Betrayals

A/N: Okay, now I’m borrowing from the Big Valley episode “Boots With My Father’s Name”.

Nick and Jarrod watched Heath rush into the house, shocked and saddened at Hannah’s revelation. Nick remembered back to the sheriff coming to tell him his father had been shot and killed and was glad Heath was at least going to have the chance to say goodbye, a chance he never had.

“And who you be?”

Nick turned to the diminutive woman who confronted them.

“I’m Jarrod Barkley, ma’am,” the elder brother said with his usual grace and charm. “This is my brother Nick. We’re friends of Heath’s.”

The black woman eyed them suspiciously. “Barkley? From Stockton? Tom Barkley’s get?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You know about him then?”

“Know what, ma’am?” Nick asked hesitantly, not sure if he was ready to know the truth.

“About Heath. About Miss Leah and your daddy.”

“What about them, Hannah?” Jarrod asked, putting on the compassionate face he used when questioning a sympathetic witness.

Hannah’s eyes got a far-off look. “Miss Leah, she was so young, so pretty, she could’ve had almost any man. She picked that one. She found him, in a alley back of one of the saloons. He was beaten near half to death, and robbed. Lucky he wasn’t killed; there were lots of killings those days. She took him home, made him well.”

Hannah turned a harsh expression on the two men. “He give her a child, his child, he go away and leave and he never come back. People say she bad, a woman to have a baby with no father to claim him, people say she bad.” Shaking her head, Hannah’s voice took on a pleading tone. “She a good woman, she love that man. It can’t be bad when a woman love a man like she do, can it?”

“No, Hannah, it can’t,” Jarrod assured her, exchanging a glance with Nick.

“I should get inside now, see if my boy need help.” Hannah picked up her skirts and went back into the house, saying softly, “Miss Leah, she a good woman. A good woman.”

Jarrod hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “Well, I guess that answers that.”

“What?” Nick scoffed, not wanting to believe what his heart told him was the truth. “The ravings of an old woman? Jarrod, you’re the high and mighty lawyer. That would never stand up and you know it!”

“Well, why don’t we add in the other evidence, Nick?” Jarrod retorted hotly. “That Mother and Father were having trouble around the time all this happened? That Father owned the mine in Strawberry at that same time? That Heath is the spitting image of our father at his age? Tell me, Nick, what part of all of this doesn’t add up?”

“It’s just---“ Nick shook his head, unable to continue. “I just find it hard to believe that a brother of mine grew up like this, in this god-forsaken place, needing to run off to war when he was only a boy…” Nick hung his head.

“You weren’t much older, Nick,” Jarrod reminded him gently.

“Yeah, but I was following the big brother I idolized,” the dark rancher replied. “Heath, he was just trying to get away.” Nick lifted his hat to run a hand through his hair. “Dammit, Pappy, I always wanted a little brother. And then I go and… God, Jarrod, I’ve made a royal mess of things, haven’t I?”

“No, Nick,” Jarrod told him, “you had no way of knowing Heath was our brother. You reacted to him the way you react to anyone you find attractive. And if you love him like you’ve said you do…” Jarrod gripped Nick’s arm. “It was Father who made the mess of things, not you, Nick. He knew what could happen, that he could have sired a child. If he’d only come back here and checked, you would have had that little brother and so would I. But instead, we’ve just got to play the hand we were dealt.”

Both men turned as the door slammed open.

“You!” Heath snarled, launching himself at Nick. “You knew! You knew and you didn’t say a word, you just---“

Nick tried to ward off Heath’s blows without causing the blond any further injury to his shoulder or ribs.

“You fucking bastard!”

Jarrod grabbed Heath and pulled him off of Nick. “Stop it, Heath!” he yelled. “He had no idea! Not until I told him my suspicions right before we came after you!”

Heath turned an icy glare on Jarrod. “And you didn’t tell him? You’re his brother, you had to know he was after my ass and you didn’t tell him?!” Heath’s fist sent Jarrod backward into the fence, the lawyer barely managing to keep on his feet.

“I’m sorry,” Jarrod said quietly. “You’re right, I should’ve said something.”

“Sorry don’t make it any better,” Heath snapped angrily and spun towards Nick. “Love thy brother, is that it? Well, I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re both happy.”

He stormed off in the opposite direction of town.

Jarrod put a restraining hand on Nick’s arm when the big rancher made to go after him. “Let him go, Nick. Maybe we’ll be able to talk to him once he cools down.”

Nick gazed after the disappearing blond. “Suppose you’re right, Jarrod,” he acquiesced reluctantly. “But I’m not giving him long enough to get very far.”

Both men were still waiting when Hannah came back out of the house, marks of fresh tears on her face.

“Ma’am?” Nick asked carefully. “Is Heath’s mother…?”

Hannah nodded. “Miss Leah, she with the angels now.”

“Is there an undertaker in town?” enquired Jarrod. “We’d like to help with the funeral arrangements if we may.”

“Very kind of you,” Hannah told them with a sad smile. “Very kind. But there be no undertaker, not even a priest no more. We takes care of our own.”

“Do you have a shovel?” Nick asked after a moment of thought. “My brother and I, we could start...” He wasn’t sure how to finish.

Hannah’s face brightened a little. “The shed out back. And I’s sure you find a spot in the churchyard. Miss Leah’d be right proud having Tom’s sons do for her.”

Nick turned to his brother with a tilt of his head. “C’mon, Jarrod, let’s see what we can find.”

They walked through the decaying town toward the overgrown churchyard, the lifeless streets depressing Nick’s spirits even further. A tattered sign proclaiming “Welcome to Strawberry” hung across the main street and the sign over the saloon hung askew, creaking from a single nail.

“Nice place,” he commented sarcastically.

Jarrod pushed his hat back on his forehead as he surveyed their surroundings. “Let’s just get this done, Nick, and get out of here as soon as we can.”

Neither saw the figure watching them from the shadows in front of the hotel. The lanky man stood for a minute before ducking inside.

“Martha, it’s happened. They’re here.”

The hard-faced woman didn’t stop polishing the banister. “Matt, speak plainly. For a moment, I thought you said someone was here. No one’s come by this sorry excuse for a town in months.”

“It’s the Barkleys, I swear, Martha,” Matt insisted and Martha slowly turned. “I saw them plain as day. I recognize the one, Nick, from a picture that was in the paper a few weeks ago. Got himself named president of the Stockton Cattlemen’s Association or some such. The other was probably the lawyer.”

Martha moved to where Matt was standing, pushing his hand off the back of the settee so she could dust it. “You’re seeing things, old man,” she said scornfully.

“No, Martha, it was them. Wonder what they’re doing here.”

Martha straightened up, pushing a lank strand of faded blonde hair off her face. “Maybe they found out somehow. Maybe that tramp of a sister of yours finally decided to come clean, seeing as she’s dying and all.”

“Possible,” Matt muttered, “could be possible.”

“Hey… hey, Matt.” Martha pulled at her husband’s sleeve. “Maybe it was Providence that brought the Barkleys here.”

Matt shook his head. “Now, Martha, I thought we decided to stay out of it.”

“You,” she said derisively, “you decided. Because you’re a man with the spine of a worm, I let you make that decision. But now that they’re here, no matter what the reasons, they’ve come to us.” She fixed Matt with a stern glare. “Huh. I’m not about to let a chance like this slip through my fingers.” She put down her rag and brushed off her dress. “I need to change. I think it’s time we paid a visit to your poor, ailing sister.”

*

Heath scrambled across the rocks, not really seeing where he was going.

Mama, his heart cried out, Mama, why’d you have to go and leave me? Why’d you put that on me, that my father was Tom Barkley and then just leave me? He stumbled and fell and didn’t bother to get up. Burrowing his head in his hands, Heath thought of the poverty he and his mama endured, the scorn and derision from the townsfolk who called his beloved mama a whore and he cursed the man who’d sired him.

Even though she never mentioned his name, his mother talked a lot about his father and as a small boy, it seemed to Heath his father was the greatest man who ever lived. And he’d heard Tom Barkley called a great man more than once, even in the backwoods of Strawberry. A great man who lived high in that fine mansion, while his bastard son lived in squalor.

“Why’d you keep it from me, Mama?” he moaned. “Were you afraid I’d leave you for my rich daddy? I loved you, Mama, I never would have forsaken you for all the money in the world. You could’ve told me.”

Hugging his knees to his chest, Heath thought about his father’s family. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt that gracious woman who’d cared for him and that sweet little girl.

Then his thoughts turned to his father’s other sons. His brothers. The word echoed bitterly in his mind. He’d always wanted a big brother, someone to look up to, to teach him how to hunt and fish. Someone who would stand up for him against the town bullies who were always looking for someone to pick on so they could make themselves feel more important. He’d fantasized about that older brother and now he had two, just as he’d imagined, in the forms of Jarrod and Nick Barkley. Two more men who’d betrayed him, one with his silence and the other with his actions.

“I can’t do this, Mama,” he whispered. “I can’t go on by myself and I don’t know if I can turn to them. I don’t know if they’ll even want me, their father’s bastard. Oh, Mama, what am I going to do?” But his pleas were left unanswered.