Chapter 12

Eugene threw himself on top of Jarrod as soon as Jarrod was laid out in the dirt. He started pummeling his older brother with everything in him, smashing him in the face, in the ribs, on the chest and the shoulders. Jarrod made no effort to fight back at all. Despite the fact that he was taller and bigger and could have easily just pushed Gene off, Jarrod didn't do it. He just took everything Eugene dished out.

Nick flared up and started to intervene but Heath held him back, saying, "No." Letting Nick do the intervening was a very bad idea. Heath stepped in, pulling Eugene off by the collar. "All right, you've hurt him, now let him go, Gene. You don't want to kill him. Let him go."

Victoria came out of the house then, stopping with Heath as he held onto Eugene. A couple of the ranch hands were with Jarrod, helping him up. Heath wondered how in the world the man could get to his feet, he was so bloodied, stooped over, breathing hard. Heath was afraid he had misjudged Eugene's strength and let him keep punching a bit too long.

"Take him into the house," Victoria said quickly.

Victoria followed along as the men helped Jarrod into the house. She gave Eugene a hard, stern glare but then left him to Heath. Nick hesitated a moment, but when Victoria went into the house, he followed along, still a bit stunned by the "welcome" but thinking he shouldn't have been.

Heath kept himself between Eugene and the house, just in case his youngest brother made another run for his oldest brother. Eugene was out of breath, almost purple with rage as he watched Jarrod being helped inside. Heath just stood with him until his hard breathing began to ease. "Did that help?" he finally asked.

"I've been wanting to do that since I was seven years old," Eugene said, "and I'm not a bit sorry."

"I know you're not," Heath said. "And he had it coming. He knows it, too. That's why he didn't fight back."

Eugene hadn't noticed that, but he didn't care, either. "Why the hell did you bring him here?"

"Partly so you could do that," Heath said. "Partly so you could see he'd let you do it. Mostly because Mother needed to see him, and you and Audra need to understand why. Come on. Let's you and me take a walk so you can cool off."

In the house, they sat Jarrod down into his old "thinking chair," the chair he favored when he needed time to himself to consider something. Now, he was just bloody, hurting and light headed. Victoria went to the kitchen to fetch the medical supplies, while Nick sat down on the settee and kept an eye on Jarrod.

"How do you feel?" Nick asked.

Jarrod smiled just a little. "I haven't been beaten up that good in years." It hurt to talk, hurt his mouth and his midsection, and he groaned.

"The view from the moral high ground ain't so great right now, is it?" Nick asked.

Jarrod laughed a bit. It made him hurt all over, but he couldn't help it. "Gene didn't waste any time knocking me off of it, did he?"

Victoria returned with the medical supplies, but before she started using them, she looked hard at Jarrod's beaten face and felt his midsection. "Jarrod, you need a doctor."

"No," Jarrod said. "Just fix me up."

"You may have broken ribs, your nose may be broken – "

"No," Jarrod said. "Doctors like to use drugs, and I don't want any. Just patch me up the way you did after Nick and I had a scrape."

"Nick never broke any ribs."

"It wasn't for lack of trying," Nick said.

Victoria gave in with a sigh. "Nick, help him get his jacket and shirt off."

Jarrod tried to sit up straighter, but as soon as Nick had the jacket and shirt off, he had to slump a bit again for a minute. Victoria looked at his midsection. It wasn't beginning to turn color yet, but when she felt his ribs, he moaned and stiffened.

"Jarrod, you really need a doctor," she said.

"Might make the kid feel a bit guiltier if you call the doctor in," Nick suggested.

Jarrod shook his head again. "A doctor will want to give me laudanum."

"If you need it – " Victoria started.

Jarrod took hold of her hand. "I was hoping for time to have a quieter talk, but I suppose this is as good a time as any."

"Let me get you taped up," Victoria said. "Then we can talk."

Nick helped get Jarrod straightened while Victoria began to tape his ribs, but Jarrod kept talking. "No, let me just get it out in the open right now. Mother, during the war, I was wounded four times. Each time they gave me laudanum, and when I came home, I was so addicted to it that you might have done better just shutting me up in some opium den and leaving me there to rot. I was mean and violent when I couldn't get the laudanum. It was withdrawal, Mother, not anything psychological left over from the war. Just addiction."

Victoria had stopped when Jarrod used the word "laudanum." Her eyes took on a shocked, angry look. Jarrod kept looking at her, wondering if she was going to hit him herself now. Instead, she said with almost a growl, "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I was too ashamed," Jarrod said. "Too stubborn thinking I could get over it myself or just find a more reliable supply or I don't know. Not thinking straight at all. You were very right to throw me out. I was worse than worthless."

Victoria finished taping his ribs, then took out the astringent to doctor his face. Jarrod inhaled sharply every time she touched a cut or a scrape, and she seemed to rub it in harder every time she dabbed a sore spot. "If you had told us, we could have gotten you help," she said. "We could have avoided the past ten years. Maybe avoided losing you both."

"No, no, Mother," Nick quickly said. "My troubles weren't because of Jarrod's addiction. My troubles were my own."

Victoria looked up at Nick now. "So as long as it's time for confession, what were your troubles?"

"They're a little more complicated," Nick said. "Let's get Jarrod fixed up before we get into anything further."

By the time Victoria finished with him and they got his shirt back on, Jarrod was able to stand on shaky legs but his face was cut up, his nose was stuffed with cotton, and he was stiff from the tape over his ribs. "I'll get you some brandy," Victoria said when he was on his feet.

"No," Jarrod said.

Victoria looked at him. "Alcohol, too?"

Jarrod nodded. "I don't drink at all, Mother. I'm over all that stuff now. I won't risk any of it again."

Her eyes softened now. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Lemonade?" Jarrod said with a little grin.

"It'll hurt your mouth."

Jarrod just shrugged.

Victoria finally smiled, running her hand gently across his chest, then touching Nick the same way. "This wasn't the homecoming I planned," she said.

"I don't know," Nick said. "Maybe it's the one that's appropriate."

Silas suddenly appeared with a tray full of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. Jarrod and Nick both looked at him fondly, almost as if he were another long lost brother. "Ah, Silas," Jarrod said. "Still reading minds, I see."

Silas smiled. "No, more like reading your mother when she came in to get the medical supplies. Shall I take them back into the kitchen, Mrs. Barkley?"

Victoria nodded. "Please."

"It's good to see you again, Silas," Nick said.

Silas nodded his thanks and took the medical supplies away. Just about then, the front door opened, and Heath came in, guiding Eugene with a hand on the back of his neck. But Eugene moved out from under him when Heath stopped to close the door. Gene came into the living room, Heath right behind him –

And suddenly they were all just standing there, none of them knowing what to say. There was no apology in Gene's eyes for what he'd done. He just stared hard at Jarrod, looking like he was ready to let into him again. Jarrod looked back at his youngest brother and almost wanted to smile. What he was seeing was the tiny three-year-old who stood looking confused when Jarrod went off to war, not the gangly 18-year-old who had just beaten him up.

Then Victoria stepped up to her youngest son and all but spit in his face. "You've had your revenge, and now I will have NO MORE of any of this kind of behavior, is that understood?"

Eugene hesitated.

"Is it?!"

Eugene finally nodded slowly.

Then she looked at everyone else. "Not from any of you. We are done with the violence in this house."

The three other heads nodded.

Then Victoria stepped out of the circle of sons surrounding her and sat down on the settee.

Heath broke the tension. "Does anyone know where Audra is?"

"She's gone to town," Victoria said. "I don't know when she'll be back."

Heath spotted the lemonade and began to pour drinks. "I think there's a whole lot to talk about," he said and began to hand glasses out. "If you all want to do that without me around – "

"No," Victoria said. "This affects you as much as it affects us. We'll all stay, and we'll all talk."