Chapter 2

1853

In tears, ten-year-old Jarrod rode up to the lake again. He'd been there a few times already since first coming to it when he was six, though no one knew. More than once he got a licking for taking off without letting anyone know where he was going, and he got several stern warnings to stop doing that, but as he grew older he got away with simply saying that he was going riding and did not know where it would take him.

The mountain lake was his secret place. He had never told anyone he went there, and he never planned to tell anyone about it. It was a quiet place, a calm place, a place he made for himself when he needed a refuge. He needed a refuge now.

His father and mother had not been getting along for a while now. Just a couple years ago, his father had gone away and was gone for a long time. When he came back, his mother was relieved and everything seemed happy, but then something had gone wrong. His parents sometimes did not speak to each other at the dinner table. His brother Nick was bossy and yelling all the time. His parents would quiet him, but sometimes they weren't around to hear it. Sometimes they just seemed to ignore it.

Sometimes Jarrod felt like they seemed to just ignore him too. Those were the times being at home got to be too much.

Unease at home had made Jarrod uneasy at school, and today he'd been punished for pushing one of the other boys down in the school yard. The other boy had called him a name. Jarrod didn't appreciate it and shoved him, and Jarrod – not the other boy – was the one who had gotten caught. Jarrod had been kept after, and when he was late getting home to do his chores, his father –

"Where have you been, boy? You should have been home an hour ago." His father's face was screwed up and his voice was harsh.

Jarrod had six-year-old Nick in tow, but Nick had already run into the house. Jarrod had chores in the barn. "I had a problem in school," Jarrod said.

His father drew close, eying him, looking for tell-tale markings of a fight, but there were none there. "What kind of problem?"

Jarrod knew he had to be honest. "I shoved a boy who called me a name."

"What name?"

"Mama's boy," Jarrod said.

His father said, "Shoving another boy is an easy way to get into a fight."

Jarrod had been called a few other names in school, but a few fist fights had gotten rid of those. "I had to defend myself."

The fist fights had eased off over time, so his father eased off, but, "When you finish your chores, I want you to clean up Nick's saddle. That's your punishment for getting kept after school and being late and making Nick late and making your mother and me worry."

Jarrod didn't think it was fair to be punished for defending himself, but he said, "Yes, sir. May I go riding after I finish?"

His father hesitated, but then took a look on his face that said cleaning Nick's saddle was punishment enough when all Jarrod was doing was defending himself. "All right," he said and started away. "I want you in by dark."

Jarrod did his chores and took care of Nick's saddle, then got up on his own horse and rode away.

To his refuge, where no one would find him and he could be alone and cry, where no one would see. He didn't want anyone else to see him cry, ever.

It wasn't fair that his father had punished him when all he did was defend himself, but that wasn't the only thing grating on him now. He was frustrated that his parents were not getting along. He was angry that they didn't seem to see him sometimes and when they did, it was over something he'd done wrong and they'd punish him, like today.

He was frustrated that he couldn't seem to keep his anger from getting him into trouble at school. And worse, today "Mama's boy" was not the only name he had been called.

Unlike most of the other boys at school who had come west from the eastern states with their families, Jarrod had been born in California when it was part of Mexico. Those boys sometimes called him "the Mex." The taunting had eased off over the years, but sometimes it was back, and today was one of those times. It wasn't being called that that bothered Jarrod so much. It was that it was insulting to the two other boys in class who were also born in California when it was part of Mexico, but unlike Jarrod, they were Spanish in ancestry. They were lower down in rank than Jarrod was, and they would always get the leftover venom when the American boys taunted Jarrod.

And that hurt Jarrod. The Spanish boys were smaller than the American boys and could not win a fight, so they did not fight. They just took the abuse. To Jarrod that wasn't fair, and enduring things that weren't fair made him cry.

He didn't want anyone to see him cry, so he saved his tears for his room, or for here, up at his lake, his refuge, his place of peace and calm where no one could bother him. Today, he came here and sat down on a log and watched the clouds reflected in the lake, and he cried. He cried at the frustration, at the injustice. He cried at being frustrated at the injustice and not understanding yet that being frustrated at injustice was part of who he was.

He would come to understand later that anger at injustice was a strength, not a weakness, but at ten years old he just hadn't figured it out yet. So he cried out his anger and hurt at the world for being mean, for his parents fighting, for father punishing him, for his school mates calling him names, for the Spanish kids enduring abuse, for his own inability to do anything about all that injustice – for everything that frustrated him today.

Up here at the lake he could do that. Up here at the lake, no one would see him cry.