Chapter Sixteen

Heath sat in the saloon, at a table that sat near a slightly opened window. The beer he'd ordered was still quite full. He never felt so much like getting flat out stone drunk, but he couldn't afford to do such a thing. He took a small swallow of the drink and thought back on the scene that had played itself out in the house; once he'd left Nick standing in the barn.

Heath had to hold onto the front door as he opened it, or he'd have fallen flat on his face; he was running that fast. Mrs. Stokes was standing in front of the book shelf; Bryon was on the floor playing with his wooden soldiers, but Leah was nowhere in sight. He opened his mouth only to have Mrs. Stokes, who was facing the bookshelf and had her back to him, speak up. "I don't know what on earth was going on out there," the older woman said as she turned around, "but you have one very upset daughter in the other room." "Is everything okay, papa?" Bryon looked away from the toy soldier in his hand and up to his father, a hint of fear was in the young boy's eyes and in his voice.

"Yeah," Heath forced himself to give his son a crooked smile. "Everything will be fine. I just need to talk to your sister." He then took a few steps forward and opened the children's bedroom door, stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him. Leah had moved from the window over to her bed. She was now sitting on the bed, cross-legged and sobbing every so softly. Once again Heath felt his heart breaking.

"Hey," Heath sat down and gently pulled his daughter up and onto his lap, taking her chin his hand and tilting her heard slightly upwards. "No need to cry now." After wiping her tears away, he asked her what she'd been doing out in the barn in the first place.

Leah slid off his lap and, getting down on the floor, slid her small hand under the bed and then pulled out two wooden whistles. She stood up and held them out for her father to see. "Mrs. Stokes helped me make them." Actually, Mrs. Stokes had done the majority of the work before coming to Stockton, intending to give them the children. However, hearing the young child talk about her father and the cowboy she was fascinated by, the older woman had simply let Leah help her finish, believing she was doing more work than she was, and then told Leah she could give them to whoever she wanted. Leah looked up into her father's face. "They're for you and Cowboy Nick." She started crying again. "You tell Bryon and us not to fight. Why were you and Cowboy Nick fighting? Was he tricking us? Is he really a bad man?" The thought made the young child sick to her stomach.

Heath never felt so stuck in his life. Never before had this inquisitive daughter ever asked him a question he couldn't easily answer, though it appalled him she thought Nick would ever trick them or that he was bad. He picked her back up and held her close for a few moments. Finally, with her prompting, he gave her a sad smile and said, "No, Nick Barkley is a very good man, really. When it comes to the fight; well," Heath paused and then continued, "I tell you not to fight with your brother, but you don't always listen do you?" The irony of his saying that when he'd just been fighting with his own half brother was rather amusing, in an odd sort of way; it would have made Heath laugh if the situation wasn't so serious.

Leah shook her head and then had Heath fighting to keep from busting a gut laughing, though he did chuckle as she said, "Yeah, but he doesn't always think like he should!"

How ironical Heath thought. It seemed like each of his children had a part of him, but had, somehow, they also had a part of Nick; a part of him even though they had never met before that day in Modesto. It must be the Barkley blood; he offered himself the satirical, but silent excuse. Heath then took the whistles promising to treasure his and to make sure that, somehow, Nick got his. "Well, Nick Barkley has the same bad habit, I guess. It doesn't make him a bad man. It just makes him human." Heath assured her.

"Good," Leah smiled and wrapped her arms around her father's neck and whispered, "I can keep him as my cowboy then." Heath held his daughter close, so as to hide the tears that threatening to spill out of his eyes. She did not need to know what he'd said he'd do once he'd helped the Barkley's with their latest troubles. After all, while the words had been spoken in haste, he wasn't sure he wouldn't follow through on them either.

Heath sighed. He dared say both he and Nick were guilty of not thinking. He should have realized that, as Tom Barkley's son, Victoria would see it sooner or later. Not knowing how long she'd known, Heath was left to wonder why when she found out and, if it had been more than a couple of days, why she'd waited so long. For Nick's part, why couldn't the man have waited until Heath was at work? Before he could think of an answer, Heath heard two voices outside the saloon's window. Because the noise level was so high, the voices were barely understandable. Still, Heath heard every word.

"I don't know about this Lyman. Kilgore and Thayer are both sitting in jail right now. Sure, they haven't talked, but ain't we pushing our luck trying anything else for awhile? I mean, Kilgore was your friend, and you got Thayer to turn against the Barkleys because of his massive, secret, gambling debts, but whom else is there? Who else can you get? "

Heath sat up straight. He recognized the voice as that of Ethan Stoddard, a red headed twenty year old man who worked in the train yard. Heath cared little for the man, as Ethan was famous for doing as little as possible when working. In fact, many people said the man did just enough to keep his job. He never went out of his way to help anyone either. He had a twenty-nine year black haired brother named Lyman. Was he talking to him or to another man? Heath got his answer the moment the other man started speaking.

"Maybe we are, maybe we aren't!" Lyman Stoddard growled at his brother. "But we both lost out on a lot of money when we lost that fight against the farmers. Remember, the railroad promised us a large sum of money if we sold our land to them, but they took the offer back after the fight at Sample's farm!" Lyman took a deep breath and added, "We'd have won if those Barkleys hadn't stepped in, pulled them all together and fought with them! We'll just have to do the damage ourselves and find a way to get that girl!"

"Why can't we leave her alone?" Ethan asked. He liked Audra Barkley. She was nice and polite to him. Sure, she'd made it abundantly clear she wasn't interested in him. Still, he wasn't so upset by her rejection to want anything to happen to her.

Heath heard the sound of someone getting slapped; he could guess who it was too. Lyman start talking after the sound of the slap faded.

"Are you kidding!" Lyman couldn't believe his ears. Ethan had lost just as much money as he had. What was his problem? "I have connections, men to who I owe a lot of money. With that blond hair and blue eyes of hers, I could sell that gal for a decent amount of money down in Mexico and pay those men off. We'll find some men to work with us and give it another shot! For that matter," Lyman said as he laughed insanely, "maybe we'll just do the job ourselves, save ourselves more money that way!" Though, even as he spoke the words Lyman knew he'd have to get a couple, men who knew the best and fastest way to Mexico well.

Heath found his blood boiling, as he heard the two men outside hurrying away. No one was going to lay a hand on Audra! That is, not if he had a say in it. Besides, he had a promise to keep. He drank down the last of his beer, hurried out the saloon door and mounted his horse. Since the law would be unable to do anything…as it would be his word against the Stoddard's, Heath headed for the ranch.

As he rode faster than he'd ever ridden in his life, Heath began to think on the Stoddard brothers and the other men they might get to join them. He thought on everything men like that would be willing to do, to those who fought on the other side. Since he wasn't going back on his word, he knew the Stoddards would, sooner or later, pose a threat to his children as he was sure the brothers would us them against him. Thinking along those lines, Heath decided there was only one thing he could do to protect his children and keep his promise to Mrs. Barkley and Jarrod. He just hoped Mrs. Stokes would go for it.