Going Around the Wall

Chapter 1

"Len Colter turned me down," Jarrod told his family. "He's not going to do a thing."

"What could he do?" Nick grumbled. "We chose Oak Meadows carefully. The engineering was worked out for Oak Meadows. You can't just pick up a project and move it and you know that better than anyone."

Nick was still hot about Jubal Tanner showing up and about his mother keeping a decades old promise and selling him Oak Meadows. All the work that he and Jarrod and others had done to locate and engineer a dam that would bring prosperity to a whole lot of people seemed to go for naught. He was still mad about Jarrod signing the deed granting the land to Tanner, and he was mad about Heath taking Tanner's side from the beginning – maybe not as mad at Heath, given Heath's reasons for supporting the man. Heath had come here six months earlier looking for his rightful place too, so Nick couldn't really argue with him. But he could argue with his mother and especially with Jarrod who was turning his back on a project he had worked harder than anyone for.

Jarrod had a lot of practice keeping his cool with Nick over the years. Now, he just said, calmly, "We're honoring a promise made by Mother and Father. Nobody hates canceling this project more than I do."

"What did you think Len Colter could do about it, Jarrod?" Heath asked, genuinely interested.

"I don't know," Jarrod said. "I'm not an engineer. I don't know if there's anything at all he could do but he could have tried harder to cool off the hotheads in town."

"He has been trying," Audra said suddenly.

Jarrod looked up at her. "He has?"

"I heard him talking to Mr. Dutton and Mr. Crowell this afternoon," Audra said.

Jarrod was surprised. Colter had seemed completely uninterested in talking to the "hotheads" the last time they spoke. "What was he saying?"

"Trying to get them to let up on Mr. Tanner," Audra said. "Asking them to give him more time."

"To do what?" Nick asked. "Try to talk to Tanner? That's like knocking your head against a wall."

"Like I said, there are sometimes ways of going around a wall, Nick," Jarrod said.

"Have you found one for this situation yet?"

"No," Jarrod admitted. "Did you hear what Colter was asking time to do?"

Audra shook her head. "No, I didn't."

"Well, Jubal owns the land now," Victoria said, "and the question becomes, are we going to defend his right to do with it as he pleases?"

The Barkley brothers looked at each other. Heath's opinion was clear. He would support Tanner however he had to. And now it was clear that Jarrod would do that, too, because Jarrod said, "Jubal's gonna need some help out there. I don't know when Dutton and Crowell and their pals are coming, but they're coming."

"Was Colter getting anywhere at all with Dutton and Crowell, Audra?" Victoria asked.

"Not that I could hear," Audra said.

"Well, then," Jarrod said. "Heath and I are gonna get loaded up and go out there just in case he has to fight somebody off. The question is, Nick, are you going with us?"

Nick leveled a hard gaze at him. "I still think Jubal's wrong, but I'm not gonna let you and Heath go out there alone."

The brothers went into the gunroom and started getting ready, strapping on gunbelts and loading rifles they hoped they'd never need. Victoria followed, watching, hoping the same thing. It was while they were getting ready that they kept talking to Nick, and finally, Nick decided that maybe one man's rights standing alone were just as valid as one man's rights standing with a crowd. Finally, his anger was shifting, from Tanner to Dutton and Crowell.

Heath noted that sometimes it took a while, but it seems Barkleys did eventually come around to seeing eye to eye. By the time Victoria and Audra saw them off, all the Barkleys were in agreement.

But Audra said, "I hope they're wrong. I hope there's not any trouble."

"Your father never shied away from trouble, and neither will his sons," Victoria said.

"Mother, I'd go too if they'd let me," Audra said. "I had a hard time with it, but I'd have to support Mr. Tanner too."

"Audra, you and I need to be here to pick up the pieces, whatever they are," Victoria said. "Yes, we'd both pick up a rifle if need be – but at times like this, it's the pieces we may have to pick up."

"I'll get bandages ready," Audra said. "Maybe Chad will help me."

Victoria suddenly frowned. Tanner's grandson, a headstong but adorable little boy. "Where is Chad, anyway? Have you seen him lately?"

Now Audra frowned. "Come to think of it, no."

XXXXXX

Heath found Chad – hiding in the wagon out at Oak Meadows. Knowing trouble was coming, Heath only had time to get Chad down on the ground and hiding before it came. He stayed near the boy, to keep him covered and to keep him from running out into the open. He stood guard while Dutton and Crowell and several other men rode up.

Jarrod talked to them. Jarrod tried to get them to go away peacefully. Nick warned them that all the Barkley men were there. Dutton and Crowell and the others turned to leave, but the Barkleys were no fools. They knew a ruse when they saw it, and when the men turned and charged, the Barkleys and Jubal Tanner were ready.

There was plenty of gunfire, but only one rider went down, shot by Jubal Tanner. Jarrod saw it happen and turned his attention to Jubal, because now Dutton was bearing down on him on horseback, getting behind the tree Tanner was hiding behind.

Dutton was taking aim when Jarrod shot him. Dutton's shot at Tanner went wild, and Dutton fell out of the saddle, flat and still on the ground.

The sound of horses came from another direction. Crowell and the men still with him turned and took off fast, leaving Tanner and the Barkleys there to stand over two men dead on the ground – the man Tanner had shot and Dutton, whom Jarrod had shot. Chad was crawling up out from under the wagon and running toward his grandfather before Heath could stop him, but the shooting was over anyway. The sheriff and several deputies had arrived and were dismounting.

"Jarrod, I'm sorry, we got wind of this but we couldn't get here in time," the sheriff said right away.

Jarrod looked toward Jubal and his grandson. The old man had his arm around the boy, and Chad was clinging tightly to Jubal's waist. "We got lucky, sheriff," Jarrod said. He nodded toward Dutton on the ground. "But I think Dutton is dead. He was taking a bead on Jubal and I shot him."

"I shot the other one, sheriff," Tanner said.

A deputy had gone to each body, checked it, and now nodded. Both men were dead.

"You best go after Crowell, sheriff," Nick said as he came to them, holstering his gun. "He might not let this go by."

"They won't be back tonight," the sheriff said. "It's getting too dark, and with Dutton dead – well, I'm not sure Crowell or anybody else will be back now that two men are dead."

"The problem remains, sheriff," Jarrod said. "This is still Jubal's land. The toughs in town are still gonna want to run him off and they may darned well try again."

"I'm not going," Tanner said.

"Yeah, I get that," the sheriff said, somewhat dismissively. Then he looked at Jarrod. "I'm not excusing Dutton and Crowell and the other men for this, but this is partly your responsibility too – you Barkleys and you too, Tanner."

"Sheriff, Jarrod's worked like crazy not to let it get this far," Heath said. "Nobody would listen to him."

The sheriff looked at Tanner. This was as stiff a standoff as he'd ever faced. He only had one card to play. "There are two men dead here. I can't say what an inquest jury is gonna do under these circumstances."

"Inquest?" Nick all but shouted.

"Two men dead, I got no choice," the sheriff responded.

"You have a choice, sheriff," Jarrod said quietly. "It's easy to see what went on here."

"But I didn't see it," the sheriff said. "The law is gonna have to look into it, Jarrod. You know that."

"It's a cinch these men came here after Tanner on his land!" Nick yelled. "We didn't go after them!"

"And an inquest jury will see that," the sheriff said.

"Then why – "

"Nick, it's the law," Jarrod said quickly, even though he knew full well this was a pressure play on the sheriff's part, to get Tanner and the Barkleys to give something, somehow.

"And the way things are going, what if an inquest jury sides with Crowell and you and Jubal are indicted for murder here?" Nick scowled. "You think that's not possible?"

Jarrod knew Nick was right, but he also knew the sheriff was right even if it was a power play he was trying. Two men dead with no law around to see it happen – there would be an inquest. "Anything is possible," Jarrod conceded. "But right now, sheriff, the threat here remains. You have to leave a couple deputies here tonight, even if we stay. And I don't plan to stay."

"Where are you going?" Nick asked.

"To talk to Len Colter," Jarrod said. "Put aside what's already happened. Len is the only man who can work a real compromise here, Len and the engineers. Once he gets word of what happened here tonight, once I lean on him even harder – it's got to shake something loose. There has to be a way out of this without anybody else getting killed, and I intend to find it."