The Man from Somewhere
Chapter 1
A young man got off the train in Stockton, carrying only a carpetbag, and for a moment stood on the platform, looking around. He didn't know anyone around him – until he saw the man he figured would be getting off the train, too. Sighing nervously, he walked to a very tall, thin man who looked like the station manager – at least had the white shirt and cap that made him look like a station manager. Speaking quietly, the young man said, "Excuse me, sir."
The station manager looked up from his clipboard. "How can I help you, son?"
"I'm looking for a man here in Stockton named Barkley," the young man said. "He's a lawyer."
"Uh, yes, Jarrod Barkley," the station manager said and pointed. "His office is right down the street on the left."
"Thank you," the young man said. He walked briskly in that direction the station manager indicated. He knew without looking that the man who had gotten off the train with him was following at a distance.
The young man found the office without any trouble, by the shingle hanging near the door. He went inside the building, comfortable that the man would not follow him in there, but nervous about the reception he would be getting here. Inside was a hallway, and another door – a double one – with another shingle hanging in the hallway. He stopped to knock but paused when he heard voices inside, yelling at each other.
"If you don't sue McAllister, I'll find a lawyer who will!"
"Nick, you can't go around suing people just because they don't agree with your idea of the property line. You need a survey, and that's gonna take time!"
"Then quit wasting it and go get it!"
"I will as soon as I can get this other mess you've handed me off my desk!"
"What mess? That contract is fine and dandy just the way it is."
"What about the arbitration clause?"
"What 'arbitration'?"
"Arbitration! Arbitration! Sign this, and you will be signing away any right you have to sue if the deal goes wrong! You'll be agreeing to let an arbitrator handle everything, and the way that arbitrator is to be chosen stinks!"
"Aaah!"
The young man heard heavy footsteps approaching and suddenly the left side of the door was pulled open. A big man in black with an unhappy face looked startled to see him there. The young man remembered Nick Barkley, but could tell Nick did not remember him.
"I'd like to see Mr. Barkley," the young man said.
"Please come in," Jarrod's voice, sounding weary but like it was trying not to be, came from inside the room.
Nick stood aside and motioned the young man in, but he did not leave, curious now as to who this was.
Jarrod was standing beside his desk. He looked at the young man, who was taking his hat off and tucking it under his arm. He looked vaguely familiar – and then very familiar.
The young man smiled and said, "Hello, Dakota."
"My God, Danny Matthews!" Jarrod said. For a moment he was just stunned, but then he reached out his hand to him, and a somewhat baffled smile came over him.
Danny Matthews took the hand of the man he knew as just Dakota.
"Let me look at you!" Jarrod said, taking a step back. Danny was much taller than Jarrod remembered and heavier, and his voice had deepened an entire octave, but Jarrod would have known him anywhere. His smile grew bigger and genuine. "Boy, you are a man now! Nick, I don't know if you remember this young man – "
"No, I don't," Nick said, but he extended a hand that Danny took.
"Danny and his mother and grandmother took care of me up near Rockville a couple years ago, when I got hurt and - lost myself for a week or so," Jarrod said.
Nick remembered that. He didn't like remembering it, but he did remember it. "Nice to see you again, Danny," Nick said.
Danny turned toward Jarrod and said, "Dakota – oh, I'm sorry, I've been telling myself all the way here to remember to call you Mr. Barkley."
Jarrod shook his head. "It's Dakota to you, Danny. Always will be."
"Thanks," Danny said. To Danny, it was more than a name. It was an acknowledgement that to Jarrod Barkley, his time as Dakota – a name Danny had given him – was still important to him. "I need your help. I don't have a lot of money, but you're the only one I could think of who might be able to help me."
"Sit down," Jarrod said.
Nick said, "I'll see you at home."
Jarrod nodded as Nick went out the door and closed it behind him.
Danny sat down in the chair in front of Jarrod's desk, and Jarrod sat on the edge of his desk. "What do you need help with? And don't worry about money. I'm the one who owes you and your mother and grandmother."
Danny shook his head. "Grandma passed away only a week after you left. She wouldn't get that arm wound seen by a doctor, and it got infected."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
Danny shrugged. "She was stubborn. It went the way she wanted it to."
"How about your mother?"
Danny smiled. "She's great. A year ago, she met a farmer not too far from Sacramento and they got married six months ago. He's wonderful to her, and she's happier than I've ever seen her."
Jarrod remembered his last words with Libby. He made her promise she would never stop looking for a good life. He smiled to know she had found it. "I'm really glad to hear that."
"But that's what brings me here to you," Danny said. "Mr. Jennings – my mother's new husband – he's doing all right and has no children, so he and Ma sent me to school in San Francisco. They want me to have an education, and I'm really happy about that. I go to a boarding school that I really like and I usually go home to them four or five times a year."
"So what's the problem, Danny?"
"About a week ago a man came to the school. He said he was my father."
Jarrod straightened, remembering. Scott Matthews. He'd been gone from Rockville for two years when Jarrod had been there, and now it was more like four. "Is he your father?"
"I don't know, Dakota. I don't remember my father well enough. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but even if he is, why has he come back now? Where has he been?"
"Have you talked to him?"
"I don't know how, and I don't want to. He left my ma and my grandma and me and disappeared for years. I don't want him back."
"There are ways we can check on this man's story."
"It's a bigger problem than that. He's following me everywhere, probably thinking I'll lead him to Ma. He even followed me here!"
Jarrod stood up. "Here?"
"To Stockton, from San Francisco. Came on the same train I did!"
Jarrod walked to the window of his office that looked out onto the street. He kept to the side, trying not to be seen from the street, looking for any man who might be alone and waiting. "Danny, come here and stand behind me."
Danny got up and did as he was told.
"Do you see him now?" Jarrod asked.
"Yeah," Danny said. "That's him, across the street by the theater window."
"Go sit back down," Jarrod said and kept looking. The man didn't seem to have looked up at the window, but Jarrod expected him to do that at any moment. "Has he threatened you physically in any way?"
"No. He just won't go away, even though I keep asking him to."
Jarrod came back to the corner of the desk and sat down again. "Might be more complicated than that, Danny. If this is your father, your mother is still legally married to him. That would mean her marriage to Mr. Jennings isn't legal."
"Oh, no, I hadn't thought about that – "
"Don't worry about it yet," Jarrod said. "Let's take things one step at a time. Have you made plans about where to stay here?"
Danny shook his head. "I was hoping you'd help me find someplace."
"You'll stay with us at the ranch," Jarrod said and smiled. "My family will be glad to have you, and whoever this man is, he won't follow you there."
Jarrod grabbed his jacket and put it on, then put his hat on. He had not brought his gun to town but part of him wished he had, because he was not sure what was going to happen when he left the building with Danny. But that remained to be seen.
Danny got up.
Jarrod said, "My horse is at the livery. We'll get you a mount – I assume all that schooling in San Francisco hasn't made you forget how to ride."
Danny smiled. "You never forget that."
Jarrod laughed. "Even when I couldn't remember my name, I could remember how to ride, couldn't i?"
"Yes, sir, you could," Danny smiled.
"Don't worry, Danny," Jarrod said and clapped him on the arm. "We'll get things straightened out."
They went down to the street and walked up to the livery stable, where Jarrod got his horse and rented one for Danny. They rode out together. The man following Danny from San Francisco was standing there across the livery when they left.
Danny glanced at him but turned as they rode away. Jarrod gave the man a long hard look, and not just to impress his face on his memory. There was a threat there, too. He was not about to let this man ruin Libby Matthews's life.