Noon found him riding past a few smallholdings and he knew he was close to town. Gal was feeling good, shied from a rabbit that did nothing but pop out of a hole a good fifteen feet from anywhere to do with her line of travel. Not a quarter a mile later, she took exception to a covey of quail breaking cover. All those oats and no work, two things she wasn't really accustomed to, and she felt pretty full of herself. When he hurt, she minded her P's and Qs as if she knew in her way that he was riding sore. Today she could feel he was sitting stronger and she was pushing on him a might. He felt like pushing a might himself.

The valley was flat. The morning was cool. He could see five miles down the road, straight and flat along the side of the railroad track. He let Gal move into a canter and held her to a slow lope to let her work off some of that grain. Five minutes later, he could heard a train and pulled her down to a slow jog to make sure she wouldn't take exception to its passing her.

He watched the cars go by. An engine, woodcar/tender behind it, three passenger cars with people sitting in them watching the country pass and then a big black car with Barkley Ranch written on the side of it in gold letters. Barkley Ranch. He touched Gal to keep up to that car while he studied the writing. Barkley Ranch.

Him riding through the valley on his little black mare, no breakfast in his belly but three cups of coffee and some cold rabbit. He could see a man watching him out the window of that car. That Barkley Ranch car, riding through the country in his own train, in his Barkley Ranch Train.

Heath leaned forward across Gal's withers and spoke softly into her ear. "Run, little girl. Don't need our own train to run down these tracks. You run, little girl." And Gal ran. She was a good horse when you had a hole in your side. She would keep you in the saddle if she was able, move to balance your weight. She was a good mare if you needed a horse to pull an old wagon with your Mama dead in her coffin in the back. But if you needed to beat a Barkley Train down the Central Valley, she was a great horse.

He moved forward a little further and moved his weight up on her withers a bit more where it was easier for her to carry it running. It hurt his stomach some but he figured, for the time it would take him to beat the Barkley Train, he could take a little pain. She had moved past the Barkley Ranch car and was up to the second passenger car before they had covered a quarter mile. He could see folks in the windows. Some had their windows open in spite of the cinders flying back from the engine, cheering her on. Took less then half a mile to pass all three-passenger cars and pull up near to the engine. Gal began to slow a bit by this time. She was fast, but she was no long distance racehorse. She was little and quick on her feet for the short run. She could go the long distance but not at this speed. He knew he needed to finish this fast now or the train would just wear her down.

He spoke to her again. "You want to run?" he asked her. And she said she did, gave him another burst of speed. He used it to catch the engine. Glad to see a cut off a few hundred yards down the track he gave her a hard squeeze and cut in front of the train. Allowed her to run on for another two hundred yards before pulling her up. She blew a bit, but not bad.

He watched the train pass and then looked back down the track, thinking. Well, that was just plain dumb, Heath. What would your mama say? But he figured start to finish hadn't been much more than a mile, if that. A fair run for Gal but not too bad, except that last stupid pass in front of the train. That had been prideful and he knew it. That had been him not letting any Barkley Train pass him by without him showing his heels. He stepped out of the saddle and loosened the cinch to walk her out a little way. Wouldn't do him any harm to walk a ways and think on that cut in front of the train and nearly getting his horse killed, just so no Barkley Train could pass him by.

He couldn't believe the Barkley's had a train. It set him to thinking on the whole mess of Heath Thomson. He walked and he thought on Barkleys and trains and fathers who made babies and never looked back to see what became of them. He thought about children who had trains, and children who didn't have a train or much of anything else, come to that. What else did children who had trains have? What must it be like to have your own train?

He walked further than he might have, lost in thought about trains and Barkleys until he realized his feet hurt with all that walking. He cinched Gal up again and remounted, still not sure what he should do about Barkleys. He thought he would like to see it. See what Thomas Barkley, rancher, mine owner, father of two sons and a daughter, had not shared with his mama. What Thomas Barkley, rancher, had built with his life while his mama washed shirts for miners and tried to raise his bastard.

He rode along at a slow jog, thinking all around the problem of Thomas Barkley and Heath Thomson. He had time to think on this and didn't want to do something he couldn't walk away from in one piece. He could ride on through Stockton and never come this way again. He'd never stopped in Stockton in his twenty years and never missed the stopping. But he knew he wouldn't ride through. He would look. He had come here to look. He had left Pinecrest, because he was in a fever to look. He wanted to see the Barkleys; two sons and a daughter, Jarrod, a lawyer, Nick, a rancher, and Audra; two brothers and a sister; three heirs and a bastard.

Stockton was a big place. Not like San Francisco but a big town with more than one store, three saloons and a big Cattleman's Restaurant and Hotel. Heath rode down the main street slowly, looking to both sides. Nice town, even had a newspaper of its own and a bank. He wondered if the Barkleys owned the bank? He rode all the way through town to the livery where he stopped and tied Gal so she could reach the water trough. He loosened her cinch and left her on a long rein. Pulled his rifle from the scabbard and walked into the livery.

"Straight down the main road seven miles you'll see the ranch sign, another two miles to the headquarters." He guessed they didn't own a railroad, then, no tracks to their ranch, just a owned the train. He tightened Gal's cinch, headed down the main road at a walk and thought about the surrounding country. He drew a quick map in his head, pulled Gal off the main road and headed northwest along a narrow horse trail. He didn't feel like riding along the dusty road on such a nice day. Seeing the narrow horse trail, he suspected it was a short cut to the ranch that bypassed the wagon road. Fifteen minutes after leaving the road, he was rewarded when the trail headed into a few aspens along a stream and turned more westerly.

Another twenty minute of riding and he came to a suspension bridge across the stream. The bridge didn't appeal to him sloping down from the steep riverbank to within ten feet of the water before climbing back up the opposite side. It looked old, but the ropes on his side at any rate appeared strong and well tarred against the elements. One glance at the spring runoff in the river told him he didn't want to be swimming that cold fast water, so he kneed Gal onto the bridge and let her pick her way carefully across.

The sound of the river was so loud he didn't hear the other horse start across the bridge until the rider spoke to him. "Good afternoon."

The other rider was a big man, not heavy but tall and straight with a boom to his voice that spoke of confidence and authority. Gal stopped as he relaxed the pressure of his legs and looked at the man. Nice horse, like the man, big and strong looking with plenty of confidence. Rich gear, a fine leather vest with silver conchos and a big wide brimmed hat looked like new.

"Afternoon," he returned as he leaned forward with his hands crossed on the saddle horn to take some of the pressure off his stomach. Stupid chasing that train, he had been feeling pretty good before that fool trick and now his stomach hurt and his head ached.

"Quite a pony you got there." Wasn't the first crack someone had made about Gal's small stature. He had long ago learned to treat them with the same disregard he did with most things he didn't care to hear.

"Yeah, she's a runner."

He was beginning to enjoy this now. He hadn't spoken to a person, aside from the directions to the Barkley Ranch at the livery, in a week. He didn't mind going long times alone, didn't miss watching his back among strangers. But he was happy to exchange a few words with this big, rich man who seemed to be in the way of some fun. "Modoc."

"Well, they breed 'em right up there."

He allowed himself to feel the humor of what was coming, although he didn't share any of that with the man across the span from him. What he thought and felt weren't for sharing and he had learned, long ago, to hold his feelings and thoughts very close. "Except for one thing."

"And what's that?"

He looked at the dark man sadly. "They don't know how to back up, so if you'll just pull that crockhead off this bridge…"

The other man frowned. Perhaps he shouldn't have run the man's horse down, he thought, but that crack about his little pony still rankled a bit.

"Well, now I'd gladly do that for you, boy, except for one thing."

He let the 'boy' slide. Man didn't know him, was just being big and rich and used to walking down the middle of the sidewalk, was all. He knew his type. "What's that?"

"This one's a Modoc too."

He almost smiled at that. Good for him, that was good. Instead, he took off his hat and fanned his face glanced up at the sun. "Hot, ain't it?"

"Yeah, you can really raise a sweat this time of year. –That's a fine-looking blowpipe you got there."

He wasn't sure where the man was going with this but he figured he'd let him run with it. Most enjoyment he'd gotten out of talking to another man in a year. He'd forgotten that there could be pleasure in just the meeting and speaking to folks. Sometimes he forgot that all folks weren't like the ones he mostly knew.

"Mexican." He knew that old rifle was nothing special to look at, especially the little bit of the old stock the rancher could see from where he was sitting.

"That a fact?"

"Got the bite to blow the head off a grizzly." He looked directly at the man. Figured he was a big man, but not as big as a grizzly.

"That is, if you get to it in time."

He thought briefly of trying to draw the rifle from the scabbard back on the trail two weeks ago, knowing that back shooter was walking up on him. But didn't allow that momentary flash of remembrance to ruin this pleasure. "Don't need to. Just think it. Eyeball or button I want to pop, and pow." Eyeball or button, dead Secesh officers all over Tennessee and Mississippi wouldn't be able to argue that, eyeball or button and pop.

With all the insolence of the rich of the world, the rancher, because this rich man was no cowboy with his fancy vest and big horse; no this was a man of property; the rancher pulled his vest aside to let Heath see the dark wood of his side arm and bragged, "English."

Yeah, that would figure. Too good for an American handgun and him with none at all. Got to get his gun all the way from across the world. "Do tell." He didn't allow any of the scorn he felt to the man's imported gun to reach his voice. Man couldn't help it if he was too rich for a good American gun. Let him shoot what he wanted.

"Core an apple at a half a mile."

Didn't figure the English handgun was any better then an American one, if as good, and it sure didn't have any magical powers. Man making himself bigger to match his bragging on his rifle.

"On the tree or falling?" Give the man some rope to run out with.

When the man came back, "On horseback, in a hurricane," he could have laughed. The man was quick with his mouth.

The sudden movement of the bride and its noise startled him, and startled he moved. A man didn't live long if he couldn't back up his words. A moment later he was glad for the sore stomach that had slowed his draw as he and Gal hit the water.

He might have murdered that man over a little joshing on a bright afternoon. 'Cause there was no way that man could have cleared his gun before he and that rifle were out of the saddle firing. He looked back over his shoulder and caught the rancher looking back at him. All the humor seemed gone from the man's face. He wasn't sure if it was because of the dunking in the river or if the man realized how close he had come to getting killed?

He shook his head to himself. Still a might jumpy from the shooting up by Strawberry. Just when he thought he put 'shoot first, look later' behind him, something would come to prove his reflexes right and his intentions wrong. He might have murdered that man for a few words said in fun.

He rode Gal up on the bank and away into the trees before glancing back once more to make sure the trail was out of sight. Sure he was alone and hidden from any chance passers, he dismounted carefully. He had landed that sore spot on his stomach smack on top of the saddle horn. He opened his shirt, afraid of what he might find. No blood was good but he could see where he had torn the new skin a bit along the edges. It'd felt like he'd punched that horn clean through to his backbone, so could have been worse.

He stripped the saddle and bridle off Gal and let her loose to graze while he dried out his gear. He hung Gal's blanket and his good shirt on the limb of a tree to dry. His Mama's Bible, the letter and picture wrapped in their oilcloth bag were fine, but he left the bag in the sun to dry. He wiped the excess water off his saddle and saddlebags with a couple of handfuls of last year's grass and laid them in the sun.

While Gal wandered in the sparse brush grazing the spring grass, he took his rifle apart and carefully cleaned and oiled it, rubbing the stock with the oil rag. When he was satisfied with the rifle, he dried off the excess oil with a dry rag he kept his gun tools wrapped in and began on the rest of his gear. He dug the little tin of neatsfoot oil out of his saddlebag and began oiling his tack.

While he worked he thought on what he was doing here on some back trail to the Barkley Ranch. That got him to thinking on the big rancher and the bridge. Since he supposed he was on a back trail to Thomas Barkley's Ranch. Could that man have been from the ranch? Could he have been one of Thomas Barkley's sons? One of his other sons?

He thought on that while he rubbed the oil into his saddle and cleaned off the excess with a second rag. Could be his brother? He wanted to open up the Bible and take out the newspaper piece again and see if that man looked like the picture of Thomas Barkley. But he knew there would be no point. He had studied on that picture for hours while lying in the bed in the doctor's house. He could have met the great man himself and not recognized him from that faded clipping.

Still, how many big, rich men would be riding the back road to the Barkley Ranch? He played that word softly across his lips. "Brother." There was a world of power in that word. Finished with his housekeeping, he leaned back against the saddle and pulled his hat over his eyes. He was hungry and tired. Not much he could do about hungry but he sure could fix tired. Doctor had said he'd be a while to get strong again. He thought all and all he felt pretty good for a man near dead two weeks ago. Last time he'd nearly died had taken him most of six months to get strong enough to work again.

Yup, old Uncle Matt had tried to kill him for twenty years and never had made much of a job of it. Just made him harder for someone else to kill and now Matt Simmons was dead. He felt some satisfaction in that, though he knew he shouldn't. He should feel a sense of Christian forgiveness. He thought though, on careful consideration, that Uncle Matt might be a man the Old Testament could better deal with than New. The Old Testament wouldn't mind him feeling some satisfaction that the man was scattered along the banks of the Stanislaus. Certainly, no one else had seemed to care. When he told the Sheriff in Pinecrest he'd been back shot up near Strawberry man hadn't cared a whit. Said he had all he could do keeping the peace in Pinecrest. So he guessed only ones who cared about Uncle Matt being a dead back shooter were maybe him and his Aunt Martha and the Lord.

Gal woke him up, probably two hours after he fell asleep. Feeling ashamed of himself, sleeping away the best part of the afternoon, he tacked her up again and continued down the narrow trail along the riverbank.