Chapter 7

The sheriff kept shaking his head. "You can't be sure it was Wright's men who came to Done In or ambushed you," he said after hearing Nick's and Heath's reasons for wanting to file a complaint.

"If we go out there, we can find out for sure," Nick tried.

The sheriff shook his head again. "Wright doesn't bother me. I don't bother him. He's brought some business to this town and unless you can give me more than you got, I'm not going to bother him."

Nick was nearly shooting flames out his nostrils. Heath, always more calm than Nick, said, "Sheriff, my brother Jarrod is a lawyer, and he knows the DA in this county. If you're not gonna help us, he's gonna go to that DA."

"And they'll start a more formal investigation," Nick said.

The sheriff looked put off a bit, but then he said, "All right, I'll take you out there, but if Wright won't let us on the property, I'm not gonna force it. I'd have to get a warrant from the judge, and he's not gonna give me one just on what you've told me so far."

Nick's fire eased off a little bit, but no sooner had the sheriff gotten his words out than the door opened and a man came in. He had a big smile on his face, and offered a hand to Nick. "Hello, Nick," he said. "Heath. I just came into town to go to the bank and I hear there's a big hubbub about me and my boys."

Stunned, Nick shook the man's hand, and Heath did too. Nick said nothing. Heath said, "Hello, Dan."

"Yeah, there's a hubbub," Nick said as the sheriff, relieved, sat down on the edge of his desk. "Our mother and brother were in a buggy accident, made it as far as Done In where we found them last night. Some of your men came into town and fetched the doctor away. As Heath and I were leaving with our mother and brother, we were ambushed by a couple of those same men."

"My men?" Dan Wright said in surprise. "I don't think so, Nick. Yeah, I had some of my boys fetch the doctor last night, but they brought him to my place and stayed there. If somebody attacked you, it wasn't my boys."

Nick still glared at the man.

The sheriff said, "Doc Lane has been spinning his tale again."

Wright laughed. "Not again. Nick, Heath, you've done business with me. Can you honestly think I'd be keeping anybody out at my ranch against their will?"

"Why don't we go see?" Nick asked, and he made sure Wright knew it was not a friendly suggestion but a direct threat.

Wright lost a little of his jolliness as he stared at Nick. "Nick, I resent the implication."

Heath broke in. "Dan, do you have any idea where the sheriff of Done In has gone?"

Wright smiled again. "I do. He's come to work for me. There wasn't any call for his services in a ghost town. He and the shopkeeper came to work for me last week. Their families are with me, too. Sheriff, this is all just a misunderstanding. You know Doc Lane hasn't got all his marbles anymore."

"Then you shouldn't mind us paying you a visit," Nick said.

Wright lost his jolliness again, and slowly said, "All right, but not today. I got apple harvest finishing up. Tomorrow, afternoon. Come on up tomorrow afternoon, I'm on the road east of Done In about ten miles. You can see whatever you want to see."

The glaring between Nick and Wright continued as the sheriff said, "Sounds more than fair to me, Mr. Barkley. You get your mother home, and you come on back up and meet me here tomorrow. We'll go on out there together."

"I'll want to bring a few men with me, Sheriff," Nick said.

"Well, now, that's fine, but let's not make it an army," Wright said. "I'd hate for us to get off on the wrong foot, and you're just not gonna need a lot of protection from me. Make it five men or so. How's that, Sheriff?"

The sheriff got up. "That sounds fair to me."

Nick said, "I'll want to see your men, to see if the ones who ambushed us are there."

Wright nodded. "Sure. We'll have this all cleared up by tomorrow evening. I'll see you tomorrow."

Wright tipped his hat and left. Nick's nostrils were flaring again, and Heath was none too happy with what just happened either. But at least what was going to happen today was settled. Heath said, "Come on, Nick. We best get Mother home and see she's safely out of here."

Nick grunted, and the Barkley men left. Out in the street, they saw Wright riding out of town, alone. Nick glared after him.

Heath took his brother's arm. "Let him go, Nick. Confronting him out there today isn't gonna get us anywhere. Let's get home, and you and me and Jarrod and a couple others can come back up here tomorrow."

"He's gonna hide whatever we want to see at his place, Heath," Nick said, still glaring after Wright.

"Maybe," Heath said. "But if he really has a lot of people living like slaves out there, he's gonna have a hard time doing it."

Nick finally grunted an agreement.

Heath looked down toward the doctor's office and saw Jarrod and the doctor helping Victoria into the back of the wagon. Heath gave Nick a slap on the back. "Come on. Let's go home."

When they reached the wagon, they noticed that Jarrod saw them watching Wright as he rode away. "Who was that?" Jarrod asked.

"That's Dan Wright," Nick said. "We're all going to take Mother home and be back up here tomorrow afternoon to go pay him a visit."

Jarrod raised an eyebrow. "He went for that?"

"If he's got something bad going on out there, you can bet he'll clean it up by tomorrow," Nick said.

"I think you better keep the local DA in your back pocket, Jarrod," Heath said.

Jarrod nodded.

XXXXXX

Before they got very close to home, Nick sent Sloan off to Stockton to bring the doctor out to the house. When they pulled into the stable yard, Audra came running out of the house and straight up to the wagon. "Mother! I've been so worried! What happened?"

Victoria sat up, with Jarrod's assistance, and Jarrod and Nick began to help her out of the back of the wagon. "The buggy lost a wheel and landed on my leg," Victoria said. "Jarrod got me to a doctor, so it's splinted, but Dr. Merar is coming out to look at it."

Nick and Jarrod got Victoria out of the wagon, and the two of them carried her inside. "Audra, will you help get mother into some clean clothes and into bed?" Nick asked.

"Of course," Audra said and followed her brothers upstairs.

Heath left the wagon and horses in the care of Ciego and the two men who came home with them. Perkins said, "You gonna want us to go with you tomorrow?"

"I'll talk to Nick and let you know," Heath said. "Thanks for coming after us yesterday."

"Sure, boss," Ewell said, and he and Perkins began to unhitch the wagon.

Heath went inside the house and headed straight for a glass of whiskey. Driving the rig as slowly as he had driven it made some muscles ache unexpectedly. Nick didn't have that excuse when he came downstairs and headed for the whiskey, too.

"Jarrod's gonna help Audra with Mother," Nick said as Heath handed him a glass of whiskey and began to pour another for himself. "Gotta say one thing about that Mother of ours. She is downright sturdy."

Heath smiled. "You do have to go some to bring her down. Who do you want to take back up to Millertown with us tomorrow, Nick?"

"Let's decide after the doctor takes a look at Jarrod and says he's all right to head out again."

"Jarrod won't be sitting around here, no matter what the doctor says."

"Mother will see that he does if the doctor says he has to sit this one out. I think he's all right, though." Then Nick turned pensive. "What do you think, Heath? Is Dan Wright running a slave plantation out there, or is this Dr. Lane imagining things?"

"I don't know. If you'd asked me when we saw him about those horses a few months ago, I'd have said Doc Lane was flat out wrong, but after getting ambushed last night – are you sure those men who hit us were the same ones who came for the doc?"

"No," Nick admitted, "and even if Wright parades them in front of me, I doubt I'll be able to be sure. I was just blustering to try to get the sheriff to go with us."

"Didn't work real well, did it?"

"No. I just wonder what's gonna happen when we go out there and Wright has all his workers hidden away."

Heath sat down in one of the armchairs, while Nick stood with his arm draped across the mantle at the fireplace. "You know, Nick – one thing about slaves. They get cowered, because they know as soon as the strangers are gone, the massa can have them beaten if they slip up in any way."

"I know," Nick said. He remembered the war, the slaves who came fleeing to the Union army camps for safety and freedom. He remembered a lot of scars, and a lot of fear. "I just can't believe Wright is bringing that to California, especially not this long after the war."

"From what I hear from some of the negro hands we've had around, there's a whole lot about the South that hasn't changed much. They'll still lock a negro up if he doesn't have a job and put him to work slaving for some planter again."

"I can't believe they're getting away with that."

"I can."

Nick looked around at him, eyebrows up.

"Come on, Nick," Heath said. "You know how cruel men can be to each other – especially white men against negroes. Especially powerful white men."

"That's what you thought about us when you first came here, isn't it?" Nick asked. "You thought we were like Dan Wright is supposed to be, shoving everybody around."

"Yeah, I did," Heath said. "But I figured out in a hurry that the Barkleys weren't that kind of people. Can't tell you how many I've run into that are, though."

"Well, if Dan Wright is one of them, he's gonna start to tremble once he finds out we know about it," Nick said. "It might take unleashing the legal wrath of our big brother on him, but he'll fall. I guarantee you, he'll fall."