Chapter 10

Jarrod scowled, pulling his sleeping pants on and then sitting back down on his bed. "I knew this wasn't gonna be easy."

Heath tried to sound more upbeat. "At least I haven't found out anything to really cook Nick's goose. If Archer doesn't find out anything more and I don't either, we're not any worse off than we are already. That 'person or persons unknown' will stand."

Jarrod looked at him. "And it'll eat Nick up, wondering if he really is responsible."

Heath had to nod. "But he might have to learn to live with it. Jarrod, I talked to a lot of people today. I'm not sure who to buttonhole tomorrow."

"Whoever you didn't buttonhole today," Jarrod said. "But don't leave it at that. Find out if anybody saw anything in the alley that disappeared, like a wagon or that axe handle we've been talking about, or anything that wasn't there when Follet was found but somebody saw earlier."

"So far, I haven't found anybody who was even in the alley, or even saw Follet go in."

"There will be something," Jarrod said. "I know it's there to be found somewhere. We just haven't found it yet. Check with Fred in the morning, too. See if he found out anything today."

"All right," Heath said and started for the door. "You want me to come help you downstairs in the morning?"

"You or Nick, whoever shows up first. I'm through spending all day hanging around up here. I need to get down in the library and start researching cases like this one. You can bet Archer's doing that."

Heath nodded, said, "Good night," and went out.

Jarrod said good night as Heath closed the door. He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, trying to think, but then deciding not to. Sometimes his best thoughts came to him when he didn't think. He put out the lamp on his night table and crawled under the blankets.

XXXXX

Jarrod hobbled to the breakfast table with Heath's help in the morning. Heath had a pillow to put under Jarrod's foot, and with a big sigh, Jarrod settled in. Audra smirked a little, and so did Victoria.

"Picking on a cripple," Jarrod muttered.

"Sorry," Audra said and didn't really mean it.

"You going back into town today?" Nick asked of Heath.

"Yeah," Heath said. "Jarrod, do you need me to fetch anything back?"

"No," Jarrod said, "I don't think so. If it turns out I do, I can send Keno back in now that Follet isn't there to beat him up."

"You sure somebody else won't have at him?" Nick asked.

"No," Jarrod said, "but we have to know sooner or later if it's safe for him to go into town. Besides, it's you anybody would go after now, and if we keep you here for a while, there's less likely to be another fight."

"I am sorry about that," Nick said. "I know I haven't apologized enough – "

"We know, Nick," Jarrod said. "You can stop apologizing. We'll make whatever adjustments we need to make when this is all over."

"When do you think that will be?" Victoria asked.

"I'd like it to be today," Jarrod said, "but there's just no telling."

"There'll come a point, if we don't find out anything else, we'll just have to quit looking, won't we?" Nick asked.

"Yes," Jarrod said. And he looked closely at Nick. "There's a good chance you're just going to have to learn to live with not knowing."

Everyone looked at Nick then. They all knew that was going to be very tough, if it came to be. He said, "Well, I suppose I'll burn that bridge when I come to it."

Everyone noticed how he'd mangled the saying, but maybe the way he put it was the right way for the mess he was in. He might actually have to burn the bridge that led to knowing the truth and give up ever knowing it.

Heath still felt in the back of his mind that someone knew something about what happened to Jack Follet. It was just a question of finding that person – but if that person was the one who killed Follet, Heath knew finding him was going to be tough. Then he thought about something. "Jarrod," he said, "what if we offered a reward?"

Now everyone looked at Heath. Jarrod thought about it and shrugged. "We could." But as he thought more, he tried to figure out how to say his thoughts out loud. A reward was good, but who was going to come forward for a Barkley reward if the information pointed to Nick as the "person or persons unknown" responsible for Jack Follet's death? He thought about getting the sheriff to offer the reward, so the Barkley name wasn't attached to it – but there were problems with that too. Somebody could just blame Nick because it was convenient, but that would expose that somebody to charges of leaving Follet to die so maybe no one would come forward. Jarrod's head began to spin from all the possibilities. "Let me think about it," Jarrod said.

Victoria could see by the frown on Jarrod's face that he was struggling with the idea. "Why don't we just let Heath do another day of searching? We can talk more about a reward tonight if we have to."

Nick finished eating fast and got up from the table, very uncomfortable with all this conversation that could end up sending him to prison, or leave him always wondering if he had killed a man. "I better get out to work." He kissed Victoria on the forehead and left without another word.

Heath sighed. "The only way this is gonna come out with Nick feeling good is if we find that axe handle."

Jarrod nodded. "So look hard."

XXXXXXX

As soon as he got to town, Heath went to the sheriff's office but did not find him there. Trying to decide what to do, Heath went to the alley where they had found Follet. He had been there the day before but found nothing, and he wasn't sure why he was going there again now. Maybe just to see who was there, if anyone was. If someone was and Heath hadn't talked to him the day before, it was definitely someone he wanted to talk to now.

But there was only one person in the alley – the sheriff. Fred Madden was nosing around among things left in the alley – barrels, crates, trash. He looked up when he heard Heath come in. "Heath," he said in greeting.

"Looks like we had the same idea, Fred," Heath said. "Finding anything?"

"No," the sheriff said. "I did this before and didn't find anything that could have dented Follet's skull the way it was dented. The trash is different now. A couple of crates are new. But so far, there's nothing helpful here."

Heath nodded and picked at a couple spots himself. There were no axe handles or anything heavy like that. "Fred, show me again where Follet was found."

Sheriff Madden went to a spot directly behind Harry's saloon and pointed. He had shown Heath the spot before. "I'm not sure why you want to see it again."

Heath squatted and looked down at the spot. It was just dirt. There had not been any blood there the last time Heath looked, and the sheriff had said he didn't find any blood there when Follet was found. "I wonder where the blood went," Heath said.

"Easy enough to lose it in shuffling the dirt," the sheriff said.

"But you said you didn't find any when Harry came and got you and you first saw Follet."

"Aw, Heath, he might not have left any blood here to begin with."

Heath stood up. "He didn't bleed much?"

"Not a lot. Didn't even have any on his shirt, except for a sleeve like he'd wiped some blood off his nose after the fight. Nothing much where he was hit in the head."

"I don't get it, Fred," Heath sighed. "There's got to be something been there when you found Follet."

"Unless whoever hit him cleaned it up," the sheriff said.

Heath looked up at him.

"I've been thinking that all along, but I sure couldn't testify to it at the inquest," the sheriff said. "It's too much speculation."

"If we can't get somebody to confess, or if we can't find what he got hit with or fell on to hit his head, we're never gonna figure this one out, are we?"

Sheriff Madden shook his head. "I don't see how."

Heath said, "We kicked around the idea of a reward this morning at the ranch."

"Heath," the sheriff said, "Archer came to me already this morning. He wants to put out a reward himself but when I told him it could bring out the liars who need money, he decided to think about it some more. If I were the Barkleys, I'd stay far away from any reward idea. You might not like what you get."

"I know," Heath said. Then he looked up, and then looked up and down the alley. "I think I'll go see Harry about a cup of coffee. I'm running out of ideas."

"Why are you looking so hard?" the sheriff asked. "Nick's off the hook. Dig too much and you might put him back on it."

"Nick can't stand not knowing, Fred," Heath said. "Jarrod's afraid it'll eat him up. I know if it was me, I'd want my freedom clean, nothing hanging over my head. Guess that's a Barkley trait I can be sure I inherited from the old man."

Sheriff Madden smiled a little. "Stubborness you inherited, too. If Archer decides he wants to put out a reward, I'll let you know."

"And in the meantime, I'll keep nosing around."

"Just be careful. Get too close to fingering somebody else, you might find that nose cut off."