Fever: Chapter 3 (Ed)

3

    You still can’t get her out of your head.
    They put you on a steamboat and sent you back up that river, back towards the war.  The decks are all packed full of men and supplies; you can hardly move a muscle.  The banks are all stacked high with boxes of just about everything, and they’re covered at every angle by guns.  Even the big broad muddy river is packed full of boats going in either direction.  Steamboats like yours, gunboats, ironclads, barges, even rafts.  Seems like the whole world is on the go.  Yet all you can think about is Zecora.
    You wind up in a new company.  This time you’re fighting for Thomas, himself under Rosencrans.  On the way up your boat takes a right, and steams up the Tennessee.  Eastern Tennessee.  Awhile back, a few men figured that if the Confederacy could secede from the Union, they could just go ahead and secede from the Confederacy and rejoin the Union.  Jeff Davis had them all hung for treason.  Uncle Abe’s been wanting to take it back ever since.  Now that the rebs are on the run in the east and west, it’s time to make that push.
    Maybe the men were right about the war being over soon.  The rebels keep falling back and back; Rosencrans is just rolling them up.  There’s hardly even any fighting.  It’s all just marching and positioning and outflanking.  Seems like Bragg, leading the confederates, just hasn’t got any fight in him.  Maybe he knows he hasn’t got a chance.  Chattanooga falls with just a little shelling, then they pull out of there too.
    There’s an anxious pause as you and the army resupply in Chattanooga, building up some impressive piles of stores.  Then you’re on the march again.  It looks like the generals want to catch Bragg and end him for good.  You’d be fine if you just kept chasing them all the way back to Atlanta.
    Then, one day, the armies square off.  You know there will be a fight tomorrow.  Maybe, at least, it will all be over after one big fight.  Confederates were beat at Vicksburg, they were beat at Gettysburg, one more big blow and then maybe everybody could go home.  That night there’s a rumor going around.  Bragg’s been reinforced by Longstreet and his men.  That doesn’t make any sense.  Longstreet should be back East, running back to Richmond with Lee.  The Confederates are broke.  They haven’t got any fight left in them.  At least that’s what they say.
    Under your blanket, before you fall asleep, you think about her.  You think you won’t see her again if you die tomorrow.  Probably won’t see her again anyway even if you live, but there’s no doubt about it if you’re killed.  You wonder if she’d grieve.  You wonder if she’d miss you.  You wonder if she even remembers you.  It’s been a couple of months, and there must have been hundreds of patients moving through that hospital.  You consider writing her a letter.  Then you put that out of your mind.  It’s absurd.
    Then, in the morning, they come.  Thousands upon thousands of them.  They come charging over that little creek of death.  That little Chickamauga.  All you do all day is duck and fire and kill.  You run out of ammunition for your repeater pretty fast, but the dead man next to you doesn’t need his musket any more, so you pick it up.  There’s plenty of ammunition for it.  Then, later in the day, that too is running low.
    Bragg and his whole rebel army is focused on punching through the Union left, where you happen to be.  You call for reinforcements and your sergeant calls for reinforcements, and your lieutenant must have taken it all the way up to Thomas.  It doesn’t seem Rosencranz got the word though, because reinforcements barely trickle in at all.  That last time they charge, you think it’s the end of you.  You can almost see her face bent over you again, smiling and comforting you.  You’d like to feel that sense of relief again.
    Then it’s over.  It’s too dark to fight, and the rebels are pulling back for the day.  Looks like they’ve been hurt worse than you.  Their dead litter the ground before your line.  Tomorrow, maybe the day after that, they’ll start to rot.  For now the battleground just smells of blood and piss and shit and sweat, and the eggy stink of powder.  Maybe you’ll be marched out before the real stink comes, but you don’t think that’s likely.  They’ll probably come back tomorrow.  The line will break if you don’t get reinforced.  You end up falling asleep right where you lay, in that little ditch that you dug, behind that little wall of logs that you built.  You dream of her, but your sleep is so sound you don’t remember.
    They come again in the morning, same day as before.  This time Rosencranz sends reinforcements.  If the confederates keep this up, they’ll destroy themselves.  All you have to do is not get shot.  Then disaster happens.  Somebody screws up.  Men get moved from the wrong position at the wrong time.  There’s a gap that opens up in the Union center.  It happens right when Longstreet and all his men launch an assault on the center.  The whole battle turns from one you might win, into an absolute rout.  The center folds and runs, not a proper retreat, they just run.  The right runs too.  Now all that’s left is Thomas’s corps against the whole rebel army.
    You don’t run.  You fight.  You’re moving now, sure.  You’re falling back, positioning as you go, retreating tactically.  Longstreet and Bragg are throwing their men into your guns and you’re making them pay for this victory.  Panic starts setting in among the men, but still you don’t run.  Men all around you are dying.  You’d rather die yourself then turn your back like a coward.
    The sun goes down again, and now you can get the hell out of there properly.  Thomas’ corps retreats all the way back to Chattanooga under cover of darkness.  The rebels get their greatest victory yet, but it’s not a Cannae.  It hurts, struggling back into Chattanooga.  Turns out Rosencrans was already there.  He was the first to retreat.  He made it back before his own men.
    You find a dark, quiet place to hole up in for the night, and you cry.  You cry for the humiliation of the defeat.  The men beside you that you’ve lost.  The men that you’ve killed.  You’ve been through worse, though, and you manage to get to sleep.  You can almost feel her hand on your cheek, her lips on yours.
    The rebels soon show up.  You can almost see their devilish grinning.  They’re up on the high hills that surround Chattanooga.  You can see their guns pointed down at you, ready to open up on you at a moment’s notice.  There’s nothing you can do about it either.  The Union won’t give up Chattanooga, but there’s no way anybody’s getting those guns off those hills.  They’ve got an impenetrable position.
    Fall comes.  It brings cold rain.  The hunger comes too.  Supplies aren’t coming in to feed the army.  The tracks and roads are all torn up.  Then your ribs start showing up again, kind of like back at the hospital.  You’ve been on half rations for some time, and those are running low.  All you have to do all day is squat in the mud.  Feel the hunger pangs.  Look at the guns staring down at you.  This is a horrible sort of hell.
    The animals are the first to starve to death.  The roads surrounding Chattanooga are littered with thousands of dead horses. You feel a little strange about it.  Thousands of men died at Chickamauga.  Thousands and Shiloh and other places.  But you feel so sorry for those horses.  They don’t understand any of this.  Still, their deaths are keeping the men alive.  When the horse meat runs out, then the men will start dying.  That’s assuming the rebels don’t choose to open up with their guns first.
    One night the thought of Zecora’s soup returns to your mind, hard and sudden as a punch to the nose.  The chicken and peanut one.  Your mouth starts to water, wetter than the puddle you’re sitting in.  Your belly has a hallucination of being full.  Then, only then, you realize she made that soup for you.  She said it was her own supper, but she fed it all to you.  The doctors poked and prodded you.  The nurses bandaged you.  But it was Zecora that saved you.  She was the one that cared for you.
    Rosencrans is out.  Good old “Unconditional Surrender” Grant is coming in.  He brings hope with him.  Then he brings food.  Somehow he gets the roads and tracks opened up.  You eat properly for the first time in weeks, if you can call hardtack and bacon proper.  You’ll take it.  The ribs start to diminish once more.
    More men are coming too.  Sherman’s bringing a whole army, and he’s building a whole new railroad as he comes.  Soon Chattanooga is all business again.  The stores pile high.  Men are everywhere, not starving, but itching for a fight.  The guns are still on those ridges, and somehow their threat is both enhanced, since you know you won’t starve to death, yet somehow diminished because fortunes seem to be changing.
    Then, before you know it, it’s time to fight.  You’re damn near scared to death too.  They’ve got Thomas’ men, including you, set up beneath one of those huge hills.  One of the big ones with the guns staring down.  It’s an unassailable position, but you’re going to assail it anyway.
    It’s got to be a ruse.  A demonstration.  Even you know there’s no way to get up that hill, and you’re just a soldier, not an officer.  Surely the officers know better.  Sherman’s way out on the flank.  Attacking that hill must be just a demonstration, so Sherman can come around from the side.
There’s a huge cacophony as all the Union guns open up on that hill and it looks like the world is coming to an end.  It’s not like it matters.  The rebels are still up there, somehow unharmed, and they’re firing down from a better position.  Then the Union artillery stops, and it’s time to rush forward.  That hill’s steep, and you’re winded after just the first few yards up.  Mortar shells and cannon balls are still coming down the hill, and now the troops on top are adding musket fire.  You’re not going all the way to the top, though.  You’re only going to go halfway up that hill, then stop and find cover to hole up in.  Seems the officers know what they’re doing after all.  It really is a big demonstration after all.
    Only the officers weren’t told there wasn’t any cover to take.  You’re halfway up, you’re hugging the dirt, but minie balls are still raining down on you.  So are the grenades that they’re simply rolling down the hill.  The officers are yelling at you to stop and stay there, but there’s no staying there, and there’s no going back down.  You and all the other men do the only thing you can do.  You keep charging up that hill, all the way to the top.  Better to die fighting than die hugging the ground.
    That’s the second time you see what can only be a miracle.  The first was Zecora bending over you when the fever broke.  The hill is so high you’re up above the clouds.  Everything is white, and the sound seems strange and distorted.  It’s like there’s a war in heaven.  Maybe Zecora really was an angel after all.  Your angel, a guardian angel.  You feel as if she’s right there with you, like she’s right over your shoulder and all you have to do is turn to see her beautiful, magical smile.  You should be dead again.  The rebels can’t lose from a position like that.  Yet here they are, right before your eyes, and they’re melting away.  You’re at the top and they’re not.  In fact, you can see them running away, down back the other side of the mountain.
    Nobody else seems to believe it either.  The staff officers come up from down below.  First they couldn’t believe you all disobeyed orders.  Then they couldn’t believe you won the day.  You see Thomas himself, jumped up on a spiked reb cannon, riding it like it were pony, waving his hat in the air and hollering in joy.  Then some damn fool general from his staff jumped up on another one and burnt his ass, not knowing it had just been fired.
    It seems like that day changes everything.  That ever looming threat of the rebel guns has vanished in an afternoon.  Everything they won at Chickamauga has been erased.  The feeling that the end of the war may be near returns, and spirits lift.  Just in time, perhaps ironically, for winter to really set in.  There's little to do but settle in to wait, and drill some more.
    Grant’s been promoted.  They’ve finally put him in charge of all the Union armies.  It’s about time.  They should have done that a couple of years ago and saved all the trouble.  Now you’re fighting for Uncle Billy.  Fine with you, he’s as tough as Grant, maybe more.
    Spring comes, and you’re on the move again.  There’s more fighting, but there’s more marching than fighting, and that’s the way you like it.  Johnston’s commanding the rebels now, and it seems he won’t fight.  Sherman outflanks him, and he falls back some more.  Sometimes you feel like a pawn in a big game of chess, but you take comfort in knowing you’re on the winning side.
    Summer seems to come early.  It gets hellishly hot.  Maybe that’s because you’re all the way down in Georgia now.  There’s a nasty fight on Kennesaw Mountain.  It’s another charge up another hill.  You get too close to a couple of minie balls this time.  They carve neat little grooves into your skin, and just a bit of the flesh underneath.  You also get too close to a cannon, not a hundred feet away when it fires.  The ball misses, but the blast burns you some.
    There’s no victory this time, you end up falling back.  The other men look at you a bit, mystical like, seeing you standing strong, burned and bloody.  They’re not going to be sending you to a hospital this time, not after last time.  You’ll live, you’ll just have to fight through the pain on your own.  The thought of going to a hospital reminds you of Zecora.  You spend a lot of time that night thinking of her, and it reminds you that it’s been a year now since you were there.  How long ago has she forgotten about you?  How many other men has she made soup for?  Why can’t you stop thinking about her?  The thoughts ease the pain of the day’s lost fight.
    Johnston’s moved out the next morning, retreating despite the temporary victory.  He’s on the run again, nowhere else left to go but Atlanta, and he won’t be able to hang on to that with a siege.  You’re on the march again.  You pass through some beautiful farmland.  The peach orchards are particularly beautiful.  The red clay roads turn dry and dusty.  You’re all covered with filth.
    One day you come to a river.  Johnston’s on the other side.  Running on the other side, so you don’t have to worry about fighting for at least a little while.  So you and what seems like the whole army strips off your uniforms and jump in that river to take a bath.  None of you have had one in a long time, and it’s a joy to sluice off all that grease and stink.
    Some officers ride up on the bank.  They’re amused by the sight of all their men splashing and laughing and having a high time of it.  Then Uncle Billy himself strips off all his clothes and jumps in with the rest of you.  His staff soon follows.  For that brief moment, you’re reminded that you’re all just men.  Flesh and blood all the same, not soldiers and generals.  Any of you can die the next day, and that would be the end of all of it.  So you better enjoy what time you have.  You’re floating in that water, clean and joyful.  You start thinking about her again.  You can imagine Zecora next to you.  Only her face is visible above that water, and she’s smiling at you, but her black skin is all naked underneath.  Now she’s touching you.
    You find yourself growing stiff below the waist, and you try to think of something else while you keep it out of sight below the water.  Best not to have to explain.
    Atlanta falls.  The rebels burn all their cotton and all their stores on their way out.  It was the biggest city in the Confederacy, but now it’s mostly ruined and returned to Union hands.  You hole up there for awhile.
    Hood’s in command of the rebel army now, and he’s too scared of Sherman for an honest fight.  Instead he’s well to your rear.  He’s tearing up track and burning everything he can’t steal.  You figure his plan is to draw you and the army out of Atlanta back up north to fight him.  Uncle Billy sends some men that way, but not the full army.  The full army can’t catch Hood.  The rebels are traveling too light and too fast.  They’re living off the land and loot.  They think the Union can’t fight in the south with all that going on to the north.
    Uncle Billy’s got a different idea.  He’s going to give the south a taste of their own medicine, though you won’t see the scheme of it until later.  One day, the whole Union army up and leaves Atlanta.  You’re not marching north to play with Hood in his game of cat and mouse.  You’re heading east and south, and you end up marching all the way to the ocean.  All the supply lines that Hood wanted to threaten, you’re just leaving those behind.
    So you live off the land.  You have a good time of it too.  You haven’t been this well fed since before the war.  It’s amazing farmland down here, it has to be to feed all the Confederate forces, east and west, but now you’re eating it instead.  You twist the rails as you go, and you get very, very good at it.  Anybody who puts up resistance gets a fight, but that doesn’t happen often.  Some soldiers show up once, and they run before the fight hardly gets started.  They’re old men and boys anyway.  It’s pretty clear the war is over to you, it’s just a matter of the South admitting it.  Whole towns surrender completely rather than show resistance.  War hasn’t touched these places after all these years, except for all the men they’ve sent off to fight, and the lack of goods coming in due to the blockade and war effort.  Later these people will find they’ll be better off back in the Union than they were under the Confederacy.  For now they’re just frightened.  They’ve been told of the horrible things Sherman’s army will do to them if they surrender without a fight.  It’s all just more lies from Richmond.
    You free a lot of slaves as you go.  They start following your army en masse.  They treat all of you like you’re some kind of heroes.  One of them actually calls you an angel, and you think it’s a ridiculous idea.  You pick up a habit of looking for Zecora in the crowd.  You know there’s no reason she would be there, but you can’t help but look through that endless sea of black faces.  You ask them about her, but none of them has heard of you.  They say they’ll tell her you’re looking for her if they ever meet her, and you’re thankful.
    The generals don’t like them following you.  It’s hard enough keeping the army fed without a supply line.  They can’t support all those extra hungry mouths.  The decision comes down the chain of command to cut them loose.  One day the army crosses a bridge over deep water, and burns the bridge once across, leaving all those freed negroes on the other side of the river.
    Nobody could have expected what happened next.  You’d like to think they’d have never burned that bridge if they had known.  All those people had nowhere to go.  There was an entire country of angry white people behind them, and nobody to protect them except for the army on the other side of the river.  So those freed slaves tried to make it across that river.  Most of them didn’t know how to swim, but still they tried to cross anyway, it must have seemed better than the alternative.  You and every other witness who can swim tried to save them.  Others grab rope, branches, rifle stocks, whatever they can find.  Few make it across.  Even the ones you can reach slip through your fingers.  Out of all the horrors you’ve seen during this war, this is the worst.  That night, still cold, wet, and exhausted, even thoughts of Zecora don’t come to your mind to give your relief.  There’s only nightmares.
    You feel numb the next morning and for some time after.  It takes you awhile to get to the sea.  The navy is there to meet the army.  They’re happy to see you.  Without communication, Sherman’s whole army has been out of touch with the north, and they’ve had no idea what you’ve been up to or how successful you’ve been.  You get news yourself.  Grant and the Army of the Potomac have taken some hard licks, but like a bulldog with clenched jaws, they’re not letting go.  Lee and all the men he’s got left are holed up in Petersburg.  Jeb Stuart’s dead, Longstreet’s been shot through the neck.  Nobody’s going to be coming to save them in Petersburg.  In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised if Sherman marches you all the way up to Virginia to deliver the final blow.
    Turns out that’s what he does.  South Carolina was the birthplace of the secession.  You give it to them harder than you gave it to Georgia.  The rebels burn all of Charleston down before they go.  It seems so pointless.  They’re only harming their own civilians.
    Things seem to happen pretty fast after that.  You’re in camp when the news comes in.  You hear that Petersburg has fallen.  That means Richmond, the capital, will fall next, it’s only a matter of time.  The whole camp is on pins and needles.  People are ready to run back from the telegraph station with messages.  The very next bit of news you hear is that Richmond has indeed fallen.  The Confederate government has been destroyed.  Some of the traitors are captured, others are fleeing, but its over at last.  Only the Confederate military is left.
    As for them, the remnants of the Army of Northern Virginia is running up the Appomattox River fast as they can, and Grant’s right on their heels.  It’s looking like the war will be over, and you’ll never have to fire another shot, just wait for the news in camp.  A couple of days later and that’s it.  Lee surrenders.  The camp erupts into huzzahs and sporadic salutes of gunfire.  You wish you could have been there.  The Army of the Potomac’s probably going to get all the glory for this.  Then again, you also wish you could have been in New Orleans when they got the news, so you could celebrate with Zecora.
    There’s still a few ragtag armies to deal with, probably no stronger than single brigades by now.  Johnston’s got one.  Lee was trying to meet up with him to combine their forces.  You figure that Sherman’s going to go after Johnston once and for all now, but everybody thinks they’ll surrender first.  There’s no point to them fighting now, not with Lee gone, not with Richmond gone.  Everybody’s hoping they just surrender without a fight.  All of the vigor seems to be sapping out of the army, like they know it’s all wrapped up and don’t want to fight anymore.  Nobody wants to be the last man to die because a few generals didn’t get around to signing the terms yet.
    Then you get the news you never expected to hear, and it seems like your soul’s been ripped out of your body.  Lincoln’s dead.  Some coward reb son-of-a-bitch shot him in the back, right in front of his wife while he was taking her to the theater.  That’s not all, there’s a whole conspiracy.  Grant was a target, he was supposed to be in that balcony too, but canceled at the last minute.  Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, was attacked in his own home.  The poor man was convalescing from a horse riding accident when an assassin got into his house.  Seward’s grown son stopped the man, but not before the assassin cut both of them up something fierce.  There’s even rumors the vice president’s been killed.  People are saying the conspiracy goes all the way up to Jeff Davis, who fled Richmond.  The rebels couldn’t fight the Union on the battlefield, so they thought they could destroy the Union by destroying its government.
    Your blood is up.  So is every other man’s.  You’re ready to fight Johnston and all his men yourself if they don’t surrender.  You’ll kill every last one of them if you run out of powder and have to run them through with your bayonet.  You’re ready to annihilate the South utterly for what they’ve done.  By now Zecora has heard the news.  You wonder if she’s grieving the way you’re grieving.  You wonder if she’s as angry as you.
    They surrender.  Johnston surrenders to Sherman, if it’s not because he thinks its hopeless, it’s because he knows how enraged Union men have become, and he’ll get no quarter.  Beauregard, Forrest, they all surrender.  There’s some amusement when new word comes in.  Jeff Davis has been captured.  He was trying to sneak away, hiding in his wife’s clothes.  Had a wagon full of Confederate gold he stole from his own government.  You hope they hang him for treason the same way he did those men in Tennessee.
    The war is over.  There’s just one more thing you need to do for your country.  Just a couple more weeks, then you can go home.  They ship you up to Washington, which you’ve never seen before.  They set you up in camp and wait.  Then it’s just about time to do your last duty.
    It’s the Grand Review of the Armies.  The whole city’s celebrating, and there’s going to be a big parade for all the soldiers.  There are a lot of soldiers.  Hundreds of thousands of them.  There are too many to parade in just a single day, so you end up taking turns.  The Army of the Potomac goes the first day.  While you were in the west beating the rebels at nearly every turn, they were the ones locked in a stalemate for four years just miles outside of Washington.  They got all the glory in the press, and they’ll probably get it in the history books too.  They also got the best weapons.  They got the best uniforms.  And they got plenty of drilling for just this sort of parade ceremony.  They’re the hometown favorites.
    Your army is different.  Most of you don’t even have shoes.  Your uniform is barely hanging onto you like rags.  You never had a chance to practice parading, you were too busy fighting or tearing up track.  What little reputation you’ve gotten in the press is as scrappy, but undisciplined fighters.  Tomorrow is your turn.
    Uncle Billy shows up in the evening to give you a little speech.  He just wants you to do your best tomorrow, that’s all he asks.  He’s proud of you.  He knows you’re the best army in the world.  The greatest army since Caesar’s, he’s said so himself.  You don’t have all the flash and pizazz of the Army of the Potomac though, and you can tell he’s nervous, in the sort of nervousness that doesn’t have anything to do with real fighting.
    That night, every man is up late, polishing buttons, and what leather they have left on their feet.  Pins and needles are a hot commodity, as men try to stitch their uniforms back together.
    The parade starts early, and lasts for hours.  You’ve got miles to go, and every street is packed full of civilians.  They’ve all come out to see you.  More of them then came out yesterday, as a matter of fact.  It goes off perfectly.  You never lose formation throughout the whole parade.  You march past the White House and then when you turn your eyes towards them, on unison, you see their faces.  President Johnson.  Grant in his dress uniform.  Sherman himself in his, with water in his eyes, he’s so proud.  There’s even that bastard Halleck, who doesn’t look happy at all.  You hope Sherman gave him hell.
    The troops march past.  All the horses in the cavalry.  All the guns, looking as polished as the buttons.  Even the freed negroes march at the end of the line.  It’s like they’re part of the war, and they deserve their day of recognition too, and the crowd gives them a warm welcome.
    You’ve been fighting for four years.  Just shy of two years since you met Zecora.  Two years.  Where did they go?  You wonder if she would remember you if she were to meet you again.  You wonder what the future might bring, and if you might ever wind up down in New Orleans again.
    Then that’s all there is.  They discharge you.  You’re a civilian once again, along with all the others.  They give you a piece of paper saying you’re out of the army when you collect the last of your pay.  You’re happy for it, you were sick of that life, and you’re ready to go home.  You sell a couple of pistols that you picked up over the last two years.  You get more than they’re worth too, it seems the locals are eager to get their hands on some genuine souvenirs.  You hang onto the Henry.  It’s a fine gun, and might be good for hunting.  There’s nobody that’s going to want to buy your uniform, so you throw it the trash as soon as you can buy some civilian clothes.  The only thing left to buy is a ticket home, back to Ohio.
    You meet a man at the train station.  He’s probably the fattest man you’ve seen in years.  Looks like the war has treated him well.  Maybe he got rich off of it.  A lot of northern men got rich off the war.  Shoddy millionaires.  He tells you he’s proud to meet you and proud of what you did for the country.  You thank him, but tell him you did nothing to be proud of.  You just did what you what you had to do.  You’d just as soon forget the whole thing ever happened.
    He laughs and says that will never happen.  Now that the war’s over, the country will never let you or anybody forget it.  There will be parades every year.  Statues will be built in every town square.  Something like this war will never happen again in a hundred years, maybe never.  You’ve made history, he tells you, and it will follow you all your life.  They’ll probably even set aside a whole holiday, every year they’ll memorialize those who have fallen.  You might not feel like it now, but years and years from now you’ll be sitting your grandchild on your lap, and you’ll be proud to tell him stories of what you’ve done, and he’ll be proud too.  You’re not sure you agree with him, but the thoughts are heavy on your mind.
    It’s been four years since you’ve been home.  There’s been barely any word, except for a rare letter from your family.  You tried not to think about home too much after those first few homesick months.  Now you’re on a train, heading there right now.  The future is the only thing on your mind.
    A lot of men left your hometown to fight.  A lot of them won’t be coming back.  They’ll probably all treat you real nice once you show up.  There’s a pretty good chance you can land a good job in town.  Maybe something at the courthouse, maybe something at the bank.  You suppose in short order you’ll have enough money to buy your own land.  Build a house.  Build a farm.  Find a wife and start a family.  Have a whole bunch of children.  Grow old.  Now that the war’s over, there’s a normal, regular life to look forward to living.  Alice Simmons will probably marry you.  You’ve known her since you both learned your letters together at school.  She’s a nice girl.  If she hasn’t got any other suitors, maybe you’ll start courting her when you get home.  Then there’s Elizabeth Collins; she’s a nice girl too.  Her Pa’s got a lot of property, he’d probably sell some of it to you.  It’s good land for a farm.  These are the kind of things you have to think about now.  No more worrying about waking up to have to face a battle.  No more terrors in the night.
    You try to think of Elizabeth and what she looks like.  It’s been years, after all.  All these thoughts are making you drowsy as you slouch in the bench seat, temple pressed against the rattling window as your train rolls down the tracks.  Her hair is a kind of dirty, brownish blonde.  Her skin’s pasty, with a few freckles on the cheeks.  Her eyes are a dull light blue.
    In the darkness of your sleep, that skin turns a rich, jet black.  The eyes burn a strange bluish-green, like you’ve never seen before.  You wake with a start.
    You get off at the next station.  You sweet talk the man behind the counter and slip him a nickel to make it sweeter.  He agrees to let you exchange your ticket.
    Now you’re heading to Chattanooga.  It looks better than the last time you saw it.  Then you’re on a boat, heading down the Tennessee.  It swings a left on the Mississippi.
    You’re heading south, to New Orleans.  You’re heading towards her.