Chapter 7
Jarrod caught up with Nick where their horses were tethered, and he saw the sheriff coming toward Nick just as he was. The sheriff said, "I found him in the saloon across from the café. He's just sitting there and drinking milk."
"Did you say anything to him?" Nick asked.
"No. I don't know if he even saw me."
"I told Suzanne I'd talk to him again," Jarrod said.
"What?" Nick asked, alarmed. "It didn't help much the first time."
"She asked me to talk to him about my experience when Beth died," Jarrod said. "She thought he was trying to get her back because he was feeling so alone. She thought maybe if I talked to him about myself, he wouldn't feel so alone. How could I turn down those eyes?"
"Up to you, Jarrod," the sheriff said.
"But I'm gonna be sticking around until you're done," Nick said.
"All right, but don't come into the saloon, either one of you," Jarrod said. "I don't want him feeling like he's being ganged up on."
"All right," Nick agreed.
Jarrod turned and walked toward the saloon where Dan Pearson was.
Nick and Sheriff Madden watched him. "I don't know if he's the bravest man I know or the stupidest," Nick said.
"Most of the men I know have been both at the same time once or twice in their lives," the sheriff said. "Where will you be?"
"Near the saloon, by the barber shop. There's a chair or two out there."
"I'll hover around that end of town for a while," the sheriff said.
They nodded to each other and started down the street.
XXXXXXX
Jarrod went into the saloon and immediately spotted Dan Pearson, sitting alone at a table in the back. Since it was still only afternoon, the place was not that crowded. Jarrod asked for a beer from the bartender, and then he walked over to Pearson.
Pearson looked up at him. "Mind if I join you?" Jarrod asked.
Pearson hesitated, but then nodded toward an empty chair.
Jarrod sat down, wondering how he was going to open this conversation. He took his hat off and put it on the table. He finally said, "I spoke to your daughter a little while ago. She asked me to talk to you about something."
"We already talked," Pearson said.
"This is something else. She's worried about you."
Pearson snorted a laugh.
Jarrod looked hard at him. "What I'm about to tell you is something she knew would be difficult for me. It's not about the law. It's about how you fall off into that pit I was telling you about. She asked me to tell you more about the time I fell off. She knows how hard that is for me to talk about. She wouldn't have asked that of me if she didn't love you very much."
"If she loved me, she'd come home," Pearson said.
Jarrod raised his hand. "Just listen to me for five minutes or so. Do it for her."
Pearson backed off, giving one short nod.
Jarrod took a deep breath. "My first wife's name was Beth. We were married for a very short time before she was shot dead by a man who was trying to kill me but hit her instead. That pit I've talked to you about – I fell off and I fell off hard, even harder than you've fallen. I left my family and even slugged my brother to get away and go after the man who killed her."
"Why didn't you turn to the law?"
"I did, but there was no proof to go after her killer with. But I knew. I knew he did it, and there was no stopping me. I intended to kill him, and I intended to hang for it. I turned into a man I didn't even know. I brutalized people, beat them up, threatened them, did everything I needed to do while I was tracking the man down. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, and when I finally got near him, he shot me. Left me for dead in the road. When I woke up, I couldn't even stand, but I made it to my horse and passed out in the saddle, but I kept going. I kept going until I found him in a jail cell in this ramshackle town. I bribed the sheriff to let him out so I could kill him, and I got to him, and I was killing him with my bare hands, drowning him in a watering trough."
Jarrod began to strangle and drown an imaginary man only he could see in front of him. His eyes took on that dark, angry look that had been with him for all those days he tracked Cass Hyatt.
Then Jarrod realized he'd gone too far back in his own experience. He had to come out again. He let his hands fall, and he looked up at Pearson and realized where he was. He smiled a somewhat sheepish grin. "Well – it took my brothers tearing me off him, it took me threatening even to kill them, before I realized I was down in that pit. I had fallen so hard and so deep that I didn't even know where I was until I held my brothers at the point of my gun."
Pearson looked at him, riveted by his story, and Jarrod saw that he was making the connection that Suzanne had wanted him to make. He kept going.
"I damaged myself so much that I nearly killed myself right then and there," Jarrod said. "I so totally ruined myself that I AM killing myself even now because I damaged my heart. Suzanne doesn't want that to happen to you. She loves you. But she can't go back to Denver with you, and you can't ask her to pull you out of that pit. You've got to climb out yourself. I did it. I got out of my pit, and I got my family back. I found a new wife and I have a new son, and even if what I did has damaged my life and is cutting it short, it's a good life that I built by climbing out of that pit and rejoining my family. If I did it, you can do it. Are you following me?"
Pearson looked down at his glass of milk and nodded slowly. "I just – love my daughter so much, and I sent her away."
"You sent her to a good life," Jarrod said. "She's happy here. She's in love with my brother, and he loves her. They'll probably marry and give you grandchildren."
Pearson looked up. "Grandchildren?"
Jarrod smiled. "It's pretty likely."
Pearson looked down at his milk again. "How do I climb out of my hole?"
Jarrod pointed to the glass of milk. "Looks to me like you've started."
"I haven't had a drink in days. I didn't want Suzanne to see me drinking."
"Keep doing that. Keep putting Suzanne first. I know that sounds crazy, but when you put someone you love ahead of yourself, you're climbing out of that pit."
"She wrote me a lot. I never wrote back. I couldn't."
"Now you can. If you go home without her, you're not going alone. She loves you, Dan. You're not alone."
Pearson drank some of his milk. "Do you think she'd see me?"
"Are you going to be threatening to her?"
He shook his head. "No. I'm done trying to get her to go home with me. You're right. She comes first, and if she's happy here, I want her to stay here."
Pearson finished his milk and stood up. Jarrod stood up with him. "If I go to her with you, I think she'll see you."
Pearson nodded. "Let's go."
They walked out together and headed toward the Pearson home. Both Nick and Sheriff Madden saw them, and they looked at each other, a little suspicious and a lot surprised. Nick got up from his chair at the barbershop, and Sheriff Madden joined him and walked toward the Pearson home, well behind Jarrod and Dan Pearson.
