I thought about this after reading "One Bullet More" by WillowDryad and the Barkley boys spoke to me, too. So did Danny. This expands the ending to "Man From Nowhere."
Danny
Danny had just unhitched the horses and but had not gotten them into the barn yet when he heard the riders coming. Alarms went off. He remembered the night before, when they came and started shooting and his grandmother was hit. He hurried into the barn and scrambled, looking everywhere for a gun, but there were none in the barn. They were all in the house. His mother and Dakota were in the house, probably his grandmother, too. The riders were coming closer and were approaching the barn.
Then the shooting started, his mother and Dakota firing from the house. Two riders dismounted and were scrambling for cover. Danny didn't know what to do. He was behind the men his mother and Dakota were shooting at, but he didn't have a gun. He looked frantically around the barn. The shooting was increasing.
He heard one of the men yell. "Jarrod! It's Nick and Heath!"
Jarrod. Danny knew now it was Dakota's real name, Jarrod. These men were calling him by his real name – but what did that mean? Did they know him, or was it a trick?
Danny's panic was rising even higher. He ran, out the back of the barn to hide behind a shed back there. He saw one of the men come running around the back of the barn toward the back of the house. The other man was shooting back now.
Danny began to burst into tears. He ran back to the barn, following around the way the man had gone who was now going through a back door into the house. Frantic, Danny just didn't know what to do. He ran toward the back door.
The shooting stopped.
Danny stopped. What was happening? Had they killed his mother and Dakota? What was happening? Danny was nearly doubled over in tears.
He heard Dakota's voice, crying, "Nick! Nick!"
Danny went in through the back door, moving slowly. He stopped inside the back bedroom where he could see what was going on in the front room. He saw the two riders now on the floor, Dakota in their arms. Dakota was practically screaming, "No! No!" and crying hard.
And Danny's mother was running out the front door.
Danny just stood there, frozen, trying to make sense of it all. The man holding Dakota closest was saying, "It's all right. We're all right. Everybody's all right."
Dakota was getting control of himself, but he was like a wet rag in the other man's arms. "Nick! I didn't – know – who you were – " He was sobbing. "God, I didn't know – until I saw you – Heath – your gun."
Danny saw Dakota reaching for these men, calling them by name, dissolving in their arms. Danny started putting things together. The shooting was over. No one was hurt. These men knew Dakota, and he knew them. Jarrod Barkley. Dakota knew he was really Jarrod Barkley.
And his mother?
Slowly, the two men got Dakota to his feet, but he was still slumping badly and the taller man held onto him. That was when the other blonder man looked up and saw Danny in the doorway. Their eyes met and Danny was frozen, wanting to run away, but in a moment Dakota saw where the blond man was looking, and he turned.
Dakota's face was wet and his eyes were red, but he came toward Danny and reached for him. "Danny – it's all right – everything's all right," he said and took the boy in his arms.
Danny resisted a little, and Jarrod Barkley eased his grip on the boy and turned toward the other men, still standing the middle of the room, watching. "This is Danny Matthews," Jarrod said to them. "Danny, these are my brothers, Nick and Heath Barkley. Danny, I'm Jarrod Barkley."
Danny swallowed and admitted, reluctantly, "I know."
Startled, Jarrod said, "What? You know?" And he backed off instinctively. What was going on around here?
"Mrs. Matthews knew, too, Jarrod," Heath said. "We were here before – you weren't here. She knew who we were and that we were looking for you."
"She knew who you were," Danny said quietly to Jarrod. "She just didn't want to tell you yet."
Suddenly feeling alone and trapped again, Jarrod looked around from Danny to his brothers and back again. "You mean – everybody knew who I was but me. And you didn't tell me."
"I just found out this morning!" Danny cried, and now he was crying tears. "Ma just wouldn't let me tell you yet! She said we'd tell you later! I'm sorry!"
Jarrod got himself back together, fast. He took Danny into his arms again. "It's all right, Danny. It's all right."
"I found your coat this morning," Danny said. "It had a letter in it."
"My coat? Where is it?"
"I don't know."
Danny went to the cabinets in the kitchen area and went looking, Jarrod right behind him. Danny found the coat and handed it back to him. Jarrod looked at it, looked in the pockets but found nothing. But it was his coat. He knew it. He recognized it. He knew everything now, everything.
"I'm sorry, Dakota," Danny said, still crying. "We should have told you and I'm sorry – "
Jarrod put an arm around the boy and pulled him close again. "It's all right, Danny. I'm all right now."
"But you were shooting at your brothers and it's my fault – "
"No, no," Jarrod said quickly. "It's not your fault, you did what your mother told you to do. Your mother – "
Jarrod looked around. Libby Matthews was gone.
"I don't know where she went," Danny said. "You're gonna leave, aren't you?"
Jarrod pulled him close again. "Not yet. Not yet."
Jarrod dropped his coat onto the kitchen table and went straight out the front door. Nick started after him, but Heath stopped him, saying, "No, better let him alone for now. If he can't find the woman, we'll help him but let him alone for now."
The Barkley men stood looking at Danny. He hung his head and just stood there in the kitchen area. Nick fumbled for words, but said, "I'm Nick Barkley. Can you tell us what happened to our brother?"
Danny wiped his eyes. "He got hurt. It was my fault. I took a shot at him when he first came here and his horse threw him and he wandered off and finally came here and he didn't know who he was and – "
Heath came to the boy, put his hands on the boy's shoulders and pulled him toward the kitchen table. "Sit down here," Heath said.
Danny sat down in a chair, and Heath sat down in another one beside him. Nick came closer and the let Danny talk.
"He's been with us since then – he's been helping us with the ranchers who've been trying to run us off – "
"Where's your father, boy?" Nick asked quietly.
Danny shook his head. "Gone. Two years. We don't know where. Dakota came – he helped us but we couldn't help him – until I found his coat this morning – "
Nick and Heath looked at each other, then Heath said to Danny, "Our brother's been helping to take care of you and your mother?"
"And my grandmother," Danny said, nodding, and then he looked at Heath with eyes that said Please don't take him away, but he didn't say the words. He knew better. He'd known all along that as soon as Dakota knew who he really was and where he really belonged, he would go. Danny sucked his tears in, realizing now that he wasn't the son around here anymore, not the kid he was before Dakota came along. He was going to have to be the man now, because Dakota was going to go away, and everything – everything – had changed.
Nick gave the boy a rub on the back. Heath said the words Danny couldn't say. "Our brother is a lawyer. He has a family and a job and a life he has to get back to."
"I know," Danny said quickly. "But I – "
He didn't have to say the rest. He couldn't say the rest. He couldn't say how much he needed Dakota and was going to miss him. He was suddenly old enough to understand this wasn't about him. It was about Jarrod Barkley.
Jarrod came in the door, looking tired and drawn but steady now, not crying anymore, not uncertain. He stopped, looking at what was happening between his brothers and this young man who had become his surrogate son.
"Did you find Ma?" Danny asked quickly.
Jarrod came over, nodding. "She's in the barn. She's all right, but she needs you, Danny."
Danny stood up, nodding. "I know."
He headed for the door, but Jarrod intercepted him, took him by the shoulders. "Danny – I owe you my life and I don't know how to thank you."
Danny quickly shook his head. "I'm the one who hurt you – "
Jarrod said, "No, you're the one who saved me. But I have to go now."
"I know," Danny said.
"I'm going to borrow one of the horses," Jarrod said.
"Your horse is in town at the livery, Jarrod," Nick said.
Jarrod nodded and said to Danny, "I'll go bareback and leave your horse at the livery in town."
"Did you say good-bye to Ma?" Danny asked.
Jarrod nodded. "She's gonna be all right, Danny. You're both gonna be all right."
"Are you?" Danny asked.
Jarrod didn't expect that. It was a man's question, not a boy's. Jarrod looked at his brothers, men he had just tried to kill, and the realization made him shake and feel woozy. But he nodded. "Don't worry about me. I will be."
Then suddenly Jarrod hugged Danny tight, and Danny hugged back, and said, "I'm gonna miss you, Dakota."
"I'm gonna miss you," Jarrod said, and his face was wet again.
Danny let go and hurried out for the barn.
Heath was standing up from the table, asking, "Are you ready to go, Jarrod?"
Jarrod nodded and wiped his face. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready." But he was looking less steady than he was a moment ago. What had happened – everything, from being unable to remember anything for a week, to giving up a home and a family he had come to believe was all he had in the world – to trying to kill his brothers. It was all washing over him.
Nick put a hand on Jarrod's shoulder. "Don't worry about us, all right? We're fine. You're gonna be fine. We'll get you home and everything will be fine."
Jarrod nodded, but said, "Better take the long way. I'm gonna need time to handle all this." And he looked toward the door Danny had left open.
He could see to where Danny was now standing in his mother's arms at the barn door. They'd be all right, but they'd be all right without him.
"Let's go," Jarrod said.
The End