Heath thought for a moment. "Mama was like a fish out of water," he said. Nick waited for him to go on. "She just wasn't meant for life out west. She was very strong in her way, but she could never have done what Mother did to help our father in what he did. She was a delicate little lady trying to be tough. She was willing to suffer for what she thought was right. She did the best she could, trying to cope with a kid like me in a place like Strawberry."

Nick waited, hoping Heath would go on. This was by far the most Heath had said to him on anything about his time growing up, and Nick had begun to be curious.

"I think I told you she ended up out here because she had no place else to go. She got sent to her half-brother out here who had come west in the first part of the gold rush. They had the same mother; he was the son of her first husband. He was much older than she was, and they weren't close.

Her father had been to university in South Carolina, and he was a businessman in Charleston. His name was Andrew Thomson. He and a bunch of others had their money embezzled by some slick character in Charleston. No one ever found him. In the end the investigators thought he had left the country. That's why there was no money for her when he died."

Heath went on, "Her mother was quite the lady. Her family, the Beauforts, had been in Charleston for a long time. They were Huguenot. And yes, unfortunately they had slaves, my mother's family growing up. Mama had never cooked a meal or done any housework. She said she had been spoiled and pampered."

"Kind of like Audra," Nick volunteered.

Heath considered this. "Maybe," he said. "I think Audra's a good bit scrappier and knows how to do more. Where my mama was tough and strong was in her character. She dug deep and found strength when she had to. She learned how to do what she needed to do to survive out here, though it was never easy for her. She wasn't very strong physically.

But where she was strong was this – she was going to do what she thought was right, come hell or high water. Like antislavery stuff in South Carolina. Her father told her he'd whip her till she was black and blue if she ever went to another antislavery meeting or read anything by the Grimke sisters again, but it didn't stop her. So she was tough in her own way."

Nick wasn't sure what to say. He wondered if this was why Heath's mother had never told their father about Heath. Tonight, riding along, Heath seemed mellow enough. He'd just ask him. "Is that why she never said anything to our father about you? She didn't think it was right?"

"It sure was," Heath said. "It's also why she never told me until she knew she was dying." He was quiet for a minute and said, "It was something she and I had not been at peace about for a long time. We weren't estranged, but she knew it was the barrier between us. I guess she wanted to die knowing that was taken care of, that I wouldn't hold it against her anymore."

He cleared his throat. "She felt like because she had done wrong, because my father was a married man, that it was her price to pay, even though she hadn't known he was married. Her price, and mine." Nick waited. He knew Heath needed a minute to swallow the lump in his throat, to let the night air blow away any tears that had come to his eyes. By now, he understood that this was a very tender spot for Heath, and why. Of course it was.

"She sounds like a very determined woman," Nick said. "That's admirable, even if it wasn't really fair to her."

"She was determined, all right," Heath said. "And she said that life wasn't fair, and that's just how it is, that did not give her the right to interfere with his family."

"But you wanted her to," Nick said. "I mean, to tell him about you."

"I always wanted her to tell me who he was. I thought he knew about me, I don't know why, I just assumed he knew. She never said either way. It drove me crazy that she wouldn't tell me. I didn't think about the next step, about what would happen if she did tell me. I guess because I knew she wouldn't."

"She never gave you any hints?"

"The only thing even remotely a hint was that he was not from Strawberry, and that he had had something to do with the mine. That was the only thing she ever told me directly, and that was just to get me to shut up." Heath laughed. "I know you will find it hard to believe, but I was kind of a pain the backside."

Nick laughed. Heath had a dry sense of humor much like their father's. Heath went on, "I overheard a few things here and there, but not enough for me to figure it out. I heard a few things when I was supposed to be asleep. Once I heard her asking her friend, who I called Aunt Rachel, if all boys were as difficult as I was.

Aunt Rachel said she didn't know, since she had only raised girls, but she said 'Leah, I think you are dealing with an awful lot of his daddy, and that's why he's such a handful." My mother said something, I couldn't hear what, and Aunt Rachel said something about there never being too many boys on a ranch. But that wasn't much to go on. I wasn't even sure if they meant that he actually had a ranch, because I didn't hear the whole thing."

"So you were a handful," Nick said. "I can't say that surprises me."

Heath laughed. "I was indeed," he said. "I'm sure she wished many, many times that there was my father or a step-father there to give me the hiding I deserved. Even when I was a very little boy, she figured out that I'd take some licks with a wooden spoon without even blinking an eye, because I just didn't care. So she found more creative ways to deal with me."

"Like what?"

"She would make me do things that she knew I really didn't like, like a boring chore inside when I could have been outside playing. I hated that. Or she said I clearly needed better things to think about and sat me down and made me learn Latin nouns and verbs. Or look up and copy verses from the Bible about the way I should be behaving."

Nick laughed. "Well, that would make a kid think twice about misbehaving."

"It did sometimes," Heath said. He grinned. "It made me more careful about getting caught. My mama didn't understand boys at all. She grew up an only child. She had hardly ever been around any boys in her life. She was tutored at home by a governess, so she hadn't even gone to school with boys. So she just really didn't have much idea how to handle one. And as boys go, I was probably more of a challenge than most."

"That's the Barkley in you," Nick laughed. "Like your brothers. Especially me. I drove Mother nearly mad sometimes."

Heath said, "I kind of thought that might have been the case. Now, I'm not saying I would have been any angel no matter who I grew up with, but I'm pretty sure that she – Mother – would have known a lot better what to do with me."

"She would have indeed," Nick said. "We knew not to cross Mother too often. Well, we knew better, but that didn't stop me as often as it should have. How were you in school?" Nick asked. "I was constantly in trouble."