"He must have heard us last night." His mother gave him a long look as she spoke.
"WELL I SAY GOOD RIDDANCE," he returned, not even trying to keep a smirk off his face.
"Do you really, brother. You can just let him go and never give him a second thought?" Jarrod examined him like some sort of interesting specimen he had found on the bottom of his boot. "Your brother and you're just letting him ride away?"
"He may be your brother, but he's not mine. I have all the brothers I need." He leaned toward Jarrod and tried to use his superior size to intimidate. Jarrod didn't budge, just returned him stare for stare.
"I don't believe you. Oh, I think you believe what you're saying now. But in a few weeks, or months you're going to understand who that boy is and you're going to be sorry." Jarrod's smug self-satisfaction was just so… smug. He wanted to smack him, wipe that smile right off his face. How could he even consider that saddle tramp was his brother? How could he consider that their father had been up in some mining town whoring, while their mother was down in the valley mourning their dead brother? Some times he thought all that education had just addled Jarrod's brain, had just robbed him of all common sense.
"He's not well. He still has a fever and that wound needs to finish draining. The infection is just going to come back and he'll end up dead," his mother said.
He couldn't believe how up set his mother seemed. But, of course, she wouldn't want anyone to suffer; she was a very gentle person beneath her tough exterior.
"We need to find him and bring him back. He should at least be offered a place here. He can decide to leave but he should know that the offer is there." Yup, a very soft hearted person, his mother, and fair game for any con man or injured polecat.
He was tired of this argument. He had spent an hour the previous night lying in his bed trying to think how his mother's and Jarrod's claims about this boy could possibly be true.
His mother said his father had slept with another woman. He'd supposed it was possible his father could have had slept with some woman, if as his mother said, they were having a hard time getting along. If his mother said it was so it must be true. It didn't seem likely, but she said it was true, so it must be so. He'd just never thought of his father doing that sort of thing.
But what were the chances that there would be a child and that the child would come here? He'd thought it all through. Tried to think what he would have done had he been that child. He decided he would have come here, burned the place down. So in the end, he accepted that his father might have slept with a woman, that there might be a child, that the child might come to the ranch, but no way that boy lying up there could be that child, coin or no coin. No son of Tom Barkley, no brother of his would stand for being abandoned in some mining town without getting up a good head of rage and doing something about it.
That boy had no rage in him, far as he could see had no anger in him at all. He'd stood with them at Sample's, saved Jarrod's life. Rescued Audra and never even spoken an angry word to any of them. Never even tried to claim he was a Barkley, truth be told. That just didn't make any sense to him. But then that left him wondering about the beating he'd given the boy, and wondering, if the boy wasn't claiming to be some long lost heir, what did he owe the boy for the beating?
"I wish you would find him and at least ask him to come back and talk to us." His mother addressed every one of them, but looked directly at him as she spoke.
The boy was gone and either he was some long lost brother or he was a young cowboy he had almost killed with his fists for no good reason. "All right. I'll go find him," he said, worn out with the talking and the thinking. He would just ask the boy, find him and ask him for his story. Didn't mean he needed to believe him or bring him back to the ranch. But he would ask him. Let the boy spin his yarn and he would listen.
"I'll check in Stockton. See where he went," Jarrod said.
I'll ride up north toward Plymouth and River Pines "
"Toward River Pines? Why in the world look there? There's nothing up there, especially this time of year except trappers, hunters and outlaws."
"IF HE'S A BARKLEY THEN HE'LL THINK LIKE ONE. IF I WERE LEAVING MY LONG LOST FAMILY AND HAD A HOLE IN MY STOMACH AND DIDN'T WANT TO BE FOUND AND HAD NO MONEY, I WOULD HEAD UP TO THE MOUNTAINS. HEAL UP AND THEN HEAD UP NORTH OF SACRAMENTO AND FIND WORK. IF HE'S A DOWN ON HIS LUCK COWBOY, well he'll probably do the same thing." Sometimes he was amazed at Jarrod.
Jarrod just studied him. He could see him thinking through what he had said. He could see him picturing the map in his head, following the trails up into the mountains. "If he's gone that way, he'll be awfully hard to find."
"If he's a Barkley, as you believe, and he left because he doesn't want to make any claim on us, then he doesn't want to be found. So if you find him sitting at the hotel in town, he's no Barkley, he's a con man waiting for you to bite." He smiled triumphantly. Now that he was planning the trip, he knew that was what a he would have done. He would have gone to ground up in the mountains to heal up so he could work again. The boy was mountain bred, came from Strawberry, and he'd know that was where he could find game enough to live on while he healed. He figured with a dollar to his name, the boy wasn't going to any town, wouldn't buy him more than two nights in a hotel and couple of meals. That boy was going to need a couple of weeks, maybe a month before he could do hard work.
"How will you find him up there?" Jarrod asked.
He looked at his brother with astonishment; Jarrod really believed that boy was a Barkley, believed he had left with no thought of the riches here. He almost shook his head. He expected Jarrod would find the boy in the saloon in town smoking cigars and drinking whiskey, knowing he had hit the big time.
"I don't suppose I will. I suspect you'll find him waiting to be discovered in Stockton. But if he's a Barkley and doesn't want to be found, that's the way he went, and if I stop talking and start riding, I should be able to catch up to him in a day or so. He's wounded and can only push himself and his horse so fast. If he's going that way I'll catch him. If I get going now." Saying that, he headed out the door.