When No One Cares Enough to Look

Chapter 1

He woke up with someone having grabbed him by the hair and pulled him upright. It took a moment to focus, but then the pain and the remembered fear made his vision clear up. He saw the man leering at him. He had no idea who this man was.

The man said, "Wake up, Barkley. Time to start talking."

"About what?" he mumbled. The man seemed to be coming out of deep water. He didn't understand.

"You know what I want to know," the man growled like an animal. "Where do you have her stashed?"

He couldn't catch his breath right away. The man yanked him by the hair again. "Who?" he asked.

"My wife!" the man yelled into his face.

He squeezed his eyes closed, panting, unable to breathe. "I don't know who you mean. Who's your wife?"

The man gave him a hard slap across the face. Oddly, it hurt his left eye more than anything, and then he realized he couldn't see out of that eye. It was already injured and swollen. He didn't remember it being injured. He didn't remember anything.

And then he realized his shirt was gone, and his back and chest burned, and his wrists were tied with his arms pulled up over his head. His shoulders hurt like crazy, and the rope was burning his wrists something fierce.

"I don't know what you want," he barely got out, and everything began to hurt.

The man hit him hard, this time with a fist, against his mouth and nose. Blood began to ooze, and it wasn't the first time, he remembered that. He began to remember a lot of things.

When he remembered, he began to black out. The man hit him again, jolting him awake, but then he began to fade again. He didn't want to be awake. He didn't want to remember. The world began to blessedly go black.

"NO!" he yelled himself awake, and immediately felt hands holding him down on the hard ground. He was completely panicked, and he didn't know why. He didn't know where he was or how he got here. He wanted to get up and run away, but the hands held him down.

"Easy, Pappy," a voice said calmly, quietly.

Jarrod woke up, opening his eyes, seeing his brother in the soft morning light. Nick relaxed his grip once Jarrod began to make sense of his surroundings. They were camped. He was asleep on the ground with his head and upper body resting in the underside of his saddle. Heath was tending coffee and breakfast at the fire. Jarrod could smell it.

Jarrod groaned. "Oh, God, what a dream. I was tied up, I was beaten up – I'd been bullwhipped on my back and my chest and I swear, my eye was swollen shut and I couldn't see anything except this stranger tormenting me about his wife, and I didn't know what he was talking about."

Nick sighed. "Jarrod, it wasn't a dream."

Startled, Jarrod looked at him – and realized he couldn't see him very well. Only his right eye would open. And then his chest and back began to hurt like fire and he tried to sit up.

Nick supported him as best he could without touching his back. Jarrod's shirt had dried against the welts on his back and his chest – Nick tried to keep him from peeling the shirt away.

"Take it easy, Pappy, don't pull on your shirt or you'll start bleeding again."

Jarrod began to remember. Nick was right – it wasn't a dream. His brothers had rescued him from a man who had been holding him captive and torturing him, wanting information about his wife when Jarrod had no idea what he was talking about. Jarrod could see now that Nick's face was marred up pretty good, and by the campfire Heath looked pretty bruised up himself. Jarrod couldn't remember being rescued, only tortured. He moaned, tried to lie back. Nick eased him into the saddle, trying not to hurt his back, but as soon as he was down, Jarrod tried to turn and rest his body against some part of it that didn't hurt. His left side worked best.

"What happened?" he asked. His mouth hurt and his tongue was getting in the way of his words.

"You've been torn up pretty bad," Nick said. "Heath and I found you and got you out, but we had to kill the guy who took you, and we don't know who he was."

"I don't know either," Jarrod said. "He wanted to know where I had his wife, but I don't know who she is and I don't have anybody's wife anywhere."

Heath brought a cup of coffee over. "Come on, Jarrod, you haven't eaten in days and you need to get something into you, even if it's just some coffee and bread."

Nick lifted him to sitting again, and Heath held the cup of coffee to Jarrod's mouth. He took a sip. It was hot and he grimaced.

"Everything's a bundle of – craziness," Jarrod said, pushing the coffee away as he struggled to be more upright. "I don't remember being taken. I was just there, and everything there is just memories coming in and out of me."

"You were out cold when we found you," Heath said. "Up until now, you've barely been awake. Nick and I have been taking turns holding you in the saddle."

"Where are we? How far are we from home?" Jarrod asked, struggling to get it out. His mouth and his tongue hurt and felt thick.

"We'll be to Stockton in a couple hours," Nick said. "It was near dark when we found you last night, so we didn't get very far after we got you out. You seemed okay enough for us to stop, so we played it safe and camped for the night. We're taking you to Doc Merar first today."

"No, take me home," Jarrod said.

"No," Nick said, "it's the doc's and talking to the sheriff first for you. The left side of your face is like raw beef, your chest and your back and arms have been bullwhipped, and your wrists are rope burned. Lucky you still have all your teeth, but you still got a lot of parts to fix up."

"No wonder I hurt all over," Jarrod moaned and lay back on his left side again.

"I'm gonna get you a little bread, Jarrod," Heath said. "You gotta eat it."

"No," Jarrod shook his head. "I'll eat later. Put me in a saddle and I won't keep much down if I eat."

"We'll just keep you sipping water, then," Nick said. "At least you've been able to do that and keep it down even if you aren't very awake in the saddle."

Jarrod opened his eye and looked at his brothers again. He reached a hand for whatever it would land on. It found Heath's hand, and Heath held on tight to him. "Thanks for coming to get me. I see it wasn't too easy to pull off."

Nick and Heath looked at each other. "Whoever that guy was, he was madder than hell at you," Nick said, "and he took it out on us as best he could. But we only had a minute with him. He had you for nearly a week."

Jarrod flew upright. "A week?!"

Nick held onto him by the shoulders. "Yeah, Pappy, a week. Took us that long to find you. I'm sorry."

"How did you find me?" Jarrod asked.

"We'd been looking for three or four days," Heath said. "Then your horse came home with a loose shoe. We back tracked him."

Jarrod lay back down again, closing his eyes. He began to realize his beard was heavy and his clothes were filthy, and he smelled as filthy as he was. Everything that was part of him seemed to be burning up. He said, "I can't even remember a week going by."

"Maybe that's a good thing," Heath said quietly.

XXXXXX

Shortly before ten they got him into town, in the saddle in front of Nick and passed out again. People immediately starting staring, talking, watching as Nick eased him down into Heath's waiting arms. The movement seemed to make him wake up a bit, and he got his legs under him. Nick tethered the horses as Heath helped Jarrod into the doctor's office.

Dr. Merar immediately directed them to the examination room. They got him sitting on the table, where the doctor began to peal the shirt off of him. Jarrod groaned and cried out as it came off, sticking to the welts.

"Does any of this go below the waist?" the doctor asked.

"No," Heath said as Nick came in. "Just upper body."

"Let's tend that first, then, and I'll double check later about everything else when we get him out of the rest of these filthy clothes. We're gonna have to burn them. Jarrod? Can you hear me?"

"Yes," Jarrod said, thickly through his damaged mouth.

"I want you to stay upright while I tend your back, then we'll lie you flat while I see to your arms and chest and face."

"All right," Jarrod said.

Heath held his brother upright and Dr. Merar went for his supplies, saying quietly to Nick, "What in the devil happened to him?"

Nick shook his head. "Tortured, for almost a week."

Dr. Merar closed his eyes for a moment, gathering himself to treat the injuries a week of torture had inflicted, his anger growing at whoever had done this. "I can already see infection has set in."

"I thought he was feeling warm," Nick said. "You think we'll be able to take him home today?"

Dr. Merar shook his head. "You'd better leave him with me, at least overnight. I'd go send somebody for your mother and sister if I were you."

Nick nodded and went out. He went toward the sheriff's office as fast as he could, but he met the sheriff and his deputy coming toward him before he got to the end of the block.

"What's going on, Nick?" Sheriff Madden asked. "Somebody said you found Jarrod."

Nick nodded. The memory came to him again, having Jarrod collapse into his arms as Heath cut him down, trying to keep hold of him but not hurt him any more than he was already hurt while they put some alcohol on his wounds. Even though all Nick wanted to do was hold him, hold him and protect him and make this whole week of hell just go away. "Yeah, but he's broken up pretty bad. The doc's got him now. Can you send somebody out to the ranch to get my mother and sister?"

"Go," the sheriff said to his deputy, and the deputy left.

Nick turned around and led the sheriff to the doctor's office. "Where did you find him?" Sheriff Madden asked.

"Cabin up in the hills, east of here," Nick said. "One man had him tied up and bullwhipped and beaten, but I didn't know the guy. Heath and I had to kill him. He just kept trying to get Jarrod to tell him where his wife was, but Jarrod didn't know him either, didn't know what he was talking about."

"What did you do with the man?"

"Left him. If the animals get him, I don't care."