps descending the stairs, two men returned. The first was Tanner, with his tall slender frame and black eye patch. The second, a man Macklen called Curtis, was one Heath had not previously seen. He walked with a completely stiff leg and made his way carefully to the chair Tanner had recently vacated.

As Macklen proceeded to question the man, Heath was deep in thought.

This meant that there were at least five men in the house. Obviously, this one had been upstairs, possibly keeping Audra, Mother, and maybe Silas, in another part of the house. Was there another as well? The only way to be sure was to wait it out, to see if, after this man left the chair, another returned.

Then, a little after Curtis left the room, Heath breathed a sigh of relief when no one else appeared. Another card was now revealed in their opponent’s hand; the odds were not overwhelmingly against them.

If they could somehow arm themselves, the three brothers against Macklen and his four men didn’t seem impossible.

The greatest dilemma would be in how to safely free the two women and possibly Silas from upstairs. Heath knew he would feel much better if he could see them, could know they were not in any immediate danger. Without that information, without that essential card, the matter of time, for Nick, for them all, became a critical pressure to end this game more quickly than it might naturally play out.

If all of Macklen’s men were finished testifying, it wouldn’t be long now until they started talking about hanging Nick and the ex-general again. Time was definitely running out.

As he continued to think through his options, he realized that he had not included Alderson in his computation of the odds. His eyes narrowed as he admitted to himself that the more he watched the man, the less he believed the ex-general was someone he wanted to count on in a fight.

When it was Alderson’s turn to testify, the difference between the delivery of his testimony and Nick’s greatly added to Heath’s suspicions that something undefinable was not making sense.

Nick had calmly answered every question, once Jarrod had insisted he take the seat and stay in it to start with. He had explained that there were 38 men sent on scouting detail that night, and when questioned repeatedly about the unusually large number, had confirmed that the troops were “green” and there were reports of snipers in the area. Unfortunately, his testimony also confirmed for the intently listening men that he was duty officer for the night, which they saw as further proof of Nick’s involvement in a conspiracy to murder the innocent townspeople of Mayville.

While Nick never wavered, it was obvious to Heath that Alderson was incriminating himself with one breath and trying to ingratiate himself with his accusers the next. His demeanor just didn’t ring true, and though for Nick’s sake Heath looked hard for something about the man to respect, he couldn’t find an inspiring quality in sight.

At one point, Jarrod asked Alderson point blank about his involvement in the killings, “Did you directly or indirectly cause or order that to happen?” When the ex-general responded negatively, Jarrod told him, “I want you to know, Sir, that I believe you.” He went on to say that, “We will attempt to place the blame with the reckless, drunken misfits of the patrol.”

Macklen’s emotions began to surface at that point, surprising Heath with the details of his knowledge about Alderson’s official sworn statement, in which he had offered his men the excuse of inexperience during their court martial years ago. Finally, he saw some of the emotional response he had been expecting since the beginning, as Macklen launched into a heated round of questioning about why Alderson was seen shooting that night if he wasn’t murdering civilians.

Sweating and almost reduced to tears, Alderson explained, “I was firing at my own men. It was the only way. They wouldn’t listen; they wouldn’t stop.”

Burough, turning his attention away from guarding the Barkley brothers, began screaming down at Alderson, as he stood between Heath and the witness chair, “You’re a liar! A dirty, filthy liar!”

Seeing an opportunity, Heath moved nothing but his eyes as he quickly checked the attention of Tanner and Dunnally, the other two men standing watch over them.

As Burough continued to pelt Alderson with his words, Alderson began to crack. “I didn’t hate those people! Do you know why I delayed outside Mayville that night?”

Gathering himself, Heath made another cursory check of the room, his blue eyes watching each of the four for any sign that they were looking anywhere but at Alderson. Then, with the quickness and agility he displayed daily with every leaping mount of his horse, Heath charged toward the large bay window and launched himself through the brittle glass and into the dark night beyond. As he hit the unyielding ground below and rolled, he heard the surprised shouts from behind him in the brightly lit room, but he was amazed to have escaped without the firing of a single shot.

Scrambling to his feet, he shook his head at the feeling of dizziness that threatened, and sprinted toward the barn.

Inside, Macklen issued curt orders to Dunnally and Burough, “You two, get after him and bring him back in here.” Then, as they stormed out into the night, he calmly turned to the others and said, “Sit down, Gentlemen. We will continue while we wait.” Turning to Tanner, he said, “Find some rope. We’ll tie the two of them.” Finally, he faced Jarrod, and said, “And as for you, Counselor, I trust you won’t be as foolish as your brother.”

* * * * * * * *

The two men looked inside the barn, with no success. Intent on locating their quarry, they entered the small, enclosed space of the tack room, and with quickly adjusting eyes, were able to tell that the two employees left there hours before remained seated on the floor, hands behind their backs, and gags in place. However, they did not notice the knife Silas now held, nor the figure that had quietly slipped out of the open window just as they had opened the inside door.

Exiting back through the barn, the men left the building and headed for the bunkhouse. They paused for a moment under the sheltering overhang, where Burough motioned for Dunnally to follow him. As they walked out from under the roof line, Heath dropped down on them from above. Dunnally’s gun went off, as the weight of the blond pulled him to the ground beside Burough.

Spinning backward as the bullet pierced his left arm, Heath’s startled cry momentarily cut through the night. Burough clambered to his feet, and attempted to grab the blond from behind, but Heath grabbed him and pushed, using Burough’s weight to stop Dunnally in his tracks. A quick uppercut to the jaw dropped Burough to the ground, and Heath’s flying leap into Dunnally, as he teetered there, ended their attempts to apprehend him.

Quickly spotting the two handguns, Heath staggered to one knee as he leaned over to retrieve the first one. Shaking his head, eyes closed, he drew in a ragged breath. Then, he leaned over to pull the second gun to him, tucked it in his holster and struggled to his feet with one pistol still in his hand. Eyeing the two unconscious men, he glanced up when Silas and Ciego came out of the barn armed with rifles.

“Mr. Heath!” Silas cried, any fear forgotten as he ran toward the blond at the sight of the blood running down the young man’s arm.

“It’s okay, Silas. I’ll be alright,” he shook his head at his advancing friend. “Keep an eye on these two for me, will ya? Do ya know where Audra ‘n Mother are?”

“No, Sir, Mr. Heath, I ain’t seen ‘em. Those bad men in the house?”

“Yes,” he responded. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

Then, he ran through the open gate and toward one of the open glass-front doorways, the one located closest to the sitting room’s piano.

Approaching the doorway, both guns drawn, he was just in time to hear Macklen tell Nick, “Barkley, your brother won’t get far. Just as soon as we catch him, we’ll proceed with justice. The two of you,” his dark eyes took in Alderson and Nick as he spoke, “Will be dancing from the end of a rope before morning.”

As he stepped into the room, one gun trained on Macklen, the other on the taller Tanner, Heath responded for his brother, “Don’t reach for the guns, Gentlemen, unless ya want me ta prove a man can get just as dead shot, as hung.”

Jarrod quickly disarmed the two men, and he stepped over to Nick, who said, “Untie me, Jarrod, so I can show this man some of that justice, Barkley-style!”

When Nick’s hands were loose enough for him to complete the process himself, Jarrod stepped toward Heath, took the offered handgun, and turned back to face the two men who had invaded their home.

At that instant, a disturbance from above caught everyone’s attention. Coming into view were Victoria and Audra, with the guard called Curtis between them. “Hey, what’s going on down here?” Curtis hollered, “We heard some shouting and a gunshot!”

Victoria quickly took in the scene below. Nick, leaning against the arm of a chair, was removing a rope from his behind his back and rubbing his wrists. Three men were standing just in sight by the settee looking up at them. Two of them were the strangers that had locked them in the attic earlier in the afternoon. The third, she did not recognize, but since Jarrod was here, she assumed he was General Alderson. Jarrod and Heath were standing in the center of the open area joining the foyer to the sitting area, each holding a gun pointed at one of the strangers.

Her swiftly moving grey eyes settled on Jarrod and relief swept through her. His dark hair and piercing blue eyes were wonderful to see, though she could almost feel the worry weighing heavily upon him.

Just as quickly, she took in the sight of her youngest son and gasped. The blood-drenched left arm caused her to cry out, “Heath!” as she turned toward the stairs to descend to his aid.

“Just a minute!” the guard hollered, as he grabbed Victoria by the arm and trained his gun on her.

At the callous treatment of their mother, all three Barkley men felt a similar rush of anger and fear. While the stakes had been high enough, with first Alderson’s life in the balance, then, Nick’s life added to the growing pot, Heath knew the ante had just been raised again.

With his eyes staring up and into the faces of the two women on the landing, Heath heard Macklen’s chuckle, followed by the comment in response to Nick, “Well, it might have been fun, Barkley, but I don’t guess we’ll find out. Your guns, Gentlemen.”

Jarrod slowly lowered his, ready to hand it over.

But, for Heath, time seemed to skid to a halt like a finely-executed, sliding stop, on a well-trained cutting horse. His choices were as clearly outlined as two diverging tracks of hoof prints at a dusty crossroads. Rather than look at Macklen, who continued to ask for his gun, he kept his eyes on his mother’s face.

It all depended on her.

Across the thirty-foot expanse, across a year’s worth of love, and across a lifetime of regret, the intense grey eyes of the diminutive woman met the ice cool blue eyes of her now beloved son.

He winked and flashed just a minute shadow of his lop-sided grin.

Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

Together, the decision was made, the bargain was sealed, and both placed their lives in the hands of the other.

Slowly, Heath looked at Macklen, and nodded, taking a slight step forward as if to hand him the gun. Then, with his injured left arm, he pushed Jarrod away, out of the line of fire. Knowing the eyes of the man above him would follow his motion, not Victoria’s, Heath wheeled back to face the three on the landing. He saw Victoria’s left arm come up swiftly, striking under the hand holding the gun trained on her. In that instant, Heath dove and fired.

Chapter 4

The deafening report of two shots in the enclosed space caused every other sound to cease and everyone to turn toward the second floor landing in disbelief.

The first to respond was Nick.

Aware of Jarrod’s stricken face, he jumped toward his older brother, who stood absolutely still, his arm outstretched in the act of handing the pistol to Macklen. Nick yanked the gun from Jarrod’s hand and turned to grab Macklen, to prevent him from reasserting himself.

“Jarrod!” Nick bellowed, “Jarrod, tie up the other one!” When his brother did not respond, but remained in the same spot, staring at Macklen, Nick turned and growled at the tall man wearing the black eye patch behind them. “Get over here and sit down.” With both Macklen and Tanner thrust into chairs by the fireplace, Nick grabbed the rope and began lashing the leader’s arms together behind him.

Suddenly, Nick turned at a sound that sent chills straight to his heart.

Still standing in the same place, still staring at Macklen as Nick tied his arms, the same sound broke through Jarrod’s silence, and he turned back toward the stairs.

On the landing, Victoria’s full attention was focused on the injured man beside her as she worked furiously to stop the flow of blood from his shoulder. She had already pulled the pistol out of his reach and was using his bandana to place pressure on the wound. Curtis, who was sitting up against the closed bedroom door, was struggling to assist her with his other hand.

“I’m alright Ma’am. Please,” he added, clearly distraught, “Please, Ma’am, I’ll be okay. Go check on your son. I think I shot him!”

Victoria stopped, the words slowly sinking in. “Heath,” she breathed. Reaching behind her, she picked up the fallen gun, and pushed off the floor to stand. Then, she too heard the sound that filled her with dread.

“HEATH!”

Audra’s wail cut through the quiet space like a sharp blade, slicing through the fibers of a taut rope, slicing through the hearts of her family, as she careened down the carpeted staircase. As she reached the bottom step, she charged across the foyer toward her unmoving brother, half-lying beneath the round table in the center.

From the time she first saw him fall, she could see the blood. Pausing only long enough to be sure her mother was unharmed, to assure herself that the man on the floor beside Victoria was no longer a threat, she had kept her eyes on her brother. By the time she reached him, his blood was spreading across the polished wood floor beneath him.

“Heath!” she cried again. Her frantic attempts to turn him over were suddenly assisted by two stronger hands, as Nick joined her.

“Audra, find something to stop the bleeding.” Glancing at her face, he said again, “Audra, please. Go!”

Watching his little brother’s lifeblood pooling around him, Nick felt the cold hand of fear close around his heart. Standing quickly, he raked one arm across the top of the foyer table and flung the vase in its center toward the wall beyond. Grabbing the white tablecloth from the table’s smooth surface, he shoved the table out of the way and tore a wide strip from one side of the cloth and quickly folded it.

Jarrod and Victoria ran to join him. Jarrod ripped open Heath’s shirt and, taking the folded cloth from Nick, slapped it over the profusely bleeding wound in Heath’s left side. Pushing as hard as he dared with one hand over the other, Jarrod glanced up once at his mother’s frightened face.

Without asking, he knew what she was thinking.

Tom Barkley, shot by hired men from the railroad over seven years before, had bled to death from his wounds before anyone could stop the flow. Quietly, Jarrod said, as he stared into her grey eyes, his hands locked in place, “We won’t let it happen this time, Mother. We won’t let it.”

Nodding, and fighting the memories away with one arm dashed briefly across her eyes, she tore more strips from her fine muslin tablecloth and handed them to her sons. Then, she assisted Jarrod in adding the additional cloth on top of the first one, which was by now soaked scarlet all the way through.

While Jarrod and Victoria worked over the worst wound, Nick used two more strips from the tablecloth to bandage Heath’s still seeping arm. He noticed with relief that the bullet had passed clean through, and before wrapping the holes, he continued to apply pressure front and back to try to stop the blood. Then, he spared a glare for the man struggling to make it down the stairs from above them, his shoulder wound covered by the bandana in his hand. With Nick’s eyes squarely on him, the silent man came and eased down to sit on the floor nearby, just out of the way. The other two, though only Macklen was actually tied, remained where they were, watching from the sitting room.

Returning with fresh, clean cloths, Audra placed them next to Nick, and ran toward the kitchen to heat some water.

As the three worked feverishly to slow the loss of blood, Nick saw the front door open. He watched in amazement, as first Silas, then Ciego, entered with their prisoners, the two missing men held at the end of their very menacing-looking rifles.

Taking one look at the injured Barkley on the floor and the blood all around him, Silas turned to Ciego, “Go fetch the doctor! . . . ‘N you bes’ ride like the wind itself!”

As Ciego lay his rifle beside Nick and left, they heard Macklen shout from the chair in the large sitting room beyond them, “Burough, help Curtis!”

“No, don’t touch him. Sit down right there,” Nick hollered, his hands still busy applying pressure to stop the blood flow from Heath’s arm.

Burough, however, ignored Macklen’s order, ignored Nick’s holler, and ignored Silas’s rifle. He walked straight up to Alderson, slapping him across the face, and pulled the cowering man toward him. Then, before anyone could react, Burough pushed Alderson through the open doorway behind the piano and out onto the terrace.

Nick, still intent on his brother, cringed at the sound of Burough’s voice screaming from outside, “You’re a filthy liar, Alderson, and I’m still gonna see you hang. Even if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

Silas, his rifle still trained on Dunnally, turned to look for guidance from Nick and Jarrod. He lowered his rifle, when he heard Jarrod’s voice saying, “It’s alright, Silas, let them go. Please go help Audra.”

As Dunnally slipped out the door to join Burough, the disbelief in Nick’s face led Jarrod to answer quietly with ominous words and a tiredness in his voice that silenced his brother’s protests, “Nick, trust me. Heath needs us more right now!”

With Nick temporarily silenced, they continued to focus on stopping the bleeding. Victoria moved to assist in bandaging Heath’s arm. While they worked, Nick’s eyes kept checking Heath’s face for signs of consciousness.

“Do you think we could get him upstairs, yet, Jarrod?” Nick asked. “The doc’s going to have to get that bullet out, and he can’t do it here!”

“Not yet, Nick, he’s still bleeding. Let’s give it a little longer before we try to move him,”

Victoria responded tensely. All of Jarrod’s concentration was on holding a steady, two-handed pressure on the wound, and she answered for him this time to keep him from becoming distracted.

Quietly, with almost a whisper, she added, “There’s just so much blood.”

At that moment, though she realized she had heard no noise from outside for many minutes, she suddenly saw the man who had first escorted them upstairs hours before. He was now standing over them. The torment she felt for her youngest son cascaded into a fierce protectiveness. She stood, stepped over Heath’s bloody body, and glared at the man whose arms were still tied behind his back, daring him to try to hurt her injured son or the rest of her family in any way.

Slowly, watching his face, she understood somehow that he, too, for reasons she could not begin to comprehend, was in anguish as well.

“Mrs. Barkley, I know you don’t believe me, but I never wanted this to happen,” Macklen said. “If you’ll untie me, I would like to help, and I need to see to Curtis.”

Searching his dark eyes, she almost felt compelled to believe him. Then, before she could either act or look away, she heard Jarrod’s voice. “Mother! Help me! This isn’t working!”

She left Macklen standing there, and stepped back over Heath to kneel again by Jarrod’s side.

He said, “Mother, he’s not going to last until the doctor gets here. We’ve got to do something now!” Then, looking at Nick across from them, and then, Victoria beside him, he added, the turmoil and pain clear in his voice, “One of us has got to get the bullet out of him. We have to cauterize this wound----or he’s going to bleed to death.”

Audra caught her breath as she and Silas stood behind them.

Seeing them there, Victoria stood and looked at them both. After no more than a few second’s hesitation, she sent them into action. “Audra, you and Silas cover the table in the kitchen, heat as much water as you can, and boil the instruments that are in the metal box on the bottom shelf.”

She then turned to Macklen, who was still standing across from her. Silently, she walked to him, tucking Curtis’ pistol in her waistband as she crossed the floor. Then, she stood squarely in front of him, glaring into his eyes. “We’re going to need your help, so I’m going to untie you. But, know this. If you or anyone else here tries to harm my family, you will not live through the night. I will shoot you myself.” Stepping around behind him, she untied his bound hands.

As she finished, he turned to look down at her. “My name is Macklen, Mrs. Barkley, and I assure you, we did not come here to hurt your family. Just tell me what to do.”

Not taking her eyes from his, she said, “Jarrod, keep the pressure on his side the best you can. Nick, you and Mr. Macklen pick him up and carry him to the kitchen. You, Mr. Curtis, follow them, and we will see about you as soon as we can.” She motioned toward Tanner, who was still on the grey chair. “You, too. Let’s go.”

When the two of them lifted Heath from the floor, Nick winced inwardly at the amount of blood clearly visible under him. “No!” His mind screamed, as he was hit with the frightening idea of losing his brother, this man that he leaned on, depended on, every day.

Then, he glared across Heath at Macklen, and together, they turned sideways, walking slowly and carefully toward the kitchen. They led with Heath’s right side, so Jarrod could walk facing forward, still trying to keep pressure on his left. Victoria waited for Curtis to rise, allowing Tanner to assist him, then motioned for them to follow. She brought up the rear, with the pistol in her hand.

Collectively, they held their breath as Nick turned backwards and eased Heath’s head and shoulders through the relatively narrow opening of the kitchen doorway, followed by Jarrod, and then Macklen, who was holding Heath up with arms under his knees.

Once inside, Nick and Macklen struggled to lift the dead weight of the muscular young man above the surface of the table. Then, they concentrated on settling Heath on the wooden surface with a minimum of jarring. While he knew Heath did not feel anything, Nick was anxious not to cause any more jostling of the bullet inside him, nor to unleash any additional bleeding that Jarrod’s efforts may have minimized.

Jarrod, his focus on providing continuous pressure with both hands, glanced up at Nick and let go of the breath he felt he’d been holding since they had picked Heath up from the floor. “Nick, one of us has to get this bullet out.”

As she entered, and motioned the three men to sit either on or near the back stairs, Victoria heard the quiet words between her sons. She looked from Jarrod’s pain-filled face to Nick’s anguished one.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

“No!” they both replied in unison, turning their eyes to her.

Nick added, “No, Mother. I will.” He turned to wash his hands and take one of the implements from the pan of cool water waiting beside the sink.

Then, swallowing hard, Nick stood next to Jarrod and looked down into Heath’s face. While he was grateful for the closed eyes, his sweat-soaked hair, shallow breathing, and pale features told Nick they didn’t have much time.

Just as he looked back down at the difficult task before him, Jarrod stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Wait, Nick,” he said. “Put that back in the sink. You hold the cloth here to try to stop the bleeding. I need to be the one to do this.”

With Nick’s eyes piercing his, Jarrod said quietly, “This is my fault, Nick. . . . I need to do this.” Then, with moisture leaping into his sad, blue eyes, he added even more softly, “Nick, please let me. If he dies, I don’t want it to be you holding the knife.”

Chapter 5

The pain-filled, hazel eyes closed briefly, and Nick sucked in a deep breath. He felt Jarrod remove the sharp instrument from his fingers and heard it hit the bottom of the sink. Then, Nick opened his eyes and positioned both hands on the fresh cloth folded over the still bleeding wound. Nick raggedly let out the breath he was holding.

Jarrod turned and washed his hands, taking several calming breaths and a few precious seconds to mentally prepare himself for what he had to do. Then, he pulled a different knife and a slender, blunt metal instrument from the pan of cool water.

By the time he returned to the table, Victoria and Nick had silently traded places. The dark-haired cowboy now held the pistol on the three men by the back staircase, and Victoria was holding the cloth to her blond-headed son’s open wound.

Nodding at her, drawing strength from her confident grey eyes, Jarrod took another deep breath and began to probe the wound for the bullet.

From Curtis and Tanner seated on the back stairs, to Macklen seated on a chair nearby, to his family gathered around him; they collectively seemed to hold their breath with him while he worked.

As Jarrod began to search the wound by feel alone, Victoria tried to wipe the blood from beneath the oozing hole.

Suddenly, the bleeding became much worse.

Jarrod’s eyes met hers as they both realized his actions were actually worsening the problem. As seconds ticked by, the depths of their fears grew with the amount of blood pouring from the opening.

Jarrod struggled to remain calm and methodical, closing his eyes to avoid seeing the immediate results of his search.

When Heath began to stir under Jarrod’s attempts to locate the bullet, Nick silently handed the pistol to Silas, and he and Audra moved to the opposite side of the table to assist.

“Heath, it’s okay. Just relax,” Audra told him quietly. But, despite her words and attempts to soothe Heath by stroking his soaked hair with her fingers, he began to toss his head from side to side.

“Easy, Boy,” Nick said, “Take it easy, Heath.” Nick’s words, at first loud in the silent room, were quickly joined by Heath’s quiet moans.

It was becoming apparent to them all that he was rapidly coming around, and at just the wrong time.

Suddenly, Heath’s light blue eyes opened and frantically searched the room. Nick grabbed Heath’s shoulders and warned, “Stop, Jarrod! He’s awake.”

Then, he reached up to turn Heath’s face toward him and said into the glazed eyes, “Heath. Heath! You’ve got a bullet in you, Boy. Be still, now. You have to hold still, so Jarrod can get it out.”

The eyes blinked at him. Then, Heath’s head came off the table, and he bit down on his lip, choking back the cry that tried to escape. Though he remained tense and his right hand came up to fiercely grip Nick’s arm, he slowly nodded. Then, though he lowered his head back to the table, his blue eyes never left Nick’s face.

“Okay, Jarrod, get it out of there,” Nick said.

Again, Jarrod moved the probe within Heath’s side.

He closed his eyes again, deliberately not looking at Heath’s face, as he concentrated completely on feeling for the bullet buried inside.

Sweat stood out on his forehead and began to trickle down his face.

His frustration mounted.

Fearing that he would have to resort to using the knife, he continued to search with the blunt tool, pushing it deeper into his brother’s side.

Finally, Jarrod and Heath sucked in a sharp breath at the same moment.

Jarrod opened his eyes.

Though he still could not bring himself to look down into his brother’s face for fear of seeing the pain he had brought down on him, he was now greatly relieved to have touched the metal bullet within him. With one hand, he reached for the long, narrow knife he had already placed nearby. Inserting it slowly into the bloody opening next to the probe, he then dug around the bullet to loosen it from the tissue.

Nick’s hand was numb from the grip Heath had on him, and he saw Heath’s face contort with the agony he was in.

A single, wordless moan escaped from Heath’s lips.

Jarrod, focusing with extreme determination, used both instruments to grasp the end of the bullet. Fighting his own urge to scream, he slowly began to extract it back toward the opening in Heath’s side. His sigh filled the tense, quiet room as he finally eased the bullet to the surface and removed it.

Breathing deeply, his arms beginning to shake from the agonizing strain, Jarrod leaned on the table. Slowly, he looked up at Victoria. The tear sliding down her face, told him of the toll the procedure had taken on her. But, the blood soaking the cloth, as well as her hands, demanded that he focus on what else had to be done.

Jarrod stole a look at Heath, whose eyes, though barely open, were fixed on Nick.

Then, Jarrod looked at Nick, the anguish evident in the furrowed brow and wide hazel eyes that shifted to Jarrod only briefly before he nodded and returned his attention to Heath.

Audra was crying openly, and she looked as if she were going to be physically ill.

Victoria turned to reach for the bottle of liquor Silas had earlier placed on the wooden counter behind her. She leaned around Jarrod and looked down into Heath’s eyes. “Heath. Heath? It’s Mother. Can you hear me?” She wanted so badly to reach up and touch his drained face, but his blood on her hands prevented it.

“Mother?” he asked almost inaudibly, his eyes sliding away from Nick to find her face. “Audra?” he asked her.

“We’re both fine, Sweetheart,” She then added, “Heath, Jarrod got the bullet out, but now I need to clean the wound. It’s going to be bad, Son.”

His eyes, barely open, locked on hers, and he turned up one corner of his mouth as he nodded once. Then, his eyes again found Nick’s.

Steeling her mother’s heart against the pain she was getting ready to cause him, she watched Nick reach his loose hand across Heath’s body and grasp the shoulder above his injured arm. Then, Nick leaned his body across the muscled chest as well.

Spent, Jarrod had already moved to a chair, where Silas was handing him a glass of cool water. He started to get up to come help, but Macklen beat him to it.

“I’ll help, Mrs. Barkley,” he said. Without another word, he positioned himself over Heath’s legs, ready to steady the blond to avoid increasing the bleeding in painful reaction to the burning properties of the alcohol.

Satisfied, Victoria positioned a cloth to catch the overflow of the brown liquid, and with Nick’s mumbled comments of, “Seems like a waste of good liquor to me, Boy,” in Heath’s ear, she poured the contents of the bottle into the wound.

The tensing of every muscle in Heath’s body, and a single tear trickling out from under tightly closed eyelids, were his only responses. When she stopped pouring for a moment to give him a chance to recuperate before doing it again, she heard Heath say, “Nick?”

“Right here, Little Brother. You’re doing fine, Heath.” Nick responded to the closed eyes.

Glancing over at Victoria, who was ready again with the poised bottle, Nick said, “One more time, Heath. Hang in there, Boy. You fight it one more time, and then you can rest for a while. Ready?”

He nodded once, and Nick swore he could hear Heath’s jaws clench together as the pain rose to consume him in frightening waves of furious flames.

When it was over, Heath lay on the table too quietly, too still, his eyes closed. Nick at first fought the urge to check to see if he was even breathing, then found himself watching for the rapid, shallow rise and fall of Heath’s chest anyway.

Audra brought two wet cloths, and the two of them wiped at his heated, sweat-streaked skin.

Reaching for another clean cloth, Victoria worked to see if the bleeding would stop on its own. Recovered, Jarrod assisted her, adding pressure with an additional clean cloth placed on top of hers. However, with each addition quickly soaking through, their fear grew that cauterizing the wound was the only course of action left.

A worried glance at each of her children, Victoria sent them back into motion, saying, “Audra, check Heath’s arm, please.”

“Is it still bleeding?” she queried.

“No, Mother, the bandage is okay.” Audra replied, looking down at her mother’s bloody hands.

“Nick, you and Audra see if you can get some water into him.”

Awkwardly, due to Heath’s continued grip on one wrist, Nick held Heath’s head for Audra to offer him some water. “Just a little at first, Audra,” came Victoria’s calm words.

Glancing at Heath, Victoria could tell that he was getting very weak. His eyes, though open again and looking in Nick’s direction, were losing their focus, and his breathing was faster, yet barely visible. She said quietly, “Nick, does he have fever?”

Using his free hand, Nick ruffled Heath’s thoroughly-soaked hair, and felt his face. “He’s hot, but he’s been worse.” Then, he leaned down and looked into the blue slits that remained visible in Heath’s pale face, and said, “C’mon, Little Brother, you can do it. You fight, Boy. Fight, Heath.”

Though the grip on his arm was much weaker now than just a little while before, Nick felt Heath’s fingers tighten briefly in response.

Standing back up, Nick looked across the table into the concerned faces, and then down at the blood soaking the cloths Jarrod was pressing to Heath’s side. “Where’s Ciego with that doctor?” He growled to no one in particular.

“If Howard was in, they should be here any time now, Nick,” Jarrod said, worry continuing to emanate from his face.

“Jarrod, how much longer do you think we can wait?” Victoria queried. “I don’t know if he would survive burning the powder to cauterize it.” Then, almost to herself, she added quietly, “But, the more he bleeds, the weaker he gets.”

As she spoke, she checked the cloths one more time by probing around Jarrod’s hands, lifting the corners of each one. Suddenly, she let out a breath with relief and looked up at them, “I think it’s working! Just keep putting pressure, Jarrod, I think it’s slowing!”

Chapter 6

“Mother, please listen to me. I promise, they won’t hurt anyone else, none of them will.” She looked first at Jarrod, then at Nick, who stared at his older brother as if he had suddenly become one of the strangers invading their home. Like Nick, she could hardly believe he was making the request of her to leave the men untied.

After they had gotten Heath to drink some more water, he had thankfully slipped into a restless unconsciousness. Now that the bleeding was finally almost stopped, they were afraid to move him for fear of reopening his wound. While they waited on the doctor, they had decided to let him remain right there on the table.

With a moment to breathe, she and Audra had cleaned up a little and had washed out and bandaged the wound for the man who had held them prisoner in the attic less than two hours before.

He had said, “Thank you, Mrs. Barkley. And please, know how very sorry I am that I shot your son. That was not supposed to happen.”

The man’s grateful eyes had been full of sorrow, and now his words continued to echo in her ears as her oldest son tried to convince his family that the men were not dangerous.

Still watching her two dark-headed sons, one of whom looked just about ready to tear into the one still keeping pressure on Heath’s wound, she made up her mind.

“Nicholas, please,” she stepped between the two of them, her grey eyes boring into Nick’s anger-charged, hazel, and added, “Please take Jarrod’s place; take care of Heath.”

She held up her hand and started shaking her head, even before the protests began that she knew were coming.

Hours of anger threatening to explode in every direction, Nick heaved in a deep breath and stared at Jarrod’s sorrow-filled blue eyes, before he turned around to concentrate on the bandage Jarrod was holding against Heath’s side.

Just as he started to take over, Jarrod’s voice stopped him, “Nick, the bleeding’s almost stopped, but tear another strip and add it in case this one soaks through.”

When Nick was ready, he carefully added the additional dressing and then replaced Jarrod’s hands, one at a time, with his own, both breathing a sigh of relief when their switch was made.

“Keep the bandage very still, Nick. Keep the pressure tight and as steady as possible. It looks bad, but its almost stopped,” Jarrod said, as he turned to wash his bloody hands again. Then, he slowly turned to meet his mother’s eyes.

She stared at him. Then, she looked down at Heath again, before she said, “Jarrod, I don’t know what has been going on in this house. I don’t know why these men are here, nor do I understand why my son is lying there with two bullet wounds.”

Then, she looked up at him, “But, I have a terrible feeling you do know why!”

The longer she talked, the more anguished and the harder her voice became, “Now are you telling me, Jarrod, that we are to trust these men after all that has happened here?”

Finally, she stopped and stared him, her grey eyes flashing angrily, but simultaneously begging him to make her understand.

Before he could answer, however, Dunnally burst through the doorway to the dining room, and stalked over to Macklen. “We got it, Sir. We got it all!”

Reaching out to grasp the shorter man on the shoulder, Macklen asked, “And you both heard it? There can be no mistake?”

“Both of us, Burough and me, we both heard him make the confession. He’s out there right now with Burough; he’s squalling like a newborn baby. There’s no doubt, Sir!”

“Good man!” Macklen said. “Go get the prisoner ready for transport. You and Tanner will accompany Burough with Alderson to the Stockton jail tonight. Curtis and I will join you after the doctor has a look at him.”

Dunnally said, “Yes, Sir.”

As the man left, Macklen turned to take in the anguished eyes of Counselor Jarrod Barkley. “Mr. Barkley, on behalf of the United States Government, I thank you. We owe you and your family a debt of gratitude we will never be able to repay.”

* * * * * * * *

As Heath slept in the darkened room, Nick and Jarrod sat on opposite sides of the bed, watching his still form.

As had been the case for several days, neither spoke to, nor looked at, the other. While their only exchange had been very one-sided, very quick, and very silent, the effects had been more long-lasting. The large bruise along Jarrod’s jaw line was still very visible, but not as noticeable as the pain in his eyes.

Normally self-assured and confident, this situation had shaken Jarrod to his very core. Acting on the government’s request to provide a staging ground to extract a confession out of Ex-General Alderson had been an almost automatic decision for Jarrod. The only doubt had been in keeping Nick and the rest of the family in the dark about it. Nick and Heath had not been scheduled to be home, and Mother and Audra were supposed to be kept safe upstairs throughout the charade. Once their safety was assured, he had never hesitated to offer to play the role requested of him.

And, in the end, the government had gotten what they wanted, a full confession to Alderson’s role as a spy for the South during the war and as an accomplice in Lincoln’s assassination immediately afterward.

Looking down at his brother’s pale features, Jarrod felt his breath catch in his throat. No matter the positive result for justice, for history, the price for his affirmative response had almost been much too high.

“Heath could have died because of my decision!” Jarrod shouted to himself.

Then, a little calmer as he watched the steady rise and fall of his brother’s chest, he shook his head and wondered, “Why did I let this go on once I knew Nick and Heath were here? I should’ve known one or both of them would try to stop it, no matter what!”

Then he asked himself the question that had particularly tormented him for days, “Why? Why didn’t I just find a way to let them know what was going on?” He lowered his head to cover his face with his hands, thinking forlornly, “It was my silence that made them both fear for Nick’s life, and it was my silence that almost succeeded in killing Heath.”

On the other side of the bed, Nick was also hearing his own questions thundering loudly around in his head. He kept remembering how he and Heath had been laughing so hard when he had finally shared with his brother the story about the snake repellent. Fleetingly, he remembered how much he cherished his brother’s laugh, that full, free laugh that was shared more and more the longer Heath was with them, that laugh that was part dancing blue eyes, part hat tilted back, part infectious little boy giggle.

“If I just hadn’t been baiting him with that story, waiting to let that laugh build until it spilled out. If I had just been paying more attention, he never would’ve spent the last few nights fighting for his life!”

Then, shaking his head at the irony of wishing he hadn’t made his brother laugh, Nick’s silent thoughts briefly turned and lashed out at his older brother. “Jarrod! Why did you let those men in here? Why did you go along with their little scheme? Pappy, how is it that with all of your analyzing and searching for the truth all the time, you couldn’t see the very real fact, the just plain truth, that you could well be risking your family with this dangerous game?”

He caught himself, and he took a deep breath, knowing that if the tables had been turned, if he had been approached to assist with catching a criminal masquerading as one of Jarrod’s respected former professors, that he would not have hesitated to assist.

Thinking about it now, he admitted to himself that if it had been him, he would have trusted Jarrod to understand afterwards when all was eventually explained.

Silently, Nick reviewed the events and slowly shifted his thinking, focusing the full blame back on himself. “Why didn’t I pay attention from the very beginning? If I’d just stopped talking and listened, I would have known something was wrong the minute we rode up to the barn!” Nick silently berated himself with possibilities. “If I had just listened, I would’ve known something was wrong with Alderson. My misjudgment could’ve cost Heath his life.”

Nick propped his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, watching Heath. Then, he closed his eyes and slowly relived the agonizing events that were uppermost in his mind.

He saw again the moment of decision, saw again Heath’s poker face as he feinted toward Macklen, pushed Jarrod away, and dove across the foyer floor. He heard again the deafening report of the two pistols, heard again his sister’s shrill cry of horror. He felt again the cold fear that gripped his heart when he turned and saw his brother lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

With eyes still closed, Nick raked his fingers through his dark, disheveled hair and kneaded the worry behind his brow that threatened to overcome him.

As Heath slowly awakened in the near dark of the silent room, he searched the dark inside himself for the source of the pain.

The throbbing that radiated from his left side seemed to grow hotter and hotter. The heat charged through him steadily, like the rhythm of a blacksmith’s bellows forcing air through a roaring forge. The pounding of his head matched a ferrier’s double taps of iron on iron as the hammer first collided with the horseshoe, then the anvil.

His struggle away from the heat, away from the pounding, forced him out of the darkness.

His groan brought the two on either side of him up and out of their separate reveries. Nick leaned in from his left and grasped Heath’s hand lightly, fearful of jostling his arm. As Heath’s eyes cracked open, Jarrod jumped up and poured a small amount of cool water into a glass. Returning, he leaned over Heath and helped raise his shoulders to drink. A slight movement of Heath’s head let him know the blond had had enough. Placing the glass on the bedside table, Jarrod searched the pale face intently in the soft light from the oil lamp.

Heath’s right hand touched his left side, and his eyes closed with pain. Then, he opened them again. He turned his head slightly to the left, looked into the hazel eyes and squeezed Nick’s hand. The eyes looking back at him said more than words.

With difficulty, Heath next turned his head and looked at his oldest brother. With a lop-sided smile, he weakly raised his right hand from his side and toward the hesitant, blue eyes staring back at him. Jarrod reached out to grasp the offered hand with both of his.

The usually quiet voice was barely audible as it asked, “Audra? . . . Mother?” Heath’s waiting eyes were now turned back, boring into Nick’s.

Nick’s strong voice responded, “They’re fine, Heath. They’ve been right here with you.” He realized Heath wanted more, when the blue eyes continued to stare at him. “Mother’s downstairs helping Silas fix some dinner, and I know she’ll be glad to see you’re awake. Audra’s resting; she sat with you most of the day.”

As Heath nodded once and closed his eyes, Nick squeezed his hand again and added, “You just rest, Heath. I’ll go get Mother and let her know you’re in here talking up a storm!” He reached up to tousle the blond hair, taking in the cuts on the pale face, the cuts from the glass window Heath had jumped through several nights ago.

When he stood to leave, however, Heath tightened his grip on his hand, grimacing at the protesting muscles further up his arm.

Nick looked down at him with questions in his eyes, but simply said, “Heath?”

Heath opened his eyes and looked up at Nick. Then, he looked over at Jarrod, whose head was down, not watching them, but holding onto Heath’s hand for all he was worth. Jarrod’s shoulders were shaking and Heath was aware of several wet drops running down his arm. “Together, Nick. . . .I’m fine. . . Go . . . together.”

As he closed his heavy eyes again, he heard the sharp intake of Nick’s breath. Heath whispered again, “Together, Nick. . . . Please.”

When the spurs crossed the room and stopped on the right side of the bed, Heath looked up and winked at Nick, a lop-sided grin crossing his face, before he closed his pale blue eyes again and drifted off to sleep.

Standing quietly beside Jarrod’s chair, Nick watched the steady breathing of his sleeping younger brother. Then, hesitantly, he reached up and placed one hand on Jarrod’s shaking shoulder. “Jarrod,” he said, “Jarrod, come on. He’s asleep again.” Taking a firmer hold, he reached down with his other hand and pried Jarrod’s fingers from around Heath’s unresponsive hand. “Come on, Jarrod. It’s okay; he’s going to be alright. Come on and let him sleep.”

With one hand under Jarrod’s arm, he pulled his brother from the chair and wrapped him in his arms. As they stood there, one letting his anger slowly dissolve and the other letting his guilt spill out of him, Heath’s quietly spoken word echoed through both of their heads.

No matter what, they were all three committed to that word, to being brothers and to being together.

Chapter 7

Together, they entered the open doorway of the room and stopped. Neither moved nor spoke for several moments, as they took in the lean figure standing by the window, his back to them both.

Then, surprising them, Heath said, “Jarrod, I’m not goin’ to this ceremony.” He turned slightly and tossed a letter on the table between the window and the bed. Then, he turned back to the window, watching the moon and stars visible through the tops of the trees near the barn.

“Heath,” Jarrod spoke up, as he crossed the room and stood to the side of and slightly behind his brother. “Macklen wanted to find a way to thank and apologize to all of us, especially to you, for what he and his men put everyone through that night.”

Heath did not respond for a long moment, then they heard him say, his back still to them, “Nick?”

“Yeah, Heath?”

“He was your commandin’ officer. We both thought they were gonna hang you right there next ta him that night.” He stopped a moment before continuing, “How do you feel ‘bout what that letter says?” Heath asked.

Nick felt the old anger against Jarrod’s actions flicker in his chest, the anger for letting him think he would hang beside Alderson before seeing the sunrise again. He felt the rekindled fury against the anguish Mother and Audra had been put through and the fear that had gripped him when he saw Heath’s blood on the floor of the foyer.

Then, watching the tired posture of his recovering younger brother, Nick took in the weight loss and the right hand held tightly over the still bandaged left side. Even standing behind him, even from three weeks’ perspective, he could easily see the toll that night had exacted.

He thought about how close they had all come to losing this quiet, gentle brother and son, the one who had weighed action versus inaction, personal risk versus family love, and who had thought it through thoroughly, yet had chosen to follow his heart.

Slowly, Nick let go of the smoldering anger again as he thought about what Heath wanted, about how Heath wouldn’t want him to fuel his anger toward Jarrod, who had also followed his heart.

Suddenly, very sure, Nick said, “I say, thank you’s and apologies be hanged, Heath!”

Too late, Nick realized the expression he had just used when Jarrod’s head came up, and he stared at Nick with surprised disbelief. “Uhhh, bad choice of words. But, you know what I mean! If you don’t want to go, then we’ll stay right here. After all, this is a . .. .”

“. . .A working ranch! Yeah, we know, Nick!” Jarrod finished for him, shaking his head with a slight smile at Nick’s attempt to lighten the tension emanating off of their blond-headed brother.

Still facing away from them, Heath leaned over and placed his hands on the window sill, his head down. “Just don’t understand it. ‘Shot a federal officer carryin’ out his duty, ‘n they wanna give me a medal?”

Nick and Jarrod exchanged looks, neither having realized how much that single shot had cost Heath in regret over the last few weeks. The pain in his voice at his actions cut into them both.

“Heath, I think it’s more because they shot you---twice---during the attempt to get Alderson to admit his roll in Lincoln’s assassination, than because you shot someone,” Jarrod reasoned.

Speaking almost to himself, Heath said, “In the war, I earned a medal---they said for my role in preventin’ more deaths. ‘Killed men on the other side ta earn that one. That’s what you’re supposed ta do in a battle, right, shoot other men? But, not in your own home.”

Behind him, Nick and Jarrod stared at each other. This was new information to both of them.

“They gave you a medal, Heath?” Nick knew this wasn’t exactly the topic his brother had been trying to bring up, but now he wanted to know. He knew many men who had fought, but none who had earned a medal. He had heard that the Navy gave them out occasionally, but very rarely the army, and almost never to non-officers.

After another moment’s hesitation and still no response from Heath, Nick plunged ahead, “What kind of medal was it?”

They both heard a quiet sigh, before Heath answered, “That bronze one with the eagle and the star. You know-----the Medal of Honor.”

Nick and Jarrod could only stare at Heath’s back and then at each other. Both were well aware that this particular medal was the highest that had been awarded during the war and that it was usually presented to the soldier personally by the President of the United States.

Heath had been little more than a boy during those years, and Nick couldn’t begin to imagine what his brother must have gone through, or had done, to earn that highly-esteemed award. His voice echoed his awe.

“The Medal of Honor?”

Touching Heath on the shoulder, Jarrod asked, “We’ve never seen it, Heath. Would you show it to us?”

After a moment, Heath turned around to look at them. His sad, misty blue eyes looked first at Jarrod, then at Nick, before he said quietly, “Didn’t ask for that one, ‘n I’m not interested in this one either.”

Nodding, Jarrod said, “I’ll wire Macklen in the morning, Heath, that we won’t be coming. If he’s serious about the medal, though, you can expect that he’ll probably send it anyway.”

Heath shook his head, and he turned to look back out at the night sky.

Unwilling to let it go and wanting to lighten the sadness that seemed to have enveloped Heath, Nick spoke up. “Okay, so we agree to forget about this medal, but where is the other one? I’ve never seen one, Little Brother. Why have you never shown it to us, anyway?”

Heath turned his head to look into Nick’s eyes again, the pain of the past reflected in his blue eyes of the present. “They took it back, Nick. ‘Said I was too young, made ‘em look bad for acceptin’ a kid in their army ta start with. I wasn’t too young ta kill other men for ‘em, but I was too young ta keep the evidence.” He turned back to look out into the dark, fighting hard to keep the darkness in his heart from closing in on him.

Nick moved to stand beside him, his heart battling feelings of anger, pride, and hurt for this man he called brother. Placing both hands on the weary shoulders in front of him, Nick simply said, “Heath,” as he leaned forward and rested his head against the younger man’s back.

Then after a moment, Nick added quietly, “The medals of honor they can never take away are the thoughts and actions of integrity and courage that you wear everyday. We are proud of you, Heath, proud of the man you grew into and proud of the way you did everything in your power to protect your family here three weeks ago.”

He took a deep breath and squeezed Heath’s shoulders from behind before continuing, “You wear enough scars on your back and inside your soul, Little Brother----scars from all those years ago. Please don’t let what happened here add more scars. If you don’t want their medal, that’s fine, but just don’t let it weigh on you any more that you shot that man! You did what you had to do.”

Heath did not move from the window, but his right hand came up to rest on top of Nick’s hand, and his eyes teared at his brother’s words of support.

Then, with no other response from the younger man in front of him, Nick played his last card, the one, he thought now, he had probably been holding too closely to himself for weeks. He asked, “Heath, why didn’t you kill Curtis when you had the chance, instead of just wounding him?”

When Heath still didn’t respond, he added, “I know you could have, Heath. And, if you had, he probably wouldn’t have hit you at all.”

At the unexpected words, Jarrod’s head came up, and he stared at the backs of both of his brothers. This was not something that he had thought about, but obviously Nick and Heath both had, one weeks ago, and the other more recently.

Jarrod held his breath as he waited for the response.

Finally, Heath’s voice said, “’Just didn’t make sense, is all.”

Standing, Jarrod walked over to them, and turned them both toward him by grasping one shoulder in each hand. “Heath, you knew?”

“No, Jarrod,” Nick said impatiently, speaking for his little brother, “Of course he didn’t know! If he had been sure, he would never have crashed through that window, taken a bullet outside in a fight, or shot Curtis to start with! And, he would’ve never taken a chance by provoking the man into almost killing him----just to keep the upper hand and ensure Mother and Audra’s safety!” Nick’s bellow caused both his younger and his older brothers to close their eyes in response.

Nick took a deep breath. Finally, he had said the words he had been wanting to shout at Jarrod for weeks, held back before only by the remembered admonition from Heath of, “Together, Nick.” Now, he stood quietly, fighting to extinguish the anger for the last time.

Looking into Jarrod’s stricken face, the quietest of the three spoke again.

“No, Jarrod, I didn’t know. But, I couldn’t stand there ‘n give up my gun with them sayin’ they were gonna hang Nick, ‘n I couldn’t take the chance that Curtis wouldn’t hurt Mother ‘n Audra. I caught Mother’s eye, ‘n she was able ta get his gun off’a her long enough for it ta work.”

He watched the eyebrows of his brothers rise at this information. Then, he reached for the chair behind them, eased down into it with some help from Nick, and, after taking a deep breath, continued, “I knew somethin’ didn’t add up. Alderson was all wrong. Macklen wasn’t who he said he was. And Jarrod, well, you weren’t yourself either. No matter how I looked at it, no matter which’a you I concentrated on, the whole thing felt more like a cutthroat poker game ta me than anything else.”

He paused and took another deep breath. “But, no, I wasn’t sure. I guess I should’a trusted you, but, I just wasn’t sure. And, the stakes were too high ta just let it all play out ta see if I was right. ‘Did the only thing I could, ‘just aimed ta stop him, not ta kill him.”

Seldom did Jarrod use Nick’s particular gesture of affection for Heath, but this time, he reached out to tousle Heath’s hair. He said, “I’ll wire Macklen tomorrow about our decision.”

Then, shaking his head, Jarrod added, “Knowing he might kill you, and aware that it might all be unnecessary in the end? Brother Heath, I don’t think there is a medal in the world that could rightfully signify the choices you made that night.”

In the quiet that followed, each brother reflected on all that they had as a family, and at what cost. Finally, Jarrod spoke up again, “Nick, I need to tell you, that I am very sorry for putting you through that, for being involved in making you think you were going to die that night.” His eyes sought Nick’s, and he waited a long moment until Nick nodded at him, his hazel eyes telegraphing his willingness to forgive him.

Placing his hand on Heath’s shoulder, he continued, “Heath, I want you to know how deeply sorry I am for the injuries you received. . . .” He stopped and swallowed hard before going on, “. . . That you received trying to save your family from a situation I knowingly placed all of you in. You could have died, and I am so sorry.”

The long talk having helped Heath place his own inner turmoil about Curtis into perspective, he looked up quickly, his much-relieved light blue eyes meeting Jarrod’s dark, sorrowful blue above him. “Jarrod, in all of it, your decision ta help determine the truth is the one thing that did make perfect sense ta me. I would expect no less from you, Counselor Barkley. You’re the keeper of the truth, ‘n I’m proud ta be able ta call you Big Brother.”

Then, with a mischievous, lop-sided grin, Heath added, “But, Jarrod, as grateful as I am that you were the one diggin’ that bullet outta me ‘n not Brother Nick, here, I suggest ya stick ta lawyerin’ ‘n don’t plan on takin’ up surgery full time.”

Laughing, he extended his right hand, which Jarrod clasped firmly.

Nick, smiling ear to ear, placed his hands on top of theirs, and, unable to resist, said eagerly, “Now, how about some poker, Boys?”

“Nick! That’s not funny!” Jarrod said, as the blond in the chair beside them both first stifled a smirk, then, suddenly grabbed for his left side as his laughter bubbled out and echoed through the room.

* * * * * * * *

Standing at the window again a few hours later, Heath breathed in the cool breeze, listened to the rattling of the leaves in the nearby trees, and watched the bright quarter moon emerge from behind a glowing silver cloud.

He smiled slightly as he thought back over the night three weeks ago and all that had occurred since then. Heath knew that part of what made this situation so difficult for them, so nearly impossible for them to work through, was because it had isolated each of them.

Though the three brothers had all stood in the same room, together physically, they had been effectively cut off from each other. They each knew a piece of the situation, but only a piece. Nick had had his knowledge of the general and the events of that night years ago; Jarrod had had his understanding of the ultimate goal and the knowledge that things were not as they appeared; and he, well, he had had his willingness to see the inconsistencies that existed, to see what might be, instead of what appeared to be, and to act on it.

But, without communication between them, what they each knew separately was not enough to create a viable solution for any of them.

Heath remembered his sudden understanding that night, the insight that his own natural tendencies were sometimes a bridge between the opposites of his brothers. But, now, he also realized that, alone and cut off from each other, they would never be as strong as they could be when together.

Together, as the three Barkley brothers striving to solve a problem as one, they could each contribute toward a solution that would be better than the answer any one of them could ever reach alone.

As long as they could face any problem together, each adding his own special contribution, they would always have an ace in the hole, no matter the game.

THE END

Footnote:

Prior to the Civil War, use of medals during or after any American battle was rare. The Medal of Honor was first authorized by Senate in 1862 and presented under the following stipulation: "In the name of Congress, to such non-commissioned officers and privates as shall most distinguish themselves by their gallantry in action and other soldier-like qualities, during the Civil War."

Whenever possible, this medal is presented in Washington, D.C. by the President, and only for a deed denoting personal bravery or self-sacrifice that involves risk of one’s own life. While none have yet been awarded for the Gulf War, nor during any situation since, 3400 Americans, including one woman, have received this honor since 1862.