Stages of Trust

Chapters 31-40

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.

Chapter 31

They had been underway for about twenty minutes, and none of them had spoken.

Jarrod was too bone-weary to talk, and, his concerned eyes told him, so was his mother. The other two, well it was obvious that they were too stubborn----one too ornery to share his information, the other too ornery to ask.

Finally, Victoria’s voice filled the small, confining space, and all three of the men that could hear her, listened, “Nick, Jarrod,” she started, looking up from her continued battle to lower Heath’s temperature with a cool cloth, and taking in the two sons sitting across from her.

“This is Ogden Haverty.” She said, motioning to the man beside her. “He runs the station at Ebbet’s Pass. He’s an old friend of Heath’s, and he saved me from two of the men that attacked our stage.” Turning to take the old man’s weathered hand in hers for a moment, she said, “You can let your hackles down, Ogden. Nick and Jarrod would defend Heath to the death if necessary, and then, Nick would tease Heath about it for a fortnight.”

Ogden smiled slightly at her words, but he removed his hand from her grasp, clearly embarrassed.

She continued to wipe Heath’s chest, then paused for a moment to lift his head as she worked her way up onto the seat behind him and held his head in her lap, her back against the inside corner. From that position, she tried to lift his head again to assure herself that the bandages on his head were dry.

Nick and Ogden almost bumped heads, like two battling bighorn sheep, as they both moved simultaneously to help her.

An amused Jarrod started to chuckle.

His mother joined him as she looked up from checking the swollen gash in the back. “He’s not bleeding,” she said, eyeing the men, who were now glaring at each other, “But the two of you might be if you don’t reach a truce soon.”

The two men stared at each other for another moment, before Nick stuck out his gloved right hand and said, “Thank you, Ogden, for . . .”

“That’s Haverty, to you, Boy!” the white-haired old man corrected with a snarl. But, the twinkle in his blue eyes gave him away.

Nick nodded, acknowledging his begrudging acceptance, “Alright, . . . Haverty, thank you for taking care of my mother, and for helping with Heath.” His hand remained outstretched, waiting, willing to span the expanse that separated them, despite the man’s words.

Slowly, Ogden reached out and shook it. Then, he deadpanned, “Not much of a grip. Does Heath beat you at arm-wrestling regularly?”

Nick opened his mouth, and he tried to find the words to say to stop this old codger in his tracks, but Jarrod beat him to it, “Uh, no, Mr. Haverty, Mother doesn’t allow them to play so rough in the house, but be sure that Heath finds other ways to get the best of Nick----regularly.”

Nodding, satisfied, Ogden sat back in his seat and closed his eyes.

“Jarrod!” Nick responded vehemently, before his brother held up his hand and pointed to the three exhausted people across from them.

“Shhhhh!, Nick. I think they could all use some sleep.”

Nick swallowed his retort as he took a long look at the old man leaning against one corner, breathing deeply already, and the bruised face of his mother leaning against the other corner, with her eyes closed. Then, his eyes fell on the pale, unconscious face of his younger brother----the one person that bound them all together.

Nick crossed his arms and watched them, watched over them, impatient for the details, but doing his best to rein himself in and curb his agitation. He tapped the toe of his boot on the floor of the stage, the jingling spurs clearly audible over the rumbling noise of the coach’s journey across the hard-packed dirt road.

After a while, Jarrod glared at him, hoping he would get the idea and quit fidgeting.

Several miles later, the glares ignored, Jarrod was about to open his mouth and tell Nick to go to sleep-----even the potential sounds of his brother’s snores preferable to the repetitive aggravation of the spurs. But, suddenly, Nick stopped moving, and turned talkative.

“Jarrod,” Nick tried unsuccessfully to whisper, “What do you think happened to them? Ebbet’s Pass, that’s closer to Bridgeport than Tamarack!”

“Nick!” Jarrod whispered in frustration at the much-too-loud voice, “If you must ask questions I can’t answer, at least keep your voice down while doing it.”

“I just want to know what was going on,” he tried again. “We ride up and find the missing stage, hear Mother yelling for Heath, who, it looked like to us, was defending himself against an attack by this old man and a young kid. Then, Haverty, here, stands there with a rifle leveled at me . . . . Well, what am I supposed to think?”

“I don’t know what happened, Nick, but it looks like they’ve all had a tough time of it. I’m sure Mother will tell us when she’s had some rest. In the meantime, the most important thing is to get Heath home to a doctor.”

Nick nodded, the worry emanating off of him like ripples outward from a rock tossed into a pond. “He’s so hot, Jarrod, and that knife wound looks infected. I’d say the fever’s got a good hold on him.”

Nick leaned forward and wiped Heath’s face with the cloth that had been lying on his chest. “Hand me that canteen, will you? At least I can keep trying to cool him off while she sleeps.”

Handing him the requested item, Jarrod said quietly, “If the past is any indication, Nick, the fever won’t let go easily, and we’ve already seen what he’s like when he’s out of his head.”

Nick’s eyes clouded over for a second, the pain of his brother’s words a little while before still fresh inside him. He looked at Jarrod with hurt-filled eyes and said with feeling, “I wish I’d never laid eyes on Matt Toddman or Matt Bentell, or whoever the hell he is.”

Jarrod nodded, and gripped Nick on the shoulder. “Whatever happened to Heath in that prison, is a very strong memory for him. It must have affected him greatly.”

Nick turned his head and looked into Jarrod’s eyes, surprised to hear him go on this way about Heath’s past, especially from just one delirious episode.

Then, Jarrod explained, “When we were in those rocks that night, before you got there, Heath said almost exactly the same words to me. He was delirious then, too. Hell, I think we both were. But, I remember what he said, very distinctly.”

Nick shook his head, “I wish we had it all to do over again, Jarrod. I should’ve helped Heath throw Bentell out the door and chase him from the valley, not insisted he go protect the man.”

“I feel the same way, Nick. The same way.” Then, he paused and added, “You know, Nick, I got a good look at Heath’s shoulder while they were cleaning it. I think he was shot in the back. That wound back there wasn’t caused by the knife coming through----but, if it was a bullet, where did it come out?”

Nick looked at Jarrod, then back at the bandaged, unconscious blond. For the first time since the conversation started, he whispered as he responded, “I don’t know, Jarrod. Surely we didn’t go through all that with the knife only to leave a bullet in him.”

“You didn’t.” The curt voice caused them both to turn and stare at the blue eyes fastened on them from across the coach. The old man, his arms crossed over his chest, leaned forward and said, “Do you think your Ma would’ve stopped at anything to do what had to be done for him?” The words seemed almost a challenge, as if Haverty were testing them to see how they really felt about Heath, to see how they felt about their mother’s concern for him.

Jarrod looked at Nick, ready to grab him in case he took great offense to the man’s challenge. Nick’s hazel eyes were smoldering and his hands were clenched around the dripping cloth, crushing it in his fist and letting the cool water run down across Heath’s chest, as he glared at the old man.

Haverty stared back at them and continued, “If there were a bullet, we would’ve gotten it out back there, be sure of it. I think she would have taken it out with her teeth if necessary. Don’t ever doubt her, Boys. She’s as fierce and focused in her love as an arrow shot from a bow hewn from the heart of a willow.”

“Haverty. . . “ Nick snarled, but Jarrod grabbed him by the arm.

Then, Jarrod leaned toward Ogden and fired off a question of his own, “Just what happened to them, Mr. Haverty?”

He shrugged, “Most of it, I wasn’t there for. You’ll have to ask the two of them. Somewhere between my station at Ebbet’s Pass and Tamarack, the stage was attacked ----I still don’t know why-----by at least five men. When you came up on us back there, I thought one of them had followed us. Your brother . . . ,” he glared at Nick, as if challenging him to say Heath wasn’t.

Nick nodded at him, keeping eye-contact, and amended with a growl, “Yes, my little brother, Haverty.”

Satisfied, Haverty nodded back and continued, “Your brother killed three of them in an escape attempt. He got your Ma out of there, but they shot him. She made her way back to my station, still tied to the saddle, in fact hanging down from it to one side in a wild attempt to keep them from shooting her off the horse. I killed one, hit another. He may be dead, too. Don’t know.”

Nick and Jarrod were now staring at their sleeping mother, and Jarrod repeated, “Hanging down from the saddle?” He reached over and gently pulled back the cuff of her sleeve, where her hand rested on Heath’s chest. He stroked the bandaged wrist in awe.

Nick sat, almost open-mouthed, absorbing the information. Then, he asked gruffly, “And, the bullet?”

“She said it went clean through Heath’s shoulder and cut across hers,” Ogden pointed at her torn sleeve, the bandage around it on the outside.

“Then, how did the knife get in there if one of you weren’t trying to dig out a bullet with it?”

Ogden glared at Nick again. He struggled to keep his voice steady at the anger he felt at the careless words. “Boy, do you think either of us wouldn’t have more sense than to go digging around inside of a man with a knife that double-edged and deadly?”

Jarrod tried now to smooth over the tension, “Mr. Haverty, please forgive my little brother, Nick. Sometimes he doesn’t think, but I assure you, he meant no insult. He’s just worried about Heath. We both are.”

Ogden took a deep, calming breath and said quietly, “So am I.”

Then, he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. But, he continued speaking, pain evident in every word, “The bullet hit him from the back, but the knife went in through the front. It apparently was stabbed back through the path of the bullet out of just plain meanness, since there is no other exit wound. I can’t imagine doing that to a living soul, can you?”

He opened his eyes and looked first at Nick, then at Jarrod, before adding, “Mrs. Barkley thinks she knows which one did it. She speaks of one man’s cruelty and shivers when she says it.”

Nick broke eye contact with the old man, his anger rising. He could feel the overwhelming need to get out, to move, to storm away from the coach, to find the man and pull him limb from limb for what he had done. Then, he looked back at Haverty and asked, through teeth almost clenched with rage, “Was it lodged that way from the beginning? I’ve never seen a knife stuck like that in a man. He must have. . . .”

Ogden nodded, “Yes, it was. And, yes, he must have.”

His eyes closed now, trying to stem the tide of the crashing rage, Nick growled, “Did you kill him?”

Again, Ogden nodded, though Nick couldn’t see him, “I imagine he’s one of the two I shot, him and his partner. But, I’m a’feared only one of them is dead. One crawled off into the night. You’ll have to ask her which one, Boy.“

Nick ignored the pointed word tossed out by the man in front of them. He said, “If I find out he’s not yet dead, he won’t have long to enjoy whatever he stole from that stage.”

Nick’s quiet, serious voice contained enough venom that neither man listening doubted of what he said.

After several long, silent moments, Jarrod asked a different question, hoping to dispel the tension that kept them all tight in its grasp, “So, uh, Mr. Haverty, what were you up to out there in the meadow a little while ago? Not much moon for a late-night stroll.”

Ogden smiled slightly and bent over, picking up a thick handful of vegetation from the floor of the coach by his boots. He held one green plant out for Jarrod. Taking it in his hand, Jarrod was immediately struck by the fragrance of the nondescript plant. Whatever it was, Ogden had pulled them up, root and all. At first glance, it looked like a green weed. Then, Jarrod noticed the tiny, five-petaled, white flower and its delicate, fern-like green leaves. He looked at Ogden with questions in his eyes, handing it back.

“Mountain misery,” he said. “The Miwoks used its leaves as medicine. Next decent stop, I just might brew some up and see if we can get some down this boy, here.”

Skeptically, Jarrod looked at the plant and at the old man who now held it. “Have you tested its virtues before, Mr. Haverty? And, ah, did it work?”

With a larger smile, Ogden replied, “Yes and yes.”

Nick asked, his deep voice adding his suspicions to Jarrod’s, “And, just where did you learn about this, um, medicine?”

Smiling openly now, the old man winked, knowing that he’d bested both of them this time, and said, “From the same person who taught me to shoot a man from a galloping horse in driving rain and in darkness broken only by the flash of lightning. . . . from your little brother.”

Chapter 32

They met the deputy’s search party shortly after the last, short stop. While Nick stayed with Heath, Jarrod and Ogden climbed down to introduce themselves and explain the situation to the group of three men. With trepidation, Jarrod soon returned to the coach, awakening his mother to allow the deputy to talk to her.

As he and Ogden helped her climb down from the stage, Jarrod was worried to see how stiff her ankle had become and how pale she was-----except for the dark bruises along her right cheekbone.

“Mrs. Barkley, I’m Deputy Broyles, Ma’am, and I’m sorry to disturb you. I understand you and your son have been through an ordeal already, but I need to ask you a few questions.”

She nodded up at him, as she leaned wearily against Jarrod’s arm. “Go ahead, Deputy. I’m alright.”

“The men that attacked you----they said there were five of them?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I only saw two, no wait, three. My son shot one of them.”

“Can you tell me about any of them?”

“I only saw two up close. One was large, very tall and heavy. He had dark hair and brown eyes. The other man called him Jed.”

Ogden spoke up from his place on the other side of her, “Was he the one I killed up near the pass?”

She nodded, “Yes. The other went by Mason. He was smaller, redheaded with very dark, cruel eyes. He . . . he seemed to be the leader, and he was the one, . . . well, he told the other man what to do.”

The deputy nodded at her, then looked at Ogden. “Is he the one you think you shot, the one that you said disappeared?”

“Guess so,” Ogden responded. “Didn’t see his eyes, but he had red hair, dark clothing, and a pointy face.”

The deputy looked back to her to confirm this description. Her eyes had glazed over, like she was remembering something unpleasant, like she was far away.

Jarrod rubbed her arm gently, and asked, “Mother?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “That sounds like him. If he’s still out there, he’s a very dangerous man, Deputy Broyles.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. You’ve been a big help. I wish you a safe trip home.” He touched his hat and turned to his horse, as Jarrod led Victoria back to the stage, where Nick helped her inside.

“Mr. Barkley,” the deputy called Jarrod back over as he mounted his horse, “For quite some time now, the law’s been seeking a gang for several bank hold-ups and stage robberies over near Tahoe. The leader’s a redheaded man named Carl Mason.”

Jarrod nodded and turned toward the stage.

The deputy leaned down and added quietly, “Mr. Barkley, they say he isn’t one to leave any witnesses behind.”

Jarrod glanced at the deputy, and then, turned back toward the stage, his thoughts on the two witnesses and the man who had shot Mason, all waiting inside.

Though she had not heard their conversation, she shivered as she slid back into her place behind Heath. Watching her, Nick squeezed her hand and covered her with a blanket, offering her a small smile.

* * * * * * * *

The coach was quiet, and only Nick continued to tend Heath----Jarrod and Ogden having joined Victoria in succumbing to the need for sleep, as the darkness deepened around them.

No one had stirred since the discussion with the deputy, no one except Jarrod, who Nick could now tell was having a very bad dream.

As he watched, Nick was surprised to see Jarrod tossing his head back and forth, reaching out toward him with one arm, and he heard him muttering words he could not understand, before suddenly calling out for Heath in his sleep. Victoria, jolted awake by the commotion, leaned toward her oldest, alarmed at the evident fear and worry etched on his features, though still locked in sleep.

In the darkness, the unexpected words shook Jarrod to his very core.

Heath, his feverish eyes wide open, stared up at the stars, but Jarrod was sure he was not seeing anything except a face from the past as he spat out, “Bentell, you pig, get your hands off him! No! No, don’t hit him anymore! Stop! You’re killin’ him! No!”

Heath’s fear for the unnamed comrade from the past cut into Jarrod, a bayonet twisting through his heart, a lance of loyalty laced with somebody’s blood.

Then, the voice became softer, as if he knew no one would hear him, no one would listen, “No, please, . . . don’t hit him anymore.”

Jarrod reached for the canteen and, wetting the corner of one blanket, he wiped the fire of fever from Heath’s face. Pale blue eyes beseeched Jarrod, as Heath’s right hand came up and caught his wrist, “Please, don’t let Bentell hit him anymore. He’s gonna kill him.”

“It’s okay, Heath. He won’t hurt him, now. It’s over.”

“No, . . . it’s never over,” Heath mumbled, as he turned his head from side to side, trying to escape the heat, “My arm! Cut me loose, Bentell! Cut me down!” His voice was rising again, as the restless motion of Heath’s legs was suddenly joined by a fever-induced effort to rise to his feet.

“No, Heath. Lie down, just rest,” Jarrod pleaded, as he struggled to one knee, knowing too well the strength it would take to subdue Heath, strength that he knew he didn’t have.

But, it didn’t last long. Heath only made it to a semi-crouching position, looking around wildly as if many men were advancing on him, as if he were in a corner with no where to run, a place with no choices. It was clear he planned to take down as many as possible of the men only he could see, before they caught him.

Suddenly, his eyes cleared for a few seconds before he reached for his head and dropped to one knee.

“Jarrod, . . ., “ he whispered as he cradled his head in his right hand, his left hanging down by his side, and he knelt in the dirt. He leaned forward as if trying to burrow his head, and his pain, in the dust beneath him, rocking back and forth on his heels. Then, he spoke again, little louder than a whisper, “Jarrod, . . .I did what you. . . what you all told me I had to, . . . an’ I still. . . I still hate that devil of a man.”

Unable to stand, his own pain and the cold lightheadedness sweeping through him like a freezing wind, Jarrod reached across the short distance to his brother. As Heath knelt there, Jarrod pulled him back toward his chest. He leaned against the rock behind him and held his pain-wracked brother, his tears falling on the blood-smeared face.

As Heath lost consciousness in his arms, Jarrod whispered, “I know, Heath. I know, and we were wrong. . . . I was wrong, and I’m so sorry.”

“Jarrod! Jarrod!” Nick’s voice resounded through the coach as he frantically tried to wake his older brother. He had already tried shaking Jarrod, but was beginning to think that Heath wasn’t the only one who was out of his head with fever, when he suddenly saw Jarrod’s dark blue eyes looking at him in confusion.

“Hey? Are you okay, Pappy?” Nick asked, as Victoria leaned over to tap Jarrod’s knee.

“Nick?” Jarrod asked.

“Right here, Jarrod. That was some nightmare. You kept mumbling something about devils and pigs!”

At the look on Jarrod’s face, Nick stopped his teasing.

Jarrod sat there for another minute, collecting his thoughts and getting a tight hold on the emotions the dream had unleashed. With his mother awake, he didn’t want to say too much and upset her. They had not told her all the details surrounding Coreyville.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a dream, Nick. I think I was reliving a very bad night among some renegade rocks.”

Their eyes met, as Victoria reached out and touched Jarrod’s leg again. Quietly, she asked, “It was what Heath said about Bentell, wasn’t it?”

They both stared at her, until Jarrod whispered, “How did you know?”

She shook her head and said, “I haven’t been able to get that man out of my head, since back there by the stream. When we get your brother home and well again, he and I are going to have another long talk about what to do regarding that man.”

* * * * * * * *

At the last stop to exchange horses, Nick had only left Heath’s side long enough to request stabling for their horses. They had been tethered to the back of the stage for miles after a long day under saddle and were as tired as the team pulling it. Jarrod had searched out food for all of them, while Ogden and Joshua assisted the hostlers in quickly getting them back on the road toward Cherokee Flats. The old man took over the new team, giving the younger driver a much-needed rest.

“Mother, I don’t think it will be much longer, maybe an hour. . . or a little more,” Jarrod’s well-modulated voice soothed. “The doctor will probably be there waiting for us. Heath is going to make it, don’t worry.”

She was leaning into her oldest son’s shoulder, drawing comfort from his presence, trying to allow herself to be soothed by his words.

But, she was more than worried.

They all were.

The struggle beside the stream seemed to have drained all of Heath’s remaining energy.

They continued to watch him with fear creeping into their hearts. The blood loss had obviously taken its toll and the infection continued to stoke the fires of his furious fever. He had not fought them, he had not lashed out at them with words they could understand, nor had he shown any signs of consciousness for hours.

Though he was alternately seized by periods of raging heat or shaken for long moments by icy chills, he did no more than toss his head and mumble incoherently.

For most of the night, however, he just lay there, as if locked in the silent stillness of death.

In the silence since the last station, Nick took Victoria’s place behind his brother, protecting Heath as best he could from the roughness of the road beneath them.

In the silence since the last station, she switched places to sit across from Nick, on the middle of the seat, beside Heath’s unmoving boots and Jarrod’s comforting closeness.

In the silence since the last station, she shared the events of the last few days with them.

“Mother,” Jarrod asked gently, fingering the bandage on the shoulder of her almost unrecognizable peach blouse, “Can you tell us what happened now? . . . Haverty told us some of it.”

She raised her head from his arm and glanced up at him. “Um-hmm,” she responded tiredly, her eyes turned back to the faces of the two sons across from her. Nick was holding Heath close, the blond head and bandaged upper body of the one, leaning heavily on the muscular chest of the other. Both had their eyes closed, but, as she began speaking, Nick opened his worried hazel eyes to look across the coach into hers.

“We got your telegram. You said Heath was hurt, but, . . . not like this. . . .” Nick said haltingly.

“No, Nick. Not like he is now,” she replied. “But, that is what started it.” At Nick’s perplexed look, she took a deep breath and started at the beginning point he had mentioned, her telegram. “Heath was thrown into a fence by a horse at Alice Durston’s ranch, and he was knocked out for hours. The doctor came and stitched him up.”

She reached up and touched the back of her own head to show them where his head had hit the post. “When he came around finally, he seemed a little confused and didn’t remember anything about the accident, but I didn’t realize until we reached Ogden’s place, . . . after I telegraphed you, . . . just how much he had lost.”

“Ogden’s place?” Jarrod queried.

“She means Ebbet’s Pass,” Nick supplied impatiently. Then, he demanded, his voice rising, “But, what do you mean, you didn’t realize how much he had lost?”

“Nicholas, lower your voice,” she said automatically.

“It doesn’t matter, Mother,” he said, exasperated, and more than a little testily, “He’s out cold. I’m not disturbing him.”

“Nick! We’re all worried, but that gives you no right to give her a hard time. I’m sure she’ll explain what she means,” Jarrod said, glaring at his dark-headed brother, more than a little irritated with his anger.

“Nick, Jarrod,” Victoria said quietly, letting their conversation wash over her, almost as if she had not heard it, “Please listen. . . . . I realized later that his head injury was worse than we first thought.” Again, she took a deep breath and stared at her youngest son a moment before adding, “Heath has lost some of his memory, and not just about what happened in Bridgeport.”

“No!”

Nick exploded, raising up and letting Heath’s head sag forward for a moment, before easing himself back down and pulling his brother close against him again. He wrapped both arms more protectively around Heath’s chest and put his own head down to rest his cheek on the top of Heath’s head, his face turned away from them and his eyes staring outside the small coach window.

Jarrod just reached out to grasp both of her hands in his, lending her his quiet strength.

“Tell us, Mother,” he entreated softly.

She swallowed and shook her head, the tears threatening again, “He was so distant on the trip home. I knew he was in pain, and I just thought he was acting that way because he was hurting and didn’t want to tell me. Slowly, over the course of, I don’t know, hours, I realized he was uncomfortable around me. Then, I thought it was because of something that had happened at Bridgeport, something someone had said that brought up unpleasant memories, or maybe even all that business with Bentell and Anders from before. Later, though, I finally figured out from little things he said, that he was uncomfortable around me because. . . because he thought of me as . . . as Mrs. Barkley.”

She paused and reached out to take a tight hold of Nick’s arm where it lay against Heath’s chest, “He thought of me as Mrs. Barkley, his boss’s mother.”

Nick wouldn’t look at her. He just buried his face in Heath’s hair, and started rocking his brother slightly, as he shook his own head in denial. But, he didn’t make a sound.

Jarrod saw her tears falling, and he leaned forward and gathered her to him, holding her close to let her cry, his own emotions threatening to spill over.

The lawyer inside of him, comfortable with wielding questions as an instrument to ferret out the truth, to peel back the layers of any evidence piece by piece, needed to ask, needed to understand. He got a grip on himself and asked softly, “Mother, how do you know that? Did he just come out and tell you?”

She sighed, long used to Jarrod’s inquisitive nature, always more finely-honed, ever since he could talk, than the normal curiosity of any other child she had ever known or personally raised.

She thought back over the morning Heath had asked her some questions on the stage trip down from Ebbet’s Pass.

“No, . . . it was like he was struggling to put everything together. He knows Ogden, from before---he apparently used to make this same stage run with him before he came to us. Waking up at the Ebbet’s Pass station really confused him. He told me he even thought for a while that morning that he was supposed to be driving the stage. Then, he. . . he asked me how long he had worked on my family’s ranch. . . .”

Her voice cracked, the despair of that moment still fresh for her, as she added, “He wanted to know how long he had worked for you, Nick.”

The sound that came from Nick’s throat caught them both by surprise. It was almost a single sob, a tormented gasp that left them in no doubt as to how all of this was affecting him.

It was the sound of profound grief.

Chapter 33

“Nick. Nick, Honey, look at me,” she encouraged, her hand still on his arm, stroking him, letting him know she was there.

He didn’t turn.

“Nick, it’ll be alright. He’s still with us, and his memories may come back,” she tried again.

“Mother?” he asked, his eyes turned back toward the window opening. “How can I be his brother if only one of us remembers that I am?”

She closed her eyes and tried to formulate an answer that would help. “Nick, as long as he’s still alive, we can get through the rest of it together. As long as he’s still with us, there’s hope for the rest.”

“Still with us?” he asked in a strangled voice, “What if he decides he doesn’t belong with us anymore and decides to leave? You said he thought for a little while he was supposed to be driving this stage. What if he just goes back to moving from place to place again, working for other. . . ,” he stumbled over the word, and finally spat it out like it was a vile tasting, bitter swallow of poison, “For other bosses?”

She squeezed his arm and shook her head, weary of the same thoughts and questions that had been plaguing her for what seemed like days and days, “I don’t know, Nick. I just don’t know.”

They traveled in silence after that, each of them staring out the window or at Heath’s unconscious form in the darkness. None of them were ready for eye contact with each other. None of them were ready to talk about what they were feeling, not yet.

Finally, Jarrod asked, his questions broaching the silence, “Mother, are you saying that Heath doesn’t seem to remember that he is a Barkley at all? Or does he remember that he is, and he just doesn’t remember making us aware of it yet?” Though she was shaking her head beside him, he pressed on with one more question, “I mean, he never really worked for us for very long before Nick . . . , before we found out who he was. How can he have memories of something that hardly happened?”

When he finished, Victoria was still shaking her head. She could tell that Nick was listening, he had stopped rocking his brother in his arms and was just holding him close.

“I don’t know the answers to all of your questions, Boys. I do know that he remembers you, Nick. He said you’re the best rancher he’d ever worked with, said you were a bit ornery at times, but likened you to a she-bear when it came to taking care of your men. He said, . . . oh, yes, I remember, he said you are easy to like, despite your growl.”

She smiled over at Nick, as the words had the desired effect of bringing Nick’s head up, a slight smile in place, though it did not touch the hurt in his eyes. “Jarrod, as for the rest of it, I don’t know. Maybe he just remembers pieces of working side by side with Nick and the men, and he just filled in the gaps. He was in a lot of pain, very dizzy and awfully sick. He had just started talking to me about what he did remember, when the stage was attacked.”

Nick looked across the space to find her eyes. “Haverty told us pieces, but he wasn’t there. What happened exactly?”

She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, before opening them again, “We had not even made it to the first stop to change horses that morning. It was up high in the mountains still, on a bad curve. There were shots, and Heath told me to lie down on the floor before he climbed outside to help the driver fight them off.”

Nick interrupted, “Climbed outside? I thought you said he was dizzy.”

While Jarrod shook his head at Nick, trying to remind him to go easy on her, Victoria responded, “He was Nick. He just did what he had to do.”

Nick nodded, running a hand through the tousled blond hair, as he willed himself to stay quiet and listen to her words.

She continued, “I’m not sure what happened after that, but at some point, the driver was killed, and we were going much too fast. But, Heath must have stopped us----there was a sheer drop-off on a curve. . . .”

They were both watching her carefully, now, trying to picture the events as she related them, both trying to save their questions until she finished.

“Those men rode up on this side, and somehow Heath got away from them. He pulled me through here,” she pointed first to the left side of the coach, then indicated the aisle between the seats with her hand, “And out the other side. We hid in some rocks for hours, firing at them only occasionally. I think they were taking their time, drinking, playing with us. But, . . .”

She trailed off, her eyes closing, as she thought through the next part, wanting nothing more than to forget about the brutality of the two men. But, she knew her sons needed to know. Nick particularly would not rest until he heard all of it.

She opened her eyes and took a deep breath, fighting to stay calm. Jarrod slipped his arm around her and held her close. She was trying hard not to, but she was trembling slightly, and she knew he could feel it.

“There were two left by then, and they came in on us from two different directions. One was a big man called Jed, and the other was his b-. . . ,” she had started to say the word ‘boss,’ but thought better of it, afraid that it would set Nick off again. “Was his partner, Mason. He was smaller, but clearly in charge-----he was so. . . so cruel.” She blinked rapidly and reached up to touch her cheek. “He hit me and tied my hands together. Heath. . . Heath was already hurting. . . .”

She turned her face away from Nick and Heath across from her, turning her face into Jarrod’s shirt. He squeezed her shoulders and whispered, “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell us right now. We can wait to hear the rest later.”

“No!” she said, her head coming up to look at him, her eyes brimming with tears. Then, quietly, she said, the steel returning to her voice, “No, you need to know what that man did. You need to know what happened to your brother, how he protected me.”

She sat up, gripping Jarrod’s hand, her back straight, and she looked directly into Nick’s eyes, as she told the rest, “He might not remember that I am his mother, Nick, but that didn’t stop him from taking care of me as if I were. After that man hit me, Heath fought with them, and they hit him with a rifle butt in the head, deliberately, knowing he already had a head injury. Then, they tied me to the stage wheel, saying things like keeping me until someone paid for my return, while Mason looked for something in the stage luggage that he wanted. Mason kept telling Heath he was going to pay for killing the three other men.”

She took a deep breath, and said, “Heath could hardly stand, but Jed kept hitting him. Then, when he was down on the ground, I saw Heath pull something from his boot.”

Again, Nick interjected, “His knife.”

“Yes. He kept it hidden from them, waiting for his chance. Mason untied me and started to hit me again, but Heath told him to stop, baited Mason because of his need to hit a woman. While Jed put me on a horse and tied my wrists to the saddle, Mason walked back to Heath. He started to pull his gun like he was going to shoot him right there. But, he never got the chance. Heath hit him and threw the knife at Jed. Then, he got up behind me, and we galloped up the road back toward Ebbet’s Pass.”

She stopped again, her eyes losing focus, as she thought back about what happened next. Nick and Jarrod looked at each other, then back at her as she said softly, “He told me to go to Ogden, as if he knew he wouldn’t make it to go with me. I questioned him about the wisdom of bringing trouble to such an old man, and he just said, ‘Trust me.’ Then, . . . ,” she reached out for Heath’s hand and leaned forward to place her cheek against it, as she held on. “Then, they shot him, and he fell off the horse. He hollered at me to go on, but I didn’t know what to do, whether to somehow get the horse turned around, or . . . or do as he said and go on without him. I. . . I was so torn.”

She sat up a little and stroked Heath’s hand with her own. “When I did finally get hold of one rein, I had more control of the horse. I could have gone back.”

Her words were beginning to tumble from her lips, as if by saying them quickly she could rid herself of the bitter taste of them, of the guilt that she still felt for the choice she had made. Jarrod was rubbing her back with his hand, as she fought for enough control to finish.

“That man, Mason, he was the kind of person who enjoyed tormenting others. We never did let him know that we . . . . Even though Heath didn’t know how close we really were, I think we both realized that if Mason picked up that we even knew each other, he would’ve used it against both of us somehow. I decided that if I . . . if I went back, still tied to the saddle horn and unable to help Heath in any way, Mason would just make it worse for him by using me against him. He’d protected me enough, even to the point of taking a bullet that could have killed me. I just couldn’t put him through more. . . “

She stopped talking and Jarrod all but picked her up and cradled her in his lap, holding her close to him and letting her cry. Her sobs began as heart-wrenching gasps that he recognized as his youngest brother’s name, her hand still holding Heath’s. Slowly, her cries subsided, but she continued to soak his shirt with her tears. He could feel her shaking in his arms.

“Shhhhhh, Lovely Lady,” he said, brushing through her silver hair with his fingers. “Shhhhh, now. You did the right thing. You found Haverty, just like he told you to. You trusted Heath, trusted what he told you, even when he wasn’t with you. And you found help for both of you.”

She eased up enough to place Heath’s hand back on his chest, patting it one more time, then turned back into Jarrod’s embrace. Very shakily, she nodded and said, “In the last few months, . . . I’ve learned a lot about. . . about trusting Heath Barkley.”

Jarrod stroked her cheek, wiping the remaining tears with his thumb. “It sounds like, between the three of you, those men didn’t have a chance. Haverty told us about your riding skills.”

She looked up at him, and he smiled down at her, his eyes shining through the semi-darkness.

She said, “It would have turned out differently if Ogden hadn’t been there. They were gaining on me, and I was terrified that they were going to shoot the horse before I could get over the ridge and out of sight.”

Nick spoke up for the first time in a good while, “Haverty said Heath is the one who taught him to shoot like that.”

She turned her eyes to Nick in astonishment. Then, she said quietly, “No wonder Heath sent me to Ogden.”

She continued to shake her head, overwhelmed that something set into motion several years ago, by the son she hadn't even known about at the time, had saved her life a day or so ago. She shook her head again and stared at the bruised face of the blond young man that had called her Mother for less than a year.

“He saved me twice, then, didn’t he?”

Chapter 34

They pulled into Cherokee Flats in the thick darkness just after midnight. After their last stop there, neither Nick nor Jarrod was surprised to see all the lights blazing from inside the windows. They had decided that, if the doctor they hoped Audra had sent, was not there waiting for them, they would continue on with the stage to Stockton.

This time, Jarrod stayed with Heath while the others went inside to talk to Willis.

Disappointment and worry crashed into her as Nick led her into the brightly lit station and helped her to a chair. Then, he left her a moment and struck up a conversation she could not hear with the stationmaster. He returned shortly to check on her.

He knelt down beside her on one knee, his hand tight on hers.

“Howard hasn’t arrived yet, has he?”

“No, not yet,” he said quietly, “Are you sure you want to keep going? Maybe it’ll be better to just rest here and wait for him.”

She shook her head and stared up at various racks of antlers hanging above the fireplace in front of her----stared at, but did not see.

Tiredly, she whispered, “No, Nick. We have to keep going. We have to get Heath to Doc Merar as soon as we can.” She began to get to her feet, but Nick placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Wait here a few minutes, Mother. Just rest. I’ll come back for you when they’ve changed the horses.”

She nodded, her eyes closed. All she said was, “Promise me, Nicholas.”

He patted her hand as he stood and said, “Yes, Mother. I promise. I’ll be right back.”

Then, he crossed the room and returned to Willis, who was now watching Ogden’s motions at the stove with interest.

“Mr. Barkley. I’m sorry about the doctor. She alright?”

“With rest, she’ll be fine, Willis. Thank you. It’s my little brother,” he emphasized the words for Ogden’s sake, “That we’re all worried about.”

At the stove, his back to the dark-headed rancher, Ogden Haverty smiled as he stirred the boiling water with the leaves floating in it. Then, he turned to the table and went back to chopping up the roots he had washed, mashing them into a soft, yellowish-white mass. “Excuse me, Barkley,” he said as he pushed between the two standing behind him.

Grinning, Nick crossed his arms and said, “Just what are you doing, Haverty?”

“Turning misery into medicine,” the old man quipped, “Mountain misery.”

Nick rolled his eyes at Willis, who just watched them both in amazement.

“Got a spare canteen and maybe an extra tin cup or two, Willis?” Ogden asked.

“Sure thing,” the wide-eyed man replied. He headed over to a shelf for two cups and grabbed a canteen from a wooden peg on a wall. He shook the almost empty canteen and looked at Ogden.

“Rinse it out. Then, I want to pour some’a that Miwok tea in it to take along.” Ogden then turned to look at Nick, who was still standing over him, his arms crossed. “Put a little’a the hot water in this cup, Boy. Just a little, mind you.”

Willis, his smile stretching from ear to ear now, picked up the pot and helped Nick pour some of the steaming water into the cup. Then, they worked together to carefully fill the canteen. Closing it, Willis set the canteen down on the table. “I’ll put together some food for you folks----and some coffee. It looks like she could use some,” he nodded toward Victoria.

“Thanks, Willis,” Nick nodded, as he watched Haverty scrape the root pulp into the cup from the edge of the wooden table and continue to mash it with the liquid now added. Then, the old man poured the excess water into the sink.

He picked up the canteen and headed toward the door. Just as he reached it, Joshua stuck his head in the doorway and said, “Horses are harnessed.”

Nick strode quickly over to the chair where Victoria was sitting. Running his gloved fingers gently through her silver hair, he leaned over and picked up her tiny frame, carrying her to the stage. He handed her up to Jarrod and sat down on the bench across from Ogden. He and Jarrod stretched her out across their legs, with Jarrod supporting her head and shoulders.

As they got her settled, with Nick pulling the red blanket across her, Ogden looked up and said quietly, “That’s some woman, Boys.”

Victoria Barkley didn’t stir from her exhausted sleep, as Jarrod touched her bruised face lovingly and glanced at the man, “You’ll get no argument from any of us, Mr. Haverty. None at all.”

* * * * * * * *

With the eyes of two concerned Barkley men watching him, Ogden carefully cut the bandage he had placed around Heath’s shoulder hours before. He grimaced as he removed the bloody dressing from the knife wound first, and then nodded with more assurance as he checked under the other cloth. The bullet’s entry wound was doing fine, but the bloody, festering wound in the front had him worried.

He opened the canteen, and said, glancing at Nick, “Hold that old bandage under here to catch the water. I’m gonna pour some’a this over the wound to rinse it out.” As Nick nodded, Ogden poured a little of the hot liquid on his hand first to make sure it was not intolerable.

Meanwhile, Nick gathered the white strips of cloth and held them under Heath’s arm and chest, sopping up the excess that flowed as Ogden slowly poured the hot liquid on his brother’s shoulder.

Heath turned his head and moaned, but did not jerk away.

Haverty, then, picked up the large leather pouch and pulled out the brown glass bottle of iodine. He pulled out the stopper with his teeth and slowly poured the sharp-smelling liquid into the wound.

Nick winced as Heath flinched, trying to move his shoulder away from the burning of the cleansing liquid. The brown stain mingled with the blood that continued to ooze from the wound.

As the liquid worked its way inside his shoulder, Heath again tossed his head, and his breathing got louder. His upper body bucked, trying to move away from the new pain, and he muttered, “Bentell. . . Cut me . . . loose!”

Ogden looked up, finding both pairs of eyes watching Heath, a mixture of dread and guilt easily readable in their expressions. The old man squinted his eyes slightly at them, wondering about what he saw and what he had already heard, then turned back to Heath.

“Easy, Boy. Rest easy. That devil’s nowhere around. You rest easy, now.”

Though Nick never moved his eyes from Heath’s face, Jarrod looked at the old man sharply. Then, he watched as Ogden reached for the cup he had wedged against the back of the seat beside his leg. Using his fingers, he spread the warm poultice across the swollen, angry-looking wound and wiped his fingers back across the cup to let the extra fall back inside.

“It’s not bleeding badly, but he’s already lost so much. If it don’t stop soon, I think we’re gonna have to cauterize it,” Ogden said quietly. “Hope not.”

Nick spoke up. “Whatever we have to do, Haverty.”

Jarrod nodded, “You seem to know what you’re doing, Mr. Haverty. And, we appreciate all you have done for him, for them both.”

“This boy’s mighty special. Don’t know if your Ma told you or not, but he saved my life a while back.”

Puzzled, Nick asked, “A while back. . . you don’t mean in the last couple of days, do you?” Then, curiosity getting the best of him, he hesitated another moment before asking, “How long did you and Heath work together?”

Ogden glanced at them both and then lifted Heath’s head to check that bandage. He could feel the swelling in the back, but the bandages were dry, so he decided to leave them.

He tucked the pillow back under Heath’s head and asked, “Either one’a you ever driven a six-horse hitch?”

Nick shook his head, while Jarrod responded, “No.”

“This boy’s driven this same route with me so many times, he could probably have told you if something came along and disturbed a single stone between one trip and the next.” He eyed both of them, sizing them up, as if he were trying to decide if either of them were worthy of hearing what else he had to say about their brother.

“Driving six through the high country’s no job for a boy. . . . But, he’d apparently been doing the job of a man for most of his life, it seemed, so this was really no different. Took to it right off. Even living at Ebbet’s Pass didn’t seem to bother him, no one around for company but me. That kind of loneliness would’ve plagued most young fellas, but it was almost like he needed that somehow, needed that time to grow without no one to challenge the pride he carried inside.”

Without realizing it, Ogden was running his brown-stained fingers through Heath’s hair. Nick recognized the gesture as one of his own, almost as if both he and the old man had in common their need to assure themselves from time to time that the blond was still with them.

“He’ll survive this, too. Like I told your Ma, he’s tough, as tough as anyone would have to be to have survived all he’s seen in his few years. As tough as a man has to be to bring passengers, baggage, gold, and six horses at a time down hair-raising curves in the middle of the night in all kinds of weather. As tough as a man has to be to grow up under hatred and curses all his days just because he has no Pa, then come out the other end of it with a heart full of pride and compassion.”

Ogden paused and took a breath. He turned his eyes to the open, low rolling hills beside the road, visible in only a limited way in the pale, silver moonlight. Jarrod shifted slightly in his seat, moving Victoria’s head to his other shoulder. Nick didn’t move or take his eyes from Heath’s face.

It wasn’t often that they ran into someone who had known Heath from before, that didn’t want something from him. It wasn’t often that they met someone who knew their brother well enough to fill in the gaps they never even knew were there----all because of his tendency to minimize his past. He tended to spare them things he had faced and survived so young. He tended to see his past as not worth any more than a shrug of his shoulders, not worth even talking about.

Nick intended to listen closely, to catch and hold every word, weighing it like gold, a treasure to be hoarded and savored.

“We were carrying a coupl’a strong boxes full of gold, headed to Tamarack. There weren’t no passengers and the road was barely passable----it being the first snow and all. I was driving, could hardly see for the ice and snow, and they used the curve in the road against us, got off a few shots at us a’fore we even saw ‘em. We were both up top, me in the box and Heath on the roof behind me. I got caught in the knee, and Heath took one in the shoulder.”

The old man rubbed absently at his knee and closed his eyes, before he added. “He got to me and kept me from being pulled outta the box, got the team back under control. If they hadn’t gotten away from me, if there hadn’t been so much ice, he would’ve had them in hand enough, even on the curves, to’ve gotten us out of there past them. But, as it was, they came close to catching us. Heath pulled me to some rocks, stood guard over me all night. He could’ve made a run for it, but he stayed, kneeling there between them and me, barely able to hold up his head. He kept ‘em from coming in, from killing us, and from taking off with the gold. He. . .”

Ogden trailed off, he and Nick turning to look at Jarrod, who suddenly had his arms wrapped around his mother and his hands covering his eyes. He was hauling in air like he was trying to keep from being sick.

Nick grabbed him by the arms, “Jarrod? Jarrod?” he said as quietly as he could, trying to keep from waking the sleeping woman held between them.

Slowly, Jarrod lowered his hands, and Nick could see the agonized look in his brother’s eyes.

“Jarrod, what is it? Are you sick?”

“That’s exactly what he did for me in those rocks that night, Nick. He kept acting like he was cold, muttering about the snow. I couldn’t figure it out, just thought he was having chills from the fever. I saw him kneeling down over me, protecting me from the men looking for us, just like that, just like Haverty’s describing.”

Remembering what he had seen when he had found the two of them in the rocks on their way back from Coreyville, Nick nodded. “He kept acting like he knew it was you, but like he was somewhere else. You’re right, it was like he was all tangled up with the past, somehow.”

Nick turned to Ogden, his hand still on Jarrod’s arm. He said gruffly, but with a sincerity that surprised the old man, “Jarrod and I both know just how determined our brother can be when he’s protecting someone he cares about.”

Ogden looked at him, his eyes widening slightly, and he sucked in a sharp breath. He nodded at Nick in acknowledgement of the words that were clearly meant to refer to him, as well as to the Barkleys.

Chapter 35

Then, Jarrod asked quietly, still struggling with his own memories, but wanting to hear the rest, “Mr. Haverty, what happened next, in your story, I mean?”

“He killed them, plain and simple. He brought down all three of ‘em, one at a time as they tried to sneak in on us. If they’d rushed us, it might’ve turned out differently, but they tried to be careful about it, and it cost ‘em. I was no help to him, just could lift my head from time to time to see what was going on, to see how much trouble he was having staying alert. The next morning, he got me back in that stage and got us down the mountain.”

He paused and ran his fingers one more time through Heath’s hair, before adding, “Yep, I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for this young’un, there’s no doubt about that, even if he is the most cussedly-stubborn son-of-a-gun I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Back in control of his emotions again, Jarrod asked, “When was that, Mr. Haverty?”

“I’ve had a good-for-nothing knee for almost three years now. Heath, he worked with me for six or seven months, couldn’t’ve been much more than twenty years old. That’s younger than Joshua up there by a good six years.”

They rode in silence again for a while, each of them thinking of what he, himself, had been doing at age twenty. Invariably, Nick and Jarrod each began to think of what they knew Heath had been doing at around age fifteen.

Ogden must have had thoughts in a similar direction, because his next words startled them with an almost uncanny echo. “Heard you mention Bentell a while back. . . after Heath snarled at you pulling that knife outta him.”

The hair on the back of Nick’s neck seemed to stand upright, making it difficult for him to suppress the shiver that tried to shake him. For his part, Jarrod just stared at the old man, waiting to see where he was planning to go with this statement.

He nodded to Haverty, but said nothing.

The old man said, “So, you know about what he went through in Carterson.”

It was a statement, but they could both hear the underlying question. They wondered how much he had heard them say earlier when they thought he was asleep, when they had both said they wished they had chased Bentell from the ranch.

They waited, sure there would be more.

“You do know, don’t you?” Ogden tried again, looking levelly into both pairs of eyes that were staring at him.

Finally, Jarrod said quietly, “We know pieces. That’s all.”

“You know why Heath feels the way he does about that black-hearted devil, then? He did tell you?”

Nick glanced at Jarrod, who nodded at him. In a carefully controlled voice, Nick said, “We know about the seven months he spent there, that Bentell was the commander. We know about the food and the conditions, and . . . and we’ve seen the scars Heath carries, if that’s what you mean?”

Ogden looked at them. Then, he pulled Heath closer and lay his hand on his bare chest, over his heart. He whispered, “But, do you know of the scars you can’t see? The ones that devil lashed around his heart?”

Barely able to speak, Jarrod said, “We’ve heard his words when he gets caught in a fevered delirium, like yesterday. We’ve heard a few stories and fragments of nightmares.” He glanced at Nick, who nodded.

Ogden was getting worked up now, his own protectiveness rising to the surface as he dwelled on the words he knew they had spoken earlier, the words about the man Heath despised above all others.

“Do you know why he screamed about his arm? Do you know why he hollered for Bentell to cut him down? What’s it been now, nine years, closer to ten? Do you know why I’m sure he still hates that man enough to want to kill him with his bare hands if he ever saw him again?”

Then, he asked more quietly, “Do either of you know why Heath is so afraid of him?”

“No.” Nick’s reply was curt and covered in irritation. He’d had about enough of this man’s insinuations and questions, as if he knew Heath so much better than they did, as if he were judging them for something he knew nothing about.

Ogden leaned back into the corner and closed his eyes. He said quietly, in a voice they could barely hear, “Your Ma mentioned something she did that hurt Heath, something she regretted doing. Last night, I heard you say that you insisted Heath go somewhere with Bentell, to protect him. I saw your faces when Heath lashed out at Bentell, when he was out of his head.”

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “It’s for him to tell you someday, not me. You know your brother, so you know he doesn’t just come right out and tell whole stories from his past. He keeps his memories real close, like cards in a high stakes poker game. But, he’s told me a few things. . . ,” Ogden paused and shook his head, “Things that I’d rather forget I ever heard, and I didn’t live them. Since then, I’ve talked to others that were there, and I know pieces that Heath didn’t tell.”

He turned his head and looked out the window. “There are good reasons why Heath hates Matt Bentell, not just because he was the prison commander. He is a cruel, vindictive man, kind’a like the way your Ma describes that man Mason. Apparently, Bentell would look for the weakness in a man and use it to twist him inside out, put the weakness on display for everyone to see. It was his way of keeping control, keeping the leaders off balance so there was no one for the others to follow. . . . “

Nick, involved in the story in spite of himself, interrupted, “But, Heath was so young, . . . . only fifteen.”

Ogden nodded and swallowed hard, ruffling the blond hair again. Then, he continued, “Yes, he was. Eventually, he came to Bentell’s attention simply because he had not died, because the others seemed to find strength for themselves in the fact that he was still alive. As if they believed, that if a young boy, the youngest there, could survive, then so could they.”

“Heath would not tell you or me these things, because he would never speak of the kind of example he was for the others. In truth, he may not even be aware of it. But, like I said, some’a those men have told me. And, they told me what Bentell did to him, how he tried to break your brother.”

Nick’s voice sounded raspy when he was able to speak beyond the huge rock that he felt pressing down on his chest. He asked with certainty, “His arm? It was something to do with his arm, wasn’t it?”

Ogden looked at him and just nodded.

Jarrod thought back over his dream of the night before, remembering Heath’s words from that night in the rocks on the way out of Coreyville.

He said, “That night in the rocks. . . ,” Then, he stopped, seeing Heath’s face again, hearing his words in his head. “Nick, he kept screaming at Bentell to quit hitting somebody. He kept saying over and over that Bentell was going to kill someone, telling me to make him stop hitting whoever it was. Then, he said those same words, telling Bentell to cut him loose, cut him down, and something about his arm.”

Jarrod shook his head, and added, “Then, he seemed to come out of it. He started talking to me, called me by my name. He said to me . . . he said, ‘Jarrod, I did what you all told me I had to, and I still hate that devil of a man.’ Then he. . . .”

Nick dropped his head, staring at his boots, one hand over his eyes and one on Jarrod’s shoulder, as Jarrod paused, looked at him, and quietly finished, “Then, he blacked out, and all I could do was hold him and whisper to him about how wrong and how sorry I was for what we did.”

Nick said, “We betrayed him, Jarrod. . . . He may have found it in his heart to forgive us, but will he ever forget-----and will we ever be able to forgive ourselves for what we did?”

Ogden asked quietly, “And, if he doesn’t remember what happened? What you made him do?”

Jarrod looked at him sharply, the possibilities just now dawning on him, “Do you mean, if he doesn’t remember, will we tell him what we did to him? Or will we take advantage of his memory loss and just let him go on without knowing, just let him forget that way?”

Ogden raised one eyebrow and kept silent. He had said enough. The choices had to be theirs.

Chapter 36

The sun was just coming up over the low hills to the east, its pink fingers reaching out to touch the undersides of wispy, slow moving clouds, when Nick felt the stage lurch to a stop.

“Whoa!” Ogden called to the team.

Nick looked around, puzzled. They had just left a nameless stop to obtain new horses and switch drivers an hour or so before. Why were they stopping again? He leaned out the window to his left and looked out.

Relief flooded through him at the approaching men on horseback, the one easily recognizable in his tin star, and the other, shorter one, from the shape of the hat perched firmly on his head. Shifting Heath’s head down to the pillow and easing out of his cramped position behind him, Nick shook Jarrod awake before he climbed out.

“Doc!” he called, as the two horses pulled up beside him. “Thanks for coming, Doc, Sheriff. Heath’s in here.”

Jarrod climbed out, giving the doctor plenty of room to work in the cramped space. Awake now, Victoria stayed inside and assisted by taking Howard’s bag and opening it out on the seat beside her, while Doctor Merar sat down on the bench closest to Heath’s head. Jarrod and the other men looked on through the open doorway, while Nick walked around and leaned in through the window on the other side, the one closest to his brother.

“What happened to him?” Howard asked, as he checked Heath’s eyes and took his pulse.

“Shot in the back of his shoulder. It went straight through. Then a double-edged knife was beat into him from the front. A couple of gashes to his head, the one in back older than the one on the side. He hit a fencepost in a fall from a horse, when, Mother? On Tuesday?“ Nick started, trying to spare his mother the telling of all of it one more time.

Victoria was somewhat revived from her rest, and she was greatly relieved at seeing Howard. She answered quickly, “No, Monday. It was checked and stitched by a doctor in Bridgeport, but he was hit again since then. It tore the stitches, and it’s been swollen the whole time.”

The doctor questioned them, as he gently unwrapped the bandages from around Heath’s head, “Hit again? With what?”

“I’m not sure, Howard. A gun butt, kicked, I’m just not sure.”

“They ran into a gang of outlaws up in the mountains, Doc.”

“Yes, I heard the stage had been delayed.”

He carefully checked the gashes on Heath’s head, frowning at the continued swelling in the back. Nick watched the older man’s face closely, barely able to keep from asking, but knowing Howard would not tell them anything until he was finished.

Gently, he lay Heath’s head back on the pillow and reached for his stethoscope. He listened to Heath’s heart and breathing for a few moments, then, he turned to Victoria. “He’s burning up. Any coughing?”

“He doesn’t seem quite as hot now as he was,” she said, reaching out to touch Heath’s face, “And I’ve only heard him cough a little. But, he’s been unconscious so long. . . .” She bit her lip and glanced at Nick.

Howard patted her arm and turned back to Heath. He pointed to the bandage across his chest and asked, “What happened here? You said both a bullet and a knife wound?”

They nodded, and Nick answered, “Yeah, Doc.”

“Please hand me those scissors, Victoria.”

He took the pair she handed him from his bag and cut across the bandages. His sharp intake of breath immediately worried all of them, as he pried loose the soiled dressing from the knife wound.

“Come help me, Nick,” he said, as he tried unsuccessfully to see Heath’s back without moving him.

Quickly, Nick came around the back of the stage and climbed inside, offering only a minimal shake of his head to Jarrod as he went by.

“Help me sit him up----lean him on you, so I can take a look.”

Seated beside his mother, Nick pulled Heath’s right arm toward him, and carefully gripped his right shoulder, holding Heath to his chest so Howard could see the bullet entry.

“This is looking pretty good, no bleeding, just clear drainage. You said the bullet went through?” Clearly puzzled now, Howard looked at Nick’s nodding head. Then, he said, “Lay him back down.” He positioned a clean dressing under the entry wound as Nick lowered Heath to the blanket.

Howard probed the festering shoulder wound with his hand. “But, this is the knife wound. Where did the bullet come out?” He started pushing back more of the bandages covering Heath’s chest, thinking the bullet had hit bone and exited down lower. Nick’s hand on his stopped him from cutting the white strips.

“No, Doc, that is the bullet’s exit wound. Some animal of a man stabbed Heath back through the same wound the bullet made. The knife was in him for days. They couldn’t get it out-----must’ve been in a bone or next to one. The b---,” glancing at his mother, he said, “The animal probably beat it into him. We finally got it out yesterday.”

Howard stared at Nick as he spoke, the horror of what he described slowly sinking into him. The doctor, who had seen all kinds of injuries over the years, heard all kinds of stories about the accidents he treated, shivered at this tale of brutality, inflicted on one man by another.

Beside Nick, Victoria had gripped his arm, and her head was down. Howard reached across and grasped her hand and said quietly, his concern for her evident, “Were you there?”

He was relieved when she shook her head and said, “No. He had gotten me away from them, by then. They had already beaten him savagely, but I have no idea what else they did to him after that. Whatever they did, he suffered it alone.”

Howard looked at her anguished face and patted her hand again. He returned his attention to the knife wound. Then, puzzled, he touched the thick poultice still covering the edges and rubbed his fingers together. “What is this?”

Ogden spoke up, his arms leaning on the window of the stage behind the doctor, “Root of mountain misery, Doc. The Miwoks call it ‘kit-kit-dizze. I’ve got some of the tea from the leaves in that canteen, but he wasn’t awake enough to drink any during the night.”

Nick and Jarrod looked at each other as Doctor Merar answered, nodding, “Yes, I’ve heard of it, but never seen it used. It’s supposed to help with general healing.”

The doctor smiled slightly as Ogden said, “I’ll be glad to send you some, Doc, the next time the stage runs through.”

“Thank you, uh, Mr. . . . ?”

“Haverty.”

“Thank you, Mr. Haverty.”

“It does appear that it helped some, Ogden,” Victoria said. “It’s nowhere near as angry looking as it was, thanks to your care.” Then, she reached over and squeezed Nick’s arm. “And, thanks to Nick for finally getting that knife out of him.”

Howard was pleased to see that the wound was starting to close on its own. He detected no foul odor that would indicate deep infection. “You said the knife was in there up until yesterday?”

“Yes,” Victoria replied, then amended, “Late in the afternoon.”

“It was bleeding up until then?”

“Yes, it kept on oozing blood until just recently,” Ogden spoke up.

“How about from his head injuries? Any bleeding from his ears or nose?”

“When we found him, Ogden and I, he was covered in blood, but his head hasn’t really bled much since then. Just his shoulder. For a while it would bleed heavily, from both wounds, depending on how much we tried to remove the knife. When we left it alone, it didn’t bleed as much. But, it looked so red and swollen, we knew we had to get it out.”

Victoria took a deep breath, her exhaustion returning. She pushed it away, concentrating on finding the necessary words.

The doctor said, “Well, I’d say whatever you did was the right thing, because it looks like it’s starting to heal. Knowing Heath, though, he’s had a high fever and has given you a fit. Delirious, right?” Nick and Victoria both nodded. “I don’t hear much congestion in his lungs, so that’s a good sign.”

Turning to Haverty, he said, “Do you have any more of that mash?”

Ogden nodded, pointing to the covered cup beside Heath’s feet, in the corner of the stage seat.

“Well, it seems to be helping. Let’s rinse this with some carbolic while he’s still out, then put some more of your poultice on it. Victoria, if you and Nick will do that, I’ll get another dressing and a bandage ready.”

Working together, the shoulder wounds were quickly cared for.

They leaned back and rested a moment after struggling to wrap the fresh bandages around Heath’s chest without jostling him. Then, Doctor Merar said, “He appears to have lost a lot of blood, and, though he’s very weak, his heart and breathing are doing okay. To be honest with you, I’m more worried now about his head injury. How long has it been since he was conscious?”

Victoria, knowing that she had been asleep for much of the night, looked at Nick. He answered, “The last time was when we got the knife out of him, just before dark. But, Doc, I have to tell you, there was nothing weak about him then. He fought us like, like a mad steer fights a new brand.”

Doc Merar smiled slightly at the description. He said, “Maybe that’s why he’s been so unresponsive since then. It took everything out of him. But, if he was fighting you, it sounds like he was out of his head then. What about before that? When was the last time he was completely conscious, completely aware? Has he talked to any of you?”

“No,” Victoria whispered, “I haven’t had a conversation with him since the stage was attacked, on Thursday.”

Nick put his arm around her and said, “He’s just done a lot of mumbling, saying words we could understand sometimes, but mostly not.”

The doctor shook his head. “The swelling back there is not a good sign. But, maybe now that the knife is out and that’s looking better, the fever will lose its hold on him. Then, hopefully, he’ll come out of his delirium.”

Taking Victoria’s hand, he said to Nick and Jarrod, “I think we can get under way again. The quicker we get him still and in a warm bed, the quicker he can start getting well.”

Without a word, Ogden and Joshua left to climb back up into the box.

Nick leaned over Heath and whispered quietly, “You fight, Boy. I expect to see your laughing blue eyes the next time I climb back in here, you got that? You fight, Little Brother.”

Then, he patted the sweaty chest and jumped down from the coach. He took the reins of the doctor’s horse, offered to him by Frank Worthing, the Stockton sheriff. Behind him, Jarrod climbed inside and closed the door.

As Haverty called to the team, Nick and Frank sat their horses a few moments to let the trail of dust dissipate in their wake.

Frank said, “I never heard of anything like what you described with that knife, Nick. Heath’ll be alright, though. If he’s lived this long, he’ll make it now. I’m sure of it.”

Nick nodded and said, “Thanks, Frank, and thanks for bringing Doc.”

As they started their horses, Nick contemplated the sheriff’s words, thinking that, considering Heath’s difficult past, Frank just didn’t know how right he was----at least up to now. He just hoped the sheriff’s words continued to hold true.

Nick nodded again and said aloud, “Like the man said, my little brother is as tough as they come.”

Chapter 37

“Victoria,” Doc Merar spoke up, as soon as the stage was moving again. “We’d better try to bring him around. We need to get some liquids inside him.” Then, noticing the concern in the dark-haired brother’s blue-eyes as he sat beside her, he asked, “Jarrod, do you think you could switch places with me and hold him up a bit for us? That would make it easier to get him to drink, and you’d have a good hold of him if he starts fighting us.”

“Sure, Doc,” Jarrod answered, already moving to assist.

They smoothly switched places, while Victoria rummaged through the doctor’s bag looking for smelling salts. She handed them to Howard, who leaned in toward Heath and looked up at Jarrod. “Ready?” he asked.

Taking a firm hold around Heath’s chest, with the blond leaning closely, but unconsciously, against him, Jarrod nodded.

Doc Merar waved the smelling salts under Heath’s nose. At first, he got no response from Heath, though Jarrod coughed convulsively.

“Sorry, Jarrod,” the doctor said smiling, but not taking his eyes from Heath’s closed ones.

Again, he tried.

This time, Heath’s head moved, and they heard him groan. The deep furrow between his eyebrows appeared, and he started gasping for breath. The soft groan turned into a prolonged moan, punctuated only by raspy breathing.

Then, suddenly, Heath’s eyes flew open, and though only one arm seemed to respond to his attempts, he started trying to shove the doctor away. Jarrod struggled to hold onto him, as Heath’s gasps quickly turned into curses, “Mason, . . . you son-of-a. . . .”

Victoria caught Howard’s arm and pulled him back toward her on the seat. Heath continued fighting with Jarrod, who was trying unsuccessfully to convince him to calm down, “Heath! Heath, it’s alright. Just relax, Heath. That’s not Mason. It’s the doctor.”

Not until Victoria left her seat and practically knelt in the floor beside Heath, did their attempts to calm him have any effect. She touched his face gently and talked to him, “Easy, Heath. It’s alright. He didn’t hurt me, Heath. You got me away from him. Easy, Sweetheart.”

With relief, Jarrod was able to ease up on his hold, which in turn helped Heath begin to relax into him, instead of fighting him.

He spoke in Heath’s ear from behind him, “That’s right, Heath. Just relax. I’ve got you.”

But, as if he didn’t hear Jarrod, or just couldn’t handle any other voices right now, Heath kept his eyes on Victoria, as she continued to stroke his face. “Oh, Heath. I’m so glad to see you. I was so worried about you.”

“You. . . alright?” he gasped through the pain, searching her face with his confused, pale blue eyes, trying to fit the pieces together. He remembered her from the rocks, from the road. He could see her in his mind, tied first to the stage wheel, then to her horse. He tried to reach toward her with his left hand, but, with a groan, let it fall back against the blanket.

She sought his right hand and brought it to her cheek. Holding it there, she answered him, “Yes, Heath, I’m alright.”

Then, she took the cup offered to her by the doctor behind her. She glanced back at Doc Merar, who smiled and said, “Miwok medicine,” as he held up the canteen Ogden had mentioned.

Turning back to Heath, she said, “Drink this, . . . nice and slow, now.” She held the cup to his lips and helped him drink a swallow. Heath grimaced at the taste, but she could see he was eager for the now cool liquid. Though he paused several times to just close his eyes and tussle with the throbbing headache, he stayed with them. They didn’t talk again, until he had finished off half-a-cup.

Then, he lowered his head back to Jarrod’s chest and whispered, “Mis’ry . . . tea. . .”

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. Heath’s eyes closed for a moment, and she thought he had fallen asleep. Then, he opened them again, smiling a faintly lop-sided grin at her, but his pain-filled eyes searched the inside of the coach behind her in the weak light of early morning.

Not knowing who he was looking for, she was afraid to supply names for him. So far, this time, she had been careful to avoid calling him ‘son’ or referring to anyone as his family. She had not yet had a chance to warn Doctor Merar and ask his advice, and until she could, she wanted to be careful not to do or say the wrong thing.

“Og-den?” Heath asked, then, giving her the answer she needed, though her heart had been hoping that he was looking for one of his brothers.

She raised her eyes and looked at Jarrod behind Heath, not sure if he had caught the significance she was concerned about. His eyes, however, told her that he had.

“He’s driving the stage, Heath. But, he made the tea for you. He’ll be glad to know you’re awake.” She reached up and stroked his face again.

Heath closed his eyes, the crease between his eyebrows growing deeper. He raised his right hand and slowly, with a low moan, reached his fingers toward his left shoulder. Then, he cracked open his eyes again and moved his head a painful inch or two, trying to see what was wrong with his left arm.

His right hand touched the bandage, and they saw him try to move his left shoulder. A cry escaped from his lips, and he began hauling breath in noisily through his nose, his teeth clenched together and eyes now tightly closed.

Jarrod looked across at the doctor. “Some laudanum or something, Doc?” he asked.

Howard shook his head, “No, not unless absolutely necessary. He’s been unconscious much too long.”

Heath’s back arched with the pain, and his eyes flew open again. He opened his mouth, panting heavily. With a glazed look in his darkening eyes, he found her through the haze that threatened him and asked, “Ben. . . tell?”

Confused, all she could do was shake her head at him and say, “No, Heath. Not Bentell.”

Behind him, Jarrod realized he was asking about his arm, and said in the blond’s ear, “No, Heath, it was Mason, with your knife. Not Bentell.”

“Knife?” he asked, and though Heath made a slight movement, as if he was trying to see the face of the person whose voice he could hear, he didn’t get far before the pain behind his eyes exploded into a million white lights. Before his eyes closed and an agonized cry rasped from his throat, he saw her reach out to him again, and he whispered, “Mrs. . . . Bark. . . ley. . . .”

“I’m right here, Heath. I’m right here.”

She held onto his hand, limp now in her grasp, as she searched his face and tried to smooth out the crease between his eyebrows with her other hand.

Behind her, Doctor Merar was checking Heath with his stethoscope again and had not heard Heath’s whispered words. He shook his head at Jarrod, and said, “That little episode cost him some, but maybe it was worth it to get the liquid down him.”

He helped Victoria back up onto the bench and noted her wince of pain as she tried to stand. “Your ankle?” the kindly doctor asked.

“Umm-hmm,” she said distractedly, her expression still locked into one of worry. “Howard, is he going to be alright?” she asked.

“Victoria, I don’t know anything else to tell you right now. He is obviously in a great deal of pain, but where it all comes from, I can’t begin to tell you. After I check you over, I’ll give him a closer exam to see if there are any other injuries.” He looked at her and added, “You and Nick said that those men beat him, and you weren’t sure what else. I suspect, though, that between his shoulder and his head injuries, that’s enough cause for what we just saw. Although, to be perfectly honest,” he continued, “It hasn’t been so very long since he recovered from the last beating he took. I’m concerned about damage that may have been done to those same areas.”

“Check him first, Howard. I’ll be fine,” she said emphatically.

He looked long at her and then, he nodded, “Jarrod, I see where you and Nick get your stubbornness from. In fact, in her own demanding way, she sounds just like Nick.”

“Well, just don’t tell Nick,” she said with a slight smile. “He’ll tell me I’ve been flattered!”

* * * * * * * *

They were pleased with the results of the doctor’s examination. Though it uncovered a multitude of bruises that Victoria had not gotten a good look at, particularly along the left side of Heath’s back, Howard was not overly concerned about them. No ribs appeared broken, though he was sure several were badly bruised and quite painful.

In the quiet while the stage carried them closer to home, Jarrod and the doctor got a look at Victoria’s ankle, wrists, and the scrape across her left shoulder, made by the bullet. “I want you to stay off of that ankle as much as possible when we get you both home,” the doctor admonished. “You can sit by Heath’s bed in a nice, comfortable chair with your foot propped up on top of several pillows, while Jarrod, here, runs the house for you.”

Victoria leaned against Jarrod’s bent leg behind her on the seat, and teased, “That sounds awfully good, Howard, but who’s going to run Jarrod’s office? Nick?”

The doctor laughed and said, “You know, I believe we could sell tickets to folks who might want to stand outside your big office window, Jarrod, and watch that spectacle!” Looking at Victoria, he added, “There’s one thing for sure, though. If one of them is doing the cooking, I won’t be interested in staying for dinner until you’re back on your feet.”

As he wrapped her ankle, and she pulled her boot carefully back on, she grew serious again. Jarrod was still holding onto Heath, and with one hand, he was wiping his brother’s sweat-streaked face with a cool cloth. She watched them together for a moment, then, turned back to the doctor, “Howard,” she said with dread in her voice, “We have another problem.”

He stopped rolling up the remaining bandages and looked at her expectantly.

“Without going into everything that’s been said or done, Heath’s first head injury, the one that happened when the horse threw him into the post on Monday, has created some problems with his memory.”

Howard stared at her, then asked quietly, “What kind of problems?”

“At first, I just thought he didn’t remember the accident, the people we were visiting, nor places we’d been during the few days before. The doctor there didn’t seem overly concerned about it. Then, over a period of the next few days, I realized he didn’t remember our relationship either. It seems that he does remember Nick and working at the ranch. He refers to me as Mrs. Barkley, and I believe he thinks he just works for us.”

The kindly man looked at her sad, grey eyes and asked quietly, “Victoria, what other symptoms has he displayed?”

“Do you mean from that injury?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

She thought back through the extreme worry of the last few days, sorting through everything to remember the way Heath had been at Alice’s home, on the stage journey toward Ebbet’s Pass, on the path at sunrise the day they were attacked, right up until the moment she knew he had been shot.

The doctor and Jarrod watched her face as she stared at Heath, his hand held gently in hers again, and let the events tumble through her mind, like logs plummeting down a water-filled flume.

Then, she shook her head and said softly, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, “He was so quiet, even for Heath. He was in a great deal of pain, but he basically refused the medicine the doctor gave me for him.”

She paused again, silently remembering the way he had said it, “I don’t half know what’s what from one minute ta the next as it is, an’ any foul-tastin’ medicine is only gonna make that worse. I’ll be alright.”

Out loud, she said to them, “He told me everything was already mixed up in his head---I could see him trying to sort it all out---and he said he didn’t want the medicine to make it worse.”

Watching the doctor’s face, now, she added, “He had periods when he was barely conscious, he slept a lot, and he would wake up confused. Several times he got very sick and could hardly stand. Once I noticed he was pale and sweating, but he was cold to the touch. I think he was dizzy on top of it all.”

She glanced over at the doctor, “But, both of you know how he is. He would never say anything about being uncomfortable. In fact, I knew he was really hurting when I drug it out of him that he felt like somebody had hit him in the head with a rock-----if he admitted that, it probably felt much worse.”

Jarrod nodded, and Howard reached over and gripped her on the arm again. “It sounds like a very serious concussion. You were definitely right to be concerned. From what I saw, though, there are two gashes, Victoria,” he said, his brown eyes looking at her closely. “Were they both caused by the fall?”

She shook her head, “No, I guess the second happened later, when we were attacked. They hit him with the butt of a rifle in the head and kicked him so many times . . . ,” she stopped and took a deep breath. Then, in a quiet voice, she said, “It could have happened then, or later, when he was shot off the back of my horse, or. . . I just don’t know, Howard.”

Again, he squeezed her arm.

“I am concerned about the swelling that’s still there. But, there’s nothing we can do about it right now, maybe later with some ice and once we can keep him still for a while.”

Howard thought for a moment, looking at both of them before he added, “If his memory was already a problem, before all of the rest of these injuries, you both might ought to prepare yourselves for the fact that it could now be worse. We just don’t know enough about the effects of head injuries.”

Jarrod spoke up, “Doc, how do we handle it if he doesn’t remember that he is related to us? No matter how hard it is on all of us,” he paused to think about Audra and Nick, and how this would impact them, “We want to do what is best for Heath. Do we tell him? Do we go along with whatever he says? Do we bring in a specialist? What do we do?”

Listening to her analytical son, thinking through the issues and the problems, and expressing them so succinctly, she realized how much she had always leaned on his clarity of thought. She reached up with her free hand and touched his cheek, smiling at him briefly.

Then, she replied, while the doctor thought about his response, “About the time I finally realized he didn’t remember he had ever called me Mother, he seemed to want answers to questions, and I had to decide how to handle them. He just couldn’t understand why I seemed to care so much about him. It was as though he felt he was just a hand on the ranch, and when I reacted differently, like calling him ‘Son’ in a general sort of way, I could tell it just confused him very badly. It almost seemed to make his headaches worse, too, though, again, with Heath, it’s always hard to tell. I tried to answer his questions honestly, but without saying too much after that.”

Half-way through her explanation, the doctor started nodding his head. When she finished speaking, he asked, “Can you explain what you meant about being honest, but not saying too much?”

She thought about it a moment, then said, “Right before we were attacked, he asked me how long he had been working on our ranch. I told him how long he had been with us, but I didn’t clarify for him that he is part of our family instead of working for us. I asked him if he remembered Nick. He said he did, and he gave me an interesting view of working side-by-side with growling Nicholas J. Barkley every day!”

She smiled as she remembered his comments.

Then, she said, “I just told him how proud Nick was of all that he had helped him accomplish at the ranch since he. . . “ her voice broke, and she leaned toward Jarrod, one of her hands over her face, as she kissed Heath’s hand still held fast in hers. Then, she buried her face in Heath’s neck, as Jarrod held them both.

Chapter 38

After a few moments, both men knew she had pulled herself together, because her quiet sobs had turned to silence.

She lifted her head slightly, though she did not look at anyone but Heath’s profile as he lay against Jarrod’s chest. She whispered, “He called me Mother yesterday, Jarrod. Do you remember?”

Jarrod squeezed her shoulder and nodded. He said quietly, “Yes, I do. He was delirious and fighting us, but he seemed to listen to you. You told him to trust Nick, to let him get the knife out of him. He responded to you then, just like he responded to your voice a little while ago. And, he did call you Mother yesterday. Maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe it will be your mother’s love that will reach him and bring him back to us.”

Doctor Merar said gently, “Victoria, you have very good instincts as a mother. What you did, how you handled his questions, it was exactly what I would have suggested. You let him take the lead, and you followed. When you asked him a question, you kept it general. You didn’t try to lead him to an answer.”

He leaned back in his seat, watching the rise and fall of Heath’s chest for a while. Jarrod could tell the doctor was thinking hard. He held his mother close and just waited.

After some long moments of silence, Doctor Merar started speaking again, “It’s not going to be easy, but there are several things that have to happen when we get him to Stockton.”

Victoria raised her head, and both she and Jarrod looked at him. She said, “Howard, please tell us. We’ll be there soon, and we need to know what to do for him.”

“All right. First, and foremost, we have to make sure his shoulder is looking better. If it isn’t, we’re going to have to go back in and clean it again. I assure you, that will not be pleasant for any of us. Second, we have to get more liquids in him. Even if we have to almost force him to wake up every few hours, that’s what we’ll need to do. His fever and the swelling in the back of his head have both got to come down, and that may take some doing.”

“Finally, we are going to have to give him time. Whatever makes him feel comfortable, that’s what we’ll have to do. We are going to have to help him stay calm and feel in control of the situation as much as possible. After his injuries are better, if he wants to stay in the bunkhouse with the other hands, because that’s where he feels comfortable, then that’s what will have to happen. I do know that he cannot be forced into remembering. It could be that when the swelling goes down, he will begin to get his memories back. And, he may be in a great deal of pain and experience much confusion, as that begins to happen. You will all need to think about how you will answer his questions without telling him too much, and . . . .”

“No, Doc, hold on a minute,” Jarrod and Victoria had been looking at each other while Howard talked. Jarrod spoke up, voicing the concerns he could see mirrored back at him in her grey eyes, the concerns they both had, “I understand what you are telling us, but I just don’t think we can be anything less than completely honest with Heath as soon as he’s well enough to listen to us.”

Victoria was nodding, squeezing Jarrod’s hand in agreement. She said, “There are things you don’t know about, Howard, things that have happened in the last few months, things that make it imperative that we handle this very carefully----even more so than if this had happened at any other time or with any other member of the family.”

She took a deep breath and added, “When I was up on the mountain with him, before we were attacked, and I first realized the extent of his memory loss, I was very hesitant to give him any information, any answers, until I knew what the situation was. But, now. . . . I know we have to. We have to tell him the truth.”

“We’ve learned some hard lessons lately, where Heath is concerned, Doc.” Jarrod’s worried, blue eyes were watching his mother’s face, though his words were directed at the doctor. She was nodding in agreement, encouraging him to continue.

“If, even in trying to spare him pain and confusion early on, we don’t find a way to tell him the truth and help him with it, we’ll risk losing him, and I mean losing him forever. We’ve hurt him deeply, and trust is something we’ve all had to work hard at rebuilding with him.” Jarrod took a deep breath and finished speaking, “Somehow, we have to find a way to keep this situation from destroying that.”

* * * * * * * *

It would have seemed a very unusual sight if anyone had been watching and wondering about it, as the M & M Stage Lines’ coach barely made it under the arched sign for the Barkley Ranch, still one mile out from the house.

Instead of heading straight for the depot in town, Ogden had discussed alternatives with Nick and had made the decision that, as late as they were arriving, a few more hours wouldn’t matter to Mr. Matthews in Stockton. Following Nick’s directions, Ogden had turned off the main road, anxious to deliver the family to their door.

Nick had climbed up to join Ogden when they had paused to discuss the arrangements with the sheriff. The latter had headed toward town to deliver word to the depot ahead of them. They had decided that Ogden would remain at the house, while Joshua completed the route.

“So, Boy,” Haverty queried, “Just how large is this ranch of yours?”

His eagerness to get home evident in the lean of his shoulders and gaze of his eyes, Nick responded, “Around 30,000 acres, give or take.”

Ogden gaped at him, and let out a low whistle. “And, you run it all?”

Nick glanced to his right at the man, who was expertly handling the galloping team despite the relatively narrow road. “With a lot of help from my little brother.”

Haverty grinned slightly and nodded, keeping any other comments to himself. Though he would never admit it aloud, at least not yet, he was beginning to take a shine to this brash, brawling brother of Heath’s.

On the surface of it, he was hard put to find the similarities between them, the one, blond, blue-eyed, and as quiet and contemplative as the other, dark and hazel-eyed, was not. But, Ogden had lived a life-time of observing others, and he saw the deep passion, fierce loyalty, and proud, stubborn streak that forged the iron backbone of them both.

Yes, he was beginning to like this Nick Barkley.

* * * * * * * *

Weariness had set in days ago, miles ago, and Victoria had never been as glad to see the white columns flanking her oaken front door as she was on this return. She felt the tears leap into her eyes at the sight of her beautiful daughter dashing out onto the wide, white steps to greet them. Her flowing blond hair complimented her riding pants, boots, and green plaid shirt, and her eyes were wide at the sight of the stage coming to a dusty halt in the drive.

“Nick!” she called, waving at the darkly-clad rancher as he climbed down from the driver’s box above her.

He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. “Mother and Heath are with us, Honey. So is Doc Merar. We need to get them settled upstairs.” Releasing her slightly, and placing a gloved finger over her lips to silence the questions threatening to bubble over, he added, “Please save your questions for a little while, and I promise I’ll answer them all. Can you and Silas,” he asked, nodding to the diminutive, white-coated gentleman standing just inside the doorway, “See about Mother? Jarrod and I will carry Heath.”

Her blue eyes searched his face, then looked beyond him to see Jarrod and the doctor alighting from the coach. She turned back to him and echoed softly, “Carry him?”

Nick nodded, swallowing his worries for the moment, and smiled at her, “Yes, Honey. You concentrate on taking care of Mother, though. She’s exhausted. Can you do that for me?”

Worried, but willing, she leaned up on tiptoe and kissed his unshaven cheek. He touched her face with his glove, and turned to give his Mother a hand down. Then, leaving the tired, tiny lady in good hands, he moved to assist Jarrod and Ogden, as they carefully handed down the unconscious Heath.

“Easy, Nick,” the doctor admonished, as Nick tried to take on too much of the weight himself.

Quickly, Jarrod jumped down to help him, taking his place on Heath’s right, while Nick supported the left side.

They carried him inside and up the stairs.

“Nick,” Doc Merar directed from below them. “Can you two carry him to the tub first?” Trailing them down the hall after Jarrod’s quick nod, the doctor removed a pair of blunt-end scissors from his bag as he walked. Entering the water closet behind them, he said, “Just get him undressed and in the tub. I’ll cut off these bandages, and we can rinse him with a lot of lukewarm water. It will give me a better look at what we’re dealing with and, hopefully, it will help reduce his fever.”

Half-way through the process, Jarrod asked, “What about this knife wound? It’s getting wet.”

Doc Merar shook his head, “It’ll be okay. We’ll clean it up again when we get him out of here.” He held Heath’s wrist in his hand, taking his pulse while Nick held Heath in a semi-sitting position in the tub, and Jarrod poured water over him.

They all grimaced at the amount of dirt and blood that ran down the drain as they worked over him. And, all three were more than a little disturbed that the blue eyes never opened throughout the process.

Together, they got him dry. Then, looking at each other and, knowing Heath’s modesty well, they slipped his long legs into soft, white sleeping pants before wrapping him in a blanket, and carrying him to his bedroom just down the hall.

When they entered the room, carefully maneuvering through the doorway, none of them were surprised to see Audra, Victoria, and Silas already waiting on them. Silas had turned back the bed and had brought two porcelain pans of water, one hot and steaming, the other cool and containing chunks of chopped ice.

As Nick and Jarrod lay Heath down, Doctor Merar immediately moved around to the other side of the bed to check the knife wound and to listen with his stethoscope. Jarrod moved toward Victoria, who was sitting on the closest side of the bed and running her fingers through Heath’s hair. His dark blond hair was still damp from Nick’s recent attempts to rub it dry with a towel without aggravating the gashes in his scalp. Jarrod placed one hand on Victoria’s shoulder before sitting down beside her.

Meanwhile, Nick moved Audra from her place at the foot of the bed, where she stood clinging to the brass railings, to a more comfortable chair on the opposite side of the bed from where his mother and Jarrod were sitting. He took her hands in his and knelt down in front of her.

“Audra, he’s been unconscious for hours, and he has a high fever from a knife wound to his shoulder. He has received several blows to his head in the last few days, and he’s been generally roughed up some. Did Mother tell you about the stage being attacked?”

Her big blue eyes never left Nick’s face as he talked to her softly, occasionally reaching up with one hand to wipe a stray tear from her face. At his question, she nodded and said, “Yes, she told me they were attacked in the mountains, but that Heath was already hurt in a fall from a horse.”

She attempted a smile and added, “I take it that he was hurt worse than you and Jarrod were ready to tease him about.”

Nick grinned up at her, his mind going back to the banter between them after receiving the telegram, the banter that had centered on Heath needing a pillow on the stage ride home.

He pushed back a stray lock of her hair from her face, and said, “Yeah, he was, but thank you for reminding me about that. I had forgotten.”

Meanwhile, Victoria glanced around the room and took in the sight of her weary sons and worried daughter. Suddenly, she reached out for Jarrod and said, “Jarrod, please find Ogden and bring him up here. I want him to hear whatever Howard has to tell us.”

Nodding, Jarrod stood and walked quickly from the room. He found the old man standing uncertainly at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the banister, looking up at him. Jarrod motioned to him with one hand as he descended, “Mr. Haverty, come upstairs, please. The doctor is checking Heath now, and we would like for you to join us.”

A smile broke out on the old man’s face, as he quickly negotiated the gold-carpeted stairway, despite his pronounced limp. As they entered the room, the doctor was just standing up from his seat on the bed and motioning them all back into the hallway. Nick moved to Victoria’s side and assisted her to a red-cushioned chair just down the hall, and everyone, except Silas, who stayed with Heath, converged around her.

Nick asked impatiently, “Well, Doc?”

Chapter 39

“I’m going to clean the open wounds again, and leave them uncovered for a while. But, I’m pleased that the area where the knife was looks a little better. The gashes on his head are healing just fine, though there is still more swelling than I would like. His fever has come down some, so I feel somewhat relieved about possible infection. We’ll have to keep a close eye on him for another day or so to make sure it doesn’t climb any higher. . . .”

“But?” Nick asked, hearing the concern still weighing down the physician’s words.

Howard glanced at Nick and saw the worry and protectiveness that drove the man’s impatience. He reached out and grasped Nick’s shoulder, remembering that this brother had not been with them when Victoria and Jarrod had talked to him inside the coach during the last few hours of the trip.

“Nick, my biggest worries for him right now are the loss of blood with no fluids to replenish it and the very serious head injury. He still has swelling, and we don’t know if it is a result of Monday’s fall or the beating he took after that, or both. But, your mother has described his symptoms after Monday, and he has had long periods of unconsciousness since then, not to mention the memory loss. . . .”

He trailed off, as Audra gasped, “Memory loss?”

Jarrod reached for her hand and tucked it around his arm, as he leaned in to whisper into her ear, “It’s going to be okay, Sweetheart. Just hold on tight, and we’ll explain it all to you.”

She moved close to him and nodded, her eyes returning to Doctor Merar’s face.

“I’m sorry, Audra,” the doctor apologized, “I forgot you probably didn’t know about that.”

Then, looking around at everyone’s faces, he continued, “During the times when he has been conscious lately, from what everyone has told me, it seems that he has been delirious, still fighting recent events. Am I right?”

Victoria nodded thoughtfully from her chair and added, “Yes, he’s fighting recent events tangled up with distant past.”

Howard nodded as well. “But, the important aspect is that he has not been lucid that we know of since shortly after the stage was attacked. Correct?”

“Yes,” she replied, her worry weighing down the single syllable heavily. Jarrod looked down at her and squeezed her arm in reassurance.

“Possibly, whatever he went through with the knife has pushed him to the limits of exhaustion, especially since he had already been battling the mem-. . . . . ah, . . . confusion and illness from the first injury.” The doctor seemed to almost be thinking out loud.

Victoria added, “Every time he comes around, he still seems locked in some fight for survival, Howard.”

“That natural tendency to fight is incredibly ingrained in him. It’s that unbeatable Barkley spirit,” the doctor smiled. “But, perhaps it’s working against him right now, keeping him in turmoil. Like I mentioned before, let’s just keep a close eye on his wounds, cleaning them often and watching for signs of infection, get his fever down, and keep liquids in him.”

He paused and added, “Hopefully, given a little more time, his body will take care of the rest. But, like I mentioned to Victoria and Jarrod on the stage, when he is well enough to ask questions, you’re all going to have to decide just what and how much you’re going to tell him. I think the best course of action is to let him discover the memories on his own. But, I know . . . .”

Nick had started shaking his head and now cut into the conversation, “No, Doc! I won’t be part of anything less than telling Heath the truth about everything. It’s the only way he’ll trust us, and damn it all. . . .” He noted the sharp look from his mother, before adding fiercely, “He deserves nothing less than that from us, from all of us.”

Howard Merar watched their faces and listened to Nick’s words. Quietly, he said, “I think it will be less upsetting for Heath, if you let him approach it all in the way that is most comfortable for him, not for you to do what you think is best for you, Nick.”

Nick stared at him, trying unsuccessfully to rein in his temper at what the doctor was suggesting. He stepped forward and put his finger in the doctor’s face. “He’s my brother, and I will not let you or anyone else convince me that hiding anything from him is in his best interests! And, I don’t much like the suggestion that you think I’d do anything, except put him first, Doc!”

Jarrod stepped in and did his best to push Nick backwards against the closest wall, trying to get him to look at him. “Nick! No one is saying you aren’t thinking of Heath.” As Nick pushed back, Jarrod ground out at him through clenched teeth, “Nick! Calm down!”

Just as Victoria stood and tried to step forward to deal with her outraged son, they all heard the sound of breaking glass and Silas hollering from down the hall.

Turning and running in that direction, the first to reach the open door was Nick, followed closely by a hobbling Victoria.

Chapter 40

His head hammered back at him as he fought his way to the surface of the murky darkness. He could feel the dampness of the rain and the cold sweat that had him in its grip, trying to overpower him, trying to push him back onto the slippery road.

Where was she? He had to find her, had to get her away from that man, had to send her safely home to her family.

His eyes battled the blackness, struggling to open, the rain running down his bare chest. He groaned and tried to push the hand away that touched him, tried to push himself up on one elbow, away from the pain of his left shoulder. His eyes opened to too much light, too many confusing images.

Unable to make sense of any of it, he pushed up from the road with a groan and struggled to his feet.

Where was she?

“Mr. Heath, you just lie back, now,” Silas said, as he stopped wiping down the fevered chest and tried to talk to the groggy young man, tried unsuccessfully to keep him from rising from the bed.

Then, he hollered, “Mr. Heath!” as the blond lurched unsteadily toward the dresser. He saw Heath searching for something, then grabbing one of the bottles from the doctor’s bag, and reaching out to bash the end of it against an oaken drawer.

Despite the dark-haired man that thundered toward him, the only things he focused on when he turned were her grey, worried eyes, as she stood frozen in the doorway. Heath didn’t hear his own gasp of pain as he switched the jagged glass of the bottle to his left hand, reached out for her arm with his right, and pulled her behind him.

He found the hazel eyes of the man who was trying to advance on him, and he snarled, “Get away from her, Mason. Stay back!”

Nick watched as his normally calm, quiet brother glared at him in uncharacteristic rage, the pain in his blue eyes and the fever spiking through him returning Heath to a nightmare recently lived.

“Heath. It’s okay, now,” Nick tried to talk to him, and he held up his hands to show he had no weapon, that he intended no harm to either of them.

“Stay back, Mason! I won’t let you hit her again.” Heath growled, brandishing the bottle toward the threat, despite the pain each movement sent searing through his shoulder. He held his right arm behind him, protecting the small woman by keeping his body between hers and the cruelty of the man before him.

Suddenly, he felt her hand on his back, rubbing it in broad circles, and he heard her voice cutting through the haze that surrounded him. “Heath, it’s okay, Sweetheart. Put the weapon down, Heath. It’s alright.”

Not daring to take his eyes off of the man in front of him, Heath felt her lay her face against his bare back and rub her hand up and down his right arm. Her voice was soothing, and he was confused as to the reason, but he listened, “Heath, Honey, we’re home now. Please trust me, Heath. You don’t have to keep defending me. Put it down. You already got me away from that awful man. It’s over. You can rest now, Heath.”

She felt him falter, the uncertainty and the pain taking their toll, as he sagged toward the wall to his right. He groaned when he made contact with the wall, and he staggered down to one knee. She knelt beside him and continued to talk to him.

Over her shoulder, she saw Nick and Jarrod moving in closer, but she shook her head at them, telling them to give her another moment. He had not yet let go of the broken bottle, and she was afraid that, if he felt she was being threatened, he would come out fighting again. She could hear his labored breathing, could feel the effort he was expending just to remain upright.

Slowly, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around his, and then she took the jagged bottle from his weakening grasp, from where his left arm hung down motionlessly by his side.

His eyes searched for hers, looking sideways at her, the puzzlement and pain clearly etched in their blue depths. “Mrs. Barkley? Where. . . ?” he asked. It was the first sign of complete awareness she had seen flickering in his eyes since that moment by the streambed yesterday.

But, this time, he hadn’t called her ‘Mother.’

She carefully handed the bottle back behind her and waited as someone removed it from her hand, but she kept her eyes locked on Heath’s. She reached up to caress his bruised face and said, “You’re home, Sweetheart. This is your room. We’re at the ranch.”

“No!” he said, “No, I don’t . . . I don’t understand!”

His eyes never left her face, but she felt him try to regain his feet, as he shook his head and, then, grimaced at the motion.

“Heath,” she pleaded, “Let’s just get you in bed. We can talk later. You’ve been very sick with a fever, and I know you’re hurting.”

Since she couldn’t stop him, she tried to help him stand, and she could feel Nick moving in to assist from the other side. Immediately, however, Heath returned to a defensive posture. He struggled to his feet, pushed her behind him again, and glared at the dark-headed rancher.

“Back off!” he snarled.

Nick ignored the words and kept coming, glancing over at Jarrod behind him to see if he was going to help him. He said, “Heath, it’s me. It’s Nick. Come on, Little Brother, let me help you . . . “

But, with a growl of pain and anger, Heath pulled back his right arm and punched Nick with an iron fist, squarely in the gut. He tried to move Victoria toward the only exit, but he again staggered toward the wall and remained there, holding her behind him and gasping for air. His head was pounding, and he could not force his shaky legs to go any further. He watched Nick warily out of the corner of eyes darkened with delirium and fever.

Jarrod moved in to pull Nick back, his brother’s muscular form doubled over from the force of the totally unexpected blow.

Quickly, Victoria tried to reassure the blond. She murmured, “Heath, it’s okay. Just come over here and sit down. Let me help you. We’ll take it slow.”

His glazed eyes found hers, and she saw his right hand come up to squeeze his temples between his fingers and thumb. Despite her attempts to support him under his good arm, he slid slowly down the wall toward the floor.

“Mrs. Barkley, . . . “ was all he could manage to gasp out, between his raspy attempts to suck in air.

Suddenly, she was joined by the white-haired old man. The two of them knelt beside Heath on the floor.

“Heath,” he spoke up quietly, “Heath, it’s Ogden. Help us get you up, Boy. You’ve been hurt, and you need to return to the bed.”

Slowly, Heath responded, “Og-den?”

“Right beside you, Boy. Here, drink this, first.” He held out a cup of water to Heath’s lips. Heath brought his hand down and tried to help Ogden steady it. He drank half of the water before he pushed it away.

“Alright,” Ogden said, “C’mon. Try to get up, Boy.”

Together, they helped him to his feet and supported his slow steps toward the bed. As soon as his head approached the pillow, he moaned once and fell back, unconscious again.

As one, it seemed that everyone in the room let out a collective breath, sighing in relief that it was over, at least for now.

“Mother!” Audra cried, moving to where Victoria stood with her arm now entwined with Nick’s, as she reached out to check on him. “Mother, are you alright?”

“Yes, Sweetheart, I’m fine. Nick, how about you?”

“Fine, Mother. . . . ‘Should know better than. . . to take my eyes off that boy. . . by now,” he huffed.

Trying to find the humor in the situation, and willing to let Nick bear the brunt of it, Jarrod quipped, “I could say something about it being healthy for you to have all the hot air knocked out of you at least once a day, Brother Nick, but I won’t.”

“Shut-up, Jarrod. . . . You’re not amusing.” Nick growled as he caught his breath.

“Maybe you two should stick to arm wrestling,” Ogden added, his blue eyes glinting with a suppressed laugh.

Smiling slightly at them, Victoria moved gingerly back over to sit on the edge of the bed. She picked up Heath’s hand and held it tightly in her grasp, as she watched the doctor check his patient all over again.

“Howard?”

The kindly man shook his head and said with concerned eyes, “If I had not been here, I would not have believed you if you had described it to me. Here, I’ve been worried about him being too weak from blood loss to fight off infection, and he’s over there fighting off Nick Barkley with his fists!”

Jarrod spoke up, “What do we do, Doc? Too much of that can’t be good for him, but he just keeps fighting us.”

“Short of restraining him, I don’t see what else we can do, Jarrod. It’s that same fight that’s kept him alive through this whole ordeal, and between the fever, the pain, and the confusion caused by the head injuries, he’s just not giving up his struggle easily.”

“You’re not going to restrain him, Doc,” Nick snapped. “Not that. He’s been through too much.”

Howard looked at Victoria, then took in Ogden with his gaze, “Well then, I suggest you two get some rest while he’s out. It seems that everyone else just agitates him right now. Both of you had better be right here waiting to keep him calm when he wakes up again, or we won’t have any choice.”

Ogden nodded, while Victoria said, “I’m not leaving him, Howard.” Then, she added, “Jarrod, will you move that chair over to this side of the bed? At least, that way, I’ll be between him and the door in case he takes it into his head that he’s capable of leaving.”

She turned and looked deeply into Nick’s eyes, seeing the hurt and rejection he was trying to hide from her. She reached out her hand to him, and he walked over to her reluctantly. She patted the edge of the bed until he sank down beside her.

She released Heath’s hand and took Nick’s instead. Then, she leaned against him and said wearily, but leaving no doubt that she was up to her role as the lady of the house once again, “Silas, Audra, please get us all something to eat. Howard and I’ll eat up here, and everyone else can eat downstairs. Jarrod, will you show Ogden to a guest room?”

She gazed at the tired, old man, saying with a slight smile, “Ogden, please go with Jarrod, rest, eat something, and then come back, if you don’t mind, to check on Heath. He’ll need you in a little while.”

Understanding that she wanted to talk to Nick for a moment, the doctor busied himself checking the bandages again from the other side of the bed.

When the door was closed behind the others, Victoria sat up straight and looked at Nick. “I know this is especially hard on you, Nick. Twice now, Heath has confused you with one of those men that attacked us. I understand what he means to you, how it must hurt to have him lash out at you like this.” She searched his hazel eyes, knowing her potentially explosive son needed nothing more than to impatiently break away from her and boldly pace the floor.

When he didn’t answer her, only kept his eyes glued on his brother’s face behind her, She placed both hands on his upper arms and shook him, “Nick!”

He turned his eyes to hers and the pain she saw there almost choked the words off in her throat, “Oh, Nick!” She reached up with one hand and touched the side of his face. “Nick, he doesn’t know it’s you. Those men killed the stage driver, and they almost killed both of us. The only reason they didn’t was because of your brother’s courage and determination to fight them no matter the cost to himself.”

She dropped her eyes, and took a deep breath, saying softly, “Nick, Ogden shot them and kept them from shooting me, but your brother. . . . Whatever they did to him after they shot him from the horse we shared,” she swallowed hard, and she shook her head. A small sob escaped from her lips and Nick folded her into his arms.

He closed his eyes and touched her silver hair at the back of her neck, saying, “Sh-h-h, Mother. It’s okay.”

He could feel her shaking in his arms, and he hugged her closer. Then, he heard her say, “Nick, they would have caught me long before I reached the safety of Ebbet’s Pass, if he hadn’t. . . . I don’t know what they did to him, but I am convinced that he’s still fighting now because he fought so hard then, to keep protecting me from them, to make sure I escaped, even after I rode away.”

She paused, and she looked up at him. She could see that he didn’t understand what she meant.

She tried again, “That man was pure evil, Nick. He would have enjoyed hurting your brother, hurting me. He would have taken pleasure in hurting anyone. I know, whatever happened, Heath let them torment him just to keep them from following me and catching up to me sooner than they did. And, I. . . “ her voice broke again. She took a ragged breath and tried to finish, “And, I just left him there. I abandoned him, and I know now that I should’ve gone back to help him!”

“No, Mother. No,” Nick said, holding her close. “If Heath sent you away, if he continued to fight them as you say he did, it was because he knew it was the only way to keep you safe. If you’d gone back, you would’ve let my little brother make that sacrifice all for nothing.”

She stilled at his words, and clung to his black leather vest, burying her face in his strong chest, letting his words soak into her soul, wanting to believe that he was right, that she had done the right thing in leaving Heath alone to face the brutality of his attackers.

Slowly, she sat up, and nodded, as he removed one glove and reached up to wipe her tears with his fingers.

“Nick,” she said softly, “He was lost somewhere in the past. He didn’t even know he was protecting me, the person he calls Mother. And, he’s still back there.”

“I know, I know. And, as much as I want him to come back here, to us, I know now that he’s not ready yet to handle any more.” Nick stopped and pulled away from her, standing and pacing the floor for a few minutes. Then, he turned to look at the physician checking his brother from the other side of the bed.

He said, “Doc, you were right. I can’t force him to remember. And, I’m not even sure he’ll be able to really hear my words, if I do try to explain any of it to him.”

Victoria nodded again and said, “He couldn’t even seem to grasp that this could be his room, Nick. He’s still back there where he was when he referred to me as Mrs. Barkley. Then, my concern for him just confused him because he couldn’t figure out why I would care so much about one of your. . . .”

She stopped, unwilling to say it again, and hurt Nick even more.

However, he spoke up and finished the thought for her, “One of my hired hands.”

She nodded, smiled at him sadly, and said, “I don’t want to destroy the trust he has in us right now, the trust we have all worked hard to rebuild in the last month, but I understand now that Howard is right. It’ll just make things worse if we give him more information, more truth, than he can handle, all at one time. I could see it in his eyes again a little while ago. He doesn’t understand why I treat him the way I do.” She looked down at Heath’s face and whispered, “It just tears me up, Nick.”

Nick walked over to her and grasped her hands, pulling her to her feet. He kissed her fingers and said, “Mother, thank you for getting him home to us. That’s the most important thing, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve been trying to tell me, right?”

She nodded, “As long as he’s alive, Nick, I have to believe the rest will fall back into place. It has to. We can’t lose him, not now, not ever.”

To be continued in "Remnants of Trust"…