Chapter 21

Jarrod's stomach tightened. "Sheriff Tolson," he said.

"You have a face full of news," Nick said.

"What's happened?" Heath asked.

The sheriff said, "I didn't think I would, but I got a warrant to arrest Ipswitch today. Me and my deputy went back out there to pick him up."

"He resisted," Jarrod said.

"In a way," the sheriff said. "We got to the door and heard a gunshot before we could even knock. Ipswitch's little houseman started yelling up a storm. The door wasn't locked, we went in." The sheriff sighed again. "We found the man at his desk in his study with a gun in his hand and a bullet in his head."

Jarrod slumped. "My God – "

Nick and Heath looked at each other, uneasy, sorry, frustrated.

"Did he leave a note?" Jarrod asked.

"No," Sheriff Tolson said. "The best I can figure is he saw me coming with my deputy and knew we were going to take him in. He didn't want to go to jail. He took another way out."

"So we don't have any way of knowing for sure if he's been behind the attempts to kill me," Jarrod said.

"Well," the sheriff said, "there is one other thing. His man, Lang, told me Ipswitch had him bring a letter into town to mail. Lang doesn't read English so he doesn't know who it was to or where it was going."

"The post office would know," Nick said.

The sheriff shook his head. "The mail had already gone out before I got there. It's on its way to San Francisco and nobody remembers the name or address on the letter Lang brought. It was going to San Francisco – that they remember – but they just threw it in the bag."

"So," Jarrod said, "we don't know who he wrote or why, or whether it was another try to hire someone to kill me, and if it was, we don't know who. Or whether it was just a letter to a business acquaintance and Ipswitch never did have anything to do with trying to kill me."

Sheriff Tolson said, "Nope."

All three Barkley men lost any of the good feeling they had built up over the comradery and the winnings at the poker table. The sheriff went on his way, and before long the Barkley men went back to their hotel room, in silence. It was when they got to the room that Heath finally said, "I'm sorry, Jarrod."

Jarrod shook his head. "No need to be sorry for me. I'm sure it was Ipswitch after me, even if it's not 100% sure."

"But if it was?"

"Even if that letter gets to someone he was trying to hire, whoever it is is gonna find out Ipswitch is dead because I'm gonna wire Pinkerton in the morning and have them put an obituary in the San Francisco paper. If that letter is to someone Ipswitch is trying to hire, he'll know from the paper that he won't get paid, maybe before the letter even gets to him, and that'll be the end of all of this. At least, that's how I'm gonna live life."

"It might be a helluva gamble," Nick said.

Jarrod shrugged. "We'll be careful for a bit longer just to be sure, but I'm a lawyer and I do criminal law and handle divorces. There's always gonna be somebody else after me. But for now, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be no one."

"I wonder what'll happen to Ipswitch's ranch," Nick mused. "His one son was all he had, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Jarrod said. "That's why he got so upset when I couldn't get Aaron out of a prison sentence and why he went so crazy after the boy died. As far as I know, Ipswitch didn't have anyone else in the world. Maybe that explains the suicide, but I wouldn't wish suicide on anybody, not even Ipswitch."

Jarrod sat down on the bed and began to take his boots off, but as he did, he unconsciously scratched the scar on his neck. Nick and Heath both noticed. "So you're about ready to let this go?" Heath asked.

Jarrod realized what he had just done, and he let his hand fall. "Yeah, about ready."

"We'll head home in the morning, I guess," Nick said, "AFTER you send that wire to Pinkerton."

"I'd like to do one more thing before we leave, too," Heath said.

Jarrod and Nick knew without asking what it was.

XXXXXXX

It was Heath who knocked at the door of the boarding house the next morning. The older woman who had opened it to them the day before opened it again now. "Let me have your guns," she said right away.

Heath took his hat off and said, "I'm the only one who wants to come in, and I already gave my gun to my brothers. They're gonna wait out here. If you'll tell Jennifer, I just want to have that longer talk about Burt, if she'll give me the time."

Jennifer's voice came out from inside again, saying, "He can come in."

Heath went inside, and as soon as the older woman closed the door, Nick and Jarrod turned and found the rocking chairs on the porch. "Might as well be comfortable," Jarrod said and sat down.

Inside, Heath found Jennifer sitting on the sofa and walked over to her. She did not get up, but offered her hand. He took it. "I didn't expect you back so soon," she said.

Heath said, "My brothers and I are leaving this morning. I suppose you heard Mr. Ipswitch was dead."

Jennifer nodded. "Word got around fast."

"I just wanted to talk some more, if you're willing. May I sit down?"

Jennifer nodded toward an armchair facing the sofa, and Heath took a seat. "What more do you want to know?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know if there's more I need to know, really," Heath said. "I just wanted you to know the Burt I knew a little better. Maybe describing him to you, I might figure out more about how he went so wrong. It's really got me puzzled."

Jennifer smiled just a little. "Not just puzzled. Troubled."

"Yes, troubled," Heath said. He smiled a little himself as he started to remember. "We were just kids, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Not really wild, but not really tame, either. I met Burt at a mining camp near Placerville. Most of the men we ran into were older, come west from the east, but Burt was from a camp up the Stanislaus and I was from a mining town called Strawberry, and we had lots of things in common. So, we struck up a friendship. Burt wasn't any kind of violent in those days. He didn't even carry a gun and he maybe got into one or two fights the whole time I knew him. That's what has me troubled. I don't know what happened."

Jennifer sighed. "Like I said, I think it was just he wasn't making the money, or he was gambling it away."

"That's what I was thinking, he was gambling it away. We were kids, but we wormed our way into card games, and sometimes Burt got pretty lucky at it. It might have been better if he hadn't."

Jennifer said, "I met Burt here in San Jose, four years ago. He courted me, nice and proper. He was working for Mr. Ipswitch at the time and he was doing well and I thought – well, I thought him doing well would just keep up."

"Was he gambling when you met him?"

"Yes, but I thought it would ease off once we were married. I thought he'd want to spend more time with me. He just didn't."

"When was it he bought a gun?"

"I don't know. He had it when I met him. You need one to be a cowhand, it's kind of a tool, you know that."

Heath nodded. "That's when I got one, when I started riding the range."

"How long did you know Burt?"

"Only a few months. I moved on pretty quick. It's only been recent I've settled down."

"I don't understand," Jennifer said. "You're a Barkley. I thought that was a pretty set for life family."

"It is," Heath said, "but I didn't know I was a Barkley back in the days I knew Burt. I found that out not long ago, and the Barkleys took me in as one of their own even if their father wasn't married to my mother. I never knew my father."

"Burt didn't know his father either – did you know that?"

"No," Heath said. "He never told me that. But then again, I never told him about my father either. We were just two kids on our own."

Heath laughed a little again and started to tell some of the stories he remembered about things he and Burt got into together that weren't too troublesome. Like the time an earthquake hit in the middle of the night and threw Burt out of bed clear across the room because he didn't wake up in time to hold onto the bed. Like the time one of the older men tried to sell them a gold watch that Burt was ready to buy but Heath thought wasn't gold at all, and Heath was right. Like the time Burt was challenged to an arm wrestle by one of the really older men and thought he'd have no trouble taking him but the old guy was deceptively strong and had Burt beat in less than five seconds.

Jennifer told Heath about meeting Burt at a Saturday night dance and sneaking off with him that first night to go spooning in the park, only to be caught by the sheriff who sent Burt on his way and walked her back to the dance himself. She told Heath about how kind Burt was when her parents both died of influenza right after she met Burt, how she had to move into this boarding house then but he kept coming to see her. She told him about picnics and long rides. She told him how they married and rented a place of their own.

"But that's when he started worrying about money," Jennifer said, the smile leaving her face. And she sighed. "And when he worried about money, he slapped me around. And then he started disappearing for days at a time. It all fell apart. I never tried for a divorce. I just moved out and came back here."

"Do you know why he beat you up this last time – why really?" Heath asked.

Jennifer nodded. "That was when he found out Mr. Ipswitch had been to see me and he figured I knew what Mr. Ipswitch had him doing for him. He beat me up to shut me up. To make sure I wouldn't talk, even though I hadn't told anyone what I thought he was doing. That was the last time I saw him."

What Ipswitch had him doing for him. "Jennifer, do you think Burt actually killed anybody for Ipswitch, before he came after my brother?"

"I don't know, and I don't know any way to find out," Jennifer said. "Heath, I hate to say it this way, but I could kiss your brother for killing Burt. You don't know how scared I've been."

"I think I can understand," Heath said. "We've been scared for my brother, too. Burt cut his throat."

Jennifer nodded. "Burt liked his knives." She waved her hand over her own cut face but didn't touch it, and let her hand fall into her lap.

Heath got up. "Jennifer, I'm so sorry Burt didn't live up to the man I thought he was and the man you thought he was."

Jennifer nodded. "I hope maybe I've put your mind to rest somewhat. What Burt turned into didn't have anything to do with you."

Heath was surprised she said that, both because she figured it out and because he had tried hard not to think it. But yes, he had wondered if his time with Burt had influenced him to become a killer. "It didn't have anything to do with you, either," Heath said. "It just had to do with him."

Jennifer nodded again, extending her hand. "Thank you for talking with me," she said.

Heath took her hand. "I hope you get better really fast. Maybe next time I'm in San Jose, you'll let me come see you again?"

Jennifer smiled. "I would like that."

Heath took his leave, feeling lighter than when he had gone in. Jarrod and Nick got up from their rocking chairs as Heath came out, putting his hat back on. Nick gave him back his sidearm.

"How did it go?" Nick asked.

Heath nodded. "It went good. I got a better picture of Burt. I think Jennifer did too."

"Are you ready to put him behind you and go home?" Jarrod asked.

"Yeah," Heath said. "How about you?"

Jarrod thought for a minute, reflecting on Ipswitch's letter to San Francisco and the wire he had sent to Pinkerton. "In a month or so," he said. And he nodded to himself. "Yeah, a month or so."

"I hope it's not an interesting month," Nick muttered as they left the porch.

The End