Dead Wrong

Part III / Chapters 23-30

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.

Note: Part III jumps over a week or so ahead of the end of Chapter 22, and then winds its way back to explain what has happened in the meantime.

Chapter 23

He awoke slowly, the sounds around him beginning as a babble of voices that he could not understand. The cold air blowing through the small, enclosed space smelled of salt and dampness. Slowly, from somewhere outside, he could distinguish the shouts and sounds of straining, squeaking rope, as well as wood rubbing against wood.

Blinking against the weak sunlight drifting in through the small, badly broken window off to his left, he turned his head, trying to take in more of his surroundings. The movement caused him to close his eyes quickly, fighting off nausea and dizziness.

Then, blinking them open again, he saw that the dimly lit room offered nothing in the way of furniture, except for several uncovered rice mats lying scattered across the floor and a stool in one corner. As his eyes adjusted, he saw two other bodies either asleep, unconscious, or dead lying around the room. The closest was several feet away.

Struggling first to roll over on his side, he tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but his attempt ended in a ragged gasp of pain that careened into him and left him lying on his left side on the filthy floor close to the wall, fighting to remain conscious.

With the roar of a salty wave crashing over him, he gave in to the pain, and drenched in his own sweat, he felt the darkness pull him under.

* * * * * * * *

The sounds were muted, as was the light from the window, when he awoke the second time, freezing in the cold surrounding him.

His pale blue eyes could make out shapes moving around nearby in the unlit dimness, and he could hear the rising and falling rhythms of an unintelligible chant, accompanied by a sharp, plucking sound of a high-pitched instrument that sounded somehow vaguely familiar.

Blinking, he could distinguish the form of a tiny man seated on a stool in the far corner. His pale, cracked leather face showed dark eyes, slightly slanted, that were almost closed, and, though he was small, his strident voice filled the small space.

Suddenly, a sprite-like woman was there, bending over him, lifting his head, and offering him some water. A sharp pain sliced through his head, and he closed his eyes to ward off the dizziness that followed. After two swallows, that she patiently waited for him to take, she eased his pounding head back to the mat, patted him on the arm, and turned to the man, speaking rapidly in a language he could not understand.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that she had turned back to him. Kneeling beside him, she ran her tiny hands over his abdomen, reaching expertly inside his filthy, torn shirt as if she had done so many times before. Pressing gently, probing his lower ribs, she made some comment when he gasped with pain, her hands reawakening the fire inside him that consumed his right side.

Shaking her head, she shook her finger in his face, before she smiled ever so slightly, showing crooked yellow teeth, and moved her attention to his shoulder. Until she touched it and began peeling back a heavy dressing, wet with blood, he had been unaware of it through the general fog of throbbing pain that gripped him.

Sucking in her breath, she started speaking rapidly in that tone that seemed to reflect a mother hen-like worry, regardless of language. She replaced the dressing, applied another on top of it, and started speaking more calmly, almost soothingly, to him as she held it there.

At the pressure applied, Heath felt the room tilt, and he closed his eyes tightly. Then, he opened them, searching for a spot on the ceiling on which he could focus. Trying to breathe slowly, he struggled to send his thoughts somewhere else, anywhere beyond this place, beyond its overpowering sounds and smells, beyond the pain consuming him.

One word slipped through the focused barrier he created, forming on his lips, and was given voice, as he fought, unsuccessfully, to stay conscious.

“Ni-i-i-ck. . . .”

* * * * * * * *

He did not know how long he had been here, nor did he remember how he had gotten here, but the routine began to take on a comforting rhythm in which the woman sat quietly by, off and on throughout the rest of the day, checking his bandages, applying pressure or poultices as she saw the need.

This last time, she had focused her attention on the bandage wrapped around his head. When she finished rewrapping the long, open gash along the hairline above his forehead, she stepped away leaving the silent, blue-eyed young man staring fixedly up at the dark, cob-webbed ceiling above them.

In a few moments, she returned with a small cup-like bowl with no handle. Motioning to the man on the stool, she spoke to him until he shuffled over quickly and, surprisingly strong, he lifted the shoulders and blond head of the young man lying on the rice mat.

As soon as he could get his breath through the pain, and though the steam was rising from the cup, the blond drank it when she held it to his lips. As he swallowed, he felt the warmth course through him gratefully. Then, the old man lowered him to the mat, and he patted him on the arm before returning to his instrument left propped against the stool.

“Who are . . . you?” he asked of the woman.

Immediately, she launched into words he could not understand, shaking her head at him, and, quickly, she put her hand over his mouth, urging him to be silent. Then, when he nodded very slightly at her, she gathered the cup with the extra cloths she had been using, and moved away.

As he lay there, trying once more to concentrate on something beyond the pain that threatened to overwhelm him, he listened to the discordant sounds of the stringed instrument and the peaks and valleys of the unending chant.

His mind began to drift.

* * * * * * * *

He was sitting astride a brown horse, looking down at the greens and golds of the valley floor stretched out below him, the colors designating the various uses of the fertile land. With his eyes, he followed a particular road, back toward the east, and the mountains beyond, searching in vain for a glimpse of a large white house surrounded by white fences and red barns trimmed in the same brilliant white.

With a sigh, he turned the horse’s head away, focused his own eyes to the west, and headed in a more or less straight line toward the train tracks stretching out into the distance.

* * * * * * * *

He had built a fire and was making some coffee, as he waited for over an hour next to the small water stop at Byron. Finally, hearing the piercing whistle of the approaching train, he doused his fire, stowed the remainder of Silas’ good biscuits, and checked the girth on his saddle.

As soon as the train stopped to take on water, he led the brown mare toward the closest livestock car, and, grateful for the quick assistance of the crew who lowered the ramp for him, he loaded the willing mare, settled her in next to two other horses, and struggled to carry her heavy tack to an empty corner of the car. Then, too tired to think, he climbed down and made his way toward the last passenger car.

Purchasing a ticket from the conductor at the end of the next car, he walked forward through several cars until he found the man he had been looking for.

Dropping exhaustedly into an empty seat several rows in front of the man, he placed his saddlebags and bedroll next to the window, slouched against them with his feet propped up in the empty seat across from him, and promptly fell asleep.

* * * * * * * *

About thirty minutes before the train’s final destination, Heath opened his eyes and sat up, stretching carefully. His side was still aching, but it wasn’t the tearing, gut-wrenching pain he had experienced earlier. Relieved, he sat there a moment, allowing himself to adjust to the side-to-side motion of the train car.

Then, he pushed himself to his feet and walked out toward the open balcony connecting this car to the one in back of it. On the way, he made casual eye contact with the man seated a few rows up.

Once outside, he held onto the railing and leaned out into the wind rushing by the train, enjoying the feel of the cold, salt-tinged air.

Behind him, he heard the man step out onto the balcony. Turning, he looked into the serious dark brown eyes of Asa Harmon.

* * * * * * * *

His eyes closed against the throbbing headache and the searing light of a lit lantern across the filthy room, Heath struggled to keep focused on where he was and how he had gotten here. He could hear the chanting of the small man in the corner, but detected no other movement nearby. While he tried to think about how long he had been here, about the last thing he remembered before waking up here, his heart was focused on some other time, some other place.

His exhaustion continued to pull his attention away from his surroundings and into the past.

Conversations drifted through his head, and he squeezed his already closed eyes with one hand, thinking about the ones that had led up to the situation he was now in.

The message. . .

It had started with the message, . . . and the conversations after it.

With a sigh, he tried to block out the headache, focusing instead on remembering the way he had felt upon reading the message Harmon had sent him, over a week ago.

He had entered the tack room, returning the first saddle to its rack and picking up another one with a groan to take outside to clean. Then, he heard a noise and looked up. Duke was standing there watching him, a yellow paper envelope extended in his hand.

“Billy Reynolds, from the telegraph office, just delivered this for you, Heath. ‘Said it was important.”

“Thanks, Duke,” he replied, returning the saddle to its rack and taking the small envelope. He reached into his pocket to hand Duke a coin to replace what he had probably tipped Billy, but Duke stopped him, a hand on his arm.

“No, you don’t owe me anything. He said he’d already been well paid for his ride.”

Something in the man’s eyes held Heath’s blue gaze, and he waited, watching the older man.

“Heath,” Duke said, after a moment, concern reflected in his voice, “I wish I could tell you that this thing between Nick and Jarrod is typical, but, we both know it isn’t. . . . They’re going to come to blows before it’s over with. But, it isn’t your fault. . . . I just don’t want you to think it is, when that happens. They’re grown men, and they have to work through this themselves.”

Nodding, Heath felt a sharp awl twisting inside his heart at the words, sharp pain that had nothing to do with the movement that usually triggered the burning, grinding agony in his side. His eyes shared his worry about his brothers, and he said, “’Appreciate it, Duke, but, . . . the way I see it, they wouldn’t be at each other, if it weren’t for one tryin’ ta defend me from the other.”

Duke shook his head negatively, refusing to acknowledge to Heath what he had already known in his heart, that this son of Tom Barkley believed the tension between the two brothers he barely knew was his responsibility.

When Duke left, still trying to figure out how to help the situation without interfering too much, Heath opened and read the almost forgotten note. It turned out to be written on telegraph stationery, but it was not a telegram at all. It was from Asa Harmon, the investigator Jarrod had questioned on the stand Monday afternoon, and he requested that Heath meet him on the road through the hills above the ranch at around 11:00, later that morning.

Staring out the open doorway into the cool, comforting shadows of the barn, Heath was instantly reminded of the images he had fought throughout the rest of the trial, into the night, and every night since hearing Harmon’s testimony.

Now, thinking back about the day he had received the message, he moved restlessly on the mat lying on the floor of the darkening room.

He was very relieved to find that the worst of the images from his past, from his dreams, seemed to be vanquished. No longer did the begging, pleading private with only one leg stagger through his thoughts over and over again.

All that he could conjure up from that terrible time was the cold that had held him in its grip those long nights in the tent, years ago, lying there on the cot, listening to the rain, the cries, and pleas of the sick or wounded, of the men dying all around him.

He shivered as he lay there on the mat, rolling over to his side with effort, facing the wall. Though the cold in the damp space reached out, clinging to him, he braced himself against it by reaching out to the faces of the family he had left behind.

He pictured each one of them, sitting in the study by the warm fire, enjoying the company of the others.

Seeing them in his mind was not difficult. He had watched virtually the same, comforting scene for two months, night after night.

Audra and Nick would be playing checkers, Nick grumbling every time she captured one of his players, and Mother and Jarrod would be playing chess. Occasionally, Jarrod would stand up, stir the fire with a wrought-iron poker, and check his pocket watch.

Audra would glance over at Heath, their blue eyes meeting in merriment, and they would both look back at Jarrod, who would wander back over to the game table, move a player, and retrace his steps back to the fire.

Keeping his eyes open, Heath smiled slightly, remembering Jarrod’s carefully masked impatience as he waited for his mother to decide on a move. Heath had learned early on, that, though often accused of it, Nick wasn’t the only one that got impatient from time to time. Jarrod was also prone to be that way, but he just put a more genteel gloss over his annoyance than Nick did.

This was especially true when Jarrod wanted to see justice served. . . .

Then, as he shivered violently, reawakening the pain all over his body, Heath tried to concentrate, tried to think of the last time he had been warm.

Closing his eyes trying to picture it, he realized it had been later that same morning that the message had arrived, the morning when he had worked up a sweat carrying one saddle at a time out into the October sunshine, cleaning them, one by one. It was the same morning he had spoken to Jarrod by the barn and, later, to Asa Harmon in the low hills above the ranch.

Shivering again, he pushed himself to stay awake, trying to recall the discussion he had had with Jarrod standing outside the barn, the one that had made him decide to answer Harmon’s request for a meeting later that morning.

“Heath, is Nick punishing you for all the work you missed?”

Heath smiled slightly, then answered, “No, it was my idea, sort of a compromise reached at breakfast between Mother an’ me.”

Jarrod nodded from his side of the fence, arms folded across the top rail. “She was very worried about you when you took off Monday afternoon.”

When Heath looked back down from meeting his gaze, Jarrod chose his words carefully and said what he came outside to say, “Heath, for the life of me, I can’t understand how you could continue to stick to your story on that witness stand. The facts obviously allow for plenty of room for there to be more than a shadow of a doubt about Korby’s role in Colonel Ashby’s murder. You absolutely could not have seen him stab the Colonel, and there could not have been any shadows. It was just too dark for either to have been true.”

Heath narrowed his eyes, and, pausing with his work again, looked Jarrod dead in the eye. After a moment of silence, he said carefully, “Well, Counselor, like I stated on the stand, it comes down ta my word against your client’s word . . . an’ your facts. . . . An’, since I didn’t lie about what I said I saw, maybe, if you’re really lookin’ for the truth, you’d better check both again.”

“Heath, ”Jarrod said quietly. “When they find Korby, they’re going to reconvene that jury, finish up with the last witness, and I believe they’ll find him innocent of killing Colonel Ashby. You’ll have done yourself a lot more harm around here by having stuck to a story that everyone present in that courtroom knows now was flawed.”

Heath shivered again, his mind latching on to the remembered phrase “more harm.”

Focusing on those words now, sent his mind tumbling in a totally different direction, one he tried in vain to prevent.

Opening his eyes, he tried to pull himself back to the sunshine outside the Barkley barn, but it was too late.

In his mind, he could hear the lieutenant giving him his orders and see him pointing toward the road, sending him away from the others, out into the light snow, sending him on his mission of death.

Breathing hard, he could hear the man explaining how, by killing the two enemy officers now, with unseen bullets from a protected position, he would be preventing more harm to all the men on both sides of the conflict.

It was a set of orders that, once successfully carried out, he had been doomed to follow again and again, given by one commander after another.

More harm. . .

How he had hated being the solitary sniper, sighting down on an unsuspecting man, pulling the trigger. . .

Suddenly, his memories shifted again, and he was feeling the cold coursing through him, that bone-chilling cold that had hurt so much, deep down inside him, where he had no reserves left to fight it. The wind was blowing the tent flaps again, and rain was dripping relentlessly throughout the night.

He could hear the doctor standing over him, telling him in words that, in his agony, he could barely comprehend, telling him that they were going to give him some medicine, that it would do him more harm to go without it, that it would help him feel better, let him feel nothing, if he would just allow it.

But, he had known differently, had known that it would be only a temporary relief, that to allow it would cause him more harm, make his survival harder in the long haul ahead.

He had fought them, telling them over and over, “No. No! . . . It’ll do more harm. . . . No!”

That first time, they had listened to his wishes, had relented, leaving him alone.

He had learned early on, that if he kept silent despite his pain, they often ignored him when they came, sometimes as often as four hours apart, to give their patients another dose.

However, though he remained as quiet as possible, sometimes the doctors brought it and offered it, even after that first time. But, they continued to give in to his protests, respecting his wishes to avoid it. Sometimes, they would even pull another rough wool blanket over his shivering body before they walked away, shaking their heads.

But, there was that one time. . .

A new doctor had tried to give it to him anyway, to inject it into his arm despite his protests that he did not want it.

He had lashed out at him and, despite his injuries, had reached down to pull his makeshift knife from one of the boots he had fought so hard to keep. He brandished the blade, keeping the man away from him, hollering at him to stay away, to leave him alone, letting them all think the tears running down his face were from his anger and not from the pain he was in.

After that, he had always kept the knife beneath him, clenched in his fist or tucked under his blankets, hoping they would be too afraid of him to try to inject him in his restless sleep.

Fear of it, fear of their good intentions, kept him from sleeping soundly, kept him in a downward spiral of constant exhaustion from which, after several months, he barely escaped.

Unable to get up from his cot or to even turn away, he had watched men begging for it, pleading for the release the drug gave them when supplies of it had run low near the end of the war. He had lain there and heard men screaming for it, even when they did not need it, even when they should have been healing without it.

And, he could see what they could not, that the price of accepting the morphine again and again, the morphine made from the opium Harmon had spoken of, did more harm to them than suffering through the pain without it.

So, night after night, as his body slowly regained its strength, he kept silent, never allowing them to see the pain he was in, fearful that if they did, they would respond with misplaced kindness and cause him more harm.

When he had become more mobile, some of his comrades had begun to beg him to find more of the morphine for them, despite their apparent healing. One in particular had haunted him, pleading with him constantly to steal some of the opiate for him.

Over and over, Heath had told him no, trying to make the man understand through whispered conversations in the dark, that learning to do without it would give him his life back.

“Stop askin’, Billings, I’ll not get the stuff ya’ want. It’s killin’ you, now. An’, every time ya’ find more, it puts ya’ one step closer ta your grave.”

“Please, Heath, please! I can’t get around with this crutch. They’ll catch me for sure if I try to get it. Please, I’m begging you! They’ve quit giving it to me, but I have to have it!”

“No. I told ya’, I won’t steal for you, an’ I won’t help ya’ destroy the life inside you.”

When the man persisted, hour after hour, Heath had finally snapped at him, “No! It’ll kill ya’ for sure! . . . What would ya’ have me do? Change my words ta suit the facts ya’ want ta believe?”

The words inside his head, remembered as a long ago response to the pleading private, brought him full circle.

How long had it been, now?

Over a week ago?

His thoughts turned back to the memories of his conversation with Jarrod outside the barn in the warm sunshine that morning.

“And, what would you have me do, Jarrod? Change my words ta suit the facts you uncovered, even though I know what I saw? I may not have been born here, an’ I may have only worn the Barkley name a short while, but I didn’t come late ta the ideas of integrity an’ honesty. Neither is this the . . . “

“Heath,” Jarrod began, interrupting him, unable to stand what his brother’s eyes were doing to him. “I’m not saying you were lying, only that you were mistaken, that it was your imagination that created the set of circumstances in which you believed what you saw.”

While his attention was diverted, Heath reached out and lifted up the finished saddle, wincing at the weight and the pull across his ribs. As he recovered and took two steps away toward the barn, he finished over his shoulder, his words picking up from where he had left off before Jarrod had interrupted him.

“Neither is this the first time someone tried ta talk me inta forsakin’ both’a those ideas, the things that make me who I am, Jarrod, . . . but it is the first time I’ve been asked ta do so by a brother.”

Then, closing his eyes against the chill that gripped him, the fatigue and pain that made it impossible to get to his feet and leave this place, he let his mind drift back to the meeting later that day under the trees with Asa Harmon, the meeting that had set him on this path, the meeting---and the decision that had followed it---that had probably cost him the very family he had been trying to protect.

Chapter 24

“What you’re askin’ me ta do is go off an’ leave my family without a word, . . . at the very time when they’re gonna think it’s b’cause they drove me away. I can’t do that!”

“Mr. Barkley, if you agree to do this, it has to be done in absolute secrecy. You can tell no one. To do any differently would put yourself, your family, and the others already in place at too much of a risk. I won’t take that chance with your life, or theirs. You have to decide whether you’re willing to go at all, but while you’re thinking about it-----know this. Colonel Ashby was killed at precisely the wrong time. We were closing in on his operation and were very close to gathering all the information we needed. They may already be onto us. . . It may even have had something to do with why he was killed. . . .”

Harmon paused, watching Heath carefully. Then, he took a deep breath and explained, “We need that information. Our goal is to provide names, facts, and figures about the operation in place for distributing the drugs and about the people involved. If we can give this to the committee members, it will increase our chances of helping them understand the widespread problem and influence them to enact legislation to stop it. Right now, without this information, everyone in position to do something about it thinks the problem is limited to the Chinese community in and around San Francisco. We know differently.”

Asa Harmon took another deep breath, struggling to convey the depths of his concerns to the young man watching him so intently. Then, holding the unwavering blue gaze, he spread it all out, like a poker player placing all the cards face up on the table before himself and one other player.

“Without the Colonel at the helm, a person we were on to and whose movements we could keep track of, we’ve lost months of ground that we had gained. It’s too late to do anything more, but I’ve got to have help in contacting my two men on the inside who have the information. One of them has a family, three children. . . I’ve got to get them out before the whole thing comes crashing down around them. I need them to get away from there and bring me their information before it’s too late.”

Harmon walked away, staring out across the beautiful valley, but all he could see were the dark, deadly alleys and back streets along the docks of the area called the Barbary Coast. He knew various ways to contact his two men, but had no one in place to actually carry it out. None of them had expected to have to do so this soon, and the one person who had already tried, had been recognized and killed.

This time, he knew it couldn’t be anyone from San Francisco, anyone in the local law enforcement there.

He turned back and looked at Heath with worried brown eyes. “It’s dangerous, Mr. Barkley. Believe me, I know what I’m asking. The man who was their contact, the one who was supposed to get them out, was killed shortly after the Colonel. There is no one else.”

Then, he said quietly, “I need to get someone inside quickly, someone I can trust, who isn’t well known there, but who knows his way around those docks, someone who can survive there on his own.”

“An’, you figure I’m that person?” Heath asked evenly, struggling to contain his anger at being asked to do this now, when the consequences for his family could be at their worst. Inside, the anger was warring with the need he had to play some small role in ridding those around him of access to the opium he viewed as the devil itself, as a doorway into a living hell.

“Yes, I do,” the man replied, watching him carefully.

Though he could hear the irritation and the intense struggle in the young cowboy’s voice, he could not otherwise read the impassive face with the steely, expressionless blue eyes. He was pleased with what he saw of the young man’s steady reactions. Except to narrow his eyes slightly, the blond had not reacted when he had told him of the death of the detective.

Harmon added, “Before the trial, I heard enough about you that I did some checking. There was something about you when I first saw you before the inquest . . . then, when I heard that your name used to be Thomson, it suddenly all made sense to me.”

“What d’ya’ mean by that?” Heath demanded quietly.

“I think you should know, Mr. Barkley, we have a mutual friend in law enforcement-----a man by the name of Sawyer.”

“Frank? You know Frank Sawyer?”

“Yes, and he wrote to me several years ago about a very young deputy he’d hired and about some of his exploits------particularly about the Maury Brothers and the way that his deputy bested them, getting them to show their hand before they were ready. He was mighty impressed about the way you infiltrated their gang, Mr. Barkley, and were able to testify so successfully against the few that remained in the end.”

Heath looked at the man, askance.

Then, he said dryly, “That was cattle rustlin’, Mr. Harmon. It was fairly easy ta make myself look like a thief ta people who wanted ta believe it of me anyway. An’, it was a long way from what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Mr. Barkley, I need you, the men I already have in place need you, and it may be the only way to flush Korby Kyles out of hiding. But, I won’t ask you to put yourself in harm’s way like this if it isn’t the right thing for you to do.”

Already knowing from Frank’s letters that the young man before him would not back down from something he believed in because of possible danger to himself, he had no fear of that happening here. He had meant the words he had just spoken as a challenge. And, he sincerely believed the next words he spoke,-----and he wanted Heath to know it.

“If anything happens, I have to know that it was your choice.”

Then, he added, trying to relieve some of the tension between them, “Why don’t you think about it for a while, and you can let me know in a couple of days, say by Saturday, at the Cattlemen’s? If I don’t hear from you, I’ll be heading back.”

Heath, standing beside his horse and looking out across the rolling hills to the east, wasn’t worried about the challenge he understood the man beside him was tossing at his feet. Instead, he was weighing the worry he might cause his new family if he did this against the worry he felt for them, if Korby wasn’t caught.

Heath’s eyes searched the greens and browns of the land, but his mind was somewhere in the past. The man in the dream that haunted his nights reached out to him, calling his name, the hand always reaching out to him, shaking him by the shirt, again and again.

More harm. . . it came down to that. . . which would cause more harm. . . .?

Quickly, he blinked and drew in a deep breath. He returned his eyes to those of the man standing across from him.

“Korby Kyles an’ his family threatened my brother, threatened my whole family, includin’ my sister. Until he’s behind bars, an’ they’re all made ta answer for what they’ve done, I can’t stop lookin’ for him. But, . . .if I decide ta do this, an’ if anything happens, I need ta know that there’s gonna be a way for my family ta know why I made this choice, why I didn’t tell them.”

Harmon stared into the pale blue eyes and saw the strength of the young man, the truth of his worries, not for himself, but for his father’s family. He asked quietly, “You care for them a great deal, don’t you?”

Heath held his gaze steady and took a deep breath and continued, “My family means more ta me than I can ever explain ta you, more than I can even explain ta them. This trial, . . . with Jarrod an’ me on opposite sides, . . it’s been tough on all of us, especially my brothers. I don’t want them ta think I gave up their trust in me lightly or that my decision to leave was, in any way, their fault.”

The man said, “Whatever you want to do, Mr. Barkley, short of telling them anything before it’s over, is fine with me.”

Heath took a deep breath and said, “Then, there’s no need ta wait ‘til Saturday. I’ll meet ya’ tomorrow. But, I’m tellin’ ya’ right now. If something happens, I have ta know I didn’t go ta my grave with them thinkin’ that they had anything ta do with why I left. I really don’t care how much you tell them about what happened, probably the less they know the better, but I’ll want your promise that you’ll tell them the reasons for my silence. That you’ll convince them I didn’t leave, didn’t do this, b’cause’a anything they did------‘cause otherwise, that’s exactly what they’ll think. ”

“Mr. Barkley, I promise to you that, if necessary, I’ll go to Jarrod Barkley and personally relate to him what you chose to do and that your main concern was for them. But, until that need arises, if it does, it’s much safer for all of them, especially your brother with all the time he spends in San Francisco, if you don’t tell any of them of your plans.”

Heath looked down at his hands, the leather reins entwined between his fingers. He closed his eyes for a moment, and he thought of Nick, the brother that would be most hurt by his leaving, and the most hurt by not being told ahead of time.

How many times would he have to deceive his brother, how many lies would he have to tell any of them before this was over?

The quicker he left, the better.

Then, he glanced up and caught the worried, serious brown eyes of the man watching him intently.

Heath said again, “I’ll meet ya’ tomorrow.”

The older man nodded. He could appreciate fully the situation he had placed the younger man in, could see and was impressed by the integrity of the man and his concern, not for himself, but for his family.

Shaking his head slightly, and placing his hand on Heath’s shoulder, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Barkley. I can’t properly express to you how grateful I am at what you’ve agreed to do for us.”

The blond held the intent gaze without wavering, but he said quietly, “It’s Heath.”

Blinking, Asa Harmon said, extending his hand to shake the young man’s, “Alright, Heath it is.”

Then, he breathed out a sigh of relief and added, “I’ll see you at the depot tomorrow morning for the 11:45 train. I’ll have your ticket and a seat saved for you in the same section. It’s better that we don’t talk too much on the train, though, or even look like we’re traveling together.”

Heath immediately shook his head and said, “I’ll board the train later, not here. An’, I’ll buy my own ticket.”

Then, without another word, he turned away from the man, whose eyebrows were raised in curiosity at this change, and mounted slowly. Reining the mare around, he headed for the barn just visible, below them, in the distance.

His thoughts were already on his brothers.

No matter how much or how little time he had tomorrow, he knew the stakes had just been raised on trying to work things out with them, on trying to get them to move beyond their anger at each other because of him.

Chapter 25

Jarrod sat in his black leather chair, looking out of the window at the street below. However, he did not see the movement of the people along the wide main avenue of Stockton, going about their mid-afternoon business.

His thoughts, like his relationship with his family, were in turmoil.

He rubbed the back of his neck, before reaching for his pocket watch.

Then, jolted yet again by its absence from its normal place inside his vest pocket, he turned, instead, to peer at the clock across from him on a shelf, its numbers difficult to see in the glare from the window.

The watch had been in Audra’s possession, somewhere in her room, he assumed, since midday on the Monday over a week ago during the Korby Kyles’ trial. He had given it to her here in this room to hold onto for him as a reminder of his love for his family, and he had not had the heart to ask for it back.

She had not offered it.

Standing with a sigh, he knew it was time to go home to face them with the news he had learned, the news that would make them all turn against him more completely now.

No, that wasn’t fair, he corrected himself. His mother would not turn away, though her eyes would betray her continued disappointment in their actions towards each other----in his, Nick’s, and Audra’s.

Buttoning his coat, he realized with a wry smile, that he had lost weight. Not too long ago, both Nick and their mother had commented on the fact that he had been putting on weight, though he had maintained it was just a pound or two. But, now, the suit was beginning to hang on his frame and would soon, at this rate, have to be altered.

Suddenly, standing perfectly still in the doorway, he remembered that the day they had both said something about his weight had been the same, exact day of Heath’s arrival in the valley.

Shaking his head as he picked up his hat, closed the door and exited the quiet building, he swallowed hard at all that had happened since that day, and at how much he missed the quiet, blond brother who had been with them for such a short time.

It had been over a week since Heath had left, and there had been no word from him.

But, now, though he had no news of Heath’s whereabouts, he did have information to share with them that was going to make his family feel his loss, and Jarrod’s role in it, even more acutely.

* * * * * * * *

Entering the barn, leading his chestnut, Jarrod was surprised to see Nick coming out of the tack room.

It was too early for the hard-working rancher to be in from making his endless rounds of the pastures and fields, checking on men and livestock. But, he knew Nick had probably been keeping a close eye on the house as well. He still worried about the threats the Kyles’ had made against the family, despite the fact that Jake and the youngest boy, Emmet, had turned up and were being held until the other two were found and a resolution to the trial was determined.

The two brothers locked eyes for a few moments, the tension between them as undeniable as a thick wall of solid rock.

Slowly, Jarrod turned away and continued leading his horse into a stall. He raised an eyebrow as Nick joined him inside the small space, standing on the opposite side of the chestnut, and leaned his arms across his saddle, staring at Jarrod. Concentrating on unsaddling the gelding, Jarrod kept his eyes down, unwilling to start yet another confrontation here, especially with the weight of his news pressing down on him.

Nick said, keeping his tone purposely even, “Have a good day, Counselor?”

When Jarrod did not reply, Nick put his hands down heavily on the saddle, preventing him from lifting it, and said, sarcasm growing, “You’re home kind of early, aren’t you?”

In the blink of an eye, Jarrod heard an echo of Heath’s words that day in the study, weeks ago, when the blond had asked almost the same question, though without the sarcasm,

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

Shaking his head to dispel the memory, Jarrod continued his task by focusing on Jingo’s bridle, determined not to let Nick goad him into another battle of words, or worse. They had locked horns too many times in the last week, and, once Nick had returned after the first three days from trying to follow Heath’s illusive trail, it was rare for one of them to be without a scowl at the other all over his face.

They both knew now that Heath had not wanted them to find him.

He had bought a ticket to Flagstaff, and by the time they had realized it was a ticket he had apparently not used, he was long gone---and his trail was too cold to follow.

They also both knew the tension between them was getting out of hand.

Duke had tried to speak to them just the other night, cautioning them that some of the men were doing more complaining about them than working, and a few were even talking of leaving. He reminded the two of them of his belief that it was this very conflict that had driven Heath away.

But, in both situations, in their anger at each other and in Heath’s disappearance, the two of them seemed powerless to prevent the natural conclusion that kept them in a tight, ever narrowing circle of temper. Heath had probably left because of them, and each blamed the other for the fact that he had obviously not intended to be found.

“Well,” Jarrod thought, “Perhaps if I can just get in the house to share it, the information I have now will help put an end to at least some of the wall between us. . . . There’ll only be one side still standing.”

Determined to only have to say it once, in front of all of them, Jarrod looked his brother full in the eye and said, “Nick. I’m through arguing with you. Where’re Mother and Audra? I need to talk to all three of you, together.”

Instantly, Nick was wary, and, releasing the saddle so Jarrod could carry it, he grabbed his brother by the arm as he exited the stall.

“What is it, Jarrod? Have you heard something about Heath?”

When Jarrod shook him off without answering, Nick came after him.

“Jarrod!” he said, reaching out to clamp down on his older brother’s shoulder and turning him around.

“Jarrod.”

As he placed the saddle on the nearby rack, his midnight blue eyes came around to find the worried hazel, and Jarrod froze.

It was as if time, like a thundering locomotive screeching to a halt, suddenly ground to an earsplitting stop.

Then, its wheels slowly, relentlessly beginning to turn the other way, the engine backed up, and time reversed itself.

As Jarrod stared at Nick, he realized with growing horror that the look in Nick’s eyes was the same expression of anguish that he had seen there that day six years ago when word had come to them of Tom Barkley’s death.

Never adept at asking for what he wanted, Nick could only repeat Jarrod’s name, his eyes asking for the truth, but holding onto the faint hope that the news would not be as devastating as he feared.

“Jarrod.”

Reaching out for him, Jarrod reacted in the only way he knew how, as Pappy to his tormented younger brother.

Pulling Nick into a hard embrace, he held on and said into Nick’s ear, “We’ll find him, Nick. I promise you, we’ll go tomorrow. We’ll send more telegrams to the towns further away. But, whatever we have to do, we’ll keep looking until we find our little brother, and we’ll bring him home.”

His eyes closed in relief, Nick allowed Jarrod to hold onto him for a few seconds. Then, he pulled away and, opening his eyes, nodded silently as he gazed into the blue eyes that reflected his own pain so clearly.

Suddenly, now that he could think past the crushing blow to his gut that he had felt at Jarrod’s words moments before, Nick vividly recalled being in Heath’s room late that afternoon over a week ago.

He and Jarrod had been about to light into each other then and there, when Heath had somehow managed to get between them both, separating them, before they had even realized he was awake. Then, blinking hard, Nick remembered how he had had to help Heath back into the bed afterwards. Even exhausted and in pain, Heath had tried to tell him then what Nick had just realized for himself, here in the barn.

Gripping the back of Heath’s neck once, Nick leaned down and said in Heath’s ear. “Get some sleep, Heath.”

The blond didn’t open his eyes, but he nodded once, then, said in a weary voice, barely above a whisper, as he reached up to wrap his fingers around Nick’s wrist, “He’s . . . already hurtin’, . . . Nick.”

Nick glanced up at Jarrod’s worried face, his dark blue eyes watching them from the other side of the bed. Then, knowing exactly what Heath meant, he said, “Alright. You’ve saved him from my fists for today, Little Brother. But, that’s one promise I won’t make for tomorrow.”

At the time, Nick had thought Heath was referring only to Jarrod’s head injury from the day before. But, now, looking back, across all the anxiousness and anger that had kept a steady grip on him since before the Korby Kyles trial, Nick knew Heath had meant more than that.

For the first time in weeks, he looked, really looked, at his older brother, and Nick realized that, all this time, though he wasn’t even here, Heath had been right.

Jarrod had been hurting, too, hurting over the conflict and friction keeping them all apart.

“You know where he is?” Nick inquired, hope flaring.

Jarrod shook his head, “No, Nick. But, I know we have to find him. We have to keep looking.”

Turning, Nick gripped Jarrod by the shoulder for a few seconds, then stalked toward the house with spurs jingling, feeling somehow lighter than he had in days, as his older brother walked with him, beside him, headed, finally, in the same direction—despite the fact that they didn’t exactly know where they would be going.

* * * * * * * *

Nick paced back and forth in front of the fireplace as Jarrod spoke quietly into the room.

Victoria Barkley sat on the red settee, her daughter’s hand clasped in hers, as they both listened intently to Jarrod’s words.

He sat facing the two of them, his hands on his knees, and his blue eyes asking for their forgiveness as he shared the words with them.

“The prosecutor, Aaron Green, and I met with Judge Lansing today. It seems that the judge felt there was a need for some closure on Korby’s situation, even though he still hasn’t been found. The trial cannot continue without him, but both men felt I needed to know the missing testimony, so I could convince Korby to change his plea when he returns.”

Taking a deep breath as he saw Nick stop pacing and turn around to stare at him, Jarrod looked him in the eye, waiting.

Nick said loudly, “Change his plea? He’s already said he wasn’t guilty, and the whole town believes him, even though he ran like the guilty rat he is!”

Jarrod said quietly, “Yes, Nick. The judge believes, in view of the deposition the court’s clerk took from the engineer, Mr. Bingham, yesterday, that I should be prepared to encourage my client to change his plea.”

Puzzled, Victoria asked, “Yesterday, Jarrod? Why wasn’t his statement taken the same day he began his testimony, since it couldn’t be taken before that?”

Shaking his head, Jarrod said, “I’m not sure, Mother. I’ve tried twice in the last week to find out what else Mr. Bingham had to say, but he has not been available. Apparently, in the confusion of their escape and the posse chasing after the Kyles’, the engineer talked Aaron into letting him make his northbound run that afternoon. He’s been working up north ever since, and no one from Aaron’s office had thought about whatever he had to say since then. They’ve been too focused on trying to bring Korby back in.”

“What was this testimony, and what does it have to do with us, now?” Nick demanded, his open hand pounding on the solid wood of the mantle above his head.

Turning his eyes back to him, Jarrod said, steeling himself for the onslaught, “Though my facts about the streetlamp and the moon the night the Colonel was killed were correct, Nick, I was dead wrong about the rest of it.”

Their eyes bored into each other’s, Nick’s showing flickers of unavoidable anger struggling with compassion. He was stunned by Jarrod’s admission, especially after knowing how upset his older brother had been with Heath, in view of the stubborn way their brother had clung to a story full of holes that Jarrod had put there.

And, he knew how hard it must have been for his older brother to admit it now.

Victoria asked the question Nick could not, “Jarrod? Tell us. What do you mean?”

Upon hearing her quiet words, upon realizing her voice held no rebuke, Jarrod dropped his eyes from Nick’s, and he looked at her. Then, clenching his hands together into one white-knuckled fist with his elbows lying across his knees, Jarrod said in a strained voice, “I got Heath up there on that stand and tore into him, and I’ve continued to believe that he imagined the whole thing. . . . Mother, I was so angry at him for not being able to give into his stubborn pride and admit that he was wrong. . . . “

Jarrod stood up abruptly and took several long strides that carried him across the comfortable, familiar room to stand by the open French doors leading onto the verandah. He stood there, fists deep in his pockets, for several long, silent moments.

He was seeing again the image of his blond-headed brother, standing out by the barn, Jarrod’s shining saddle in his hands, as he paused in walking toward the tack room.

Heath’s words, merged together now as if it had all been spoken at the time in some impromptu oratory on integrity and honor, drifted back to him across the sun-filled space and over one week’s worth of worry-filled days.

“Well, Counselor, like I stated on the stand, it comes down ta my word against your client’s word, an’ your facts. An’, since I didn’t lie about what I said I saw, maybe, if you’re really lookin’ for the truth, you’d better check both again. . . .”

“. . . . What would you have me do, Jarrod? Change my words ta suit the facts you uncovered, even though I know what I saw? I may not’ve been born here, an’ I may’ve only worn the Barkley name a short while, but I didn’t come late ta the ideas of integrity an’ honesty. . . . “

“. . . Neither is this the first time someone tried ta talk me inta forsakin’ both’a those ideas, the things that make me who I am, Jarrod, . . . but it is the first time I’ve been asked ta do so by a brother.”

Jarrod turned anguished eyes back toward the family members watching him, again seeking his mother’s compassionate grey eyes, and he said, his voice full of regret, “Whenever I would bring it up, he kept trying to make me see what I was doing to him, what I was asking of him. He kept trying to make me understand that he was telling it exactly the way he saw it, and to say anything different was to betray who and what he is.”

He looked at Nick and said, “You tried to tell me, Nick, several times. And, I just kept digging my heels in. In fact, I was so angry at Heath, I couldn’t see that I was guilty of doing exactly what I was accusing him of. I was the one with my pride at stake, the one that couldn’t think past my own sense of justice. In doing so, I was condemning my brother for doing what he believed was right.”

Taking a deep breath, Jarrod glanced outside again, just in time to see the sheriff riding up the road, the sun glinting on his badge. Instantly worried about what Liam’s arrival meant, he also knew he needed to finish what he had to say to them.

Walking back over to his too-quiet brother, watching him from in front of the fire, Jarrod stopped before Nick, looked him in the eye, and said, “Bingham’s deposition said that the light from his engine shone on the two men fighting and the man running toward them. He recognized Colonel Ashby as the man who fell, and identified Korby Kyles as the man who stabbed him, just as Heath described. . . “

Audra gasped from her place on the settee, as Nick stared back into Jarrod’s anguished blue eyes.

“And,” Jarrod added, his eyes holding Nick’s with his, despite what it cost him to do so, “He could see all of it well enough that he recognized Heath as the man chasing after Korby toward the wall at the back of the alley.”

“So, Heath was right all along,” Nick stated slowly, crossing his arms. “There was enough light for him to see what happened. And, there were shadows created by that light.”

Then, shaking his head, Nick said, “I ought to bust you again, Jarrod, right here and now, for what you put him through.”

“Nicholas!” Victoria said, standing swiftly.

“But, I won’t,” Nick said, not breaking his gaze from Jarrod’s face to look at hers. “I’ll leave that pleasure for my little brother. Of course,” he added, cracking his first smile at Jarrod in days, as he rubbed his own jaw in illustration, “After he gives you a face full of fist like you’ve never felt before, he’ll probably reach down with the same hand and offer to help your sorry self get back on your feet. . . . I wouldn’t be as generous, but, that’s the kind of man he is.”

“And,” Nick said, stepping closer, one hand, finger extended, pointing into Jarrod’s face, “I expect you to fulfill the promise you made to me, that you’ll go with me---tomorrow, with no lily-white, sleight-of lawyer-handed excuses in sight-----that you’ll go with me to find him and bring him home, wherever he is.”

Nodding, Jarrod said, “I’ll be going to look for him with or without you, so just see that you’re ready early tomorrow, Nick Barkley, working ranch or not.”

Nodding back, Nick’s smile grew.

As the two dark-headed men reached out and grasped each other’s right hands in silent reiteration of the promise just made, Victoria and Audra met each other’s eyes, and both, with smiles on their faces, breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, as the ladies returned their eyes to the two brothers standing together in front of the fire, Silas announced their visitor.

Chapter 26

“Ladies, . . . Boys,” Sheriff Liam Forrest said, entering the room. He turned and nodded his thanks to Silas for showing him in, and he stepped over to the center of the room.

“Sheriff,” Victoria said as she passed him, gesturing him toward the chair Jarrod had recently vacated. She walked to the sideboard and poured him the whiskey she knew he preferred and returned to his side, handing it to him.

As she moved back to the settee, he half rose as she seated herself, then he sat back down and crossed one boot over his knee, the untouched drink in his hand. He looked up at Tom Barkley’s picture over the mantle, then at the steady gazes of each of the men standing beneath it.

He took a deep breath and let it out noisily.

“Whew!” he said, shaking his head. Then, he looked specifically at the dark-headed lawyer and said, “Jarrod, your secretary is back in town, came in on the afternoon stage, and she has absolutely made a nuisance of herself in my office, flapping around like a, a, a hen with one broken wing, trying to get me to hightail it out here.”

“Mrs. Johnson?” Victoria asked, surprised. This didn’t sound like the same, solid woman she knew at all.

The sheriff nodded, exasperation written all over his face.

Seeing Jarrod’s amused expression, he added, “Frankly, Jarrod, I came out here just to get away from her. I told her I knew you were coming back into town for a six o’clock meeting, but she just wouldn’t let me wait, said this was too important.”

He reached into his shirt pocket, inside his grey vest, and pulled out an envelope. Standing, he reached across the low table to hand it to Jarrod.

Glancing at his own embossed initials on the back, Jarrod’s curiosity was immediately heightened. Why and how was someone sending him a letter enclosed in his own stationery? Then, as soon as he turned it over, his eyes widened.

There, written in a careful penmanship that he recognized instantly as his brother’s handwriting, he saw simply one word, . . . his own first name.

“Heath,” he whispered.

His mother and sister were instantly on their feet, crossing to stand by him, his mother’s hand on his arm. Nick stood rigidly, looking at him, and their eyes met over Audra’s head.

With his heart pounding, Jarrod ripped open the envelope and removed both a single sheet of buff-colored paper that matched the outer envelope, as well as a smaller, white envelope with Nick’s name on it. He handed the latter to Nick and quickly unfolded and read the former, taking his mother’s hand in his as he did so.

Audra turned to look at Nick, waiting for him to read and share his. Instead, she saw him slide it, slowly, . . . unopened, inside his leather vest, his eyes staring down at the fire at his feet.

Jarrod turned to the sheriff, who was watching them with wide eyes, “Liam, tell me about this letter from Heath. What did Mrs. Johnson say?”

“Jarrod, I had no idea who it was from. The woman was barely coherent, just hopping around my office saying that she had forgotten all about it, that ‘he,’ though I didn’t hear her say who ‘he’ was, had said it was important, and she had forgotten it. She kept grabbing at my arms, begging me to bring it to you immediately. I tried to tell her you would be back in an hour or two and that she could give it to you herself, but she wouldn’t calm down long enough to even acknowledge that she heard me.”

“Where is she? Do you know where she went?”

He shrugged and said, “I’m not sure, Jarrod. I walked her halfway over to Doc Merar’s place, planning to see that she made it there in one piece, and that he gave her something to calm her nerves, but we got part of the way, and she started shrieking at me to take you the letter again, so I left.”

“Nick,” Jarrod turned to his hazel-eyed brother, who lifted his dazed eyes from the fire to look at him, and said, “We need to get to town. My meeting this evening is with Asa Harmon. . . . I received a telegram yesterday from him, requesting that I see him, and, apparently, from what Heath wrote, Asa must know where he is.“

“Then, what are we waiting for? Let’s go,” Nick replied, already kissing Audra on the top of the head, reaching out to squeeze his mother’s arm, and heading out the door to saddle their horses, the note from his brother tucked away safely into his pocket for reading as soon as he could reach the quiet barn.

“Liam,” Jarrod said, turning to him, “Thank you for bringing this. Will you find Mrs. Johnson, and bring her to my office? I’m supposed to meet Harmon at the Cattlemen’s, but, with this information, I will want him to come to my office instead. Nick and I will find him and get him over there.”

He paused for a moment, feeling the pressure of his mother’s fingers tighten on his arm. He looked down into her eyes and knew what she wanted without her having to give voice to the thought.

To the sheriff, he added, “If you don’t mind accompanying my mother and sister to town, I’d be most grateful. We’ll need them there, but Nick and I will need to ride on ahead.”

“Not at all, Jarrod.” He stepped toward the door and said, “I’ll help Nick with the buggy.”

Turning to the two worried women, Jarrod linked one of his arms with his mother’s and wrapped his other around Audra’s waist. Looking into one pair of eyes, then the other, he explained to them solemnly, “Heath must have had some dealings with Asa Harmon, the investigator from the trial, that we were unaware of. I received a telegram from the man yesterday asking to meet with me today, with no mention of why. But, Heath’s letter, which must have been written before Mrs. Johnson left, says we should talk to Harmon about where he went and why.”

Victoria nodded. She remembered that Diane Johnson had been ill herself for several days around the time of the trial, and she was aware that Mrs. Johnson had left shortly afterward to assist her sister, who lived in Modesto and whom had also taken ill.

“Jarrod,” she asked, “Nick took his letter with him. What exactly did Heath say in yours?”

He took a deep breath and answered her, looking at them both. “It was short,” he smiled, meeting Audra’s slight smile, noting how pale her face was, “He told me there was a reason for his leaving that he could not yet explain.” Then, taking a deep breath, he added, “He said we should hear from him within four days. But, if we had not, that I should contact Asa Harmon in San Francisco immediately.”

“And, now?” Audra asked quietly, her expressive blue eyes brimming as she searched his face.

“I don’t know, Honey,” Jarrod said, reaching up and touching her cheek with the back of his hand. “It sounds like we’re behind in that schedule by at least three or four additional days. We’ll just have to do everything we can to figure out what’s happened, and to find him. But, at least now we know where to start looking.”

Catching the single tear that trailed down her face, he added, “If you and Mother could accompany the sheriff back to town, it also sounds like Mrs. Johnson may need your compassion and support right about now. But, if you don’t feel up to it, I’ll definitely understand.”

Reaching up to take his strong hand in hers, Audra squeezed it and said, “I want to go, Jarrod.”

Nodding, he leaned in to kiss her cheek and whispered, “That’s my girl.”

Then, meeting his mother’s glistening grey eyes, he smiled reassuringly at her and said gallantly, “This way, Lovely Ladies. I’m sure your carriage awaits, and, . . . I’m equally sure that Brother Nick has paced himself a trench beside it by now.”

* * * * * * * *

The three women and the sheriff arrived first at Jarrod’s office, the door unlocked by Liam Forrest, using Mrs. Johnson’s key. As they settled themselves in the inner office, Jarrod arrived.

Hanging up his hat and coat, he glanced at the sheriff, who had just gotten a fire started in the grate, and he turned to the women. Smiling reassuringly at his mother and sister, he caught the slight shake of the head his mother offered him, before he stepped over to Diane Johnson, pulling up a chair to face her at a slight angle.

Over his shoulder he explained to the others, “Nick is still trying to find Asa Harmon. But, if he can’t get him here early, at least we know where he’ll be at 6:00.”

Reaching over, he took Mrs. Johnson’s hand in his, and asked kindly, “Diane, how is your sister?”

She glanced up at him, from where her eyes had been gazing fixedly at the handkerchief she worried between the fingers in her lap. She nodded and said softly, “She’s fine, Mr. Barkley, just fine.”

Then, biting her lip, she blurted out, “Oh, Mr. Barkley! I am so sorry! I received a telegram from my sister right after your brother left, and I didn’t think you’d mind if I asked Clara Hein to fill in for me. It was just supposed to be for a day or two. But, my sister got worse, and I had to stay. You were so kind to allow it when I sent word, and I just never thought again about the letter in my desk that your brother handed me.”

Used to having to soothe distraught clients in all sorts of situations, Jarrod patted her hand and said, “It’s alright. Slow down, now. Take a deep breath and just tell me what happened.”

She nodded and swallowed hard, wiping at a tear that threatened to spill from her red-rimmed eyes. Softly, she said, “He came by here early that morning, the morning you had that eight o’clock meeting with the farmer.”

“Mr. Watley?”

“Yes, I think so, though I never had it written in on your calendar. It was the meeting you stayed over for. They had sent for you at home the previous evening, I think you said.”

Jarrod nodded, “Yes, that was on Thursday, after the trial.”

“That’s right,” she nodded back. “He seemed very concerned that he had missed you. I offered to write down what he wanted to say to you, but,” she immediately dissolved into tears, thinking about how she had let that quiet, obviously sick young man down by telling him she would see that Jarrod received what he wrote.

She looked away from Jarrod’s concerned blue eyes at the approach of his beautifully dressed mother, and reached up to take the cup of tea she offered. Holding it in shaking hands, she sipped it for a few moments, then handed it to Jarrod to place on the table beside him.

“He didn’t want to sit behind your desk. I got him some of your stationery, and he carried it over here to write to you. It didn’t take him long, and I took it from him, telling him, . . . telling him I’d be sure to get it to you. Oh, Mr. Barkley. I’m so sorry! Was it terribly important?”

Jarrod glanced up at his mother who was still standing nearby. She stepped over beside Mrs. Johnson and took her hand as Jarrod said gently, “We’re not sure right now, Diane. We haven’t seen him. You were one of the last people to really talk to him that we can find, so anything you can think of would help. Can you tell me anything else about how he seemed to you that day?”

She looked at their concerned faces, then closed her eyes for a few moments. Pulling herself together, she said, “He was moving kind of slowly, like he was sick or something. He drank a glass of water and started coughing terribly, almost doubling over as if he were in terrible pain or dizzy, or both. Then, he sat down to write the letter and seemed better after that. I had heard things about him from people in town, but,” she said, squeezing Victoria’s hand in hers, “He wasn’t like that at all. He was quiet and had impeccable manners, kind of a gentle way about him. He made me want to reach out to help him, and I stopped him, told him I thought he was sick and asked if he had seen Doc Merar. He smiled, sort of a half smile, and said that he wasn’t sick, but that he appreciated my concern. Then, he left.”

Jarrod and Victoria’s eyes had met over her head as she talked, both able too well to picture the worn condition of the blond in the few days immediately before and after the trial. Doctor Merar’s words to Victoria, shared with her family since then, had completed that picture. . . .

Jarrod asked, “Diane, did you notice if he was riding or on foot when he left, and which way he went?”

Thinking for a moment, she said, “He untied a horse from the hitching post out front and led it across the street, you know, down to the right, but across, as if he were going to the hotel or the livery stable behind it.”

Nodding, Jarrod said, “Thank you so much for your help. I’m glad you’re back and that your sister is better. Why don’t you go get some rest today, and in the morning there will be no need to open up until 9:00. I’ll be out of the office for several days, so I’ll need you to cancel my appointments, but there’s plenty of correspondence and filing that Clara was unable to finish. She did her best, but it wasn’t like having you here.”

He stood and walked her to the door, then glanced at the sheriff, who quickly headed over and took her by the elbow. “I’ll be happy to walk you to the boarding house, if you like, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” she replied, and turning, she took in the eyes of her employer and his family. “Thank you, all of you, for being so understanding. I certainly hope that everything with your brother turns out all right.”

“Thank you, Diane,” Jarrod said again.

Then, when the door had closed behind them, Jarrod crossed over to the fireplace and stood with his back to the room, unwilling to give voice to the worried thoughts twisting their way through his mind.

After a moment, he felt Audra standing beside him, her arm wrapped in his. A bit taller than their mother, he felt, rather than saw that it was her, as she lay her head against his arm from behind, and he reached up with his opposite hand to caress her cheek. Then, he turned and pulled her to him in a hug, and resting his face against her hair, he allowed only a small groan of anguished frustration to burst forth.

Slowly, he pulled himself together and whispered, “Thank you, Sweetheart. I needed your arms around me right then, and you seemed to know it.”

Reaching up to stroke the side of his face, she said gently, “Jarrod, that poor woman. Heath would never want any of us to be angry with her for the mistake she made in her worry about getting to her sister. We’ll find him. Don’t worry, Big Brother.”

Unable to speak, he grasped her fingers in his. Then, hearing the door open, they both turned to see Nick entering the room, followed by the sheriff and the man Jarrod had questioned on the stand almost two weeks ago, Asa Harmon.

Chapter 27

The man looked just as professional, just as serious as he had on the stand that day almost two weeks back, but there was something different about him, something that indicated trouble for them all.

He stood in the doorway, taking in all of the faces that were turned to him as if they thought he held all the answers they sought. This was not the way he had pictured this evening’s meeting, and the significance only added to the tiredness and despair he felt.

It had been a long three weeks since the Colonel’s murder.

Jarrod approached him slowly, not liking the wary, almost apologetic, look he saw in the man’s eyes.

Reaching out to shake his hand, Jarrod said, “Mr. Harmon, thank you for meeting me early, here, instead of the hotel restaurant. We are all assuming you can tell us about the disappearance of my brother, Heath. . . Now,” he continued, without giving the man a chance to answer, “Let me introduce you. You’ve met my brother, Nick, and the sheriff. This is my mother, Victoria Barkley, and my sister, Audra.”

“Ladies,” Asa Harmon said, nodding his head. Then, he brought his gaze back to meet Jarrod’s. “Mr. Barkley, I would prefer to speak of this matter more privately if that’s possible. Perhaps just the two of us and possibly the sheriff could. . . .”

However, at that moment, Nick stepped to his left, blocking the doorway, and Victoria took two steps forward to take the uncomfortable man by the arm. She led him, his eyes glancing back gloweringly to take Nick’s measure, toward the tweed couch.

“Please sit here, Mr. Harmon. I assure you, I have no intention of leaving this room without knowing everything you do about the whereabouts of my son.”

“Your son, Mrs. Barkley?” he asked, incredulous. “I was under the impression that Heath was your husband’s son.”

Bristling, her grey eyes flashing, she responded, “Mr. Harmon, he is my son by my choice, and the love is so much the stronger for it, I promise you. Now, kindly explain to us, all of us, what you know of his disappearance.”

Taking a deep breath, he looked around the room, and forced himself to relax. “Please forgive me, I’m not used to this kind of situation. This is all highly irregular.” Then, after meeting the eyes of each of them, one by one, he returned his gaze to Victoria and said, “When I realized who your son was, Mrs. Barkley, I approached him about helping my investigative team recover from the ground we had lost at the death of John Ashby.”

Nick stepped forward and demanded, hands on his hips, “What do you mean, when you realized who he was? If you’re referring to the status of his birth, as if that made him expendable. . . .”

Holding up his hands, Asa Harmon shook his head quickly and said, “No, wait, please listen. Forgive me, I’m used to dealing with facts and figures and the occasional ruffian, not . . . well, I’m probably not the best person for explaining all of this.”

Again, his eyes returned to Victoria’s face, flickered toward Audra’s and back to the grey eyes of the mother. Then, with a sigh, he said, “Let me start again.”

“A moment, please,” Victoria said. Then, taking Audra by the hand, she led her daughter toward the doorway. “Sheriff, would you join us for a few minutes?” Opening it, she escorted the other two from the room.

Once outside, Audra protested.

“Mother, I am not a child, and I need to be there to help Heath! I’m strong enough for whatever that man has to tell us. Please, Mother!”

Taking her hands, Victoria looked into her daughter’s eyes, and said, “Audra, I know you are, but let me ask you something. . . . What would Heath want? I don’t know what that man is going to say, but the anguished worry behind his eyes tells me it is not going to be pleasant. . . . Your brother is so protective of you. Would Heath want you to hear it, whatever it is, from a stranger? Or do you think he would be more comfortable knowing that if you had to hear it, either Jarrod or myself were the ones to share it with you?”

Her eyes brimming with tears, Audra looked down at her hands and nodded. Then, lifting her chin, she said, “I love you, Mother. And, I love Heath with all my heart. I’ll wait down the street at the cafe’.”

Pride in her daughter’s maturity taking away her words, Victoria reached out and hugged Audra to her. Together, they stepped to the outer doorway.

Liam spoke up, “I’ll see that she gets there alright, Mrs. Barkley, and that she’s not alone. I can probably persuade James to let Callie sit with her.”

“Thank you, Liam.”

Giving Audra another smile, she turned back to the inner office door, opened it, and moved to stand beside Jarrod.

Jarrod was just handing Asa Harmon a drink. He asked, “Do you mind if we call you Asa? It would probably help if you called the two of us by our first names. Please call me Jarrod, and my brother, Nick.”

Nodding at each one, the dark-headed investigator took a swallow of the smooth scotch and started again, “Yes, please call me Asa. . . . Now, Mrs. Barkley,” he said, turning toward her, “Without intending to pry into your family business, please, let me ask you a question, if you will. How long have you known Heath?”

Her grey eyes locked on his, she responded, “He’s been part of our family for two months and . . . for two-and-a-half months. Prior to that time, we did not know of him. . . . He is very quiet about his past, if that is what you’re leading up to.”

Nodding at her shrewdness, he said, “Yes, that’s exactly it. You see, several years ago, I corresponded fairly regularly with a friend who was also a law enforcement officer, a man by the name of Frank Sawyer. He had a deputy named Heath Thomson, and the young man had greatly distinguished himself in Frank’s eyes, not an easy task, I assure you.”

He watched as the family members exchanged surprised glances. He rightfully inferred that none of them had known about that. Then, he continued, “During that time, Thomson infiltrated a ring of rustlers that had been terrorizing three counties, gathered the evidence, and brought the ones he was not forced to kill, in to Frank for prosecution.”

Nick, having remained silent as long as he could, slammed his right fist into the glove of his left hand, grinning. As the others turned their eyes to meet his, he said, “So that explains what I saw in the courtroom!”

Jarrod asked, looking at his brother, “What do you mean?”

“He was too good at that question and answer game you call testifying to have never done it before. I knew there had to be some explanation.”

Harmon nodded, then asked, “Are you at all aware of the time he spent as a sharpshooter during the war? Or of his, . . .” he paused, watching Victoria’s reaction carefully, compassionately, ”Of his incarceration at the end of it in a prison camp?”

Victoria gasped and moved closer to Jarrod, her hands gripping his arm. She quickly looked up at him and saw the surprise on his face as he sucked in a deep breath and gazed out the window behind them. A glance at Nick, however, led her to believe that at least part of this information was not new to him.

“The war!” she exclaimed, “But, surely, he couldn’t have been old enough to fight. . . .”

Then, struggling for composure, realizing that without a father to stop him, anything was possible during those terrible times, she added quietly, “How long was he imprisoned?”

“Seven months, Mother,” Nick said, his back to the room as he stared out the window.

“You knew, Nick?” Jarrod asked in surprise, his other, immediately surfacing questions and emotions reined in tightly.

“Yes,” Nick growled, his back still to them, “He just told me a few nights before he left.”

Returning her eyes to Asa Harmon, Victoria said, fighting to keep her voice steady, “I assume you tell us this now because it has bearing on the current situation.”

“Yes, Ma’am, it does. All of it does. That information, and the fact that your son used to work the docks along San Francisco’s Barbary Coast area, are critical. You see, I needed someone to go there and. . . . well, the organization moving opium through that area and sending it out for distribution is the heart of the trade, . . . and, the most dangerous. It was vital that we contact the two men I had who had infiltrated that organization, and I had no one else in place who could help me do that. Ashby’s death was too sudden. But, finding the right person here, at the right time, was simply a stroke of luck for us.”

Nick turned, stalked over to the man and, standing above him, hands on his hips, he demanded, “You sent my brother into the viper’s nest to remove two of your men when things got too heated? And, you had already sent in men with no back up plan for getting them out in an emergency? What kind of planning is that, Harmon?”

Asa stood to face Nick and nodded his head. “You’re right, Mr. Barkley. You’re exactly right. I did have someone in place, but. . . well, it just happened too fast.”

“Had someone in place? Someone else who was killed, you mean!” Nick exclaimed, the significance of the man’s words barreling into him, tightening the clutch of fear beginning to rip into his heart.

Shaking his head, Jarrod asked, still trying to make sense of it, “But, what does Heath’s service record have to do with any of it, Asa? I knew nothing of all of that, and, for the life of me, I can’t see the connection now.”

Harmon turned sad brown eyes on Jarrod for a long moment before he spoke. “Your brother was one of the few men, well, he was no more than a boy, really, . . . but one of the few who walked out of Carterson Prison alive. And, he was one of an even smaller number who managed to survive the first year afterward without becoming an addict to morphine, a derivative of the opium being shipped into this country through San Francisco’s ports, even back then.”

Swallowing hard, Nick turned his back and walked behind Jarrod’s desk, placed his hands on the windowsill and leaned forward, resting his forehead against the cool glass. Behind him, he heard Jarrod ask another question.

“And, I take it this particular characteristic was important to you?”

“Yes. The pull of the stuff itself is very strong. It’s not just the money to be had. It’s also the opportunity for addiction that makes it practically irresistible. To send someone into that environment on purpose, . . . well, it could all fall apart if the person gave in to the temptations rampant in that particular area.”

Then, keeping his eyes on Jarrod’s, he added, “Frank Sawyer told me he once saw your brother keep a knife in his hand during surgery being done to remove a bullet from the bone in his leg, just so he could guarantee that the doctor wouldn’t take it into his head to inject him with morphine during the worst of the procedure, or afterwards. It seems that Heath had seen so many men become addicted to it in the months after they were brought out of the hellhole that was Carterson, he always had a greater fear of the painkiller than the pain.”

With apologies in his eyes, he added, “I couldn’t send someone into that situation that might fall prey to the temptations of the money, or the drug itself. . . . Heath was the perfect choice for many reasons.”

Turning away from the window, his voice strained, Nick asked, “How did you know he wouldn’t be tempted by the money?”

Asa Harmon laughed, relaxing a bit, his eyes twinkling for the first time since he had entered the room.

“Nick, I’ve met hundreds, probably thousands of men through my line of work, some good, some not so good. But, I only had to talk to your brother for two minutes to see the kind of integrity and honesty that boy possesses. If you survive the first ninety seconds of his temper when you rile him up about what is important to him, the other thirty seconds are plenty of time for you to see his honor shining through.”

Nick laughed softly, and he responded, his anger at the man warring with his pride in his brother, “It is sort of blinding at that, isn’t it?”

From closer to the fireplace, Jarrod spoke up and asked, “And, in the first ninety seconds? What did you learn was important enough to Heath to get him riled up, as you put it?”

His unblinking, brown-eyed gaze piercing the casual words of the lawyer, Asa Harmon responded, “His family, Mr. Barkley. All of you. That was his only concern throughout the first ninety seconds, and every second beyond.”

Then, taking another deep breath, he said, “And, that is the reason I am here. I made your brother a promise, and I came here to make good on it in his place. He wanted to find Korby Kyles, and I suspect, he wanted also to assist us in making a substantial dent in the opium trafficking that has been going on for quite some time.”

He glanced down at his hands, gripped around the glass of scotch and continued, “When I would not agree to allow him to tell you where he was going nor why, . . . well, for some reason, his only concern was that you would blame yourselves, thinking that he had left because of you. His only request, should he not return, was that I come here and tell you personally of his reasons for going and make you understand that none of them had anything to do with things you had said or done.”

Victoria turned away and closed her eyes, facing the fire. Though she was not cold in her violet velvet dress, she could not keep from shivering at the man’s words. They sounded so final, and her heart would not allow her brain to even formulate the questions to clarify any of it.

Wrapping his arms around her, Jarrod asked quietly over his shoulder, “Asa, are you telling us he’s not coming back? Or are you saying he just hasn’t returned yet?”

Harmon met the hazel eyes of the only person in the room still making eye contact with him, and he said, “The two men I sent him in to get out of there have both returned unscathed, with valuable information that will help us make our case to the senate committee.”

Then, with a sigh, he added, “But, as for Heath, he’s days overdue. His actions helped us find Korby Kyles, whom we now have in custody. But, Heath never showed up where he should have. We’ve been unable to locate him. . . . He’s not been seen by my people for almost three days.”

Still looking at Nick, he said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Kyles is very vocal about having killed Heath with a knife two nights ago. And, though we have yet to recover his body, the area in which he was last seen offers very little room for the idea of surviving if he had a severe injury. He would simply be robbed and thrown off. . . “

Seeing Nick’s anguished eyes flicker toward his mother, Asa Harmon stopped speaking a moment. Then, he added, “So, though I sincerely hope I’m wrong, I have no choice but to assume that he has been killed. Again, . . . I am very sorry.”

Chapter 28

The door was nearly wrenched off of its hinges as the hand gloved in black leather yanked it open and sent it crashing back against the side of the white clapboard house.

Doc Merar and his wife came running into the front room, both of them with their mouths wide open at seeing him there, his hands empty, but face distraught.

“Nick!” Doc called, as he came forward. “Nick? What is it? Are you hurt?”

The tall rancher’s anguished eyes stared at the kindly doctor and his wife for a moment. Then, he said, “Please, Mrs. Merar, can you come with me? My mother’s very upset. I thought if you could talk to her. . . .”

“Certainly, Nick. We’ll both come,” Helen Merar said for them, as her husband hurried past her to retrace his steps to the surgery.

He was back in a moment, having grabbed his bag, then his coat. Nick was already helping Mrs. Merar into hers, and they quickly followed the doctor down the steps. From there, Nick led them toward Jarrod’s office.

“Nick, what happened?” Howard Merar questioned as they walked, both he and Helen struggling to keep up with the long-legged rancher.

Shaking his head, he said, “We received word about Heath, and it doesn’t sound good, Doc. I know how I feel about him, but she’s taking it just as hard, much harder than I would have thought. . . .”

He left the rest unsaid as he climbed the steps to Jarrod’s office and opened the brass- trimmed door. Ushering them inside, he then opened the door to the inner office.

Helen went immediately to Victoria, who was seated on the masculine tweed couch, an untouched china cup of tea held between her hands, unshed tears in eyes that stared straight ahead.

“Victoria?” Helen said, sitting down beside her and gently removing the cup from her hands.

Her friend slowly turned sad, grey eyes toward her, her face anguished. Helen took Victoria’s cold, slightly trembling hands between her warmer ones. Then, she looked up at her husband, before turning her eyes to the blue-eyed attorney sitting across from them.

“Jarrod, I think you should pour your mother and me each a sherry if you have it, and then, all of you,” she glanced at her husband again and nodded, “Should leave and give us a little time to talk.”

Jarrod, leaving the chair where he had been sitting silently in front of his mother, quickly poured the drinks. Then, taking Nick by the arm, and followed by the two other men, he led the way into the outer office. Howard closed the door behind them.

“Now what?” Nick asked, searching Jarrod’s eyes each time his rapid pacing brought him back around toward his brother.

Taking a deep breath, Jarrod said, “Now we go find our little sister and prepare to take them both home. Maybe by the time we come back from the cafe’, Mother will be better able to help me explain to Audra.”

Nodding as he turned, his own thoughts clamoring for release, though he struggled to contain them until they had gotten the ladies home if he could, Nick turned to the doctor.

“Doc, thanks for coming.” He took a deep breath and added, removing his hat and roughly swiping one hand through his dark hair, “The last time I saw my mother like that was a day over six years ago like none I hope to ever repeat.”

“I understand, Nick. Losing Tom, . . . your father, was hard on all of us, but especially your mother,” he said, “But, she’s a strong woman, Boys. She’ll be alright. . . . Are you saying for sure that you know something’s happened to Heath?”

Nick looked at him, pain evident behind his worried hazel eyes. “We don’t know anything for sure, Doc, but, Harmon here seems to think he may be. . . may be dead. But, I’m not convinced.” Then, he turned his eyes to Jarrod, and gripped him by the arm. “Nothing’s changed, Jarrod. I still intend to leave in the morning to look for him.”

Jarrod nodded in return and said, “You won’t be alone, Nick.”

Suddenly, Nick took a step back, his face paling slightly, and he stared at Jarrod as if his brother had just hit him unexpectedly in the jaw.

He remembered vividly his conversation with Heath as they had sat on the rock by the stream almost two weeks ago. He had promised Heath he wouldn’t have to carry any of his burdens from the past alone, not ever again.

Why had Heath left without telling him, without giving him a chance to help? What was it that had driven him to his decision?

Quickly, he reached up and patted the pocket inside his vest, the pocket that still held the unopened letter. Remembering how Jarrod’s secretary had been asked to give it to Jarrod right away, he felt a little better. Maybe Heath had tried to tell him before. . .

Then, an inkling of an idea he didn’t like very much surging through him, he turned to the quiet Asa Harmon, standing to the side, and growled, “What else do you know about Heath’s incarceration at Carterson, and afterwards?”

Blinking, Harmon responded, “What do you mean?”

“Something happened to him in that courtroom the other day, something changed for him while he sat there listening to you testify.” Nick started pacing up and down the room again, thinking out loud, his spurs jingling loudly. “When you started talking about the opium trade, it was like he drifted away.”

Turning back to face his brother, he said, “Do you remember, Jarrod? You had to repeat your question to him. He was very distracted.”

Jarrod nodded, beginning to see where Nick was headed.

“Harmon,” Nick continued, “He would never have left with you unless it was more than just trying to catch Korby Kyles. He would’ve taken me with him, but he wouldn’t have left alone to go after Kyles, not after. . . . But, this. . . this thing you asked him to do. . . it was personal for him somehow, wasn’t it?”

Asa Harmon nodded and said, “Yes, I think it was. From what I’ve been able to find on your brother,” he paused as he saw the narrowed eyes of both Barkley men widen at this statement, “He apparently knew many men that, though they survived Carterson, they became addicted to the effects of the morphine they had been given afterwards to control symptoms of their illnesses. . .”

He took a deep breath and added, “As I mentioned before, let’s just say that, whether it was the drug and their addiction to it, or the aftereffects of what they had been through there, . . . Heath was one of a few handfuls of those that lived who seemed to ever make anything of himself after that.”

Doctor Merar spoke up, asking his questions before Jarrod or Nick could ask about the information on Heath to which Harmon had referred.

“Carterson? What was Heath doing there?”

Jarrod looked at Nick and answered slowly for both of them, “Apparently, he was in the war, Doc, though he was too young, . . . and he wound up there for seven months.”

Shaking his head, the doctor said, “Most of the men who went in there, and places like it, would have died of their injuries or of dysentery, . . . and both of those were prime reasons for them to succumb to Soldier’s Disease if they did make it out,” he said, shaking his head.

When they looked at him, questions in their eyes, he explained. “Some say it wasn’t a problem during or after the war at all. But, others say it was. I saw cases myself in which men who were wounded or terribly sick were repeatedly given morphine in army hospitals, which is a derivative of opium, to either ease their symptoms or their pain.”

Nick and Jarrod looked at each other again, then turned their anguished eyes back to the doctor.

“The irony of it was, that many men, especially the ones with dysentery, could have survived in the prison camps had they had access to paregoric, which eases the symptoms, and is also made from morphine. But,” he met Nick’s hazel eyes before turning to stare at Jarrod’s. “If they made it out of those places, and did receive either paregoric, laudanum, or straight morphine repeatedly, they were often too weak to resist its addictive effects afterwards, and, sometimes they became unable to, or unwilling to, function without it.”

He stepped over to the door leading to Jarrod’s inner office. His hand on the brass door handle, he stopped and looked back at them and added, “Often, even when they had recovered from their injuries or illnesses, they continued looking for ways to keep getting the drug because of the way it made them feel. . . . Its use was definitely a two-edged sword, and one whose long-term effects we didn’t understand very well at the time.”

Jarrod took a deep breath and said, “Doctor Merar, this is Asa Harmon. He’s working on a special task force that is trying to get Congress to restrict the importation of opium. When he came forward to testify after the Colonel’s murder, it seemed to unleash a whole quagmire of information and history that has caught us all by surprise around here.”

The doctor nodded and reached out from his place at the door, shaking Harmon’s hand. Then, he said, “Mr. Harmon, as a physician, I have to say that opium is both a life-saving and pain-relieving drug that I have seen do much to help people, but, it can also do, has often done, more harm than good. . . . Some of my colleagues from medical school are now hopelessly addicted to the stuff and will never be able to practice another day as long as they live. I wish you luck in your endeavor, Sir.”

Turning back to Nick and Jarrod, he said, turning the knob, “I’m going to go check on Victoria, Boys.”

“We’ll be heading back to the ranch as soon as Mother is ready, Doc,” Nick said, his hazel eyes worried, “But, we’ll be returning tonight.” Nick looked at Jarrod as he spoke. When he received his brother’s raised eyebrows, followed by his nod of agreement, Nick continued, “We have a train to catch. Do you mind checking in on Mother and Audra tomorrow, and while we’re gone?”

Nodding, the doctor said, “Not at all, Nick. That’ll be fine.”

“Thank you. We’d appreciate that, Doc,” Jarrod assured him. Then, he and Nick headed for the outer door, leaving Asa Harmon to follow them, the two of them intent on finding Audra and returning with her as soon as possible.

* * * * * * * *

When Helen Merar had first entered the quiet, well-organized and scholarly space, her eyes had quickly noted the leather-bound volumes on the shelves, the shiny wood floor spread with an exquisite Oriental rug in muted red and gold tones, and the masculine, tweed-covered couch.

As she had removed the cold teacup from between her friend’s even colder hands and asked the men to leave, she had kept her kind brown eyes on Victoria’s pale face until the sherry had been poured and the office door had closed behind the well-meaning men.

Then, softly, her hands still wrapped around her friend’s, she said, “Victoria, please tell me.”

For a moment, the silver-haired woman did not move. Her grey eyes had moved back to focus on the fire flickering in the hearth to her left. Then, she slowly returned her attention to her friend’s face.

“Oh, Helen!” she said, the anguish clear in her voice, as she grabbed the dark-haired woman’s hands in return, “If something has happened to Heath, I will be unable to bear it.”

Like Nick, Helen Merar was stunned at the depth of emotion her friend carried inside her heart for the young man she had known for such a short time, especially one whose arrival had awakened an old wound. She knew, of course, of Heath’s arrival, of his past, and of the way Victoria had defied convention by accepting the boy into her home, but she had had no idea of how deeply the fear of his loss would affect her.

“Victoria,” she asked, “What makes you think something’s happened to him? I know you’ve grown to care for him, but isn’t it possible he’s just decided to leave as suddenly as he arrived?”

Taking in a deep breath, Victoria struggled to compose herself. She knew, like they all had, had known for over a week, that Heath had not wanted them to find him, that he may be in some kind of trouble. And, she had known that, at the very least, he was hurt worse than she had thought, maybe dangerously so.

It had weighed heavily on her, haunted her, but through it all, she had been repeatedly appreciative that she had had the tearful conversation with him in his room before he had gone.

Looking at Helen Merar, she asked softly, “Helen, did Howard tell you that he was one of the last people to see Heath before he left Stockton?”

Shaking her head, Helen said, “No, Victoria, he didn’t. Did Heath come to his office?”

“No, . . . that was what caused Howard so much worry, because Heath didn’t.”

Again, Helen shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Apparently, when you and Howard returned on the train from your trip, your husband went by the livery to check on his injured horse, and he saw Heath, who must have been on his way out of town that same morning, without us realizing he was leaving.”

The silver-haired woman paused a moment, then stood and stepped behind Jarrod’s desk to stare out of his window. She remembered her conversation with the kindly doctor, later that day at the house.

“Victoria, I came to see Heath. Is he here?”

She had opened the door to her home, responding to a strident knock, to see Howard Merar standing there, hat in hand, a worried look on his face. She hadn’t seen the brown-eyed, slightly greying doctor in over two weeks, since he and Helen had left on their trip to visit their daughter in St. Louis, and it wasn’t like him to skip the pleasantries of greetings. . . unless he were deeply worried. . . usually about a patient.

“Come in, Howard. Please tell me what this is about,” Victoria took his arm, and she led him into the parlour. Seating them both in matching grey chairs before the warm fireplace, she leaned over and grasped the hand of her old friend, waiting.

Howard sighed and returned her concerned look with one of his own. He asked, as if he already knew the answer, “Heath isn’t here, is he?”

Shaking her head, she said, “No, Howard. He rode out this morning, and I haven’t seen him. We have all been worried about him since the trial, but . . . .” She trailed off when she realized Howard probably didn’t know about the Korby Kyles trial, and possibly hadn’t even heard about Colonel Ashby’s murder.

But, Howard was nodding, “Yes, I read about it in the newspapers, and I saw that Heath was the main witness. Please tell me about Heath, Victoria.”

Taking a deep breath, she glanced up as Silas entered with a silver tray laden with rich smelling coffee and some of his famous apple turnovers. “Thank you, Silas,” she said. Then, as the older gentleman left with a nod, she turned back to the doctor.

“Howard, the constant testifying at the inquest, then at the trial itself, has taken a real toll on Heath. It’s as if just having to be involved in it, weighed more heavily on him than any of us realized until it was over. But, to make it worse, he was badly beaten by Jake Kyles and two of his sons on Saturday.”

She placed her hands against the lower part of her own ribcage and moved them across her abdomen, as she said, “I suspect several of his ribs were broken that night, and, believe me, the bruising and swelling all across here, is horrible to look at. Though I’ve wrapped his ribs three times now, I didn’t realize just how bad it had gotten until last night.”

She shuddered slightly. “He has no business out working, but I can’t seem to get him to understand that. He just keeps disappearing, and right now I have no idea where he’s ridden off to. I don’t know why he keeps pushing himself. . . .”

She took a deep breath and looked at Howard, who had dropped his head and was staring at the floor.

Even more alarmed, she reached out and took his arm.

“Howard, what is it? Please tell me why you’re here.”

Slowly, the doctor looked up at her troubled grey eyes and said, “Victoria, I saw Heath this morning. Helen and I returned on the early train, and I went by the livery to talk to Joey about my mare. She had injured her leg just before we left, and I had been concerned about her. Heath was there, standing near one of the stalls, and he appeared to be very sick. I heard him coughing and vomiting. . . .”

He broke eye contact with her for a moment by closing his eyes, remembering. Then, at the gentle pressure of her hand on his arm, he opened his eyes and said, “I saw blood, Victoria, and I grew immediately alarmed. I told him to meet me in my office, so I could examine him. . . . But, he didn’t listen. He mounted his horse and rode off.”

Squeezing her hand, he added, “I came out here to find him as soon as I could, though I got side-tracked by several patients when I made the mistake of returning to the house first. I’m sorry it took me so long to get out here.”

They sat in silence several minutes, before she said, “Howard, please enjoy Silas’ coffee and pastries for a few minutes. He’ll be hurt if you don’t eat something. I’m going to send someone for Nick. He needs to find his brother.”

When she returned a little while later, the doctor was standing by the fireplace, coffee cup in hand, but the apple turnovers remained untouched. That alone let her know how deeply worried Doctor Merar was-----he rarely passed up an opportunity to at least sample Silas’ culinary delights.

Crossing the floor to join him, she said, “Howard, there’s not anything else we can do right now except wait for him to come home. Please tell me what you’re afraid is happening to him.”

But, she found herself unprepared for his next words, as they chilled her to the bone.

“Victoria, I thought he was sick, but I’m afraid now that it must be more than that. If we don’t get that boy some help, I’m afraid he could die. From what you described, and from what I saw, a rib could have nicked a lung or he could be bleeding internally from the injuries he received. It’s a wonder he’s stayed on his feet this long if he’s bleeding inside somewhere. I would certainly like to think that it’s something we could take care of if we can get to him in time, but if he suffers another blow to that area, or the bleeding worsens, it could be too late.”

Then, returning her thoughts to the present, her back to Helen Merar, Victoria said, “When Howard saw Heath, he was immediately worried about Heath’s condition, though he didn’t know what all had happened since the two of you had been gone on your trip. He told Heath to come straight to his office so he could examine him. But, he told me later that Heath didn’t answer. He just mounted up and left.”

She turned around from the window and added, “Howard came out to the ranch looking for Heath, which got us started trying to find him as well. We found out later that he had bought a train ticket to Arizona.”

She swallowed hard, remembering how distraught Nick had been upon his return to the ranch after three days without being able to find his brother. Though Heath had been with them only a short period of time, she was positive that the idea of Heath leaving without a word had been worse on Nick than any of the rest of them. Nick had seemed to withdraw from all of them, especially Jarrod. It was as if he felt guilty about something that she had not been able to put her finger on.

Glancing up from her hands clenched on the back of Jarrod’s black leather desk chair, she realized Helen Merar was still watching her.

“It took Nick three days to get to Flagstaff and back, looking for him, . . . and to figure out that Heath never was on that train.” Then, she took a deep breath and added, “Since then, we haven’t known where else to search. . . . until today.”

Chapter 29

He shifted on the mat, eyes closed. The small movement caused the cough to well up from deep down inside. Unable to stop it, the wracking spasm tore through him, echoing through the room and bringing up a foul thickness from his lungs that tasted of blood. Spitting it onto the filthy floor, he finally lay gasping for breath as the coughing subsided.

With his eyes still closed, he shivered in the cool air, wrapping his uninjured arm around his waist and trying to still the tremors that made the pain worse.

When he could think beyond pulling in the next breath, he wondered what had become of the men that he had been sent here to contact, what had become of the information they had collected.

Moving his head slightly, painfully, he cracked open his eyes and realized that it was dark outside the single broken window set high in the wall.

Closing them again, he thought about the darkness outside the room, and he listened to the sounds beyond that resembled those he had heard on his first night back in this city in over four years.

He found the dilapidated building Harmon had told him about on Stockton Street, its lamp out front proclaiming “Lodgings 25, 50, and 75 cents per night” in large, black painted letters. A wrinkled old woman with no teeth sat in a tiny square of an office just inside the front door, and Heath, haggling with her a bit first, paid his 50 cents in advance for the night.

“What d’ya have on the second floor, Darlin’” he drawled, leaning in and smiling at her. “I don’t want the noise from the street in the daylight, an’ have a fear of jumpin’ from the third floor in case’a fire.”

She looked him up and down appreciatively and said, “You’ve beat the crowd tonight, Gorgeous. Your choice.”

He smiled and asked, “How about something facin’ the front?”

When she offered his choice of three keys, he requested the quietest of the three rooms, confident that she would recommend neither the middle room with its neighbors on two sides, nor the corner closest to the noisy alley that opened onto all the cellar saloons nearby.

He was right.

“If it be quiet you want, Gorgeous, you don’t want the one ‘tween the other two or the one next to the deadfalls in the alley.”

“Thank ya’, now,” he responded, taking the offered key.

He gave her a wink, as he carried his rolled blankets, with his gun tucked safely inside, further into the building and climbed the cold, rickety stairs to the floor above. He had left his saddlebags, holster, vest and hat at the livery almost a mile away, shedding the trademarks of his current life and leaving them behind, just as he had left the brown mare. He had purchased the well-used coat and hat he was now wearing from a run-down store several blocks back.

As he unlocked the door of the rented room, he wondered with a slight smile if Asa Harmon had chosen this particular street, with the name that reminded him of the place he was rapidly coming to think of as home, on purpose. Deciding that had not happened in this case, he sat down on the bed with a sigh.

He had been relieved to find that the room Harmon had specified was available, knowing that, around here where no one had enough money to do so, it would have been suspicious to rent it in advance. If the room had been unavailable, he would have lost another night waiting for it.

Heath placed his things on the bed and reached under the single drawer of the chest beside it. Feeling around underneath, he pulled out the piece of paper the investigator had told him would be tucked in tightly against the wood, left there by the previous man, the one who had been killed.

Reading it in the dim light, he had been pleased to see that he recognized the places, and, committing the two names and descriptions to memory, he stood and set the single piece of paper on fire. He swept the ashes beneath the bed, feeling safe in his assumption that cleaning this stale smelling room was not a priority to anyone.

Harmon had wanted him to find two men, and while one of the names meant nothing to him, he wondered briefly if the other could be the same man he knew from working the docks before. If it was the same man, finding him should prove to be both time-consuming and difficult. Then, remembering the third man, Korby Kyles, that he had also come here to find, he sighed as he spread out his blankets over the mattress and lay down on the bed.

With one hand, he sucked in his breath as he prodded the bandages around his abdomen none too gently, trying to test how much give he could feel in his slow to heal ribs.

Then, as his eyes fluttered closed, he thought of his family with regret and wondered if they had yet realized he was gone.

Eyes closed, he turned over on his side with a groan and, pulling the edges of the blankets over himself to keep away the cold chill in the room and the icy worry that gripped his chest at the thought of them, he hoped with all of his heart that they would someday understand what he was doing and why.

* * * * * * * *

When he awoke several hours later, he was at first disoriented. Moving very stiffly, he carried the cracked pitcher down the stairs and returned a few minutes later with fresh water. Then, wishing he could do more, he poured water to drink into a dirty glass and swallowed it gratefully. Leaving the rough stubble beginning to grow and the sweat from the exertion of climbing the stairs, he knew it was time to get going.

Walking over to the door, he picked up the dark-colored, wool pea coat and hat of similar material he had left in the rickety chair when he had come in. As he pulled on the coat, he felt confident that, though it was a little small through the shoulders, it alone would greatly assist him in blending into the area, as it was of the type typically worn by sailors from various locales passing through. Placing the dark hat with the small bill on his head, he glanced into the broken mirror above the chest.

Nodding and rubbing at his unshaven jaw, he was relieved to see that, dressed in these clothes, he looked the part of a down-on-his-luck sailor. Even the bruises still visible on his face would help him in his quest to fit in during the search for the two men. Completing his preparations, he tucked the revolver in the back of his jeans, covering it with the coat, and he wrapped multiple bullets tightly inside his bandana, tying the ends together around them so they would make no noise, and placed them in an inner pocket.

Since the blankets on the bed were already tousled, the room looked suitably lived in. Knowing he would not return for some time, he walked to the door, locked it from outside, pocketed the key, and returned to the almost deserted street.

It was nearing dusk, the perfect time for getting his bearings before trying to contact the first of Asa’s men later that night. Though it appeared that the whole area had been abandoned to its rot and decay, as he walked among the quiet buildings with their derelict appearance, he knew all of that would change in the matter of a few hours. With the darkness would come the reawakening of the people who populated this area and the violent way of life that surrounded them, like the dreaded reappearance of a dangerous, wild creature crawling out of its shadowy hole as soon as the moon climbed high into the starlit sky each night.

As Heath lay as still as possible on the rice mat, he thought again of the tiny, disheveled room on Stockton Street, wondering how far away he was now from its relative comfort.

Had Harmon looked for him there after he and Korby had fought?

If he could manage to get back there now, would there be anyone to help him?

Smiling slightly, he remembered his conversation with Jarrod that day by the back of the buggy. Jarrod had simply tried to help him loosen the cinch on his horse, and, accustomed to only relying on himself, he had balked at this simple offer of assistance. Now, here he was, just over a week later, wishing for help that, even if they were looking for him, would probably never find him.

Closing his eyes again, he berated himself for the way he had responded to Jarrod’s words that day. True, he had been angered by the way Jarrod tried to make him admit that stubborn pride had forced him to stick to his story on the stand, and his feelings about that had not changed.

But, with the longing for his family that had consumed him since he had ridden away from them, he realized that Jarrod had only been trying to advise him as an older brother, an older brother that he had wished for throughout most of his life.

With his lips barely moving in fatigue, Heath closed his eyes and whispered, “Jarrod was right. . . You’re a stubborn fool, Heath, . . . for lettin’ your pride get b’tween you . . . an’ any of the family ya’ need so much.”

But, his thoughts of his own family led him to think of Robert Murphy, the first of Harmon’s men he had been able to contact, and how grateful the man had been when he had finally believed Heath, believed his message that Harmon wanted him to leave the area and return home-----to his family.

The smell of old beer and unwashed bodies seemed to permeate every crack in the floor of the deadfall as Heath settled into the wooden chair closest to the furthest corner from the door. His side was throbbing again, and he struggled to look relaxed over his mug of beer as he waited.

Asa had told him, while they had stood outside between the cars of the train, that this first of the two contacts would be the easiest, and he had been right.

According to the piece of paper in Heath’s room, Murphy was supposed to check in every few nights, waiting for Harmon’s contact, in this bar. Heath would be able to identify him as the huge sailor with the red scarf tucked into his coat, . . . and for his brilliant green eyes. Heath had not spotted him the previous night and had returned to his room early in the morning to sleep in pure exhaustion most of the day.

Heath felt much better this second night, though the coughing was becoming more pronounced. And, as he watched the tall sailor who just entered with two other men, he was able to think with a clear head as he pretended to drink his beer.

Then, standing, he “accidentally” spilled much of the beer down the front of his brown shirt as he approached the bar. Once there, he stumbled into the man leaning there, and Heath said loudly, “Watch where you put your big feet, Cousin Clive!”

The much burlier Murphy immediately stood up, looked down on Heath with his penetrating green eyes, and pushed him back two steps. The stagger backwards into the table was not an act, as Heath barely caught himself from landing on the floor.

As soon as he could stand upright, he came back at Murphy and grabbed him by both arms.

Leaning in, he quickly hissed in the man’s ear, “Asa sent me.”

The green eyes immediately came around to glare into Heath’s blue eyes, and the man reacted as if Heath had insulted him. “You idiot!” The man roared, “Think you’re funny, now, do ya’, Lad? Do I look like your long, lost cousin?”

And, pulling one hand back, he punched Heath in the jaw.

Then, as the men with him laughed, Murphy leaned down to help the dazed Heath up from the floor. The large man smiled and said for the benefit of the mildly interested audience, “It’s sure I am that I’m no cousin of yours, but I do have a brother that told me to look out for the likes of you. Come on, Laddie. You’ve had a few too many. I’ll help you back to your room.”

Heath sucked in his breath loudly when the man pulled on his right arm to help him to his feet, and he wound up leaning on Murphy more heavily than he intended as the two reunited, drunken, and distantly-related sailors, who were mostly sober and had never before laid eyes on each other, staggered out of the bar and down the street.

All the way down through Stout’s Alley, they ignored the offers and calls of the women, showing off their bare flesh from inside the “cribs” that afforded them some limited protection until money exchanged hands. They also managed, probably due to Murphy’s size, to avoid the rounders searching for inebriated victims to overcome with their hidden blackjacks and roll for money.

As soon as they climbed the dank stairwell and entered Heath’s room on Stockton Street, the blond leaned against the closest wall and slid silently to the floor. Immediately concerned, Murphy helped him out of the wool coat that smelled of beer and grabbed the nearby pitcher of water. He unwrapped his red scarf and soaked one end, squeezing the excess water, cold from the temperature of the room, back into the pitcher.

Heath’s hand came up, taking the end of the wet cloth and used it to wipe his own face. Then, pushing away any further ministrations from the older man, he began to speak without looking up, his eyes barely cracked open.

“Asa Harmon sent me. . . ta get you out.”

Murphy asked, his slurred speech gone, “Why, what happened, and where’s Smith? My work here isn’t finished.”

“Smith is dead, . . . an’, Colonel Ashby was murdered . . . . Harmon’s afraid that. . . someone is on ta your investigation. . . .It’s not safe ta stay.”

“Safe?” Robert Murphy laughed. “It’s never been safe, Lad, but I guess Asa’s afraid the information I’ve collected will die with me if I’m caught.”

Then, reaching down to lift Heath’s left arm up and over his shoulders, the tall, sandy-haired man assisted the young blond to his feet. “C’mon, Lad. Let’s get you to this bed. It might not be much, but it’s better than the floor.”

Easing the blond to the blanket-covered bed, he winced as Heath groaned with the movement.

“Boy, I don’t know what you’ve done to yourself, but I can’t believe Harmon, even as hard-hearted as he is, would send an injured man in to get me out.”

Lying on the thin, rice mattress that offered him even less protection from the cold, damp floor, Heath closed his eyes as another chill shook him.

The fairly recent memory of Murphy calling him “Boy” sent him further back to the night he’d spent in the cabin on the western slope of the Sierra foothills with his brother.

Though he had initially bristled every time Nick Barkley had called him “Boy,” he’d come to realize lately that his loud, boisterous brother now used it as an indication of his concern and caring, a term spoken by an older brother to a younger one.

He recalled the feeling he’d gotten that day in the courtroom, when Nick had gripped the back of his neck and had shaken him, that feeling that had spread warmth throughout him and had brought a lop-sided smile to his face.

Then, he recalled the words of praise Nick had shared with him afterwards in Jarrod’s office, the words of praise about his morning on the stand, the words that had meant almost as much to him as that hand on the back of his neck.

“You did good up there, Boy. I was proud for them to call you Barkley.”

Heath, his eyes still closed, wondered if Nick would still feel that way about him if he did manage to get himself out of this and find his way back to the place he desperately wanted to call home.

With all thoughts of the last few days banished from his mind for now, as another chill shook him, Heath whispered into the darkness the one word that meant as much to him as the thought of home.

“Ni-i-i-ck. . . “

Chapter 30

Nick took longer in the barn than was necessary as he repeatedly got in Ciego’s way taking care of the horses.

Jarrod had been back from town for a little over an hour after staying to talk to Harmon a little longer. Nick and the ladies had been home for several hours, and still, he had been reluctant to go inside the house, reluctant to meet Jarrod in the study to finalize their plans for going to San Francisco. It wasn’t that he dreaded the meeting. In fact, he welcomed the chance to finally do something, anything, to find his brother. He was just reluctant to leave the barn, to leave the one space that spoke so clearly to him of Heath, of his quiet hard work and influence these last few months.

He finally left Ciego to finish up with the horses and stepped into the tack room, where he stood looking around in the lantern light. The small space and its equipment had never been so clean, so well-kept. Every stitch of leather appeared soft and supple, with no cracking nor splitting visible on any piece. The brass fittings gleamed with care, and every piece of tack was hanging neatly in a logical pattern of organization.

Nick walked over to where Gal’s bridle hung, and he absently lifted it from its place. Looking closely, he noticed the excellent repairs that had been made to it over what must have been a long period of time.

He closed his eyes, hearing in his mind his brother’s soft drawl, speaking to the little horse as he stood currying her, her eyes closed in satisfaction and one ear turned to catch every word spoken.

Reaching up to return it to the wooden piece designed to hold its headstall in place, he paused to hit his gloved fist against the rough wood of the room’s interior and growled aloud, “Where are you, Heath?”

Then, hearing a noise, he turned to see his mother’s sad, grey eyes watching him. She had changed her clothes and was now dressed in a dark brown riding skirt and boots, her peach blouse neatly buttoned over a matching dark brown, high-necked sweater.

He crossed the wooden floor to stand in front of her, placing his black-gloved hands on her shoulders.

For a moment, they just stood there quietly, her face against his chest as he hugged her to him.

Then, she spoke without lifting her head, “Nick, Heath must have trusted you a great deal to tell you of . . . of what must have been a very painful part of his past.”

Again, Nick closed his eyes a moment and said, “He was starting to open up a little, Mother. . . . And, knowing that, I can’t understand why he left without telling me what he was doing, no matter what Harmon said.”

She turned her head and reached up to lay her open hand against his face, taking in the pain in his now open hazel eyes. Then, she said, “Harmon emphasized again to Jarrod, when you went to get the horses, that he had pressured Heath to not tell us. . . out of fear of something leaking out that would endanger his men. You know Heath better than any of us. Does that sound like a reasonable explanation for what he did to you?”

Looking down at the floor, seeing the lantern’s light shining on the wooden boards, he nodded. “Yes, Mother, it would have to be something like that to make Heath choose silence over telling me what he was doing. We’ve had our rough times since he came, but, we’ve started to forge a comfortable partnership, he and I.”

Then, he laughed lightly, looking down at her silver hair as he stroked it and added, “He’s always quiet, and I’m, well. . . you know I’m not. Maybe that’s one thing about it that works so well. . . . But he wouldn’t have left here, left this ranch, left all of us, without telling us if he thought he could. He’s starting to consider this his home, and all of us his family, . . . I know he is.”

Softly, she asked, not wanting to intrude, but needing to know, “Nick, Heath wrote you a letter, didn’t he?”

Closing his eyes, Nick nodded, “Yes, Mother. I read it a little while ago, after we got home. In it, he just . . . just thanked me, thanked us.”

Nick hauled in a shaky breath and looked back down into her compassionate grey eyes. Then, he continued, “He thanked me for helping him through the memories this trial dredged up and,” Nick hesitated, “He thanked me for letting go of some of my anger at Jarrod. He reminded me that the two of them were each doing what they thought was right and that he didn’t feel angry at Jarrod.”

Nick stopped speaking and Victoria asked quietly, puzzled, “But, . . . you were still angry at Jarrod when Heath left. How did he know. . . ?”

Nick nodded and said, “I don’t know, Mother. But, by the time I actually received it, he was right. . . I had started to understand that I wasn’t the only one hurting over this. . . it’s been tough on Jarrod, too, and . . . .”

She smiled and said, looking up into his expressive hazel eyes, “And, that makes it hard to stay angry at him, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, . . . it does.” Then, he added, “Heath didn’t say where he went or why, Mother, but at least I feel better knowing that he left me, left us, word about his leaving. He just said there was something he had to take care of before the memories of Carterson caught up to him again. He, . . . he said for me to tell you and Audra how much he loves you, to say thank you for . . . for giving him a home.”

Nick suddenly broke eye contact with her, the moisture that instantly sprang to her eyes too much for him to bear, and he stared out the small window beside her for a moment. She waited silently, watching him, as he added, his voice coming out in barely more than a whisper, “Proud, stubborn boy! He thanked me for keeping him from feeling so alone, but he went off to do this alone anyway!”

Nodding, she said, “I, too, believe that Heath is beginning to consider this his home, Nick, and . . . if he’s . . . if he’s still alive,. . . I believe that he’ll be trying to return to us, to the ranch, to you. He is so like you and Jarrod, so like his father. . . . He does have that stubborn pride that Jarrod has been fighting against, that you recognized right away, but that neither you nor Jarrod, in your own, but different ways, wanted to admit to noticing in him. It was almost too painful to see it at first, because it was such a reminder of the father you lost, wasn’t it?”

She looked up at him, holding his eyes in her gaze as he, too, nodded at her and reached out to squeeze her fingers in his.

Then, she fought back her tears with another smile, and said, “You know, Nick, that stubborn Barkley pride may be the very thing that helps him return to us.”

Lifting her hand to his lips to kiss her fingers, Nick nodded back at her, his heart full, but his smile of love for her helping to fan the faint flame of hope her words had returned to him.

She added, tears in her eyes, “When you get a chance to remind Jarrod, you tell him I said that, will you? I don’t think he’s quite ready to hear it yet.”

“I’ll tell him, Mother, and we’ll find Heath. I promise we will. Somehow or other, Jarrod and I will find a way to work together to find him and bring him home.”

“And, Nicholas,” she said, one tear slowly trickling down her cheek, “You tell Heath for me, when you see him, that I want him here. I want him to come home, to this family that loves him for the man he is, not just for who his father was.”

Swallowing hard, Nick reached up to brush the tear from her face. Then, he lovingly leaned down and kissed the damp cheek, before he pulled her back into a strong embrace and allowed her to cry against his chest.

* * * * * * * *

The hot liquid tasted vaguely of chicken, but it was the warmth as much as anything that he responded to. He watched her dark, bright eyes, as she spoke to him soothingly while she held the cup for him to drink. Though the man behind him, supporting him, was silent, Heath knew he was there and was grateful for the help.

Nodding when he finished drinking it, he grasped the tiny woman’s hand and tried to communicate with her.

“Thank you,” he said, his words coming out in the harsh whisper of disuse, and he offered her a small smile. “Thank you. . . for helpin’ me.”

She responded with words he could not understand, but a sentiment he recognized, though she placed her hand over his mouth to silence him. She patted him on the uninjured shoulder, while the strong hands behind him lowered him gently back to the rice mat.

Then, she again checked his bandages, though she started this time with the one covering his shoulder. She shook her head and picked up another cloth from beside her, fussing at what she saw. As she removed the soiled dressing, reached inside a larger bowl beside her, and plastered something warm and paste-like to the wound, he opened his eyes wide and bit down on his bottom lip, trying to remain still, trying to keep his silence.

The woman said something else, clearly calling to the old man, and he soon scurried over, carrying a long pipe. She reached out and turned the blond’s damp, sweat-streaked face to make him look at the man squatting beside him, holding out the slender, bamboo pipe.

Immediately, he knew what they were offering him.

If he had not been in such agony, he would have laughed at the irony of it.

He had come to San Francisco to do what he could to see that the information about the debilitating effects of the opium trade made it to those who could write and pass laws about such things, and he was being offered the very thing he felt so strongly against, in order to ease the pain his actions had caused him.

Shaking his head, he reached up with his other hand and gently pushed the offered opiate away.

“No,” he told them firmly, eyes closing as the dingy, smoke-encrusted walls tilted with the dizziness brought on by the head movement. He whispered. “No, . . . I don’t want it.”

Then, he carefully turned his face toward the wall and tried to focus his thoughts on something besides the burning agony consuming his shoulder as she tended it.

He tried to think about the two men he had found, wondering again if they had been successful at delivering the information Harmon needed.

Lying there, he remembered that it had been difficult to talk Murphy into leaving him there, in that small oppressive room on Stockton Street. First, the man had insisted on going back out to find them both something decent to eat. Then, only at Heath’s insistence that he planned to sleep and didn’t need a bodyguard for that, the man had left.

“I’m going home to my dear wife and children, Lad, clean up from four weeks of living in this filthy place, and track down Harmon to give him what he wants. Then, if you havna’ found him as well, I’ll soon be returning to look for you. So, whatever you came here to do, hurry up and get her done. It’ll be of no comfort to me, if we do’na both go home in one piece.”

Heath had nodded, his eyes barely open, and he had made sure the door was locked after the man, before he had sagged back to the bed and fallen into an exhausted, but restless sleep.

When he had awakened the next day, he had been much too exhausted to leave his room until after nightfall, but he had been able to think through what he was going to have to do to find the second man.

He had realized if he had asked, Robbie Murphy would have stayed to help him or would have even taken over the task of finding Charles Rogers for him. But, anxious for Murphy to get out of here before it was too late to make it back to his family, Heath had not asked.

Besides, if Charles Rogers was the man Heath had known years ago, he would not hesitate to ask his help in locating the third man he sought, Colonel Ashby’s murderer, Korby Kyles.

To be continued…