The next couple chapters are straight from "Palms of Glory" (minus poor forgotten Eugene) with only a few tweaks and my spin on what wasn't or couldn't be shown on screen. My thanks to the writers and apologies to Charles Briles for writing Eugene out of this story.

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"Jarrod!"

Jarrod looked up from the injunction he was preparing to file to keep the railroad from taking his neighbours' land and walked to his door. He'd arrived home after a frustrating and fruitless battle in the state capitol only to find the railroad had set its ultimatum for the morning and he didn't really feel like dealing with one of Nick's tirades, but knew Nick would keep hollering until he arrived.

"Jarrod, get down here!" the voice yelled again and Jarrod broke into a run as he heard an edge to his brother's voice that was seldom there.

"Nick, what in the name of..." he started as he entered the library and whirled at the sound of breaking glass to find Heath Thomson, blood on his face, menacing him with a broken bottle. Jarrod had no idea what was going on.

"Now I've had me a day." To Jarrod it looked like he was confronting a crouching mountain lion and wondered what had set Heath off. "Pulled out of my bed to be accused and a fist in my face. Now this one's gonna be peaceful, you hear?" There was another tense moment. Jarrod eased up his defensive posture first, followed by Nick and then Heath.

"Well look at that," Heath commented as he wandered across the room and gestured at the portrait hanging above the fireplace with the broken bottle. "The old stud himself."

Jarrod held Nick back with a firm grip on his arm. There was something about the blond that tickled at the back of Jarrod's mind and he remembered that sense of déjà vu he had that night by the corral.

"Boy howdy, don't he look proper. You know, I bet they buried him in those clothes, with his buttons all shined and his hair all spit and slickered, and a rose in his teeth, and the honeybees buzzin'." Heath's voice practically dripped with scorn and Jarrod wondered what was up with the normally calm man.

Nick lunged for him again. "Oh, now that's all..."

Jarrod held onto his volatile brother again.

Heath tossed the bottle on the ground as he paced back across the room. "I'll bet a band played, and there was singin' and wailin' and ever so good a time, and some parson readin'." He turned back and looked coldly at the two brothers. "They buried my mama. But it wasn't in refinement, and no thousand people weeped over her grave. In a potter's field, like she was nothin', human or flesh."

Jarrod saw the resentment in the younger man's eyes and didn't blame him. His mama probably deserved those honours more than Tom Barkley did.

Heath continued with his smouldering rage. "The night I was born, she was alone, in a tent, in a rotten rathole of a mining camp up the Stanislaus." Jarrod kept his hands on his hips as he suddenly realized where he'd seen Heath's distinctive grin before. "And the rain beat down and turned the straw to mud. Do you know what she was? She was warm, and gentle and fair, and left to her own when her husband got liquored up and drowned in some stinking creek. Until he came." Heath's eyes flickered back to the portrait.

Jarrod knew exactly what Heath was implying and felt the disgust rise in his gut. In spite of the guilt he still felt over his father's death, he wished he wasn't of Tom Barkley's seed. "How long ago was this?

"Twenty-four years."

"Where?" the lawyer asked

Heath stood his ground. "In a mining camp."

"You told us that," Nick said abruptly from his position on the other side of the room.

Twenty-four years. Jarrod remembered a time about that long ago when his father had been gone for a long while. "What mining camp?"

"Strawberry," was the succinct reply.

Jarrod didn't move as Nick strode forward. "Come on. You know there was a lot of men in those camps. You know the kind of women…"

"Nick!" Jarrod snapped. It wasn't the kind of women; it was the kind of man their father had been.

"There was only one of my mother!" Heath replied hotly.

"Just the simple, sweet, innocent little..." Nick scoffed and Jarrod broke in again. He walked up to confront Heath.

"What my brother is clumsily trying to determine," he said as though cross-examining a witness, "is when you came to hear."

In spite of his battered face, Heath stood strong and Jarrod could tell the other man still knew he was in control. "Three months ago."

Nick turned his back. "Oh, yeah, yeah, sure."

Jarrod continued his questioning. "What happened three months ago?"

"My mother died."

"Confessions from a deathbed," Nick commented derisively.

Jarrod finally snapped, "Nick, that'll be enough!" He didn't know if his brother knew about their father's straying outside his marriage or not, but was fed up with Nick's attitude. He turned back to Heath. "Well?" He knew in his heart Heath was telling the truth, but also knew Nick would never let it pass unless Heath proved his claim to the rancher's satisfaction.

Heath picked up his glass of whiskey and turned away from them. "I'd been up on the Klamath. They called for me. Said she was sick, was dyin'. She never talked about it, who my father was, not in all those years." Heath took a breath and continued. "There was something she wanted me to know, something she couldn't take to her grave. There was a Bible in a box, and she told me to get it. She said, 'Turn to the back, to the last page.' I started to, and this fell out." Heath took a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and Jarrod recognized it as a newspaper clipping. "I picked it up, I read it. And I looked at her… and she was gone." He turned and held out the paper towards Jarrod. Jarrod took it and instantly recognized the headline and the copy of the portrait that hung on the wall. He passed it to Nick.

"This it?" the rancher asked. "All of it? Just one piece of paper?"

"He was my father," Heath said defiantly.

Nick folded up the paper and tucked it back into Heath's pocket. "All right, boy…"

"You don't believe me," Heath accused. "You're not dumpin' me the way he dumped her."

"Keep your voice down!" Nick shouted and Jarrod had to smile a bit at the incongruity of the statement and the volume with which it was uttered.

Jarrod's blue eyes met Heath's. "What do you want, Heath?"

Heath met his gaze coolly. "What I'm entitled to. A name, a heritage, a part of it all. What's mine."

Nick pulled some bills out of his pocket. "All right, boy. Now you listen to me." He stuffed the money in Heath's shirt pocket. "This is all you get. I want you out of this house, off this place and out of this valley. And know this. If I ever lay eyes on you again, I'm gonna finish what I started tonight."

Heath stared at Nick. Without breaking eye contact, he took the money out of his pocket and with the same deliberation, put it into his whiskey glass. Setting the glass on the table, he turned and gave Jarrod a wave and the flash of a grin before he strode across the parlour and out the front door.

"Can you believe that?" Nick snarled as the door shut behind him. "Of all the nerve…"

"What happened, Nick?" Jarrod demanded. "Heath's been working here for what? Six weeks? He hasn't said a word in all that time. Why now and why like this?"

"Well, I…" Nick ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I guess I sort of accused him of coming here as a spy for the railroad. We got into a fight and he just blurted it out."

"You…" Jarrod shook his head in disbelief before he stated bluntly, "Nick, you were out of line. I need to go finish that injunction tonight, but we will talk about this in the morning." Jarrod left before Nick could protest.

He went to his room and poured a measure of scotch. He wasn't surprised Heath wasn't interested in a payoff and he also wasn't surprised to find out Tom had sired another son.

Jarrod sipped his drink slowly. He wondered if his father had known. But even if Heath's mother hadn't said anything, their father certainly would have known how babies were conceived and there was no excuse for him not going to Strawberry to make sure. Is that really what you thought a man should be? Jarrod thought bitterly at the memory of his father. Leaving a son of your blood to be born and raised in such circumstances?

He was jolted from his reverie by another of Nick's shouts. Wondering what it could be that time, he went downstairs to find his brother buckling on his gunbelt.

"Fire at Swenson's," the rancher said curtly. "I'm heading off to help."

Jarrod cringed inwardly. The violence had already started. "Saddle my horse," he told Nick, "I'll be right there."

The scene was chaos when the brothers arrived. Most of the buildings had already burned to the ground and men with buckets were trying to extinguish the last of the flames. Jarrod saw Sig Swenson hurl his bucket in anger as the chimney of the house crumbled. He saw Heath ride up with Audra and wondered briefly at her torn dress. But he dismissed his concerns about his sister with the unshakable knowledge that Heath was an honourable man. He noticed their mother drive up in a buggy before he turned his attention to their friend and neighbour.

"They came," Swenson said as Nick grabbed his arm and Jarrod walked over slowly after staring at the devastation, "just came. With guns and torches, howling out like wolves. And I just stood there, aside, and watched them do it." He hung his head in despair.

"Well, not my place." Frank Sample strode up, determination in every step. "And hanged I'll be after paying for what I own." He took something out of his pocket and Jarrod recognized it as the notice to vacate from the railroad. "I have a paper here that says I'll have to do just that." He walked over to Nick, then to the sheriff who had arrived with Heath and Audra. "By 8 o'clock in the morning, or have my place took out from under me. Well, I ain't, you hear?" There was a thick silence, them Sample held the paper aloft. "I ain't! Who stands with me?"

In the shadows, Heath remained mounted.

Sheriff Lyman looked sternly at Nick who had moved to stand beside Sample. "No one stands with you, Frank. I'm sorry, but legally after tomorrow the land's no longer yours."

Sample lowered his hand slowly. "Nick," he said, almost desperately and then walked to Jarrod. "Jarrod. Listen. Six years ago, your daddy and mine fought and died for this, cause your daddy said it was right to fight."

"And what did it gain you?" Sheriff Lyman shouted. "Any one of you?" He turned to Sample. "Your father…" and then to Jarrod, "and yours. Ten others, dead. Six years of false hope. I bow to no man in my regard for Tom Barkley, but he was only a man. He couldn't fight a giant and win! Any more than can you!" He addressed Sample again. "Or you. Or any man." He looked over the gathered crowd. "So worship him, and pray for him, but follow him… you follow a dead man to his grave."

Sample looked from Nick to Jarrod. "That true? What he says? Your daddy gave us nothing? No way to fight?" The farmer bowed his head and walked away, defeated. "Never did."

Everyone's attention was on Frank Sample, who ripped the ultimatum from the railroad and threw it to the ground in despair. Everyone watched as Nick took a long look around, catching each of them in his piercing gaze, with a longer look at his brother before he walked over and stood beside Sample, arms crossed defiantly. Swenson went to stand on his neighbour's other side.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jarrod saw Heath turn his horse's head and leave and suddenly felt the weight of devastation crush him.

He had failed. In spite of his belief and faith in the law, they were back to where they'd been when his father was gunned down.

Maybe if he had taken it to the courts the first time around, like his father wanted, instead of focusing on his client at the time… Jarrod felt the guilt settle heavier on his soul. If he had dropped that case to focus on the railroad issue, an innocent man would have likely hung, leaving his wife and small daughter alone. And if he had dropped it, his father and eleven other men might still be alive and none of this would be happening.

He looked up and met the eyes of his mother, eyes that had never held condemnation, only love, support and pride.

But that pride was misplaced. Tom Barkley's way had prevailed. It was fight or nothing and Jarrod gave up his struggle as he walked over to stand beside his brother and the rest of the valley farmers who had come to fight the fire moved in behind them.

"Harry, I've known you most of my life," Jarrod said, his posture and expression implacable, "and respected you. Enough to be honest."

"Any man who comes to try to take that farm, he's going to be killed," Nick finished for his brother.

The sheriff looked from one unyielding face to another and responded in kind. "I'm sorry to hear that, because I'm going to be with them." He turned, mounted his horse and rode away, knowing nothing more could be said.

Jarrod listened to Nick and Sample start making plans and then walked over to his own horse.

"Jarrod!" Nick called after him and grabbed him by the arm. "Where the devil are you going?"

Jarrod tore his arm away and wondered if his brother could understand. "I need to think, Nick," he said and was relieved to see some sort of understanding in the hazel eyes.

Nick nodded. "See you back at the house." Jarrod clapped his brother on the back in gratitude before mounting his horse and riding off into the darkness.