Chapter 7

"What happened? What made you so violent when you came home from the war?"

Jarrod gave a sad little smile, like he was thinking about how to answer. Then he leveled an embarrassed, almost amused gaze on his brother. "Laudanum. Laudanum happened."

Heath immediately understood.

But Jarrod went on. "I was wounded four times during the war, all of them pretty painful, and they gave me laudanum every time. By the end of the war, when I got a bad head wound, I was so loaded with laudanum that by the time I got home, I was well and truly addicted and some kind of a madman. The Jarrod who came home was the Jarrod who was having trouble getting the drug. I'd go completely without for a couple weeks at a time before I could get some laudanum or some opium. I was crashing, overwhelmed with that brutal withdrawal, before I could get more of the stuff, and I was too proud and too ashamed to ask for help. "

"You never told Mother or Father?"

Jarrod shook his head. "Not Mother, not Father, not Nick, not the town doctor, not the priest. I just kept trying to quit, and then crashing, and then using, and then I couldn't get it so I'd crash again, and that went on and on until I was so violent Mother and Father wouldn't have me around anymore. They threw me out. I made it to San Francisco. I knew I'd find a reliable supply of opium there."

"What did you do for money?"

"I had a little left in my bank account. I took whatever job I could find – you'd be surprised how many businessmen frequent opium dens, how many deals go down there. You can pick up a job, and for years I just worked here and there, got enough to get by. Then one day about five years ago I went to work for a freight line. Just after that, the owner mixed too much opium with too much liquor and that was that. I managed to buy the line from his widow."

"Where did you get the money for that?"

Jarrod smiled a little. "Borrowed from the businessmen in the opium dens. Did all right too. You should have seen how surprised some of them were when I paid them back about a year later. They didn't even remember lending it to me."

Heath shook his head in disbelief. "How did you finally kick it? I mean, you don't seem like you're on it at all anymore."

"I'm not. I was for years, but then I met Eloise." He squeezed his wife's hand. Eloise smiled. "Eloise was a nurse before we were married. She put me in touch with a doctor who helped me ease off the drugs over time – a lot of time. I've only been completely clean for a little over a year, and even now I get withdrawal once in a while, but not as bad. I just keep riding it out, keeping a lid on the craziness. It's easing off. Sooner or later, the withdrawal symptoms won't come back, but if they do, I'll manage."

Heath sighed, shaking his head. "Jarrod, if you're off everything now, why haven't you come home?"

Jarrod laughed. "I actually considered it a couple times. The opportunity was there. But it was pretty clear when I left that I wasn't welcome there anymore. Besides – have you talked to Eugene or Audra about the way I treated them? They were children, and I manhandled them all the time. I'd even take a fist to them. Believe me, they don't want me in their lives."

Heath remembered his conversation with Eugene, and he had to admit, Gene did not want his big brother back. But – "Why not even just write Mother a letter? Tell her what happened and how you've managed to get off the laudanum and the opium. It would mean the world to her, Jarrod."

Jarrod shook his head. "They've put me in the past, Heath, and that's where I belong. Believe me, they don't want me anywhere near them, and I don't blame them."

"Is the addiction why you don't drink?"

"Yes. I drank a lot, too. I decided that if I kept drinking, I was just trading one addiction for another."

Heath sighed a big sigh. "Jarrod, I gotta hand it to you, getting control of addictions like that."

Jarrod squeezed his wife's hand again. "Give this lady the credit. She's seen me through some awful times, and I've been awful to her at times."

"But no more," Eloise said quickly. "He really has gotten over that mean streak, Heath. He's not the man who came back from the war."

"Which is all the more reason you should get in touch with Mother," Heath said. "Come home with me, or write her a letter I can take with me. Jarrod, she doesn't even think you're alive."

"Well, you can take care of that for me, and you can tell her the rest, too. I decided a long time ago, I'd answer questions if somebody came looking for me, but getting in touch myself?" Jarrod shook his head.

"You should tell her, Jarrod. It would mean the world to her."

Jarrod just hung his head.

"Heath has a point," Eloise said.

Jarrod looked up at her, surprised. Then he hung his head again and said, "I think I'd be too ashamed."

"You'd rather she thought you were still that man who beat her little children up?" Heath asked.

Jarrod looked up at him. "No. I don't want her to think that."

"Then come home with me, just for a visit, not to stay," Heath said. "I know, it'll be rough around Audra and Gene, but maybe they need to see you've changed. They're old enough now to understand what you were going through."

"Understand, maybe," Jarrod said, "but they'd still be afraid of me. I'm not sure I could stand to see that, Heath."

Heath gave another large sigh. "I'm gonna stick around for another day. Then I'm gonna have to go back to Placerville before Nick gets out of jail."

"Nick? Jail?" Jarrod said.

Heath realized that Jarrod probably didn't even know that Nick had gone as far astray as he had. "Nick left home a few months after you did. He was violent, too, although not with the kids. Just with Father and other men. He never tried to explain why. He just left one night."

Jarrod nodded to himself. "I'll bet I know why. Mayville."

"Mayville?" Heath asked. He knew the story of that Southern town that Union soldiers had gone amok in one night and slaughtered civilians, women and children. "Nick was at Mayville?"

Jarrod nodded. "He wouldn't talk about it. I knew what happened from rumors running around the ranks, and I knew Nick was there from a letter he wrote me while I was in the hospital recovering from one of my wounds. I tried to get him to talk about it when we got home, but I was so whacked out with my laudanum problem that I never got anywhere and couldn't keep at him long enough about it. What's he in jail for?"

"Assault," Heath said. "Not his first time. So far he's avoided San Quentin, but he may end up there sooner or later. He can't keep his temper."

Jarrod leaned back in the sofa, crossing his legs and narrowing his eyes as he looked away from Heath and Eloise, off toward the window. Eloise was reading him. He and Nick had been close once, and now he was deeply worried about his younger brother but didn't know what to do about it. She said, "Maybe you should go up to Placerville with Heath and talk to Nick."

Jarrod looked over toward her, fast. "Honey, I can't – I don't think I can do that."

"Too scared?" she asked.

Jarrod chuckled and looked at Heath. "You see who my conscience is? Yes, I'm scared, and maybe that's why I won't go home, too. I'm too scared to face up to the man I was when I got home from the war, and if I go home or I go to see Nick, I'll have to face up to him."

Eloise smiled. "And yet, you still called it 'home.'"

Jarrod chuckled again. "I did, didn't I?" He squeezed his wife's hand again and looked over at Heath. "When do you need to leave for Placerville?"

"Late train tomorrow, at the latest," Heath said. "Come with me, Jarrod. You can decide about Stockton after that."

"I've got a freight company to run," Jarrod said.

"I can take care of that alone for a week or so," Eloise said.

Jarrod looked at her, and squeezed her hand again. "I guess we know what you think I should do. Are you sure it's all right for me to leave you for a while?"

Eloise smiled and nodded.

Jarrod heaved a sigh, thought quickly about it again, and said, "All right, but let's get an earlier train to Placerville tomorrow. I'll talk to Nick, and then I'll decide whether I go to Stockton with you."

"Fair enough," Heath said, smiling.

Eloise said to him, "You'll stay for dinner, won't you?"

"I would like that," Heath said.

They all talked for a long time over dinner, until well past ten o'clock, almost non-stop, about each other, about the Barkley family before and after the war, about Heath's background, about Nick. Heath saw an amazing bond between Jarrod and Eloise, his wife of two years now. He couldn't believe that this gentle, loving man was the same man who had beaten up on his younger siblings. But then he remembered the laudanum and the opium and the liquor. He'd seen what even one of those drugs could do to a man. To think his brother had suffered with all three, and then got them out of his system and out of his life – Heath was impressed, and relieved.

Heath left with plans to meet Jarrod at the train station in the morning. Before he found a hotel room, he stopped to send another telegram home, but with this one he struggled a bit with what to say. He didn't want to parade Jarrod's old problems in front of the telegrapher, nor did he want to make it look too optimistic to his mother. He ended up saying, Found J Sacramento alive and very well. Back to N tomorrow with J.

He knew that was really going pique Victoria's interest, and maybe leave her confused, but it was all Heath was comfortable saying tonight. He found a room, went to bed, and slept a lot better than he had the night before.