Chapter 4

"You should go home, Nick," Jarrod said as he got up from the table, his sandwich eaten and his beer gone. "Really, don't hang around here. Don't see her show again."

"Heath is coming in," Nick said.

"Let him come in. If Sophie says anything to him, he'll talk to you about it later and maybe it'll ease your mind. But don't go to her show tonight. Let it alone."

Nick sighed a bit, then got up. "You're right. Heath's a big boy. He doesn't need me chaperoning him, and if Sophie doesn't say anything to him, I will later."

"He'll just say what I said, Nick," Jarrod said. "Accidents happen all the time around the ranch. Accept the warning for what it is and just be careful. Maybe she was doing you a favor and you're just letting it scare you for no good reason."

"You going back to work?"

"Yeah, I'll be in pretty late tonight. Tell Mother not to stay up. I have a contract I have to finish up."

"All right," Nick said.

They left together, waving Harry good-bye. Nick's horse was hitched just outside the Gaiety, and Jarrod watched him mount up and ride out of town. Then he didn't go back up to his office. He went into the Gaiety.

The janitor let Jarrod in the door when he knocked. "I need to see the Mademoiselle," Jarrod said, and the janitor pointed toward the dressing rooms as if people coming to see her were a regular occurrence.

Jarrod remembered how to get back there and went straight to the same room he and Nick had been to the night before. He knocked. She said, "Come in."

Jarrod entered, taking his hat off. Sophie was at her make-up table, putting on her theatrical make-up. Jarrod noticed she made her eyes considerably darker – the better to scare you with, my dear, he thought. "Sophie," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Barkley," she said and turned to look at him.

Jarrod closed the door behind him. "It won't take a fortuneteller to know why I'm here."

"No," she said. "You spoke to Nick and he told you what I said."

"I'll get straight to the point," Jarrod said. "My younger brother can be impressionable, even if he is a grown man. A beautiful woman can make him even more so, and you are very beautiful."

"Thank you," she said.

"What you told him has him pretty shaken up, probably because he sees himself as somehow being part of the cause of this accident with our other brother. I doubt you can undo that, but I'm here to tell you that you won't be seeing him again, and you will not be giving him any dire warnings about anything again. If you do, I'll have you thrown out of this town before your head can spin. Do I make myself clear?"

Sophie looked away, then shook her head. "I knew you were a non-believer even in San Francisco."

"You don't see the future or talk to the dead," Jarrod said. "You just scare people and then try to get money out of them."

"Mr. Barkley, you can have your Pinkerton men check me out all you want," she said. "They will find that I have never been arrested, no one has ever sued me, and no one has ever claimed that I took money from them under any kind of false pretense. And I haven't taken any money from your brother or anyone else in this town, except the manager of this theatre who is paying me for my performance. I told Nick what I told him so that he would be extra careful around your other brother. That's all."

"Accidents happen all the time on ranches, Sophie," Jarrod said. "Nick and everyone else on that ranch are always very careful. You did not need to worry him."

Sophie stood up. She tilted her face and looked defiantly up at him. "I didn't tell him everything I could have told him, Mr. Barkley. You may not believe I have the gift I have, but I do have it, and I use it to try to help people, not terrify them. Now, if you would do me the courtesy, I have to get ready for my performance."

"Stay away from both my brothers, Sophie," Jarrod said. "I will have you thrown out of town if you don't."

He started to leave, but as he reached for the doorknob, she said, "Perhaps it's you who should stay away from them."

Jarrod looked back at her, glaring. "Don't try to frighten me or threaten me, Sophie. It won't work."

"I'm not threatening you," Sophie said. "I'm only warning you the way I warned Nick. Perhaps you should go to San Francisco for a while. I told Nick to be extra careful around your brother. Believe me, you shouldn't be around them at all."

Jarrod gave her a hard stare, and then he left, before he really let into her, because he was sorely tempted to do that. When he got back out onto the street, he went for another beer instead of going to his office. His temper was up, and he needed to tamp it back down.

But he didn't believe for one minute that she really knew of any reason he should not be around his family. That was a threat, and a pretty poor one at that. Harry drew him a beer without saying much – he knew that dark look in the oldest Barkley son's eyes and always left it alone when he saw it. Jarrod thanked him, and then nursed the beer while his anger cooled off.

Then he decided to wire Pinkerton in San Francisco.

About then, Heath came in, alone. He came over to the bar where Jarrod stood and got a beer for himself. Jarrod gave him a glance, and Heath saw the rage in his brother's eyes. "I ran into Nick on the way into town," Heath said. "He was heading home. You're in here nursing a beer like you want to hit somebody. Did you two have a fight?"

"No, not at all," Jarrod said. "He just saw that Mademoiselle Sophiette and she told him something, and I've just been to see her and I told her something."

Heath whistled. "Must have been a couple of big somethings. What's going on?"

"She told him to be extra careful around you, that an accident was coming."

Heath chuckled. "With me, when is an accident NOT coming? I get myself banged up at twice the rate anybody else on the ranch does."

"True," Jarrod agreed, "but Nick seemed to get it in his head that she was telling him that this time it was his fault."

"What did you tell her?"

"To leave our gullible brother alone."

"That shouldn't have you this mad."

"She doubled down on me. Told me it was ME who should stay away from the both of you, suggested I go to San Francisco for a while."

For reasons he couldn't explain yet, Heath took it seriously. "What are you gonna do?"

"Stay right where I am for starters. And have Pinkerton check her out. If I can show Nick she's a con artist, it'll bring him around."

"What if she isn't?"

Jarrod looked hard at his brother. "Oh, come on, Heath. You're not gonna buy into this now too, are you?"

"I'm not buying into anything," Heath said, remaining perfectly calm. "But it could be she isn't trying to take his money. He told me she wouldn't even let him pay for the reading tonight."

"That's a ruse," Jarrod said. "We both know how these fortunetellers operate. Give up a little bit now to get a lot more later."

"All right," Heath said. "So all we have right now is she says I'm an accident waiting to happen, Nick is scared it's his fault, and you're mad because she told you to stay away from me and Nick. That ain't much to get so worked up over, Jarrod."

Jarrod sighed. "When you put it that way, you're right."

"I'm not saying you shouldn't check her out, or that we shouldn't keep her away from Nick. The first one might be easier to do than the second one. But you and me, we're singing from the same page of the hymnal here. I don't want Nick to get fleeced any more than you do."

"What I can't figure out is how she's gonna work this to get money out of Nick."

"Maybe she doesn't want Nick's money."

"That's what these people always want, Heath."

"Unless she has something else in mind and we just don't know what it is."

"You're digging too deep. There's nothing there. It's money."

Heath checked his watch. "Well, I'm gonna go have a look at this lady for myself. You going back to the office?"

Jarrod finished his beer. "Yeah, I still have a lot to finish tonight."

"I'll see if you're still there when I leave the Gaiety." Heath finished his beer and gave his older brother a slap on the back. "Don't worry, Pappy. Nick'll wake up in a day or so. And if he doesn't, we'll clear this all up for him. And if we don't, she'll be gone in about six days anyway."

"Mmmm," Jarrod grumbled as Heath walked out.