Empty Promises

Chapters 41-50

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.

 

 

 

 

(Many posts contain series dialogue, which I try to indicate by using italics. The original writers were terrific----and their dialogue always flowed so smoothly! I bow to their talents!  However, sometimes, italics are used in my story to indicate a flashback, from one part of the story to another.)

 

 

 

Chapter 41

(Almost three years after Chapter 40, back within the timeline of Chapters 1 and 2)

 

For Audra, watching her family, as, one by one, they each came downstairs to sit at the quiet breakfast table, it was like seeing them go through what she knew they must have several months ago, all over again.

 

She had not been there that other time, but she knew they had been frantic when Heath had disappeared, captured and held, as it turned out, at the hands of a religious sect up by Pine Lake, while she had been in Denver.

 

Her heart ached for each of them now, the freshly-healed worry and despair of those desperate days, slashed open again to bleed freely, painfully, right before her now.

 

Jarrod’s eyes were unseeing, as he gripped his un-tasted cup of coffee until it became cold, his thoughts probably caught somewhere between worry for their brother and the lassitude of interminable grief over the still fresh loss of his beautiful wife, Beth.

 

As for her mother, her face was a mask of quiet determination, her countenance a dam, struggling almost in vain to hold back a siege of swirling, watery tears, as she went through the motions of eating.

 

And, Nick ...

 

Audra watched as he took deep breaths, sitting sideways in his chair, his eyes staring out the open window behind her mother, as if waiting for someone to walk by on the verandah, whistling an unhurried tune on his way to the back door by the kitchen. Every once in a while, Nick’s eyes would drop to rest on the empty chair beside him, and he would growl or mutter under his breath.

 

Only Silas, who came in and stood by the window a moment, adding something to the buffet, would meet her eyes. Silently, he shook his head, and, his hands worriedly clasping together, he turned around and quickly left the room.

 

Unable to bear the quiet any longer, Audra said softly, “What are we going to do? Aren’t we going to look for him?”

 

Nick brought his fist down on the table in a powerful blow, instantly causing all the empty dishes to clatter, and he leapt to his feet.

 

“I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to ride into town and find him. Then, I’m going to drag his carcass back out here and make him come face all of us for putting everyone through this again so soon!”

 

“Nicholas,” Victoria said, touching her white linen napkin to her mouth and replacing it in her lap. “Nick, please sit down. You make it sound like what happened before was his fault. As we discussed last night, your brother is entitled to his own life. He does not have to report his movements to any of us.”

 

Slamming his right fist into his left hand, Nick took two great strides back to the table, gripped the back of Heath’s chair in his hands, picked it up, and replaced it again savagely, but soundlessly, on the rug. Then, he slipped into his own chair, and he placed both fists on the table and stared straight ahead again.

 

Audra said quietly, pleading, seeking Nick’s eyes as she spoke, “But, he wouldn’t let us worry, Nick. You know it as well as I do. Especially now, after what happened while I was in Denver. He’d send word if he planned to be gone all night! You know he would!”

 

Nick glanced up at her, nodding briefly, then, returning his eyes to the wall across from him. After a few seconds, however, he looked down the table at his mother’s face, who was also watching him, and he said, much more quietly now, “Mother, I’ll be out with the boys near Sky Meadow all day. We’ve got fencing to put up and cattle to move.”

 

Standing, he walked down to her end of the table, placed his hands on her shoulders, and leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek. She patted his hand as he said, “If he comes dragging back here, you’ll send someone to let me know, won’t you?”

 

“Yes, Darling,” she said. “Try not to worry, Nick. I’m sure he’s fine. He’ll be here by lunch today, you’ll see.”

 

Nick crossed over to touch Audra’s shoulder with one hand, and he said, “See you later, Sis.” Then, he stalked to the kitchen entrance, and they all heard him mutter as he went, one hand slapping into the other, “He might be fine when he gets here, but he won’t be that way when I get through with him ... ‘Still owes me a few repairs on the tool rack in the barn, and I’m gonna see that...”

 

The silence that followed in Nick’s noisy wake allowed Audra to again look at the remaining family members. Jarrod replaced his coffee cup on the table, then, moved to stand. He was halted, however, by his mother’s voice.

 

“Jarrod, when you get to town this morning ... ?”

 

Interrupting her, preventing her from having to ask, he said lightly, “You know ... before I settle down to the business of the court this morning, I just believe I’ll make a few stops first along the way. I can think of a few ex-clients of mine that just might be willing to divulge information about a certain wayward Barkley, if they happened to cross paths with him during the evening.”

 

Smiling now, Victoria and Audra exchanged looks, and the silver-haired lady at the foot of the table replied, “Thank you, Sweetheart. This mother would greatly appreciate just knowing he is safe. The rest of the details will not be necessary.”

 

Standing and bowing dramatically, Jarrod walked along the side of the table, pausing to give both ladies a kiss on the top of the head before leaving through the double doors opening onto the hallway.

 

When they heard the front door close, Audra looked back at her mother’s face.

 

Victoria Barkley was now echoing Jarrod’s movements of a little while before, holding her untouched green and bone china coffee cup in both hands, her elbows resting uncharacteristically on the table, one on each side of her plate. Her eyes stared straight ahead, and her face was deeply contemplative.

 

“Mother?” Audra asked gently, reaching out to touch her arm with her fingers. “Mother, I don’t understand. Why is Nick so angry at Heath? It’s unlike both Nick and Jarrod to believe that he would just go off without telling them, without telling you, where he’s gone.”

 

With a sigh, Victoria set her coffee cup back in its saucer.

 

Then, she turned to Audra and said, “Normally, no, Audra. You’re right. He wouldn’t, and they would know that. But, you were away for several weeks, and you’ve been very busy lately, Sweetheart, so you might not have been so aware of it since you returned. Something has changed recently with Heath ... Nick and I have talked about it, so I know he sees it, too. Jarrod and I haven’t talked, but I know he’s worried.”

 

“What is it, Mother?” she asked, fear clutching at her heart. “What’s different?”

 

“He’s been through two very tough situations recently, things that may’ve brought up old memories that I know he always struggles with, even though he never says much to any of us about them.”

 

“You mean what happened to him when those people held him prisoner up by the lake, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, that’s part of it. It took us days to find him, Audra, over a week, and they ... Jarrod told me they kept him in a cage ... a cage not fit to keep an animal in.”

 

At Audra’s gasp, she reached out to take her daughter’s hand. Then, she said, “Maybe we should’ve told you. Maybe you could’ve talked to him about it, but I suspect he wouldn’t say much to any of us about what it was like. I know he hasn’t said much to Nick ... or to me.”

 

Seeing Audra’s mouth open to speak, Victoria reached up to touch her fingers to her daughter’s lips. “There’s something else. When he tried to escape, the young girl who helped him, who wanted to escape from them as well, was shot and killed ... Can you see how that might have affected your brother?”

 

Her eyes filling with tears, Audra said, “Oh, Mother. Heath is the gentlest, kindest man I’ve ever known. He is even more that way with me than Father was. I can’t ... I can’t imagine what he must have felt.”

 

Watching her mother, then, she said with trepidation, “There’s more, though, isn’t there?”

 

“Yes, Sweetheart. When Charlie Whitehorse was killed, and Heath was accused of murdering one of the men responsible, do you remember how he acted?”

 

Audra nodded, “Yes. He couldn’t remember anything for a while. And ... Jarrod said that Heath was almost convinced he could’ve killed that man that hurt Charlie. I remember that Jarrod told us he found himself almost in the position of trying to persuade Heath that he hadn’t done it, that ... that Heath thought he could have, though he said he wouldn’t have used a gun.”

 

Nodding back at her, her own grey eyes brimming, Victoria said, “He won his freedom, Audra, but he hasn’t quite been himself lately. I think those two things, feeling guilty about that girl’s death, even if it wasn’t his fault, and not knowing for days if he had murdered that man or not, have really taken a toll on him. I’m only guessing, of course, but he seems ... I don’t know ... more quiet than before, distant ... and distracted somehow.”

 

Openly crying now, Audra said, “Yes, Mother ... And, being kept in that cage, then in that jail cell for so long ... don’t you think those two things also...”

 

Squeezing her hand, Victoria suddenly interrupted with a gasp.

 

“Oh, Audra!”

 

Rising slowly to her feet, Victoria released her daughter’s hand, and she turned and stepped over toward the window. Pulling back the curtain, she looked out at the activity by the barn. Not seeing Nick, however, she said, “Audra, you were right. We have to find him.”

 

Stepping over to her, Audra wrapped her arms, her sleeves of soft blue with dark blue trim, around her mother’s diminutive frame. “What is it?”

 

“I just remembered ... Something you said, reminded me ... Sheriff Madden made a comment to me after the trial was over ... He said that he’d enjoyed having Heath there to play cards with, but that he didn’t think your brother had slept the entire time he was there. Fred told me he’d walked in several times at night to find Heath sitting in a corner on the floor of the cell, his eyes wide open and staring at nothing. Fred said, . . he said that it really bothered him to keep Heath locked up in there, and that if the trial had gone on much longer ... he would’ve had to get Doctor Merar to give Heath something to make him sleep.”

 

Their heads bent together, the two women held each other, offering quiet comfort for a few more minutes.

 

Then, Audra said, as she released her mother, “If you’ll ask Silas to get Ciego to saddle my mare, I’ll go change clothes and go after Nick, Mother. You do think he needs to find Heath and check on him now, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, Sweetheart, I do. I think your brother may need both Nick and Jarrod right now, more than he may want to admit.”

 

 

 

Chapter 42

 

“Nick!” Duke McCall shouted for the third time, trying to get his boss’s attention.

 

Slowly, the dark-haired rancher turned and glared at the older man, and he responded, “What?” speaking just as loudly.

 

With a sigh, Duke looked back over his shoulder at the crew waiting by the wagon. “Nick, you need to decide where you want this string of wire, or they’ll all be asleep before too much longer.”

 

Nodding irritatedly, Nick stalked over to the six hands lounging around, waiting on him to give them directions.

 

Watching him, Duke shook his head. Then, he turned his eyes toward the west, hoping to see a cloud of dust that would herald the arrival of the blond-headed brother that would put an end to Nick’s angry worry ... and Duke’s own concerns.

 

Shaking his head again, he turned his horse and headed back to the wagon where Nick was fuming about the late start.

 

It was going to be a long, long day, at this rate.

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

Opening the door to Fred Madden’s office, Jarrod stepped inside and looked around. Seeing the office empty, he walked through to the back, searching for the sheriff.

 

However, the area of the jail cells, just like the office, was empty.

 

Just as he turned to head back through to the office again, Jarrod paused. Slowly, he retraced his steps until he was standing in front of the same bars that had separated him from his youngest brother no more than a few weeks ago when Heath had been accused of murdering Parker Atlas, one of three men he believed had been responsible for contributing to the death of a friend, Charlie Whitehorse.

 

Gripping the bars tightly, Jarrod looked around the small, eight-foot by eight-foot cell. Even if the unwelcoming cot were removed, there was barely room for a six-foot man to take three, normal sized steps from one end of the space to the other, and the small, square window set high into the brick of the wall let in very little light from the narrow alley outside of it.

 

Unbidden, Jarrod suddenly pictured himself, living out his days in a place like this, knowing this would have been his fate if his brothers had not stopped him from killing, choking, drowning, with his bare hands, the man who had finally admitting to shooting his beautiful Beth, not too many months ago.

 

As thoughts of the cold, unchanging existence that could have been, stretched out vividly before his eyes, Jarrod squeezed them shut, breathing out a sigh of heartfelt relief that his brothers had spared him this unending torment. For, he knew in his heart, that this would have been the only possible result of the blind, uncaring, unthinking actions he had sought to fulfill.

 

Breathing out noisily, Jarrod opened his eyes, allowing them to again rove around the small, cramped space. Then, releasing his hands from around the bars, he closed his eyes again and tried to imagine what it had been like for Heath to be held inside this cell for several days and nights, not knowing if the charges against him were true or not.

 

Knowing the blond the way he did, Jarrod realized that Heath had tormented himself while he was here, wondering if he had really done what the witnesses said he had. He had had no way to be sure, because his memories were still vague at that point, probably due to the blow to the back of the head from Doc Tully’s axe handle.

 

Again, Jarrod sighed.

 

Heath had spent too much time in places like this, from Rio Blanco, Mexico, to the work camp operated by Captain Risley, and, though this one was probably the most comfortable of any of the places he had been interred, Jarrod knew it had come too close on the heels of the long days and nights Heath had been imprisoned in that cage up in the hills by the lake.

 

He and Nick had seen that cage.

 

Shuddering, his hands returning to the bars of the cell, Jarrod opened his dark blue eyes and tried to picture himself being held captive there, in a place like that, for very long, for the eight, unending nights Heath had been there.

 

It had been barely tall enough for a man to stand up, and barely long enough to lie down, its triangle, tent-like shape preventing any walking around at all. Those people had treated his brother like a slave, working him day after day at gun point, leaving him to lie on the cold dirt at night, and obviously feeding him very little, from the condition Nick and Jarrod had found him in when they had finally arrived.

 

They had not told their mother, but Heath had also been publicly whipped for trying to escape several days into his ordeal  ...

 

Closing his eyes again, Jarrod remembered the first time he had ever seen the old scars Heath carried from the floggings he had received at Carterson. He and Nick had discovered them by accident when they had brought Heath home from Lonesome Camp almost three years ago. It had been then, while Heath had been so badly injured, that Nick had seen the marks and had first speculated that Heath had fought in the war, and Jarrod had realized just how different the blond’s life could have been if he had only had Tom Barkley, as they had had, to protect him while growing up.

 

Later, after he had agreed to stay, Heath had finally opened up to them a little, while the three of them had been at the lodge, and he had confirmed what Nick had guessed.

 

Jarrod remembered that night very clearly, the conversations as vivid in his mind now, even after three years, as if they had just occurred the previous night.

 

They had built a huge, roaring fire in the stone fireplace, and the three of them had settled down in front of it for the evening. Nick and Jarrod had slumped down into comfortable chairs, while Heath, probably still feeling the effects of the slowly healing leg wound, had shunned his chair and had stretched out on the rug by the fire. They had remained there for a couple of hours, passing around a bottle of Jarrod’s best scotch, drinking it straight from its distinctive, square-shaped, brown bottle.

 

Jarrod had told a story about something funny that he had once seen while he was in Washington. It had occurred outside in the street one day near the building where he had worked for the last three months of the war.

 

After the telling of it, Nick had picked at him about getting a head start on his lily white hands during that time, though he had begrudgingly acknowledged that Jarrod had earned that posting the hard way, after first building a hard-charging reputation as a cavalry officer.

 

Then, Nick had shared about the idiosyncratic officer with a huge handlebar mustache he had served under as a young lieutenant, regaling them with several stories about the man’s Irish tenor singing voice ringing out as they headed into battle, as well as the man’s legendary fastidiousness about his boots and uniform.

 

Finally, as the fire had begun to die down, and the bottle had less than four more good swallows remaining, Nick and Jarrod both turned their eyes to Heath, as his quiet drawl got their attention.

 

“Can’t remember the faces’a most’a the men I served with.” He seemed to look inside himself, focusing on the pictures inside his head, before he said, “Some were bearded, an’ some weren’t. Some were educated men, but most weren’t. Don’t remember much about any singin’, though there was a fella that could play the harmonica. But ... by the end, there weren’t no songs left in him.”

 

Then, continuing, he added, “Most’a them didn’t look the same after Carterson, an’ it was hard ta tell who many’a them were any more, ‘specially the ones that didn’t make it. We all took ta makin’ sure we had our names written on something tucked away, just so someone’d be able ta tell who we were when we died. Most kept theirs inside their boots or tied up in scraps’a cloth worn around their necks on strips’a leather.”

 

Holding his breath at the quiet sadness of the voice, though the words themselves were so matter-of-fact, Jarrod could picture the few men he had seen in army hospitals who had spent time of any length in prison camps during the war. He wanted to ask more specifics, wanted to probe to find out just how the younger man had coped with it all, both at the time, and afterwards.

 

But, he didn’t dare interrupt his new brother, who had shared very little about himself over the month and a half they had known him. Instead, Jarrod kept his dark blue eyes glued to Heath’s face, whose much paler blue were staring, unblinking, into the fire, his hand wrapped around something made of light-colored cloth that Jarrod could barely get a glimpse of.

 

Taking a deep breath, Heath slowly let it out, and, keeping his eyes on the fire, he opened his hand for a few seconds, then closed his fingers slowly back around the object, as if aware of the unspoken questions inside Jarrod’s mind.

 

Then, he said, “Didn’t have a pencil, an’ didn’t have much ta trade, for use’a one. So, I carved my name into a piece’a wood I carried with me.”

 

With a lop-sided grin, he opened his hand, again revealing the small canvas bag from which Jarrod had seen him remove makings for a cheroot only once before. He had wondered several times why Heath even carried the small pouch, since he had only seen him smoking that one time.

 

Now, as Heath opened it with one hand and deftly removed a small, dark piece of wood from the pouch, as if he had done this same thing hundreds of times in the past, Jarrod suddenly understood.

 

Heath looked down at it, then rubbed it between his thumb and fingers, its flat, oblong shape no more than two and a half inches long, dwarfed in his hand. Then, looking up from where he lay stretched out on his side on the dark green braided rug, his sock-covered feet close to the hearth, Heath met first Nick’s hazel eyes, then blinked and broke away, finding Jarrod’s dark blue and meeting them steadily.

 

Slowly, without a word, he extended his hand and offered the dark object to Jarrod, whose place in a comfortable, dark brown chair, was closest to him.

 

Jarrod carefully took the small object. He was surprised to recognize it as having come from a redwood burl, and, marveling at the craftsmanship of the intricately carved eagle in flight on one side of the iron-hard piece of wood, he slowly turned it over and read the names and date on the back.

 

Looking up, his own expression clearly puzzled, Jarrod saw the soft, lop-sided smile and sad, blue eyes still watching him.

 

Nick asked, pulling Heath’s eyes away from Jarrod’s, “You carved that there? You mean they didn’t care if you had a knife or not?”

 

With an ironic scoff, Heath replied, “Nick, it wasn’t that they ever cared if we did do anything ta hurt each other or not, an’ the guards’d shoot any of us that crossed the dead line ta approach any’a them up high on their stockade walls, so there was no reason for them ta care, no reason for them ta even know, if I had a knife or not. They never came inside ta walk among us anyway. They shoved us inside, drove in an occasional couple’a wagon loads’a food, an’ left just as quickly again.”

 

As he handed the dark, reddish-colored piece of wood over to Nick, Jarrod swallowed the lump in his throat at what it signified, at the thoughts of life lived, and death anticipated, that must have precipitated its creation, and he again met Heath’s eyes. He understood the reason for the names Heath Thomson, Leah Thomson, and Strawberry, Cal, but he couldn’t understand the date.

 

“But, Heath,” Jarrod started, shaking his head slightly, “That’s not when you were born ... It couldn’t have been.”

 

“No. You’re right, Jarrod,” Heath replied quietly, his voice soft again, “It isn’t the right year.”

 

“But, why would you ... ?”

 

Then, Jarrod trailed off, knowing the answer. He began nodding and said, “You put the wrong date on there in case anyone else ever found it, didn’t you? You were too young to be there, weren’t you?”

 

“Yes,” was all Heath said.

 

After several long moments, Jarrod continued, almost in a whisper, “Too young to join up, too young to fight and kill men on the other end of a rifle, and too young to be imprisoned in Carterson ... for how long, Heath? A month or so?”

 

“Just after the prisoner exchange program fell through. Seven months.”

 

Interrupting the thoughts that sent Jarrod’s mind spiraling backward, into an abyss of disbelief and shocked dismay, Nick suddenly interjected, “Well, the year’s not the only thing not right with that carving. Your name ... You got it wrong, Heath. It should say Barkley ... and I’m angry at Father that it ever had to be anything else, Little Brother! He should’ve known about you. We all should’ve. And, you should’ve been here with us, not out fighting a war you had no business being part of!”

 

Quietly, Heath sat up, and he turned to face Nick, meeting his unwavering hazel eyes.

 

They looked at each other for a few long seconds, and Jarrod swore to himself that he could see the mutual respect shimmering in the silence that settled comfortably between them.

 

Then, Heath said softly, “Nick, I would’a been the luckiest boy in four states if I’d had you an’ Jarrod,” he paused and glanced at the blue-eyed lawyer, flashing him a faint, lop-sided smile, “Beside me as brothers growin’ up. Between the two’a you, I could’a walked from one end’a that minin’ town ta the other with a lot less bruises ta show for it. An’, no, I may’ve never wound up in a race for survival with Appomattox if we’d known about each other. But ... ,”

 

Heath paused, closing his eyes for an extra second, and then blinking them open again. By the time he had them opened, Nick was squatting next to him on the floor, his hand gripping the back of Heath’s neck, shaking him in a fierce show of support.

 

Jarrod leaned forward and watched them both, giving Heath his complete attention with his compassionate, dark blue eyes.

 

Heath nodded at both of them, and one corner of his mouth turned up in that familiar smile. Then, he continued, “But, I don’t have many regrets ... I need ya’ both ta know that ... none about fightin’ for what I thought was right, ‘cause I may not’ve been old enough by the army’s standards, but I was old enough ta know what I believed in. An’, I don’t have regrets about the years I had with my mama ... ‘Wouldn’t’ve wanted anyone ta come in an’ try ta take that away, not from her, not from me.”

 

He looked at the two of them with fierce pride shining in his eyes, not ashamed of the moisture that rose up in them at the thoughts of the woman he had so recently placed in her grave.

 

He said in a whisper that slowly gained in volume, “No little boy, not there in the valley, not in some la-de-da big city, an’ not in Strawberry, could’ve been raised with more love than I was. The only regrets I have are about all that she endured in that place because’a the choices she made, the choices they both made. It should’ve never happened that way for her. An’, that regret makes me more angry at Tom Barkley than I can ever outlive. You both have ta know that...”

 

The two men watching him both nodded, and Jarrod felt his heart constrict in his chest at the realization that Heath may never feel any differently about the man that was the father they all three shared.

 

“But,” Heath continued, reaching out to grasp Nick’s forearm, grateful for the hand still holding onto his neck, “I do regret not knowin’ any of you before now, an’ I regret what ... what my presence here has cost your Mother. But, ...” He paused again, looking straight into their eyes, willing them to understand what he was saying, “The way I grew up, the things I’ve done ... I realize I may’ve turned out very differently if I’d had all’a you ta look out for me, an’ ... about who I am ... I have no regrets.”

 

Jarrod nodded again, slowly, considering Heath’s words, thinking about all he hadn’t said, in addition to all that he had.

 

Thoughtfully, the dark-haired lawyer said, “So what you’re reminding us of, is that you don’t think you would be the man you are now, if you had had all of us to lean on, to rely on. Instead, you learned to hold your own in any situation, to take care of your mother, to take on the responsibilities of a man very early because of what you went through. In fact, Brother Heath, if I had to guess, I’d say giving up some of that self-reliance in the last six weeks has probably been one of the toughest parts of adjusting to life with all of us.”

 

As Heath nodded, his blue eyes lighting up at the understanding expressed, Jarrod added, “And, I can’t dispute that, Heath, because I’m very proud of the way you’ve turned out, and Nick is, too, even if he’s too stubborn and growly to admit it.”

 

The growl that Nick gave then, made both of his brothers chuckle, the older and the younger, as Heath handed the bottle of scotch back to Nick.

 

Shaking himself, Jarrod pressed his lips into a straight line and remembered that the thing that had surprised him the most when Heath had started talking that night, was that Jarrod had noticed that the blond had actually touched the bottle to his lips only twice before the telling of it, and not once afterward.

 

He had known then, and that faith had not been shaken in three years, that as his brother had shared with them a glimpse into his soul from time to time, it had been knowingly, willingly given. It had not leaked out from around lips loosened by liquor. Like everything else his youngest brother did, his words and actions that night had been very deliberate.

 

Just like his actions now must have been ...

 

Taking a deep breath, Jarrod vowed to himself that he would do everything he could to help Heath get through this, whatever had him on edge, whatever may be affecting him now, distancing him from them, even if it meant he had to stop taking cases for a while and concentrate just on his brother. Heath may have never had their father’s influence to guide and help him, but he had shown his trust in Jarrod over time, just like his other siblings had, to assist him when he needed it, and Jarrod was not going to let him down now, any more than Heath and Nick had let him down several months ago when he had needed them.

 

With one last look around the small, enclosed space of the cell, Jarrod hit his hand against the solid metal bars and made his way determinedly back out onto the street.

 

He needed to locate the sheriff.

 

Then, he would check every saloon and hotel in Stockton if necessary, not stopping until he found out something that would lead him to his youngest brother, wherever he was.

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

(Please see "Notes" related to Chapter 42 at the end of this section.)

 

 

 

Chapter 43

 

When he cracked his eyes open, the light from the filthy window cut through his head, like a sharpened axe slicing through well-seasoned wood. He gasped with the pain, and slammed his eyelids shut, squeezing them closed and immediately shielding them with his arm.

 

Rolling to his right side, away from the glare from the partially-boarded window, he lay still for long moments afterwards, willing his stomach not to rebel as the dizziness encircled him. Releasing a low groan from between his lips, he curled up and stayed like that until he felt the ground finally flatten out beneath him and remain still.

 

Taking in a deep breath, he pushed it back out slowly, relieved when the dizziness and nausea seemed to recede, like the flow of water back toward the ocean along a battered shore.

 

Swallowing hard, he blinked open his eyes, still shielded partially behind his arm, and allowed himself time to adjust to the pale, diffuse light. Narrowing them against the constant pain, he tried to focus on the dim, shadowy objects in front of him. Extending one hand, he reached out and touched the hard, unyielding shape of what he guessed was a wooden crate. Hitting it with his hand, he cursed himself when he could not get his eyes to tell him if he was right.

 

Then, closing them again, he lay still, breathing hard and trying to make himself think beyond the continual pounding. But, all he had were questions, questions with no answers.

 

Where was this place?

 

What had happened to his eyes?

 

How did he get here?

 

Why couldn’t he see anything but shadows?

 

What had happened?

 

He remembered the man from ... When? Yesterday? He remembered the deep, gravely voice, but could not now, any better than he could then, put a face or name with it. The man that had bent down over him, the man that had kicked him repeatedly, blaming him for something Heath hadn’t been able to figure out, had dark hair and dark eyes, of that much he was sure ... But, that was very little to go on.

 

His lips curving in a one-sided smile, Heath acknowledged that that description, dark hair and dark eyes, fit half the men he knew, including his brother, Nick.

 

Nick.

 

As he closed his eyes and shifted on the hard dirt of the floor, he visualized his brother, saw him laughing over a joke Audra had told badly during dinner the other night. Then, his mind roving over each one of them sitting around the table, he saw Audra, Jarrod, and Mother, all very clearly.

 

Suddenly, he remembered the last thing he’d been working on in the barn ... yesterday?

 

He could see Ciego’s head shaking back and forth as Heath had explained he couldn’t finish the rack for the tools before he was supposed to be in town. He’d promised to pick up that shipment of new equipment Nick needed for the three line shacks he wanted to outfit the next day, and if he didn’t leave right then, he would have to wait around until the train depot reopened after two o’clock.

 

As the memories continued to surface, he remembered telling Ciego not to hang the old rack, to wait for him to get back to finish repairing it first.

 

As he had climbed up onto the wagon, in a hurry to make it in time, he heard hammering in the barn, and he’d known what it meant. Ciego, stubborn cuss that he was, had been bound and determined to do it his way.

 

“Nick,” he whispered, smiling slightly again, “I know you’re angrier at me than that old rooster Silas keeps out there with the chickens.”

 

He chuckled softly, the pictures in his mind bringing him a measure of comfort, until the movement brought heavy pain exploding across his chest. Wrapping his arms around himself, he stopped laughing as he remembered the man’s boot lashing out at him when his arms had been tied behind his back.

 

Closing his eyes, he mumbled, “...‘probably already found out the hard way ... that old rack’s not sturdy enough ... ‘bet Mother heard ya’ all the way in the house ... an’ she met ya’ at the front door ... with her bar’a lye soap ... offerin’ ta help ya’ wash out that loud mouth’a yours...”

 

He reached up with one hand and squeezed his head again, gasping with the overwhelming pain.

 

“...’m sorry, Big Brother.”

 

Then, reaching up to untie his dark brown bandana from around his neck with shaking fingers, Heath carefully wrapped it around his head, covering his eyes. He winced with the movement, but felt much better when the bulk of the filtered light was further cut out.

 

Sighing with the lessening of the sharpest of the pains, he reached up again, probed the gash along the side of his head, and he adjusted the cloth to cover the open wound. The crease had been damp to the touch, but he had no way of knowing if it was from continued bleeding or from the sweat he felt drenching the rest of him.

 

Then, trying to keep his head resting in the same position, lying across the arm beneath him, Heath reached out and grasped the side of the crate, pulling himself toward it, sliding across the dirt.

 

If he could get up and work his way around the room’s edges, he could find the door and break through it somehow.

 

If it proved too strong, maybe he could find an old axe or some other tool to help him.

 

Dammit!

 

If he could just see, could just keep the pain at bay for a little while ...

 

Feeling around the sides of the rectangular shape beside him, he lay there, panting with the effort it had taken to get that far, letting one hand do the work. The wooden box near his head was about a foot and a half wide, further in length than he could reach, and about two feet tall. Hitting it with his open palm, and groaning a bit from the reverberation up his arm, he found it to be fairly sturdy and too heavy to move, at least from his position on the ground beside it.

 

Dropping his hand down, he rolled carefully to his left, felt around blindly in the dirt, and he found the canteen lying a foot or so away, where he had left it. Pulling it to him, he hooked his arm through the leather strap.

 

Then, allowing himself to rest for a few minutes before he tried to use the crate to pull himself to his feet, he again let his thoughts drift backwards, focusing on one piece of a memory at a time.

 

He knew how difficult it had been after ... after Charlie was killed ...  for him to remember anything of what had happened. And, he knew better than to try to force himself now.

 

Trying to keep his thoughts away from places he didn’t care to revisit, he just let himself lie there for a little while, too tired to move, thinking about the people he loved, and hoping to settle on that one detail, find that one little thread of a memory, that would help him unravel the reasons as to why he was here.

 

But, he found that his thoughts kept drifting back, into the past, settling on the events of three years ago, like a churning, boiling river settles back between its high banks, after the ebbing of turbulent water following a flash flood.

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

Her hand seemed to have its own will, as it reached out, turned the knob on the door, and pulled it open.

 

Her feet, seemingly of their own volition, carried her over the threshold, out into the glaring, unseasonably hot, afternoon.

 

Following her feet, her mind drifting across the last few years, she found herself, a little while later, leaning on a white fence, her arms draped across the top board.

 

It was shady here, the branches of the old apple tree not yet completely bare, and the stiff, brittle leaves rustled in the warm breeze coming across the corral from the west and blowing into her face.

 

Her eyes watched the large, but agile bay toss his fine muzzle in the air as he trotted back and forth, from one end of the enclosure to the other. He was restless, as stirred up as her emotions, as he suddenly stopped, wheeled around on tucked under hocks, galloped to the far boundary fence, and whickered across the golden brown, dry grassy pasture beyond.

 

Then, he whirled around again and cavorted back across to stand, unmoving, by the same side of the fence where she was. Her grey eyes never left him, as he again kicked out his hind hooves at nothing, his dark tail streaming out behind him, his equally black, though much shorter mane, bouncing with each stride he took in the opposite direction.

 

Soon, he surprised her, returning again, this time to stand within a few feet of where she remained, stock still, watching him. He blew out forcefully, his nostrils flaring, and he suddenly lifted his head, staring out across the enclosed barn area and toward the house behind her, as if he were watching something.

 

With hope rising in her chest, she turned around quickly, thinking that he had spotted the one person she wanted to see, needed to see, coming from around the corner of the house.

 

With her unexpected motion, the horse wheeled away, galloping across the corral again, leaving her standing there, alone, waiting in vain, her hopes dashed like the kicked up dirt beneath his hard hooves.

 

The anticipation on her face died away, as she realized the horse had not seen anyone, had only been looking, watching, the same as she.

 

As she walked forlornly back toward the house, she felt concern tighten around her heart. It seemed that even his spirited bay was aware of it, of the loss that she felt, of the vague worry that was slowly solidifying into real fear with the weight of stone.

 

Leaving the horse, his shrill, lonesome whicker trumpeting across on the breeze, Victoria Barkley returned to the house, to begin polishing the silver before dinner ... before dark.

 

 

 

Chapter 44

 

Looking down at her without moving, he asked sternly, though his eyes betrayed his compassion, “What’re you doing here?”

 

“I thought ye might like a nightcap, so I brought up the bottle.”

 

“That’s all? ... What’s your name?”

 

“Brydie,” she answered, reaching out to rest her hand against his chest, undoing one button of his shirt very deliberately.

 

“Brydie what?” he asked, never moving.

 

“Brydie Hanrahan,” she answered nonchalantly.

 

“How old are you, Brydie?”

 

By then, she had moved up against him, her full figure pressed into him, and she continued playing with the hair on his chest. Still, he had not moved, though she was intent upon changing that.

 

However, at his question, she huffed loudly and whirled away from him, grabbing the bottle and picking up one of two glasses next to it.

 

Irritated, but fighting to stay in control of her considerable temper, she said, turning back around to glare at him, “Oh, now, I didn’t come up to give ye my pedigree.”

 

“No, I suppose not ... 18? 19?” he asked again, crossing the room and reaching out to take hold of her hand and stop her from removing the bottle’s cork.

 

“Why, aren’t ye going to have a drink with me?”

 

“No.”

 

Then, softening his voice, he asked, “How much do ya’ make off a bottle, Brydie?”

 

“Oh, ‘n ye’re a wise one,” she said, flouncing over to stand with her back to him for a few seconds. Then, she turned around and stepped close against him again as if unable to stay away, the unopened bottle still in her hand.

 

“I make a dollar.”

 

Heath stirred slowly, shaking his head as he lifted it from his arm, and instantly regretting it. He reached up groggily with one hand, touched the bandana tied around his eyes, and just before trying to remove it, he recalled that he was the one who had put it there.

 

Dropping his head back to let it rest heavily on his arm, he squeezed his eyes shut tightly beneath the cloth covering and tried to remember what had happened. But, for a few moments, all he could recall was the sound of Brydie’s voice, the dream invoking old memories of her, though he hadn’t spoken with her in almost three years.

 

He pushed himself up part of the way, onto his elbow, and reached out to gain purchase with his unencumbered hand on the wooden box he felt in front of him. With a groan, and an instant reawakening of the pain in his head and the soreness in his chest, he felt the beginnings of nausea and dizziness return.

 

Turning to push off on all fours, he slowly leaned back to rest on his heels, his knees in the dirt, one hand holding his head and one gripping the top corner of the crate. He dropped his head, chin resting on his chest, as the dizziness increased. Pushing the heel of his hand against the side of his head, he hauled in air, trying to dispel the warm rush that told him he was going to be sick again.

 

Slowly, as he fought for control, he felt the overwhelming dizziness begin to dissipate, and he lifted his head slightly, as if focusing on the room around him, though all he could see around the edges of the self-imposed blindfold, was dim light. Then, turning his head, he sought the source of the light, though when he found it, he quickly slammed his eyes shut to stop the slicing pain that instantly cut into his head.

 

Breathing deeply, he pulled on the leather strap still wrapped around his arm, removed the top from the canteen, and drank a single swallow, letting the tepid water further wash down the nausea.

 

Then, closing it again, he reached back out, found the corner of the crate, and he leaned toward it, pushing off while holding onto it, and he willed his legs to hold him as he got to his feet.

 

Another wave of dizziness and bright, blinding pain rushed over him, and he quickly lowered himself to the box, sitting on it and dropping his head almost to his knees, his thighs now parallel to the ground. With his head in his hands, he groaned with the pain, wanting nothing more than to lower his aching body back to the ground and lie there, unmoving, until someone came to help him.

 

But, unbidden, the image of one older brother stalked through his head, and Heath saw Nick as he had been three years ago, standing in front of him, challenging him, in the hotel room above Newton’s saloon in Lonesome Camp.

 

He heard his own voice responding to the challenge, the sarcasm ripping through every word.

 

“What’d ya’ think, Barkley? That just ‘cause I’m covered in the dirt from your mine, with no time ta look out at ta’morrow, for scratchin’ out’a livin’ ta’day, that I don’t know how it’s done in your world?”

 

He took a breath and continued, his jaw clenched warningly, “Stock exchanges an’ fancy business suits, proxy votes an’ lawyer-created contracts, shareholders that wouldn’t know a stringer from a spill if they walked right up to one ... Oh, you are so wrong, Barkley!”

 

And, he saw the glaring, narrowed hazel eyes of the dark-haired rancher staring back at him, arms crossed and boots apart in a balanced, ready for anything stance.

 

He heard Nick’s voice demanding, “Who are you?

 

The words seemed to reverberate with the pounding behind his eyes, as Heath lifted his head and remembered the pride and defiance that almost made him tell Nick then and there who he was, almost made him demand all that was his, almost made him lose the only chance he had at the only thing he’d ever wanted, even before he had known he wanted it, or even what it was.

 

The echoes of Nick’s demands seemed to reach out to him, to shake him from the lethargy brought on by blurred shapes, faulty memory, and an excruciating headache.

 

As if he could feel Nick’s hand on the back of his neck, shaking him, he knew he had to get up, had to keep moving.

 

Yes, Nick would expect him to stop sitting here, to get up, to rattle the door off the hinges, and to find a way out of here, though he had no idea where here was.

 

Drawing strength from the image of his older brother, Heath mumbled out loud, a slightly lop-sided smile turning up one corner of his mouth, “C’mon, Boy. This is a workin’ ranch.”

 

As he pushed off from the crate, forcing his legs to hold himself up, he reached out with both hands and searched the air around him for any obstructions he couldn’t see. Then, in frustration, after taking a few steps and stumbling over something at his feet he never realized was there, he pushed the bandana up onto his forehead as if it were his light tan hat, opened his eyes just a crack, and he tried to search the too well-lit space for any more obstacles in his path.

 

“Arg-g-gh!”

 

The light cut into him painfully, and he froze, closing his eyes, and using both hands to cover them. Then, dropping his head, he placed one hand on his right thigh, and bent over, bracing himself against the knife twisting inside his skull.

 

For a few seconds, as he gripped that particular leg for balance, the image of a dark mountain road, milling horses, and several shouting men thundered through his head, reminding him instantly of the night Jarrod and Nick had come looking for him below Lonesome Camp.

 

The pain in his chest then had been much more than the heavy soreness he felt now, and the agony in his leg had made it almost unbearable to place any weight on it.

 

As he gripped the same leg now, fighting with himself to stay on his feet, he heard a memory of Jarrod’s commanding voice.

 

“Stay here, Hastings. I’m not done with you. Tell them to let go of him. NOW!”

 

Shaking his head, trying to clear it, but only succeeding in aggravating the pounding, Heath wondered why those events, those things that had happened so long ago, kept on running through his head ... especially when he couldn’t remember what had happened to him in the last day or so.

 

After several moments, he was able to stand upright again. This time, covering his eyes with his arm, he tried to protect them from some of the light, but to allow himself just enough to make out blurry, haphazardly stacked shapes around him. Slowly, cautiously, he took several halting steps, trying to move toward the too-warm sunlight, without looking directly at it.

 

Finally, reaching the rough-hewn wood of the wall, he used both hands to help him edge along it, toward the window, but feeling for the door. With a sigh of relief after several minutes, he located the latch, worked it back and forth, and realized that what his ears had told him earlier was true.

 

Whoever the dark-haired man was, he had bolted the door from outside when he had left.

 

When had he said he was coming back?

 

Shaking his head to clear it, Heath knew he had no specific recollection of the man’s words, only his angry frustration and his deep, gravelly voice.

 

Reaching up, he pulled the bandana back in place to protect his eyes from the light streaming in through the criss-crossed boards partially covering the window to his left.

 

After several moments of additional, head-pounding agony as he shook it, beat on it, and even tested the rusted-in-place hinges with his hand, he realized getting the solid door open was not an option.

 

Pushing his back against the strong boards, he closed his eyes against the headache, against the light trying to find his eyes beneath the folded cloth.

 

Forcing himself to take deep breaths to push back the nausea trying to find anything left in his empty stomach, he decided to move further along the wall, to try the window.

 

Using his hands, he turned his face away from the light and eased toward it, tripping again over something at his feet. Bending down, he gasped at the instant dizziness, and he caught himself against the wall. Then, his hands groping in the self-imposed darkness, he located a slender wooden handle, overbalanced on one end by a good-sized, rounded hammerhead. Testing it by hitting it against the wall, he smiled lop-sidedly under the bandana, as it made a resounding, solid sound against the wood.

 

Though one third of the handle felt split off, the wooden haft at the top still fit the metal groove of the head snuggly, and the handle had none of the hollow sound that would indicate it was cracked anywhere along its length.

 

As he tucked it in the belt of his pants, he had a fleeting image of the dark-haired man standing over him, roughly yanking off his gun belt.

 

Suddenly, he knew that hadn’t happened in here, inside the shed.

 

It had happened earlier, when they were still outside ... in the daylight.

 

Yesterday?

 

He reached up and touched the side of his face. As memory came flooding back, he could feel the sharp rocks beneath him, cutting into the side of his face, as the man had rolled him over.

 

Whatever had happened, he must not have been completely unconscious afterwards.

 

Pushing off of the ground for balance, he returned to his feet shakily, and he leaned his heavy head against an exposed wall stud for a moment, trying to catch his breath, his equilibrium, and his remaining lost memories.

 

Successful only with the first, a few moments later he began edging further down the wall, toward the light that he could neither block out, nor avoid. Reaching it, and with his jaw clenched against the increased pain, he used his hands to determine that the window had been partially boarded up from this side, and he probed for any weaknesses in the jagged pieces of wood. Then, eyes tightly closed, he began pulling at them, one at a time, beginning with the one on top.

 

As the end of the first one came loose, he felt instant encouragement about his chances of getting out of the ramshackle shed before the dark-haired man returned. Working fairly steadily after that, despite the pain that kept crashing through his head in waves, he used the handle of the old hammer for leverage against one board at a time, and he made good progress.

 

However, with what felt like half of the boards removed, he suddenly cried out, grabbed for his head, and dropped to his knees, like a tree broken off without warning in a storm.

 

With the renewed fury of the headache pulling him toward the ground, he toppled sideways, falling into a stack of rotting grain sacks, as the light creeping in around the edges of the blindfold suddenly went dark.

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

Dust motes danced in the increased afternoon light streaming in through the partially uncovered window, until the shadows of the objects resting on the dirt floor grew long over the silence, stretching out to almost touch the inside wall on the other side of the forgotten structure.

 

 

 

Chapter 45

 

Nick Barkley stood, his arms crossed, looking out at the valley, his valley, visible from this vista in the foothills above the ranch. Behind him was the line shack he and Duke had just checked, looking for the blond.

 

Dammit! He had been so sure Heath would be here. This was one of his favorite places on this side of the ranch.

 

Staring out at the golds, greens, and browns of the late autumn and the too hot, heavily hazy valley, Nick didn’t turn, not even when Duke placed his hand on his shoulder.

 

“Nick?” the older man asked quietly.

 

Shaking his head, Nick reached up and pulled off his dark brown hat with one hand, revealing even darker hair plastered to his forehead by sweat. Moping at his dripping hair with his shirtsleeve, hat in hand over his head, Nick said, “I don’t know, Mac. I just can’t figure him.”

 

Already hurt that Heath had stopped talking to him, to anyone, about anything of consequence for the last few weeks, but not willing to admit how he really felt about it, Nick had been inclined to think that his little brother just needed some time to himself and that he had taken it, without regard for the rest of them. Then, when Audra had ridden out to Sky Meadow that morning, asking him to not wait, to go ahead and start looking for Heath, Nick had been irritated and skeptical, sure that Heath was just holed up somewhere, licking his wounds ... or making them fester by dwelling on them.

 

But, now, standing here, looking out over the valley, seeing it from a vantage point, much lower, but from a similar direction from that of their first, nearly fatal trip through here together three years before, Nick was suddenly overcome with foreboding.

 

Slapping his hat against his leg, he glanced over at McCall for a moment, then, asked with a growl, “Give me a few minutes, will you, Mac?”

 

His hand still on his young boss’s shoulder, Duke responded, “Sure, Nick. I’ll do a quick inventory in the line shack while we’re here.”

 

Nodding, Nick immediately returned his attention to the wide view through the trees, his mind instantly taking him back to that first night the two of them had spent out on the trail high behind him, leading away from the mining camp and toward the Barkley Ranch below.

 

Nick had opened his eyes, somewhat revived by Heath’s careful tending after the fight with the Mollies in the alley, the fight that had left him with a badly broken arm. He had immediately heard the blond mumbling tiredly to himself while watching over him.

 

“Now, there’s nothin’ left ta do ... but try ta keep them from killin’ each other ... the men guardin’ the mine, the men hopin’ ta return there ... an’ the Chinese I know they’re gonna bring in.”

 

His voice rough with the fever, but his tone reflecting that he was aware of his surroundings, Nick listened to the blond incredulously for a few moments before he asked quietly, truly puzzled, “Who are you, Boy?”

 

Heath’s head came up immediately, and Nick saw the stark pain in his eyes, the despair glittering in the reflection from the angry, unshed tears.

 

“Who do you think I am, Barkley?” he growled, his heart too swollen with grief for things that had already come to pass and things he figured were to come. His was a heart too hardened by pride and self-reliance developed in the face of too many hurts over too many years, to allow this dark-headed man the entry he all but demanded with his very presence.

 

Nick shook his head, his confusion evident in his eyes, and he lifted his good arm, again grasping the brown shirt of the blond above him, though this time he did it purposefully, knowingly.

 

“I don’t know,” Nick paused, looking up at him.

 

Then, he added, “But, I want to know. I need to know, Boy ... to know who you are, and why you’re here, why you’re helping me.”

 

Closing his eyes, trying to fight against the strong pull of the man, not only on the front of his shirt, but on his very soul, Heath shook his head slightly, and reached up to loosen the fingers holding onto him.

 

Suddenly, the man did let go, but he quickly grabbed Heath’s hand, his fist closing around Heath’s, refusing to release him, even as Heath tried unsuccessfully to gain his feet and back away.

 

Holding on fiercely, Nick said, “Who are you, Boy? Tell me! Who are you? ... I wanna hear!”

 

He had had the feeling then, and even now, three years later, he was still sure, that Heath had been about to tell him exactly what he wanted to know, what Nick hadn’t known for sure then, but knew now ... that Heath was Tom Barkley’s son from a liaison with a woman he had not been married to, a woman to whom Nick’s father had never gone back to offer his assistance.

 

But, Heath had not told him.

 

In fact, he had never come out and told them, as far as Nick knew. At least, he had never said it to him.

 

Heath always listened when Nick talked of his father, their father, over the years, but he never asked any questions, and he never volunteered much information.

 

Maybe he had told Jarrod or Mother, but he had never made any claims within Nick’s hearing. With a sigh, Nick remembered what it had been like after he and Jarrod had brought Heath home, so close to death from blood loss that Doctor Merar had all but given him up.

 

Closing his eyes, Nick remembered when he had awakened late two days later, fearing that they had let him sleep on the very morning they had agreed they would try the blood transfusion to save Heath ... fearing that they had let him sleep only because his newly discovered, younger brother had died during the night.

 

Wrapping his crossed arms around his chest as he stood there, struggling to hold back the sob that threatened to burst forth from his heart, even now, even thinking of the relief he had felt when Silas had told him Heath was better, Nick blinked rapidly and opened his eyes.

 

“Heath,” he whispered, letting the hot moisture build behind them.

 

Suddenly, he realized he had been wrong about something.

 

And, he was sure of it now ... Heath wasn’t still brooding about that girl’s death ... What was her name? Bettina? ... At least not to the point that he would’ve gone off alone, worrying them, worrying Mother this way.

 

In his head, he suddenly saw his younger brother standing over the dead girl who had been felled by a bullet in that camp up by Pine Lake a couple of months ago. He heard Heath’s quiet, assured response when Nick had walked toward him, speaking to him.

‘You alright?”

 

Heath nodded slightly, “I’m alright.”

 

Then, Nick recalled the words of the man down on his knees beside the girl, the man who was accusing Heath of causing the girl’s death.

 

“Why? Why in the name of justice, couldn’t the bullet have found you, instead of her?”

 

Hemit’s words shook Nick to the core.

 

He glared at the man, about to speak up for his brother, when Jarrod touched his arm. Nick froze, as he noticed what Jarrod already had, that Heath’s eyes were clear, and his gaze at the man who had spoken was steady.

 

Maybe not physically, but it was obvious that, inside at least, he really was alright.

 

Again, the man spoke, adding to his accusation, his words not a question, but an exclamation of the truth of what he believed, “She was trying to help you escape, wasn’t she!”

 

Nick lost the next words as Heath’s eyes flickered to touch his, light blue finding hazel. And, Nick heard the silent request for him to be allowed to settle this his way ... heard it as loudly in his heart as if Heath had shouted it toward him.

 

When he nodded slightly and turned his attention again to the man, Hemit was going on about how badly Bettina had wanted vengeance for her dying husband.

 

Then, as Nick watched, he saw Heath gather himself, and he heard his brother’s quiet, calm voice, heard the compassion and the strength in its depths.

 

“You’re wrong. It wasn’t vengeance.”

 

“You corrupted her ... the days you spent with her ... You stole into her mind like the serpent of Eden, you made her see evil as good,” Hemit answered bitterly.

 

“No,” Heath said, neither defending himself, nor angry at the man. “I just gave her a chance ta see herself as she could be, as a woman.”

 

But, the man’s tirade continued, “You turned her against her own people, against the memory of her own husband.”

 

Taking a deep breath, pushing away the exhaustion Nick could see was etched into every muscle, every mark on his face, Heath replied evenly, “Against livin’ here in darkness an’ away from life ... There’s a lot that’s bad in the world, but hidin’ from it isn’t the answer. You’ve got ta fight it, an’ in the meantime, ...  enjoy all the good.”

 

Then, his light blue eyes boring into the man, giving him ... giving them all the answer to what had really occurred, Heath declared quietly, his voice confident, with no hint of questioning or bitter guilt, “You see, Bettina wasn’t tryin’ ta free me, nearly as much as she was tryin’ ta free herself ... ta begin ta live.”

 

Pulling in a deep breath and releasing it, at that moment Nick knew that whatever was going on with Heath now, he had already made a certain amount of peace with himself about what had happened up there at Pine Lake ... at least about the girl.

 

And, he had done it that night, before they had left the camp.

 

True, Nick admitted silently, Heath had not been himself lately, but ... it could be less than what he and Mother feared it was.

 

Swallowing hard, Nick then remembered the cage, its roughly put together wooden posts and wire standing silently over to the side, waiting, but not mentioned, as the three of them had walked to their horses. Nick and Jarrod both had had a hard time not staring at it as they had pulled out, but Heath ... Heath had never looked back at the cursed thing. Of that, Nick was sure.

 

“Dammit, Boy. Now that I’ve put my own wounded anger aside, I know something’s wrong, something’s happened to you ... I know you’re hurting over all that’s happened, over some of it, any way ... But, I’ve got a feeling we need to be trying to figure out what’s happened to you, not where you went gallivanting off to ... How can I help you if I can’t find you? ... Where are you, Heath?”

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

“No sign of him, Jarrod? You’re sure?” Victoria Barkley repeated worriedly, emphasizing the negative words already spoken by her eldest son.

 

Shaking his head as he held her trembling hands in his, Jarrod responded, “None. I’m sorry, Mother. Earl Akins down at the depot said Heath never came by to pick up the supplies Nick wanted loaded up before lunch yesterday. And, the team’s not at the livery in town, like I thought it would be.”

 

“How does a whole team and buckboard disappear, Jarrod? If he wanted to be alone, he certainly wouldn’t choose that way to travel...”

 

“I know, Mother. I know. Not unless he just wasn’t thinking straight.” Jarrod trailed off, remembering his own thoughts that morning standing outside the jail cell and knowing now, how he had not been thinking straight himself during that time right after Beth had died.

 

Swallowing hard, Jarrod added, “I still haven’t talked to Fred, though. Somebody told me he rode over to Stegall. I left him a message to contact us as soon as he could.”

 

Victoria patted Jarrod’s crisp white shirt showing just above his burgundy silk vest, and she said with a sigh, “Thank you, Sweetheart. I know you did your best to find out. Come on,” she added with a slight smile, “I know you’re tired, and I’d bet that you didn’t stop to get any lunch while you were in town, either. I’ll fix you something to hold you over until dinner.”

 

Taking her hand and tucking it under his arm, he walked her slowly toward the dining room. Suddenly, however, they both stopped, and as one, they turned back toward the front door and the sound of the wagon pulling up outside.

 

Squeezing her hand, he said with a broad smile, “That sounds like it could just be our wayward blond right now!” As they both hurried toward the door, he exclaimed, “This is a story I can’t wait to hear!”

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

The large, grey-suited man paced up and down before the fireplace, fidgeting with his tie as he walked.

 

In just a little while, he knew his fate would be sealed, and as he turned around and headed back the other way for the third time, he wondered whether, from this moment on, his life would stretch out before him with many times of wonderment and untold happiness, or creep along through interminable days, hours, minutes, and seconds filled with boredom, loneliness, and regret.

 

The next few minutes, the next few hours, the next few days would determine the course of the rest of his life, and he was filled with both abysmal dread and anticipated excitement at finding out which way it would turn out.

 

Feeling like a man called upon by a judge to stand up, to face his accusers and the jury of his peers while his verdict was read for all to hear, he turned at the sound of the light tread approaching.

 

Quickly replacing the apprehension settling in the middle of his ample girth with the feeling of eagerness spreading across his face, he turned to greet her with an expectant smile.

 

“Nancy?”

 

 

 

Chapter 46

 

“Nancy, is it really you? After all this time?” Big Jim North asked, his fears forgotten as he drank in her dark-headed beauty for the first time.

 

“Yes, Jim,” she responded, reaching out to take the large, work-worn hands he offered to her.

 

He just remained there, motionless, looking at her for a moment. Then, he seemed to remember himself, and he stepped forward, taking a shoulder in each hand, and he kissed her on her left cheek.

 

She was touched by the simple gesture, and she looked up at him shyly, smiling slightly.

 

His deep, quiet voice exclaimed, “I’m so glad you’re here. Did you have a nice trip?”

 

“Yes,” she started, wanting to say more, but she stopped when she realized he was still talking, a bit nervously now.

 

“Wonderful. I’m glad you had a nice trip.”

 

They stood looking at each other, taking in the kindness in each other’s eyes.

 

Then, turning, he placed one hand at the small of her back and ushered her into the large, comfortably masculine sitting room.

 

“You must be tired, Nancy. Some coffee will pick you up. And, uh, we’ll have something to eat. Come on. Sit down, right here. Sit down.”

 

As she sat down on the greyish-brown settee, he stepped back to look at her again.

 

“Nancy, you and me, we have a lot to talk about.”

 

Nodding demurely, she said, “I suppose we do.”

 

He continued talking, “Now you can understand why I didn’t ask for your picture. It would mean I’d have to send you one of mine. I didn’t want you to see what I look like, my age and all.”

 

Trying to stop the flow of self-deprecating words, she said, “Jim, you don’t have to...”

 

But, he cut her off, gesturing with one hand, “Well, now you’ve seen me. You can turn around and walk out, right now, Nancy. I wouldn’t blame you one bit. Not one little bit. I can ask my foreman. He’ll take you right back to town.”

 

“I want to stay,” she assured him, her eyes lighting up just slightly at his genuine unease, at his concern for her.

 

“You’re sure, Nancy?”

 

“I’m sure.”

 

“I promise you,” Jim responded, his smile as large as the stars shining in his eyes and his voice giddy with relief, “You’re gonna be happy here. I’m gonna make you happy. I’ll love you ... Everybody will.”

 

“Jim, I’m happy already. I’m going to make you a good wife, the best I know how.”

 

“You know Nancy,” he said, relaxing for the first time, as he left the center of the floor and came over to sit near her in the matching, fabric-covered chair, “My friends told me to take out an ad in a magazine, to advertise for a wife. I thought it was foolish, but that was the best thing I ever did in my whole life.”

 

Then, he added, “I assume you’ve met Maria. I can get her to fix you something to eat now, if you’d like.”

 

Laughing a little, she reached out, caught his hand as he moved to stand again, starting to step around the low rectangular table, and she said, “No, Jim. I’m fine. Let’s talk for a while. Then, we can get something to eat together in a little bit.”

 

Easing back down in the chair, which was placed at right angles to where she sat, he said, “You’ve been here since yesterday, and I’m so sorry I’ve been unable to meet you

before now, Nancy. Maria told you about my back ... ?”

 

He trailed off as she nodded.

 

“You do understand, don’t you? I’ve been so worried that you wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t come downstairs to greet you properly yesterday!”

 

Reaching out to touch his hand again, she held onto it, marveling at the strength she felt there, at the instant protectiveness she responded to deep inside, as soon as he curled his large fingers around her slender ones.

 

“Jim,” she said shyly, taking a shaky breath, “You have nothing to be ashamed of. I do understand. I want to be here, and I’m not angry at you for not meeting the stage, for not being able to see me until this afternoon. Maria explained it all to me. She told me about your back ... Are you feeling better now?”

 

Taking a relieved breath, he let it out, getting hold of his racing heart. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand ever so slightly.

 

“Yes. You know, I made the mistake of going into Stockton first yesterday. I should’ve known it would be rushing too much to try to make the stage stop on time after that, but ... ,“ he looked into her glowing green eyes and felt himself lost.

 

Then, trying to pick up his train of thought again, he added, “I wanted to bring you a gift, Nancy, and I realized too late, I’d never find anything in Stegall, so I went to Stockton, and ... I, I lost track of time trying to find just the right thing. I ran out of the store and collided with some boxes outside and, well, you see, I have this back problem. ‘Been troubled with it off and on for years.”

 

She squeezed his hand, her eyes on his, willing him to calm down as he continued, “I climbed back into the surrey, but I knew twenty minutes into the trip that I wasn’t going to make it in time. In fact,” he admitted, looking down at their hands entwined on his knee. “In fact, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make the trip at all.”

 

“Oh, Jim,” she said, surprising herself by being so moved by his telling of it all, “I’m so sorry it was such an ordeal for you.”

 

“No, Nancy! It wasn’t an ordeal, not while I was thinking of you! I just hate that I wasn’t there to greet you, is all. I sent someone, but apparently he didn’t get to the stage stop before the driver pulled out for Stegall. That was entirely my fault ... I’m so glad that you were able to find someone to bring you straight here, and I’m so grateful that driver didn’t leave you there at the stop by yourself...”

 

Breaking off at seeing her face change, he squeezed her hand this time and said, “What is it? What happened, Nancy? Something happened, didn’t it?”

 

She removed her hand from his and stood slowly, her face an entanglement of sudden emotions he couldn’t read. Turning away from him, she stepped over to the massive set of three, floor to ceiling glass doors, the beauty of the ranch stretching out before her in the warm afternoon sunshine.

 

Bringing her hand up in an unconscious gesture to first smooth her hair, then to chew on her thumbnail, she stood there, staring out and lost in thought. She didn’t hear him approach from behind her, and she jumped when he touched her shoulders with his careful hands, though he did so as if afraid she would break like fine porcelain.

 

“Nancy?”

 

His gentle voice calmed her thundering heart at once, and she turned in his arms, burying her face in his broad chest and holding on to the grey cloth of his vest with both fists.

 

“Oh, Jim,” she cried.

 

Bringing his hands up, he held them away from her for a brief instant, unsure of what to do. Then, feeling her need for comfort outweigh his own unease, he wrapped his strong arms around her and held her close. After a moment, he reached up with one hand and stroked the back of her head, feeling her tiny frame shaking with her sobs.

 

“Nancy?” he asked again, his face close against the top of her sweet-smelling hair.

 

With a shudder, she slowly lifted her head from his chest and looked up into his craggy, though very kind face, and she smiled slightly through her tears. Nodding once, she felt him take her gently beneath her elbow and lead her back to the settee. Settling her there, he stepped quickly to the wide entrance to the room and called, “Maria?”

 

When the smiling older woman came running, he immediately said, “Maria, would you please bring some hot tea for Miss Nancy?”

 

“Yes, Mr. Jim. I will bring it right away.”

 

Returning to her, Jim sat down in the same chair as before and put one finger beneath her chin, tilting her teary face up to look at him. “Nancy? Can you tell me what upset you so? Was it that I was not there at Stegall to meet you? Or that I felt it wasn’t right for us to meet each other until I could get back on my feet and out of my bedroom this afternoon?”

 

He paused and took a deep breath. Then, he added, his voice building in confidence as he felt the growing need to take care of her consume him. “Just tell me, Nancy. They call me Big Jim around here. And, I assure you, that’s because I’m strong enough to take anything you or anyone else can say or do.”

 

Blinking rapidly at his assurances, she nodded at his sincerely concerned, supportively smiling face, and she took the handkerchief he offered her. Wiping her eyes, she laughed softly, “I must look terrible. Please forgive me.”

 

“No, Nancy,” he said softly. “I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life ... Tears or not ... But, now, don’t you go trying to distract me. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“Oh, Jim,” She shook her head. “You’ve been in bed with your back since yesterday before my stage reached that little stop at the crossroads. You couldn’t have possibly known what happened, and I didn’t tell Maria last night. I didn’t want to worry you.”

 

His eyes widening, as he imagined all kinds of mishaps, he reached worriedly for her hand again. “Tell me, Nancy.”

 

Despite his distress, his voice remained calm and gentle.

 

“The stage was ... It was attacked and robbed. The driver and another passenger, a woman, was killed, and ... and I would have been too, but...” She immediately bit her lip, and tears began streaming down her cheeks. She covered her face with her hand, holding the handkerchief up to her eyes, unable to go on.

 

Releasing her hand and standing, he walked swiftly around the table to the other end of the settee and seated himself beside her, easing down carefully to avoid jarring his back. Then, he gathered her to him gently and held her close, rocking her back and forth as she cried fresh tears.

 

When Maria entered a few minutes later carrying the tea service, she looked at him in concern. He shook his head and said quietly, “Maria, please tell Shorty to send someone for Sheriff Madden. Have him tell Fred I can’t come to town right now, but I want to hear what he knows about the stage to Stegall being attacked yesterday.”

 

“Yes, Mr. Jim. I tell him right away.”

 

“Thank you, Maria. Oh, and please tell him to have someone return the buckboard I came home in yesterday. It belongs at Victoria’s place.”

 

Nodding, the woman turned and left, glancing worriedly over her shoulder at the distraught young lady, but glad that they were taking comfort in each other about whatever was wrong.

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

Flinging the door open, Jarrod ushered his mother out onto the wide front steps of their stately white home. He felt her immediately sag back against him, however, as they both saw the driver of the buckboard.

 

Gripping her arms for an extra second, Jarrod stepped around her and met the small, stoop-shouldered, older man he recognized as Harley Aimes from over at Jim North’s ranch. Glancing up, he saw one of Jim’s hands he did not recognize trailing behind, an extra saddle horse in tow.

 

“This your rig, Mr. Barkley?” Harley asked, bringing the team to a halt by the steps, reaching out to set the hand brake and tie off the lines.

 

“Yes, Harley,” Jarrod said, his forehead creased in puzzlement and stepping down to shake hands with the man. “Where did you find it?”

 

Jarrod immediately turned to check on the condition of the horses, hoping he would find a clue to his brother’s whereabouts by looking closely at them. But, he stopped with his hands on the closest draft horse’s neck, frozen by the man’s reply.

 

“Find it?” Harley responded, as perplexed by Jarrod’s question, as the younger man was by the reply, “These horses and wagon’ve been at our place since yesterday, when Big Jim drove ‘em back from town.”

 

Glancing up at his mother, who was still standing at the top of the steps, Jarrod shook his head and stared at the diminutive man. “At Jim’s ranch?”

 

“Yes, Sir. I cared for ‘em and brushed ‘em out myself, late yesterday. They’re sure a fine pair of greys, Mr. Barkley, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

 

Distracted, Jarrod nodded and said, “Thank you, Harley.” Then, recovering, the dark-headed lawyer launched into his best, confidence inspiring, questioning voice, and he asked, “Say, Harley. Did Big Jim say how he came to be driving our rig yesterday?”

 

Removing his beat-up hat and nodding at Victoria, who was watching the two of them from the top step, Harley scratched his head and said, “Well, come to think of it, he was driving his surrey with the matched chestnuts when he left yesterday morning, and he came back a few hours later with these greys. ‘Helped him into the house, but I never did ask him what happened to the surrey.”

 

“Helped him into the house? Was he hurt?” Victoria spoke up for the first time.

 

“Yes, Ma’am. Down in the back. You know how he gets sometimes.”

 

Turning away as she nodded silently, Harley crossed over to the saddled horse held by the brown-haired rider waiting patiently for him. Then, replacing his hat, he scrambled up into the saddle, and they pointed their mounts back the way they had come.

 

“Good Day to you. We’ve got to head to Stockton and take care of a few things for the boss.” Harley called, waving as the two of them jogged out of the closest gate.

 

Jarrod turned and looked at Victoria, as she descended the steps and then quickly climbed up into the seat of the buckboard. Surprised, but automatically reaching up to assist her, Jarrod said, “Mother? I can put the team away.”

 

Her eyes holding his steadily, she said, “No, Jarrod. You go eat something, get changed, and go find Nick. I’m going to take these horses to the barn and, then, head over to see Jim.” Shaking her head, she added, “At least now, we have a starting point for our search ... though I have no idea what it means for Heath. I’ll meet you both back here in a couple of hours, and we can decide what to do next.”

 

“Alright, Mother. I’ll do as you say, but I insist that you take one of the men with you. At this point, we don’t know what, if anything, has happened to Heath, and I’m not taking any chances with you or Audra until we do.”

 

Reaching down, she patted Jarrod’s hand where it gripped the edge of the unpadded wooden seat beside her.

 

“Thank you, Sweetheart. Now, don’t forget to get Silas to fix you something to eat before you go find Nick.”

 

He stood there, watching her turn the team expertly, making a perfect, curving half-circle, before she urged them toward the far barn.

 

 

 

Chapter 47

 

“Did you get the flowers I sent you?” Jim asked, his fingers cherishing Nancy’s, whose small hand was tucked in under his arm, as they walked through the garden in the late afternoon.

 

Seeing her look, he quickly said, “No, you couldn’t have, I don’t guess ... Not if the man I sent never reached you.”

 

“Jim?” Nancy started to tentatively ask, but he turned and touched his fingers to her lips.

 

“I’m sorry, Nancy,” He hurried. “I shouldn’t have brought it back up. I realize how difficult it all was for you. I’m only sorry that I wasn’t there to help when you needed me.”

 

“Jim, it’s alright,” Nancy said, her head down, swallowing hard.

 

He was exactly right.

 

It was all so difficult. She needed to just let it go, to try to forget it all, everything that had happened yesterday. It had nothing to do with Jim, and she did not want to burden her beginning here with this sweet, kind man with her memories of it.

 

But ...

 

She sighed, and tucked her head close to his shoulder.

 

They walked in silence for a few minutes, looking at the last remaining, early autumn roses, their petals beginning to wither, dropping to the ground at their feet whenever the two of them brushed up against them. She listened to Jim’s voice as he described how fragrant and vibrant the colors would be next summer, and, as she fingered the simple, but stunning gold necklace he had given her, she let her mind drift with the approach of the cool, early evening breeze, relaxing for the first time in two days.

 

But, suddenly, they both stopped, hearing voices coming from out front. Taking her hand in his, Jim led Nancy up the steps of the sprawling back porch, across the dark green wooden flooring, and into the back entrance. As they were coming through the main sitting room, Jim saw the visitor being shown inside.

 

“Victoria!” His shout startled Nancy, and she jumped slightly.

 

Chagrined, he smiled down at her and squeezed her fingers in hers. “I’m sorry, Nancy. Please come meet my good friend, Victoria.”

 

Proudly, Jim escorted her through the room and into the foyer. With a large smile on his face, he said, “Victoria, this is Nancy Briggs. Nancy, this is Victoria Barkley.”

 

“How do you do, Mrs ... Barkley?” Nancy said, faltering on the name.

 

“I’m fine, Miss Briggs,” Victoria replied, catching the girl’s dismay. Though puzzled by it, she continued, “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I hope that you don’t mind that Jim has told us so much about you.”

 

“No, not at all, Mrs. Barkley.” Taking a deep breath, she added, “But, you must call me Nancy.”

 

“That’s fine, Nancy. Please call me Victoria.”

 

“Well, now, Ladies, how about if we move into the other room,” Jim said, the proud smile still in place.

 

Then, when everyone was seated, the ladies on the settee, and he in his usual grey-brown chair, he asked, his voice growing more serious. “Victoria, we were going to invite all of you over to meet Nancy tomorrow night, but we can certainly change that now that you’re here. I hope you didn’t ride out here all alone so late, though. It’ll be dark soon. Where are your sons?”

 

“No, Jim. One of the hands came with me. And, that is exactly what I came to talk to you about.” Seeing his quizzical look, Victoria said, “Nancy, please excuse me, but I must get right to the point.”

 

“Not at all, Victoria. I hope everything is alright.”

 

“I’m not sure. That’s what I was hoping you could help me with, Jim.”

 

“Go on, Victoria,” Jim said, leaning forward and listening attentively, picking up on her serious voice, once he realized she wasn’t here just to meet Nancy.

 

“Jim, this afternoon, one of your hands returned our buckboard and team. The man indicated that it had been here,” she glanced over at Nancy and added, “Here, at your ranch, all night.”

 

“That’s right, Victoria. I meant to get someone to return it earlier, but with my injury yesterday and all the excitement of Nancy’s arrival, I forgot all about it.”

 

Shaking her head and holding up her hand, the silver-haired woman stopped him. “I’m not concerned about the wagon, Jim. I’m worried about my son.”

 

The two of them locking eyes, their mutual worry instantly apparent to the other, Jim queried, “Why? What happened? Is he alright? Where is he?”

 

“I don’t know, Jim. We haven’t seen him since yesterday before lunch. He left the ranch driving our buckboard and team, headed for Stockton. And, he hasn’t returned yet. Then, as I said, your men came over with it today ... Did you see him yesterday? How did the rig he was driving wind up here?”

 

“Yes,” Jim nodded, answering slowly, trying to understand what was going on. “Yes, I saw him yesterday.”

 

Suddenly, remembering Nancy, Jim turned to her.

 

She was sitting so quietly on the other side of Victoria, her eyes staring out at the low fire crackling in the hearth across the room. He said, drawing her eyes back with his voice,  “Nancy, you remember. Victoria, like I told Nancy, I hurt my back in town yesterday morning, and I realized on the way to meet her, that I wasn’t going to be able to drive my buggy that far.”

 

Getting up stiffly, he walked over to the buffet and poured himself a whiskey, then a sherry each for the ladies. Carrying them carefully back, he placed the small silver tray on the low table in front of them. Then, picking up his glass, groaning a bit as he straightened, he strode over to the open glass doorway and remained there for a moment looking out.

 

“Jim!” Victoria said, replacing her glass on the tray and rising, stepping around the table to join him. Standing in front of him, she placed her hand on his arm, pleading with him with her eyes. Quietly, she added, “Jim. Tell me what happened. Please! I need to know if he’s alright!”

 

“Victoria,” he said, turning his troubled eyes to her. “I just don’t know. I met him on the road. He was headed to town. I was hurting so badly, I could hardly remain sitting in the seat. He stopped to help me, saw the predicament I was in, and offered to leave his team and drive me back here, letting me stretch out in the back seat of my surrey. But, I was worried about Nancy ... I begged him to take my buggy and go to meet her stage. I knew I was going to be too late, and that the stage would head on in to Stegall, taking her there, if I wasn’t at the stop when it arrived.”

 

Her voice quiet and almost strangled, as if she were holding her breath, Victoria asked, “Then, what happened, Jim?”

 

“He tried to talk me out of the idea, saying she would wait for one of us to get to Stegall. He wanted to bring me back here first. But, I insisted. Finally, he traded rigs with me, and I brought his wagon back here, while he took the surrey and headed for the little stage stop just this side of Stegall.”

 

“...At the crossroads ... You know the one I mean, Victoria. It’s just a bit better than a shack, and no one occupies it.”

 

“Yes. Yes, Jim. I know the one you mean,” she said impatiently, gripping his arm tighter. “But what about my son, Jim? Didn’t he return with Miss Briggs ... with Nancy?”

 

Jim glanced over at the young woman on the settee. Her head was down now, and though she still gripped the sherry in her hand, she had pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders as if protecting herself, and she hadn’t touched the drink.

 

“Nancy? No, he didn’t come back with her. A Mister Clayton, I believe it was, brought her to the house.” Lifting his voice to include her, Jim asked, “You said you had to ride two of the horses from the stage here with Mr. Clayton, didn’t you, Nancy?”

 

“Yes, Jim,” she answered quietly, her head lifting slightly, and her eyes staring straight ahead, into the fire, her untouched sherry in her hand.

 

Before Victoria could ask anything else, he spoke up again, “There, you see, Victoria. That’s all I know. I haven’t seen my surrey since yesterday, and I haven’t seen Heath. I assumed...”

 

But, his words were interrupted by the crash of the glass hitting the edge of the table, shattering into sharp pieces, and falling, scattering its contents across the floor. Moving quickly, Jim caught Nancy’s slumped form before she fell forward, following the glass’s path. Carefully, he eased her back to allow her head to rest on the arm of the settee, and Victoria handed him a pillow to place behind her.

 

Lifting her feet, Victoria helped Jim make her more comfortable, and when Maria came running to investigate the cause of the crash, he said, “Maria, please get Miss Nancy a blanket, and bring a broom and towel for the glass.”

 

“Yes, Mr. Jim,” she responded, returning in a moment with all three.

 

“Poor thing,” Jim said quietly, checking Nancy’s hands for cuts, while Victoria discretely checked her ankles and feet. Finding none, they covered her with the blue, light-weight blanket Maria handed them.

 

“She’s exhausted, Jim,” Victoria said sympathetically, sitting down by her feet on the settee and watching his face as he took one of Nancy’s limp hands between both of his. He sat across from them on the edge of the low table.

 

“I know, Victoria. It can’t have been easy for her, coming all this way from Saint Louis on the train, then back toward Stegall on the stage from Sacramento, only to find no one to meet her.”

 

His mind, in his worry for the young lady he had been writing to for over a year, was just now returning to their discussion from before.

 

“You know, Victoria, Nancy told me this afternoon ... You see, I was still down with my back, and I couldn’t even come downstairs to meet her until after lunch today ... that the stage was attacked yesterday. She became most upset when she was telling me, and she said that she and the man that brought her here were the only ones that survived.”

 

“Attacked!” Victoria exclaimed. “No wonder she was completely worn out. We were thoughtlessly standing over there talking about it, and she just couldn’t...”

 

Suddenly, she stopped speaking, her eyes widened, and she put her hands up to her mouth as a terrible thought occurred to her. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head and rising to her feet. “Oh, no!”

 

“Victoria, what is it?” Jim asked, placing Nancy’s hand on the blanket and standing stiffly to join her. He followed her as she returned to the windows, where she stood looking out into the growing dark. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he could feel her trembling slightly. Turning her around, he asked, his voice leaving no room for argument, “Victoria. Tell me. What is it?”

 

“Jim?” She asked, her voice breaking. “Jim, I need to get home. I need to talk to Nick and Jarrod.”

 

“Why? What has you so scared, Victoria?”

 

“Jim, could there be more to it than just what Nancy said? You told me she was very upset. She might not have told you all the details before she started crying. She said everyone was killed except herself and the man who brought her here.”

 

Clutching his sleeve, she implored, “Think, Jim. Did Nancy know that you sent someone to meet her? Did she say anything about Heath? Is it possible that, somehow, he was caught up in what happened to them? That something happened to him during the attack on the stage, as well?”

 

Jim’s eyes widened, as his mind raced back over his conversation earlier in the day with Nancy. Then, he started shaking his head, remembering nothing that would help them.

 

“No, Victoria,” he said, “She didn’t mention anything about Heath. I told her I sent someone to meet her, but I assumed since Heath didn’t bring her here, that he missed her somehow, skipped the stage stop and went on to Stegall the back way. She didn’t say anything about seeing anyone else.”

 

Closing her eyes, Victoria dropped her hand from his sleeve and wrapped her arms around her waist tightly. She stared out into the deepening grey, fighting to keep her rising worry from choking her.

 

The only allowance she made herself were the tears that filled her worried eyes, before she gripped his hand and released it again, turning to run quickly toward the front door.

 

 

 

Chapter 48

 

He lay still, listening, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

 

There was no light, and he could not hear the movement of anyone else nearby in the blackness.

 

Where were the other men?

 

Had they all been killed?

 

Had there been an explosion?

 

He took a breath of air, drawing it in carefully. No, there was no hint of foulness to it, so the exits had not all been blocked. Fresh air must still be coming in from somewhere far behind him in the dark. Turning his head, he moaned sharply from the pain that seemed to be stabbing through from one side of his head to the other, right behind his eyes.

 

He squeezed them tightly closed in the darkness, as he reached out with one hand, trying to find the timbers that must be pinning him to the floor of the shaft.

 

But, all he could feel was something solid, made of wood, off to his left side, and a bulky, dead weight lying across his chest. Then, slowly, he realized there was cloth pressing down tightly against his face.

 

For a moment, as he reached up and tried to push at something remembered, something that was not there, he had to clamp down on the desperate feeling of panic welling up inside his chest.

 

Where were the other men?

 

There had been two others with him down here, hadn’t there?

 

Where was Deon?

 

Again, he reached up and felt for the weight lying across his chest, searching for a pulse.

 

But, no ... he struggled to understand.

 

Something wasn’t right.

 

He remembered now ... He hadn’t been able to lift his arms, hadn’t been able to determine if the man lying across him for hours inside the crumbling mine shaft, pinning him down, was alive or dead. He had had to lie there, not knowing, not able to help the man, not even knowing which of the two men with him it was, Deon or Rushing, until the third had been roused from unconsciousness to help him.

 

By then, by the time he and a groggy Deon, the third man, had been able to push away enough dirt and rubble from beneath them in the pitch black darkness, from under the impossibly heavy beam lying across all three of them ... it had been too late to help Rushing.

 

Heath had never known if the unmoving, unresponsive older man, definitely dead by the time he had gotten out from under him, had died there, lying across his chest, or if he had died earlier, in the initial explosion.

 

He had only been able to help a semi-unconscious O’Doule, knocked half-senseless by a blow to the head, to safety, before the shaft closed in, sealing off the dead miner behind them for good.

 

But ... Deon was dead, now, too ... wasn’t he?

 

Heath remained still, fighting with the pain, with his memories, and he took in a deep breath, forcing himself to let it out slowly in the dark.

 

Yes, Deon had been dead for three years. He had helped put a bullet in him, hadn’t he?

 

Taking another deep, calming breath, Heath slowly understood he was not in that particular mineshaft on that particular day years ago when the earth had decided to come crashing down, killing one man, and trapping two others in unending darkness for almost three days.

 

He took another deep breath and let it out.

 

It had taken him weeks back then to be able to draw a full breath without feeling the larger man’s dead weight pressing down on his chest and face.

 

But, that wasn’t where he was now.

 

In fact ... this wasn’t ... this wasn’t a mine at all.

 

Reaching up shakily with both hands, he was immediately both relieved and confused to find that the weight on top of him was a sack of moldy grain ... and that the cloth he had felt across his face wasn’t Rushing’s arm, but a folded bandana tied in place, covering his eyes.

 

Struggling to sit up, he groaned and, after several painful attempts, shoved away the heavy sack, which must have landed on top of him when he fell.

 

He remembered now ... or at least he remembered some of it.

 

He was in some kind of shed.

 

He was locked inside, unable to get out ... But, how long had he been here?

 

Suddenly, he remembered the dark-haired man ... and the blurry shapes visible in the light that cut agonizingly into the side of his head, each time he opened his eyes.

 

Slowly, he turned on his side and struggled up onto his elbow, his forearm pushing into the dirt. Keeping his eyes closed, he pulled the bandana down around his neck, allowing it to hang there loosely. He placed his other hand over his closed eyes, shielding them.

 

Then, he cracked them open carefully, dreading the worse pain that the light would cause, but needing to know.

 

 ... Nothing.

 

For another long moment, he fought with the vestiges of returning panic, and he struggled to his knees.

 

Remembering that the window was above him, Heath reached up blindly, pulling himself roughly to his feet. He grasped the wooden sill around the window, and he blinked several times against the renewed pounding, trying to see out, as the encroaching dizziness and the rising panic of seeing only blackness hit him in the gut.

 

He leaned over, breathing harshly, his shoulder against the rough wall. Then, he placed his hands on his thighs and gripped them tightly, willing himself to remain calm.

 

This was far worse than the more familiar feeling of being deep inside the earth, far worse even than being trapped inside a mine with no light for days at a time. At least the times that had happened, he had known that if he could get out, there would be light, and he would be able to see again.

 

But, this ... ? The cold, sweating panic of not knowing if it would ever end surged through him again, as he sought in vain for any vision ... of any kind.

 

He had no fear of the dark, having worked in it for many years of his life. And, he had learned early on, that the feeling of not being able to breathe deep inside the earth was something surmountable. It rarely bothered him like it did others, and, then, only when he was not sure escape was possible, did he feel the darkness pressing down on him, as if the earth was collapsing all around him, compressing the space inside the shaft, inside his lungs, down to nothing.

 

Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and talked himself silently through the cold he felt inside ... searching within himself for the calm ... looking for the warming strength he had drawn on so many times in the past.

 

Suddenly, as soon as the feeling of panic began to recede, like a pervasive, early morning fog lifting with the coming of the sun’s heat, he began to chuckle slightly.

 

Standing shakily, pushing back the dizziness that threatened, he stood facing the window, with both hands on the sill, looking out as if he could easily see green fields and the shimmering water of a distant river.

 

“Boy Howdy, Heath,” he sighed, chuckling again. “No tellin’ how long ya’ve been lyin’ there on that ground. Maybe ya’ can’t see ‘cause it’s as dark outside as a hunk of coal covered in soot.”

 

He had known two men over the years that had lost their vision to a blow to the head or explosion, one temporarily, and one that, as far as Heath knew, had never regained his sight.

 

And, now that he thought about it, the same thing had happened to Jarrod for a while almost a year ago.

 

But, none of them, at least that he could remember, had ever mentioned being able to see blurry shapes ... nor were they bothered by light.

 

“Could be, those are good signs. Could be, you’re frettin’ over nothing,” he said aloud, trying to make his voice heard over the constant pounding in his head. Again, he shook it, trying to chase away the groggy feeling that he recognized as trying to push him back down to his knees, into unconsciousness.

 

Then, he squeezed his temples again, and he wondered if a blow to the head was what had led to him being in this place, unable to see clearly.

 

But, when no answer made itself known, he said aloud firmly, leaving himself no option but to get moving, “One thing at a time, Heath ... Gotta get outta here. Better blurry shapes an’ headaches for a while, than dead at the hands’a some man ... who can see you better than you can see him.”

 

Leaning against the wall for balance, he felt around the edge of the window, grasped the outer-most board covering the glass from the inside, and he resumed the work started hours earlier, of trying to pry each board away from the wall, one at a time.

 

Working more quickly than before, now that there was no searing sunlight to make it tougher, he removed the last board less than fifteen minutes later.

 

Ignoring a cut to his hand from a broken piece of wood, and with a triumphant smile on his face, he ran his fingers around the edges of the window, seeking any latch that meant the window could be opened easily. But, finding nothing, he knew it was set into the wall securely, with no way to open it.

 

Then, knowing he would have to find a way to break through it, wooden crosspieces and all, he placed his shoulder against the wall and used it to guide himself to the floor. There, he sat down in the dirt, resting for a few moments with his head back against the wall, and he drank a swallow from the canteen he had attached to his belt by its strap hours before.

 

Then, hefting the broken hammer handle in his hand, he took a deep breath and worked his way to his feet again. Pausing to grip the sill to steady himself against the pounding inside his head and to replace the bandana around his eyes when he could let go of it, he listened hard into the silence around him.

 

Hearing nothing to make him think the dark-haired man had returned, he placed his hand on the glass, finding a likely place to begin up high on the window, and he turned his face away. Then, using the hammer’s handle, he knocked out each pane, one at a time, relying on the bandana to protect his eyes from any flying glass.

 

Pausing to first listen again, he then used the top of the hammer’s head to beat on the wood dividing the window into fourths. Though he struggled at first, trying to hit the intersection of the wood strips, in the same place, over and over, without being able to see, he was finally able to settle into a repeatable pattern that left blow after blow battering the pieces of wood, already softened by time and weather.

 

Finally, with a pain-wracked curse at the jagged piece of wood that sliced deeply into his right arm when the crosspieces of the wooden window gave way, he broke through.

 

Extracting his arm carefully, he touched the cut, feeling the blood already oozing from it all down the length of his forearm, from elbow to wrist.

 

Suddenly, at the feel of the warm blood, he remembered the sounds of guns being fired and the sensation of falling, then of lying there, eyes open but seeing nothing, as blood dripped down, all along the side of his face.

 

Slowly, using his good hand, he reached up, felt for dried blood along the side of his head, and he nodded to himself when he found it.

 

Then, he reached down to pull his shirttail out of his pants, and, after starting the tear with his teeth, he used both hands to rip a long swath of cloth from around the bottom.

Feeling his way to the stack of grain to his right, he eased down to the ground carefully, retrieved the canteen, and soaked one end of the cloth in his hand with the water.

 

Touching it to the cut along his arm, he sucked in his breath sharply.

 

“Dammit!”

 

Then, wasting no more time, as the blood continued to course from the wound, he did his best to wrap one end of the cloth around his elbow, continued wrapping the length of it around his forearm, one turn at a time to completely cover the cut, and he tied the other end around his wrist, using his teeth to pull the knot tight.

 

When he was done, he reached up to squeeze his temples between the thumb and fingers of his other hand, and he dropped his head for a few minutes, leaning back against the sacks, struggling with the dizziness and unrelenting, constantly hammering headache.

 

He closed his eyes in exhaustion.

 

For long moments, one arm pressed against his waist protectively and his head held in his other hand, his thoughts drifted around in the darkness ... until they touched an image of the woman he had thought of as Mother for the last three years, and they remained there with her, finding comfort.

 

He could see the dancing grey of her eyes, feel the silky silver of her hair as he wrapped his arms around her and planted a kiss on the top of her head, and he felt his chest tighten convulsively at the thought that he had probably made her worry about him ... again.

 

Heath knew he had caused her great distress several times since he had joined his family, beginning with the very first moment he had entered her home and maligned Tom Barkley as being a man with unfulfilled promises haunting his past.

 

And, he had seen the worry and ... and he had felt the love of a mother for a son ... that she showed him from the beginning. He had felt it even during the first few days he had lived under her roof, when he had been desperately trying to make up his mind whether he would live or die from the bullet lodged deep in his leg and the loss of blood that followed.

 

He reached up and lowered the blindfold again, touching the side of his head gingerly this time, feeling the raw creasing of the bullet along his hairline.

 

If he were home, she would have cleaned it long ago with some of that sharp, pungent liniment she kept in the bright blue bottle in the pantry. That stuff could burn the hide off a ...

 

But, his slightly lop-sided smile faded abruptly, his heart twisting in his chest for the tears he had caused her, as he remembered their first conversation back then ... and the caring concern she had shown for him ... for her husband’s child by another woman.

 

How she had worried over him then, that first time, surprising him by her compassion!

 

When he had opened his eyes and had spoken to her, as she watched over him, on what, she had told him later, was his third night in her home ... in his home ... it had been dark outside the window behind her, as dark then as it was now for him, even without the blindfold.

 

He could only hope that the darkness now meant that it was as late at night here, as it had been then.

There was no moon to cast any light on her soft features, only the barely lit glow from the lamp, which had been moved across the room to the lowboy dresser that Audra had said was his ... if he wanted it.

 

As she sat in the chair beside his bed, her face was turned away from him, her eyes staring out at the window, unfocused, seeing nothing ... for in the darkness, there was nothing out there to see ... only memories and faces from the past.

 

Jarrod had told him that she knew about him ... knew about his mother.

 

Even without knowing her well enough to guess, he was sure, as he watched her, that he knew of whom she was thinking, about whose actions, far in the past, she was wondering.

 

And, he was sure she was pondering any possible changes that her words or actions then could have wrought on the events that had unfolded, events that neither he nor she could fully understand, events that had left them both behind as unwitting, un-participating victims with no choice in the matter.

 

He said softly into the silence, “...m’ mama told me from ... from the time I was old enough ta ask ... that my father was a ... a good man, that he was  ...”

 

Suddenly, he began coughing, turning his head and his upper body away from her, grabbing for the sore stiffness of his bruised chest. When he turned back, a grimace of pain clearly etched across his features, she was there, having moved to sit on the side of the bed beside him, helping him lift his head enough to drink a swallow of water from a cool glass.

 

“Easy, Heath,” she soothed, easing him back to the bed. She brushed her hand against the side of his face, then, left it there in the time-worn gesture of a mother caring for a sick child.

 

Reaching up to catch the fine, slender fingers, holding them against his face in appreciation, he looked into her eyes and finished, “...she said ... he was ... the finest man she’d ... ever known.”

 

Then, they remained like that for long minutes, as his eyes slid closed from the heaviness of his eyelids.

 

Gently, she lowered his hand in hers, holding it across his blanket-covered chest, as she said, squeezing his fingers quietly, “Your Mama was right, Heath.”

 

As he cracked his eyes open again, finding the tear-filled grey of hers, he gave her a faint-lopsided smile, and he said, breathing hard with the pain from his leg, but needing to get the words out,  “She never blamed him ... even when he never ... he never came back ...  . She hated whenever I said ... anything angry ‘bout him ... though, I reckon I said plenty ...  the ... the older I got.”

 

Then, he paused, taking in a few deep breaths, struggling, before he tried to go on, his voice catching in his throat, “‘Don’t know what she was ta him ... but ... I know how much she ... how she loved him, an’...”

 

He paused, his face turning away, blue eyes finding the ceiling, unable to look at her any more, as the grief inside him took over, and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.

 

Swallowing hard, he was barely aware of her hand reaching out, wiping at the tears, even as she lifted his hand to her lips with her other. She kissed his fingers and held them next to her cheek, rocking against his hand, as she cried with him, holding him in the only way she could.

 

After a few minutes, he took a shuddering breath before he continued, “...an’, I know how she loved me ...  . She was a good person, Mrs. Barkley ... an’ ... an’ her love was all she had ta give ... ta either of us.”

 

He saw the tears, her tears, as soon as he turned his head to find her eyes again, and he immediately struggled up on his elbow with a groan he couldn’t contain. As he shifted his weight toward her, concerned for the hurt he had caused her, she released his hand to help him, to reach for him. He responded by encircling her shoulders with his right arm, and she clung to him.

 

They both cried quietly, then, ...  her face pressed against his neck, his face in her hair.

 

After a few moments, he reached up and touched the silver at the back of her neck, murmuring comforting words to her, and she began to calm, feeling the pull of his words, his tone that reminded her so much of her husband’s soft voice when speaking to a skittish colt.

 

“Sh-h-h, it’s alright. It’s alright, now.”

 

Then, she kissed his cheek and sat up, smiling down at him and laughing lightly as she wiped at her face with the backs of her hands. She placed her damp fingers gently along the line of his jaw, as he tried to return her smile.

 

Seeing the crease of pain between his eyebrows that he could no longer hide from her, she reached up and pushed his shoulders carefully, slowly back to the pillows behind him. When his eyes closed tightly, and he gasped for breath, she knew what all the words, and the comforting, one-armed embrace had cost him.

 

Reaching for the cloth waiting in the basin of water on the side table, she wrung it out, and held it to his forehead, to one side of his face and then the other, and she dabbed it at his neck and the upper part of his chest.

 

After a few moments, she saw him take a deep breath and ease further into the pillows. His hand came up, catching hers with eyes still closed and stopping her ministrations with the cloth.

 

Quietly, she waited.

 

Then, after another minute, he smiled at her, his eyes opening slightly.

 

“Thank you,” he said softly. “I’ve ... missed her.”

 

Smiling back down at him, she said, her eyes growing misty again, “Thank you for telling me about her, ...” Her voice broke, and she shook her head slightly, before she added, “...and about him.”

 

After another moment, he said, his voice so quiet she could barely discern the words, “...‘never meant ta come here ... ‘never meant ta hurt you ... any of you ... But, I couldn’t just ...  Nick ... those miners up at...”

 

Reaching out again, she touched her fingers to his lips to stop his struggle.

 

“Just rest, now. I know you didn’t come here to hurt us. It’s not in you to hurt anyone, Heath. I know, believe me, I do. It’s not in any of Tom Barkley’s children to hurt anyone, any more than it was in him to hurt you or your mother. You came to help Nick, to help those miners and their families ... I’m the one who owes you a debt of gratitude for both ... But, I’m also so very grateful, so very glad, that, for whatever reason, you are here, finally, where you belong.”

 

A dazzling smile lighting up her face, she added, reaching down to touch the side of his again, “And, I want your promise that you’ll consider staying here with us, that you’ll consider this as your home ... that you’ll give us all the chance to become a family, Heath Barkley.”

 

“My ... prom-ise?” he asked, his light blue eyes growing very heavy, just as his heart grew lighter.

 

“Yes, Heath. Please, Sweetheart. I want your promise that you’ll give this a chance, that you’ll give us a chance ... That’s all I ask.”

 

He returned the smile with a tired, lop-sided one of his own, and he whispered, just before his eyes slid closed again, “Yes, Ma’am ... Ya’ have ... my ... prom-ise.”

 

Now, sitting here with his head pounding relentlessly, his tired smile was an echo of the one that night, as he whispered, “Shouldn’t worry her, Heath ... C’mon now. Gotta get home, Boy.”

 

The use of that single word, Nick’s word, seemed to breathe energy back into him, and he added, “Gotta get ... outta here ... ,” as he struggled back to his feet.

 

Finally, checking to make sure the canteen was secure, and tucking the broken hammer into his belt, he placed both of his hands on the windowsill, and he groaned as he pulled himself up.

 

Not knowing what to expect on the other side, and biting down on his lower lip as his right arm protested strongly against its use, he lowered himself to the ground outside. Dropping to his feet, he immediately fell to his knees amid the weeds and broken glass, and he lowered his chin to his chest, fighting a losing battle with the sudden, overwhelming nausea that hit him like another kick of the man’s boot.

 

His last thoughts, before the dizziness pressed him further down into the debris outside the shack, were to wonder why his memories kept finding that particular time ... even as he pictured his mother’s dazzling smile and her sparkling grey eyes as she had spoken to him that night ... three years ago.

 

 

 

Chapter 49

 

“Nick!” Jarrod said, “Nick, where are you going?”

 

“I’m going to find him, Jarrod.”

 

“I know that, but WHERE are you going? We’ve already been looking for him since this morning, and we’ve turned up nothing! ...  Nick! Would you slow down a minute and talk to me? We need to wait for Mother.”

 

“Dammit, Jarrod. Let go of me! You’re just asking for...”

 

“Nick. Jarrod,” Duke McCall said, stepping over to them. “We’ve got riders coming in.” The older man motioned out toward the front of the house, as the two brothers broke off their heated confrontation outside the barn and began walking quickly in that direction.

 

“It’s Mother and Abe,” Nick said, his sharp eyes picking up the gleam of the light from inside the house reflecting off of the conches on his mother’s black hat and the white markings of Abe Washington’s distinctive paint.

 

Glancing at him in the near dark, Jarrod saw the set of Nick’s jaw and heard his jangly spurs one step ahead of him, as he struggled to keep up with the determined younger man.

 

“Mother!” Nick cried as soon as they rounded the corner. He leapt up the three steps and stalked to the front door, where their mother was standing, looking back at them, her hand on the door’s handle.

 

As Nick reached her, she seemed to sag into his arms, clinging to the dark brown leather of his vest.

 

Jarrod saw Nick wrap her in a supportive embrace, as they headed inside. He nodded at Abe and said, his sincerity clear in his well-modulated voice, despite the worry he felt welling up inside him, “Thanks, Abe. Duke, will you see that he gets some supper?”

 

“Sure, Jarrod,” the foreman, who had trailed behind them, replied. “C’mon, Abe. I’m sure Cookie can find you some leftovers of that beef stew and biscuits.” Then, as they took the two horses and headed toward the barn, Duke called back, “Jarrod, I’ll have our horses saddled in case you find out something and want to head back out tonight.”

 

“Thanks, Duke,” Jarrod said, turning back toward the open door.

 

Once inside, the tall, dark-headed lawyer walked swiftly across the polished wood floor. His family was gathered inside the parlour, with the tiny, silver-haired woman dressed in black riding skirt and dove grey sweater and silky blouse seated at the center of their attention.

 

Nick, despite the obvious turmoil inside him, was kneeling down on one knee in front of her, holding her hands and listening to her, his head bowed slightly. As Jarrod poured her two fingers of whiskey, he heard his mother’s voice.

 

“No, I know it makes no sense, Nicholas,” the tremble faded with the rising tone, as she struggled to make him understand. “But, that’s what the girl told Jim. And, she sat there the whole time listening to us talk about it, or most of the time, before she fainted dead away, and she never contradicted him.”

 

“But, what would have slowed him up after that? If the stage was attacked between the crossroads and the town, Heath wouldn’t be able to get to Stegall without going right by it.”

 

Glancing up at Jarrod, Victoria squeezed Nick’s hand, willing him to slow down, as she filled in her oldest son, “Jarrod, Jim had the buckboard at his place last night because he hurt his back in Stockton yesterday, and then, he met Heath on the road when he was headed back toward Stegall to meet Miss Briggs, his ... “

 

“His mail-order bride,” Nick finished for her, looking over at the fireplace and shaking his head. “Who would’ve ever figured he would’ve really gone through with it?”

 

“The way I remember it, you were one of the biggest supporters for the idea,” Audra spoke up, her quiet, innocent-looking smile covering most of the twinkle in her eyes. Then, sobering, she suddenly remembered that it was from her missing brother that she had learned how to tease Nick in just the right way ...

 

“And, the most vocal,” Jarrod quipped, before turning his attention back to their mother and handing her the glass. As she nodded and took it from him, taking a swallow of the strong, uncut drink, Jarrod added thoughtfully, “And, I also seem to recall that Heath wasn’t much in favor of the idea.”

 

Closing his worried eyes, Nick growled through clenched teeth, “Yeah, well, he just may have been right.”

 

Jarrod reached out and put his hand on Nick’s shoulder, gripping it firmly, as their mother explained, “Jim said he and Heath traded rigs, and Heath agreed to drive toward Stegall to meet the stage arriving at the stop just on this side of it at 3:00. But, Jim said they both knew he wouldn’t get there in time if the stage was on schedule, that Heath would have to drive on into town to meet the girl.”

 

Turning her serious grey eyes to look up at Jarrod and to reach over to take Audra’s hand, she added, “Nancy, Miss Briggs, said the stage was attacked just beyond the stop and that everyone was killed except herself and another passenger, the man that took her home by horseback, I believe. I gathered they never made it into Stegall.”

 

As she looked back down into Nick’s hurting hazel eyes, she reached out and touched the side of his face. “I was pretty sure, Nick, that you would agree with me that Heath wouldn’t have taken Jim’s surrey down that back trail toward Stegall, that he would have kept to the main road. That’s what has me so worried. The girl fainted before I could ask her any more questions, but my fear now is that he was on that road at the same time the stage was being held up.” She took a deep breath and added, “That he could have been caught up in the attack somehow.”

 

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her, and she looked back up at Jarrod, who was now standing over by the mantel, drink in hand and deep in thought.

 

“Jarrod, didn’t you say that Fred wasn’t in town, but that you left him a message to come out here when he could?”

 

His voice very far away, Jarrod turned pain-filled blue eyes toward her, as he answered, “Yes, Mother. That’s what I said ... But,” he hesitated, looking at Nick and Audra as well, before he met his mother’s eyes again steadily and said, “But, what I didn’t say earlier ... didn’t say because I didn’t realize until just now that it might be important to finding Heath, was that someone in town told me Fred headed over to Stegall this morning, because there was trouble on the stage yesterday, and they needed him.”

 

As Audra gasped, Nick rose from the floor and headed toward the table where he had left his hat.

 

Their mother stood quickly, turned, and speared him with her worried eyes. “Nicholas, where are you going? I know you want to find him, but there’s a storm coming in tonight. I’m sure of it. There’s nothing you accomplish out there in the dark and rain. Please wait until morning.”

 

Not turning around, though he could feel her eyes on him, he said, “I’m going after Fred, Mother. There’s only one route he and his men would take in the dark if he returns to Stockton from out that way, and I aim to locate him so I can find Heath. I’ve wasted too much time looking for my brother in the wrong direction today, and I’m not going to waste any more!”

 

Jarrod followed, after giving Audra a quick kiss to the cheek, as their mother reached her determined, middle son.

 

“Nick, what can you possibly hope to accomplish tonight? There’s hardly any moon, and, with the clouds, there’ll be even less to see by when you get there...” She trailed off, took a deep breath, and added, “To the place where the stage was attacked. You don’t even know if Fred would still be in that area, or if he’s already gone back to Stockton.”

 

Closing his eyes, Nick gripped the end of the table as he felt her hand on his arm.

 

He said, his tone more gentle now, as he opened them again and looked down into the depths of her worried grey, “I have to find him, Mother. Audra was right this morning, and I was wrong. He isn’t off somewhere by choice, letting us worry about him, while he broods over things that can’t be helped. He’s been distant lately, yes, but I know now he was working his way through all of it, a piece at a time. He just didn’t want my help doing it ... Now, I’m sure it was probably that he was trying to keep me, keep us all, from worrying about him again, that he knew I had enough on my mind after Layle...”

 

Taking a deep breath as she reached up and touched the side of his face, he added, “I figured out this morning, standing up by that line shack, looking back at the valley,” glancing at Jarrod he said, “You know the view I mean, like the one from up at that trail toward Lonesome.”

 

At Jarrod’s nod, Nick said, “I realized then that he was just trying to protect me, to protect all of us, with his silence about what he’s been feeling. And, no matter what, he would NOT go off on his own without telling us, not after what happened up at Pine Lake.”

 

Reaching up to take her hand in his, Nick finished, “That’s how I know something’s happened to him. And, how I know I have to go look for him, no matter what time of night it is, because I’ve wasted too much time in not heading out yesterday when he didn’t come home. I have to do something to help him, and I have to do it now ... Do you understand?”

 

Her sad smile gracing her face, his mother nodded and said, “Yes, Nick. I understand. But, remember our conversation last night? I agreed with you that maybe he just needed some time away to help him put everything back in place after all that’s happened. You didn’t reach that conclusion all by yourself.”

 

Lifting her hand and kissing it, Nick looked into her eyes and said, “I’ll send someone in to Stockton to make sure Sheriff Madden’s not there already, but I do intend to find Fred, find the place where the stage was attacked, and to check in Stegall for Heath. I’ll take a couple of men with me and send back word right away whenever I find him.”

 

As he turned, he was stopped for the second time, this time by Jarrod’s hand on his shoulder. Looking into the dark blue of his brother’s eyes, this time he did not growl back in reply.

 

“No, Nick,” Jarrod said, “Not just you. We’ll both go. We’ll find him and bring him back together.”

 

Hearing a distant echo of a similar promise made three years ago, when they had first learned about Heath, Nick said, shaking his head, “I thought you had a big case you had to get back to San Francisco to work on, something that couldn’t wait. You go on, Jarrod. I can do this.”

 

“No,” Jarrod retorted, leaning down to kiss his mother’s cheek, “No, Nick. Everything else can wait. Right now, there is nothing more important that I have to do, than helping you find Brother Heath and bringing him home.”

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

The sound of horses up ahead, the jingling of harness and the squeak of wheels needing grease, brought them to a stop over an hour out from the house.

 

“Whoa-a-a!” someone called, bringing the surrey, with only its brass fittings and yellow trim clearly visible in the darkness, to a stop in front of them.

 

Nick’s heart, that had started beating rapidly as he had realized the driver of the rig approaching them could be the brother they were seeking, plummeted with the sound of the man’s unfamiliar voice.

 

Gathering himself, he called out, “Where’d you find that surrey?”

 

However, he did know the next one that spoke from horseback, questioningly into the cloudy night.

 

“Nick? Jarrod?”

 

 

 

Chapter 50

 

Bringing their horses forward, even with the sheriff’s, Nick started speaking before Jarrod could.

 

“Fred! Where’s Heath? Did you find him?”

 

“Heath?” the sheriff queried, clearly puzzled. “No, Boys. I don’t know anything about Heath. What’s happened to him?”

 

Ignoring Nick’s wounded growl, Jarrod said, “You’ve been up by Stegall most of the day, Fred?”

 

“Yeah,” the man’s tired voice dropped. “A lot to clean up over there. The stage was attacked yesterday afternoon, and some folks were killed.”

 

“Who?” Nick demanded.

 

“Well, the driver for one,” Fred said, stretching tiredly forward in his saddle, his hand on the horn, “And, a young woman ... along with two men that could’ve been the ones that attacked them. It’s hard to say for sure. There are at least two people missing, from what I can tell from the stage company’s records, and I don’t know if...”

 

He trailed off as Nick and Jarrod looked at each other and Nick interrupted him, “But, you haven’t seen any sign of Heath?”

 

“No, like I said before ... What makes you so all-fired sure I would know something about your brother?”

 

“Because we haven’t seen him since yesterday, and we just found out he might’ve been up near Stegall,” Nick responded, dismounting from his horse.

 

“Fred, where did you find the surrey?” Jarrod asked, his eyes following Nick, as his brother handed him one of his reins and stalked over to the carriage.

 

“Mac, bring a light, will you?” Nick called, climbing up into the front seat beside the driver. “Evening, Ben,” he nodded at the quiet man he now recognized.

 

As Nick and Duke McCall checked over the buggy, using the lantern held high by the foreman, Fred Madden responded, “The surrey? It was up at the stage stop at the crossroads. Strangest thing ... It looks like it belongs to Big Jim North, but I just can’t figure out why...”

 

Jarrod interrupted, “It does belong to Jim, and Heath was driving it. He was supposed to meet a young woman coming in on that stage yesterday for Jim.”

 

He took a deep breath and further explained as he saw Fred’s eyebrows raise, the features of his face dimly illuminated by the light from the lantern, “You remember, Jim told us his bride-to-be, Nancy Briggs, would be arriving soon ... Jim hurt his back, so Heath went to meet her at that stop for him. But, he never came back. It doesn’t make sense...”

 

Nick’s voice interrupted him, “Jarrod. Look at this.”

 

Reaching down to the bottom of the buggy, under the front seat, he lifted out a wilted bouquet of flowers and held it up.

 

Then, suddenly, he stopped, his eyes glued to something on the seat behind him. Jumping down, he took a step toward the rear of the surrey and climbed back up. “Mac, hold the light up, will you?”

 

Removing one glove, Nick touched the darkened area he had found on the leather seat. Glancing back up at Jarrod, Nick said quietly, “There’s blood in here, Jarrod.”

 

Nodding, his worry doubling, Jarrod turned back to the sheriff, as Nick thanked Ben and Duke, before he climbed back down, walking around to check the outside of the rig and look over the horses.

 

“Fred, the girl told Jim about the attack this afternoon, and Jim told Mother a man named Clayton...”

 

“She survived? Nancy Briggs ... yeah, now I understand. I knew I’d heard that name before. You say she and Reed Clayton are alright? The stage company manifest said those were the other two on board. When we couldn’t find them, I was afraid some of a gang was out there somewhere and that they took off with those two! We’ve been trying to backtrack their trail half the day.”

 

“Well, Mother talked to her earlier today at Jim’s. She said she and your Reed Clayton, whoever he is, arrived at Jim’s ranch yesterday afternoon late. But, she made no mention to Mother or Jim about Heath, and we thought ... well, we were trying to figure out if he could’ve gone in to Stegall for some reason. We were headed to find you and then go on in to see if he was there...”

 

“He’s not in Stegall, Jarrod, at least not that I saw. I guess it’s possible, ‘cause I sure wasn’t looking for him. But, if you say he was driving this rig, like I told you, we found it at the stage stop at the crossroads. It doesn’t make sense that he would leave it there and go to Stegall, unless he had a horse tied behind the surrey.”

 

Taking in a deep breath, and letting it out with a sigh, Jarrod looked back at Nick, who was also shaking his head, responding to Fred’s question, “No, Ciego said he didn’t take a saddle horse with him yesterday ... I don’t see anything wrong with these horses, Jarrod, at least nothing that a good feed won’t cure. The surrey’s fine, too. No damage ... except for the blood.”

 

Then, as Jarrod shook his head again, Nick mounted his horse and turned her toward the crossroads the sheriff had mentioned.

 

“What’re you going to do, Nick?” Fred asked, turning his head and meeting Jarrod’s eyes, then glancing up and looking at the clouds slowly building, covering what little light from the moon there was. Sure of the reply, Fred sighed. With all the hours in the saddle, and now with the approaching rain, he was really feeling his age, deep in every muscle and joint.

 

“I’m going to find my brother! If I have to turn over every rock around that stage stop, I’m going to find him.”

 

“Fred,” Jarrod asked, looking away from Nick and still puzzling over the facts. “It’s about ten miles from the crossroads to Stegall, right?”

 

“Yeah, I’d say that’s about right, nine or ten.”

 

“Where was the stage attacked in between? How far out?”

 

Pushing his hat back on his head, Fred Madden glanced over at Nick, who was silently fuming at the delay, and he turned back to Jarrod and said, “I’d guess it was about four miles from the stop, five miles to town ... almost halfway between”

 

“Were these horses still hitched up when you found them?”

 

Nodding, the sheriff replied, “Yeah. And, they were tied to the rail, like whoever left them there was just going to be gone a little while. They’d obviously not been fed nor watered.”

 

“Something happened to him,” Nick muttered, looking out into the night on the other side of the road. “He’d’ve never left them there with no water. Besides, like I said, he didn’t have his horse with him ... And, that could be his blood back there. C’mon, Jarrod. We’re wasting time.”

 

“Hold on, Nick,” Jarrod persisted. “Fred, could you talk to Jim North and the girl, Nancy Briggs for us? First thing in the morning? And, maybe you could track down that Reed Clayton fellow. Perhaps they know something about Heath that they just didn’t think to mention to anyone, not realizing how important it is to know. Nick and I will head out toward the crossroads and start looking around, but if you find out anything, would you ... ?”

 

“Sure, Jarrod,” Fred replied tiredly. “Where will I find you tomorrow?”

 

Looking over at the restless Nick, Jarrod said, “We won’t want to trample up either area tonight, so we’ll probably camp right there at the crossroads, inside the shack if it turns bad out, and we’ll look over everything more thoroughly tomorrow, right Nick?”

 

Nodding, the sheriff started to urge his horse toward Stockton, but he paused and looked back at the two dark-headed men. “Boys,” he said with a loud sigh, “It looks like we’re going to get this rain before the night’s over. I’m afraid by morning you’re going to have a tough time picking up any tracks headed out from that stage stop, and if it’s like the rocky area around the stage, there won’t be much to see even without the rain.”

 

“Then, we’ll just have to fan out from there and keep looking until we find him,” growled Nick, as he headed his horse down the dark road, expecting Jarrod and their accompanying foreman to follow him.

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

The darkness seemed to push against him, holding him, pinning him face down on the ground as he stirred. With a groan, he pulled his knees up under him, only distantly aware of the broken glass cutting through the legs of his filthy tan pants.

 

One hand to his head, holding it between thumb and fingers, and his right hand on the ground, pushing himself up, he suddenly sucked in his breath as he put too much pressure on the badly cut arm. Immediately rocking back on his heels, he squeezed his eyes shut and cradled the injured arm to his belt, bending over it slightly as the ragged pain slowly subsided into a dull throbbing that he could gradually begin to ignore.

 

Drawing in a deep breath through his nose, he carefully pulled the bandana down, away from his face, until it was hanging loosely around his neck. Then, pushing up from the ground with his good hand, he staggered backwards, falling against the side of the shed and catching himself as the dizziness nearly sent him back to the dirt.

 

Growling at himself for staggering around like an old drunk, Heath shook his head hard, and he forced himself to crack open his eyes.

 

Breathing hard with the exertion of remaining on his feet, he smiled lop-sidedly in determination to get moving and in relief that, even though he could see almost nothing, the sharpest of pains behind his eyes that had been triggered earlier by the sunlight, did not return.

 

Then, he staggered forward, one hand outstretched and the other held close to his body protectively. Eyes focused on the darkest shapes in front of him, he hoped that they indicated the edge of a wooded area, that he was headed toward cover he badly needed, just beyond the clearing containing the shed.

 

Several minutes later, he lowered himself to the ground, sitting next to a smooth-barked hardwood tree at least ten feet inside the grove of smaller conifers. Though he desperately wanted to remain there, just to rest, hoping that he was hidden from anyone approaching the storage shed, he knew he had to put as much distance between himself and this place as possible, if he didn’t want to be caught and imprisoned again inside-----or worse.

 

But, which way should he go, he wondered, as a gust of cool wind lifted his sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, and how was he going to find his way without being able to see more than dark, blurry shapes, shadows that layered across almost unending darkness?

 

Grimacing with the pounding headache, but refreshed by the breeze, he slowly realized the scent carrying toward him meant there was rain on the way. Shaking his head again, he forced himself to concentrate.

 

Fleetingly, it crossed his mind that he should return to the shelter of the shed. But, just as quickly, he pushed the thought away, knowing he would rather take his chances out in the open than to return to any sort of imprisonment.

 

Turning, he got on his knees beside the tree, and, still protecting his arm, he felt around the base, around the protruding roots. Lifting his eyebrow when he found what he was looking for, he placed his injured hand on the soft, fur-like moss growing between and on the roots. Then, using his stationary hand for a point of reference while he felt around the rest of the area with his other, he checked all sides of the tree without moving his body. He knew if he moved around too much, he would lose track of the direction from which he had come.

 

Satisfied that he had found the only side of the tree with any moss growing on it, he ran his hand up the side of the trunk, preparing to regain his feet.

 

This side, the side where his body was, was the direction of the shed, and it was to the left of the moss. The side with the moss had to be north, and that meant ...

 

Suddenly, as soon as the word crossed his mind, he froze.

 

He pushed the side of his head into the hard muscle of his outstretched arm, and, avoiding any contact with the jagged cut on his forearm, he tried to contain the fierce headache, while he continued to hold onto the tree with his injured arm.

 

North?

 

An instant image of his friend, Jim North, surged through his head, as he struggled to remember why.

 

He could see Jim’s face, a worried, uncomfortable grimace evident, as his friend sat across from him on ... on ... outside somewhere, as if they had been talking while standing, or sitting in the middle of the road.

 

Sitting? No, at least not on the ground.

 

Heath pushed his head into his arm harder, working to contain the pounding, as he tried to remember.

 

Then, all of a sudden, he realized that he had been sitting up high ... on horseback? No, wait, that wasn’t quite right either. He had been sitting on the seat of a wagon.

 

Taking a ragged breath, he blinked several times, trying unsuccessfully to hold onto the image long enough to understand it. Shaking his head again, he tried to concentrate on Jim’s face, but he soon found that all he could see on either side of his eyes, inside or out, was darkness with shadows of relative shades of charcoal grey, black, and even blacker, all around him.

 

“Let it go, Heath,” he mumbled. “...Don’t know what Jim’s got ta do with all this, but it don’t matter much right now. Ya’ gotta get home.”

 

Forcing himself to concentrate, he reached out again and ran his fingers over the moss.

 

He knew the spongy growth would most likely be found on the most consistently shaded, coolest side of the tree, and, therefore, it pointed him toward the northern exposure, toward the north. At least, he hoped that was right in this case. Sometimes other factors, like the slope of the land and the density of the trees made this more of an assumption than a fact.

 

Well, since he couldn’t see the stars and was without both the benefit and the torment of the sun’s path to tell him more accurately, it was the best information he had.

 

It would have to do.

 

Feeling around on the ground again, he found a medium-sized limb with his hand, shook it and heard the brittle leaves rattling on the smaller branches forking off from it. Then, using the leaves like a brush, he pushed off carefully from the tree trunk with his injured hand, reached his feet again with a sharp gasp, and bent down to move the branch back and forth across the ground around him, hoping to erase any tracks he may have left, as best as he could.

 

Then, dragging the branch behind him, he fought off the fog of recurring dizziness, as he started off in the direction opposite from the moss gathered at the base of the tree, his injured hand out in front of him to protect his face from branches he could not see.

 

Though he couldn’t be sure of where he was, his gut instincts, as an image of Jim North’s face contorted in pain flashed through his head again, told him that this place was to the north of home. Perhaps he was closer to a town, to ... to Stegall? ... than to the ranch.

 

Just as quickly as he wondered if he should head east toward the town he believed to be nearby, he realized that every thought, every ounce of energy he could muster was pointing him south.

 

Unless he was completely wrong, he was heading toward Stockton and the Barkley Ranch on this side of it, away from the shed that had been his prison for most of two nights-----and away from his only shelter.

 

He was headed home.

 

   * * * * * * * *

 

He had only fallen twice as he stumbled through the trees in the darkness, when the rain began.

 

 

 

Continued…

 

 

Notes (Chapter 42):

 

Regarding the redwood burl Heath carved and carried:

 

“The history of American Civil War (1861-1865) provided the first recorded incident of soldiers making an effort to ensure that their identification would be known should they be killed on the battlefield. Their identification tags methods varied, and all were taken on by the soldier's own initiative. (Our history tells us that 40% of all Civil War dead remain unknown.)  In 1863, before the battle of Mines Run in northern Virginia, troops wrote their names and units on a paper tag and pinned them to their clothing. Many soldiers took great care in marking all of their personal belongings. Some troops made their own ID s out of wood, boring a hole in the end so that they could be worn on a string. Soldiers also fashioned coins by scraping one side smooth and engraving or stamping name and unit.”

 

(quoted from the website:  http://www.gun-rest-bags.com/dog-tags-dogtags-history.html)