Dead Wrong

Part I / Chapters 1-10

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 story has its basis in, and borrows lots of its dialogue from, an early, first season episode called “The Murdered Party.”

Never one of my favorites, because the last scene in the courtroom always bothered me, I have endeavored to keep the original tension of this episode that pitted family against family, brother against brother, but to also give it a different, much-expanded ending.

Chapter 1

The uninterrupted rhythm of the sharp sounds rang out through the darkening night. Like a man’s heartbeat pounding relentlessly against his ribs, each loud strike of metal on metal was followed by a slightly softer, but equally sharp, ringing blow.

Nick smiled as he made his way to the house, wiping his dusty hands on a rag. As he walked away from the smithy, still pulling straw from the collar of his shirt, his heart soared with each RAP-tap, RAP-tap of the hammer behind him, as it meticulously shaped the branding iron held in his brother’s hand, held firmly against the heavy anvil.

“That boy!” he muttered, shaking his head, the smile growing. It wasn’t enough for his little brother, his new little brother, that the iron was the same as it had almost always been. Its crossed-B shape was just a bit off kilter on one side, a remnant of a long ago mishap at a spring roundup Nick could barely remember.

No. That hadn’t been good enough for Heath.

“He sure is a proud one, that boy,” Nick thought. “He takes as much pride in this family, in his new name, and in his handiwork, as I do.” Nodding, he added to himself, “As much or more. I think there’s only one thing he values more dearly, and that’s his honor----especially when it gets all wrapped around what he sees as right and wrong.”

Still shaking his head, he tiredly approached the house.

They had both had a long day. But, it had been a satisfying one of checking the herd together, of working side-by-side to put things in order for the upcoming branding.

In fact, they had had a long week-----both of them.

While Heath rode back and forth to town every day, Nick had been forced to manage the work of the ranch alone. And, . . . now that he thought about it, he had gotten quite used to having Heath around to help him, even in the short two months since he’d come to them.

Frowning a bit, Nick thought about how his brother’s usual, quiet energy had seemed to flag all week long, as if he had been worn down by the endless hours tied up in the preparations for the murder trial that would start on Monday, the trial with the reticent Heath billed as the main witness.

“Might as well be that boy on trial, the toll it’s taken on him,” Nick mused.

Striding towards the house, he listened as the sounds of the hammer dulled somewhat with the distance. He found himself very glad that today Heath had found an outlet for some of his silent frustration at not being able to be here all week, at not being able to join the work out on the ranch he was coming to love as much as Nick already did.

Instead, Heath had been cooped up in lawyers’ offices and courtrooms enough in the last week to make him actually lose some of the spark in his normally expressive, light-blue eyes.

“Poor kid,” Nick mumbled as he shook his head again. He opened the back door to Silas’ clean, sweet-smelling kitchen, and the still lingering scent of freshly-baked apple pie left from dinner instantly gave him an idea. Before heading up the back stairs, he glanced around and spied the remainder of the pie sitting on the square, pine table in the middle of the room, covered with a yellow and white cloth.

Smiling broadly, Nick retraced his last few steps and peeked under the cloth, suddenly less tired than he had been just a little while before.

“Yep,” he thought, “Enough for two. I’ll just go upstairs, beat Heath to the bathtub, then come back and wait for him to do the same. He’s been off his feed lately and can use a before-bed snack.”

Turning toward the stairs, he shook his head again, thinking of his new younger brother and how his eyes would surely light up at the thought of another slice of Silas’ apple pie.

* * * * * * * *

The squeak of the bellows pumping slowly up and down, stoking the coals with air, infusing the forge with more heat, brought Heath a certain comfort. This was something he could control. This was something he could feel good about.

Fixing something with his own two hands. . .

Making something better. . .

Improving upon it. . .

Unlike the events of the last week, these were productive tasks he could take pleasure in.

He lifted his eyes from the glowing forge, as one hand continued to work the bellows and the other held the branding iron over the coals. Staring across the heated room, he allowed his thoughts to drift back over the week, then return to the satisfaction of the many hours spent in the saddle today, out riding with Nick, counting cows and cutting loose to bring in the occasional stray.

He had never been so glad to see a Saturday arrive. It had marked the end of the business week in town, and for now, of the courtroom appearances, and the end of hours upon insufferable hours spent inside four walls listening to men talk.

How he had come to hate the endless questions and answers, even those not directed at him!

How he had come to hate the constant barrage of verbiage that was a courtroom!

How he already hated the confinement of being inside those four walls day after day.

Nodding, he realized Nick would have agreed with him, would have felt exactly the same way if it had been him.

Shaking his head slightly, then, he wondered to himself how his oldest brother, Jarrod, could stand that kind of life.

Smiling crookedly, he thought of how he would love to witness just one day, even one hour, with Nick and Jarrod having to change places----the bigger-than-life rancher and the smoother-than-silk lawyer having to do each other’s jobs, just for a little while.

“Boy Howdy,” Heath muttered. “That’d be a sight I’d go back inside, even pay money, to see.”

As he took one step to his left, returning to the anvil and carrying the glowing iron, he paused, glancing over his shoulder.

Then, shaking his head for thinking he’d heard an out-of-place noise, he silently chided himself, “’Been wrapped as tight as a coiled buggy spring all week, Heath. Gotta get this finished up an’ head inside, b’fore Ol’ Nick eats up the last’a Silas’ good apple pie.”

* * * * * * * *

Despite the late hour, Nick almost whistled to himself as he exited his room and walked quickly down the hall.

“Heath?” He paused and tapped twice on his brother’s bedroom door. Puzzled, he pushed it open a little further than it had been and poked his head inside. “Now, where is he?” Turning back, Nick first checked the water closet, but found it empty. Then, he headed down the back stairs to the kitchen, picking up speed as he went.

“Heath Barkley, if you’re down there eating my pie,. . . ” he growled aloud. Shaking his head with an aggravated glint in his eye, Nick quickly made it to the last step and glanced around the room.

Relief warring with frustration, Nick walked to the yellow-curtained window beside the closed kitchen door and looked out into the dark. Leaning forward, over the cabinet and toward the window, he could just see, off to the left, the glow from the forge still showing through the barely open doorway he had exited almost twenty minutes ago.

Scowling at his little brother’s stubbornness, Nick’s great idea about waiting down here for him after he came in quickly faded into irritated disappointment. What was taking him so long, anyway?

He quickly grabbed a knife, two plates, two cups, and two forks, placing them on the table. Then, Nick took three strides to the icebox to retrieve the pitcher of cold milk he knew would be inside.

Then, hearing a quiet sound behind him, he whirled around, pitcher in hand, and found himself staring into the bemused expression of Victoria Barkley.

“Mother,” he said, his eyes wide, like those of a little boy caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that, though his shirt was clean, it was only partially buttoned and completely un-tucked.

“Nicholas,” the unflappable woman, standing there in her dressing gown, arms crossed, responded. Her eyes flickered from her son’s face to the honey-pine table set for two, with its centerpiece the now uncovered pie.

She all but tapped her foot at him, as she stared at this tall, dark-haired rendition of the spark for life and the little-boy mischievousness she had so loved in his father.

Inside, though she was determined not to show it, she was barely able to contain her mirth at Nick’s situation. Since Jarrod had apparently stayed overnight in town, Nick was clearly expecting the newest member of the Barkley household, the younger brother he had slowly started to cherish, to come downstairs and join him at some pre-arranged time for a late-night snack.

“Nicholas? What is the meaning of this?” she asked sternly, watching him return the pitcher to the icebox.

Both hands coming up to take hold of her shoulders as he approached, Nick quickly attempted to cajole her, “Now, Mother, I know how worried you’ve been about Heath not eating this week, and I just thought I’d get a little of Silas’ pie into him when he comes in.”

Her stern face dissolving into instant concern, she pulled back a bit from her dark-haired middle son and said, “Nick, do you mean to tell me he hasn’t come inside yet? I thought maybe you were just waiting for him to come downstairs.”

“No, Mother, he’s still out at the forge. I swear, . . . um, . . . I think that boy’s got a double-shot of Barkley stubbornness deep down inside him. He’s been corralled in that courtroom all week, and it’s like he’s been making up for lost time around here all day long.”

Smiling somewhat absently in acknowledgement, she nodded, uncrossing her arms and pointing toward the outside door. “Nick, please go get your brother. Tell him it’s time he stops working and comes in to get some rest------and his slice of Silas’ pie!”

Glad of the opportunity for escape, Nick gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and turned toward the door.

When he opened it, however, his relief turned to dread almost as soon as he glanced in the direction of the smithy.

Chapter 2

Heath gave the heated iron a few more taps, taking advantage of its brightly glowing heat to even out one last detail on the end of the metal line crossing diagonally through the capital letter “B.”

Lifting it, he narrowed his eyes and turned it so he could sight along it. Satisfied that it was almost straight now, he returned it to the edge of the forge for one last plunging into the heat. Stepping back toward the bellows, he pumped them a few more times to help the process along.

Then, moving to the side, he let the bellows rest and picked up the pale purple cloth hanging off the end of the anvil. Smiling crookedly as he thought about the irony of Barrett’s words a couple of months back, and how much that crossed-B brand had come to mean to him in such a short time, he used the cloth to swipe at the beads of sweat accumulating across his forehead in the heat. Then, he wiped his hands while he waited for the metal to reheat.

Suddenly, he heard a noise and, this time, he whirled around, positive that it did not belong. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he saw, first, the muzzle of a shotgun leveled at him, then, three figures emerging from the shadows outside the now open doorway.

His senses heightened now, he heard the barely audible squeak of the door as it was closed behind them, the spit of the embers behind him in the forge, and the pieces of straw littering the floor as they scrunched under each step of the farm boots worn by the three men approaching him. Having made their acquaintance up close just the other morning in the family dining room in the middle of breakfast, Heath had no trouble recognizing the three as Jake, Alan, and Emmet Kyles, despite the filthy bandanas pulled up to cover their faces.

Jake Kyles, the one holding the shotgun pointed menacingly at Heath’s chest, growled at him, “You better hold it right there, Boy. I’d just as soon blast you down as look at you.”

Though angry at the intrusion, at the audacity of the man who obviously thought he could come back here, catch him alone, and intimidate him, Heath kept his voice even as he responded, “What d’ya’ want?

With a snarl, Jake said, “We aim to help you learn your testifying.”

“I don’t need any help.”

Heath’s words and tone left it clear that he didn’t think much of the man’s tactics, nor the ability of all three of them to change his mind about doing what he knew he had to do.

“Maybe you’d best just say you were minding your own business the night Ashby got hisself killed,” Jake’s son, Emmet, spoke up, the threat obvious.

He was joined by his father again, gesturing with the shotgun as he spoke, “Yeah, you couldn’t see who it was anyways, could you?”

Again, Heath firmly stated his position, with strength like that of the solid, immovable anvil, ringing through his quietly spoken words.

“I could see.”

Viciously, anger rising, Jake turned his body, twisted the shotgun around in one quick movement, and slammed the butt of the gun with all the power he could muster into the right side of Heath’s lower ribcage.

Heath doubled over, his breath abruptly expelled in a sharp cry, with the force of the blow.

Immediately, Jake brought his knee up and caught the side of Heath’s head, sending him falling backwards onto a stack of hay bricks against the wall.

He lay there for a second, stunned, his ears ringing. He shook his head once as he tried to clear his vision. Struggling to push himself up higher with his elbows digging into the hay behind him, Heath heard the man’s next words as if from far away.

“Just don’t you tie in Korby Kyles with no knife, no alley, no killing,” Jake demanded.

Fighting the pain in his ribs and breathing shallowly, Heath asserted, “I caught Korby . . . red-handed.”

Alan leaned in and threatened, “You’re wrong, Mister. Maybe dead wrong.”

His lead was followed by Emmet, his nasty smile discernible in his eyes, despite the bandana covering his mouth, who said, “You don’t wanna get your family into trouble, do you?”

Jake’s eyes bore into Heath’s as he snarled, “If it takes burning out that fancy house or if it needs killing cows, it’ll be done.”

Hearing enough, and knowing they wouldn’t finish until he either capitulated, which he had no intention of doing, or was beaten into the ground, Heath was determined to give them something to think about the next time the three of them decided to team up and attack an unarmed man. He watched for an opening, keeping his eyes on the shotgun, which was again pointed at his chest.

Alan spoke up, pulling Jake’s eyes toward his tallest son for a few seconds, “And that prissy sister of yours, she could easy end up on a boat to China, and it’s a long, long way back.”

Gathering himself, Heath lashed out with his boot, kicking the shotgun away and, quickly pushing off of the hay behind him, he rushed the three of them. Wishing his kick had caused the weapon to discharge loudly, but harmlessly, offering him the chance that someone would hear, Heath used his momentum to push all three of them backwards. They crashed forcefully into the opposite wall where Nick had been stacking feed bags just a little while before. Then, without slowing, Heath turned and hit Emmet on the back of the head with his fist, knocking him to the ground.

Immediately, his advantage of surprise and speed now gone, Heath was knocked to all-fours by a crushing blow from Alan’s fist behind him. Then, Alan, the tallest and most physically capable of all the Kyles men, hauled Heath roughly to his feet.

Emmet, secretly delighted that the bastard had fought back and had given them an opportunity to lay into him even more viciously than they had originally planned, hollered gleefully to his brother, “Bust him!”

Not needing his brother to goad him into applying his brute strength to the situation, Alan hit Heath in the face with his fist before the blond, his vision blurred, could see the blow coming. In pain and off balance, Heath felt himself propelled backwards by the raw power.

Laughing, Emmet caught him and pushed him back toward his brother, yelling, “Hit him again, Alan!”

Raring back with his fist, Alan hit Heath in the face again, knocking him toward the closed double doors, where Heath hit his head against the wood and almost bounced off, unable to stop his fall.

His head felt like a piece of metal held firmly against an anvil, being pounded by a relentless hammer. Worse, he could hardly breathe, as his ribs protested each movement. He felt like a red-hot poker was stabbing into him, spearing him with its heat.

With a look and a nod from their father, the two brothers grabbed Heath up, one on each side, and used their fists to keep his back pressed up against the double doors. Though Emmet’s punches concentrated on his jaw, each of Alan’s blows landed squarely into his gut. Prevented from catching his breath, all he could do was tighten his muscles and endure the blows, the darkness of the night outside beginning to creep inside, pushing against the edges of his vision.

Then, as if they had been waiting for an unseen signal, they stopped.

Emmet, standing on one side of him, held onto Heath’s shirt collar and his left arm, while Alan, on the other, used one hand, wrapped in the fabric of Heath’s blue shirt, to keep his victim jacked up against the doors. As Jake approached, Alan laced the fingers of his other hand through Heath’s sweat-drenched hair and slammed his head up against the doors, sending sparks, like fire jumping from the embers in the forge, flashing through Heath’s skull.

His eyes were barely open, and his breathing was coming in ragged bursts, as he fought to stay conscious. As Jake approached, the cool end of the glowing hot branding iron held firmly in his hand, Heath felt a sliver of fear stab into his gut, trying to insinuate itself around the sharp, burning pain that centered on the ribs on his right side. He clamped down on it, concentrating on pushing the fear, and the pain, back.

Heath’s narrowed eyes glared dangerously at Jake Kyles, the disgust he held for the man’s attempts to viciously force the outcome of his son’s trial in the direction he chose, evident in his icy stare. Struggling for one good breath, he focused on maintaining his determined defiance, even in the face of whatever the enraged, older man had in mind.

As Jake lifted the glowing iron with the crossed Barkley B to Heath’s eye level, the blond had a fleeting moment in which he heard Victoria Barkley’s voice in his head, “.......Live as he would live, fight as he would fight, and no one, no one, can deny you his birthright.”

Though uncertain about what Jake was about to do, uncertain about whether he would even survive if the man plunged the scalding branding iron straight into his chest and held it there, Heath stared into Jake Kyle’s furious eyes. He knew that even if he died here tonight, he had lived and fought, for the last 24 years, as she had outlined to him those two months ago.

Heath had never told her, but her heartfelt words, meant to instill the pride of the father in the son who had never known him, had had just as much of the reverse impact on him.

Her words had convinced him to stay. They had assured him that he was finally in the place where he wanted to live, . . . and to die, by convincing him, a young man with his own fierce pride, that he could take equal pride in the man who had sired him and in the family the man had founded.

Eyes still glaring at Jake defiantly, Heath suddenly realized this old man in front of him was a father of a different caliber altogether from his own. That thought alone helped him fight off the threatening blackness just a little longer, and he lifted his chin another notch.

Then, each of them glaring at the other, each of them maintaining his own, seething, separate silence, Heath watched as Jake plunged the red-hot iron into the frame of the door, searing the wood beside his head.

Though his blue, pain-filled eyes never left Jake’s face, Heath felt the heat from the iron, smelled the acrid burning of the wood, heard its hiss as it sunk into the surface, and saw the curls of smoke wafting up from the damaged door.

Releasing it finally, Jake’s eyes smiled over the top of his bandana, and he leaned toward Heath, shaking the still smoldering iron in his face, “You better listen now, . . . you get it right. You testify the wrong way, Boy, and we’ll come back and put this brand so it’ll mark you for life----and believe me, no one will think it stands for Barkley, neither!”

Then, Alan and Emmet released him abruptly, shoving him hard, back against the wood. Unable to stop himself, Heath began a slow, torturous slide down the doors toward the ground. Turning to walk away from him, Emmet paused, reached out, and shoved him again, pushing him down the rest of the way.

“Bastard,” he muttered gleefully as he gave Heath a brutal kick in the ribs. Then, he stepped over the long legs stretched out before him.

Heath, his eyes closing even before this last assault, finally gave into the darkness that had been lurking just beyond his vision. His body slumped against the wall, and his head drooped down toward his battered chest.

The three laughed among themselves, the boys clapping their father on the back as they headed toward the other door.

“You sure gave it to the bastard, Pa!” Emmet said. “You did us proud, Old Man.”

Alan paused before stepping through the doorway and pumped the bellows a few times, his dark, glittering eyes lighting up at the possibilities. “Why wait, Pa? Let’s burn ‘em out right now!”

“No, we’ve gotta get back. They won’t worry much about what we done to him, but if we burn the place out, the whole valley could come down on us. There’ll be time enough for that if they get closer to finding Korby guilty.”

Chapter 3

With a gasp of fear at not knowing exactly what Nick had seen, Victoria followed him out into the dark, lifting the hem of her pink silk dressing gown as she ran.

Nick’s heart pounded in his chest, his fear climbing, as he approached the unmoving body that he knew must be that of his brother.

“Heath!” Nick yelled, as he charged toward the smithy.

As he had left the house, he had seen Heath standing outside the open doorway, silhouetted against the bright glow of the forge behind him. The amount of light, in itself, had started an eerie feeling of alarm creeping up the back of Nick’s neck. He hadn’t known this new brother long, but he had seen enough of his careful ways to be sure that Heath would never just walk away and leave the forge when it was still that hotly stoked.

Then, in the blink of an eye, he had seen Heath stagger one step forward awkwardly, and, as if his legs would no longer support him, he had sagged to his knees, then, crumpled sideways to the ground.

Approaching him now, Nick could already see the beginnings of bruising on his brother’s face, heightened by the flickering of the fire in the forge beyond and blending with the shadows surrounding him.

Dropping to his knees, Nick scooped up the blond head in his arms and leaned over him, cradling him to his chest and shaking him gently.

“Heath. Heath!”

When there was no response, Nick glanced up into the worried eyes of his mother, who was dropping to her knees, across from him in the dirt. Without a word, she began checking Heath to make sure he was breathing, that his heart was still beating.

Then, with a nod at Nick that allowed him to catch his own breath in his throat, she began searching for broken bones.

“Nicholas, Sweetheart, check his head. See if you can find a gash or any swelling.”

Gently, but firmly, she ran her hands over Heath’s arms and legs, then moved back up to his neck to work her way down to his waist, feeling through his shirt. She paused when she reached the lower section of his ribcage. There was no mistaking the slight movement of several of his ribs on the right side. It was akin to pushing on the surface of one of Silas’ sponge cakes taken fresh from the oven.

Swiftly, she began to unbutton Heath’s torn blue shirt, its top buttons already open and its collar all askew from the ordeal he had obviously endured. Opening it from the collar down to the top of his belt, she carefully tugged the shirttails from his tan jeans, unbuttoned the remaining two buttons, and pushed its edges, as well as the open buckskin vest, back so she see more of the damage.

“Mother,” Nick said quietly, watching intently as she worked, “He’s got some swelling and bleeding back here, but he’s probably had worse.”

She nodded again in acknowledgement, but she never took her eyes, nor her hands, off of the discoloration now visible across Heath’s abdomen and lower chest.

“Nick,” she started. Then, she paused to take a deep breath and push it back out through her nose as she fought to press the worry back down long enough to keep it from her voice.

“Nick, go get a few of the men, and send someone for Doc Merar. I’m pretty sure he has some broken ribs, and we’re going to need some help with him.”

Lifting his eyes from his brother’s face to look around the darkened corral area for the first time since he had dropped to his knees at Heath’s side, Nick shook his head at her.

“No, Mother. Whoever did this might still be out here somewhere. I’m not going to leave you here alone.”

“Nicholas, I’m not going to argue with you. Now go get some help for your brother!”

His eyes leaving her face, he looked back down at the unconscious Heath, still held fast in his arms. Nick closed his eyes for a second, hauling in a deep breath. Then, opening them, he gently ran his fingers through the blond hair, before reluctantly lowering Heath to the ground. He quickly stripped off his own grey shirt, folded it, and carefully placed it under Heath’s head.

Standing, he reached down, pulling his mother to her feet. She looked at him questioningly as she rose, protesting, her eyes growing wide. “Nick? No! I’m not going to. . . .”

Quickly, Nick turned her around with her hand still in his, and silently stepped inside the smithy, pulling her with him. He glanced around, searching for a weapon of some kind, and spying the hammer lying on the hay-strewn ground, released her hand as he walked over and bent down to retrieve it.

Then, silently, he returned to her side, took her hand, and took a step over toward the forge. Satisfied that the fire would not cause any damage, he turned to lead her to the door. But, immediately, he stopped, aware that she was resisting, that she had not turned with him.

Instead, she was staring behind him, across the small space.

“Mother?” he asked gruffly, “Please don’t argue with me. We’ve got to go rouse some of the men, and we have to go together.”

When she didn’t answer, and her gaze didn’t waver, Nick turned, then, and followed her eyes, searching for what could be so important as to slow them down any more in getting Heath the help he needed.

But, suddenly, he too froze, his hazel eyes glued to the sight of the Barkley brand burned into the closed, blood-smeared double doors across from them.

Narrowing his gaze, Nick strode over and snatched up the branding iron from where it lay on the ground inside the doors. Then, in a dangerously low voice, he snarled, “When I get my hands on the Kyles, one or all of them, that did this to my brother, I’m gonna make them wish they’d never been born. . . or that they’d already died!”

Victoria felt physically sick. She was more than positive the crossed-capital letter B had not been used without making clear its taunting similarity to both Heath’s new name and the foul, vicious word she knew he had been called for much of his life.

Tearing her gaze away from the marred wood, she looked at Nick, tears making her grey eyes look silvery in the firelight. Then, she leaned down and grabbed the iron from Nick’s hand and, gripping it tightly, shook it once before turning and setting it down across the top of the anvil, her hand trembling with ire.

She, like Nick, remembered Jake Kyles’ words from their dining room a few mornings ago, and her voice was laced with barely controlled anger as she took Nick by the arm and said tightly, “Nick, as much as I want to agree with you, we both know. . . . you, of all people, know, . . . Heath wouldn’t want that. Just, . . . just leave it alone right now.”

Then, she took a deep breath and added, “Just leave it alone, because, right now, right this minute, the only important thing is taking care of him.”

Nodding with a low growl, Nick glanced over at the dying embers of the forge one more time, and led her quickly from the enclosed space.

Then, looking over at the still figure of his battered blond brother, Nick swallowed his loathing at leaving him lying there alone in the dark, and he turned Victoria toward the bunkhouse beyond the two closest corrals. As they trotted silently side-by-side, one of his strong hands resting supportively at her back, the other hefting the heavy hammer in readiness, Nick’s hazel eyes warily watched for more trouble, lurking in the shadows.

If those jackals ventured out here again, they would have him to contend with!

* * * * * * * *

Ignoring her son’s concerns for her safety, Victoria turned back toward the smithy. Nick had just released her arm to run up the steps of the bunkhouse and rouse Duke McCall from his bed. She knew he would worry, but she wasn’t going to just stand here and do nothing when Heath needed her. Besides, entering the bunkhouse was something she never did anyway, knowing her presence there would only make their hands exceedingly uncomfortable.

Carrying two folded blankets, Nick came charging back down the steps at a run and caught up with her quickly. He shook his head in admiration at her stubbornness and said, “Duke’ll send someone for the doc and to get Jarrod. Then, he’ll be along in a minute with a couple of men to help me get Heath inside.”

She nodded as they retraced their steps, her attention on getting back to the young man they had had to leave where he lay outside the smithy.

Then, rounding the corner of the building a few minutes later, she was both overjoyed and dismayed to see that Heath was conscious, but trying his best to get his feet under him.

“Heath!” she called, as Nick flew past her to reach his brother, who was down on his knees in the dirt.

Heath was sitting on his heels with one hand supporting himself, fingers digging into his thigh, and the other holding onto his ribs. Nick felt the knife of worry twist inside his gut again when he realized Heath’s head was down, and he had not glanced up at their approach.

They could both see that he was shivering.

In his last two strides, Nick had tossed one blanket to the ground and handed the other to his mother. He dropped to his knees to support his brother.

“Easy there, Boy,” Nick said in Heath’s ear from behind him as he held him up against his chest, “We’re gonna get you inside. Then, you can rest, you hear me?”

He saw a slight nod and heard the reply, punctuated by harsh breathing, “Hear ya’, . . . Nick. . . . Can’t . . . hardly. . . not.”

Though he wanted to grin at his brother’s comment, he asked soberly, “Heath, was it Jake Kyles?”

Immediately, Victoria moved in on Heath’s right, adjusting the skirt of her dressing gown as she dropped gracefully to her knees beside him.

He nodded in answer to Nick’s question, his eyes still closed.

Her grey eyes met Nick’s.

Then, she quickly placed her hands on his shoulder and said, “No, Heath!” as she realized he was trying again to get to his feet. “Don’t try to get up. Some of the men are coming to help us get you to the house.”

“Can. . . make it,” Heath muttered, through clenched teeth, as he brought his left foot up under himself and pushed off of his thigh with his other hand. They heard the hiss of his breath as he did so, but Nick moved in, ducking under Heath’s left arm, and, grabbing hold of his wrist, used Heath’s upward momentum to assist him in standing the rest of the way, instead of fighting to hold him down.

Undecided about allowing him to walk to the house, Victoria quickly unfolded the dark blanket and wrapped it around Heath’s shoulders. Then, she looked at Nick. “Maybe we’d better wait for Duke, Nick.”

But, he shook his head and said, “Mother, I think he’s going now, whether we help him or not. It’d be better if I helped him.”

“Alright, Nick,” she nodded, worry still evident in her voice and expression.

“C’mon, Little Brother,” he said, turning Heath toward the house. After taking several steps, and confident they could make it this way, Nick added, “Haven’t had to do this since you had a few too many at Piper’s a month or so back, and I had to . . . .”

“Ni-i-ck!” Heath retorted, trying half-heartedly to pull away.

“Okay, okay,” Nick laughed softly, “I won’t tell it now. It’s not exactly a story for polite company, is it? C’mon. Let’s get you inside.”

Victoria couldn’t help her relieved smile as she listened to the two of them. She walked on Heath’s other side, holding the blanket close around him and clinging to the right arm he held tightly against his ribs.

Duke McCall, their foreman, caught up and passed them, holding open the side door to the house. When Heath’s steps faltered as Nick tried to pull him through the doorway sideways, Duke carefully eased Heath’s right arm from Victoria’s grasp and raised it to place it across his own shoulders.

The single, gasping groan of pain that the movement extracted from Heath told them all just how much the beating had taken out of him.

As soon as they had cleared the doorway, Victoria followed them into the kitchen. Nick, still supporting Heath, paused and looked at the narrow back stairway and then at her. She pointed to the front of the house and the wider, lower risers of the curved grand staircase, and said, “I think the front stairs would be better.”

As the three men headed slowly in that direction, she hurried to Silas’ bedroom door at the back of the house.

Then, having roused him and asking him to awaken Audra, she headed back to follow her sons.

As she passed through the kitchen, she paused, her eyes taking in the square table in the center, its unused plates and cutlery ready for the two, equal-sized slices of apple pie that Nick had already cut, but had left, waiting, still in the pie plate. Shaking her head sadly, she wished fervently that the evening had ended with her sons sharing late-night conversation and laughter, washed down with Silas’ pie and cold milk, instead of ending in worry and pain, caused by the brutality of a father like Jake Kyles, and his sons.

Chapter 4

Exiting the doorway beneath the stairs, she expected to hear the men slowly climbing to the balcony above her. Instead, she saw Nick’s exasperated expression and Duke’s rolling eyes, as Heath, his head up, but his breathing ragged, was giving them both what-for about trying to take him upstairs.

“No, Nick. Let go’a me. . . . I’m not . . . climbin’ up there, . . . only ta get stuck. . . in a bed for days.”

With a determination neither of the men supporting him were expecting, Heath yanked his arm aggravatedly from Nick’s grasp and staggered away from both of them. He headed unsteadily toward the parlour, the two men trailing in his wake.

Duke was quiet about it, but Nick was not. “Heath! Heath, you get back here, Boy!”

“Heath Barkley!” she added, trying to slow his progress with her words, while at the same time, afraid he would collapse if he stopped. “Where do you think you’re going?”

He glanced back over his shoulder for barely an instant. Then, grasping the arm of the grey, silk-covered settee by the glowing fireplace, he turned himself around carefully and eased down into the chair with a ragged sigh, arm wrapped protectively across his waist.

As soon as he was seated, his legs stretched out in front of him and his head slumped back against the edge of the settee, he closed his eyes, too tired to answer her.

Only the touch of her hand on his bruised face a few minutes later roused him enough to crack open his eyelids.

“Sweetheart,” she said quietly, watching him, “Drink this.” She helped him lift his head to swallow a few sips of the water she had poured for him, then patted the front of his shirt where it lay open against his chest.

Seeing that his mother was not adamant about Heath going upstairs right this minute, Nick turned to Duke and nodded his thanks, watching for a moment as the tall ranch foreman touched his hat to Victoria and walked quickly across the room.

At the door, Duke stopped and, turning back, said to Nick, “I’ll let you know what we find as we check around outside.”

Again, Nick nodded at him, then, began pacing up and down in front of the fireplace.

Turning to her irritated son, she said, “Nick, help me with his boots. If he’s going to stay down here, we need to make him more comfortable.”

Nodding, Nick slammed his hands together, one fist into the other palm and dropped down to sit on the marble-topped table in front of Heath. “Whoa, Boy,” he said, pushing back on Heath’s chest carefully to forestall his brother’s attempts to sit up. “You just stay put.”

Smiling slightly at the stubbornness he recognized as the same that lived deep inside himself, Nick lightly tapped his open palm against Heath’s jaw on the left side, the side that was the least cut and bruised.

Then, leaning down, Nick lifted each foot, and removed the worn, tan-colored boots his brother refused to part with. Glancing at his mother sitting beside Heath on the settee, Nick pushed the boots neatly beneath the table.

Victoria looked up and saw a distraught Audra and a quiet Silas entering the room.

“Silas, would you get us some cloths and cold water? Audra, Sweetheart, sit here where Nick is and hold this cloth against his cuts while I go get the liniment.”

Standing, Nick squeezed Audra’s shoulder as she sat down in his place, her eyes widening as she got a good look at the damage to Heath’s face for the first time. Though his eyes were almost closed, she could see the line of pain etched between his eyebrows and the way he had a tight hold on his ribs with one hand. His breathing was shallow, and the blood trickling down from the cut on the side of his mouth stood out starkly against the unnatural paleness and the darkening bruises of his face.

She looked up into Nick’s eyes, the worry clearly exchanged between bright blue and hard, angry hazel.

“Stay with him, Honey,” Nick said, “I’ll be right back.” His long strides carried him purposefully from the room, and, in a few moments, he was back, running down the staircase, carrying his holster, gun, and leather vest.

Audra kept one eye on him as he made his preparations, and one eye on Heath’s still face, as she wiped at the blood, her other hand on his chest.

Nick left no doubt about his intentions as, with a vengeance, he slammed one bullet at a time into the empty slots of his gun belt. Then, he paused in his motions as they both turned, surprised, toward the front door. From Jarrod’s no-nonsense entrance, they both could tell immediately he was already aware that something had happened.

Again, Nick and Audra exchanged looks.

“What happened?” Jarrod demanded, standing beside Nick and talking to him, though his eyes were on Heath. “Who did this?”

Eyeing his angry older brother, Nick paused in buckling on his gun belt as he answered, “One guess.”

“Kyles?”

Surprisingly, Heath answered the tightly clipped question, “It was them.”

“I see.”

Nick, despite his mother’s words earlier, spat out, “Me and the boys’re gonna do a little visiting.”

Immediately, despite what Jarrod knew that they did not, despite the way this situation served to deepen his worry and add another layer of agony to that already draped across his heart, Jarrod responded forcefully.

“Nick! You know better than to play vigilante!”

His anger rising, Nick growled with frustration, “In this case, I wish I didn’t!” He walked away a few paces and stood, facing away from Jarrod, slapping his black leather gloves, held in one hand, against his leg.

Satisfied that Nick would hold off, if only for now, Jarrod gave his back a steady look, then turned quickly around to Heath. Then, though he held himself in check and remained standing apart from his injured brother, he ground out, “What did they say?”

Heath moved his head away from the cloth Audra held carefully against the torn corner of his mouth. He opened his barely cracked blue eyes a little wider and gazed up at Jarrod. Quietly, with labored breathing, he said, “They . . . threatened the whole family, . . . if I testify against Korby.”

Jarrod glanced to his right as Victoria Barkley swept back into the room, her bottle of well-used liniment in hand. In the raised lamplight and cheerful glint from the fire flickering in the hearth, the bright blue of the thin, transparent liquid stood out in vivid contrast to the brilliant pink of her silk dressing gown. The folds of crisp material rustled across the corner of the grey settee when she crossed in front of Audra, and she seated herself swiftly, gracefully, but without any worry for the fine fabric as it settled against Heath’s filthy, torn clothing.

With another twinge of worried guilt at what he was about to say, Jarrod noted with heartfelt pride that his mother’s only thought was for her newest son and for providing care for his battered condition as soon as possible. He watched as she placed the bottle on the table next to his sister.

Heath, wincing as her fingers gently probed the discolored bruises growing dark across his exposed abdomen, said adamantly, “Jarrod, . . . no one can stop me.”

The words, spoken simply, caused Nick to turn to look down at his injured brother and Jarrod to grimace in unconscious reply to the sick feeling they brought to his own gut, like an internal reflection of the visible bruises on his brother’s body and the force that had put them there.

Firmly, as he tried to push away the feeling, he replied, “I know that, Heath. And, I promise you, . . . they’ll be punished.”

Nick, sure he heard something, . . . something heavy, . . . weighing upon Jarrod’s words, looked sharply at his older brother. He thought, “Of course we’ll see they’re punished. Why would he even say that as if there might be any doubt?” But, normally faster with his words than anyone else, his opportunity to question Jarrod further was interrupted by his sister’s voice.

Audra, her eyes full of hurt at what the men had done to her brother, at the thought of what Korby Kyles had done to the benefactor for the children’s orphanage, looked over her shoulder at Jarrod accusingly and said, her voice full of disdain, “And to think you were considering defending one of them!”

A soft groan from Heath escaped his tightly pressed lips as Victoria’s hands found the unnaturally soft area of his lower right ribcage. The sound instantly brought Audra’s and Nick’s attention back to Heath’s sweat-streaked, bruised face and his tightly closed eyes.

But, Jarrod, blinking hard, and steeling himself for the reaction he knew was coming, further distanced himself from them all by stepping away, over toward the mantle. Leaning upon it, one hand gripping the cool grey marble, he turned his eyes toward the crackling fire in the grate.

In the silence that followed, Victoria reached out to retrieve the bottle of liniment, opened it, and poured some of the acerbic substance onto a cloth. Then, when she used it to cleanse several of the open wounds on Heath’s face, Jarrod watched for a few moments, wincing for the burning pain he knew she was causing his now silent brother.

When she paused to re-soak the cloth, he spoke up woodenly, “Korby is not responsible for what his family does.”

Still no one turned to look at him, no one challenged his words, as the ladies continued their ministrations and Nick stood watching them.

Glancing over at the four of them, and in as much pain as his brother, though Jarrod’s was of a different origin, he looked back down at the fire. With great reluctance, his face still averted, he added, “ . . . I’m taking the case.”

This time, their reaction was immediate and forceful.

“You can’t!” Audra cried, whirling her furious face around to stare up into his eyes.

“No!” Nick snarled simultaneously, slamming one hand into the palm of the other, as he glared at Jarrod.

With a small gasp, Victoria’s hands paused, and she looked up at him with an increasingly worried face and asked, “I thought Matt Cooper. . . ?”

Jarrod ignored the others, but looked deeply into her grey eyes, willing her to understand, willing her to know that he had kept his promise to carefully consider all the possible ramifications before making this decision.

Quietly, sadly, he asked, “He was, but what chance does a man have when his own lawyer is convinced he’s guilty?” Then, after looking over into Heath’s bruised face, the blue eyes almost closed in exhaustion, he turned once more to stare down into the fire, and he added, “I have no choice.”

In disgust, Nick turned away and stormed out of the room, heading outside to wait for the arrival of the doctor. He slammed the heavy oak door loudly behind him, leaving no one in any doubt as to his feelings about this turn of events.

Audra, turning her eyes first back to Heath’s face, then to look at her mother, suddenly reached out and gripped the fabric of Heath’s blue shirt, as she fought with her own growing anger. Then, leaning down to kiss Heath’s face gently, she slipped her fingers over her mother’s hand where it lay across the soft brown leather of Heath’s vest. Giving the chilled fingers a hard squeeze, she rose from her seat on the round marble-topped table and closed the short distance separating herself from her oldest brother.

Jarrod glanced up at her face as she approached, her beauty not diminished by the disappointment and determination he saw there. Then, his eyebrows rose in an anguish he could not express, when she reached down and took his hand in hers, turned it over, then placed the white cloth, splotched with Heath’s blood, in his palm.

Pressing it into his hand and tugging slightly on his arm, she started him walking in the direction from which she had just come. Then, releasing him and leaving him standing there, awkwardly, in front of the low table, she looked up into his hurt blue eyes and said, “Jarrod, . . . you come over here, and you sit by Heath, and you . . . . “

Then, trailing off and taking a deep breath, she added, “I understand that you don’t think you have any choice. But, I will never, . . . NEVER understand why you think that gives you the right to hurt this family and thirty-four children, when we, . . . when they, . . . will have no choice but to endure this decision with you!”

Jarrod was hurt beyond words at her reproach, and he remained silent, looking down at her, then at the cloth she still pressed into his hand.

Then, gripping his arm tightly, her love for him warring with her own hurt and the tears brimming in her eyes that she wanted none of them to see, she turned on her heel and practically ran from the room.

Victoria’s grey eyes, moist with tears, searched Jarrod’s shocked face for a moment. Then, after he silently lowered his tall frame down to sit on top of the table near her, she reached out to touch his arm.

“Jarrod,” she said soothingly, “She’s just upset. Give her a little time, Sweetheart.”

He nodded numbly, his eyes reflecting the pain he felt inside at the strife his decision had already caused. He had imagined his announcement would not be easy, but somehow the events of the evening made it all that much harder.

He met her eyes for a moment. Then, he looked down at Heath’s face. His new brother’s eyes were closed, but Jarrod could tell from his breathing he was awake, and judging from the deep crevice between his eyebrows, he was in a great deal of pain.

Neither he nor his mother was sure that Heath had even heard the exchange that had just occurred.

After a moment, Jarrod seemed to shake himself mentally, and drawing in a deep breath through his nose, gave his full attention to his brother. He looked down at the cloth still in his hand and lifted it to wipe at the blood that had renewed its slow trickle from one side of Heath’s mouth.

“Heath?” he asked quietly. However, when he received no response, he looked worriedly up at Victoria.

“Mother, do you think he’s alright?”

Shaking her head in concern, she said, “I don’t know, Jarrod.” Taking his hand, she placed it over part of Heath’s abdomen on his right side and said, “I’m afraid he has several broken ribs. I only hope they haven’t caused more damage inside.”

Jarrod pushed gently, probing the area she had indicated, feeling the softness, the give in the ribcage that shouldn’t have been there.

Heath didn’t make a sound, nor did he try to move away from the contact.

Jarrod nodded worriedly and said, “I passed Luke headed into Stockton to get the doctor, and he told me what happened. I’ll leave it to Doc Merar to make a diagnosis, but I’m afraid you’re right, Mother.”

He paused and added, “I don’t think he’s still conscious. If he were, we couldn’t do this without getting a reaction from him. Why is he down here instead of upstairs in bed, anyway? Do I need to go get some of the men to help us move him?”

Shaking her head, she said, “We already tried that. He’s down here because he’s too stubborn for his own good, Jarrod, like several other Barkleys I know. He refused to go upstairs and get ‘stuck in a bed’, . . . as he put it.” This last was said with a worried smile.

Then, they both smiled slightly when they heard Heath’s soft, slurred voice respond, “. . . ‘s a workin’ ranch. . . . “

Jarrod let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. He glanced over at his mother and reached out to squeeze her hand still resting on his arm. They both smiled at each other, and Jarrod chuckled softly.

“Little Brother, given a little more time for it to stare us in the face, I have a feeling your stubbornness is going to rival even that of Nick Barkley.”

Then, he said, shaking his head, “Maybe I’d better get Nick so we can carry this young man upstairs, Lovely Lady. Both of my stubborn brothers may want to refuse my request---no doubt, Nick doesn’t even want to set eyes on me right not, but I think he will comply when I explain that it’s best for Heath. . . .”

Glancing at her with a twinkle in his eye, he finished, “And, if Brother Heath expects to get back to work around here anytime soon, he’d better do as Pappy says. Otherwise, he’d better know that I can find ways to detain him on the witness stand indefinitely, come Monday.”

Looking at Jarrod, and noticing Heath’s very faint lop-sided smile, his blue eyes cracked open slightly, she nodded silently.

Just as he moved to stand, they were both surprised to hear Heath’s quiet drawl, “. . . ‘Be ready . . . for ya’, . . . Couns’lor.”

Silently, Jarrod reached out to grasp Heath’s shoulder for a few seconds. Then, he rose from his seat on the table and crossed the room toward the front door, his long legs carrying him with purpose visible in each stride.

As she watched, her eyes filled with sorrowful compassion for her firstborn son and the predicament in which he had found himself.

In this situation, Jarrod was now firmly trapped between his own principles and his own family-----as trapped as Korby Kyles sitting right this very minute in a Stockton jail cell, almost as much a victim of this crime as the venerable Colonel Ashby, and as completely innocent in it all as the battered blond brother he would soon have to attempt to discredit.

Chapter 5

Jarrod stood looking out of the polished glass window of his office, staring out into the bustling street of the growing town without really seeing it. His hands were clenched across the high back of his burgundy leather desk chair, that was turned around backwards and facing away from him.

The gilt letters of his name, proclaiming his personal pride in his law practice, were etched across the window, each word reversed from his perspective, as he looked out from inside.

Nodding slightly, he acknowledged that that was exactly how he had felt for over a week------ turned inside out. Everything was a reversal of the way it should be.

He should be searching for Colonel Ashby’s killer, not about to defend the only suspect, a man that, though despised by half of the community, Jarrod was convinced was innocent. He should be touting the famous Colonel’s philanthropy, not about to destroy his good name forever. He should be supporting his new brother, as Heath worked to gain the respect of his neighbors, not about to trample his brother’s fledgling reputation into the boards of the courtroom floor beneath his feet---a reputation already negatively established in the opinions of some, just by virtue, or lack thereof, of his birth.

Shaking his head, Jarrod sighed and gathered his resolve at the same moment he reached down and straightened his notes, sliding the latter into his leather briefcase. It had been a rough time for them all, especially for Heath---beginning at the moment the colonel had been stabbed to death, and Heath had chased a man through the darkness outside the train depot. The weekend since had been even tougher on his brother, with the furious beating he had endured at the hands of Jake Kyles and his sons on Saturday night, and today, . . . well, today was coming too soon for both of them.

With only one day in between the brutal beating and the trial to start today, on Monday morning, Heath had had very little healing time. He still moved very stiffly, and his mother had been deeply worried last night that today would be more than just a contest of wills, of questions and answers between the two of them, but would also become a physical challenge that Heath should not be asked to endure.

But, Heath had been adamant that he was all right, that he wanted to get this done, and that the prosecutor, Mr. Aaron Green, should not ask for a postponement on his account. Despite her misgivings, especially in view of the fact that Doctor Merar had been away from Stockton on a much-deserved trip to visit his daughter’s family and had not yet returned to examine Heath’s injuries, she had relented.

It seemed best for everyone to get this ordeal over with, to put it behind them all as soon as possible.

Pulling out his pocket watch, Jarrod noted that he still had a few more minutes before he had to head over to the courthouse just down the block. Snapping it shut, he wrapped his hand around it and closed his eyes. The watch had been his father’s, given to him by his wife, Victoria, and it had always brought Jarrod great comfort. Clasping his hand around it, he always thought of his father’s face and the way Tom Barkley had obviously cherished it whenever he used it. Because of moments like that over the years, Jarrod knew how deeply his father had loved his mother, though they had always been fairly undemonstrative and very subtle about their displays of affection in front of the children growing up.

His eyes still closed, Jarrod then thought of Heath. The quiet young man reminded him so much of his father, the resemblance was sometimes painful. It wasn’t so much his face, though the expressive, pale blue eyes were definitely those of Tom Barkley, but it was also little things------like his walk, his stubborn determination, quietly expressed in a steely blue stare, and his smile, that lop-sided grin often accompanied by one raised eyebrow.

“His smile isn’t always the same, though,” Jarrod reflected to himself. “Often, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, like Father’s always did. It’s as if the space in between holds memories too bitter, too painful, to breach.”

Taking a deep breath, he recalled his mother’s recent words, spoken before they knew Jarrod was going to be defending Kyles, but when both had known it was a distinct possibility.

They had been in this room, sitting right here discussing the situation, when they had had the conversation.

“Jarrod, from the day Heath came to us, he’s had to prove to the people in this valley that he’s the equal of anyone, that his word counts no less than that of any other Barkley.”

“Oh, Mother, don’t you think I’ve thought about that. You know I don’t want to hurt Heath. But, he’s told me that he doesn’t want to influence my decision either.”

She had looked at him with sadness, and compassion for both of them, and had quietly pointed out, “Nevertheless, you will hurt him.”

He had known she was right. He had known she was, despite the fact that Heath had told him, had let him know three times now, that he did not expect Jarrod to alter his decision in any way because he was a witness.

By the very act of trying to defend Korby Kyles from the charges bolstered by what Heath, as the prime witness, had to say, he would hurt his brother.

In fact, the defense he would provide today, would hurt them all, along with the Colonel’s widow and everyone in the thriving town of Stockton who had revered him.

And, shuddering a bit, he knew the evidence he was pledged to reveal to protect his client would especially hurt his brother, would wound him deeply, not only in the eyes of the very people his mother had mentioned, but probably in his own self-confidence.

And, it would hurt his sister, with her passionate defense of the children in the orphanage who had already lost so much.

Heath, in particular, had already been hurt enough, though innocently, by a member of his family. He had grown up all his life without the protection and necessities that his father could have provided. He, of them all, could best relate to Audra’s desire to meet the needs of the children in that orphanage, the children whose new building would have to be put off now in the loss of support from their greatest benefactor, the Colonel.

Sadly, Jarrod realized, in hurting the cause his compassionate younger sister so lovingly defended, the one to which his new brother could so easily relate, he would further wound them both.

Today he would have to expose his brother’s testimony about events that had transpired in near darkness, to the strong light of a set of conflicting facts. He would have to crush Heath’s growing sense of belonging, by bringing everyone’s doubts out into the daylight, turning the doubts about the actions of his client, to doubts about the words of his brother.

It would be one of the toughest days Jarrod had ever faced inside a courtroom. And, shaking his head, he knew the ramifications would not end with the fall of the gavel at the end of the trial.

Swallowing hard, Jarrod sadly replaced his watch, picked up his briefcase and hat, and stepped out from behind the desk to head for the courthouse. Though it was much too late for changing his mind, he knew he did not want any part of meting out this second beating that his brother was going to have to endure inside of two days, albeit a mental and emotional one, instead of another physical pounding.

Heath had a strong, natural tendency to forgive the wrongs against him. Jarrod had never had need of that tendency, had never needed to ask for that forgiveness, at least, not so far, in their relationship, but he knew it was there. It was evident in Heath’s willingness to remain with them, despite the actions of their father, and it was evident after the clashes between Heath and Nick in the early weeks of his arrival.

Shaking his head again, he hoped that, after today, he was not going to have need of Heath’s generous capacity. But, somehow, he was afraid that was merely a wishful thought on his part.

“At least,” he thought to himself as he closed the office door behind him, “I know from Nick’s confrontations with him, over Barrett, among other things, that Heath has that willingness if I ever need him to share it with me.”

Then, as he walked down the boardwalk toward the courthouse, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. With a start, he could hear his own words from two months ago echoing around inside his head, the words he had said to Heath standing in the study beneath Tom Barkley’s picture on the first night Heath had told them who he was.

“You put together a very touching story------not convincing, but touching.”

“However, considering whom it might hurt, even though it is a lie, I’m willing to pay. What will you take, $300? $400?”

His eyes closing briefly as the thought knifed through him, he wondered if, by the end of the trial, Heath would see today’s events as the second instance inside two months, in which Jarrod had stood across from him, unrelenting and adamantly vocal, in his refusal to believe his story.

* * * * * * * *

Nick stood beside the buggy and looked around the area, as he reached up to assist, first, his mother, then, his sister, as they climbed down with their customary poise. His sharp hazel eyes missed nothing of the comings and goings of the curious Stockton citizens standing around the courthouse and trying to catch a glimpse of the major characters in the drama about to unfold inside.

He looked up at Heath with a tinge of worry in his eyes.

Nick had gnashed his teeth and stomped around the study for a good hour again yesterday in frustration at the resistance from his family about taking matters into his own hands where the Kyles’ were concerned. But, though he had let them all think he had completely acquiesced, he had not let go of the concerns that underlay his anger at what had happened to his younger brother.

Instead, he had quietly asked Duke to set up rotating pairs of men who had kept an eye on the Kyles’ farm since the attack on Heath late Saturday night. And, he had placed guards around his own family, though the men had orders to stay well back, so as not to worry the ladies.

“If Jake Kyles and his sons think they’re going to harm someone in my family again,” Nick thought, hitting his hand against the side of the buggy in open-palmed promise to himself, “Then, they’re wrong, . . . dead wrong, if necessary!”

He and Heath had both talked all of this over last night, and Heath alone was aware of the guards.

But, both of them, he and Heath, were worried that today would provide more courtroom action than everyone anticipated. While they both expected a conviction, they also knew Jake Kyles would not take kindly to it.

With the threats that had been made on the family by the Kyles’ and the reluctance of the sheriff to try to press charges against the other three until this mess with Korby was straightened out, they had been especially concerned for the safety of the ladies, should violence break out today.

First, Nick had tried to talk the two of them out of coming in for the trial at all. However, both had insisted. Victoria was particularly adamant, feeling the overwhelming need to be there to support both of her sons-----the one born of her marriage and the one that was not, though she was coming to feel about him as if he had been.

Then, Nick had heard from a reluctant Jarrod this morning that, though Heath was unaware of it, Jarrod and Heath had both been threatened by Korby Kyles from his jail cell days ago, before Korby had learned of his older brother’s willingness to consider defending him.

With Nick anxious to check on the men being placed around the main areas of the ranch for protection while they were in town and, consequently, little time to really contemplate what was being said, he had tried to listen to Jarrod anyway.

Trying to explain about that day at the jail, Jarrod had told him Korby Kyles had been in rare form when he had gone in to talk to the man the first time.

“Well, I didn’t bow for your brother, and I’m not gonna bow for you, or anyone else in this coyote town. And, I’ll tell you something else, Mister. I’m gonna gnaw your hanging rope in two, and I’m gonna come and get you, and your brother, and that stinking sheriff and everybody else that’s a crowing over me right now.”

Climbing into his buggy for the separate, earlier ride into Stockton, Jarrod had asked Nick to not take any chances today where Heath was concerned.

All three brothers, as it turned out, were worried that if things went bad in the courtroom for Korby, his family would retaliate. But, Jarrod was preoccupied with the trial, Heath was still hurting, and there was only one of Nick Barkley to go around to protect them all.

Now, outside the courthouse, with the multiple threats stampeding around in his head, Nick stared into Heath’s eyes. He felt torn about whether he should accompany the ladies inside, as they had originally planned, or insist, in view of what Jarrod had told him just a little while ago, on sending Heath inside with them at the last minute.

Either way, someone was going to be vulnerable if Jake Kyles or his boys decided to play dirty.

But, breaking away from Nick’s worried stare, Heath picked up the reins and decided for him, urging the horses forward. Nick watched him go with trepidation. But, unwilling to explain why he was so concerned to his sharp-eyed mother, who was standing at the bottom step watching him, he closed his mouth and, escorting them both by the elbow, the trio climbed the courthouse steps.

Without his gun and gun belt, left behind at the house at his mother’s insistence and in deference to the sheriff’s courthouse edicts, he felt as naked as a cutting horse without a saddle, as he opened the door and helped them find a seat among the throngs of people filing inside.

For the third time, he wondered how he was going to stop anyone from carrying out a threat without his pistol in hand.

His eyes roaming the room, he spotted Jarrod deep in conversation with a dark haired man with greying temples that he did not recognize. Jarrod seemed very tense, worried.

Growling silently to himself, Nick wondered again how Jarrod could have gotten himself, and all of them, into such a dilemma. It was usually Nick, the younger, dark-headed son of Tom Barkley, that was known for getting himself into nearly impossible scrapes. Shaking his head slightly, Nick acknowledged that he and Jarrod were both pretty good with words, though where they differed was in volume, style, and degree of polish.

He just hoped that this was not one situation in which words got them into trouble, but only fists and guns could get them out.

Scanning the room again, Nick tensed when he only saw Korby Kyles and his father, Jake, standing over by the defense table. Where were the other two?

But, if he left now to check on Heath, wouldn’t he just be leaving the ladies open to some type of verbal or physical attack from the two already here?

Growling aloud this time, though the noise was swallowed up in the din of voices raised in crowded conversation all around him, he knew his first responsibility was to protect them.

Turning his eyes back to the door, however, he knew he would not relax until he saw a certain blond-haired cowboy quietly step inside.

Chapter 6

“Nicholas,” his mother cautioned quietly, turning to stare at her son on the bench behind hers, “You’re fidgeting like you used to squirm on a church pew as a seven-year old! Whatever is wrong?”

“Nothing, Mother,” Nick responded, trying unsuccessfully to lower his voice. He turned his eyes from hers, back toward the closed door to the courtroom one more time. “I’m just wondering where Heath is, is all.”

“Well, for goodness sake, Nick,” she whispered, exasperatedly, “He’s a grown man, and he was just going to the livery.”

“I know, Mother, but. . . ,” Nick trailed off, unwilling to tell her of his worries about the threats, nor about how much pain he had suspected Heath of being in earlier this morning.

He glanced around and saw the un-imprisoned Kyles brothers just making their way to their reserved seats in the front. Both wore smiles on their faces as their eyes met his. Nick stood up abruptly.

“I’ll be right back,” he said quickly, and, he placed his hand on his mother’s shoulder, where she patted it absently. Her grey eyes were watching Jarrod’s preparations at the front of the room.

Nick stood up and took two steps toward the aisle running between the rows of pew-like benches filled with now seated spectators.

Unfortunately, however, his attempts to exit were not quiet, his noisy spurs catching the attention of half the room. The bailiff, having just stood up to open the morning session, paused before calling the room to order. His attention on Nick, he frowned in irritation.

Suddenly, Nick saw the door open at the back of the room again, and, slamming both of his palms down on the back of the bench in front of him in relief, he returned to his seat and waved his brother over.

Heath, trying to slip in the back unobtrusively, found all eyes turning to him instead. Quietly, he tried to ignore the curious stares, nodded at the bailiff, and followed Nick’s lead to work his way toward the end of the bench on the third row. Jarrod, unaware of Nick’s worry, smiled and shook his head slightly in long-suffering amusement at the two of them, and turned back to face the bailiff as well.

The man called the room to order and announced, “All rise. The Superior Court of San Joaquin County is now in session with the Honorable Judge Morton P. Lansing, presiding.”

As the two of them stood side by side on the third row, Nick leaned over and tried to whisper, “What kept you?”

Heath, the bruises from the other night standing out darkly on his face, cut his eyes at him, lifted one eyebrow, and grinned that infuriating, lop-sided smile, marred only slightly by the cut on the corner of his mouth. He moved his eyes back to the front and whispered one word in answer.

“Piper.”

As the judge entered and said, “Thank you, please be seated,” Victoria half turned and cast them both a warning glance.

Nick, with his eyes wide and staring at Heath, his questions ready to spill out of him, clenched his hands on the back of the bench in front of him as he sat, struggling to keep from placing them around his aggravating brother’s neck. He all but ground his jaws together to keep from blurting out his irritation.

Piper?! What in blazes was Heath talking about?

Then, after giving everyone a chance to get settled, the judge turned to the jury of twelve men and said, “You gentlemen were sworn in last week on the nineteenth day of October. At that time, you were instructed not to discuss, nor to seek out any information about this case. Raise your hand again now if you followed those instructions.”

The spectators noted that all jurors responded affirmatively to the question.

Nodding, the judge continued, “In this case, the State of California, represented by Mr. Aaron Green, charges the defendant, Korby Kyles, represented by Mr. Jarrod Barkley, with the murder of Colonel John G. Ashby. Furthermore, the State has the burden of proof, and the charges must be proven beyond a shadow of any doubt.”

Turning slightly to his right to face the center of the room once more, the judge asked, “Mr. Barkley, how does your client wish to plea?”

Rising, Jarrod intoned, “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

Then, picking up his gavel, the judge pointed it at the man seated at the table directly in front of Victoria and Audra, “Mr. Green, you may make your opening statement.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

In the next hour, first Aaron Green, then Jarrod, outlined the case before the court, from one perspective, then the other. At the conclusion of that time, in which the jury members, the citizens watching, and the defendant, sat quietly, the judge said, “Mr. Green, you may call your first witness.”

A litany of witnesses were called, including, Jim Staley, the night clerk at the train depot, various workmen preparing Number 9 for its late night run from Stockton to San Francisco, and Robert Shaw, the undertaker who had examined the body of Colonel Ashby upon his death.

Finally, Mr. Green announced, “The State calls Mr. Heath Barkley to the stand.”

Despite a murmur that went through the watching crowd at the statement of his brother’s name, Nick kept his attention on Heath as he stood slowly, but walked calmly to the front of the courtroom, where he paused to look at Judge Lansing. He was reminded of the oath he had taken during the inquest last week, was asked to state his name, and to take the witness stand.

Nick grimaced when, again, even the quiet, firm statement of his brother’s name caused a fidgeting ripple to wash through the crowd. The judge cast a quick, chastising look toward the spectators to silence them.

The dark-headed rancher took a deep breath, suddenly very much aware of how difficult it was going to be for this newest of Barkleys to speak in front of all these people, most of them strangers to him, many of whom were as interested in getting the measure of him, as they were in seeing a Kyles convicted of the heinous crime.

Nick noticed that Jarrod turned and made eye contact with his mother, a look of concern being exchanged between them that spoke volumes about how much the worry must be weighing on both of them as well.

As Nick listened to Mr. Green question his brother, whose soft drawl somehow seemed to confidently reach even the furthest corners of the courtroom, Nick began to relax just a little. Heath appeared undaunted by the situation, and Nick was struck by the equanimity and sincerity with which his brother spoke.

“There’s so much about him that I don’t know about yet, but, . . .” Nick thought, narrowing his eyes and intently watching the blond-haired sibling he was just beginning to feel really comfortable around, “I’d swear in a court of law, he’s done this before.”

Then, smiling at his own imagery, he continued to watch intently, looking for any sign of uneasiness, hesitation, or agitation on Heath’s part.

He could see none.

Shaking his head slightly, Nick let his thoughts wander away from the endless questions and answers. He thought about how quiet his brother was throughout most days, how getting him to say anything about . . . well, anything, . . . was as exhausting as trying to pull a loaded wagon with plenty of grease on its axles, but without any horses. With most people, the words just rolled along smoothly. But, most days, getting any information out of Heath was more like dragging, than pulling.

“But,” he thought, “The boy’s a good listener, and he sure is a worker! He gets up before the sun and puts any two men to shame about how much he can get done in the daylight.”

And, as he continued to think about it, Nick recalled several instances in which the words had tumbled out of Heath, surprising them all with his vocal, sometimes angry, passion.

“Last month, he sure got a head of steam banked up about the working conditions of those miners down in Lonesome Camp, and,” Nick thought, wryly, “Once we finally got him to talk that first night in Father’s study, the words poured out of him, painting pictures as clearly as any lawyer.”

Wincing, Nick suddenly remembered the force it had taken to pry those first, wedged-in words out of his brother in the barn, and he closed his eyes briefly to separate the bruises he saw on Heath’s face now from those he had put there himself two months ago.

Drawing in a ragged breath, he blinked open his eyes and felt again the recent anger that had consumed him when Evan Miles had shot Heath several weeks back, at the way he had felt kneeling there on the ground, holding up his badly bleeding brother. Heath had really just gotten that wound healed when. . . .

Nick cut his eyes over at Jake Kyles and his sons, their dangerous stares boring into Heath on the witness stand. Nick felt again that rage he had experienced two days ago when he and his mother had found Heath lying unconscious on the ground outside the smithy.

With great effort, Nick returned his attention to his brother, still sitting at the front of the room, still patiently answering one question after another, responding calmly to the prosecutor.

Watching him, Nick found himself being mesmerized by the quiet voice and blue eyes. With a start, he realized again how much the latter reminded him of his father.

He was amazed to see how Heath focused in on the questions Mr. Green asked, looked directly at him, and patiently provided enough answer to satisfy without elaborating, allowing the prosecutor to ask the questions to draw additional information out of him as he wanted.

Having lived with and listened to a lawyer over the dinner table for years now, Nick was very aware of how unusual this particular trait was in a witness. He had heard Jarrod say many times how frustrating it could be for all concerned if the witness prattled on like Staley had done earlier today, or if the lawyer’s best efforts could only manage to draw out monosyllabic answers as with Robert Shaw a little while ago. A lawyer’s best attempts to defend or prosecute could go down like a sinking ship with a gapping hole in the side if the witness gave away too much unexpectedly or refused to part with enough information when the time came.

With Heath on the stand, however, the telling of the tale had almost a natural rhythm to it, and again, Nick was positive that his new brother had had experience with this kind of thing in the past.

Vowing to get to the bottom of this particular mystery, Nick continued to listen, wondering what Heath had been involved in that had required him to give testimony in the past. He let his eyes leave Heath’s face and drift over to the jury box. He smiled when he saw all twelve men watching his brother intently. Some were leaning forward, and others were even nodding, listening closely as he talked.

Then, abruptly, Nick brought his eyes back to Heath’s face. Something, some hesitation, had alerted him to a change in Heath’s demeanor.

He watched closely, concerned, as the judge thanked and released Heath, Mr. Green’s last witness, to return to his seat, reminding him that he could be recalled by either side, later in the trial.

Heath rose slowly from the stand, one hand planted firmly on the bar that separated him from Green, and he walked unhurriedly back through the gate and toward the bench where Nick sat.

Suddenly, Nick’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he had to fight from letting the proud, welcoming smile that had started on his face change to a concerned scowl at his brother’s approach.

Something was very wrong.

One of Heath’s hands was formed into a white-knuckled fist, and his jaw was clenched tightly. He watched as Heath eased his body down onto the bench beside him, stretched his long legs out under the bench in front, and, with his left arm now wrapped tightly across his ribs, he focused his eyes on a spot on the wall of the courtroom above and behind the judge’s head.

His concern rising, Nick reached out and gripped the back of Heath’s neck with a black- gloved hand. As he watched, feeling the tension in his brother, he saw the muscles in Heath’s jaw working and the fingers of his right hand clamping down on the thigh of his tan-clad leg, like a hawk’s crushing grip closing around its prey.

At that moment, the judge banged his gavel decisively and announced, “In view of the speedy proceedings this morning and conclusion of the prosecution’s session, I suggest we break until 1:00 this afternoon. At that time, we will hear witnesses for the defense.” His gavel fell again, and he added, “Court is in recess.”

* * * * * * * *

With much furor and hand-shaking, the spectators rose noisily and began exiting the room. Jarrod stood and, relieved of responsibility for Korby by the bailiff and sheriff, stepped over to discuss plans for lunch with his family. However, he was quick to notice that none of them were standing. Audra had turned around on her bench and his mother had moved to the bench behind her. She was sitting beside Heath, her blue-gloved hand on his left arm.

Concerned, Jarrod stepped through the low, swinging gate separating the front from the spectators, and walked around to the now empty bench behind his family.

“Nick,” he asked, trying to keep his voice down as he lowered himself to sit behind them and leaned forward, “What happened? Is he alright?”

Heath’s eyes were closed, and his bruised face had a light sheen of sweat. Nick still had a grip on the back of his neck, but he turned halfway around to Jarrod and asked, “How about getting him some water, Jarrod?”

Quickly, Jarrod stepped around to Mr. Green’s table, turned over one of the upside down glasses and poured water from the pitcher into it. Returning to his family, he offered Nick the glass.

Taking it from him, Nick said gently, “Here, Boy,” drink this.”

Opening his eyes, Heath nodded and took the glass, drinking one slow swallow at a time. Then, he nodded again at Nick and, handing back the glass, said tightly, “I’m ready, now.”

“Heath,” Victoria spoke up, “There’s no rush. Take your time, Sweetheart.”

Nodding again, he said, “I’m ready.” To illustrate his point, he reached out a hand, wrapped it around the top edge of the polished wooden back of the bench in front of him, and pulled himself up. Nick supported his arm briefly, but let go immediately, sensing that Heath was steady enough, though only out of sheer determination, and would not appreciate the assistance.

As they turned to walk toward the aisle and then out the door, Jarrod reached out to stop his mother.

“What happened, Mother? He seemed fine a few moments ago on the stand.”

“I’m not really sure, Jarrod, but, I want him to lie down for a while. I’m hoping the Cattlemen’s has a room left that we can book.”

Taking her elbow, Jarrod held the heavy courtroom door open for her. He said, “How about the couch in my office? Will that do? It’s closer.”

Brightening, Victoria replied, “That’ll do nicely, Jarrod. Thank you, Sweetheart.”

Squeezing her arm gently, Jarrod said, “Excuse me for leaving you, Lovely Lady. Let me catch up to my wayward brothers and make that suggestion.”

Victoria joined Audra, who was waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. The blond-headed beauty turned to her with concerned blue eyes and said, “Oh, Mother! Do you think Heath’s alright?”

Patting her daughter’s hand, now linked through her arm, she said, “I’m sure he’s just tired, Dear. Let’s catch up with them, shall we?”

As they entered the quiet, well-appointed office space a few moments later, Victoria quickly unpinned her hat and removed her gloves. Placing them on a side table, she sat gracefully in the chair Jarrod held beside the couch for her.

Heath was lying on his left side, facing away from the room, but she could see his hand wrapped around his right side.

Touching his hair, she could feel the dampness at the nape of his neck, and she reached around to unbutton the top of his shirt. She glanced up to see Nick offering her a damp cloth, from which he had wrung most of the water. Taking it, she reached around Heath and used it to bathe his face, neck, and what she could of his chest. Trying not to soak his shirt, knowing he would have to return to the courtroom if possible, she touched the cloth to his hairline and, then, held it against the back of his neck.

She saw him stir slightly, his face turning toward her a bit, and the fingers of his hand reach up toward her. Shifting the cloth at the back of his neck to her other hand, she reached down to clasp his hand in hers.

In his soft voice, she heard him say, “Thank you.”

“Heath, can you tell us what happened?”

He shook his head slightly and said, “Just needed ta rest, . . . is all.”

Squeezing his hand, she then let go, and touched his hair lightly. “Then, you rest right here, Sweetheart. We’ll have something for you to eat when you wake up.”

“Not hungry, . . . thanks,” he said, turning his head a little to smile lop-sidedly up at her.

Patting his shoulder, she said, “Just rest then.”

Nick leaned over him and swiped his hand through the short, blond hair. “You did good up there, Boy. I was proud for them to call you Barkley.”

Heath nodded once, still facing away from them, and replied, his words slightly halting, “Thanks, . . . Nick. . . .’Means alot.”

Nick gripped him firmly on the shoulder and stepped away, taking the glass of scotch Jarrod offered him. Then, he moved over to the window and slipped his arm around Audra’s shoulders. She turned her head slightly to acknowledge him and, then, leaned back against him, comforted by his strong presence as she gazed, unseeing, out of the window.

Victoria stood and said, “Jarrod, you must eat something before you go back inside that courtroom. Why don’t the three of you go get some lunch and bring back a couple of sandwiches for us?”

Jarrod eyed his two standing siblings. Audra, particularly, had turned and was watching him warily. “No, Mother, I have some work to do before court reconvenes at one. I’ll stay here with Heath, and I insist that the three of you go sit down and eat in the meantime.”

Seeing the hurt look in his eyes at his sister’s nonverbal rebuff, but confident that now was not the time to broach the subject, she walked back to the couch. Touching Heath’s hair lightly, she watched the soft, steady rhythm of his breathing.

Assured that he was asleep, she turned to the others and nodded, then retrieved her belongings and headed to the door quietly. Nick and Jarrod exchanged a knowing look and a quick nod, in which, despite their silence, Nick acknowledged that he would accompany and protect the ladies, while Jarrod assured that he would watch over their brother while he slept.

Then, Nick pounded Jarrod once on the shoulder as he went by, with Audra, who never looked at her oldest brother, leading the way, followed by their mother.

Smiling, Jarrod breathed a sigh of relief and crossed to the window, where he watched them exit the building and head down the boardwalk toward the closest restaurant. Turning back toward the room, he eased himself down into the squeaking chair, leaned back, and with his fingers steepled together across his chest, watched his brother sleep.

Chapter 7

After sitting there, rocking gently up and down in the black leather chair for almost thirty minutes, Jarrod stood up and crossed to the side table, empty glass in hand. As he finished pouring himself two fingers of the smooth scotch he favored, his head came up abruptly. For a moment, he stood frozen, watching Heath’s steady breathing, left hand still curled around his right side in the same manner that Jarrod’s hand was curled around his glass.

Jarrod knew that, underneath the brown leather vest and blue shirt, Heath’s ribs were tightly wrapped in white bandages, and his tanned torso was darkened with deep, purplish-black bruises. He saw again the way Heath had looked as he sat on the bench a little while ago after making his way back from the witness stand.

The memory made his throat close up and the drink suddenly very unpalatable. He remembered standing in the study at the house, pouring himself a drink as Heath entered the room to join him last week, and he remembered, in vivid detail their conversation.

“Well, you’re home early. Town lost its charm?” Heath asked.

Jarrod lifted his head at the quiet, conversational tone, nodding to him.

Heath continued, “Audra thinks you’re gonna commence a war against her.”

Jarrod responded slowly, grateful for the lack of accusation in Heath’s voice, “Audra jumps to conclusions.”

Then, as Heath picked up a glass, his voice became more serious, even more quiet, “Jarrod,” he asked, “If you knew a man was guilty, would you defend him?”

Walking over to the mantle and turning back around, troubled by the ramifications of the astute question, Jarrod answered carefully, “Only to save his life, by pleading for mercy, especially if there were extenuating circumstances.”

Like a quiet, unobtrusive, country lawyer who knew his measure had been taken and incorrectly judged, based on the drawl of his speech or the cut of his clothes, Heath surreptitiously sharpened the teeth inherent in the question, setting a trap for the unwary witness, cornering him with the quiet asking, “But, if he claimed he were innocent?”

Seeing the quicksand, the barely covered pit, in front of him, but unable to prevent himself from stepping hip deep into the middle of it, Jarrod answered, “Well, that would depend on if I could believe him or not.”

“Do you believe Korby Kyles killed Colonel Ashby?”

Sighing, Jarrod tried, too late, to evade the question, “Heath, the more everyone hangs him in advance, the more I wonder about it.”

Heath’s voice changed. No longer the self-assured country lawyer trying to question a reluctant witness, the answer caused him to switch into the voice of a defendant, trying to convince the judge of his innocence. He made a plea for his case, like, . . . like a man wanting to hear that his innocence was believed, “I saw him Jarrod. You think I made it up?”

Answering accordingly, Jarrod responded, “No, of course not.” But, even to his ears, this answer and the previous ones did not fit together.

Heath, eyes narrowed, picked up on the contradiction immediately, cutting to the chase, “But, you still think there’s a possibility Kyles didn’t do it?”

Trying to weave his way through the quagmire, Jarrod answered honestly, but carefully, “At this moment, yes. There’s a shadow of possible, but not probable doubt. Even though you sincerely believe you saw him do it.”

Lifting his chin and his eyes darkening as if a door had closed or a window had just been shuttered, Heath’s voice changed again, and he said evenly, “Alright. Then, I want to make it clear that you don’t turn him down on my account.”

Jarrod, grateful of the gift of those words at the time, continued to watch his exhausted brother sleep. He sighed, and unable to drink the fine scotch with the knife of concern stabbing into his gut the way it was, walked closer to the tweed-covered couch and sat down in the chair his mother had recently vacated.

He reached out to touch his brother’s hair, as his mother and Nick had done, but he stopped just before touching him. Hands clenched on his thighs and anxiety running high, he concentrated on those words at the end of that conversation that day, trying to compose himself.

Then, drawing out his beloved pocket watch to check the time, just as he had this morning by the window, he snapped it closed abruptly and stood up, almost knocking the chair over. Righting it quickly, Jarrod stalked back behind his desk. He sat down in his leather chair, making it squeak more loudly than he liked, and purposefully swiveled around to turn his back to the young man lying on the couch asleep.

Jarrod could feel the powerful need to reach out to Heath, could feel the almost overwhelming desire he had to learn more about this quiet, enigmatic, young man. Drawing in a deep breath, he knew he wanted nothing more than to sit here all afternoon, watching his brother sleep, or just talking with him, trying to understand the contradictions that he saw in him.

Heath had very little formal education, but possessed a sharp, focused intellect. He was capable of displaying angry, belligerent defiance, but also gentle, heart-wrenching compassion. He rarely shared his quiet, soft drawling speech, but when pushed, presented any issue with passionate, raw eloquence. And, he was incredibly courageous and full of pride, yet humble to a fault.

Closing his eyes as he faced the window, Jarrod tried to steel his heart against the fast-approaching obstacles ahead of them both this afternoon. Somehow, in just a little while, he was going to have to purposefully distance himself from this brother he was ashamed to say he barely knew, this brother he so desperately wanted to get to know better. He was going to have to separate himself, to harden his heart against Heath, in order to discredit his testimony and save another man’s life, and hopefully, to clear the way for searching for the real killer.

Again, he heard his mother’s words echoing in his head.

“Nonetheless, you will hurt him.”

“Yes,” Jarrod nodded, chastising himself silently, “In just a little while, you’re going to have to wake up this young man that, despite his battered condition, is going to have to return to that courtroom. Then, you’re going to have to call him to the stand and, in front of the whole town, which is full of folks who will take any excuse possible to look down on him, you’re going to have to force him to admit that he didn’t really see what he has said publicly again and again in the last week that he thinks he did see.”

Then, aloud, very softly, he repeated, “Yes, Mother, you were right. I will hurt him, and in the process of doing so, I’ll be hurting myself just as much.”

Turning back to face Heath, he wished his brother would awaken so he could ask his forgiveness now, up front, before the ordeal in front of them both began in earnest.

* * * * * * * *

Nick eased open the finely crafted door with the brass handle, poking his head inside to look around. Then, seeing no movement, he opened it widely and entered with a brightly-checkered, red and white covered basket in his other hand. Followed by the two softly chattering ladies, resplendent in their respective royal blue and red dresses in a practical, but elegant style, he crossed the floor to the large, mahogany desk almost in the center of the room.

Slowly, Jarrod swiveled his high-backed leather chair around to face them.

Victoria stopped speaking to Audra in mid-sentence, and put her blue-gloved hand to her mouth. “Jarrod?” she said hesitantly. “Jarrod, Sweetheart, are you alright?”

She rushed around to the other side of the desk and knelt in front of him, placing both of her hands over his as they rested on his knees.

“Yes, Mother,” he replied gently, turning his hands over and squeezing hers. “I’m fine, really. I just can’t quite get myself together for what I’m going to have to do in the next little while.”

Shaking his head, he looked into her glittering grey eyes, her sad, compassionate face letting him know she understood some of what he was going through. He pulled her to her feet as he rose to stand in front of her. He engulfed her in a warm hug, as she placed her cheek against his broad chest. Then, leaning back, away from him, she patted his crisp white shirtfront, and said, “Oh, Sweetheart, I wish with all my heart that you, neither of you, had to go through this.”

He nodded, unable to add any more words, knowing that she really did understand part of his heartache. His eyes moved across the room to take in the hurt blue of his sister’s expression. Releasing his mother gently, he stepped around her and, grasping Nick’s shoulder tightly as he passed by him, where he now sat keeping watch over their sleeping brother, Jarrod reached out to take Audra carefully by both arms.

Holding her gently, as if she were made of porcelain and might shatter, he looked down at her averted face. Then, he released one of her arms and raised his hand to lift her chin with his index finger. With emotion choking his voice, knowing he was aware of information he could not share with her, with any of them yet, he said, “Honey, why don’t you wait here this afternoon? This is going to be as tough for you to hear as it’s going to be for me to bring it out in the open.”

She shook her head, trying to fight the tears that threatened. She said, simply, “No, Jarrod. I need to be there. For Heath, for Mother, Nick, the children, and . . . and for you. I have to be there.”

He swallowed hard and nodded at her, before he crushed her to his chest, and touched the side of her face. “I love you, Audra. And, I promise you, when this is over, those children will have their new orphanage.”

When he felt her nod her head against him, he pulled her away from him and looked back down into her face. “Please, Honey, I want you to do something for me. I want you to hold onto this while court is in session this afternoon. And, as you hold it for me, I want you to remember that I love you, love this family, . . . no matter what you hear me say or see me do.”

He pulled out their father’s watch, lifted her hand, and placed it in her palm, closing her fingers around it.

As she looked down at what he was offering her, shame washed over her. She remembered her angry words to him on Saturday night, as she had used much the same motions, but very different words, to press the cloth with Heath’s blood on it into the palm of his hand.

Unable to say anything, she reached out for him and hugged him to her again. He patted her back in comfort, glad, . . . very glad, of the teardrops soaking the front of his shirt.

When she leaned away, he reached down to lift her chin again, and touched the tip of her nose with his finger as he smiled at her.

She smiled back.

Then, taking a deep breath, he collected his hat from the rack by the door and turned back to the somber room.

“Jarrod, you have a few more minutes. Please eat something before you go,” his mother suggested.

“No, thank you, Lovely Lady,” he said, “I have no appetite at the moment. I just want to get this over and done with.”

Stepping over toward Nick, he said, “Do you think you can manage with Heath? Or do you want me to stay to help you?”

Worriedly, Nick looked down at their blond-headed brother. “I honestly don’t know what kind of shape he’ll be in when we wake him, Jarrod. But, blast Jake Kyles’ and his rascally sons, if I can’t get him there by myself, he has no business trying to get up on that stand again today!”

Nodding, Jarrod agreed, “If he’s too . . . .”

Trailing off, he saw Heath’s head move and his hand clench and unclench a couple of times. “Nick,” he gestured, pointing with his hat, “I think he’s awake, now.”

“Well, well. Boy, I swear, if you don’t quit taking naps in the middle of the day, I’m going to have to quit calling you Boy, and start calling you Old Man!”

“Nicholas!” Victoria said, trying to stop more of the “I swears” before they gathered momentum.

“Uh-h-h, sorry, Mother,” he said, grinning, as he caught Heath’s arm and carefully assisted him into sitting up and turning around, until both boots rested squarely on the shining wood floor of Jarrod’s office. Gripping his shoulder tightly, then, he asked, “How d’ya’ feel, Boy?”

“Don’t know . . . yet, Nick,” Heath returned quietly. “Some of us aren’t . . . as good at mornings . . . as you are.”

“Mornings?!” Nick yelled, gesturing with his hands, “Boy, don’t you know that it’s afternoon? And, anyway, I’m not especially good at. . . ,” he trailed off, realizing that Heath was just joshing him. . . . again.

Seeing Heath’s lop-sided grin, Jarrod leaned down and gripped his youngest brother’s shoulder tightly. “Heath, I could say that if you have your wits about you enough to best Brother Nick, here, you’re awake enough to make it back to the courtroom. But, I really don’t think that was much of a challenge for you, so. . . “

“Hey! Wait a minute!” Nick bellowed like a calf in pain.

Jarrod chuckled and then, sobered, as he said, looking down at Heath, “I’ll see you in that courtroom in a little while.”

Heath, knowing that Jarrod was telling him he was going to cross-examine him this afternoon, glanced up and shared his lop-sided grin, as well as a flicker of his eyebrow with his brother as he said, “I’ll be ready for ya’, Counselor. . . And, I’ll take it personal . . . if you hold back on my account, . . . ya’ hear?”

Nodding, Jarrod squeezed his shoulder again, and overwhelmingly grateful for the absolution his brother was offering to him in advance, he said quietly, “I hear you, Brother Heath. I hear you.”

Heath reached up and placed his hand on Jarrod’s arm, then used his grip on the strong, dark-suited arm to slowly climb to his feet. Facing him, Heath extended his hand, and Jarrod looked into the pain-darkened blue eyes, before looking down at the work-worn hand being offered. Taking a deep breath, he reached out with his own, and he shook Heath’s in his.

Then, meeting the eyes of each of the other family members, Jarrod released Heath’s hand, turned, and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

As he exited the building and walked the half block to the courthouse, he marveled at the spring in his step his family had helped return to him. He only hoped they remained as loyal and supportive when the long afternoon ahead was over.

Chapter 8

Jarrod took a deep breath as he rose to his feet, straightened his brown vest peeking out from the dark coat that so accented his dark-headed good looks, and he gazed straight at Judge Lansing.

“Your Honor, I’d like to call Mr. Asa Harmon to the stand, please.”

After a few moments, in which the judge administered the oath to Mr. Harmon, who had not testified at the inquest last week, the man settled himself in the slightly raised, wooden chair facing the courtroom full of curious citizens.

Jarrod asked, “Mr. Harmon, would you state your occupation, please?”

The man, that Nick had seen talking to Jarrod in the courtroom earlier in the day, nodded and said, “I’m a special detective employed by Senator Erickson’s investigating committee.”

Nick, like the others listening closely to understand how all of this fit with the information they had already heard in this trial, watched his older brother question the dark-headed man for several minutes. He could tell that this witness, too, was experienced in testifying, even more so than his younger brother.

“And, how long have you been so involved?”

“Just a little over six months.”

“And, what is the purpose of your investigation?”

“Legislative restrictions on the importation and sale of harmful drugs.”

Simultaneously, realizing Jarrod had now led them all to the brink of important information they did not yet know, but something Jarrod must have known for a while, Nick and Heath both leaned forward slightly.

“Alright, Mr. Harmon, would you tell us, please, what you know to be the connection between Colonel Ashby and Korby Kyles?”

“Kyles worked for Colonel Ashby. Colonel Ashby was a member of a ring distributing opium here to the Tong, here and in San Francisco.”

The information was imparted calmly, but the loud verbal reaction in the room was immediate and intense. It was clear that men and women all over the courtroom, including those in the jury box, were both visibly and audibly disturbed by this factual announcement.

The judge tapped his gavel repeatedly, echoing inside Nick’s head the same double beats of the hammer on the anvil inside the smithy from two nights ago. As a result, he had a terrible sense of foreboding about where all of this was going to go.

Suddenly, he recalled how vehement Jarrod had been when he had asked Audra to stay away from the courtroom this afternoon.

“Order in this court! Order! . . . Now, continue Mister Barkley,” Judge Lansing pointed to Jarrod with the gavel.

Jarrod nodded and returned his attention to his witness. “Mr. Harmon, are you saying that Colonel Ashby, a man of spotless reputation, was involved in narcotics trafficking?”

“He was more than just involved. Colonel Ashby was one of the prime movers.”

Unwilling to let the courtroom erupt again at this added statement, Jarrod continued, seeking his rhythm, his voice rising to be heard over the astonished murmurings behind him.

“And, according to your information, how long was he involved in this trade?”

However, Aaron Green was on his feet, all but shouting, his typical calm demeanor lost as his voice shook with indignation, “Objection! You’ll not make murder any less repugnant by maligning and slandering the good name of the victim, who is not here to defend himself!”

Before the judge could respond to this heartfelt interruption, Jarrod interjected, “Your Honor, I am merely trying to establish the victim’s true occupation, in order to show that there might be others with stronger motives to have committed this crime.”

Realizing he still had the judge’s ear, and knowing that he would have to quickly establish where he was going with this evidence, he added, “Now, I, . . . I deeply regret having to bring out this sordid background.” He faltered slightly, his own emotions getting the better of him for a split second.

Then, he finished forcefully, his mission clear.

“However, I am sworn to defend my client by all possible means.”

As the TAP-tap, TAP-tap of the gavel repeatedly asked for order again, Jarrod closed his eyes for a moment, willing his family to have heard what he had just said, to have heard it and clearly understood that the simple statement covered more than just this current disclosure of facts. He fervently hoped they would remember it in just a little while.

The judge stated, his deep voice decisive, “Objection overruled. Please answer the question, Mr. Harmon.”

Jarrod repeated the question for the benefit of the witness and the jury, “How long was he so involved?”

Still unmoved by the furor his words had caused, Asa Harmon continued, “We have records showing that Colonel Ashby has been involved in the narcotics trade for over a period of twenty years.”

Slamming down his hand on the bar in front of the witness, Jarrod turned to him and asked firmly, making it clear to everyone that this had been his point all along, “Then, it is credible to believe that he could have made arrangements to meet someone else, possibly a member of the Tong, in the alley that night.”

“Yes, Sir, I would say so.”

“Now, Mr. Harmon, would you tell us, please, what you’ve been able to find out about the narcotics trade and how it operates.”

The courtroom behind Jarrod became very still, those in the room to whom this was new information, were especially hushed.

“Yes, Sir. The stuff is imported into this country, diluted, repackaged and then distributed to various cities and communities. The original investment pays off at about 1000% profit. The user becomes a virtual slave to his supplier. . . . Congress is presently working on legislation which would make the public sale of harmful drugs illegal.”

At this information, Nick looked at Heath, but his brother was obviously lost in his own thoughts.

The profit margin was staggering. The legendary philanthropy of Colonel Ashby toward the orphanage and other community charities over the years flashed through Nick’s mind. Was it possible the man had been trying to atone for the dirty way he had made his money all along?

Just as he started to turn back toward Heath, to find out what he was thinking so hard about, Nick heard Korby Kyles holler happily, drawing everyone’s attention, “You tell ‘em! You tell ‘em!”

Again, the judge’s gavel renewed its double rhythm, TAP-tap, TAP-tap, and the dark-robed man said loudly, “Order! Order!”

Jarrod’s voice carried over the dying melee, “Thank you, Sir. No further questions.” He returned to his seat and looked at the judge, his mind already on what was coming next.

As the judge asked, “Mr. Green, do you wish to cross-examine?” Nick turned away and looked more closely at the too still brother sitting next to him.

Heath seemed very distracted, as if his eyes were seeing something inside himself, something far away, or long ago. He had not moved when Korby had hollered, nor when the gavel had crashed down, demanding order. It was as if Heath had lost his concentration on the events going on in the courtroom in the last few minutes. He was no longer looking at Jarrod, the judge, or the witness preparing to leave the stand.

Nick reached out to grip him on the arm, concerned that the pain from the recent beating was again encroaching on Heath’s ability to physically endure all of this.

He vaguely heard the judge intone, “That will be all, Mr. Harmon. You’re dismissed.”

The spectators immediately began to converse among themselves, as if the dismissal was also a release for them, as if they were children holding their breath for the teacher to announce that the school day was over and, once they heard those words of dismissal, their good behavior fled with them as they clamored to leave the schoolhouse rules behind.

Again, that TAP-tap called them back to order, reminding them all that the events of the day were still in session.

Judge Lansing loudly asked Jarrod, “Mr. Barkley, are you ready to call your next witness?”

Slowly, but with his eyes firmly placed on the judge, Jarrod stood and answered, “Yes, Sir, . . . I would like to recall Mr. Heath Barkley to the witness stand.”

Jarrod turned to look at his mother, not meeting Heath’s eyes as his brother slowly broke out of his reverie, placed his hand on the back of the bench in front of him, hauled himself to his feet, and walked toward the stand. He paused and looked at the judge.

“Mr. Barkley, you’re aware that having been sworn in before, you are still under oath to tell the truth.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The quiet words carried a note of something, . . . something tentative Nick could not identify as he watched and listened closely, his dark eyebrows knitted together in concentration. His growing concern triggered a deep emotion boiling slowly to the surface, an emotion that he had felt twice before where Heath was concerned. It had stabbed him in the gut in Wally Miles’ field not long ago, and again, he had felt it two days before, when he had seen his brother fall to the ground outside the smithy in the dark.

Nick shifted restlessly in his seat, crossing his arms, and brought one spurred-boot up to cross over the other.

As the judge responded, “Please be seated,” he saw Heath place his hand on the bar separating him from the witness chair, and though not obvious to anyone who had not worked with him daily for the last two months, Nick was sure his brother placed more weight on his hand than he would have normally as he climbed the single step, before turning and sitting in the chair.

The blond’s typical lithe, self-assured movements were gone.

As Jarrod approached, Heath blinked several times, as if mentally shaking himself out of whatever distraction, pain, or worry had him in its grip.

Nick growled to himself, reaching out to grasp the back of the bench before him in his gloved hand, “That boy’s in pain.”

But, then, continuing to watch Heath, he wondered silently, “Or, . . . . is it something else?”

Jarrod, also watching his brother closely, walked toward the stand, placed both hands on the bar separating them, and took a deep breath. He gave Heath a fleeting, almost apologetic look for what was to come. Then, as blue eyes met blue, Jarrod took another breath and said steadily, “Mr. Barkley, according to your testimony earlier in this trial, you stated that the quarrel you heard from the alley sounded like such a critical matter that you felt you should interfere.”

Heath nodded slightly and said, “That’s correct.”

Relieved at the firmness of Heath’s tone and the focus of his eyes on Jarrod, Nick let out the breath he had been holding before hearing this brief, initial exchange.

Jarrod continued summarizing, dropping his eyes to his hands on the bar, though his voice remained even, “You further stated, that upon entering the alley, you saw two men fighting, in the shadows, and that when you came close, one man ran away and the other slumped and fell from a knife wound in the abdomen. Is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Can you tell me the location of the nearest streetlamp to that alley?”

Perplexed, Heath answered with the question echoed in his voice, “Streetlamp? No.”

Plunging ahead, eager to get this whole thing settled and over with, Jarrod walked away a bit to emphasize his point about distance, and said to the jury, “According to my measurements, it’s 87 feet away. Over thirty feet from the entrance to that alley.”

He turned back to look at Heath from a few feet away, walked forward again, and, gesturing with his own hand, said, “Now, from that distance, that lamp couldn’t shed enough light in that alley for a man to see his hand, one foot in front of his face. And, yet, you state that you clearly saw Korby Kyles.”

This last was said incredulously, leaving no one with any question that Jarrod expected Heath himself, as well as all those listening, to begin to doubt his testimony.

Instead, Heath held firm.

“He was in the shadows,” he confirmed, “But, I know it was him.”

Jarrod’s eyes bored into Heath’s as he asked, “Even in the shadows?”

Again, Heath responded with assurance, “That’s what I said.”

Jarrod stared at Heath, letting the knowledge of his own doubts lie there, between them, further separating them, for a few extra beats of his heart, for a few extra beats of the pendulum moving in the clock hanging on the wall to the judge’s right.

Then, he said, “Now, Mr. Barkley, would you please tell us again, everything that happened, including the time just before you entered the alley?”

Chapter 9

Having shared this multiple times, while sitting in this very chair, during the last week, Heath nodded and said immediately, “I was walking along and the headlight from the San Francisco Limited passed over me.”

He took a breath, and continued, “I heard a man yell, and I ran into the alley to see what it was all about. Even though it was dark,” he paused, taking another breath, and finished, “I could see in the shadows clearly enough to know, . . . that it was Korby Kyles who ran, and Colonel Ashby who’d been stabbed.”

Nick nodded, pleased with the way Heath was handling himself, and hoping that his younger brother was feeling as well as he now sounded. Then, he found himself frowning, as Jarrod began again with his relentless questions, his pounding attempts to discredit the testimony Heath was giving.

“You’re sure?”

His voice steady, eyes watching Jarrod from several feet away, Heath replied, “I am.”

Jarrod, trying to appeal to the strong, general sense of compassion he knew Heath, like Audra, harbored in his heart, turned and walked back over to his brother, and, leaning toward him slightly over the bar between them, asked, “Sure enough to put a noose around the defendant’s neck?”

Heath’s eyes flared for a second at Jarrod’s attempt at manipulating his emotions. Then, he responded strongly, “Yes. I’ve got no reason ta lie.”

Jarrod softened his voice and stated, “I’m not suggesting that you were lying, merely that you were mistaken, when you stated that you clearly saw Korby Kyles running away.”

Heath, having had enough of the doubts being cast against his statement, against his integrity, placed both hands on the bar and lunged abruptly toward Jarrod with his blue eyes blazing.

“And, I say you’re dead wrong!” he growled.

Momentarily taken aback at the reaction, Jarrod gazed uncomfortably into Heath’s steel blue eyes, opened a little wider now than before. Those hard eyes were staring at him head on, challenging him.

Jarrod, then, said evenly, for benefit of the jury, as he turned away from his brother, breaking eye contact with him, “And, I intend to prove you’re mistaken, by showing you that the shadows you saw into were purely imaginary.”

Nick, too, had had enough of Jarrod’s tactics to free his client by publicly casting doubt on their brother’s words. He leapt to his feet from his place among the spectators and shouted, “They weren’t imaginary!”

Immediately, Judge Lansing pounded his wooden gavel and commanded, “Mr. Barkley, you’re out of order! Now, if you speak out again, I’ll order you out of this courtroom!”

Then, as Victoria turned and quietly urged Nick to return to his seat behind her, the judge ordered, “Continue,” and he gestured toward Jarrod with the gavel.

Taking a deep breath and turning back to Heath, Jarrod asked, “Can you tell me what kind of moon there was that night?”

Thankful for Nick’s distraction, as it had removed everyone’s attention from him for a few moments, Heath lifted his eyes up from the floor to look at Jarrod blankly. He had brought his right forearm up across his waist and was now pressing it against his ribs unobtrusively. And, he was doing his best to concentrate on the proceedings, despite the searing pain suddenly unleashed inside when he had lunged at Jarrod a few moments before.

He narrowed his eyes against the burning heat and forced himself to watch Jarrod’s face.

Jarrod, seeing Heath’s blank look, but puzzled by it, repeated the question. The dark-haired lawyer automatically adopted the slightly insinuating tone he would have used on any prosecution witness that he had to redirect, any witness about whose testimony he wanted to cast doubt in the minds of the jury.

“Mr. Barkley? Can you tell me what kind of moon there was that night?”

Heath responded slowly, his voice much quieter than it had been before, “No, I, . . . I don’t recall what kind of moon there was.”

Then, he closed his eyes for a second longer than a normal blink, fighting the stabbing, white-hot surge that shot through him from front to back, setting his right side on fire. He fought the need to lean forward, to double over, and to let the pain pull him to the wooden floor, into temporary oblivion.

Jarrod had walked away, toward the table where Korby Kyles sat waiting, rocking back and forth in his straight-backed chair, a smug expression on his face.

Jarrod’s movements had taken the eyes of the jury and the spectators with him, and, though he heard Heath’s voice, he did not notice his brother’s silent struggle.

Victoria, looking down, squeezing her blue-gloved hands together in her lap, missed it as well.

Heath had been so calmly assured all week about what he had seen, and she had never doubted him. Realizing now, after Jarrod’s explanation about the distant streetlamp, that she may have been a little quick to believe, wanting to believe in his words that so firmly placed the blame on the Kyles boy, and she closed her eyes.

Korby Kyles had been considered anathema by the community since he was first caught breaking out the schoolhouse windows years ago. His mother had run off just before that, leaving Jacob Kyles to raise three boys alone. . . .

“Perhaps,” she thought, “Perhaps I’ve been wrong to condemn him so quickly. Perhaps a child growing up without a parent’s guidance. . . .”

But, somehow, as soon as she thought it, she felt the idea was disloyal to Heath, not just because the two were pitted against each other now, here, in this courtroom, but also because he, too, had grown up without one of his parents, the one who could have protected him against so much.

“How differently he turned out from Korby,” she thought, smiling slightly to herself.

Beside her, Audra shifted on the hard, uncomfortable bench, leaning in, and all but resting her head on her mother’s shoulder. Victoria patted her daughter’s hand on her arm in sympathy. This was so hard to watch, to hear. She fervently hoped it would be over soon.

As he picked up the folded newspaper lying on the corner of the defense table, Jarrod turned back toward the jury, opened it partially, and finally responded, “Very likely.”

Then, he added, “Your Honor, I hold here in my hand a newspaper, that I will submit later into evidence, that clearly shows that there was no moon that night.”

He stalked back toward the witness stand, his tone building, his words coming faster, with each layered phrase, each conclusion, neatly placed on top of the last, as he punctuated each statement by waving the paper in his hand, as he laid it all out, neatly, succinctly, placing it on the line, waiting for Heath’s response.

“If there was no moon, there was no light, and if there was no light, there were no shadows, so you would have had to recognize Korby Kyles in what virtually amounted to total darkness!”

The courtroom erupted again into an irrepressible breach of order, as the spectators caught the significance of the evidence and the conclusions shared. The mounting doubts raised about Heath’s previously solid testimony settled like plump seeds dropped onto freshly tilled, fertile earth. Most were more than willing to doubt this stranger among them, this interloper who pretended to be one of them, and they waited impatiently for fruition, for resolution to this battle of wills and facts.

Nick watched and listened, holding his breath again, gripping the top of the bench in front of him tightly. His anger was building, hot and furious, and it was directed at Jarrod.

Couldn’t his hard-headed, dark-haired brother see what he was doing to Heath?

However, as he watched, thinking about what Jarrod had uncovered in his investigation, the facts he had unearthed, a small doubt, one he didn’t want to listen to, but couldn’t ignore, struggled to be heard through his mounting anger.

Nick dropped his eyes from Heath’s face.

What if Jarrod was right?

It was a possibility that had to be considered, and Nick Barkley never backed down from facing the truth, once it had been shown to him. In fact, thinking through it now, he realized that, in most of his experience with his older brother, he had only very rarely known Jarrod to be wrong.

Finally admitting the doubt to himself, he thought, “Maybe Heath didn’t see everything he thought he saw. Maybe . . . .”

Rubbing his black-gloved hand along his jaw line, Nick admitted silently that he knew first hand, blow-for-blow in the barn since that first night how unreasonably stubborn his new, younger brother could be.

He had a fleeting memory of those moments on the bridge that same day, of seeing that blond head come up and those eyes narrow dangerously just before they had both reached for their weapons, just before the bridge had collapsed, plunging them both into the river, and sending them to opposite banks, but possibly saving one or both of them from a worse fate at the hands of the other.

Maybe Heath had convinced himself of what he had seen, and his stubborn, mule-headed pride wouldn’t let him admit otherwise now.

It was all Nick could do to stay silent.

The doubts, once started, crashed into him like outstretched limbs from a falling tree, hitting him one after the other, hinting of the obvious, heralding that something worse was coming. As each irrefutable fact Jarrod had shared struck him, one at a time, battering him, he knew with certainty that the truth would, like a falling tree trunk looming toward the ground, prevail in the end.

Sucking in his breath, Nick realized that Heath, though dead wrong based on the facts presented, was sticking stubbornly to his story, no matter how flawed.

But, Nick shook himself, wrestling with himself silently, though he didn’t know Heath as well as he knew Jarrod, he knew he had been repeatedly impressed during the last two months with Heath’s integrity, that drive he seemed to have to do the right thing, no matter what it cost him personally.

There had been that trip to Lonesome Camp, and Heath’s willingness to look deeper, to search for the truth hidden under years of forgotten promises, even to challenge his new family to stand up for the miners and their families who had suffered so much.

If he said he saw Korby Kyles stab Colonel Ashby, then, no matter how hard it was to believe him in the face of the facts Jarrod was hammering him with, Nick knew with every beat of his heart, that somehow, Heath Barkley had seen exactly that, and no more, no less.

TAP-tap, TAP-tap. Judge Lansing’s gavel urgently demanded everyone’s attention, and after a few seconds, the furor calmed, like rich dirt shifting with the drumming of raindrops covering over the seeds of doubt and readying them for the rest.

Having waited long enough for a response, for any sign, that Heath realized he was wrong, Jarrod’s patience evaporated abruptly, and like a flicker of a match held to dry kindling, his anger flared.

He stepped close to Heath, who had remained silent throughout, staring beyond Jarrod, unblinking, eyes fixed on a point somewhere above the entrance to the courtroom.

Watching Heath’s intense gaze, Jarrod faltered and almost turned around to see what his brother was looking at. But, instead, when he noticed Heath’s intense focus did not change, despite their close proximity to each other, Jarrod leaned in even closer, growing furious at Heath’s stubborn refusal to even acknowledge him, to acknowledge his words.

Then, struggling to regain his balance of compassion and concern for his brother, in spite of Heath’s obstinacy about avoiding eye contact, Jarrod began speaking, though his words were barely loud enough for those behind him and the jury to his right to hear, “Now I submit to you that this is what really happened.”

“From the sounds you heard in the alley, it was clear to you that somebody had stabbed Colonel Ashby and run away. You chased after that man in the total darkness, and you stumbled on Korby Kyles. And,” he continued, though he was again becoming increasingly irritated at Heath’s refusal to meet his eyes, “Putting his reputation together with what had happened in the alley, you assumed that it was Korby that had done the stabbing.”

Only his brother’s clenched jaw muscle moved.

Jarrod stepped to Heath’s left side, trying to get even closer to him in his mounting frustration. It was all he could do not to reach out and shake his stubborn brother for not acknowledging his words, for not responding, but he continued resolutely, “Now, having assumed that much, your imagination took you one step further. It led you to believe that you saw more in that dark alley than it was humanly possible to see.”

Taking a deep breath, Jarrod reined himself in, drew back slightly, and then, took another deep breath as, finally, Heath turned his head toward him.

They locked narrowed, glittering stares, and suddenly, Jarrod knew that something wasn’t right.

Heath’s eyes were darker than usual, his pupils were enlarged, and his breathing was more shallow than it should be. For a moment, Jarrod’s irritated anger shifted toward anxiety for his brother, as he remembered the pain Heath had been in earlier in the day.

Then, blinking, Jarrod realized that he had never seen his brother look more determined, more resolute, and, in an instant, he knew.

He was immediately reminded of the stories he had heard of how the hardest, most densely packed ice in the most ancient of glaciers often appeared to be, not white like snow, but an iridescent, frozen blue-----the blue of his brother’s eyes.

With the flame from his anger directed at the stubborn pride that made Heath’s narrowed, blue eyes glitter like slivers of sleet, Jarrod’s furnace blast of justice pursued had met a blizzard of frozen, immovable ice, . . . solid, stubborn, undaunted, ice, and he knew.

With his pride in his own abilities surfacing, along with his anger at being thwarted in this pursuit of justice by his brother’s unwavering answers, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that, despite his courtroom theatrics with the newspaper, despite his sense of timing and carefully orchestrated pacing in front of the jury, despite his meticulously outlined presentation of the facts as he knew them-----despite it all----he knew Heath was going to remain stubbornly adamant about what he had seen.

Knowing the outcome before he began, . . . nevertheless, he had to try one more time.

One hand on the end of the bar, and one hand on the back of Heath’s chair, Jarrod leaned in close to him from the side and said, “Now, I’ll ask you one more time. Are you absolutely sure it was Korby Kyles you saw, and that it could not have been somebody else?”

Heath stared back at him for another moment, his unblinking eyes narrowed.

The courtroom took on an unusual hush, in which no sound drifted from the back of the room to the front to disturb their concentrated focus on one another.

Victoria, one gloved hand gripping Audra’s tightly, felt literally torn in two. They were both up there, locked in some kind of silent battle, each stubbornly refusing to compromise, refusing to work it out together.

Then, mentally shaking herself, she closed her eyes, blocking out their angry stares.

This was a court of law, and a man’s life was at stake. There had to be one winner, and one winner only. And, with all her heart and soul, she believed in the power of justice and truth to name that winner.

She felt a terrifying, guilt-ridden second of pure anger rise up inside herself, anger against her husband, and . . . and anger against Heath, who was obviously going to stay with his same stubborn story, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Then, instantly contrite for her own unaccustomed, unsettling, casting of blame, she opened her eyes and watched the two of them, suddenly afraid for them, afraid for them all, no matter the outcome.

Quietly, Audra leaned toward her ear and whispered, “Mother, do you see it?”

Shaking her head slightly and squeezing Audra’s hand, she turned her eyes questioningly toward her daughter.

Even in her hushed whisper, Audra’s concern was evident, as she said urgently, “Something’s wrong with Heath.”

Victoria, aghast at missing something vital, turned her worried eyes back to the front.

After another moment in which neither he nor Jarrod broke eye contact with the other, Heath finally responded, his voice strong, yet quiet; firm, yet halting.

“No matter how ya’ try ta twist it, . . . no matter how ya’ try ta change it . . . inta something it wasn’t, Counselor Barkley, . . . there’s one fact you, nor anyone else, can dispute. . . .”

He paused, closing his eyes for a second, and hauled in another deep breath through his nose. Jarrod saw something flicker across Heath’s face, something he could not identify, before his brother continued.

“I was there. . . . I saw them. . . I caught him afterwards. . . . And, yes, . .” He hauled in another breath, before he added, more loudly this time, repeating his words from before, “I’m sure it could not’ve been anyone else. . . It was Korby Kyles that stabbed Colonel Ashby, . . . it was Korby Kyles that ran, . . an’ it was Korby Kyles that I caught just on the other side’a that wooden fence.”

Then, unexpectedly, he deviated from his previous story, but only long enough to add more quietly, almost as if he were talking just to Jarrod, “’Guess it comes down ta’ one thing, . . . down ta whether or not you believe what I have ta say, . . . doesn’t it, Counselor?”

Jarrod, a look of anger flashing across his handsome features, met Heath’s steady gaze. Then, he closed his eyes a second, opened them, and blinking a few times as he took in a deep breath of his own, he met Heath’s eyes again, and nodded.

He knew that casting this much doubt on his brother’s testimony was all he had had to do to save his client. That, he was quite sure, he had accomplished, despite Heath’s stubborn, infuriating, and completely unreasonable unwillingness to admit that he was dead wrong.

Jarrod turned away before he said dismissively, over his shoulder, while no longer looking at his brother, “That’ll be all.”

Immediately, the judge looked across the room and asked, “Any further questions, Mr. Green?”

“None, Your Honor,” the man half stood and replied.

Judge Lansing turned back to look at the blond-haired man sitting in the witness chair, whose eyes were once again fixed on some undefined point across the room, and the dark-haired defense attorney who had his back to the stand, as he stood several steps away, to the judge’s left, staring down at the floor.

He nodded, and said, “The witness may be excused, and, Mr. Barkley, . . . you are dismissed.”

Once again, Heath placed his hand on the bar in front of him, and stood slowly enough to draw Nick’s narrowed hazel eyes back to study him. He stepped down from the stand, his right arm held close across his body, just above his belt, and he paused just behind Jarrod.

Feeling him there, Jarrod turned and their eyes met and held for a few seconds.

Then, leaving Jarrod standing there, Heath walked across the room, stepped between the defense table, where the defendant sat glaring at him with hatred in his dark eyes, and the prosecutor’s table to his right. He pushed open the low wooden gate and, without looking at the rest of his family, made his way towards the door.

Watching him unexpectedly exit the building, Nick stood half-way up to follow him, but, catching the judge’s glare, he lowered himself to his seat and clenched the back of the bench in front with his gloved hand. Once again, he felt the weight of responsibility that forced him to choose between possibly ensuring the safety of his mother and sister, and checking on his stubborn younger brother.

He turned his head as, in the quiet that followed, he heard Korby Kyles lean toward Jarrod, who had returned to his seat at the table, and whisper loudly, “I guess they’re gonna have to let me go, right?”

Nick saw Jarrod nod and thought he heard him say, “Your chances look pretty good.”

Chapter 10

The cool, autumn air smelled of fireplace smoke and cut hay. Its crispness allowed him to lean against the rough wooden exterior of the barn and finally catch his breath, after what seemed like hours of only taking in enough to spit the same words back out, repeat the same testimony, answer the same questions, over and over.

Lifting a shaky hand to his eyes, Heath squeezed his temples together between thumb and fingers, trying to dispel the headache growing there. He closed his eyes and drew in one more, deep, halting breath, and expelled it noisily through his nose. Then, he pushed off from the outside wall with his other hand, and once again wrapping the fingers of his left tightly against the throbbing, burning ribs on his right side, he began walking, slightly unsteadily, toward the wide-open doors of the livery.

“Afternoon, Heath,” Joey Randall called, coming out of the last stall and placing a hoof pick in his back pocket. “What can I do for you? You need the buggy hitched already?”

Heath shook his head and replied, “Not yet. ‘Family’s still here. How about a horse I can send back to you later?”

Red-headed Joey took in the strained look around Heath’s eyes and the too-shallow breathing. Then, he turned his head at an angle, looking at his customer even more intently.

“Sure, Heath. But, only if I saddle her. You look done in, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

Quickly, without waiting for a reply, the man returned to the last stall and clucked to the nondescript brown mare he had just finished cleaning up, backing her from the stall.

“She’s not as fast as your Gal, not by a long shot, but she’s solid and willing. Just give me a minute.”

Then, with another look at the quiet, younger man, noting the bruises for the second time that day, the lines of pain around his eyes, and the tight grip Heath had on his ribs, he offered, “Why don’t you sit over there?”

Nodding gratefully, Heath sank down on a stack of hay bricks piled neatly in the corner, and leaned against the wall. He closed his eyes, trying to stave off the raw hurt in his heart, the open wound that his courtroom duel with Jarrod had put there. It fought for supremacy over the sharp, searing pain slicing through him with every movement.

He raised his head when Joey Randall touched his arm in concern, the brown mare’s reins held lightly in his hand.

“Heath, it’s not my place to say so, but, you don’t look able to walk around the barn, let alone, fit to mount up and ride out of here. Why don’t you wait for Nick?”

Nodding again, Heath simply smiled crookedly and said, “Thanks, Joey, but I’ve gotta head out. . . . I’ll be alright.”

He took the reins, fished in his pocket for a couple of dollars, and, handing them to the kindly livery owner, he turned and led the mare outside. Mounting awkwardly, Heath turned back to Randall and said, “Thanks. I’ll get her back to you.”

“Take your time, Heath. I know where to find you.”

Turning the mare, Heath set her into a long, loose-reined walk.

* * * * * * * *

“Your Honor, may I approach the bench?” Aaron Green asked, standing and buttoning his blue coat.

“Yes, Sir, step forward. Mr. Barkley, please join us.”

When both men stood before the judge, Green explained that he had received word, after the lunch recess, that another witness had come forward, returning from up north after working there all last week. They discussed the ramifications at length, and, with the spectators growing slightly restless and the defendant’s calm beginning to slip, the judge decided to allow this additional testimony.

Finally, Jarrod returned to his seat, and Aaron Green remained standing in the center of the room. Korby leaned toward Jarrod and asked, “What’s going on? What was all that about?”

Jarrod shook his head and said simply, “Another witness has just come forward.”

Korby turned his head and caught his father’s eye, as a tall, thick man with sandy, grey hair entered the room from outside the door, escorted by Green’s assistant, his hat in his hand.

Mr. Green said, “Your Honor, I ah. . . , I would like to call one more witness at this time. Mr. Henry Bingham.”

When the witness was sworn in and situated on the stand, Green said, “Mr. Bingham, you’re a train engineer on the northern division, is that right?” He stood there calmly, cleaning his eyeglasses on his white handkerchief, waiting for the reply.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Now, where were you this month, on the night of the fifteenth, at 11:30 pm?”

The engineer’s voice was deep and gravelly, but not overly unpleasant to listen to. He said, “I was just heading Number Nine out for San Francisco. I was a couple of minutes late.”

Green asked, “Did you know Colonel Ashby?”

Bingham nodded, “I’d seen him up and down the line for years.”

“Now, Mr. Bingham, would you please tell the court in your own words, exactly what you saw that night as your train left the station?”

“Yes, Sir. I’d just cleared the last switch and was watching ahead, . . . and straight into the light of my engine I seen these two men fighting in the alley.”

Mr. Green made a surprised face, turned, and looked at Jarrod, and then at the defendant sitting beside him. Korby Kyles was leaning forward warily. Then, he turned around to look again at his father behind him.

The prosecutor turned back to the witness and asked, “Well now, how long did the light from your engine shine on the fight?”

“Well, I couldn’t say for certain,” Bingham hesitated. “But, it was long enough to see’em both clear, as well as the other man running toward . . . “

At that moment, Jake Kyles stood up, pointed a long, accusing finger at the witness, and shouted, “You didn’t see my son! Don’t you even say you saw my son!”

In the furor that erupted all around them, all four Kyles men stood up, three guns suddenly drawn. Jarrod found himself hauled up and out of his seat from behind, a filthy, unwashed arm clad in faded blue and green plaid cloth cutting across his throat. He felt, rather than saw the muzzle of a pistol pressed against his head.

As Alan Kyles held him in his grip, and Emmet began hollering gleefully, “Order in the court! Order in the court!” Korby turned to Jarrod.

Snarling contemptuously into his face for everyone to hear, Korby said, “If anyone in this coyote town comes after me, I’ll kill’em, and don’t think I won’t take a match to that fancy house’a yours on the way out. And, that bastard brother’a yours, . . . well, I done tole you once, I’m gonna kill’em, . . . and I just might find the time to kill you along with’em.”

Then, smiling broadly, Korby gave Jarrod a shove closer against Alan, who held him up, despite the chair and the low wooden divider that separated them. Korby turned, pushed through the gate, and ran down the aisle. He threw open the outside doors and charged down the steps, never looking back.

Jake Kyles, with everyone staring at him, growled into the quiet room, “Don’t any of you try anything, or the lawyer gets it!” His small, intense eyes, hard in his round, sweat-streaked face, moved from the sheriff, whose hand was frozen on his holstered gun, to find the glowering, enraged hazel eyes of the unarmed Nick Barkley on the other side of the aisle.

He pointed at Nick and said, “If you want to see him dead in the street, just try following us out! Then, you’ll know how much I thought of your daddy and the fact that we came to this valley together all those years ago.” Jake punctuated his words by spitting on the floor of the courtroom.

He motioned with his head towards the door, and Emmet moved in that direction, followed by his father and Alan, who continued to drag Jarrod with him.

The tall man pulled him backwards, towards the low, swinging gate, despite Jarrod’s attempts to slow him by kicking over the chairs in the way. Furious at the attempts to slow him and separate him from his family’s retreat, Alan turned the gun around and hit Jarrod on the side of the head with it, a blow everyone in the room not only saw, but heard.

Jarrod went almost limp, but managed to lift his hand and his grip on Alan’s arm kept the man from completely cutting off his breath, as he continued to drag Jarrod backwards, through the gate and down the aisle.

At this vicious display, Nick took two determined steps forward, but Alan caught his eye and leered at him from above Jarrod’s head. He said, “Come on, Cowboy. I’d love to have an excuse, just like with the bastard in your barn the other night. This town might not let me get very far afterward, but I’d take the two of you out first, for sure!”

Nick, his eyes on his brother’s pale face, stopped in the aisle. Slowly, he crossed his arms, and glared at Alan Kyles.

When all the Kyles had made it through the open door except Alan, he stopped, blocking it. Then, locking eyes with Nick Barkley, he smiled and said, “Now, we’re gonna wait.”

Long minutes went by, in which Alan and Nick stared at each other, the only breaking of eye contact coming when Jarrod moaned softly, closed his eyes, and completely lost consciousness. Alan quickly shifted his hold, pulling the lawyer up closer with his arm wrapped around Jarrod’s chest, and supporting his dead weight.

His smile widened into a laugh when he saw Nick’s pained expression.

Though the courtroom was packed, it all seemed to come down to the two of them, eyes locked on each other, as the minutes ticked by.

Suddenly, as if Alan had just remembered an important appointment for which he was late, he roused himself from his silent staring contest with Nick, turning his head for a second to look out into the street, making sure the horses had been brought around. Then, loudly, to everyone standing in the packed, silent courtroom, he said, “If anybody follows us, the lawyer’ll be the first to die.”

With a last glare at Nick, he said, “You better watch your back, Barkley, and especially the backs of your brothers, this one and that bastard you seem to prize so highly.” Then, smiling, eyes glittering, he added, “It don’t take much to kill a man with a knife in the dark.”

Still smiling and still dragging the unconscious Jarrod, Alan backed out of the doorway and down the courthouse steps. With Emmet’s help, he picked up Jarrod’s dead weight and slung him across the neck of the waiting horse, climbed up behind him, and with the gun still pressed against Jarrod’s head, turned the animal down the street and followed his family out of town.

Nick, standing at the top of the steps, was oblivious to the press of folks exiting the courthouse all around him. Joined first by the sheriff, then, his silent mother and softly crying sister, both clinging to him in worried fear, he watched the men go, helpless to stop them.

To be continued…

Note: Chapter 10 marks the end of Part I of this story. So far, it has been based on the episode, “The Murdered Party.” However, the next chapter will begin Part II of “Dead Wrong.” And, from this point on, just as I have changed the ending of the courtroom scene already, I plan to take the rest of the story in a very different direction from that of the original.