Follows "By Fires Unseen." Nick is recovering from his back injury but is getting impatient with how long it's taking. Jarrod has an interesting idea of how he might relieve the tedium, but it leads to less "relief" and more complications than either of them planned.
There's new hand at the Barkley ranch who's a sleep walker with a very particular talent. This is a brief 8-chapter story that involves "The Man From Nowhere," and I apologize in advance for the ear worm – you may get stuck with it.
When the two Barkley brothers, Jarrod and Nick, return home from service in the war, there is a lot of readjusting to do. They went away boys. They came home men, with ghosts and complications following them. And then they met a woman.
The Professor comes to understand Chomondeley Featherstonehaugh - the man to whom Nanny has been engaged all her life - and makes a decision that settles his mind and makes Nanny realize her real importance.
Jarrod travels to San Francisco, following the men he thinks murdered Hannibal Jordan, and finding out that the truth may be more complicated than he thought.
Railroad honcho Hannibal Jordan is murdered when he comes to Stockton, just after the fight at Sample's farm. Jarrod defends the woman charged for it, but he's certain she's innocent and Jordan's bodyguards are actually involved. He asks new brother Heath for help.
Just a little story about Heath the Hay Waddy.
Nick and Heath find the body of a boy on the road. It looks like a robbery - but was it?
"Unless you truly wish to go insane, I suggest that you forget about attempting to figure out any type of relationship between the interiors and exteriors of anything connected to BV." Charles Briles. (aka Eugene)
The three Barkley brothers are after men who robbed a Stockton bank, but after they intentionally separate from the rest of the posse to keep up the search, they lose track of each other, too. All the locations except Modesto are fictional.
What if the three Barkley brothers sat back and got lazy in their old age and liked it?
Problems often don't come one at a time. This is partly a follow up to "Layle."
A little diversion as Nick takes his newfound lucky coin to Stockton in search of some kind of luck in some way.
Jarrod's friends Neil and Clair Joseph come to him asking for a gigantic favor.
A follow-up to "Bounty on a Barkley." Jarrod receives a telegram from Layle Johnson in San Francisco, asking him to defend her on a charge of murdering her husband.
Jarrod's client wants to divorce his wife, but Jarrod believes the man needs to think about it more so he brings him out to the ranch to do some hard physical work.
The Barkleys are having a wedding at their home but right before the service, trouble strikes, and more questions than "Do you take…." follow.
Ever since I first saw Time After Midnight, I wondered what "freebooter" meant. It only took me 54 years to look it up.
Follows "Solid." Three generations of Barkleys work together to solve the 15-year-old mystery of Jarrod's murder.