Chapter 3

It wasn't but half an hour or so that Dr. Lane came out of his treatment room to talk to Jarrod. "Your mother is doing fine," he said. "I'm not sure if that leg is broken or not, but I'm treating it like it is. Other than that, she just has a few scrapes and bruises and a bit of shock. Now, let me have a look at you."

Jarrod stood still while the doctor looked at his face and arms. "The buggy landed on my mother. I was thrown clear."

"You look fine, just some cuts and bruises," the doctor said, "but you'd better let me tend them after you get rid of your buggy."

"Get rid of it?" Jarrod asked. "Why?"

"I'll tell you more later, but right now you need to get it out of town, out of sight, out into the woods where no one will find it."

Jarrod wasn't about to do anything without more explanation than that. "Doctor, you've been very good to tend to my mother, but I've been as patient as I'm going to get. You tell what's going on around here, and tell me right now."

The doctor sighed, exasperated. "I will, but getting rid of that buggy has to come first. If it's seen – "

"By whom?" Jarrod interrupted. "There's no one around here but you!"

"There are often men around here, other than me," the doctor said. "You do not want them to know you're here. Go get rid of that buggy – take it out of town the way you came in and hide it in the woods, then come back and let me tend to you and I'll tell you everything. Now, go, there may not be much time."

Exasperated himself now, Jarrod got up and went outside to do as the doctor asked. The buggy was lighter than it was when he was carrying Victoria in it, but it was still heavy and awkward. He pulled it out of town, as the doctor told him to do. There was a sizeable wooded area not far, and Jarrod did his best to drag the buggy into the woods and out of sight. He just couldn't get it very far because of the undergrowth. He left it, came out of the wood and saw that it couldn't be seen from the road. He wondered about the tracks, but then he noticed rain moving in from the west. Satisfied what he'd done would have to be enough, Jarrod headed back to the doctor's office.

The doctor was waiting at the door and pulled him inside quickly. "All right, let me doctor that cut on your forehead and see whatever else you have."

"Let me look in on my mother first," Jarrod said.

"No," the doctor said. "I need to be sure you're all right before I move the two of you."

"Move us?" Jarrod asked. "Move us where?"

"Into the basement. You'll be safe there."

"We'll be feeding the rats there!" Jarrod protested. "I'm not taking my mother anywhere until you explain what's going on."

The doctor sighed. "Done In was practically a ghost town when Daniel Wright bought a ranch about ten miles west of here. The man comes from back east. He was done in by the war. He brought about a dozen men with him, and they moved in on us here one night about six months ago. Took almost everybody who was left here – which wasn't much. A saloon girl, a bartender, a couple leftover drunks, and the regular townspeople who were left – the dry goods storekeeper, the blacksmith. They took the families of the storekeeper and the sheriff too. Last week they finally took the storekeeper and the sheriff. He makes the people work for him."

Jarrod's mouth was open. "That's insane! This is California! We don't have slavery here! He couldn't possibly think he could get away with it for long!"

"Nobody said they were being legal about anything. Wright is a man who used to be rich and was used to getting what he wanted by charming it out of people or bullying it out of them."

"But how has he gotten away with it? Surely somebody had to have missed somebody and contacted the authorities."

The doctor shook his head. "Remember what I said, Mr. Barkley. They raided a near ghost town. There wasn't anybody here that anybody would miss."

"The sheriff?! The storekeeper?!"

"You're the first people who've come here since they were taken, and I haven't had anybody come to me."

"Still, for God's sake, man. This isn't the middle of nowhere. There are other ranches around, and the man would have to do business outside his ranch to keep it going."

"For all intents and purposes, Mr. Barkley, this IS the middle of nowhere. We're hilled in here, and Wright has made himself a fortress for a ranch. I've seen it. He sends men out for me when somebody needs tending, and I'm about the only one who goes in there. If he does business with anyone outside his ranch, he does it in Millertown. He's got his men riding herd on his slaves as bad as any bunch of overseers ever rode herd on slaves before the war."

Jarrod was still astonished, but he quit protesting that such a thing couldn't be happening in California, this long after the war was over. "Why didn't he haul you out here?"

"He left me and the sheriff and the storekeeper at first. Blane Henry, the storekeeper, was still getting goods in that Wright was buying, and Wright wanted to make Done In look like some kind of a town, I guess. He had both the men's families, so he figured they wouldn't do anything but go along. But the sheriff and Henry started putting together an idea about going for help, and Wright got wind of it. That's why he pulled them out of here. He's left me because there are a couple ranches in the other direction from town, and they need a doctor now and then. And he knows I'll keep my mouth shut and won't go anywhere."

"Why not? Why haven't you just left? Talked to the other ranchers in the area? Gone for help?"

Dr. Lane sighed. "I tried talking to the sheriff in Millertown when they dragged me in there for medical supplies, but he wouldn't believe me. I don't know if Wright has bought him off or he just doesn't want to go up against the man. It's the same thing with the doctor there. I don't have family Wright could hold, but he does have hostages out there, Mr. Barkley. People I knew and lived with. If I leave, they'll pay. Besides, Wright took all the horses, and that road you were traveling to get here is just a backwater shortcut from one place to another, hardly used. I'd have to make it all the way to Millertown on foot, and they'd find me before I did."

"Millertown's not even five miles away."

"Mr. Barkley, I'm not a young man!" Dr. Lane was getting impatient. "For all I know, Wright already knows you're here with your mother, and I'm taking a big chance just helping you! With the sheriff and Blane Henry gone, I've been expecting him to come and take me any second! Now just quit asking me questions and let me tend that cut of yours and get you and your mother stashed away!"

Jarrod sat down and let the doctor clean and doctor the cut on his forehead and a few other scrapes, but he said, "I'm not taking my mother into the basement, Doctor. Let me move her into the sheriff's apartment or someplace like that."

"Listen to me, Mr. Barkley," Dr. Lane said, finishing up with his doctoring. "If they find you, they will take you."

"We'd be missed," Jarrod said. "Our men are probably already out there looking for us."

"Then they might just kill you outright and get rid of your bodies and nobody would be the wiser."

Jarrod eyed the doctor, still suspicious about everything he was saying. It sounded too absurd to be real in modern day California. Maybe that was why he got no help from the sheriff in Millertown – the man thought Dr. Lane was crazy. "We'll take our chances," Jarrod said. "And when we get out of here, we'll take care of Mr. Wright's operation, too."

The doctor put his implements down and just stood there. "Then I'm cutting you loose, Mr. Barkley. You take your mother wherever you want. Just don't tell me where you go and don't get me involved in any other way."

The doctor walked right out, straight out into the street, leaving Jarrod sitting there. Jarrod gave a sigh. He got up, arguing with sore muscles that were just beginning to give him grief for all the dragging of the buggy he had done. For a moment, he wished he hadn't stashed that buggy and he considered going after it, but he knew that was a stupid idea. He could not pull his mother back over the hill and more miles to Millertown. They were here, until his brothers came looking for them.

Jarrod thought about them. Nick and Heath would be getting nervous by now, and Nick knew they were using the short cut he recommended. And they'd track –

No, they wouldn't. The rain started. Jarrod could hear it on the roof. If he was going to move his mother to somewhere other than the doctor's basement, he was going to have to do it fast.

Jarrod ran into the treatment room, where Victoria was asleep on the table. She woke up as he lifted her. "What? What's happening?"

"We have to move, Mother," Jarrod said. "Just cover your face. It's raining."

Jarrod took Victoria outside. The rain was just starting, and he was able to get her to the sheriff's quarters before it got heavy. He put her in the sheriff's abandoned bed and sat down in a chair beside it, breathing heavily, worried sick, aching all over now.

"Jarrod, what is going on?" Victoria asked, rising up on one elbow.

Jarrod gently pushed her shoulder back down. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Just believe we might be in danger here, and we have no way of getting out, so we're just going to have to hunker down until help comes."

Jarrod pulled out his handgun and checked to be sure it was loaded. It was, and he had more ammunition in his gun belt. He knew it would probably not be enough if they were found, but maybe they could hold out here long enough to be found by the right people.

Jarrod got up, closed the bedroom door, and took the chair again.

Victoria was staring hard at him. "Start explaining, Jarrod."

Jarrod took a deep breath, and began to tell her what Dr. Lane had told him. When he was finished, his mother took on a disgusted and astonished face. "That can't possibly be true."

"That's what I keep thinking, Mother, but we're going to have to treat it like it is," Jarrod said. "Dr. Lane has left us to our own devices, at least until his conscience gets the better of him."

Victoria kept her eyes on her son. She could tell he was worried, but determined to hold out here. And protect her. She reached and squeezed his arm.

He had been looking toward the window, toward the lace curtain that would not hide them. He was wondering what to use for a better covering that would not look so bad it would attract attention. But when Victoria touched his arm, he looked at her, and he smiled. "Don't worry, Mother. Nick and Heath will be along before very long. Knowing them, they're already worried and on the road."

"But then they'll ride into this, too," Victoria said.

Jarrod nodded. "But they'll be expecting some kind of trouble. They'll be careful."

Victoria tried looking toward the window. Because it was raining, it was impossible to see how dark it really was. "What time is it?"

Jarrod checked his watch. "Five in the afternoon. It'll still be light enough for them to see for a while, when the rain lets up."

"Do you think we should try to get out of here and back on the road?"

Jarrod shook his head. "We can't. There's not one horse here in town, and I can't pull what's left of that buggy anymore, especially not in the rain. You can't walk, and I can't carry you without making your leg worse. The best thing we can do is hunker down."

Victoria accepted that with a nod.

"Why don't you sleep some more?" Jarrod said. "You may need the rest before this night is over."

"You may as well," Victoria said.

Jarrod smiled. He got up and looked through one of the drawers in the dresser, coming up with a shirt he thought he could rig to look like a curtain over the window. He did that, hoping no one who might come by would see what it really was. It made the room much darker, but it would keep him and his mother out of sight, and for now there was still some light in the room. Jarrod wished he could light a lamp, but if Dr. Lane was right, that would be risky. Instead, he found a couple blankets. He rolled one up for a pillow, laid himself down on the floor beside the bed, and pulled the other blanket up over himself.

"I hope you can get up when you have to," Victoria said, understanding how sore he had to be from the wreck and from dragging her here.

"Don't you worry," Jarrod said. "I'm as limber as I was when I was twenty."

"I don't believe you," she said.

Jarrod chuckled a little. "I suppose we'll find out, won't we? Sleep some, Mother. I'll be right here."

Victoria sighed. She was tired. Her leg hurt and so did some bruise on her back. She really didn't want to sleep, but she drifted off despite herself.

Beside her, Jarrod tried to settle down, too, but half of his brain was still listening – for trouble, for help, for whatever might be out there as nighttime came on. In a while the rain let up and all he heard were insects chirping and the wind through the ill-fitting window. But he also fell asleep, despite himself.