I do not own any of the characters mentioned or shown in "Big Valley." I'm not sure who does, but I hope they don't mind me filling in the blanks here with no pay, just out of love for their show.

Lost … lost and alone. He'd been searching for a long time. Now he searched the stars. Those bright lights had been his only light, once a month, if he wasn't in town. He often spent the night outside of town, outside a building, outside a tent. Sometimes, he'd find a place, settle down, try to find out how to still that restlessness inside, but somehow …

He sat down hard in the dirt. Then he let the breath out of his lungs. He stirred a bit of the loose dust lying on the crust of it hardening his pants. Then he mused some more.

He'd found places, lots of places he could earn a dollar and even some respect. So why did he always feel like he had to move on within several months at least? No place was the same as any other, yet that was the same wherever he went.

What about Strawberry? He wished he could say he was sorry it had died the death of many towns. It was a sorry, sorry thing when a town died like that. It should be at least, especially to him.

He'd been born there, grew up there, worked there, still had family there … And yet, he'd been glad to leave it. At least everywhere else, no one had to know his secret. He was struggling with the knowledge himself even more now. Somehow, it hurt even worse this way.

He'd always thought his father was just some saddle-tramp. Just some good-for-nothing who'd cozied up to his too young and too kind and too beautiful mother. Somehow, he'd promised her the world and then … just … left.

This vision of the man had made his father seem too much like him. He'd heard enough times he'd end up just like him. It was why he'd never taken what he'd "really" wanted at times from any girl no matter how nice, how willing, or how beautiful she was. Some had asked him if his way of avoiding doing so was due to religion, nerves, or something else. He was really proving to himself, every time he walked away, he wasn't like the man who'd done that to his mama.

Despite his continual moving from town to town, state to state, and job to job, he was nothing like the no-good man who'd moved on himself after putting a baby in his mother that babe who was him. And they'd all said he'd end up just like him. Ha!

Heath laughed quietly, bitterly, to himself. If he should be so lucky. That man had not just had a home. He'd had a mansion! That man had not just had land. He'd had a ranch most other ranch-owners only dreamed of. That man had not just had a hometown. A whole valley claimed him. That man had had a family, two more sons, a daughter, and a wife … a wife! And the article had said she'd loved him, grieved him.

Heath's hands went to the sides of his head and gripped hard. Had she grieved her husband as much as his mother had? Why had either mourned a man who'd done that to them both?

His father hadn't been a drifter. He hadn't had to slave away at bottom beneath other men, proving himself again and again. He hadn't felt restless! That much had breathed off the page to Heath every time he'd read the article. Tom Barkley had had a home, a ranch, workers, a family, a town! He'd had everything!

The only permanent things Heath had ever felt he had were his mother, his aunt, and Hannah. They'd had to slave for him. He'd tried to slave for them in return. What about this woman, "Mrs." Barkley? What about this daughter? What did they do all day? What had "Tom Barkley" given to them all those years, and his to sons, his "claimed" sons?

Heath grit his teeth. Tom Barkley had had everything up to his death and given everything to his wife, and children, and neighbors in turn, but not to his mother, not to him. No more.

If he had to drag that man's reputation through the dirt and muck, he would. His mother wasn't here to be hurt by it no more! He wasn't going to play drifter anymore! No. He'd go to one more place, and there he'd stay if they had to bury him in its dust. He was going to claim his piece of Barkley ranch or die on it.

Well, what do you think? :)

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes