He thought about that. What could he tell this man with his ranch and his train and his fancy brother with a house in San Francisco?
"Grew up in Strawberry," he finally offered. That seemed simple enough. Nick greeted this in silence that shortly grew to exasperation.
"And?" Nick finally said. "And what?"
"No family," he offered, not wanting to make Nick angry again. He was so easy to rile.
"That's it. I tell you all about my life and my family and you tell me you grew up in Strawberry and have no family. That's it? That's your whole life? You grew up in Strawberry and you have no family!"
Nick sounded angry again. He sighed softly and tried to think of something else he could say, something that would interest Nick. "Worked in Mexico for a while." He thought that was fairly inspired. Nick must have been to Mexico. Nick could tell him about his trip to Mexico, figured that would take him until they fell asleep for Nick to tell of his travels in Mexico.
"That's good. Doing what?" Nick said, smiling at him.
Damn, he hadn't really wanted to talk about the fighting in Mexico, but that was what happened when a man opened his mouth and started just throwing information around. "Mostly, just coming home to California, but some fighting, you know, Maximillian."
The two men sat in silence for some minutes and he hoped that Nick was satisfied. He didn't want to talk about Mexico, he couldn't remember why he had said that. He tried to think of some place he could talk about, maybe Corning. That had been good, breaking horses for Mr. Walker in Corning.
"Coming home from where?" Nick asked.
"I broke horses for Carl Walker in Corning last winter," he offered. "Man has good horses." He took his eyes off the surrounding country long enough to glance at Nick, see if that would maybe do the trick. Nick liked to talk about horses and he enjoyed listening to Nick talk.
"You were in Mexico coming home from where? Nick repeated.
He made no reply, amazed he was even having this conversation. "Was a long time ago. Sorry I brought it up," he finally said, at a loss how to move the conversation away from Mexico.
Nick seemed to take the hint though and said nothing more about Mexico or Corning. They sat in an uncomfortable silence. He'd known this wasn't going to work. He had nothing to give to Nick. No past he could share in aimless conversation. Well, maybe Corning but Nick didn't want Corning, he wanted Strawberry and now Mexico. He sighed tiredly. He'd gotten almost no sleep the night before with the long watch and the demons. Night before that wasn't much better. He wanted to sleep and not worry about Nick and Barkleys. He looked around at the horizon again, trying to remember how he let himself get in this mess of talking and visiting. He threw the end of his quirley into the fire and stood. "I'll check the horses."
The horses were fine, of course, grazing quietly. He stood and watched them, his back to the fire and the questions. He wanted to catch Gal and head away from this trap. He looked up at the sky. Still another half hour until the sun went below the horizon. He walked back to the camp and dug in his saddlebag for the box of shells. Nick sat silently, drinking his coffee, watching him.
"I'm going to try the new handgun," he offered him, showing the shells. That should be safe he thought. He walked away from the camp with the two empty cans from supper. He placed the cans on an old cottonwood log and stepped off about thirty feet, drew the gun and fired at the cans. He took his time shooting carefully, his arm extended in front of him and the gun held lightly. It was a nice weapon. Shot true without too much rise on the discharge. It wasn't anything like that beautiful handgun of Jarrod's he'd fired at Sample's farm, but this was a nice handgun. He reloaded, paced off another ten feet further away and fired six more rounds. Each shell hit the can at which he aimed, dancing the can along the ground.
He turned and picked out a dead limb on one of the cottonwood trees while he reloaded. Trouble with cans was, they pretty soon ended up dancing around on the ground unless you walked back and put them on something every time you shot. Shooting down toward the ground wasn't a good of test of a gun. Since the shell fell as it traveled, didn't give so much feel for aiming the weapon. He fired another load and was satisfied he understood the way the gun pulled.
He reloaded again and dropped the gun into the holster. He pulled the pistol out carefully, fired one shot at the limb and hit it where it joined the tree. He dropped the gun back into the holster and repeated the move, firing twice this time. Gun rose a bit to the left on discharge but dropped back fairly well. He drew and fired three shots this time, compensating for the rise a might better and was satisfied.
He saw Nick standing behind him watching. "Nice shooting," Nick said noncommittally.
"Try her?" he offered.
Nick nodded his head and he handed him the reloaded weapon. Nick fired the handgun six times quickly at, he thought, a knot on the same cottonwood tree about thirty feet away. Nick hit the knot twice and was very close another two times, nice shooting with an unfamiliar weapon.
"Not so bad yourself," he said and smiled as he took the returned weapon.
He walked back to his saddle, pulled out his gun cleaning kit and began breaking the gun down and cleaning it.
"Looks like a useful weapon," Nick said, handing him another cup of coffee.
"Pulls a might," glad he could offer something so easy to the conversation.
"Not the world's fastest draw there," Nick said, smiling at him.
"Nope."
"Guess you're more of a rifle man."
"Yup." He thought this was going quite well. Nick would be pleased they were having a conversation and he was pleased they weren't talking about Strawberry or Mexico.
"HOW MANY WORDS DO YOU KNOW, BOY?"
He sighed. Guessed it wasn't going as well as he thought. "What do you want from me, Nick?" he asked softly.
"I WANT YOU TO TALK TO ME. TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF." Now it was Nick's turn to look uncertain. He ran his gloved hand through his hair. "Look boy, I just met you a week ago. I find out you're my brother. I want to know about you. I'm happy to tell you about me and my… our family. But I want to know about you too."
He sat silently digesting this, thinking on it. He'd never told anyone about himself. Wasn't something he did. But he'd never met a new brother before either. He had enjoyed listening to Nick tell him about the ranch and his family and his life. But he had nothing like that he could share. He tried to think of a good story he could share.
"WELL?"
"I'm trying. Give me a minute." He gave Nick a small smile to let him know he was really trying. He tried to think of some story he might have told his mama. He decided that wasn't very helpful, he'd pretty much left home by the time he was twelve. Oh, he'd visited with his mama plenty later, especially since the war. He'd tell her where he'd been, things he'd seen, but she never asked him questions. Mostly they just sat with each other enjoying the company, not really saying very much. He guessed maybe he and his mama just weren't real big on talking.
He knew already Nick wasn't going to be satisfied with him saying he'd been to Corning, not really much story in Corning. He guessed that was why he liked thinking on those three months breaking horses, nothing much happened. He'd spent enough time in bunkhouses and around campfires to know that if a man told a story, he expected something in return. He just wasn't used to these sorts of stories that cut so close to him. Men in bunkhouses and on trail drives didn't ask about what a man didn't tell. This business of brothers and questions was new to him. He didn't want to tell some story and have Nick come back with some question he couldn't answer.
"I was driving a Wells Fargo coach between Redding and Alturas in '67. That was the year of the big strike in Canby. I pick up five soiled doves in Redding for a new business venture in Canby. My other passenger's a new preacher for Alturas." He paused and sipped a little of his coffee making sure Nick was seeing the possibility of the situation.
"So we get to Ingot and stop to change horses. The preacher climbs out with one of the doves, takes her over to the horse trough and baptizes her. We get to Round Mountain and he's saved another soul and baptizes her in the a little stream coming out behind the depot while we're eating lunch. Montgomery Creek and we're down to two soiled doves, three saved souls and a preacher in the coach." He paused to drink some of his coffee and study Nick over the top of his cup. He swallowed and gave his brother a small smile.
"Next morning he saves one in Adin in a horse trough. By this time we're down to one hold out and are pulling into Canby. So the preacher calls out to me, 'I'm almost there, the Lord needs another half hour.' So I drive right on through Canby." He paused so Nick could picture that coach coming into Canby and driving right on through. "He saves her in another twenty minutes so I turn the coach around and drive back to Canby."
"Those miners are all lined up in front of the depot in Canby, waiting for that coach and those doves. It drives right on through town. Forty minutes later we're back and they're all still lined up. Out step those five saved souls. Miners nearly lynched the preacher and Maurice MacGregor, man with the new business venture, wanted to burn the stage office." Nick was laughing out loud by this point.
"What happened to your saved doves?"
"They opened up a boarding house, called it the Five Sisters. Course, by the time they had it opened, two of them had married miners and one moved to Alturas with the preacher" he finished dryly.
"My God, I've stayed there. Peg Larson." Nick was full of wonder.
Now it was his turn to give Nick a small smile. "Yup, the very same." He knew Barkley Sierra had a mine in Canby, he'd figured Nick had probably been up there at least once.
Nick told him about his trip to Canby, about staying at the boarding house and what Peg Larson was doing with her life. He listened happily to Nick's ramblings, enjoying the story and pleased he didn't need to provide any more stories of his own.
Eventually even Nick ran out of words and they drank their last cup of coffee in silence. He chewed on the bits of ground coffee as he walked out for a last check on the horses and then wandered up into the rocks north of camp to hide his rifle. When he came back to camp, Nick was already stretched out in his bedroll. He sat down on his own bedroll and considered for a few minutes. Then without removing his boots, he lay back against his saddle on top of his blanket, determined to stay awake and avoid sharing his demons with Nick again.
The next thing he knew was the smell. The awful smell of dead bodies three days gone and buried too shallow to stop the reek of putrefaction. The smell hung in the air a miasma; a fog that could almost be seen so heavy was the odor.
He opened his eyes and looked about. He was in a field of mud and water, the sky grey with the undissipated smoke of a thousand guns, the world a place of black mud and grey sky. He could see the mud moving with the bodies of the dead, roiling in their shallow graves of mud and water. He attempted to push himself to his feet to escape from the awful reek and the horrible sight. His hands came down into the mud and water and awful offal of the ground. Gagging with the reek of the place, he pushed himself to his feet. He turned to try and escape from the buried and half buried bodies only to trip and fall as the hands of his dead grabbed him. As he struggled to his feet again, he saw he was surrounded not only by his victims, but also by the bodies of the Barkleys, deformed and awful in death. He fought the hands holding him to the ground, attempting to inter him with his victims. He struck out in an effort to escape the sea of bodies and mud and offal.
"Wake up, boy. Wake up, it's okay."
He didn't know when he woke. He just knew at some point the moans of the dead became understandable speech and he knew he was dreaming and Nick Barkley was shaking him awake. In a paroxysm of fear and loathing and humiliation, he fought for his freedom.
"Let me go. Get your hands off me." He struggled in a confusion of Nick's hands and his own blanket, finally tore himself free of both and staggered off into the darkness. Shaking uncontrollably, he took himself away from the camp and into the surrounding cottonwoods, tripping and nearly falling as the dead branches reached up and tried to pull him to the ground in a horrible parody of his nightmare. After falling twice, he just let himself lie on the ground, his arms wrapped around his waist to hold his body from shaking apart. He lay there swearing to himself, or at himself, while he waited out the fear. Waited while he sorted out the fearful boy and put him away again. When the shaking was done, he sat up, exhausted, rested his arms on his knees and his head on his arms, too spent to rise from the ground. He put the dead bodies and the fear away. He smelled the meadow grass he was sitting in and put the reek of his dead away. He listened to the wind gently rattling the leaves over his head and whispering through the grass and put the moaning and calling of his dead away.
When he rose to his feet, he could see the fire clearly about a hundred feet away. Nick had built it up again. He stood undecided for a moment. The temptation to go find Gal and ride off bare back nudged at him like a horse looking for grain. It would be so easy. But his gear was at the fire and he couldn't work without a saddle, not to mention that handgun he'd killed a man to get.
He walked slowly back over to the fire, careful of the dead branches hidden in the tall grass still anxious to trip him. Nick had a pot of coffee pushed into the coals. When he saw Heath in the fire light, he poured him a cup and held it up from where he was sitting, a peace offering. He took the proffered cup and sat down on his torn up bedroll, his back to his saddle. The heat of the cup felt good in his hands, its warmth a reassurance of life in a world full of death. He held the cup unable to drink it. Unable to do anything but hold the cup and look into the fire. He'd not had a dream that bad in years. He carefully didn't allow himself to remember when he'd last dreamed like that. Remembering the dreams was almost as bad as the dreams themselves. It all needed to be put away. Kept away from his living if he was to have any living at all.
"So, bad dream I guess," Nick said.
"Yeah."
For a wonder Nick didn't pursue it. He just sat and drank his coffee and looked into the fire. He figured the two of them sitting there, backlit by that fire, not paying any attention, looked like a couple of real fools asking to be bushwhacked. But he was glad for the fire and didn't care about bushwhackers.
"I'm heading back up north in morning."
"OH NO. WE HAD THIS TALK ALREADY!"
"That was before. You can see this isn't going to work." He couldn't keep the exasperation out of his voice. He was tired. Tired of staying on the good side of Nick. Tired of finding something to say to shut up his insatiable curiosity and most of all, tired of Barkleys who went through life living by Barkley rules with no sense of what was right or necessary or seemly.
"OH, so you're an Indian Medicine Man now?"
He knew he should think about that comment. Try and figure out what stupid Barkley notion that stemmed from, but he didn't care any more. "What?" he asked tiredly.
"You get a dream or a vision, it tells you what to do with your life and off you go? Thought only Indian medicine men got their guidance from dreams." Nick was angry and as always, made no effort to hide his outrage.
"I ain't movin' into that fancy house of yours and then screamin' the roof off for your entertainment." He'd started to answer Nick there anger for anger. He paused for a second while he got himself under control again. Didn't know what it was about this brother of his could get him angry this way. "Ya' know nothin' about me. Ya' best just let me go my way."
"WELL FINALLY… That's the whole point. To learn something about you. For you to open your mouth and tell me about yourself. To tell me about the true Heath. I want to know about you."
He half smiled at Nick at that request. There were maybe things Nick might want to know, but he was sure the truth about him wasn't one of them.
"You know about me all you need to know," he said tiredly, looking into his cup as if the answers he sought floated on its surface.
Nick was silent and they sat for some while. Naturally, it was finally Nick who broke that silence. "My father did something wrong. Something I can't understand…. but he left you to grow up alone." He and Nick sat silently for a time each lost in the contemplation of their cold coffee.
Then Nick said, "My family owes you a debt. Won't you allow us to repay it?"
He looked up at Nick at that remark. He supposed the old man did owe him something, for surely men who made children owed those children something. Did the father's death pass the debt to his sons? He thought on the doctor in Pinecrest and his own debt he could never pay. He understood honor and unpaid debts and gave Nick a small nod.