Chapter 4

1878

The Jarrod Barkley who stood at the water's edge and looked at the blue of the sky blending into the blue of the lake was not the same man who had ever been here before. He was not the man who had ever been before. This Jarrod Barkley was a stranger to himself. He was not the man he always thought he was, all these nearly 35 years of his life. He was not the man who had come here as a six-year-old before he could reach the stirrups, who had come here as a ten-year-old to cry when he felt the world was mistreating him, who had come here at seventeen to say good-bye when he went off to war, and then came back at twenty-two when he came home safe, when he tried to write poetry, when he named this spot Isla del Cielo.

He was not the man who had brought his bride up here full of the future and felt it all die in his arms with her only moments later. He was not the man who had buried her not even a week after marrying her. He was not the man who told her – the only person he had ever told – of how he had named this place Isla del Cielo and dreamed of building a home and raising a family here, with her.

He was not even the man who had gone off to track down and murder the man who had killed Beth. That man had taken him over and was the man Jarrod was sure would never return here again. That man would never find this a place of solace again, and that man planned to die by some lawman's gun or by hanging. He wasn't even that man now, though. That man was just as gone as the six-year-old, the ten-year-old, the seventeen-year-old who went off to war and the twenty-two-year old who came back. They were all gone now.

The man who stood here and looked out over the lake and the sky was a man full of shame, contrition, disbelief. He was a man who no longer knew who he was, only who he wasn't.

Jarrod didn't think he'd ever come back here again, and not just because it was the place his wife had died. His Beth, the woman he had searched for all his life, dead right here in his arms. The dreams of a lifetime over. No, it wasn't just the horrible memories of losing Beth here he thought would keep him away.

It was because he thought the man he had become didn't deserve to be here again. The man standing here now had beaten and threatened people to find the man who killed his wife. He had found Cass Hyatt and would have drowned the life out of him except his brothers kept him from it, and even then he drew his gun on them and threatened them. The man he'd turned into was a monster he didn't know, a monster he'd run off with the help of his family. The man who stood here now was the man who came into being after the monster.

This man was someone Jarrod didn't know any better than he knew the man who nearly drowned another and pulled his gun on his brothers. This man was contrite, ashamed, devastated not only by the death of his wife but by his own actions. By the man he had turned into, the man who had chased away everything he thought he was. The man he was now didn't deserve to be here any more than the man who would murder Cass Hyatt deserved to be here.

But then a frog jumped. Then some ducks he didn't even realize were across the lake took wing, quacking and splashing water. A soft breeze came up, cooling him and tussling his hair. I'm here, something said.

Something, not someone. Something in the breeze, something in the frog jumping, something in the ducks flying away. Something.

Forgive yourself, it said. Make your repentance and come here and I'll forgive you. I haven't changed. I am what you always thought I was, even if you are not.

Jarrod sat down on the log that had fallen years ago and dried out. It had not rotted away. It was the log he sat down on with Beth beside him, when she said Let's build a house without a roof, so we don't have to shut out all this lovely sky. The sky was still lovely. The lake was still calm, and calming.

For the first time since Beth was killed, he cried. He had kept all the tears inside him, blocked by the rage, blocked by the monster who would kill rather than cry. But now he cried. He cried harder than that ten-year-old ever had here. He cried harder than any of the men he thought he had been had ever cried. He cried because the love of his life was gone, and because he himself was gone. He cried until he was heaving and couldn't control it.

He finally breathed, deep and slow, trying to get something of the man he thought he was once back. The ache began to subside a little bit. He heard that something again. I haven't changed. I am what you always thought I was, even if you are not. I'm here.

He caught his breath and looked out across the lake. He took in the solace the lake and the sky had always given him, and it was sweet, even if some of his memories and his thoughts about himself weren't. He cried some more, but not as hard, and only for a few moments. Then he looked out across the lake, as if he were that six-year-old looking out for the first time.

He calmed. He would come here again. Isla del Cielo was what it had always been, even if he was not. Maybe it could heal him again. Maybe he could find himself again. Maybe he could come to reconcile the place where Beth died with the place that had always restored his soul.

Jarrod Barkley touched the spot where he wife fell and his life collapsed, but then he looked up across the lake again. The ducks that had flown away were settling back down into the water, and the ripples they made washed up gently toward his feet.