Chapter 5

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Jarrod stopped and said before they ever got to the sheriff's office. His eyes were on the railroad depot. "I know Askin was with me at four o'clock, and there hasn't been a train out of here since then." He quickly checked his watch. "The next train will head east and be in in about twenty minutes if it's on time. Let's have a look around the depot."

It was worth a shot. Askin had left Jarrod tied up. He might have banked on a notion that he could take a train out of town before anybody came looking for Jarrod. Jarrod led the way, and Nick and Heath followed him up into the railroad station, into the waiting area. They came in, and they looked around.

They looked around in time to see someone slip out the door that led to the platform. Jarrod caught a glance of the man's clothing, and it could have been Askin.

Jarrod hurried out the exit the man had taken, Nick and Heath right behind him. Jarrod stopped on the platform, looking up and down – where had the man gone?

Heath spotted him, tearing around the corner, heading back into town. "There!" he yelled and took off after him.

It was a familiar chase to Heath. This was the way he had taken off after Korby Kyles and caught him, but it required a leap over a high wooden wall. Nick and Heath were both up to the leaps, but Jarrod thought his wrists and head might not like the idea, so he kept running, past the alley, around an outbuilding and into the street.

He spotted Nick and Heath running straight across the street and down that alley. Jarrod was on a parallel street himself and stayed with it, until about twenty feet from a cross street he spotted Askin run by. How the heck did a man with a twisted foot and a limp like that move so fast? Jarrod reached the cross street just in time for Nick and Heath to catch up with him, and together now, they chased Askin.

Heath being the youngest, he was the fastest. Askin was running people out of the way but that left the way open for Heath to catch up to him, and it was only another block before he did and smashed into him at the entrance to an alley. People squealed, Heath pinned Askin to the ground next to a wall, and Nick and Jarrod caught up.

A crowd started to gather as Heath hauled Askin to his feet, turned him around and slammed him back against the wall. "Better get the sheriff!" Heath yelled.

None of the Barkleys really wanted to move, but some innocent man in the street said, "I'll get him," and took off.

All three Barkleys were in Askin's face, but it was Jarrod who asked, "What the devil made you think you'd get away with this? What the devil made you come here in the first place? Anybody in your shoes with an ounce of sense would have stayed as far away from here as possible!"

Askin didn't say anything. Sheriff Harris was there less than a minute later, yelling, "All right, let him go, what's this all about?"

Jarrod said, "This man held me all day tied up to a chair in my office, and I have the torn wrists to prove it and a lump on my head to boot. He's also gonna be wanted by the federals, and if for some reason they don't arrest him, I'm pressing charges for kidnapping and assault."

"All right, all right," Sheriff Harris said and grabbed Askin, pulling him away from the wall.

"I'll go with them," Heath said and followed along.

Leaving Jarrod and Nick there together, out of breath, Jarrod bloodied in the wrists again and with dried blood in his hair and on his collar. "You better let me take you to the doctor," Nick said. "Go home looking like that and Mother will pin me to the nearest wall. Besides, we gotta talk."

Jarrod nodded.

XXXXX

Nick waited in the doctor's waiting room while Dr. Merar cleaned him up and checked his injuries in the treatment room. Heath came in while he was waiting, saying, "The sheriff's locked Askin up and he's gonna wire Washington that he has him. We got awful lucky Jarrod thought of that train before Askin got on it and left."

Nick nodded.

Heath said, "Now, you and Jarrod gotta patch things up like Mother said. She's not gonna brook any more of this cool attitude between the two of you, and right now is a good time for you two to end it."

"You're right," Nick said, "and we'll find a way to do it, even if I never do understand why he went along with that trick of Macklin's and put the whole family in danger."

"Nick – "

"Forget me, Heath. I'm not the only one he hurt. I'm not the only one who lost trust in him. Maybe I show it the most, but you've lost trust in him too and so have Mother and Audra. And he knows it."

Heath sat down in a chair beside the one Nick was in. "Yeah, we all know it, but there's something about all this I don't think we know."

"What?"

"If I knew, I'd know it, and I'd tell you," Heath said. "But – "

He didn't get to go on. Jarrod came out of the treatment room with Dr. Merar behind him, saying, "He's not hurt bad. You can go on home."

Nick and Heath both got up. Jarrod raised his wrists to show the bandages and pointed loosely to the patch of bandage on the side of his head. "Thanks, Doc," he said.

"We need to have a long talk before we go home," Nick said. "We gotta iron some things out."

Jarrod nodded. "Let's go up to my office. That's where the brandy is."

"Don't drink!" the doctor warned. "You had a knock in the head!"

Jarrod nodded as he and his brothers went out the door, but as soon as they got to his office and he poured ample brandies for each of his brothers, he poured just a little bit for himself.

"Mother told us we needed to iron things out before we brought you home," Nick said as Jarrod handed him a glass.

Jarrod gave Heath a glass, then went around behind his desk and sat down. Nick and Heath sat down in the two chairs in front of Jarrod's desk.

Jarrod looked into his glass without drinking from it. "We got Askin together, all of us. He's part of this Alderson mess. I suppose he's our ticket to clearing things up between us."

Nick said, "Look, Jarrod, I know I said I'd have done the same thing you did when the federals came after you – "

"But you're not sure you really meant it," Jarrod interrupted. "I've noticed, Nick. Things haven't been the same between us. It might be inching back to a better relationship, but maybe we better face it. I let you think you were gonna get hanged, and I endangered the family – and maybe I wouldn't do it exactly the same way we did it before, but I believed I was doing the right thing. I'd still do it. And that eats at you."

"Yes, it does," Nick said, looking straight at his older brother. "During the day, in the sunlight, I could understand things a little better, but in the middle of the night, when I wake up like last night dreaming about a noose around my neck…". Nick trailed off, shaking his head.

"Or dreaming about Mayville," Jarrod said. "You really feel the betrayal in the middle of the night, mine and Alderson's. I understand, Nick. I hope someday you can really forgive me, but I know that maybe we never will be back to the way it was. I know I didn't plan on you and Heath being at the house when Alderson was, but I should have considered it might happen. And I should have known Mother would never have taken things lying down. Even if you hadn't been there, even if you hadn't been threatened, she'd have tried what she did to get the invaders out of her home. I should have known."

Nick sighed. "Yeah, you should have, but I do understand why you went along with the government men. Let me ask you something though. Did they give you any choice?"

Jarrod hesitated, but Heath said, "Jarrod, what did Macklin have on you that made you have to go along with them?"

Nick looked startled, but Jarrod wasn't. "I knew I said something I shouldn't have last night," Jarrod said.

"What?" Nick asked, baffled. "What are you two talking about? What did Macklin have on you? Are you saying you got blackmailed into helping those federals get Alderson?"

Jarrod's eyes took on that look – that look of guilt mixed with blocking everyone out – that he could get when he couldn't or didn't want to answer a question that particularly hurt him. He sipped at his brandy.