Horrible Harvest

Sumbitch hated me.

Normally I don’t give a good goddamn about such things, but he ain’t just another thing.

I seen him graveside ‘fore he seen me. Didn’t know he was still among the living ‘fore that. Felix never said a word on him in all the years we knew each other. I thought he’d died ‘fore the end of the war. Hell, I thought I was the one who kilt him. Not with intent. What I done to him, I done to save his life, but I didn’t know what I was doing at the time. There was six ways to Sunday I could’ve corked things up all to hell.  I was just a dumb-shit kid. Younger than him.

Otto turned me loose from his baleful stare when the preacher called his name. He was invited to say a few words about his brother, but he declined. He leaned into his crutches and shifted his weight from the heel to the ball of his foot. He’d grown fat in his old age, and standing was a chore on his one remaining leg, even with aid of crutches.

I bent my gaze down to my hands and heard the rumble and felt the shake of time coming to a stop. I saw the past form like floodwaters breaching a damn. With a blink, I had a butcher’s saw in my hand. With another, I saw a black flag. Waving in the wind. Outside the tattered canvas quarters of Captain Docherty.

With yet another blink, a full 52 years disappeared. Backwards in time, I tumbled. The cemetery was gone, and I was there. 1863. Two days into the new year. That’s where all the old ghosts chased me down.