Black River

EIGHTY-THREE

O’Brien could see the fire of cannonball explosions on the horizon in the night sky. Hear the booms echoing across the river. The sounds of guns blazing. The gruesome whizzing and tearing noise of Minié balls blowing through the chests of Union and Confederate soldiers. They were on the river, fighting under the cover of darkness, under the glow of starlight.

Gunboats shooting at other patrol boats. Men jumping from burning vessels. The smells of scorched hair and burning skin mixed with burnt gunpowder. Steamers hit by floating mines that took off the entire bow or stern. The deafening, mournful cries of dying men.

He saw a young Confederate soldier fall in battle on a field, smoke rising, a union soldier, gut shot, lying in the mud near him. The Confederate soldier strained with what little strength he had left to pull a photograph out of his rucksack. He held the photograph in his bloodied hand, the young man looking at the image of the woman in the photograph. Tears welled in his eyes, spilling down his cheeks and into the blood pooling near his chest. He tried hard to whisper his love for the woman, life fading from his broken and bloodied body, the photo falling into the dark mud, a cannon firing in the distance.

Then it was silent and the moon rose over a mountaintop and O’Brien was alone on a ravine in Afghanistan, the moonlight bright against the mountainous landscape. He heard the whirl of chopper blades in the distance, over the hills.

Were they finally coming for me?

He crouched berween two large boulders and waited, glanced at a small village down the hill in the valley, the scent of goat and lamb meat cooking in the night air.

And then they appeared.

On the crest of the hill. Four silhouettes. Afghan warlords. The Taliban. The bastards never stop hunting, O’Brien thought. If he was damn lucky, he may get off three shots. Take three out. The fourth might run. But they never run away. They keep advancing. He looked into the rifle scope. One of the men held a small flashlight, signaling someone on a hill a half-mile away.

O’Brien sighted through the scope — a dead bead on the man with the mirror.

And then the light dissolved into an old oil lamp. It was held by a young woman. O’Brien wanted to put his rifle down. But it was gone. As if he’d never held it. The soft warm light reflected from the woman’s beautiful face. She was Angelina Hopkins. She smiled and gestured for O’Brien to follow her. He slugged out of the river mud up onto the soft grass and verdant ferns.

She stood at the top of the bluff, the breeze off the river flowing through her hair, her white dress moving slightly. O’Brien watched her, approaching slowly. “I’m very sorry about the loss of your husband. They found your picture in the mud…on a battlefield. I know he died a heroic soldier who very much wanted to return to you.”

She said nothing, her eyes studying the river. O’Brien asked, “Where’s Joe Billie? Have you seen him?”

She was silent, turning to O’Brien and reaching out. She touched his shoulder, touched it in the exact spot where the syringe needle had penetrated. She smiled, looking directly into O’Brien’s eyes. Her face slowly began to change. And then he was looking into Kim’s eyes.

“Sean, it’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

“Kim…I’ll be there soon. Do you hear me? Soon.”

There was the sound of a horse whinny, the snorting and the galloping of hooves. O’Brien turned as a man wearing a Confederate uniform rode a horse in from the dark forest. When O’Brien looked back at Kim, she was gone. The lamp was by itself, flickering on the top of the bluff next to an oak tree. O’Brien turned towards the soldier.

It was the same re-enactor he’d seen in the cemetery. The same man who’d left a Confederate rose on a gravestone. He was still in an offer’s uniform. Silver beard. Slouch hat pulled over one gray eyebrow.

He got off his horse, tied the reins to a small pine, and walked over to O’Brien. The old soldier’s eyes were ice blue. He had a slender scar across his left cheek. Face hard as leather exposed to sun and rain. He said, “Are you a deserter, son.”

O’Brien stared at him. “The damn movie wrapped. You can drop the Confederate act.”

“Act? What I fight for is no act. It’s not for the North or the South. It is for the nation.”

“What?”

“It’s sacred and worth fighting for. The rights and guarantees of the American Constitution are being challenged, as is a way of life ensured by the words on that very highest document.”

O’Brien’s eyes burned. He felt like he was swallowing something with the bitter taste of pine sap and burnt weeds. Maybe tobacco. He looked into the timeworn soldier’s eyes. “It’s great how you stay in character. I’m about 160 years too late for your war. I’ve had to fight enough of my own.”

The man wiped his brow with a gnarled hand. “This Godforsaken war is really about state’s rights, which is a coveted tenet of the Constitution. Some members of Congress, those from a few northern states, want to pass laws of economic restrictions — to force southern states to sell cotton to only specific factories in particular states. Telling us we can’t sell to whomever the hell we wish to sell to — including England. So, how in God’s name can a union be preserved when one faction of that union wants to dictate economic forces to another?”

“Well done. If that’s part of the script for Black River, you’ve got it down. You could be in the running for an Academy Award.”

The man pulled out a silver pocket watch, opened it, and looked at the time. O’Brien caught a glimpse of a woman’s image on the inside of the watch. He said, “She’s a lovely lady.”

“She was my wife, Matilda. No finer woman has ever lived. Are you married?”

O’Brien thought of Kim. “No.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“Sean O’Brien.”

“I best be getting back, Mr. O’Brien.” He climbed up in the saddle. “I do not mean to be forward, but you have the look.”

“What look?”

“The one I have seen in the faces of some men long after the cannons stopped firing. After those times when the faces of men we slaughtered haunt our dreams.”

“Is that line in the script?”

“Mr. O’Brien, answer this for me. If you had one final day to live, could you bear the weight of not having to prove anything to anyone? Would that burden finally be unchained?”

“I have nothing to prove.”

“War, Mr. O’Brien, in the heat of battle, time stands still for a moment. The threat of imminent death changes a man’s perception. The beauty of life ought to change a person’s outlook, too. One of nature’s masterpieces is a rainbow. It’s amazing how light through droplets of water can make things visible when they never were. Sometimes you’ll see the arc of a rainbow from one point on the horizon to another. But did you know it makes a full circle? Just like planets swirling around the sun. We’re all part of the unseen web. You know, even a spider’s web takes on a new look when a sunrise turns dew drops into a strand of pearls.”

O’Brien said nothing for a few seconds. “Who are you?”

He paused, tipped his hat and said, “I best be on my way. Remember, son, time itself won’t leave you desolate. It’ll be with you until the end of your life. It’s what you do with the time you’ve been given.”

He turned his horse, rode toward palms and live oaks and slipped into the dark forest.