Chapter 3

1861

Jarrod knew what they were going to say when he told them. His father would say, No, you are NOT! I will wail the tar out of you if you try to get out of here! His mother would say, No, Jarrod please, think about what you're doing! Please don't do this! Nick would say, If Jarrod's going, I'm going too.

The little ones, Audra and Eugene, wouldn't say anything. They would just stare, big-eyed, baffled, and just concerned that people were yelling. They might be the hardest ones to talk to, to say what he was going to do to, because they wouldn't understand. Nick wouldn't really understand either, but their parents would. They would know what it really meant to go off to war.

And Jarrod was about to tell them he was going.

He really didn't feel like he had a choice. All four of his parents' grandfathers had fought in the revolution against England, back east, long ago. Jarrod knew the tales pretty well, because his parents had been proud their ancestors had fought to create this union they lived under now. But Jarrod knew they wouldn't be proud that he had decided to go to preserve that union. They would think of him and his welfare and the chance that he could get killed back east. They would think he wasn't old enough to understand what could happen. They would think he was just looking for the glory he'd always heard about.

But I've given it a lot more thought than that, Jarrod planned to say to them. I know that I might not come home safe. I might get crippled or even killed, but your grandfathers knew that too. And one of them was even younger than I am now when he went. They made our country. I have to defend it. I have to go.

Jarrod steeled his resolve and memorized the words as he looked out over the lake for what might be his last time. This place was so beautiful. If this war hadn't started, he was sure he'd be asking Mary Lisle to marry him before too long. He'd bring her here and tell her of his plans that they build their home here and raise their children here. But he had no idea how long he was going to be gone, and he knew he might never come back to marry Mary, or see this place he had loved for more than ten years now.

What am I doing? Am I out of my mind? He asked himself for the n'th time, and for the n'th time he said, I know what I'm doing. I know how important it is. My great grandfathers went to war to give me my country, and this place, my refuge for all these years, the still waters that restoreth my soul. I have to go.

He walked down to the water's edge and heard the frogs jumping into the water to get away from him. He saw the beautiful yellow flowers that were always here in early spring, and he resisted the urge to pick one. Better they should stay here, safe and growing, to be here forever even if he didn't come back.

But I will come back. I might be a cripple but I will come back and find my way up here again, no matter how long it takes, no matter if I have to crawl here. I will come back.

1865

Jarrod had been away at the war for more than four years. He had seen more hell than he ever wanted to see. He had been wounded several times and even now still sported a dent in his head from the last time he was hit. He was lucky to be alive, and he knew it. He was grateful to be home, and he knew it, even if being with the family again was proving to be awkward. Nick was home from the war too and at least he understood some of what it was like to come home to peace – maybe not always the relief you'd think for someone coming home from combat. It was awkward.

His younger sister Audra, now eight and brother Eugene, now seven, didn't even know who he was at first. Nick had been gone a year and gotten home a bit sooner than Jarrod had. He hadn't been gone as long and the kids were older when he left. They knew who he was. To them, Jarrod was a stranger. Jarrod hid his disappointment and resolved to give it time for them to get to know him again. But it hurt.

It was only the day after he arrived home again that Jarrod went back up to the lake. His heart had ached for the place while he was gone, and he had to see it. He had to know it was really what he remembered it to be. He had to see it to really feel like he was home and the war was an ugly memory.

Jarrod rode up to the lake and breathed a big sigh of relief. Maybe the trees were a little taller, and there was one big fallen branch there next to the lake now, but the lake was still full, the mountains still loomed, and the sky was still huge and blue. Jarrod climbed down off his horse and went to the water's edge. The surface was like ice today, calm, unrippled, peaceful.

Jarrod always carried a pad and pencil in the breast pocket of his coat, a habit he developed during the war. He sat down on the log and took out the pad and pencil. He breathed. He took in the quiet, the solitude. He took in the peace.

The loss of home can take a man's heart

The separation, the being alone

Worse than the fighting, worse than being apart,

Worse except for the sins you've sown

When you've taken life

When you've taken life. There were many things that he'd done while away at war that he could not think proudly of. Oh, he was proud he defended his country. He was realistic about it and knew he had to take life to do it, but that never set well with him. It's war, boy, you have to kill or be killed, his regular army sergeant said to him and to a lot of others who took the killing and dying harder than Jarrod did. Jarrod knew that, and he knew it when he left to fight with the Union army. It had to be, but he didn't have to like it, and he didn't.

He had made mistakes too. He had trusted the wrong people now and then. Some mistakes were not serious – some were. Some meant men died. One meant a good friend was destroyed without dying. There was more than one way to take life.

He stopped. The words were inadequate. The poetry was no good. How could he possibly make the obscenity of war mean something in his woeful attempts at poetry? And now when it was over, how could he put such a jangle of feelings into mere words? The peace, the joy of being home, the calm of the sound of birds instead of guns, the welcome of your family - but the hurt that your brother and sister didn't know you. The relief and gratitude that it was all over now and you had survived it – and the guilt that you did, and so many didn't.

He was not the poet to put all this on paper. Jarrod put the pad and pencil back into his pocket. He breathed. He took in the solace the lake and the sky had always given him, and it was sweet, even if some of his thoughts and his words weren't.

But then he had another thought, and he took the pad a pencil out again. He didn't write poetry this time – he wrote a thought, an idea, a name for this place he had loved for years and was more deeply happy to come back to than he even thought he would be. The name just came to him, out of the lake and out of the sky. He wrote it down.

Isla del Cielo. Island of the Sky.