I own none of the characters or places from "Big Valley." I hope they don't mind me filling in the blanks from their show with no pay.

Please read and enjoy.

Nick dragged Heath into the house. Then he shouted the names "Jarrod" and "Eugene." Heath caught sight of a golden carpet and more stairs than he had almost ever seen before once inside the door. Then he was thrust into a big room with a fireplace, more carpet, and furniture the like of which he'd only seen a few times in his life.

Then he spied bottles of alcohol glass bottles. Better yet, Nick turned him loose. He wanted to face the door to greet this Jarrod and Eugene unencumbered it seemed. Maybe "Jarrod" and "Eugene" were his brothers, the men on the veranda. Or maybe they were favored servants with really big, hard fists. Either way, Heath decided to be ready.

He paused to pour himself a drink. Then he grabbed an empty bottle and broke it. He turned.

There were the men from the veranda, his brothers. Half-brothers. All three now stared at him. He felt the weariness in his brain and body as he faced three men all likely to try to kill him within the next few moments. He wasn't going to let that happen before he had his say. "Now, I've had me a day, fight and dunked in a stream and near-killed by a train. This one's going to be peaceful, you hear?"

Nick looked ready to try grabbing the bottle away from him. The one in the suit stared at him looking already angry, but also serious and still. The fresh-faced boy stood in the background just staring … Wasn't there any life in this kid?

Now he had them all held off though, Heath could study his surroundings some more. Nice furniture, plenty of expensive alcohol, fireplace, paintings. All this, after he and his mother had stared at the same canvas walls for years wearing the same set of clothes and drinking and washing in water praying no one had spat in it.

Heath almost shook his head but just smiled instead. "So, this is what it is. Well, I wondered." He caught sight of the portrait hanging over the fireplace. An old man with a white beard, well-trimmed and groomed, wearing a suit to put the one worn by one of the living men in the room to shame. The old gentleman almost looked like a famous general or a past president, but no. Heath recognized him from the article. He pointed to the painting with the broken bottle. "Look at that. The old stud himself."

He noticed movement in the corner of his eye. The fresh-faced boy finally showed some life by coming at him. The man in the suit grabbed him and held him back. So, "Eugene" did have some "fight" in him, as others had said, but Heath was past the point of caring.

The man in the suit, likely 'Jarrod,' had intercepted his little brother, so Heath could go on, and he did. He kept staring at the portrait on the wall. So, this was the man who'd abandoned his mother. "Bow howdy, don't he look proper."

That was something no one man but him in his memory had ever noticed in his mother, how proper she behaved no matter how she looked on the outside. With his father, it had been the opposite. Just how thick had his façade been?

So, what do you all think?

God Bless

ScirbeofHeroes