Chapter 2
Jarrod explained to his mother and sister, as the family gathered before dinner, that he and his brothers were going to see the Kyleses in the morning to try to deal with them about what they did to Heath. "I don't understand," Audra said. "Why don't you just file the charges and bring them to justice?"
"Well, there's justice and there's justice," Jarrod said. "If we can isolate them without charging them up again, we think it's worth the trade-off."
"Is that what you think, Heath?" Victoria asked.
"Yes," Heath said earnestly. "I'm willing to let it go. And I'd rather not go poking a sleeping bear. They're gonna be touchy about Korby as it is. If we can get them to stay away from us, it's worth me not going after them for going after me. And if it doesn't work, I can go after them even harder than I would now."
Victoria eyed Nick. "You don't look as convinced."
"I'm willing to give it a try," Nick said, "but if they don't go for it, or they do and then cause trouble anyway, I'm not gonna stand for it."
"None of us is, Nick," Jarrod said.
"Well, if you think it's worth giving a try, I'll agree with you," Victoria said, "but Audra, just to be safe, I think we should plan to spend the next day or two here."
"I think I'd like to keep an extra man or two back here too," Nick said.
"It can't hurt," Heath agreed.
The women nodded their heads. The decision was made, and in the morning, the three Barkley men headed for the Kyles ranch at about eight o'clock. They didn't talk much on the way, except to agree that Jarrod should do the talking with the Kyleses. Jarrod suggested Nick and Heath keep an eye on Emmet and Alan, remembering how those two liked to pilfer when no one was looking. When they rode up to the Kyles place, they were ready.
But not for what they saw.
Heath pulled up first, prompting his brothers to stop, before they got into the yard. Heath pointed into the sky.
"What?" Nick asked. He and Jarrod looked.
"Birds," Heath said. "High up. Big black birds."
They all knew what they were looking at. Vultures.
"Let's take it slow," Jarrod said and led the way in.
Everything was quiet in the yard. The brothers pulled up and hitched their horses to a rail that was practically falling over. Slowly, they dismounted. No one was around.
Jarrod and Nick headed slowly for the front door, but Heath edged around to the far side of the house. Nick saw him take a look, and stop, and come back, faster.
"Jarrod, Nick," Heath said. "You better come see this."
Jarrod and Nick came down from the porch and followed Heath in time to see more birds in the side yard. The birds took off into the air as the Barkley men approached. Jarrod held his hand up to stop them before they got too close to where the birds had been, but it was easy to see what the birds had been up to.
"Oh, good night," Nick moaned.
Three men. Three dead men, on the ground. Three dead men the vultures had been feeding on.
"They're dead for sure," Jarrod said. "Don't get too close, but look for a gun or any kind of weapon. Don't touch it if you find something."
Carefully, Jarrod, Nick and Heath each came closer and looked down at the bodies of Jake, Emmet and Alan Kyles. It was hard to see how long they had been dead, but it was easy to see they were dead. Not only had the vultures picked at their exposed faces already – each one of them had a large hole blasted in the back of the head where they had been shot. The vultures had been picking at the holes, too.
The Barkleys were each used to seeing men who had been dead for a while. Heath had seen plenty of death in the prison camp during the war. Nick had commanded more than one burial detail during the war that put men into the ground who had been dead on top of it for varying lengths of time. Jarrod had seen his share of dead men, dead for days or only hours at Antietam – hundreds of them before he was hauled off to a hospital in Washington for his own wound. They each had seen bodies that vultures and other animals had feasted on. But this – Jake and his sons dead in their own yard for heaven knew how long.
The Barkleys looked around, then looked at each other. Nick said, "I don't see any weapon around here."
Heath shook his head too.
Jarrod said, "No. This wasn't any murder/suicide. This was just murder. From the looks of it, an execution."
"Why in God's name – " Nick started but stopped before he finished.
Jarrod said, "I can only think of one reason for now. Somebody is cleaning up after Korby and Colonel Ashby."
Nick's eyes narrowed. "Cleaning up?"
Jarrod looked firmly at him. "I've seen it before, in San Francisco. The law gets hold of one person in some kind of conspiracy like opium trafficking. Somebody else in it starts making sure there aren't any other leaks."
"Why would they wait until now?" Heath asked. "Korby was arrested a couple weeks ago, and sentenced last week. Why didn't they come after the rest of the Kyles bunch before now?"
Jarrod shook his head. "I don't know. We can't know why until we find out who they are and if I'm right about why they did it. We'd better go get the sheriff."
"Should one of us stay here?" Heath asked.
"No point," Jarrod said, "and I don't want to split up, just in case whoever's behind this is still around. We need to keep each other safe."
"In that case, I want to stop by the house before we get Fred," Nick said. "I want Mother and Audra protected."
"I doubt they're in danger if I'm right," Jarrod said, "but I might not be right. We'll get the guard increased and then go see Fred, and the three of us will stick together for a while. Come on."
Nick and Heath headed back to the front of the house where they had left the horses, but Jarrod hesitated for a moment. He gave one last look around to be sure nothing obvious had been missed, but then he looked just to shake his head at what he was seeing. What he thought now that he should have been thinking before. Korby wasn't the only member of the Kyles family in the opium business. Jake, Emmet and Alan wouldn't have been killed – executed like this – if they weren't involved somehow too. Maybe Jarrod didn't have any real evidence of any of this yet – and maybe it was just that somebody thought they had something to do with what Korby was up to - but like he told his brothers, he'd seen something like this before in San Francisco. Every instinct told him what was happening here.
And worse yet, every instinct told him it wasn't going to stop here.
They rode back to the house and told Victoria and Audra what they had found, leaving out the graphic details. The women were shocked, even saddened a bit, but they were sensible. They agreed they would be staying home as long as it took to be sure they were safe. Nick doubled the guard, and the Barkley men headed into town together.
They pulled up to the sheriff's office and went inside, to find the sheriff had four men in there with him, all sporting badges now. That could only mean one thing. Something had happened and the sheriff was deputizing help. Had somebody else found the Kyleses?
"Fred, what's going on?" Jarrod asked.
"Big trouble," the sheriff said. "In the Chinese community. Two men were found this morning, one near the train depot, one near Lao's Laundry, both shot in the head."
Jarrod leveled a serious look at the sheriff. "That's not all the trouble we've got. We were just out at the Kyles place. We found all three of them, shot in the head."
"Oh, geez – " the sheriff moaned. "All dead?"
Jarrod nodded. "I don't know how long, but the vultures had already been at them. Fred, I think I know what's going on."
"Somebody's cleaning up the mess Korby and Colonel Ashby left," the sheriff said.
Jarrod nodded. "I suspected it when we saw Jake and his boys. Two dead Chinese pretty much confirms it. Fred, you should get Doc Merar out to the Kyles place to see them before you have them hauled off to be buried."
"Yeah," the sheriff said, "if he's through with the two Chinese."
"Do you know who those two are, Sheriff?" Heath asked.
"Not yet," the sheriff said. "I'm about to send these fellas out to start asking questions. And you three are deputized too," he said and pointed at the Barkleys. "I don't have enough badges, but I want you under oath." And he quickly put them under oath.
"You might find a lot of people clammed up, Fred," Jarrod said. "That's what I found when I went looking to find out what Korby was involved in. Those people are gonna be scared."
"Can you talk to Mike Chang?" the sheriff asked.
"I'll go do that," Jarrod said. "Nick and Heath and I are gonna stick together, just because there's safety in numbers."
"I'll go talk to Doc Merar and he and I will go out to the Kyles place but I want one of you with me," the sheriff said. "I want to be sure what I see is what you saw and nothing's changed."
"I'll go with you, Sheriff," Heath offered.
Nick nodded. "I'll stay with Jarrod while he checks around town."
Then the sheriff pointed to Henry, his regular deputy. "The rest of you, get out and start looking around and if you happen to find any more bodies or anything really helpful, you report to Henry here."
Henry said, "Sheriff, people are already starting to get edgy. George Allison is likely to be on top of whoever's wearing a badge."
The newspaper editor. The sheriff nodded. "Just don't say anything more than we're looking for whoever's behind this." Then the sheriff just looked at Jarrod with a sigh. "I thought this was all over with yesterday."
When they hanged Korby Kyles.
Jarrod shook his head. "It doesn't look like it is."
