Chapter 8

Nick and Heath never even got to go out with the night crew.

The Barkeys headed home after a couple hours, but didn't make it there without incident. The sun started to go down and they hurried up – but then something happened. Gunfire from somewhere, horses rearing up when bullets hit too close to them. Nick and Heath were thrown. Jarrod's horse took off with him before he too was pitched off and rolled off the road, down into some brush.

Jarrod didn't know what was happening or what had happened to his brothers, but he was conscious and didn't think he was injured. He laid low as his horse ran away, thinking that whoever attacked them wouldn't know where he was. He pulled out his gun. He watched for movement – but how would he know who it was? How could he shoot at someone if he couldn't tell it wasn't Nick or Heath?

Suddenly he heard movement to his right. He tried to roll over onto his back but there was a knee shoved into his back and the cold barrel of a handgun pressed against the base of his skull. A scratchy voice said, "Don't move."

Jarrod stopped cold.

"Throw that gun aside," the voice said.

Jarrod obeyed.

"Now," the voice said, "I want you to tell me what Korby Kyles told you."

"About what?" Jarrod asked, trying to think of a way out of this while he spoke.

"Col. Ashby," the voice said.

"Everything he told me I used at the trial," Jarrod said. "If you want anything else, I don't know what it is."

The knee dug into his back even more, and the barrel of the gun dug further into his neck. "Where he kept the book."

"What book?" Jarrod asked. "He didn't tell me about any book."

"He gave you names."

"He didn't give me any names and he didn't give me any books."

Suddenly there were shots and whoever was on top of him was off of him. Jarrod rolled over fast, felt for the gun he had thrown away. There was still enough light for him to see a reflection off the barrel and he grabbed it and tried to roll over again, ready to shoot.

"It's Nick!" a voice said and footsteps hurried closer. "It's Nick and Heath! Are you all right?!"

Jarrod saw them, enough to know it was them. He saw Heath bend down over someone lying in the brush not far away – someone big. Jarrod struggled to sit up. "I'm all right. Is he dead?"

Heath straightened up a little, still on his knees, and said, "Yeah, he's dead."

"Strike a match – I want a look at him," Jarrod said and got to his feet.

"There's too much dry brush here," Heath said. "Let's get him up on the road."

It took all three of them, dragging what felt like a man who was as big as three regular men himself. When they got him into the road, Nick lit a match, and Jarrod got a look at who he expected to see.

"Isaac Imwald," Jarrod said and sank down to sit beside the dead man, out of breath.

Both Nick and Heath sank exhausted to the ground too, but they were both careful to keep looking around in case Imwald hadn't be alone. Nick blew the match out.

"He wanted some book of Korby's," Jarrod said.

"Could Korby even read?" Heath asked.

"Yeah, he could read," Nick said. "Believe it or not, we were in school together. What kind of book?"

"I'm not sure," Jarrod said, "but he said Korby gave me names."

"Did he?"

"No, and he didn't give me any books either."

"Do you think that's what this guy was looking for in the chicken coop?" Heath asked.

"Maybe," Jarrod said. "Maybe that's what got the Kyleses killed too, when they didn't give up the book either. We got lucky here, or we'd be lying in the road with the backs of our heads shot in too."

"So now we know there was a book with names somewhere and that's part of the cleaning up this bunch is out to do," Nick said.

Jarrod double checked Imwald's body to be sure he was dead. He was. "This bunch just lost their muscle."

"I expect he was alone or we'd be in a lot bigger trouble," Heath said.

"We're not far from home," Jarrod said. "Let's get the horses and get there and send somebody back to take this guy to town and get the sheriff."

"I wonder if there's anybody in town who's gonna notice when this Imwald comes in dead there," Nick said.

"I don't know," Jarrod said. "But at least now we know it was Imwald involved in the killings, and we know he's not out killing anymore."

They found their horses and were home in less than fifteen minutes. Nick went straight for men to go for the body and for the sheriff, and when he got inside he found both his brothers in the armchairs in the living room. Both of them had bleeding scrapes – Heath's on the side of his head, Jarrod on his right hand and collarbone. Victoria and Audra were cleaning them up.

"Anything broken?" Nick asked.

The women looked up at him. Audra said, "Only if it's your cheekbone. You've got a nasty bruise."

Nick touched it. "Yeah, it hurts, but I don't think it's broken and it's not bleeding."

"Your hand isn't going to be much use to you for a few days," Victoria said to Jarrod as she finished cleaning his hand and started to bandage it.

"I sent Ciego and Green out to take the body into town and bring the sheriff out here," Nick said and sat down on the sofa.

Victoria gave each of her sons an angry look. She wasn't mad at them. She was mad at the dead man. "Jarrod explained who the man was who attacked you," she said. "Thank heaven he seems to have been alone."

"We don't have any way of knowing for sure if he was the man who killed the Chinamen in town until his bullets get checked," Jarrod said, "but I'll guarantee his footprints match those big ones in the Kyles's chicken coop. I'll bet my license he killed the Kyleses."

"I think we better get something to eat before the sheriff comes out here," Nick said. "I'm hungry. Getting shot at always makes me hungry."

XXXXXX

They had finished eating by the time the sheriff came out. He listened to the men's description of what had happened, saw that they were banged up, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank heaven I don't have three more bodies on my hands," the sheriff said. "You're sure this guy was Imwald?"

Jarrod nodded. "Yeah, I got a look at him. He was Imwald."

"And he was looking for some book that had something to do with names."

Jarrod nodded again.

Nick said, "We think he was alone."

The sheriff said, "But we can't be sure he was, or that somebody else won't be sent to clean up after him and find any books. If there is one, we need to find it first."

"We need to go over the Kyles house again," Heath said.

"I'll bet there's nothing there," Jarrod said, and his eyes took on that look he got when he was thinking very deeply, that frown and that burning in the deep blue.

"You got any idea where it might be?" the sheriff asked.

Jarrod shook his head. "Korby never said anything to me to give me a clue. Maybe Asa Harmon might have some idea."

"The investigator who testified at the trial?" Victoria asked.

"He's coming into Stockton tomorrow," the sheriff said, "but I'd keep thinking if I were you. I doubt he's gonna know where any books are. I'll have Henry and a couple other fellas go over the Kyles house again tomorrow. There might be some hiding place out there that Imwald didn't find when he shot Jake and his boys."

Audra sighed and shook her head. "I don't know how you're going to unravel all of this, sheriff."

The sheriff looked at her. "I might not be able to. A lot of cases like this never get solved. But we have to keep at it. If Imwald was ready to kill you to find some book, somebody else might be ready to kill somebody to find it too."

"Maybe Asa Harmon will have some more names of people to talk to," Jarrod said.

"Here's hoping he does, and here's hoping we can find any books and clean this up before anybody else gets killed," the sheriff said.

"You know you can count on us to help you, Sheriff," Jarrod said. "I owe the county a lot of my time, after the mess I made of Korby's case."

"You did your job, Jarrod," the sheriff said, "but I'll accept your time and your help. Heaven knows I'll need it."