Chapter Ten

Eva stood in Jarrod's office doorway and watched as Jarrod, sitting behind his desk, read one telegram after another; they were replies to telegrams that Fred-who had happened to drop by the house at the same time Heath arrived home-had sent off the moment he'd arrived in Stockton, making sure the telegraph officer knew to give any replies to Jarrod when the man stopped by. Upon arriving in town, Jarrod had sent word ahead to his office to that he'd be just a little longer and to apologize to Macklin for the delay…only to find out that Macklin had sent word that he'd be a couple of hours late. That was a miracle Jarrod had been grateful for, as it bought some time for the replies to get to him. Now, after reading each and every one of the returned messages, the fire in Jarrod's eyes grew. By time he threw the last one down on his desk and sat back, Eva could tell Jarrod was furious.

"Tell me when it's safe to come in." Eva said as she looked at Jarrod, wanting to smile, but not daring…as she did not know what had him all fired up.

"Everything Nick and Hannah said was true!" Jarrod leaned forward and looked at the telegrams sitting on his desk. Each and every one of the replies confirmed what Nick and Hannah had told the whole family the moment Heath walked in the door. "The man's over-zealous and arrogant. His actions-or non action-have put my sister-in-law and Chad in danger, and may make it so Crown goes free! Now, he's coming here to try and pull me into his schemes, or something along those lines anyway!"

Eva was lost, and she didn't like not knowing what the other person was rambling about. However, she did know Mr. Macklin was due any minute, so she made an educated guess and said, "If Macklin's that bad of a man, why accept his call today? Why not send him on his way?"

Jarrod shook his head as he gathered up the telegrams. "I want to see how much of what I now know he will confess, or deny. I have to know everything he does before I go back to the ranch."

"Well, I dare say the man won't say anything," Eva said as she walked behind Jarrod and started rubbing his shoulders and said, "If you don't relax. If he sees you like this, he'll most likely get suspicious and say nothing at all. That is, he won't say what you want, or need to hear."

Jarrod relaxed as Eva continued rubbing his shoulder and back. "When he gets here how about conveniently letting it slip that I'm upset because I have learned that Charles Crown is going up on trial. I know why he's on trial and that three of the key witnesses against him were murdered up in Wyoming. Two of them being killed in a fire that was purposely set by one of Macklin's men; a man that had turned bad, and the third being shot inside the corral that was used when auctioning animals." He wasn't about to add that he knew the killer had been found outside the corral fence. That was a fact the sheriff in Wyoming had not sent him. Should Macklin find out about the telegram, Jarrod didn't want the man to start asking how he knew where the killer had fallen.

"You think that will propel Macklin to tell you more than you know?" Eva asked as she finished the rub she was giving Jarrod.

Before Jarrod could answer the two heard the front door to the law building open, Eva quickly left the room. Moments later Macklin was knocking at Jarrod's personal office.

After quickly removing the telegrams off his desk and putting them in the top drawer of his desk, Jarrod called out, "Come in." He wasn't surprised to see Macklin walk in.

"What do you want?" Jarrod asked in a terse voice, simply to back up what he'd told Eva to tell the man.

"Your secretary says you know Crown is up on charges of not only murder and embezzlement, but treason as well; he's been giving aid to men still fighting a war long since over." Macklin said as he sat down.

"I do." Jarrod kept his voice terse as he answered.

"She also told me you also knew of the incident up in Wyoming, or bits of it anyway." Macklin kept his eyes on Jarrod. When the man continued to glare at him, but said nothing, he figured if he was to accomplish his designs in coming to Stockton, he would have to tell Jarrod what happened.

"We had four witnesses up there who were willing to testify against Crown." Macklin listed the same names Nick and Hannah had told him only, as Hannah had confessed, he gave Jarrod her birth name of Lillian Beecher. "Upon Nick's suggestion, I changed my name. I took the first name of one friend and put it together with the last name of another, coming up with Hannah Ackers as a result. Quite frankly, I was hoping to have it legally changed someday." Also, Macklin unknowingly confirmed what Hannah had said about her hair…*it had been blonde until she'd dyed it black-which was her idea. "Two of the witnesses were in a small home guarded by one of my men; apparently Miss Beecher had decided to go check on her sister's child; a little boy by the name of Johnny."

"You had no inkling that your man was bad?" Jarrod snapped slightly. His sister-in-law's words rang in Jarrod's ears as he asked the question. "My sister tried to tell Macklin she'd see Hank Cunnings talking to one of Crown's men earlier in the week!" Tears ran down Hannah's face as she looked at Jarrod, sincere pain shown in them. "He wouldn't listen. That's why I wasn't in the house with her and Jeremiah that night. She'd sent me to check on my nephew who was being watched by a friend. When I got back to town, I was horrified to see the home burned to the ground and…" she choked and shuttered, "I saw Macklin's man and one of Crown's men in the crowd that had gathered. They never saw me as I was standing behind some crates. The moment Crown's man rode away and Macklin's man started talking with the sheriff, I turned and hurried away. Within thirty minutes, I had my nephew and was running to my cousin…who was hiding in another house. We left there and traveled to the auction, hoping to get a couple of horses. We didn't know Crown's man had contacted one of his coworkers and sent him after us when he, somehow, learned where we'd headed."

It was all he could do not to jump over his desk and hit the man as he denied it. "Hank was as good as they come. I had no idea he'd went bad." Macklin lied through his teeth.

"And the man killed at the auction?" Jarrod kept his eyes on Macklin. After denying having be told about the man gone bad, Jarrod was amazed that Macklin backed up what Nick, and the telegrams in his top drawer, said.

"Apparently one of Crown's men was sent to kill Mr. Beecher, who was at the auction with Miss Beecher's nephew. The instructions told the man to kill our witness and to grab the boy. We assume Crown didn't know Miss Beecher was with her cousin, and meant to hold him in order to keep her from testifying." Macklin said.

Jarrod found Nick's words ringing in his ears. "Crown didn't want either one of them testifying." Nick looked at the family, "But, just before her cousin's assassin died from a bullet fired by me; a shot fired trying to save her cousin, he confessed in quite a loud voice that Crown wanted the child dead as well. Why will always be a mystery us." Nick then told Jarrod and the others that after shooting Crown's man, Nick had knelt down beside Hannah's cousin and talked with him. "He reminded me of our conversation when we met…where he'd joked with me I best be careful as 'the boy could be passed off as yours and you could find yourself with a wife and son'…and then begged me to do just that, marry Hannah and pass the boy off as mine. After all, as he put it, 'Crown's men are looking for a blonde headed woman by the name of Lillian and her nephew, Johnny…not a dark haired woman who bore the famous Stockton rancher, Nick Barkley, a son. He also begged us both to promise to not say anything to anyone not even family. That is, not unless it was absolutely necessary. He was afraid we might be talking about the situation and someone would overhear. We weren't going to say anything until the day we had to leave to go to the trial…which was supposed to be in Sacramento in a couple of months. I don't like the idea that Macklin is in Stockton. I don't trust him." He then apologized to the family. "If it weren't for the fact that her cousin was so close to dying, and I knew I had to get her and Chad away from the auction corrals, I never would have promised to say nothing unless something like this happened. I don't know that trouble isn't coming." he paused and then said quietly, "After everything I said and did during, and after, that 'court martial', I would understand if you all wanted us to leave."

"And you're going to Wyoming in hopes of finding Miss Beecher alive?" Jarrod asked even as he remembered telling Nick that there was no reason for the couple to take Chad anywhere. The family had backed him up on that.

"We've had reports she's been seen up there as early as last week; I'm hoping the rumors are true." Macklin admitted.

"They're not" Jarrod thought as he leaned back and, once again, asked tersely, "So, just why are you bothering me?"