A little while back some friends and I were chatting on Facebook about the new Expanse RPG that’s coming out this year. We’re all fans of the show and books, and before you knew it, I’d kinda accidentally recruited people onto my fictional ship; or they volunteered, and who am I to say. And then I had an idea about a little story, and then… there was this.
Something was buzzing.
You know, I’ve been writing for nearly thirty years. I’ve had a lot of material published over that time, but as a journalist… yeah, you kinda expect that. And I’ve written games for conventions that have clocked in far larger word counts, too.
But The Courthouse, my Civil War novel, is now something rather unique for me, because I just published it on Amazon’s Kindle service.
This feels… really quite odd. And also, really, really cool!
It was not a deep grave. The only marker was Abraham’s musket. The only words my own poor wishes that he and Israel were together in a better place, where there was no war.
If there were other rebels in the town – ones with murderous intent, anyways – their rough handling as the regiment moved through, followed by the whole of V Corps, had dissuaded them of making any more mischief. We left Prince Edward Courthouse behind after dark, and we jogged down the road in the quiet shadow of night.
The woods sighed. A brief rain shower slicked the road some, turned the green leaves to brief silver in the weak moonlight. But that was all that troubled us.
It is strange to think of those days.
I sit here, and I am talking to you, speaking history. Turning events that turned the nation on its ear into just… words.
Did you know, that before the war, politicians and statesmen, and other folk who cared to think of such things, said ‘the United States are’; but after the war, they say ‘the United States is’.
I still do not understand that transmutation. It is a thing mystical.
We turned out of our tents before the sun rose. Fires lit for a rushed meal and a cup of poorly brewed coffee; a quick sup of something to put fire into the spirit; feet stamping in the cold as a mob of sullen men, their passion now ebbing low, waited for discipline to take hold and get them on the move.
The word was everywhere; we were marching on Lee’s position, we’re he’d been waiting to resupply his army just a ways up the rail line. Though, after yesterday’s action, that didn’t seem to be working so well. The horses and men that had come into our lines were from a sharp fight to protect a baggage train – that’s what had been burned. Wagons, supplies, the whole lot, gone to ashes rather than rebel bellies.
So we would march, north, but I did not expect to find Lee. He’d be gone, again, looking for some desperate way out of the trap slowly drawing around him.
I woke slowly, wondering at… something. It took me a moment to realise that someone had allowed me to sleep through revile. The sun was up, and I could feel it warming my blanket. It was a rare luxury, and I wondered who to thank. I lay there, eyes closed, just enjoying the fact that no one was yelling at me, cussing me into line or column of march, or shooting at me. I saw a hand pointing at the sky, pale skin dotted with dark blood. I took a deep breath, tasted smoke, smelt coffee, and I opened my eyes.
I started with a yelp. Someone was kneeling over me, a dark shape outlined in fire by the morning sun. I scrambled back on my haunches, blanket trailing and tangling my legs, and I fell on my back. I yelped again, and…
We found the brigade long gone, a pall of dust to the west as they marched on Jetersville. Back east, in the silence of the empty Namozine Road, we could just spy another column approaching, the rest of the division, leading the bulk of the Corps itself.
But here, the wind just sighed through the trees, broken only by scattered firing to the north and east. And even that was quieting down as the afternoon wore on.
“Did you get a shot at the rebel,” Abraham said. He’d had a strange look on his face the entire walk back to the main road. I hadn’t said anything; I was sure that Enoch and Boytz knew what must have happened, but Abraham just couldn’t see that kind of wrong in a man.
Bugles dragged us from sleep, well before sunup, and well before 6am, the usual time of our rousting. All around was the taut silence of sleeping men at war, and then, like a lantern un-shuttered, all was motion.
I felt my blanket crackle as I moved – a late frost speckled it with diamond-like points of chilled light. I coughed – as did a thousand other men – and felt something wet shift in my lungs. Sleeping on damp ground, waking to a blanket slick and wet, will do in a man almost as fast as a limb rotten with gangrene. I could hear some deeper sounds from the camp, men whose lungs had seen too many open fields and cold mornings, and hoped that this would all be over soon.
We camped not far from the road, men slowly coming together from points all over the field through the night. Among the trees campfires were lit, and as stars dotted the night sky, we had our first real chance at rest in days.
I slept, and had not a single dream – least, none that I could recall upon waking. I slept so deeply, awoke so refreshed – like I was born again – that it was a sore shock to remember that Israel was gone.
Boytz was quietly fussing about Abraham, pouring him a cup of coffee, and putting some food in front of him when I left my tent. I listened for Hendersen’s fiddle, but I would never hear that again, I remembered. Miller was hard at work brushing his coat, trying to get now mostly dry blood out of it. Hendersen’s blood. I grabbed some coffee for myself and sat with Sergeant Derr.
We never got to bury poor Israel.
After a while of standing by his body a horse came up through the thinning smoke. We heard it, its hooves striking fallen wood, and the skittish sound a horse makes when it can smell blood. It was only yards away, but we paid it no mind. I had no sense for the passage of time, but when I heard the sounds of a rider dismounting, I turned at last.
It was General Chamberlain, and I had never been so close to the man. I must have made some noise, or a sudden, clumsy move to salute, for then Boytz turned, his musket level at his hip. Enoch looked up and wiped a hand across his face, but remained kneeling. Only Abraham couldn’t take his eyes off Israel.
“Don’t salute,” the General said. He stepped down hard out of the saddle, his mount shying away, and he stamped one foot, working the feeling back into it. “There’s been enough of that today.”
Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
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