Chapter 9

Lynch took a deep breath and yelled, "I think Jed Bishop set you up!"

The words were barely out of his mouth when Heath, looking out the window just to keep an eye out, saw the man he thought he had seen in the Gold Eagle but who had disappeared. The man was coming this way. Heath didn't know who he was.

"Nick – Sheriff – " He drew their attention. "Do you know the man coming over here?"

Nick and Sheriff Madden both looked, and then Sheriff Madden looked at Lynch. "It's Joe Tyler, Jed Bishop's foreman."

Lynch looked panicked. Jarrod looked surprised, as if he hadn't heard anything and was just reacting to Lynch. "He's coming for me! They're gonna shut me up!" Lynch blurted, loud enough that Jarrod knew he would have heard it even if he really was deaf.

"Jail!" Jarrod said and pointed to the cell block, and he put his pad and pencil back into his pocket.

Sheriff Madden got the message. He grabbed Lynch by the arm, saying, "Come on," and pulled him back to a cell where he locked him up. "This'll keep you safe until we sort this out," he said to Lynch.

Lynch shrunk back into the cell, sitting down on the bunk.

Joe Tyler came in the door. He didn't look surprised to see the Barkleys there, and it didn't stop him from stating his business. "Sheriff," he said. "I'm looking for Dan Lynch."

"What for?" Sheriff Madden asked.

"He walked out on his job and took some tools that didn't belong to him," Tyler said.

"That's a lie!" Lynch yelled from the cell.

Jarrod jumped a little, as if Lynch's yell was the first thing he heard. The jump made Tyler look straight at him. Tyler looking at him made Jarrod stand up and move up beside him.

As if measuring him out, the sheriff realized.

Jarrod gave Tyler a hard look, but then sat back down again, as if feeling weak. Tyler looked confused by Jarrod's movements.

The sheriff said, "Well, if you want to file a theft charge on him, he's right here in my jail."

"What for?" Tyler said.

"Disorderly," the sheriff came right back. "The second time in just a few days so he's gonna stay here until he sees a judge, and Mr. Barkley is his lawyer."

Tyler looked down at Jarrod again. "I hear he ain't fit."

Jarrod pretended not to hear.

"Where'd you hear that?" Nick asked.

Tyler looked at him and hesitated before he said, "Word's all over town."

"Fit or not, Lynch has hired him," Sheriff Madden said. "Do you want to file a theft charge?"

Hesitating slightly, Tyler ended up saying, "I just want the tools back. You can keep Lynch."

"Where's your horse?" Sheriff Madden asked loudly over his shoulder, back toward Lynch.

"Livery!" Lynch yelled.

Tyler nodded, gave everyone a look, and then left.

"I don't have his tools!" Lynch yelled.

"Then he won't find any," Sheriff Madden said. Then he looked at Jarrod and said, not loudly, "Is he the one?"

The sheriff had forgotten the ruse for a moment, but Jarrod remembered. He just looked confused.

Sheriff Madden remembered again and yelled, "The man who was just in here! Is he the one who hit you in the livery?!"

"Maybe," Jarrod said.

Heath was watching out the window. "Tyler's headed toward the livery. He mounted up though. He could just be leaving town."

"What?" Jarrod asked loudly.

Heath repeated what he said, yelling this time.

"I didn't take no tools!" Lynch yelled. "He was after me!"

The sheriff let Lynch out of the cell and back into the office, saying, "Why don't you just tell us everything you know, and say it loud so Mr. Barkley can hear you."

Lynch spoke up. "Mr. Bishop wanted me to dynamite the orchard! That's why I had the dynamite, but I couldn't do it! I was scared and I just got drunk!"

"Why in the world would he want you to dynamite the orchard?" Nick asked. "The whole thing is still in court!"

"I don't know! Men are sayin' his lawyer told him he wasn't gonna win the appeal! That he wanted to hurt you Barkleys if he was gonna lose, and then that lawyer, that Jorney, dropped him! He was hoppin' mad!"

Heath put two and two together and said, "He couldn't get away with dynamiting the orchard, so he made Jarrod pay." He didn't yell it, but he was loud enough.

"I don't know," Lynch said. "I just got out of there. I didn't know what him and Tyler were gonna do to me."

"Tyler?" the sheriff asked.

"He gives me the orders. He gave me the dynamite. He's the one come after me!"

"This is crazy," Nick said, too quietly.

Jarrod heard it but pretended not to. He just looked confused – and wasn't pretending that. With Lynch yelling, Jarrod knew it was all right to react as if he'd heard him, but if Lynch was right about Bishop and Tyler, it didn't make any sense.

But then Nick said, "Lynch, you said Bishop didn't talk to you, that your orders to dynamite the orchard came from the foreman."

"Yeah!" Lynch yelled.

Jarrod pretended not to hear Nick. "What? What did you say?"

Nick said, loudly, "Lynch told me he never talked to Bishop! His orders came from Tyler!"

The sheriff said, "Jarrod!" He said it loud.

Jarrod looked up at him.

"Do you think it was Tyler who might have hit you?!"

Jarrod said, also loudly, "Maybe Tyler. Right size."

"You're thinking Tyler may be behind this and not Bishop?" the sheriff asked, looking at Nick but being loud enough so Jarrod could act like he heard it.

It was Jarrod who asked, "Why?"

The sheriff looked at Lynch. "Do you think it's Tyler who hit Mr. Barkley?!" he yelled so Jarrod could pretend to hear.

"I don't know!" Lynch yelled back.

Jarrod said, "Why would he? Why Tyler?"

"Only if Bishop got him to," Heath offered.

"I don't know!" Lynch yelled again. "All I know is Tyler said Mr. Bishop wanted the orchard blown up and he wanted me to do it!"

"Maybe Bishop doesn't have anything to do with this," Nick said, loudly. "Maybe it's all Tyler."

"Why?" Jarrod said loudly. "No reason!"

"Maybe there is and we just don't know what it is yet!" Heath yelled.

The sheriff looked at Lynch. "What am I gonna do with you?"

Lynch looked terrified.

Heath said, "Take him to the ranch and put him to work for us?"

Jarrod pretended he couldn't hear. "What?"

Heath said loudly, "I'll ride with him out to the ranch and put him to work in the stable. Do you want to go home now?"

Jarrod looked undecided, still confused, then said, "No. I'll see the doctor."

The afternoon was wearing on. "You feeling bad?" Nick asked.

"Head hurts," Jarrod said with a sigh.

"I'll stay with Jarrod," Nick said. "Lynch, you all right with going to work for us for now?"

"The jail's the only place safer," the sheriff said.

Lynch finally nodded.

"Let's go," Heath said and took him toward the door.

"Come back after you get him there," Nick said. "And watch yourself. Tyler's out there somewhere."

Heath nodded.

As soon as they were gone, Nick turned to Jarrod. "Are you really feeling bad?"

"My head still hurts," Jarrod admitted, "but I really want more time in town. I want to get Dr. Merar to say I should stick around in town tonight. Get him to say to the world I should be here if I keel over again."

"But you really plan to listen in more?"

"That, and to be a decoy."

"Decoy?" the sheriff asked.

Jarrod took a deep breath. "I'll get the doctor to let me use his sick room again tonight. He and Iva will be in their quarters and out of the way, with either you, Nick, or Heath with them just in case. The other one of you can be with me while I actually get some rest, because I do need it."

"And once you work that out with Dr. Merar, you plan to go out and do a bit more listening," the sheriff said.

"And eating," Jarrod said. "I'm getting so hungry I may actually be a bit whacked out before long."

"What makes you think Tyler is gonna try for you again – or whoever tried to kill you is gonna try again?" Sheriff Madden asked.

"Just a hunch," Jarrod said. "We spread the word I'm staying at Dr. Merar's office tonight, make people think Nick and Heath are staying at the hotel like last night, they'll think I'll be alone all night. If it's Tyler behind everything, I want to know it, and I want to know why."

"What if nobody makes a try for you?" Sheriff Madden asked.

"Well, then, tomorrow we think of another plan," Jarrod said.