Six hours of riding brought him from early summer to early spring. At the higher elevation, the grass was just getting to that rich green of an alpine spring, the leaves on the trailside shrubs were still small and uncertain, afraid of a last frost. The sun though, gave promise of the season to come. It was high in the sky, bright and warm; the cool felt nice after the early summer heat of the valley and he found himself almost gawking at the surrounding scenery. His family always went up into the mountains for a time in the summer to avoid the awful valley heat and to enjoy each other's company. The mountains had always meant the pleasure of family and the ease of good times to him. He found himself almost eager to see what Strawberry would bring.

The town, when he arrived, was a disappointment. It looked to have once been the worst, or best, kind of mining town. He saw no fewer then five empty saloons, their hastily constructed buildings already falling apart under the tyranny of the high mountain winters. The sole remaining saloon that seemed to be open looked in little better condition.

He tied his horse in front of the saloon and went inside. The inside looked no better then the outside, two tables still standing, a few chairs not broken, half a mirror and a dusty old man coming in from the back of the building.

"Well, howdy there. We don't get much business here. What can I get you?"

Jarrod didn't even bother trying to get something for nothing and put a five dollar gold piece down on the bar. "I'm really looking for information, not drink."

The man eyed the money and gave Jarrod a smile. "Only bar in town. Sooner or later most folks around come through here."

"This goes back a ways. I'm looking for a woman, named Thomson. Lived here say, twenty years ago."

"Yeah that goes back a ways alright. I don't know from twenty years ago. There were two, three thousand folks around this area then. This was a busy place twenty years ago." The man shook his head sadly still eying the money. "There used to be a Thomson lived here though, recent like. She died, oh a month ago I think. Wasn't a long time ago she died."

"Who would know more about her?" Jarrod removed his finger from the gold piece and the man picked it up and quickly dropped it into his pocket.

"Keep going east right out of town there's a little clapboard house painted white with blue trim. Miz Rachel Caulfield lives there. She and Miz Thomson were real good friends."

Jarrod nodded his thanks and walked out to his horse. He led his horse through town, enjoying the stretch of his legs after the long ride. There wasn't much still operating in town; a small general store didn't look over stocked with supplies. There was a hotel, but it was hard to tell if it was still open or not. He decided since the front window wasn't broken, someone must be looking after the place. Rachel Caulfield's house was easy to find, the only house in town that looked as if it had ever been painted, and although the white paint was mostly peeled off the blue trim still gave it a cheerful, cared about appearance.

He loosened the cinch on his saddle and carefully tied his horse to a hitching rail across the road. No sense in leaving a pile of horse manure in front of her house.

He didn't have to knock; she met him at the front door, a tall, angular woman with salt and pepper hair tied up in a knot on top of her head. She had dark brown eyes under heavy brows and a no nonsense look that reminded him of a teacher he'd had early in his career. "Miss Caulfield?"

"I'm Mrs. Caulfield." There was an eastern twang to her voice, Massachusetts or Connecticut he thought.

"I'm Jarrod Barkley. I wanted to ask you some questions about a friend of yours, a woman named Thomson." He saw her mouth and eyes tighten, not at the mention of Thomson, but at the mention of his name. He had cross-examined too many witnesses not to know the signs of a stroke close to the bone. While the name Barkley was well known in California, he didn't think this was just the reaction of recognizing a well-known name. This was something else.

"Guess you'd better come in. I'll make some coffee." While the invitation sounded grudging, he had been the recipient of too much hardscrabble hospitality in his time not to recognize that it was genuine. He removed his hat and carefully wiped his boots before following her into the small house. He had known from her neatly swept front porch and carefully tended small yard that the house would be clean and neat. He wondered what had brought her to this mining town and what had kept her when most had left with the closing of the mine ten years ago.

They spoke of the town and the weather while she went through the ritual of boiling the coffee and setting the table. She showed him where to wash behind the house and had a small plate of bread and butter on the table along with the coffee when he returned. They each had several swallows of the weak coffee before she began to speak.

"Leah Thomson's been dead over a month. She's buried outside town. Keep going east, you'll see a stand of redwoods. She's buried in there."

"Did she have a son?" he asked and was rewarded with another tightening of her face that told him yes before she ever spoke.

"Yes, she did. Is he some business of yours?"

"I think he might be, yes." Jarrod studied her face closely, now that he knew how readily it revealed her thoughts. He supposed this might be the most important cross-examination he had ever made and he realized he had done no preparation. He had spent the ride thinking about his father, not thinking about the questions he should be asking, how to lead this witness to reveal what he needed to know. He marveled at his short sightedness. Why had he not thought ahead? Had he hoped he wouldn't find anything? Had he hoped his mother was wrong and that by not thinking, he could not learn what he feared? Or had he shied away from thinking about the questions because he hadn't wanted to confront his father's possible perfidy, his betrayal of his mother, and yes, his betrayal of all of them with a woman in a mining town twenty years ago?

"Yes," she said. "I suppose he might be." She looked down at her coffee, effectively hiding her face from him. But he didn't need to see her face now, thunderstruck by her words. She knew. Unless this was some impossible scheme concocted by a penniless young cowboy and this old woman, then she knew something about this Thomson woman, her son and the name Barkley.

"Will you tell me?" he asked gently. He thought about touching her hand but decided she would resent this familiarity. He wanted to do nothing that would allow her to shut him out at this point. He was now in a fever to know what she could tell him. It was all he could do not to yell his questions at her. But his ability to take his time, to ask the gentle questions, was why he was here and not Nick. So he asked and waited.

"Why do you ask?" She had been so slow to speak, he had feared she would just stop talking.

"There is a young man at our ranch. His name is Heath, Heath Thomson. My mother sent me to ask about him."

Silence again sat over the pair as they both drank a little of the now cool weak coffee. "Have a little bread and butter. I'll just get some more coffee."

He let her fuss with the coffee cups for a bit and push the bread and butter toward him. He knew she was thinking, trying to decide what to do and he gave her time.

"What's Heath told you?"

"Nothing. We've asked him nothing and he's told us nothing. He was injured. My mother is caring for him. She saw something and sent me here to ask." Jarrod had found that often it was necessary to give information in order to receive it. Now he gave her the injury and the caring. Told her that his mother was caring for him, for Heath, that they hadn't harmed the boy and were trying to look after him.

Her hands flew to her mouth and her head came up sharply from the contemplation of her cup. "Hurt. Is he all right? Oh my. Poor Heath, so much pain in that boy's life."

Now he did touch her. He reached across the table and touched her arm. "He's going to be fine. He was shot some time ago, weeks ago, but it's healing." He hoped he was telling her the truth, but he didn't want to talk about past injuries. He wanted to know about the boy's mother and her lack of surprise to hear that a Barkley was asking about the boy.

"You're sure. That boy has been through so much pain…" She shook her head and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. This was not a woman who cried easily, the tears surprised him.

"The doctor was out to see him. Said he needed to be kept warm and to rest and he would be fine."

She sat up straighter in the chair, effectively pulling her arm from his hand and then absently rubbed the place he had touched. "Poor boy." She shook her head again. "He came up here to be with Leah the last week before she died. Then we buried her out there in the redwoods. I think it nearly broke his heart, her dying. They were very close. The past few years, not close physically, you understand. He had to go where he could find work, but the love between the two of them, you could almost see that love, it was so strong." She quickly wiped a tear with a small handkerchief she had up her sleeve.

"But you don't want to know about that, do you. You want to know about Heath and his father." All the sentimentality was gone from her voice now. It was harder and stronger, as was the look she gave him.

"Yes." He nodded, not wanting to say too much, to interrupt, now that she was talking.

"Well, there isn't much to tell. It's an old enough story. Young girl, naïve, in love and an older man smitten by her youth and her beauty." She stopped speaking for a minute and looked beyond him, lost in the past, he suspected. He said nothing and waited her out. He thought she had a story she wanted to tell and would get to it if he gave her enough time.

"He was injured, a fight, a robbery. I knew Leah then but we weren't the good friends we became, but we were friends… even then, friends. She was such a kind, gentle woman, it was easy to be friends with her. She had a joy about her that made your day better if you spoke with her."

"But my husband was still alive then and I had my life at home. So I didn't spend so much time with her as I did later, after Heath was born. We became very close later, the three of us raising that boy." She smiled for the first time and he realized she must have been a very handsome woman at one time. That those dark eyes and dark brows would have been striking coupled with her erect carriage and slim frame.

"Leah worked in the hotel. Her brother owned it and she worked for him, cooked, cleaned. She'd had a husband but the man had abandoned her here, oh I think maybe two years before all of this. She lived in one of those miners' tents on the outside of town. There were a lot of them then, in the hey day of this place. She lived there, worked in the hotel."

Another period of silence, but now he knew she would go on and leaned back a little in his chair as he waited her out and allowed her to paint a picture of this town twenty years ago. He had no trouble imagining it. His family owned mines all over California, he had seen plenty of mining towns. The wild time when the strike first comes in and any man might make his fortune, the mining time when the easy ore is gone and it takes money to get to the rest, the miners replacing the dreamers who were there for the quick riches and then the end of so many of the towns as the ore plays out, the mines close down and the town dies.

"She found him out in back of the hotel on her way home from work. She saw something glittering on the ground when she opened the back door of the hotel to leave and when she bent to pick it up, she saw him. She always said he looked more dead than alive and at first she thought he was just a pile of old clothes. Somehow, she managed to get him up and walking and back to her tent. I guess her brother wouldn't let him back in the hotel. He'd been staying there, but robbed, he had no money to pay his bill. Her brother wouldn't let his own mother stay on charity. Heaven knows he never showed any to his sister."

He watched her sip her coffee, letting her anger settle a bit before she continued her narrative. "She used to tell that part of the story to the boy all the time. That's why I remember it so well."

"He was hurt pretty badly. Had taken a bad blow to the head. He was a long time getting his strength back. It was weeks before he could even get out of bed. Leah cared for him all that time, worked, shared her little bit of food with him and cared for him. He was here perhaps two months. Then he left. He just about broke her heart. She was so sad, I was afraid she might do herself some harm. But she was much too Christian a woman to do that. And then she found she was with child and all the joy returned." She smiled at Jarrod.

"Most women would have been desperate, afraid to find themselves carrying a man's child, not married and with the man long gone, but Leah was …" She paused, looking for the word she wanted. "She was joyful, full of joy. That joyfulness never left her. The baby was born and they were so poor."

"Hannah, she's an old former slave, lives a bit further out of town. She and Leah were always close, and the two of them did everything trying to raise that child. I helped as much I could but between the three of us, we didn't have much more than a bean. My husband died and I took in some sewing try to stretch what little money I had. Hannah and Leah did washing for the miners and Leah worked for her brother, but they had no money. What they had though, was love for that boy and Leah's joy. I guess that boy was mostly raised on joy and love."

"And the man. Did you ever know his name?" Jarrod asked when Rachel remained silent lost in the past for several minutes, her story apparently told.

"Oh yes. Leah never told Heath. That boy was a plague there for a while, wanted to know his father's name but she would never tell. She told me that the boy was his father's gift to her. Tom Barkley's gift to her." She looked at him defiantly. "She told the boy his father's name just before she died."

"Why didn't she tell my father?" Jarrod wasn't sure he asked the question of Rachel or himself.

"She wasn't one for asking or taking charity. She had all the pride you find among mountain people everywhere. She would never have stood at your father's backdoor with his son beside her, asking his charity." She spoke with some bitterness and Jarrod couldn't blame her. He supposed he would have felt the same way. If a man leaves a woman with his son without a backward glance, what should the woman expect if she presents herself at the door with that boy in tow? Charity would be the best such a woman could expect.

"I don't think he ever knew. I think, surely, if he had known he would have done something for the boy, for them both." Jarrod prayed he was right, knew he was right. His father loved children and would never have left one of his own in want.

"Ask yourself, Mr. Barkley, why he never knew. Don't women who lay with men conceive children? How is it Mr. Barkley laid with Leah and rode away and never asked?"

Jarrod looked away. He had no answer to that question. There was no answer he knew. Men who lay with women made children. It was as God had made the world and his father had ridden home to his family and never looked back to see what he had left in the mountains.

"Heath has an old coin on a chain. Do you know anything about that?" Jarrod asked, needing to pin down all of the evidence. Needing to know everything no matter how it hurt.

"Tom gave it to her. She told me he said it was lucky and he wanted her to have luck. It was that coin she saw glittering the night she found him. She gave it to Heath, I believe. Mr. Barkley gave her a locket too. We buried that with her. But the boy kept the coin." She stood now and began clearing the table. Finished with her story.

Jarrod remained seated at the small table, looking at its scarred surface, thinking about the father that loved and cared for him, the father who bought him a pony, hunted and fished with him. Tried to find the father who sat with him when he was ill and read to him at night in the man who conceived a child in a mining town and never looked back.

"Hannah lives in Leah's old house now. It's only a few hundred yards further down the road to the east. It's got two windows on the front and a red chair in the yard."

Jarrod nodded at his dismissal, stood and held his hat in front of himself as he said his thanks and good bye. As he walked across the road toward his horse, Rachel called out to him one last time. "You say hello to Heath for me please."

"Yes, ma'am, I will." He smiled at her, although he was so sad he had to think hard how to make his mouth turn up in the polite gesture.

Hannah's house, Leah Thomson's old house, was very small, not really much more than one room with a table and chairs in the front and a small kitchen in the back. Off to one side was a separate corner area screened by a piece of muslin hung as a curtain, the whole heated by a small pot bellied stove in the kitchen with a chimney stuck out the back wall. It was clean and spare, as was the woman who met him at the door.

She looked to be somewhere between sixty and ninety; she would have made a good mate for Silas, he thought, she had that same quiet dignity and reserve beneath a welcoming smile. The reserve he suspected made of holding something back for yourself, of never quite being sure of your welcome.

She was kind and invited him inside for yet more coffee. This coffee too was weak and hot. Here there were biscuits and jam. The biscuits were delicious, light and sweet even though cold, no doubt left from her breakfast.

Yes, she knew Leah and Heath. Yes she remembered Heath's father. At this point though, she became very reserved and managed to repeatedly move the conversation away from his questions. She didn't want to tell him what he wanted to know. They sparred for a little while until he smiled at her and surrendered. He had spent too much time trying to get his way with Silas who would never say "No" and never give in.

"I can see you don't want to tell me about Heath's father. Let me tell you why I ask." He paused. He had admitted this to himself, but saying it out loud was proving to be more difficult than he had anticipated. He lived his life by what was said. Words for him had a great deal of value and these words more than most.

"I ask because I think Heath's father might be my father." He paused again. What did he want from this woman? "I want to know if you can tell me anything about what happened here twenty years ago that will help me know if that's the case." He guessed that was what he wanted. Some more proof of what he already knew. Proof that would convince his brother, he decided. Prove Heath's brotherhood to his other brother, who had not heard Rachel's testimony, seen the truth of what she said in her face.

"Oh, Miss Leah, she loved that man. She loved him so much but he left her. He had a family and he left her." The old woman nodded to herself and smiled slightly. "After he left her, she was so sad. Hadn't been for that baby, I think she would have died, she was so sad. But that baby. She loved that baby so much before he was ever born, and she never stopped loving him more than life itself," The old woman looked at him now and gave him a big smile. "He was an easy boy to love, our Heath."

"Do you know who the baby's father was?"

"I didn't know his name. I called him Mr. Tom, I don't recall his family name, just Mr. Tom."

Jarrod nodded. It had been a long time ago. He supposed to this old woman, it hadn't really mattered what the man's name was. He nodded his thanks. "Thank you for the coffee and your time."

"Will you see my Heath?" she asked.

"Yes, I will."

"You tell him to be careful and we love him." She smiled at him so kindly that in spite of his disappointment at her lack of information, he smiled back. Love and joy.

He tightened the cinch on Jingo and looked back down the street at the town. He considered stopping at the hotel but thought perhaps he had what he came for now. He knew the boy had been born in Strawberry and that Tom Barkley was almost certainly his father. He couldn't understand how it could be so. How his father could have done this thing, but he thought that was a problem for another day. The issue now was the boy back at the ranch. He turned the gelding and started the long ride home. His mother was waiting for him and what he now knew.