Barkley Rites of Spring

"All right, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time again."

Moans went around the library. Nick moaned the loudest and put his cue stick down on the pool table. Heath didn't moan, but he put his cue stick down asked, "What time?"

Jarrod handed him a folded document, and handed one to Nick too. As he turned to his mother and sister and gave them similar documents, Nick muttered, "It's time to review our wills."

"Jarrod insists we do it at least once a year, and always during the first week of April," Victoria said.

"When I'm here," Jarrod said. "If I'm not here, I have them all so well-trained they do it without me."

Victoria and Audra were seated together on the sofa. Nick sat down in one of the armchairs. Heath remained standing as he read over his. He was still in his first year with the family, so he was always learning new rituals, and this was going to be one of them. "I never knew being part of a family meant so much paperwork. Didn't we do this when we sat around the table last summer and filled out all those papers to include me in the family holdings?"

"We did," Jarrod said, "and you executed your very first will, but if I don't make this a regular exercise, we could let something slip by, and – " He looked at Audra with a smile. "Our little sister here usually increases her contribution to the orphanage when we review them."

"It makes sense," Audra said. "Our holdings seem to increase in value every year."

"That was the paperwork you handed out last week," Heath said. "How the holdings look at the end of the year."

"Yes," Jarrod said. "But I let you all read that at your leisure. These I have to make sure you read and update."

"So he looms over us like a hawk ready for the kill," Nick said.

Heath read his. "So, what do I do if I want to update it?"

"Make some notes," Jarrod said. "If you don't have any updates, just tell me. The one you're holding will stay in effect. If you make changes, I'll get Esther to type up a new one and we'll execute it and file it as soon as possible."

Heath looked at his oldest brother. "You are a meticulous man."

Jarrod chuckled. "Who in Strawberry taught you that word?"

"My mama," Heath said. "She used to call me that when I was about 10 years old, and I got offended until I looked it up in the only dictionary in town."

"You take after your older brother," Victoria noted, and Jarrod gave her a slight bow of appreciation while Heath chuckled just a little.

"Mine's fine as it is," Nick said and handed the document back to Jarrod.

"I thought you'd say that," Jarrod said. "Adding Heath last summer was the only change you've made in six years."

"What if I want to add someone new?" Heath asked. "Do I just write the name in?"

Everyone looked up at him, wondering who he had in mind.

Jarrod said, "Just put it in your notes. Write down how much you want to leave to her, and I'll take care of the rest."

"How did you know it's a 'her'?" Audra asked.

"Just guessing," Jarrod said, smiling at Heath. "You want to add Hannah, don't you?"

Heath chuckled a little again. "How'd you know that?"

"It's an educated guess," Jarrod said. "You had supplies sent to her last month. I suspected that if anything happens to you, you'd want to see she was still provided for."

"What if I want her to get some money without having to take care of it?" Heath asked. "And make sure no second class con man gets hold of it."

"We'll make a trust, the kind nobody claiming a debt against her or anybody else can get hold of," Jarrod said. "We can set it up so that she gets a certain amount every month or so, and the bank here can oversee it. We'll set it up right, and I can even set something up so she gets the value in supplies rather than money somebody else can steal from her, if that's the way you want it."

"I think I might want that," Heath said, "but I'd like to talk to the bank about it first."

"Not a problem," Jarrod said. "We'll go into town and talk to them about it as soon as you'd like. They handle this sort of thing all the time."

Heath shook his head and looked down at his will. "If you told me this time last year that I'd have a will and I was looking at setting up a trust with a bank and all that other stuff – "

Everyone else was smiling.

"Life can be amazing that way, can't it?" Victoria said.

Heath chuckled one more time.

Victoria especially enjoyed that chuckle. As she listened to Heath's plans to include Hannah in his will, she thought more about her own will, and some plans she wanted to include. Hearing Heath's plans made her decide she wanted to do it now.

XXXXXX

Heath felt Victoria come up behind him as he took time for a smoke on the veranda. She rubbed his shoulder from the back and stepped up beside him. Heath couldn't help but smile.

"It's a little overwhelming, isn't it?" Victoria said. "You're living a whole new kind of life now."

"It sure is full of things I never thought about," Heath said. "I guess it's pretty lucky I have a brother who's a lawyer."

"Yes, he does think of these things when none of the rest of us would," Victoria said. "That's why I sent him to law school."

"You sent him?"

"It was my idea."

"I always thought it was his."

"He didn't complain about it at all," Victoria said. "His father wanted him to take over the ranch, but I thought he was more suited for something that took advantage of his intellect."

"Yeah, I don't suppose you thought about Nick that way."

Victoria laughed. "Nick has his own intellect, but I knew law books would drive him crazy. He's an outdoor man. He never had the patience for sitting down and reading books. Jarrod did, and I thought it would be good to have a lawyer around so we could save on legal bills."

"Well, he seems happy about it," Heath said.

"He is. You know, I never asked you – but did you get the chance to have any formal schooling when you were a boy?"

"A little bit," Heath said, "when I was pretty young, before Strawberry began to fail. My mother made sure I learned to read and write, and I'm like Jarrod that way. I always did like to read books, even if I am like Nick in other ways and would rather be outside."

"Did you ever want more schooling?"

"No. Why? You want to send me to law school?"

Heath smiled when he said it, and Victoria had to laugh. "I wouldn't send you anywhere you didn't want to go, Heath. Besides, you're a man and can make up your own mind – but if you want to go to law school – "

"No, no," Heath said quickly. "I'll trust Jarrod to take care of the legal business and steer me the right way. He's good at that."

"If you could have more schooling – if you could be more than a rancher – what would you be, Heath?"

Heath took a deep breath, looked up at the sky, and thought. "I don't know. I never thought about it. What do you think I'd be good at?"

"Anything you wanted to be good at," Victoria said quickly. "A builder, maybe. An architect, or maybe a landscape architect."

"A landscape architect?" Heath wasn't sure what that was.

"A man who designs parks and outdoor spaces – like Frederick Olmstead."

"Who is that?"

"He designed a large park for New York and some things in Washington."

"I don't think I'd ever be as grand as that," Heath said.

"You wouldn't have to be. Well, I'm just imagining anyway. It's just something I think you'd be good at. You'd be good with land."

"Hmm," Heath thought. "I always did want to build me a house, with a nice big garden – flowers and vegetables and such."

Victoria smiled this conversation was going where she wanted it to go. "You'll do that someday, I know. You wouldn't need any further education to do it."

"Maybe someday I could have me a piece of land, and build those things."

Victoria smiled more. "That can be arranged, anytime you want."

Heath laughed, a little embarrassed. "I think I better get to know things around here a bit more first. I'm not even sure where I'd build it, or when."

"Let's you and me take a little ride tomorrow," Victoria said. "Jarrod's already picked out a place he'd like to build his home someday. Nick wants to stay right here."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"There's a spot I'd like you to see," Victoria said. "I'm not pressuring you in any way, mind you, but it's part of the property your father told me he hoped his sons might want for their own someday."

Heath grew quiet.

Victoria rubbed his arm. "You count, Heath. You are your father's son too. He'd want you to have some land of your own too, if you wanted it, if he'd known."

"You're so sure of that, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes. Very sure. Will you go with me tomorrow, because if you like it, I want to put it in my will."

Heath almost didn't know what to say.

Victoria rubbed his arm again. "You think about it. Let me know in the morning. I'd like to show you the land I think you'd like to have for your own."

Heath nodded, smiling. "All right. You and me, tomorrow, we'll go for a ride. I wouldn't mind just you and me spending the morning together. We haven't done it enough."

Victoria kissed his cheek.

XXXXX

Heath was dumbstruck. The next morning, he and Victoria took their horses through a wooded area and into a vast clearing that he had never seen before. Oh, he knew the Barkley holdings were so big that there had to be plenty of land he hadn't seen yet, but this spot was so beautiful….

In the mountains to the east, he could faintly see some remaining snowcover, and through the flatlands in front of him – green and so fertile with some wildflowers peeking out here and there – he could see a creek meandering off to the west, into another area of trees.

Victoria said, "It reminds me a lot of Oak Meadows, but the creek is far too small to be dammed up and it isn't even enough to warrant driving a herd of cattle or horses to. Sometimes in a dry spell, or if the snow pack hasn't been enough in the mountains that year, it is isn't there at all. That doesn't happen too often, though. This land is always green and lovely."

"It's mighty beautiful," Heath said.

"It's special, too," Victoria said. "We bought it from the widow of a man who never got to do what he wanted with it. He died of a fever that was going around, the same one that almost took Jarrod from us. Your father said he didn't want to do anything with this land except save it for the future, for Jarrod if he wanted it, but Jarrod prefers a spot on the lake farther west from here. This land would adjoin his land, if you want it."

Heath didn't know what to say. "It's mighty beautiful," he ended up saying again.

"Of course, you don't have to make up your mind anytime soon whether you want it or not," Victoria said. "It's certainly not going anywhere. Visit it some more, on your own if you want."

"Are you sure you don't want Nick or Eugene or Audra to have first crack at it?" Heath asked.

Victoria shook her head. "Nick isn't interested. Like I said, he wants to raise his family in the house he was raised in. Eugene – well, he's gone east to medical school, and I'm not fooling myself. He's meant for a different future, not here on the ranch. And Audra has said more than once that she wants her husband to have his own dreams and his own land, and to make his own choices, because she doesn't want someone who would just have her for the land or the money she has. No, Heath – if your father were alive, he'd want you to have this land – if you want it."

The creek wasn't far away. Heath reached his hand out to Victoria. She took his hand and in silence they walked together to the edge of the water. They stood together and listened for a while – to the water, to the birds, to the breeze.

Heath finally said, "Funny, in a way. My mother had this dream for me – that I'd find a place like this and raise my own family. Now you tell me my father thought the same thing."

"Maybe they talked about it," Victoria said.

She sounded a little distant about that. The possibility that her husband might have dreamed with another woman about anything –

"No," Heath said. "I don't think my mother ever mentioned it to anybody but me. I know – " He thought about whether he should say what was about to come out, but he said it. "I know she cared a lot for him, but she never shared any dreams with him. That's not – that's not what she ever thought she'd have with him. She knew it wasn't possible. That letter you read to me – that confirmed that for me."

"And you're not bitter?" Victoria asked.

"Not anymore," Heath said. "You know how angry and mean I was when I came, but when you went to Strawberry – that meant a lot to me. Maybe I never told you that right, but it did. And you being so kind to me all this time – I can't rightly be bitter about that, can I?"

"You think about this land, Heath," Victoria said. "It's yours, ready for you when you want it, if you want it. I'll put that in my will."

Heath nodded. "When the time is right – when I find that girl I want to start a family with, build that home and garden for – if you still want me to have this land – "

Victoria squeezed his hand. "I will, I'm sure."

Heath looked out over the creek again, to the green land. Only a year ago, something like this was just a pipe dream he never let himself have, and now, here it was, handed to him by a woman he didn't know existed then. A woman who had found a way to love him even if he was her husband's son by another woman.

Heath leaned over and kissed Victoria on the cheek. "Thank you, Mother," he said.

The End