Chapter 9
Jarrod and Heath, riding fast, ran into Ciego about halfway home and were immediately alarmed. "Senora Barkley sent me to get you! That man Barton is at the house!"
"You let him in?!" Jarrod blurted.
"Senora Barkley let him in!" Ciego said.
Jarrod and Heath speeded up and rode past Ciego. They arrived at the house in less than half an hour, leaving their horses at the barn and heading for the front door fast. But once there, Jarrod held a hand up and slowed things down.
"We should be calm and careful," Jarrod said. "We don't know what's going on in there."
Heath followed Jarrod's lead, leaving his handgun in its holster, letting Jarrod go in first. Jarrod opened the door quietly and they stepped in quietly together.
Victoria and Audra were sitting on the settee. From where they stood, Jarrod and Heath could not see Barton at first, but the man turned in the chair he was sitting in. He smiled. "Please come in. We were just talking."
Jarrod and Heath came into the living room. "Are you all right, Mother?" Jarrod asked.
Victoria said, "We're fine."
"We were just talking," Barton said again, remaining seated. "Going over old times, fond memories."
"Jeb, I think you and I need to talk privately," Jarrod said. "Will you come outside with me?"
Barton got up. "You're right, I think we should talk and straighten this out. I'm not a threat to you, Jeb. I don't plan to have you arrested, and I've asked Mother to assure you of the same thing."
Jarrod cringed inwardly to hear Barton talking to him as if he were a con artist stranger to this family, but Jarrod kept it to himself. "Let's just step outside into the fresh air."
Barton nodded to the ladies. "I'll be back in a few minutes," he said and headed for the front door.
Jarrod ushered him out, giving his mother a warning glance before he left but giving Heath a look that told him to keep an eye on Barton from outside. Heath followed at a distance, and he stopped on the porch, watching as Jarrod led Barton to a spot by the corral and stopped.
Jarrod had no idea how he was going to approach this. He just felt an urgent need to get this man away from his mother and sister. He had a very bad, creepy feeling that things were coming to a bad end. "Jeb," he said, "let's you and me talk about some memories, some old times we had."
"All we had was the hospital," Barton said.
"We shared a lot of memories there."
"We did. I remember telling you all about my family, my brothers and my sister, my parents. I spent a lot of time at Father's grave today. Audra led me there, but after she left I went back, and I sat for a long time."
"Jeb – "
"I know you thought I was dead. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you've got to give up this charade of yours."
"Jeb – "
"I'm not Jeb. You know I'm not Jeb. You know who I am, and you know who you are."
"Do you remember when I told you about this place, this house?"
"I remember when I told you about it."
"What did you say?"
Barton looked back at the house, noticing Heath on the porch watching. "I told you about the columns and the big front door and that big stairway inside. I told you that my father had it built when I was a boy."
"Do you remember how Nick fell down the stairs and broke his arm when he was five?"
"I remember that he fell from a horse I was lifting him onto and broke his arm when he was six."
Jarrod had tried a ruse, offering a false memory, but Barton didn't go for it. He got the memory exactly right. Jarrod tried again. "Do you remember how you got wounded during the war?"
"Shot in the head, right near the end of the war."
Jarrod shook his head. "Shrapnel."
"No, shrapnel was you. I was hit with a rifle shot."
Jarrod tried one more time. "When you were a boy, where did you go when you wanted to be alone to think? Did you have a special place?"
Barton hesitated this time. Jarrod knew it was because he didn't know the answer to this question. They had never discussed Isla del Cielo. "My room," Barton said. "I always felt safe in my room."
Jarrod shook his head. "No. Jeb, you – JEB – you always felt safe in your room."
Barton shook his head, looking nervous. "You're trying to confuse me."
"Where is your room? How many doors from the stairs?"
Barton hesitated again. "Quit trying to confuse me."
"I'm not trying to confuse you, Jeb. I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you remember who you really are, because you've been hurt and you've struggled for a long time with confusing memories. We thought we were helping each other when we talked in the hospital, but I was hurting you, and I'm very sorry for that."
"No, you've got it wrong – "
"Jeb, I know very good doctors in San Francisco. Let me help you. Let me take you to someone who can help you get yourself back. Your real self."
Barton just kept shaking his head, so noticeably that Heath saw it and stepped down off the porch, coming closer slowly. Something was happening with the man, something bad. "No, stop it, you're just trying to confuse me so that I don't convince everyone of the fraud you are."
Jarrod realized he had pressed too hard, but now he didn't know how to undo what he'd done. "Jeb, no one's a fraud, not me, not you. Please – "
Barton abruptly grabbed Jarrod by the shirtfront and began to shake him. "You're a liar! A fraud and a liar!"
Barton pulled Jarrod's gun out of his holster, before Jarrod even realized he was doing it. Heath quickly came closer and took the shot at Barton before he got Jarrod's gun up. Barton went down, dropping Jarrod's gun, but Jarrod grabbed him and kept hold of him, sinking to the ground with him. "Jeb - Jeb –"
The shot brought the stable hand out into the yard, and it brought Victoria and Audra out of the front door, Silas right behind them. They stopped there, seeing what had happened.
Jarrod kept hold of Barton. "Jeb – "
Heath came closer. Barton was hit in the side, but it looked like the bullet had gone through his body, exiting out his back. Heath heard Barton whisper, "Mother – "
Jarrod heard it, too. He looked up and waved his mother over.
Victoria came quickly. She heard Barton whimpering, too. "Where's my mother – "
Victoria knelt in the dirt, and Jarrod gently lifted Barton to her lap. She took hold of the dying man's hand and cradled him in her other arm. "I'm here," she said softly.
Those blue eyes that were normally as intense as Jarrod's were beginning to fade. Barton looked up at Victoria and smiled. "Mother – I was only trying to come home – "
Victoria felt hot tears. "I know," she said. "I know."
"I'm sorry – " Barton said. "I tried so hard for so long – "
"I know," Victoria said. "But you're here now."
"I am," Barton said. "I made it."
"You made it," Victoria said.
Barton went limp. It was over. Victoria closed her eyes but didn't let go of the man right away. She laid his hand down and put her other arm around him, to embrace him. She cried for him.
Jarrod stood beside them, staring down. He sighed deeply, closed his eyes, but opened them again when he felt Heath take his arm. Jarrod looked at his brother and nodded that he was all right.
Heath helped Victoria up, and she let Barton down into the dust.
"I'll take care of him," Jarrod said.
Heath nodded and led his mother back into the house.
Epilogue
Jarrod sent the stable hand to town for Dr. Merar and the undertaker, and Jarrod never left Barton's side until they arrived. Nick and Sheriff Madden were with them, along with Ciego and the stable hand. Sheriff Madden left Jarrod alone and talked to Heath to find out what had happened.
Nick watched with Jarrod as the doctor pronounced Barton dead and the doctor and the undertaker took him away. Sheriff Madden told Jarrod he was sorry and left, too. Jarrod said nothing the entire time, just nodded to the sheriff and then watched as everyone left. Victoria, Audra and Heath watched from the porch, and then everyone just stood frozen for a while, as if they did not know what to do.
Jarrod was staring at the undertaker driving away when Nick put a hand on his shoulder. "How you doin', Pappy?" Nick asked.
"I'm not sure," Jarrod said. "I kind of just watched myself die in my mother's arms."
It sent a cold chill up Nick's back. "Yeah, that is kind of eerie, isn't it? What can I do?"
Jarrod shook his head. "Nothing. I'll be all right."
Nick fumbled a bit. "Look, I owe you a big apology," he ended up saying.
"It's all right, Nick. Let it go."
"No, I can't. I need to be sure that you know that I don't really doubt you."
"I know that."
"I sure acted like I did."
"We talked about this already. That's just you. Forget it. Really, forget it."
Nick looked up at his mother. She took his expression to be asking her to come down, so she did. Nick wandered up to the porch where she had been standing.
Victoria put her hand on Jarrod's shoulder. He looked and smiled down at her, then put his arm around her.
"I know this whole day has been very rough for you," she said. "I hope when I tried to comfort Mr. Barton it didn't shake you up too much."
"A little," Jarrod said with a smile, "but I'm glad you did that for him, and I hope it didn't shake you up too much."
"A little," Victoria responded with her own smile.
Jarrod said, "The man was just hurt, years and years of hurt. I thought I was helping him back in that hospital, but I was just hurting him more."
"How could you have known?"
"I couldn't. I never saw any of this coming. Do you know, for a while there, I almost believed him? For a while, I actually wondered if I really was Jeb Barton and he was Jarrod Barkley."
"You don't really believe that."
"No. I know who I am." He looked at Victoria. "Do you?"
She smiled. "Yes. You are Jarrod Barkley, and we all know it. I'm sorry if we led you to believe anything else."
Jarrod gave her an odd smile. "Strange, though, isn't it? Every one of us, for at least a minute or two, had doubts. You'd think that the one thing you'd be most secure about is who you are, who someone you've known for years really is. But we all doubted. Everybody except him, the one who had it wrong, the one with the damaged brain."
"Yes," Victoria said thoughtfully. "It is very strange."
Jarrod kissed her on the forehead and heaved a sigh. "Well, I have to go into town in the morning and arrange for a funeral. I don't want Jeb Barton to go to his grave alone."
"Can you do it by yourself? I can go with you."
Jarrod shook his head. "No, I'll be all right alone. It was just the two of us got into this mess. We should get out of it together, too."
"And you plan to pay for his burial as well."
"Yes," Jarrod said. "Seems appropriate." He heaved another sigh then. "Right now I think I'd just like to spend the evening with my family, Mother. That seems appropriate, too."
Victoria squeezed his arm. "I think your family would like to spend it with you, too."
She kept hold of his arm, and walked with her son back into their home.
The End
