I do NOT own The Big Valley nor any of the original Big Valley characters. Thanks to my Beat Reader, though all mistakes are my own.

End of the Rainbow

Chapter Twenty-Four

The sun reached through the open window and pried Patrick's eye lids open; he groaned and sat up. Playing pool with, and talking to, Jarrod the week before may have been enlightening in some ways, but troublesome in others. The man had answered the few questions Patrick had been able to bring himself to ask, and insisted that he seriously think about running the ranch again, even gave him a week to think about it. He was supposed to give him an answer by dinner time.

He'd had more dreams too, ones where he was working side by side with Heath, talking with Jarrod in his study, even some with some with Mrs. Barkley and Audra only problem as…he could never hear what they were saying to each other. Each and every time he'd wake up crying out for his late wife."Cat, why?" He looked up at the ceiling. "Why couldn't you just have lived a few more months?" He still couldn't shake the feeling that had been stronger with each passing day, the feeling that he was indeed more than an employee, but he just couldn't bring himself to ask any more questions at the moment.

Hearing approaching horses, he threw on his clothes, left the room and went outside. Heath, McCall and Jimmy were on their horses; they didn't look very happy. He took a guess and asked, "Found some more fence line cut?"

"Yes, we did," Heath answered, feeling very much uncomfortable. His brother had not once brought up the subject of his real name to him again, and, as far as he knew, Jarrod was right when he said 'Patrick' didn't think of himself as any more than an employee. Patrick also been pretty much keeping to himself, either in a room he didn't know was his or at the small home Cat and he shared, when he wasn't working.

"We were thinking to break off in small groups and go searching again. You can go with whichever group you'd like, Patrick," McCall spoke up. The fact that Heath flinched ever so slightly was something that the other men missed, due to looking at him instead of Heath, but he saw it.

'It be not McCall's place to be ridin' alongside 'eath Barkley.' Cat's words rang again in his ears. "Nicolas to be exact, but you went by Nick." Jarrod's words followed. Patrick sighed; he knew she never lied and was seldom mistaken. He also knew how much the Barkleys were genuinely concerned about him. He didn't have to be so cold. Nick looked from Heath to McCall. "I may, or may not, remember everything on my own, but," he said as he looked back at Heath, not surprised to see the turmoil in his eyes, and then back to McCall, the conversation with Jarrod still fresh on his mind, "name's Nick. I'm riding with Heath." He turned abruptly and went to get his horse.

Not knowing about the conversation between Heath and Patrick down at the docks, or the one between Patrick and Jarrod in the middle of the night the week before, McCall looked at Heath, gave him a smile and said, "We'll get him back all the way. You wait and see; he'll remember everything."

"Name's Nick." The look in his brother's eyes said, 'I'm taking your word on this.' It made Heath's hopes rise higher than they'd been in a long time. He gave their foreman a small crooked smile. "I hope so; the way things are ain't right." It didn't take Nick long to join the men. Before long, they'd joined the others and separated into the small groups they wanted.

"Any idea where to start?" Nick asked as he, Heath and Jimmy headed down the road.

"Work our way up to the far north end of the ranch and then back down, unless we find something, or someone, first," Heath answered. He wanted to say more, but he didn't know what.

Although it had nothing to do with the business on hand, Nick made Heath sit straight up, and the men with them hang back, when he said, "Jarrod wants me to take over running the ranch. How do you feel about that?" He looked at the blond haired brother to see his reaction. He wasn't surprised when the man stiffened, but he took it wrong. That being the case, he was shocked when Heath answered.

"I'd say it was high time he got around to asking you to. I know McCall will be overjoyed if you do. He doesn't mind working for us, but he doesn't like giving orders he feels you should be giving."

"Cat…" Nick started to speak only to find himself bringing his horse to an abrupt halt. "See what I see?"

Heath and the others turned their gaze in the direction Nick was pointing. Smoke! The small group put their horses on a dead run. The small group turned the bend in the path they were on to see the McQueen boys and a stranger hurrying away from a brush fire they'd started. Some of the men flew off their horses to fight the fire while Nick, Heath and Jimmy rode after the men. It took a few minutes, but soon the six men were fighting it out. It didn't take long to subdue the McQueen boys, but the stranger was another story.

Nick, after spying the stranger, was startled to finally have a flashback of being attacked, the man was in it! What shocked Nick was to literally hear the man calling him Mr. Barkley! Fury burned inside him as he realized he'd not been dreaming about his employers, but his family! While the flashback did not open a gate wide open and let the rest of his memories through, he now knew why the Barkleys had been so willing to go to such lengths to keep him on the ranch. Flying off his horse, his fists flew and his legs connected with the man more than once.

Having secured the McQueen boys, Heath and Jimmy, due to the fact that they could see the stranger had lost, but Nick wasn't stopping, stepped in and forced the fight to stop. "Whoa, Nick, he's beat, you don't need to kill him."

"Why not!" Nick bellowed and he about dropped Heath with his next words. "He was one of the men who attacked me! He may, or may not be, the man who shot me! He's one of the reasons I've spent the past six and half months not knowing a thing!"

Heath turned on the man who lay on the ground struggling to get up only to find more than one rifle pointed at him. "Who are you and why attack him?" Heath demanded, as he continued to do what he could do hold Nick back.

"It was Luke." The man held his side and spat out the words angrily. "Luke Woodland. He thought your brother had the three thousand dollars on him; we didn't know you and that attorney brother of yours had it."

"Why come back here now?" Nick bellowed. He didn't figure he needed to ask why the man hadn't come after him 'back then'; after all, the men thought he was dead. At least, it was the assumption he was willing to live with. "Why come and start all this trouble?"

The man glared at the McQueen boys who looked as if they wanted to find a rock to crawl behind and hide. "Believe it or not, it had nothing to do with the attack on you back then. They," he pointed towards the McQueens, "hired me. They said we needed to keep your family busy while they looked for the gold you had found and hidden."

It took a minutes for Nick to remember the many conversations he'd had with Cat, some of them had included the fact that he'd found "his gold", including the night of the church social. He shook his head; the stupidity of some people, "They were mistaken!" Nick growled as he forced the man to his feet. "It wasn't that kind of gold I found." He then looked at Heath and, not wanting him to think that he, Nick, had remembered everything simply asked, "Do you think Jarrod could spare me a few minutes?"

Heath gave him a lopsided grin. "I'm sure he could."

Epilogue

The breeze blew through the air as Nick knelt down by his wife's headstone; they'd been able to make arrangements to bury Cat in a spot that lay near the river. He ran his fingers over the lettering and smiled sadly. "Well, girl, I had that talk with Pappy." He glanced off to his right; Heath was sitting on his horse, waiting patiently for him; they had work to do. Nick swallowed hard, and then said, "I still don't remember everything, but I remember enough, enough to know they ain't lying to me; they're my family and the ranch is my home. Guess, I got luckier than most men. I got three pots of gold at the end of my rainbow: my family, the ranch and," he said before pausing as a single tear ran down his cheek, "for a short golden period of time, you." He stood up, put his hat back on and headed for his horse.

Author's note:

To the best of my knowledge when one gets amnesia they one, get their memories back, two, only get part of their memory back or three, don't get it back at all. For whatever reasons that be, he refused to get all his memories back, but I couldn't leave him without any either.