Chapter 4

Ewing Bigelow was a man about five years older than Jarrod, with a wife and a son named Randy about 17 years old who helped him run the ranch. Randy had one of the colts Nick and Heath were interested in out in one of the corrals, leading him around a little while Bigelow and the Barkley men watched from over the corral fence.

"They're both on the wild side," Bigelow explained. "Same sire, different mares, but they both got the old man's temperament."

The colt was a bit unruly but not much more than any other colt that age would have been. "Mind if I have a closer look?" Nick asked.

"Go right ahead," Bigelow said.

Nick climbed over the corral fence and walked slowly up to the animal, saying, "Hi, Randy, how are you?" as he did.

Heath stayed back with Bigelow and Jarrod. Bigelow was smiling as he looked at the colt, while Nick ran his hands over it and the colt snorted uncomfortably. He bucked a little, but not much, and Nick easily dodged it. Randy got the colt settled again quickly.

Jarrod had been quiet all this time, but he started to move off to his left, toward the far end of the corral, drawing Heath's attention. "Where you off to?" Heath asked.

Jarrod didn't answer but kept on moving, slowly.

"What's up with him today?" Bigelow asked. "He's as quiet as a corpse."

"He's still getting over being really sick a couple weeks ago," Heath explained. "He had a rough time of it."

"What was wrong with him?"

"Bad fever. We never knew why. Jarrod!"

Jarrod stopped but did not turn or even begin to come back. He stood there, either listening again or off in his own head again. Heath couldn't tell which, but he wasn't inclined to get overly attentive toward his oldest brother. He just kept an eye on him.

Jarrod was both listening and off in his own head. Something was getting through the fog. Something. But it didn't work if he tried to hear it. He had to not try to hear it. He had to let it come to him.

In a moment, while Nick was still examining the colt, Jarrod came back and said sharply, quietly, "It's a cat. Get that colt back in the barn."

Bigelow looked confused, but then he called Randy and motioned him to take the colt back into the barn. Confused, Nick came over to the corral fence, asking, "What's wrong?"

"Jarrod heard a cat," Heath said. "Did you see it?"

"No," Jarrod said. "But I heard the breathing, and I heard a whine."

Nick looked around. "Where from?"

Jarrod nodded toward the rocky wooded area beyond the corral. "Up there."

Bigelow looked around, making sure there were no animals or people on their own anywhere nearby. Randy came out of the barn and headed their way. "What's going on?" Randy asked.

"A cat would never come into the yard," Bigelow was saying.

"Unless it was sick or really hungry," Nick said.

"A cat?" Randy asked.

"Go get a couple of the men," Bigelow said. "Check it out up there."

Randy leapt the fence and headed toward the house.

Bigelow said, "Why don't you boys come inside and have a drink while Randy checks this out?"

The Barkley men followed Bigelow into the house. Bigelow's wife, Bella, heard them come in and met them in the foyer as the men were all leaving their hats and gloves on a table there. "Hello!" she said. "It's good to see you fellas."

"It's good to see you, too, Bella," Nick said.

"It seems we might have a cat out there checking out the yard," Bigelow said. "I sent Randy to take a couple men to have a look before these men spend any more time checking out those colts."

"Can I get you anything?" Bella asked.

"We'll just have a drink in the study," Bigelow said.

He barely got the words out before they heard several rifle shots from the hillside Randy had just headed off to. "It sounds like they found something," Nick said.

They grabbed their hats and gloves and hurried back outside, Jarrod lagging a bit behind but following. They looked but didn't see anyone moving on the hillside at first, but in a few moments, one man was coming down, and then Randy and another man. The last two were dragging the corpse of a cougar.

"I'll be," Nick said quietly.

Randy and the other man deposited the dead cougar at the edge of the yard, way beyond the corral. Bigelow and the Barkleys joined them there. The cougar was skin and bone, and its eyes were red.

"We better bury him off a ways," Randy said. "I don't know what he's got, but we don't want it around here."

"Are you boys all right?" Bigelow asked.

"Yeah," Randy nodded. "We got a look at him and took him before he got near any of us."

"Just bury him back into the flat woods over there," Bigelow said, "and clean up good after you do. Burn those clothes you're wearing. I don't want to take any chances. I'll foot the bill for new ones."

Randy and the other two men took the cougar off into the wooded area Bigelow had pointed to. Jarrod watched them, even as Bigelow turned and looked at him, then at Nick and Heath, then back at Jarrod.

"I don't know how you knew he was out there, but I'm grateful you did," Bigelow said.

Without looking his way, Jarrod said, "I heard him."

"Is that what you heard following us here?" Nick asked.

Jarrod nodded, but didn't say anything, just watched the men drag the cougar into the woods.

Nick looked at Heath with raised eyebrows. Heath looked back, both of them wondering how Jarrod heard that cat and they never did. Jarrod just kept watching the woods.

XXXXXXX

"I don't know how he heard it," Nick finished telling the story to his mother and sister when they got home. "That cat was sick and starving. He could have come down and jumped me and Randy and that colt, and we'd have been in a world of hurt, but Jarrod heard him."

"We had our minds on that colt, Nick," Heath said.

"But we didn't when we were on our way there," Nick said. "Jarrod heard that cat follow us for miles and we never heard it at all. He heard a cat!"

Jarrod was still upstairs cleaning up. Audra gave a glance up that way and said, "I guess he's not as distracted as we thought he was."

"Well, the whole thing is downright spooky," Nick said.

"Spooky?" Victoria said. "Why do you call it spooky?"

"He heard a cat!" Nick repeated. "We think he's off in his own head somewhere all the time, but he's hearing things we don't hear and I'll bet he's seeing things we don't see, too, things that are actually there. That's spooky."

"Maybe he's just not getting distracted by the regular things we're getting distracted by," Heath said. "You and I were talking a lot on the trail. He wasn't. We were really concentrating on that colt. He wasn't. He could tell somehow when something we wouldn't even notice didn't look or sound normal."

"He heard a cat!" Nick tried one more time, as if they really weren't understanding what he was saying.

"And we heard you, Nick," Heath said.

"Well, he didn't come out of that fever with better hearing, did he?"

"No, not likely," Heath agreed.

"Then what is going on in that head of his?" Nick asked.

"I don't know," Heath said. "Like I said, maybe he's just not as distracted as we are, but whatever it is, it sure was handy today."

Victoria heaved a sigh. "I think Heath's probably right. Jarrod's not the one who's distracted. We are."

"Well, that's still spooky to me," Nick insisted.

"Nick, don't be spooked by your own brother," Victoria said. "That's not going to help him heal up from whatever he's going through."

"I don't see how he's really going through much of anything," Audra said. Everyone looked at her. "I mean, he's not really suffering, is he? He's changed but he's not sick now. He's perfectly healthy and if he's quieter than he used to be, and he's noticing things we're not noticing, what's to worry about that? It's just – " She fumbled for a word and came up with, "different!"

"The doctor didn't seem to be worried about it," Victoria said. "Maybe he is perfectly all right and we're the ones who are a little bit off. Maybe we've always been a little bit off."

"Oh, come on!" Nick blurted out. "That's some kind of – philosophical crazy talk!"

"Philosophical?" Audra said with a little smile.

"Jarrod's talking in short sentences and Nick's using big words," Heath said, with a bit of his lop-sided grin sneaking in there. "Things are a little upside down around here."

Victoria was smiling, despite the fact that she was feeling somewhere in between where Audra was in this and where Nick was. But again, she fell back on what the doctor had said. "Whatever's going on with Jarrod, I think you can be grateful it was going on today," she said, "and beyond that, we just give this time and patience. Jarrod will get better, or he will adjust. And so will we."

Nick was still flummoxed, but he was the only one who was as far as he could see. He just grunted an agreement.

But despite what she said, Victoria was still concerned. Whatever was going on with Jarrod, even if he wasn't suffering, he was not Jarrod. She remembered he said he didn't feel like he belonged here. That was still what scared Victoria the most. To be home with the family who loved him but feel like he didn't belong here – that hurt. Maybe it didn't hurt him, but it was hurting the rest of them. And it sure was hurting Victoria.