His Last Secret

Chapter 1

July 1881

Maggie knew things were getting worse. Jarrod couldn't play with J.J. very long on the floor anymore. He simply ran out of energy. At night, when he was asleep but she was awake, she could hear his ragged breathing. She recognized it. She knew what it meant.

He knew she knew.

They sat one evening on the porch swing, J.J. falling asleep in Jarrod's lap. "Hard to believe he's nine months old," Jarrod said. "Seems like yesterday he was born, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Maggie said. "And look how big he's getting."

"I think he'll probably turn out bigger than his Uncle Nick." Jarrod sighed a ragged sigh and kissed J.J. on the top of his head.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Maggie asked.

Jarrod had gone to see Dr. Merar that morning, but he said nothing at all about how the visit went. Maggie almost didn't want to ask, but he almost seemed to want the prodding.

"He's talked to Dr. Lumen once or twice about putting me on digitalis," Jarrod said. "We've talked about that a couple times over the last year or so."

"What do they think?"

"They think it might help me. It might prolong my life by a few months. But it has side effects."

"Does that bother you?"

"I told Dr. Merar I wouldn't take it."

That surprised Maggie. A chance to live longer, even if only a few months – she didn't think that Jarrod would turn that down. Suddenly she was almost ready to cry.

He said, "It has a certain side effect that they thought might prove to be a problem for me in particular, a side effect I just can't risk."

"What's that?"

Jarrod sighed, another noisy sigh. "A few years ago, I was up toward the town of Rockville on a case for the State land office. A dispute over land a family had been squatting on for years. Public land. I didn't really want to run them out, but I owed Ted Blair – the man who ran the land office – I owed him a big favor, so I went. Funny, when I look back on it, I should have known what was going to happen."

"What did happen?" Maggie asked.

"I got knocked off my horse in an accident – bad head injury. I wandered around out of my senses for almost an entire day, and when I finally came to – I had no memory at all of who I was, or why I was there. You can't run people off their land if you can't remember that's what you were there to do. The family I was sent to run off were the people who took me in, tried to give me a life, even gave me a name – Dakota. But I was completely, totally lost, for something like a week. Until Nick and Heath came."

"And they got you back."

"Actually, I didn't know who they were. I thought they were gunmen sent to run that family off, and by then that family was all I had in the world. I wasn't going to let these two strangers run them off."

"What happened?"

"I tried to kill them, Nick and Heath. I tried to kill my own brothers, and I'd have done it, too. The only reason I didn't was because Heath dropped his gun, and as I picked it up to kill him with it – I saw it, and I remembered it. I had given it to him for his birthday just before I left to go to Rockville. I was seconds away from shooting my own brother dead, seconds away, Maggie."

Maggie was quiet for a few moments, letting Jarrod collect himself. His last words had more tears than breathing noise in them. The memory was clearly upsetting him. Fighting her own tears, she finally asked, "What does this have to do with digitalis? Mark took it. I don't remember any side effect that would be pertinent."

"It can cause periodic total amnesia, Maggie, and the doctors are concerned I might be at a bigger risk than most for that, because of the head injury that gave me amnesia before. Maggie, I can't live with that risk, even if it means a few more months with you and J.J. Please, my darling, forgive me, I just can't live a few extra months with my memory going in and out of me. I might be dangerous, and I don't want to die not knowing who you and J.J. are."

Now the tears were flowing for both of them. Maggie put her arm around him and held him close. "I understand, Jarrod. I really do." She struggled to say what she had to say next. "And I think you've made the right decision."

He pulled away a little and looked at her. "It means I'll die sooner. It means I'll probably die within the next few months."

"I know," Maggie said and ran her hand through his black hair. "My love, I know what it means, but I understand why you won't take the digitalis. I wouldn't either, if I were in your position. I really wouldn't."

Jarrod let his head fall on her shoulder, until he gathered himself more together. "I might be in a wheelchair or bedridden in the next few weeks. I suppose we ought to think about getting a housekeeper back in."

Mrs. Reilly, their most recent housekeeper, had left a few weeks earlier because her daughter had a baby. "Not yet. We'll make do," Maggie said, wiping her tears, knowing how private Jarrod was in general about his illness. "I'll take care of you, however we have to do it."

"Oh, Maggie, I'm so sorry," Jarrod sighed. "I'd give anything not to have to put you through this."

"No, there's no need for you to think like that. I know what's going to happen. I've always known, remember? I'll be here for you. J.J. and I will be here."

Jarrod sighed wearily, and in a little while he sat up straight and kissed J.J. again. The baby had remained sound asleep through all of this. "There's one more thing," Jarrod said.

"What?" Maggie asked.

"I don't want my family to know about this. I don't want them to know that I passed up the digitalis, at least not while I'm still living."

"All right, but why?"

"Barkleys are fighters, and they'd never accept anything less. If they see this as me giving up – well, I don't want them to try to talk me out of it, and I don't want that to be their last memory of me."

Maggie thought he was making a mistake, but it was his to make. "All right," she said, taking hold of his shaking hand with her own shaking hand.

Jarrod kissed Maggie on her forehead and then kissed J.J. again. "If there were any other way for me to stay with you longer – "

"I know," Maggie said, her voice closing on the words. "I know."

XXXXXXX

When the man rode up to the herd, out of the blue, both Nick and Heath looked at him suspiciously. He was no wrangler. He didn't have the attitude for it. His attitude was pure anger, from his face down to his hands on the reins of his horse.

And he wore his sidearm low on his hip, tied down to his thigh.

And Heath knew him. "Butler," he said flatly.

Nick was surprised. He looked at Heath.

"Thomson," Butler said. "I been looking for you for quite a while."

"No reason to," Heath said. "We finished our business a long time ago."

"Not in my opinion," Butler said.

"Ride outta here," Heath said. "You're not gonna goad me into another gunfight or anything else, and you don't want to start firing that sidearm off around a herd of cattle."

"Don't plan to," Butler said. "Just wanted you to know I'd be waiting for you in town. And you can take your time. I'm not in any hurry."

Butler actually gave Nick a glare before he turned and rode away. It was a warning glare. It said, stay out of this.

"Friend of yours?" Nick asked.

"Once," Heath said.

"When?"

Heath shook his head. "I'd rather not talk about it, Nick," he said and rode away from his brother.

Nick stayed where he was and kept an eye on Butler riding in the opposite direction, toward Stockton. Gunfighters didn't often make the rounds anymore in this part of the country, but Nick remembered them well enough to know that that's who this Butler fellow was, a professional gunfighter. Maybe he was out of time and place, but here he was, and for some reason, he was after Heath.