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Be A Man	By : cowgirl65 Category: 1 through F > The Big Valley Views: 3052 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I in no way own The Big Valley. I make no money from writing this, just the personal satisfaction of (hopefully!) entertaining those who love the show as much as I do.

Chapter List
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“Jarrod!”
Jarrod looked up from the injunction he was preparing to file to keep the railroad from taking his neighbours’ land and walked to his door. He didn’t really feel like dealing with one of Nick’s tirades, but knew Nick would keep hollering until he arrived.
“Jarrod, get down here!” the voice yelled again and Jarrod broke into a run as he heard an edge to his brother’s voice that was seldom there.
“Nick, what in the name of...” he started as he entered the library and whirled at the sound of breaking glass to find the blond cowhand from earlier menacing him with a broken bottle. Jarrod’s heart started to pound wildly.
“Now I've had me a day,” said the blond, Heath, Jarrod remembered he’d said his name was. To Jarrod it looked like he was confronting a crouching mountain lion and wondered what had set the other man off. “A fight and dunked in a stream and near killed by a train. Now this one's gonna be peaceful, you hear?” There was another tense moment. Jarrod eased up his defensive posture first, followed by Nick and then Heath.
“So this is what it is,” Heath commented as he wandered across the room. “Well, I wondered.” He gestured at the portrait hanging above the fireplace with the broken bottle. “The old stud himself.”
Jarrod held Nick back with a firm grip on his arm. There was something about the blond that set Jarrod’s nerves on edge, something about him that made Jarrod want to get down on his knees and bare his throat in submission. But he held his ground as Heath continued.
“Boy howdy, don't he look proper. You know, I bet they buried him in those clothes, with his buttons all shined and his hair all spit and slickered, and a rose in his teeth, and the honeybees buzzin'.” Heath’s voice practically dripped with scorn and Jarrod wondered where he’d heard it before.
Nick lunged for him again. “Oh, now that's all...”
Jarrod held onto his volatile brother again.
Heath tossed the bottle on the ground as he paced back across the room. “I'll bet a band played, and there was singin' and wailin' and ever so good a time, and some parson readin’.” He turned back and looked coldly at the two brothers. “They buried my mama. But it wasn't in refinement, and no thousand people weeped over her grave. In a potter's field, like she was nothin', human or flesh.”
Jarrod saw the resentment in the younger man’s eyes. His mama probably deserved those honours more than Tom Barkley did and Jarrod again had the uneasy sensation he and Heath had some sort of connection.
Heath continued with his smouldering rage. “The night I was born, she was alone, in a tent, in a rotten rathole of a mining camp up the Stanislaus.” Jarrod kept his hands on his hips as he realized where the tale was going. “And the rain beat down and turned the straw to mud. Do you know what she was? She was warm, and gentle and fair, and left to her own when her husband got liquored up and drowned in some stinking creek. Until he came.” Heath’s eyes flickered back to the portrait.
Jarrod knew exactly what Heath was implying and felt the disgust rise in his gut. In spite of the guilt he still felt over his father’s death, he wished he wasn’t of Tom Barkley’s seed. “How long ago was this?
“Twenty-four years.”
“Where?” the lawyer asked
Heath stood his ground. “In a mining camp.”
“You told us that,” Nick said abruptly from his position on the other side of the room.
Twenty-four years. Jarrod remembered a time about that long ago when his father had been gone for a long while. “What mining camp?”
“Strawberry,” was the succinct reply.
Jarrod didn’t move as Nick strode forward. “Come on. You know there was a lot of men in those camps. You know the kind of women…”
“Nick!” Jarrod snapped. It wasn’t the kind of women; it was the kind of man their father had been.
“There was only one of my mother!” Heath replied hotly.
“Just the simple, sweet, innocent little...” Nick scoffed and Jarrod broke in again. He walked up to confront Heath.
“What my brother is clumsily trying to determine,” he said as though cross-examining a witness, “is when you came to hear.”
In spite of his battered face, Heath stood strong and Jarrod could tell the other man still knew he was in control. “A month ago.”
Nick turned his back. “Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.”
Jarrod continued his questioning. “What happened a month ago?”
“My mother died.”
“Confessions from a deathbed,” Nick commented derisively.
Jarrod finally snapped, “Nick, that'll be enough!” He didn’t know if his brother knew about their father’s straying outside his marriage but was fed up with Nick’s attitude. He turned back to Heath. “Well?” He knew it was possible, even probable, but Heath still had to prove his claim.
Heath picked up his glass of whiskey and turned away from them. “I'd been up on the Klamath. They called for me. Said she was sick, was dyin'. She never talked about it, who my father was, not in all those years.” Suddenly, Jarrod knew where he’d heard that soft drawl before. The house in San Francisco and the voice telling him he had to behave. His stomach clenched in fear as he wondered if it was only going to be his father’s secrets exposed that night.
“There was something she wanted me to know,” Heath continued, “something she couldn't take to her grave. There was a Bible in a box, and she told me to get it. She said, ‘Turn to the back, to the last page.’ I started to, and this fell out.” Heath took a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and Jarrod recognized it as a newspaper clipping. “I picked it up, I read it. And I looked at her… and she was gone.” He turned and held out the paper towards Jarrod. Jarrod gathered his courage and moved to take it. He instantly recognized the headline and the copy of the portrait that hung on the wall. He passed it to Nick.
“This it?” the rancher asked. “All of it? Just one piece of paper?”
“He was my father,” Heath said defiantly.
Nick folded up the paper and tucked it back into Heath’s pocket. “All right, boy…”
“You don't believe me,” Heath accused. “You're not dumpin' me the way he dumped her.”
“Keep your voice down!” Nick shouted and Jarrod had to smile a bit at the incongruity of the statement and the volume with which it was uttered.
Jarrod knew he was taking a great personal risk, denying the claim of one who knew too many of his secrets, but he had to try and protect his family. “You put together a touching story,” the attorney said. “Not convincing, but touching.” He met the blue eyes of the man who had the ability to hold such power over him as he pulled a stack of bills from his pocket. “However, considering whom it might hurt, even though it is a lie, I'm willing to pay. Three hundred, four hundred, what'll you take?” He made sure to take on the demeanour of a man who couldn’t be touched.
Heath met his gaze coolly. “What I'm entitled to. A name, a heritage, a part of it all. What's mine.”
Nick snatchedthe money out of Jarrod’s hand. “All right, boy. Now you listen to me.” He stuffed the money in Heath's shirt pocket. “I want you out of this house, off this place and out of this valley. And know this. If I ever lay eyes on you again, I'm gonna finish what I started tonight.”
Heath stared at Nick. Without breaking eye contact, he took the money out of his pocket and put it into his whiskey glass. Setting the glass on the table, he turned and gave Jarrod a brief glance before walking to the door. As he left, he gave the two men a mocking wave and the flash of a grin before he strode across the parlour and out the front door.
“Can you believe that?” Nick snarled as the door shut behind him. “Of all the nerve…”
“I need to go finish that injunction,” Jarrod said bluntly. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.” Jarrod left before Nick could protest and retreated to his room. He closed the door behind him and made his way to the cabinet where he kept his favourite scotch. With shaky hands, he poured himself a full glass and downed it in one swallow. Not withstanding the fact that he was their father’s illegitimate son and all the troubles that revelation could bring, Heath was one of the men he’d let use and dominate him back in San Francisco.
Jarrod poured himself another measure of scotch. What the devil was he going to do? Heath had turned down the money, but Jarrod didn’t know the other man’s motivations. Was he really not interested in a payoff? Was he holding out for more? Or was he just so enraged at their father that he wanted to bring down the family at whatever the cost? Jarrod didn’t really think the last was the case, though. In their times together, he’d felt a compassion in Heath, even though he hadn’t ever seen his face. Jarrod considered himself a shrewd judge of people and didn’t think he was wrong this time. But it bothered him just the same and he stared at the words on the document in front of him without really seeing them.
He was jolted from his reverie by another of Nick’s shouts. Wondering what it could be that time, he went downstairs to find his brother buckling on his gunbelt.
“Fire at Swenson’s,” the rancher said curtly. “I’m heading off to help.”
Jarrod cringed inwardly. The violence had already started. “Saddle my horse,” he told Nick, “I’ll be right there.”

*

The scene was chaos when the brothers arrived. Most of the buildings had already burned to the ground and men with buckets were trying to extinguish the last of the flames. Jarrod saw Sig Swenson hurl his bucket in anger as the chimney of the house crumbled. He saw Heath ride up with Audra and wondered briefly at her torn dress. But he dismissed his concerns about his sister with the unshakable knowledge that Heath would never hurt an innocent. He noticed their mother drive up in a buggy before he turned his attention to their friend and neighbour.
”They came,” Swenson said as Nick grabbed his arm and Jarrod walked over slowly after staring at the devastation, “just came. With guns and torches, howling out like wolves. And I just stood there, aside, and watched them do it.” He hung his head in despair.
“Well, not my place.” Frank Sample strode up, determination in every step. “And hanged I’ll be after paying for what I own.” He took something out of his pocket and waved it in front of Jarrod. “I have a paper here that says I’ll have to do just that.” He walked over to Nick, then to the sheriff who had arrived with Heath and Audra. “By 8 o’clock in the morning, or have my place took out from under me. Well, I ain’t, you hear?” There was a thick silence, them Sample held the paper aloft. “I ain’t! Who stands with me?”
In the shadows, Heath remained mounted.
Sheriff Lyman looked sternly at Nick who had moved to stand beside Sample. “No one stands with you, Frank. I’m sorry, but legally after tomorrow the land’s no longer yours.”
Sample lowered his hand slowly. “Nick,” he said, almost desperately and then walked to Jarrod. “Jarrod. Listen. Two years ago, your daddy and mine fought and died for this, cause your daddy said it was right to fight.”
“And what did it gain you?” Sheriff Lyman shouted. “Any one of you?” He turned to Sample. “Your father…” and then to Jarrod, “and yours. Ten others, dead. Three years of false hope. I bow to no man in my regard for Tom Barkley, but he was only a man. He couldn’t fight a giant and win! Any more than can you!” He addressed Sample again. “Or you. Or any man.” He looked over the gathered crowd. “So worship him, and pray for him, but follow him… you follow a dead man to his grave.”
Sample looked from Nick to Jarrod. “That true? What he says? Your daddy gave us nothing? No way to fight?” The farmer bowed his head and walked away, defeated. “Never did.”
Everyone’s attention was on Frank Sample, who ripped the ultimatum from the railroad and threw it to the ground in despair. Everyone watched as Nick took a long look around, catching each of them in his piercing gaze, with a longer look at his brother before he walked over and stood beside Sample, arms crossed defiantly. Swenson went to stand on his neighbour’s other side.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jarrod saw Heath turn his horse’s head and leave and suddenly felt the weight of devastation crush him.
He had failed. In spite of his belief and faith in the law, they were back to where they’d been when his father was gunned down.
Maybe if he had taken it to the courts the first time around, like his father wanted, instead of focusing on his client at the time… Jarrod felt the guilt settle heavier on his soul. If he had dropped that case to focus on the railroad issue, an innocent man would have likely hung, leaving his wife and small daughter alone. And if he had dropped it, his father might still be alive and none of this might be happening.
He looked up and met the eyes of his mother, eyes that had never held condemnation, only love, support and pride and wondered what her expression would show if she truly knew him.
Tom Barkley’s way had prevailed. It was fight or nothing and Jarrod gave up his struggle as he walked over to stand beside his brother and the rest of the valley farmers who had come to fight the fire moved in behind them.
“Harry, I’ve known you most of my life,” Jarrod said, his posture and expression implacable, “and respected you. Enough to be honest.”
“Any man who comes to try to take that farm, he’s going to be killed,” Nick finished for his brother.
The sheriff looked from one unyielding face to another and responded in kind. “I’m sorry to hear that, because I’m going to be with them.” He turned, mounted his horse and rode away, knowing nothing more could be said.
Jarrod listened to Nick and Frank Sample start to make plans and then walked over to his own horse.
“Jarrod!” Nick called after him and grabbed him by the arm. “Where the devil are you going?”
Jarrod tore his arm away and wondered if his brother could understand. “I need to think, Nick,” he said and was relieved to see some sort of understanding in the hazel eyes.
Nick nodded. “See you back at the house.” Jarrod clapped his brother on the back in gratitude before mounting his horse and riding off into the darkness.
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Be A Man