Essex [the bad familiar]

1: The Young Soldier

The young soldier had gone to war as a stallion set to claim his herd: hotblooded, wild-eyed, virile. If only he had returned that way. Three years a Union soldier, and at the end a prisoner of war, had tempered the heat and cooled his eyes, leaving behind a tired man, a man whose youth bowed to experience.

But he was still young, and he was virile, and he had a life waiting for him.

Well, said the wisdom found walking clotted trenches in the wake of the Union's first Gatling gun, the young soldier had a promise of a life, a promise that kept him going long after mud and blood and fire stole Colette's photograph.

Holding tight to that promise, he elbowed himself into a spot leaning against the ship rail, drawing in what he could of a clear night's freshness. A few more sunsets like the one he'd witnessed an hour ago and his boots would crunch across St. Louis soil and, shortly after that, his lips would find Colette's.

In the cool air of a Tennessee evening, the Sultana slogged through the muddy Mississippi. Flood waters ran high, the river rippling through green grasses, dooming many a trunk and limb to roil in the black evening water, where not even the brightest of stars could find an ounce of clean liquid to shine through.

Jammed in perfumed clouds of tobacco and alcohol, he couldn't even make out his own reflection in the waters. That was just as well.  Colette wouldn't recognize him. Soon as she did, she'd be shaving his mangy elk's ass of a beard and cutting his hair to a respectable length. Starvation and disease had taken its toll, and no amount of rations on the journey home had done enough to bring back his full stature. The muscles he'd kept were wiry and lean, and his eyes, oh, dark like the waters they were, but sharp, too. Sharp because he was a survivor, sharp because he had long since learned that if you paid attention, you'll make it further than those who don't.

But being so young, his body was healing fast from its scars and problems, and his family would help even more. He'd help his parents with repairs on their house, reward Colette for waiting all this time for him, maybe buy her a ring and a house and one of those greyhound dogs she adored.

The young soldier held his position steady on the rail of a small boat filled with over two thousand men.

He had seen the worst in humanity.

He had survived the worst the worst they could do.

And tonight, he dreamed of home.

Then the air turned to ash in his mouth. A hot wind of orange fury blasted him from the rail.

The young soldier didn't remember after that. He only felt. Felt water bubble through his charred lungs, felt the dark world tumble and spin, felt a strange release from his leg, felt himself kick upward, always upward, but only half of his body was responding. He clawed through the turbid pitch, weaker with every stroke. He didn't have time to be afraid, didn't have time to wonder what had happened to the other half of him.

He had a dream. He had to survive.

His head broke the water. His lungs still burned with smoke and oil, made his first gasp of air feel as through he were breathing fire. Men screamed. The Sultana roared in a blazing inferno. Venomous yellow flames cast long shadows of the heads and bodies who'd risen to the surface.

A tree trunk or limb -it was rough, it had bark- slammed against his shoulder. Some instinct set him tangling with it, until he'd hoisted his chest upon the wood, panting, aching, still feeling as though he was missing something.

The young soldier set his forehead down against the slick bark, just for a moment, just to rest, just to collect the courage to look, and he drifted down, down, down the black waters.

Those few more days became forever.