Dead Wrong

Epilogue

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.

I have learned much throughout the writing of this story, reading extensively about the Barbary Coast region of San Francisco, the opium trade in the late 1800’s, and enough about the use of the derivatives of the drug during the Civil War to know there is still a great chasm of difference between those that say soldiers at that time did not become addicted to morphine given to them for illness or pain, and those that say they definitely did.

Opium was widely available and could be legally purchased without a prescription in this country during the 1800’s. The first ordinance against it in the United States was passed in San Francisco in 1875, which prohibited the smoking of opium in smoking-houses or “dens.”

Beginning in 1883, Congress passed a series of laws, which placed very high tariffs on the importation of opium in various forms (just as was mentioned as a goal in “The Murdered Party”), eventually making any Chinese importation of opium illegal (1887).

The descriptions of opium dens, deadfalls, cribs and yellow slavery (including the battle that began against it during the late 1800’s by raising tariffs on the importation of the women involved), street and alley names, lodging for sailors, crime in the area (including trapdoors in barroom floors and the practice of rowing a drugged, shanghaied crew out to a ship with a corpse or two knowingly mixed in), tongs during the 1870’s, and the Six Companies----were all taken from research.

San Francisco is one of my favorite cities, and I apologize for any misinterpretation I have inadvertently made along the way, regarding her history.

Part 1

He peered out into the dark, struggling to guide the horse along the road without benefit of moon nor stars.

It had been just over a month since Colonel John Ashby had been murdered on a similarly moonless night in that alley near the Stockton train depot, just over a month since Heath had caught Korby Kyles running away afterwards.

With a sigh, Jarrod’s thoughts returned to the ideas that had been plaguing him for the last week, while he had been away from his family, staying in first, San Francisco and then, Sacramento.

He thought again of Korby Kyles, and of his younger brother, Heath.

It had occurred to Jarrod on the first night in the capital city this past week, as he had sat alone in an opulent hotel room with an expensive cigar in one hand and a glass of his favorite scotch in the other, that the similarities between Heath’s background and Korby’s were striking. Each had grown up without a parent, one that could have had a positive influence on him. And, each had probably paid the cost of that loss constantly, growing up dirt poor, living in the constant shadow of insults and slurs, and, as a young boy, having to constantly defend his remaining parent from the vicious onslaught.

Yet, the end results, the outcomes, the men they had each grown into, were so blatantly different from each other.

Heath was a prime example of how each man must make his own way, how he has to be responsible for his own actions and their consequences, despite his circumstances.

Shaking his head, Jarrod clucked to the horse, while he remembered again the conversation he had had with Heath in the study weeks ago. It was the day Jarrod had come home early from town, and they had talked about whether or not Jarrod would defend someone he believed to be guilty.

With a start, Jarrod realized he had been wrong, even then. He had thought Heath was testing him, laying a trap for him with his words. But, now, he realized that what Heath had been after with his questions was much more basic. It had been more about Heath and less about Jarrod.

Heath had been trying to figure out where he stood, where he fit, and, he had been trying to determine if Jarrod had had faith in him. Then, closing his eyes for the briefest of seconds, Jarrod remembered saying to Heath in the dining room a few days later that Greene had a surprise witness that worried him.

In reply, Heath had asked simply, “And, I don’t?”

Taking a deep breath, Jarrod realized that for Heath, it all came down to whom Jarrod believed, him or Korby Kyles. For Heath, the questions had not been a trap laid for Jarrod at all, but a quest for understanding, a seeking of the truth about whose word Jarrod put more faith in, Heath’s or Korby’s.

Now, looking back on it, Jarrod finally understood something about his youngest brother.

He realized that the very asking of that question indicated that Jarrod had given Heath cause to wonder about where he stood with him.

And, he realized that what meant more to Heath Barkley than his own life was the very thing that Jarrod had cast doubt upon, the value of his word and the faith of others in it.

Now, he was coming home again, not only with disappointing news, but also weighed down with a burden that must be shared, a task that must be properly discharged.

Somehow, some way, regardless of all of that, he had to set things right with his brother.

Halting the horse at the front door of his home, Jarrod climbed down wearily from the buggy, retrieved his leather briefcase from the boot, and gratefully handed the reins over to Ciego, who had just come from around the corner of the house.

He nodded silently at the jovial man, who responded, “Señor Jarrod, it is good to have you back. Your valise, I will bring it in later.”

As he entered the front door, he was immediately struck by the smells of roast duck lingering in the air, along with the fragrant apple wood his mother liked to have them add to the fireplace whenever it was in use.

As voices and laughter from the well-lit parlour caught his attention, Jarrod stepped down onto the polished wood floor of the foyer. Removing his hat and placing it on the white lace covering the round, central table, he was sorely tempted to continue on up the gold-carpeted staircase, unseen and unmissed by his family in the adjacent room.

He was tired, more tired than he wanted to admit to anyone after his exhausting week in first one city, then another. He took a couple of steps toward them, then stood watching them a moment, taking in Nick’s back turned toward him as he poked at the fire, Audra’s studied ignoring of him while she concentrated on her needlework, and Heath’s and Mother’s pointed focus on the chessboard in between them.

He turned away and walked slowly toward the bottom of the staircase. Then, pausing in mid-stride, one foot on the second riser, he realized he had to face them, had to tell them of his major failure, while hoping they would listen to his tiny victories.

Turning his head, he smiled slightly as he heard Heath’s gentle laughter again, coming from the other room. It was a sound he had missed for years, ever since an onslaught of bullets from multiple hired guns had robbed them of the father Heath had never met.

Suddenly, despite his exhaustion, despite the renewed throbbing in his shoulder, and despite the information he carried, he knew he wanted to join them. But, more than anything else, he wanted to put all of it to rest so he would have more chances in the future to hear that laughter filling this house.

Returning his full weight to his lower foot, Jarrod reversed direction and walked toward the now silent parlour.

When no one looked up and the room stayed silent, he slapped his leather folder down on the table, sure that word had already gotten back to them, and that they were sorely disappointed in him.

Then, with no response from them, he walked over to the nearby table, poured himself a drink, and stepped back over closer to where they waited, pointedly ignoring him.

Lifting his glass, he said, “Alright, I’d like to propose a little toast. . . . Here’s to Big Brother. . . who it seems is capable of making the biggest mistake possible. . . .”

“Audra,” Heath spoke up before he could continue. “Do you know what mistake Jarrod’s talkin’ about?”

“No, I don’t. Maybe you know, Nick.”

“No, not me. Mother, do you know what mistake Jarrod’s talking about?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she replied, a small smile playing about her lips.

“Well, Jarrod,” Heath said, eyes still turned away, “How ‘bout dinner?”

“Dinner?” he responded incredulously, lowering his glass. “It’s almost ten o’clock. You mean you haven’t eaten yet?”

Audra stood up and crossed over to stand in front of Jarrod and said, as she wrapped her arms around him, “The family’s not about to have dinner tonight, without you.”

Overcome with relief and his love for them all, and stunned by their unified show of support for his failed efforts, Jarrod greeted each one of the women with silent hugs and accepted Nick’s slap on his left arm with a small smile.

Then, as he and Heath shook hands, nodding to each other solemnly, Heath said, “You know, Jarrod. This battle against opium traffickin’s goin’ ta take years ta fight. Just because the first bill didn’t make it out’a committee this time, doesn’t mean it’s over. . . . But, thanks ta you, ta Asa Harmon, ta Charlie an’ Robbie, we’ve made a good beginnin’, don’t ya’ think?”

Then, more quietly, he added, “Thank you, Pappy, for what you’ve started this past week. It means more ta me,” he paused, his eyes on Jarrod’s, “More than I can ever put inta words.”

Unable to reply, his throat tight, Jarrod looked into Heath’s sincere blue eyes, took in the almost faded bruises and the smaller, but still present bandage wrapped around his brother’s blond head-----the mute testimony to the fierce part Heath had also played in this prolonged battle.

And, he simply nodded, turned with Heath, and placed his arm around his youngest brother, as they walked together, in front of the others, toward the dining room.

Part 2

Sitting silently in the study, after their late, family dinner, Jarrod leaned back in the chair closest to the fire. The ladies had retired for the evening, leaving, at Jarrod’s pointed look and Victoria’s perceptiveness, the three brothers to the quiet room. Nick stood over by the open double doors, the scent of one of Jarrod’s cigars wafting back inside, along with the cool, night air.

Jarrod watched Heath, who was leaned back on the red settee, his eyes closed, and sock feet propped up on the low, wooden table between them.

Heath looked as tired as Jarrod felt, and though he had begun to regain some of his healthy color, Jarrod was struck again by how much weight his already trim brother had lost in the last several weeks.

Nodding to himself, Jarrod recalled Doc Merar’s words that it might take a while for Heath to regain his strength after all that he had been through.

. . . All that he had been through. . . .

Jarrod shook his head, then leaned down to pick up the leather folder he had brought home earlier than night. He clenched his fingers around it worriedly. Then, debating with himself silently, one last time, he stood up and crossed around beside the table to sit down next to Heath on the settee, their backs to Nick.

Heath opened his eyes and glanced over at him, pushing himself up carefully and returning his feet to the floor.

The dark-haired man turned to his blond brother, and he reached over to place the leather folder in front of him on the table, pushing it in Heath’s direction with his fingertips.

“Jarrod?” he asked quietly, not touching it, not opening it.

“Heath,” Jarrod began carefully, glancing up as Nick came around the settee and sat down across from them in one of the two armchairs. “Heath, Asa Harmon requested this information about you, before he. . . before he approached you about going to San Francisco for him.”

“What is it?” Nick demanded, cigar in his mouth and starting to reach for the packet. Something in Jarrod’s eyes, however, stopped him, and he slowly withdrew his hand. He leaned back in the chair, watching both of his brothers closely.

“It’s a Pinkerton report, Nick,” Jarrod said, his eyes locked on Heath. “Asa said he needed it to confirm certain facts about Heath before he knew he was the right person to send after Robbie and Charlie.”

Slowly, Heath’s eyes lost the unfocused look they had taken on since the moment Jarrod had offered it to him. He blinked and returned his gaze to Jarrod’s face. In a tight voice that succeeded in keeping a hard rein on the anger at Harmon that was beginning to build deep inside of him, he asked, “Did he tell you about it?”

Jarrod glanced over at Nick, both of them thinking back to the day in Jarrod’s office when Harmon had told them some about Heath’s past, and he nodded slightly. “When he came to tell us why you had left and where you had gone, he wanted us to understand why you were the person he felt could best do the job he had asked of you.”

Seeing Heath’s look, Jarrod quickly added, “He thought you were dead, Heath. . . . He told us a little about . . . about some things he already knew from Sawyer, about how you caught a gang of rustlers for him, and about situations he found out about in which you had refused medicine for pain, both with Sawyer and, . . . and after the war.”

Heath immediately turned his eyes to meet Nick’s steady, supportive gaze, and he took a deep breath, closing them for a moment. Then, he opened his eyes again, and nodded.

After a moment, he said with a low chuckle, eyes beginning to sparkle at his thoughts, “Boy Howdy. ’Guess Ol’ Frank’ll be wonderin’ what I’ve gone an’ gotten myself into now, with all those questions somebody must’ve been askin’.”

Heath leaned over and tapped on the folder, not even needing to ask if Jarrod had read it. He knew his brother, who was above all else, an incredibly honest man, would have immediately told him if he had.

Instead, he asked, “Will ya’ lock it up someplace for me, Jarrod? There might be something in there ‘bout stray women or something, an’ I wouldn’t want just anyone stumblin’ across it.” He looked pointedly at Nick as he spoke, his left eyebrow raised.

“Me?” Nick asked, reacting instantly, “If I want to know something about your women, Little Brother, I’ll ask. I’ve got my hands plenty full with my own, without ridin’ herd on yours, too!”

Jarrod chuckled and exchanged a knowing smile with Heath.

Then, savoring the image of how Nick’s evening a while back at a town social had ended with a little brunette giving Nick what-for, hands on both hips, Heath asked instead, “Changin’ the topic ta respectable women, Jarrod, how’s Ah Lin?”

His smile widening, and ignoring Nick’s spluttered, “Respectable?!” Jarrod said, “She’s looking really good, Heath. I think Sacramento agrees with her. Sune helped her find a young Chinese family to live with, to help with, and she is, apparently, already enjoying her new role as, . . . as Nick puts it, . . . Little Grandmother.”

“Dragon Grandmother, you mean,” Nick grumbled good-naturedly, as he leaned back in the chair, put his leg across its arm, and puffed contentedly on the cigar.

“You and I may have thought so while Heath was sick, Nick,” Jarrod reminded him, “But, your prediction never did come true about her acting that way with Heath when he started trying to get out of bed. He seemed to have her wrapped around his little finger, . . . kind of like Audra has you.”

Glancing over at Heath, who was also leaning back again, his feet up on the table once more, Nick said, “Yeah, well, Heath had a head start on getting in her good graces.”

“Heath,” Jarrod said seriously, looking back over at the blond, whose lop-sided smile, aimed at Nick, did nothing to hide his tiredness, “I didn’t want to say anything to you until we got it set into motion, but Ah Lin has agreed to help with another idea Asa and I are working on.”

Blue eyes met blue, as Heath struggled back to a sitting position and reached out to lay his hand on Jarrod’s arm.

“I know how hard you’ve worked on this, Jarrod. I really appreciate your efforts, an’ someday, with people like you behind it, I believe there’ll be laws ta stop the opium from comin’ in. But, please, Big Brother, you’ve done enough. Ya’ don’t owe me anything.”

“No, Heath,” he said, shaking his head, “This new idea is for Sune, for his father, for Ah Lin, and people like her, as well as for you. It’s about the yellow slavery.”

Heath’s eyes widened, watching and listening in amazement, as Jarrod outlined his recent thoughts on the same subject that had so disturbed Heath.

“As a rule, the people in the Chinese district don’t want yellow slavery to continue at all. In fact, they don’t want anything that is bad for commerce and relations with the rest of the city. Ah Lin has been, according to what Sune told me, one of the few women to escape the trade with her life. She saved her meager earnings and was fortunate to remain healthy long enough to finally buy her freedom.”

He paused, and reached out to assist Heath in leaning back against the end of the settee with a soft groan. Then, Jarrod continued, as he reached down and pulled Heath’s feet back up on top of the table, “Apparently, most of the women, . . . girls really, are paid, but they’re charged huge sums for any days of. . . of work they miss due to illness. So most never escape, . . . except in death.”

Jarrod stopped speaking, and Nick reached over to tap Heath on the foot after a moment, when they both saw the sadness and pain cross his face and remain there, his pale blue eyes looking inward at something they couldn’t see.

“Hey!” Nick said, “Are you alright?”

Nodding slowly, Heath’s eyes gradually focused again on Nick’s.

“Yeah, Nick. Thanks. ‘Just rememberin’ a girl they brought in while I was with Ah Lin. She was several years younger than Audra, an’. . . an’ she died while we sat with her. . . .Sune helped me ask Ah Lin before she left here . . . . The girl’d spent several years livin’ in one’a those cribs. Ah Lin never knew her name.”

“It may be too late to help that young woman, Heath, and many of the others already here, but,” Jarrod paused, remembering, “Ah Lin cried when Sune asked her for me if she would be willing to testify to a committee. They’re trying to draft a law preventing the importation of more girls from China as part of the prostitution and yellow slavery rackets. She immediately told him to tell me that it would be her ‘very great honor’ to assist us.”

Jarrod’s eyes sparkled as he saw Heath’s lop-sided smile, felt his brother’s hand grip his arm tightly, as he sat up once more, and heard his words, “Thanks, Jarrod.”

Nick, unable to remain still, his own heart full at the thought of being able to do something about the treatment the young girls endured, jumped up and crossed the room, returning with three drinks carefully balanced in his hands. As he handed them out and sat down on the other side of Heath, he listened to Jarrod.

“It may have to start small, Heath, not with anything outlawing the yellow slavery operations altogether, not yet. They’re too prevalent, and in some cases like the opium, too well-entrenched. However,” he said, with a definite twinkle in his blue eyes, “The cost of doing business may have just gone up, because if the Barkleys are willing to use our influence, we may be able to see that the tariff on the trade is raised to a healthy premium, which will make the importers think twice.”

They all three sat quietly for a few moments, sipping their drinks while thinking of Jarrod’s words, and of the tiny woman whose courage had inspired his actions.

Then, Heath spoke up, his soft drawl steady without the labored breathing of a week ago, “I’m proud ta belong to a family that cares so much about doin’ what’s right in this world. . . . Durin’ the war, between skirmishes, when I did have time ta sit an’ just think on the cause people talked so much about, it almost seemed too far away from what we had ta do everyday, too far away ta mean much.”

He paused, staring down into his glass, before continuing to speak without looking up, “Maybe it’s just that I was too young ta understand it all. After a while, I just saw the death an’ the ruined lives around me. But, these two. . . these are causes that make sense ta me. One is bent on turnin’ back a killer an’ preventin’ the spread of ruin it brings. The other’s about keepin’ young girls from another place from bein’ brought here an’ becomin’ a new kind of slave. If they had any choice in any of it, if they knew what they were gettin’ in to, it’d be different.”

They all lifted their glasses, and, as they took long swallows, Jarrod said, “To Asa Harmon and Ah Lin, then.”

Nick had been very quiet throughout the earlier discussion between his brothers. But, now, he finally spoke up and asked a question that had been on his mind for a while, “Heath, all those nights you couldn’t sleep? Back before you left to go with Harmon. It wasn’t about Jarrod at all was it?”

Heath looked at Nick, one eyebrow raised. “About Jarrod?” he asked, shaking his head, not understanding.

“Yeah,” Nick replied. “All that time, when I was mad with Jarrod, I thought you were struggling with the hurt Big Brother here had caused you during the trial, but. . . you weren’t, were you? It was the war, it was . . . that . . . that place? Wasn’t it?”

Quietly, Heath asked, “Carterson?”

Then, taking a deep breath, as Nick nodded, watching him closely and ready to move in to support the tired, suddenly pale figure beside him if necessary, Heath continued, “No, Nick. It wasn’t about Jarrod. . . . When Harmon started talkin’ about the opium trade up there on that stand, it brought back memories’a men I knew, men who died after Carterson.”

He dropped his head and, shaking it back and forth, said quietly, “Carterson. . . . .”

Heath trailed off, then leaned forward, tapping the side of the leather packet lying on the table twice, before he continued, “Though I learned things about the darkness inside myself, an’ other men, men from both sides, in that place, . . . things that I hope neither’a you ever have ta learn,” he lifted his pale blue eyes and took in the concerned eyes of the two men leaning toward him, flanking him in their silent support.

He finished, “I also learned about bein’ a brother there.”

When the two dark-headed men reached out, one to grab him by the back of the neck and the other to take him by the arm, Heath nodded and continued, “It was the closest I’d ever come ta this, . . . this feelin’a belongin’ that’s more than anything else I’ve ever had. It was the kind’a closeness ta someone else that gave me, an’ I guess the others, the courage ta do what had ta be done, ta survive, ta work together, ta shelter each other from the harshness around us as much as we could, . . . an’ ta . . . ,” he smiled lop-sidedly at Jarrod, “Ta accept help from someone else when we needed it.”

He dropped his head and said quietly, “It was the worst of places for all of us, . . . but for some of us, it was the place that also taught us the most about what’s important in this life. I know that doesn’t make much sense,” he added, at their exchanged looks of incredulity, “But. . . ‘guess the only way I can explain it is by askin’ you a question . . . .”

“Heath,” Nick interrupted, shaking his head, his eyes full of pain, “But, Heath. . . your back. . . “

With a small lop-sided smile, Heath reached out and gripped his brother’s arm beside him. “Nick, if you’d been there, an’ you could’ve taken every one’a those stripes for me, what would you’ve done?”

Without hesitation, Nick Barkley said fiercely, “I’d have knocked you to the ground and stepped up in your place.”

Heath nodded and said, “Then, you understand exactly what I’m tryin’ ta tell you.”

Swallowing hard, not sure about all the details of what they were talking about, but remembering the faint, slightly-raised scars on his brother’s back that he had noticed when he was so sick, Jarrod said quietly, “Heath, are you saying that some of you banded together in that . . . that prison camp, and acted like brothers, protecting each other, standing up for each other, when you could?”

“Yes, Jarrod.” Heath sighed tiredly, the words difficult to share, but the warmth of his brothers’ support going a long way toward easing the agony of the memories. “We’d’ve done anything, did almost anything, for each other. Just like you an’ Nick came after me, turned a whole city upside down lookin’ for me, even though three months ago, you weren’t even aware of my existence…”

Closing his eyes, Jarrod nodded, while Nick’s hazel eyes bored into Heath’s.

Then, Nick said, shaking the blond again by the back of the neck, “Boy, if you think you know what it is to be a brother in the bad times, you just wait ‘til you have a chance to learn about it the rest of the time.”

After a few moments, Heath again spoke into the waiting silence, returning to Nick’s original question about his memories.

“Watchin’ those same men, the men I’d fought beside, the men who’d sacrificed for me, an’ me for them, lyin’ around me in a hospital tent throughout that winter after Carterson . . . That . . . that was the source’a my torment, Nick.”

He stopped, swallowing hard.

Then, his voice so low both brothers leaned toward him to hear, “I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t even move from my cot. All I could do was watch while most’a them accepted the medicine those doctors gave them, over an’ over, for the pain they were in.”

He closed his eyes, and sucked in a deep breath through his nose, feeling the warmth seep back into his suddenly cold skin, warmth whose source was the hand of one brother at the back of his neck, and the hand of the other gripping his arm again.

Then, he blinked his eyes back open and looked into the anguished hazel and sad blue eyes watching him. He nodded once in silent thanks.

“It was something I’d tried not ta think about, tried not ta remember. But. . . “

“But, Harmon’s testimony brought it all back,” Nick stated flatly.

“Yes.”

Looking at each other, the two of them remembered that night at the cabin in the hills above the ranch, and the way they had both reached out to the other, the one offering his strength and support, the other asking for it, knowing it would be there, and accepting it when it was freely given.

They both knew that each of them would fight the devil himself, if necessary, to keep that bond strong and intact.

Suddenly, Nick understood something he had not before. “Heath, what happened to those men, the ones that survived Carterson with you? The ones that you were so close to?”

The pale blue eyes took on a look of deeper pain as the youngest of the three allowed the other two a glimpse into his very soul.

In a quiet voice they had to strain to hear, he said, “Most’a them died, Nick. . . . An’, the ones that didn’t, were never as strong after that, not even as strong as they’d been when we were fightin’ for our survival together in that forsaken place. The pain, the illnesses, an’ the drugs they accepted were enemies we couldn’t pick up arms against, couldn’t band together against, ta fight.”

Nick nodded, his anger at his younger brother for leaving to take on this enemy, to do something, anything, to vanquish a foe he had been unable to fight for his comrades years ago, finally dissipating.

He released a noisy sigh of breath he had been holding, squeezed the back of Heath’s neck again, and then tousled the blond’s hair, carefully avoiding the bandage around his brother’s head.

“Next time, promise me one thing, Boy,” Nick said.

Heath nodded, pretty sure he knew what was coming next.

“If I can, Nick.”

“Now that you have two strong, better-looking, much smarter brothers, don’t try to take on the world by yourself! If you feel the need to head off again to fight your battles on your own, you remember that your big brothers’ll always come after you.”

“Boy Howdy, Nick,” Heath said, reaching out to clasp first Jarrod’s arm, then Nick’s, how could I ever forget how good the two’a you are at findin’ stray little brothers? I’d have ta be, not only dead wrong, but a fool boy with an ugly, tri-colored hound dog an’ fleas, ta ever try that again!”

Nick started to agree with him, then looked at him sideways, his mouth falling open slightly, wondering exactly when Heath had heard him use that particular phrase about him.

Jarrod, on the other hand, started laughing, and he reached out to wrap one arm around Heath’s shoulders, pulling the unresisting blond into a half hug.

Heath’s poker face dissolved, as a low chuckle escaped and continued into lasting laughter.

Watching the two of them, Nick Barkley’s look of surprise slowly changed into a broad, signature smile at the sound.

THE END