For the record, this may be the only Big Valley Fic ever that had to be edited because it included the phrase "Nick and Heath had received Jarrod's email..." We all have our accomplishments.
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Sacramento in summer was miserable and Jarrod sincerely wished he was anywhere else but here. The only thing that could make Sacramento in summer worse was Sacramento in summer with a cattle auction in full swing, and under normal circumstances he would have made a point to be far, far away from here. Right now, though, Jarrod was still livid at Nick over the fight at the quarterly meeting and the entirely unfair accusation of well, vote rigging Nick had made.
Talking things over with Mother first was hardly laying a thumb on the scale, and he had no responsibility for how Audra voted. The fact that Jarrod was here to save Nick and Heath the trip, which had gone entirely unnoticed and unappreciated, also stung. If Nick was getting this wound up over something as simple as an addition to the breeding herd, then Jarrod was right to spend more time at the ranch and keep an eye on things.
On top of everything else, Jarrod could feel the a cold pounding in his head and chest, making him feel fuzzy headed, miserable and aching in every joint with what he suspected were early sign of influenza. (Mother had recounted his near miss with pneumonia at age 4 often enough that he was always a slight hypochondriac when he caught a cold.) All of these thoughts were churning in the back of his mind while he mopped sweat off his face and neck and waited for the breeder he had been in constant contact with for the last two months. They were supposed to meet at this spot but the rancher was running late.
"Mr Barkley?"
Jarrod turned to see an older man with a whip thin body approaching.
"That's me." Jarrod offered his hand. "Max Katarn, right?"
The rancher shook his hand,
"Pleased to meet you. " He gave a slight laugh. "I'm kind of surprised."
"Why's that?" Jarrod asked.
"Well, you have a reputation of being an A+ cattleman, but your clothes and your hands say otherwise. No offense."
"None taken." Jarrod sniffled. "You're thinking of my brothers. They couldn't make it, so I came, instead"
"Ah." Mr Katarn nodded vigorously. "Well, why don't we step this way, I'll show you my livestock."
They walked through the stockyard, and Jarrod realized he had been utterly mistaken about how miserable he could get.
When they were surrounded by the cattle, it got even hotter and, somehow the ammonia reek of urine managed to pierce his stopped up sinuses and make it even harder to breath. They stopped by a large pen that had been divided into multiple smaller holding pens, each holding a brahmen. Seeing them up close for the first time, Jarrod was taken aback by how large and muscular they were.
"My God, they're large."
"Sure are." The rancher said with pride. "All muscle, these fellows. Add them to a herd and you can upgrade your stock in three generations.. Of course, you might be more interested in biggest of the lot."
"Which one is he?" Jarrod asked, fascinated at the thought of an even bigger creature than the ones he was looking at.
The rancher hesitated. "He's still on the train. Has his own shipping car and I haven't unloaded him yet. Follow me."
They left the cattle grounds and Jarrod gratefully felt the temperature drop at least five degrees and the air became clearer. They approached a car that had been shaded over and the rancher gestured grandly.
"In there. I wouldn't go in," He cautioned as Jarrod reached for the handle. "The journey here has him a little riled up, we're waiting for him to settle down. Just stand on these steps."
Jarrod dutifully ascended the steps and peered thru the slats. Inside was possibly the biggest, most ridiculously over muscled bull he had ever seen. It was huge, and when it heard him approach it swung it's head around and stared intently at the lawyer, scraping his horns on the side of the railroad car, letting out slow measured snort through it's nose. Once again the suffocating scent of ammonia filled his lungs and he started coughing.
"Oh Sweet Moses."
The rancher laughed. "You alright, son?"
Jarrod stepped back and felt his lungs relax again.
"What were you asking for him?" Jarrod grabbed at the chance to get this deal done before he started feeling even worse.
"Well," The ranch pulled vigorously on his chin. "I was gonna put a price if $1500 on him but, it's save me time and trouble if you just leave him in the railcar and hook it up to the next train to Stockton. One is supposed to be leaving this afternoon. you'll take him then, I'll sell him for $1300."
Jarrod thought about it for a moment. A bull with great confirmation, a lower price on him and he could get out of this heat and maybe see a Doctor. "$1200. I'm going to going out of my way, too."
"Sold!" The rancher shook his hand vigorously. "What do you say we retire to a nice cool bar, draw up the paperwork and finish the deal?"
"I can live with that." Jarrod was relieved to be leaving the heat, dust and smell behind. He really needed to get in bed and try to sleep this off. All Nick and Heath's objections would disappear once they saw this beast.
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Nick watched glumly as a third of his available ranch hands labored to make a mobile animal transport cart strong enough to hold a brahma bull. They had received Jarrod's enthusiastic telegram yesterday and headed to the rail station this morning to meet the "incredible bull" Jarrod had purchased.
Their first twinge of foreboding came when they noticed they level of manure in the car. Someone had not wanted to take the bull outside the railcar to try to sell it. A careful perusal of the beast through the slats of the car confirmed it was a truly spectacular animal, but when a wrangler tried to enter the car to untie the halter, the bull had nearly gone berserk, simultaneously trying to kick, gore and stomp the man into the ground. Other attempts to get within 10 feet of the bull met with equal success. By noon it was obvious: this bull was vicious to the point of being unmanageable.
Nick had been forced to pull nearly his entire crew off their jobs to try to take care of the problem. Some of the hands were busy building the transport cart that could hold the bull, along with a chute that would prevent it from breaking free while going from the rail car to the cart. Most of the hands were at home trying desperately to reinforce a holding pen and pasturing area sufficiently to keep the damn thing penned in. Nick could feel a headache developing.
"This one's my fault, isn't it?" He asked Heath gloomily. "Once I realized that we were going to be stuck with a damn Brahma I should have just given up and gone to the damn cattle show, so we wouldn't get a damn bull that was damn crazy."
"I could've volunteered to go." Heath said, just as gloomily. This thing was going to take more time than any other animal on the ranch. Most cattle just sort of stood around grazing; anyone taking a reasonable amount of care could go in and out of a pen to feed and water them as needed without worrying about loss of life or limb. This beast was likely to kill someone, and even if not, would require so many safeguards and special handling they might end up needing to make him the specific responsibility of one of the hands and pay the man extra for his trouble.
Jarrod had been correct in that it was a terrific bull confirmation wise, and-had it been a placid, gentle beast-a bargain at the price. But it wasn't a gentle, placid beast, it was a mean, reactive monster that would test them at every step of the way. Throw in the possibility that it might pass that difficult personality down to his offspring and the incredible buy was a pig in a poke.
Nick or Heath would have spotted the signs, starting with the sheer volume of droppings in the railroad car. If someone hadn't unloaded a valuable bull from the car there was a damn good reason why and either one of them would have insisted on having it taken out and handled by someone. Jarrod didn't know to do that anymore than Nick or Heath knew how to draw up a will. At a guess, the breeder had quickly sized Jarrod up as a fish out of water and taken the opportunity to dump a dangerous animal that might otherwise have been unsellable due to its temperment.
Nick massaged his temples wearily and picked up a hammer. "Come on. Let's see if we can get this thing home before nightfall."
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It was long after nightfall before the two worn ranchers walked through the door of the manor to find Audra and Victoria were waiting for them.
"So, what do you think? Jarrod said he got an incredible deal on the bull." Victoria asked, pleased at the new addition to the breeding stock.
Audra was even more excited.
"He must be amazing if you two spent all day in town celebrating!" Audra enthused. "Will you show him to me tomorrow?"
"No." Nick said flatly. "I'm not going to introduce you to the bull, and I want you to promise me you'll keep away from him."
Victoria felt the faintest twinge of concern. "Jarrod said-"
"I don't give a damn what Jarrod said. Jarrod's not a rancher. The bull is not a bargain and the damn thing Is dangerous." He fixed a sullen look on his Mother. "I don't suppose I can get you to take my opinion over Jarrods, but you-" He looked at Audra pleadingly "Please trust me on this. Promise me you'll stay away from that bull."
Audra nodded with a touch of bewilderment. "I promise Nick."
He relaxed. "Thanks, sis."
The two cowboys headed up the stairs, utter exhaustion in every step. Victoria felt utterly alone.
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Victoria had a favorite spot to go to when she felt a need to be near her husband. It wasn't, as some thought, at his grave. She found the idea of trying to remember and connected with her husband's memory at the site of his bloody murder more that slightly morbid. No, her spot was about an acre from the mansion, under an old tree with low hanging branches. It had been a favorite spot for her and Tom to go when they needed to get away from their energetic children. It had also turned into a favorite spot for Nick and Jarrod, and later Audra and Eugene to play.
Tom had eventually had a stone fence built on three sides, with the fourth side open to the house for easy access. It reminded her of some of the fields from her childhood in New England and that fact, plus the many picnics the family had enjoyed there made it her favorite place to go when she needed to to feel close to her husband and work out knotty problems. And right now, her children were giving her problems. The argument at the last family meeting had left her shaken, with Nick being furious over her siding with Jarrod over the purchase of the bull. It was just one of several arguments Nick and Jarrod had engaged in lately over what Nick seemed to regard as a power struggle over the ranch.
In retrospect, she should have realized that Jarrod's well intentioned actions were going to result in Nick lashing out. He had done so once before, right after the war. He returned after being an officer in the army and expecting to be treated as such. Tom had regarded him simply as his son and gave him orders to be carried out, refusing to give Nick any real responsibility, ignoring Nick's suggestions and treating him like the teenager who had left . It had created an increasingly tense house that finally resulted in an explosion one night of where Nick demanded to be treated as a responsible adult and partner in the ranch business and Tom responded that it was HIS ranch and Nick would do as he was told or start a ranch of his own.
They woke up the next day to find Nick had not only left, he had taken over half the wranglers with him. The next few months were agonizing for Victoria, worried for her son and angry with her husband, a feeling that intensified as he stubbornly refused to admit that he just might have been wrong. They did get rumors that Nick and his wranglers had headed for the Texas/Arizona/New Mexico area and were rounding up feral cattle but no followup confirmation.
A few months later Tom-having had to hire almost an entirely new crew- drove the Barkley herd to market in in Sacremento, where buyers would purchase cattle for San Francisco. Victoria was supposed to take the train and meet him after the sale. It had been a good year and they were expecting an expansive profit on the cattle. When she arrived and checked into the hotel she found Tom sitting in the hotel room with a look of mild shock on his face. The cattle market, he told her, was terrible. They would just...JUST...be able to make a tiny profit for the year.
Victoria had been baffled. There had been poor years for cattle before and Tom hadn't reacted so. Then he explained the reason for his shock: The market was lousy because Nick had driven a huge herd of feral cattle directly to market in San Francisco, beating every other rancher in the state to the punch and, by going straight to the meat market itself instead of passing through the purchasers in Sacramento, had driven the demand for beef way down. Thomas Barkley had just had the bejesus kicked out of him by the son he had treated as a child. To add insult to injury, the San Francisco tactic was one Nick had suggested to his father only to have it flatly rejected.
He'd been smart another way too, getting the wranglers to join by offering a share in the sale while he spent his mustering out pay on the supplies needed for the round up and drive. The upshot was that Nick, if he wanted to, now had enough money to open "his own damn ranch" as his father put it, and very competitively too. Victoria gave Tom the 'I Told You So' stare and suggested he swallow his pride and contact his son with a past due apology.
When Nick had shown up, Tom had sincerely apologized and admitted Nick had outfoxed and outfought him. He told Nick if he came back to the ranch he would be a full partner and they would debate and discuss any ideas together. Tom would no longer unilaterally run everything. Nick agreed to return and the whole mess was cleared up with the happy result that the ranch ran better than ever. After her husband's death, Victoria had assured Nick the ranch was his to run, a decision that produced better results than she had ever dreamed were possible.
She had been stung at Nick's accusation of favoritism towards Jarrod, but in retrospect she shouldn't have been. Much of what Nick had said-while harsh-was correct. She had been consistantly supporting Jarrod at Nick's expense and she had not been giving Nick's ideas for the ranch fair consideration; and since Audra had drifted into the habit of voting with Jarrod and Victoria that meant Nick's views were being largely ignored.
Jarrod had the best of intentions, but he currently viewed Nick as being in need of assistance from his big brother, whether he wanted it or not. No doubt Nick saw that as Jarrod trying to push him out of the ranch, a battle he'd already fought with Tom. And Victoria had essentially broken the promise that both she and her husband had made to Nick; that the ranch would be his to run. It was no wonder he was unhappy.
And now the purchase of the bull, a bull Nick did't want in the first place, had in fact vehemently insisted was a bad idea; had turned into a disastrous investment. The holding pen it was in had to be checked daily for signs the bull was on the verge of breaking out. It had nearly injured one of the men. The hands were afraid to get anywhere near the beast.
Worse, Nick was refusing to deal with it; his standing orders were to feed it, water it and other than that, keep away. In the entire time that Nick had been running the ranch he had never flat out refused to deal with a problem. Victoria wasn't sure if Nick felt it was Jarrod's bull/Jarrod's problem or if he simply did not care. Either way, he wasn't doing anything about the bull and Victoria dreaded the day it got out and hurt someone.
Which led to a whole different problem: Jarrod's was determined to keep a strong hand in the ranch. She understood Jarrod's why. Jarrod hated messy; just hated it. Her oldest son was the only person she knew who wanted his work clothes starched. And by Jarrod's definition, Nick, right now, was messy and had been ever since the night he had smash a mirror into pieces at the expense of his hands. Jarrod's idea of help? Take over the operation that was messy until it was under control-or not messy as it were.
Nick wasn't the first to be affected by this quirk of Jarrods. When he was ten she came into his room to find him waxing the floor, solemnly explaining that last time she had done it she had missed a spot. When he got old enough to read he continually re-organized the books on the bookshelf until finally Tom, exasperated because he could never find the book he wanted, gave Jarrod a section of his own and ordered him to keep his hands off the rest of the books.
In this case, however, Jarrod's determination to take a hand in the ranch business was causing a major rift between himself and Nick with poor Heath caught in the middle. And Jarrod, for all his complaints about how stubborn Nick was, was every bit as stubborn and unlikely to budge. By the time the sun was starting to set, all Victoria had for her worries was a pounding headache and no solution whatsoever.