Chapter 9

It was nearly an hour before Jarrod met Heath in the café across the street. Heath was nursing a cup of coffee. "Did you eat?" Jarrod asked as he sat down.

"I was waiting for you," Heath said. "How did it go?"

"Uneven - good, then rough, then good, then rough - but better than I thought it would. We ironed some things out. I told him we'd bring his dinner over and talk some more. I couldn't get Mayville out in the open, though. We'll have to work on that."

Heath stared at his older brother, and then shook his head.

"What's the matter?" Jarrod asked.

"You're just not anything like I expected," Heath said.

"Good," Jarrod said. "I stopped at the telegraph office on my way over here and wired my wife. I told her – " He stopped, almost afraid to say what he was about to say. "I told her we would probably go down to Stockton tomorrow or the next day."

"You've decided you want to go," Heath said.

Jarrod nodded. "I owe them. Even if they just run me out the door right away, I owe them answers."

"I hope Nick feels the same way."

"He might come around. Let's get some food and then take some over to him. If he's still like he was when we were kids, he'll do a lot better on a full stomach."

Heath chuckled.

It was only an hour later Heath carried the tray across the street and Jarrod opened the door to the sheriff's office for him. The sheriff was back in the cellblock now, sweeping out the cell Nick was not in. Nick was flat out on the cot again, but he sat up when he smelled dinner coming in.

"Hungry?" Heath asked.

The sheriff lifted Heath's gun out of his holster and checked out the tray for dangerous implements. There was only a very blunt dinner knife that looked remotely dodgy, and the sheriff let that go. The food was boiled chicken and potatoes – really bland looking.

Nick sneered a little at it as Heath brought it in and set it on the cot. "Is there any chance Silas still works at the Barkley place?" he asked.

Heath left the cell and the sheriff locked the door again. "He does," Heath said.

"Might be worth a trip just for the food," Nick said.

Jarrod sat down on the stool again, while Heath leaned up against the bars of the other cell and the sheriff went out. "We probably ought not go down there until we settle a few things, Nick," Jarrod said.

Nick began to eat and looked up at his older brother as he chewed. "Bossy as ever, aren't you?"

"Somebody has to make you think," Jarrod said. "You never did it very well on your own."

"And some things never change," Nick said.

Heath was afraid they were about to argue, something Jarrod had warned him might happen at any moment. Even as kids, they squabbled a lot. "We do have some decisions to make," Heath said. "I'm not keen on taking you to Stockton if you're going to bring the old problems with you. Mother will just show you the door right off."

"Yeah, you're right," Nick said.

"We both have some violent streaks to keep under control," Jarrod said.

"I thought you were through with yours," Nick said.

"If I keep my drug problems under control, I can control my anger."

"And you want me to control mine," Nick said.

"For Mother's sake, Nick," Heath said. "Nobody's expecting a heartfelt reunion, but at least it needs to be calm."

"What if I don't want to go?" Nick asked.

"Nobody's gonna twist your arm," Heath said. "You go because you want to. The best we can do is help you want to."

Nick looked at Jarrod. "When you were here before, you said we should talk about the war."

"I think we should," Jarrod said. "That's where all the problems came from."

Nick took another bite of food and looked at Heath. "Jarrod tells me you were at Carterson."

"That's where I spent most of my war," Heath said.

"And now you're just over it all."

"No, I'm not," Heath said. "I just don't carry it around with me everywhere."

"Jarrod thinks that's what I do with Mayville."

"Do you?"

Nick paused in his eating for a moment. "He said that I thought everybody blamed me for what happened there, when I didn't have anything to do with it."

"What did you have to do with it?" Heath asked.

"I was General Alderson's aide," Nick said. "He didn't know anything about it, and neither did I. It just happened on our watch is all, so it's ours to live with."

"But not your fault," Jarrod said. "You couldn't prevent what you didn't know about, and you weren't court martialed. Neither was Alderson."

Nick was quiet for quite a while. They let him have his silence, watching him go over things in his mind. "I keep thinking I should have known," Nick finally said.

"Why?" Jarrod asked.

"It was my job to know."

"Didn't you say you were officer of the day? It was your job to convey information from the staff to the general," Jarrod said. "You couldn't convey what you never got."

"Somehow that never made a lot of difference to me."

"How did Alderson take it?" Heath asked.

"Like a general," Nick said. "He stomped around and chewed people out and then went on to the next campaign."

"And you couldn't go on to that next campaign," Jarrod said.

"I was a kid," Nick said. "I wasn't even 18 yet. I had all these great ideals of honor and loyalty and our righteous cause."

"It was still a righteous cause, Nick, even if some of our men sullied it," Jarrod said.

Nick looked over at his two brothers. "Why didn't I know? I should have known."

"You should have been where you were ordered to be," Heath said. "Were you?"

Nick nodded slowly.

"Were you supposed to be anywhere near Mayville?" Heath asked.

"I was supposed to be ten miles away with General Alderson, and that's where I was," Nick said quietly.

"And everybody who knew you knew that's where you were supposed to be," Jarrod said. "You've always been the only one who blamed you for Mayville."

Nick put his food aside. He stared up at the ceiling. "You know something? Maybe you're right. I did my job. I did it right."

"But you're still mad about it," Heath said.

"Yeah," Nick said. "I'm still mad. I didn't do anything wrong and I'm still mad!"

"Why?" Jarrod asked. "What are you blaming yourself for?"

Nick finally took a deep breath and glared at Jarrod. "For being so meaningless. Being so unimportant. Being so worthless that I was there when if I'd have been there I might have stopped it!"

"Nick, you weren't worthless," Jarrod said. "You just had other work to do, and you did it."

Nick stared at Jarrod. "Father weaseled me that aide's position to keep me out of the line of fire, because you were in it."

"He told you that?" Jarrod asked.

Nick nodded. "And once I got out there, I hated you for that."

Jarrod straightened. So, this wasn't really so much about Mayville at all. Mayville was part of it, but it was really about Nick feeling unimportant because he was kept away from the action, and he was kept away from the action because his big brother Jarrod was in it. Jarrod turned livid, standing up and putting himself directly in front of Nick at the bars of his cell. "You had no right to hate me for that, Nick. You had no right to be in Mayville, and you had no right to blame me because you weren't. You did your job, and I did mine."

Nick stood up and stood fast right against his older brother, and they glared hard at each other through the bars. Heath kept back, not because he was afraid they'd start strangling each other, but because they had to deal with their anger with each other without him. He had no right to get in the way.