Fifteen Years

Chapter 1

December 1898

It was a horribly beautiful day, sunny and warm, not too hot and not humid, the kind of day that made you feel light and content when that was the last thing you wanted to be. Light and content was getting hard to come by now that Victoria was slipping into her 80s. Too many aches and pains, too much of having to keep from falling, too many memory lapses. Too much of the one memory that wouldn't lapse.

She stood looking down at the graves, three of them. Undoubtedly, she would be joining them before long, and she still wouldn't know what she had been screaming inside to know for very nearly 15 years now. Fifteen years. How could it be 15 years?

She heard the horse come up behind her. One thing that wasn't failing on her was her hearing. She didn't need to look to see who it was. She could hear the ever-present spurs jingling.

"Mother, what are you doing out here by yourself?"

Nick's voice had grown more gentle over the years but no less insistent. Victoria didn't look at him. She still looked at the graves – at that one grave. "He'd have been 55 years old today."

"I know that," Nick said. "None of us has forgotten."

"In only a few more days it will have been 15 years since he was murdered."

"We know that too."

"He always said that he hoped by the time he turned 55 he'd be an appellate court judge. That's what he was aiming at – the appellate court at 55." Victoria hesitated a bit. She realized she was hitting Nick where it hurt him. "I know it's been grating on you all these years, and I'm sorry. I don't mean to make it worse. But the fact that we've never been able to find out what happened – and I know it wasn't for the lack of you trying. I know it's probably been grating on you more than it's been grating on me. I'm sorry."

"No, don't be," Nick said. "You have a right to be bitter." What he didn't say was what he really thought – I let you down.

Victoria gave a resigned sigh. "I know it's foolish to think we could find out the truth after all this time. At least with your father and with Beth we knew the truth. I should be grateful for that. But somewhere, someone got away with murdering your brother. No one paid for it. The one thing your brother stood up most for in life – justice – was denied him. And us."

Nick took her by the shoulders. "Mother, the last thing Jarrod would want is for you to be still mourning him alone out here. Come on back to the house. Deborah and Silas are making a special dinner."

"I know," Victoria interrupted. "Jarrod's favorite chicken and dumplings."

"Heath and Hallie have already arrived with their kids," Nick said. "Audra and Carl are due anytime with little Tina, and you know how Tina dotes on you. If you're not there, she's gonna be disappointed."

Victoria smiled. Her youngest grandchild had arrived not five years ago, when Audra surprisingly became pregnant after years of marriage when she and Carl thought they'd never be blessed. Tina had her parents' blue eyes and her mother's blonde hair that she always wore tied back in a blue bow. Maybe she was only five, but she was as sharp as a tack and could already read and do simple arithmetic. She was loving and happy and Victoria could not feel grieved when she thought of her. "All right. Let's go."

XXXXXXX

The house was full of people now. Jarrod's widow Deborah and their son Brant, given his mother's maiden name, now 16. Heath, his wife Hallie and two sons Thomas and Jonathan, now 13 and 11. Nick's wife Esther and their daughter Vicki and son Nickie, now 12 and 7. Victoria and Nick saw Audra and Carl's buggy when they came into the stable yard, and immediately they saw Tina come running out of the house. Nick dismounted and helped his mother down out of her buggy.

"Grandma!" Tina was bursting with excitement as she ran to Victoria's arms.

"Hello, my darling," Victoria gushed, then looked at her in her beautiful blue dress. "Don't you look lovely today?"

"It's Uncle Jarrod's birthday!" Tina gushed.

Victoria was stunned. She had no idea Tina would know that. Tina never knew Jarrod and had never even mentioned him before, much less called him "Uncle Jarrod." Someone must have told her what day it was and that dinner would be special. "Yes, it is," Victoria said. "Come on. Let's go see if your Aunt Esther and Mr. Silas need help in the kitchen."

They held hands and Tina was careful not to rush too much, but they did pass by Heath in the doorway coming outside. He looked startled, gave Victoria a quick kiss and a "Hello, Mother," as Tina kept her grandmother moving along. Heath chuckled and went outside to where Nick was handing his horse and Victoria's buggy over to the stable hand.

"Give you one guess where I found her," Nick said.

"I don't have to guess," Heath said. "How is she doing?"

Nick sighed. "Grieving, still. She was able to handle father's death better than she's been able to handle Jarrod's. It still burns her that we never found out who killed him."

"It burns me too," Heath said, "and you. I guess we hold it in better, since we've got so much work to do in a day."

"She has plenty of time to think about it now that she's slowing down and can't do as much as she used to," Nick agreed. "Heath, I'm thinking maybe we ought to go over it again, what happened to Jarrod. Mother's getting up there and I know what's bothering her most is that she'll die not knowing why her oldest son was shot to death."

"This being Jarrod's birthday, I know it's bothering her even more."

"This being his 55th birthday is what's making it the worst. He was aiming to be an appellate court judge by today. She remembers that." Nick took a deep breath. "We still have a lot of stuff in that safe in the library. Maybe you and me ought to go over it again later, after dinner."

"Maybe later like tomorrow," Heath suggested. "I think Mother's gonna need us close tonight."

"Yeah, maybe you're right – if Tina will let us anywhere near her."

Heath chuckled. "She is a bundle of energy, isn't she?"

"And way too smart and clever for a five-year-old. Audra sure has her hands full. She has a daughter just like she was at that age."

"Well, now at least I know what Audra was like as a child," Heath said.

They started for the house together. "Tell you what – all those kids are like their parents were. I'll bet you could say the same about your boys being just like you if you were honest about it."

"I don't have anybody who knew me when I was a kid, telling me so all the time," Heath said, "but yeah, I can see me in them. Just like you can see yourself in yours."

"Scary, isn't it?" Nick said with a wry grin.

"Terrifying," Heath agreed.

XXXXXX

Dinner was lovely, if a bit wistful. The Barkleys told stories about big brother Jarrod – funny ones like the time as a boy Jarrod painted the sign on Ketcham and Cheatham's store to read "I Ketcham and U Cheatham," or the time he came home from a long hard trial with wine, chickens and a pig he handed to Heath. Stirring stories like the time he was blinded and tackled a trial anyway with his brothers helping him, or the time he defended a Basque shepherd despite everyone around him – his mother included – fighting with him over it in one way or another. They did not talk about the really dreadful times like when he went away to war at 17 or when his first wife Beth was murdered and he went off the rails.

They toasted Jarrod on his 55th birthday and told him they missed him. Inwardly, everyone at the table who had known him and was part of the family when he was murdered still seethed about never finding out who had killed him. The youngest generation didn't know the full story about that, but they knew enough to understand how it bothered their parents and grandmother.

Tina didn't know anything at all, not even that he had been murdered, or at least they thought she didn't. But then, after the toasts were completed, Tina up and said, out of the blue, "Why didn't the man who killed Uncle Jarrod go to jail?"

Startled, Victoria looked around at her startled sons and daughter. "How did you know someone killed Uncle Jarrod and didn't go to jail, Tina?" Victoria asked.

Tina looked surprised in a way, but said, very matter of factly, "He told me."