The Journal

Section I
"Edward!"
Dirt sprayed my face, obscuring my view. The force of the impact knocked me down on my back. I got up, dazed and blinded, groping for my rifle. I wiped the dirt from my face and observed the destruction around me. A cannonball had struck the back wall of the trench three feet from me. Add one to the list of countless near misses in this war.
"Are you okay, Jimmy?" I asked, referring to my comrade and fellow soldier who had called me. "Did you get those cannonballs?"
There was no answer. I called for him again, and there was still no response.
"James, stop playing me for a fool!" I yelled.
I peeked out of the trench. What I saw still haunts me to this day. James was lying face down in the dirt, his eyes staring blankly at me. The cannonball had struck him squarely in the stomach. It had nearly cleaved him in two.
"Oh, Lord, please not Jimmy," I pleaded. "Jimmy, please, you have to get up," I said, climbing up to pull him back into the trench.
He was dead. All the life had left him, but I still couldn't leave him to rot out there. It wasn't befitting of as good a man as him. I grabbed his legs and pulled him towards the trench. A meter from the safety of cover, I heard a nearby musket fire, and my leg was thrown out from under me. I was falling face-first into the void.
I awoke with a start, as I had most mornings since I was twelve. I was no longer a homeless orphan, but little else had changed since then; I was still waking alone and scared like a child. I had become accustomed to it, though. Another thing I had become accustomed to was the constant soreness in my leg. The dream of getting shot always ended, but the pain had carried on for nine years. The thought of losing my friend was worse than any pain in my body. He was twenty-seven. He was the son of a wealthy merchant in New York City, where his beautiful wife and two young sons lived. He was dead. Thus were the atrocities of war.
It was no longer 1781, but 1790, and there was work that had to be done. I was still shaking, and my quilt was soaked in cold sweat. I got up and tried not to think about Jimmy, Frank, Patrick, or any of my other friends who hadn't been as lucky as I.
"Am I really the lucky one?" I thought. "Would it not have been better if I could have joined them in heaven?"
Such questions frequently occupied my mind. Never would I have thought as a child that I would be so broken and wary at the age of forty, but I also would not have guessed that both my parents would be dead before my thirteenth birthday. My father was killed in the French and Indian War in 1755 at the Battle of the Monongahela. My mother and I lived on the streets until she ended her own misery, drowning herself in the Boston Harbor. Then I was alone until Richard found me. He was my dad's friend in the Army, and he took me in as his own. I learned to be a mason, and he allowed me to live in his home. He was my only real friend.
I tried to bring myself back to the present; I couldn't dwell on the past, so I tried to stay focused on every detail of the present. I sat up and observed my humble abode. The house was warm and dry. It wasn't large, but it was all I could ever want for. Richard had helped me build it when I returned from the Army. It was my escape from the world. In those days, I only traveled into Boston to visit Richard and sell my wares once every two weeks.
Through the windows I saw the early rays of another Massachusetts spring day. I slid out of bed and limped to my dresser. I pulled on a pair of trousers and a hunting shirt; my clothes were light, cool, and allowed free movement to work the morning soreness out of my leg. On my feet I wore a pair of woolen socks and my boots that Martha Washington had made me during my stay in Valley Forge.
As I began to fully wake, I nibbled a piece of bread and drank some fresh water, cold, and clean from my well. I went outside and breathed in the beauty. The birds were chirping, the breeze was sweet, and the sun was shining.
"Enough indulgence," I thought, "time to get to work."
I picked up the feed bag from just inside the front door and walked out to the stable behind the house where my horse, Lucy, stayed.
"Good morning girl," I said as I filled her feed bag. "I got you some oats, your favorite. Better rest up today, we're going into town this evening."
After Lucy and I were fed, it was time to get to work. I ran back inside the house and went over to the mantle. Above it on a set of hooks hung my most valued possession: a longrifle. In the early 1700's, Germans began to immigrate into southeastern Pennsylvania. With them they brought the knowledge of rifling. The spiral cuts on the inside of the barrel provide a more stable shot than the traditional muskets of the Redcoats. They can shoot accurately at a hundred yards, and we milked that range for every inch in the Army. The redcoats never saw me coming. Now my targets are mostly small and furry, but I still find pleasure in the master craftsmanship of the Germans.
I grabbed the rifle, its beautiful maple stock shining in the sun, shot an azimuth west with my compass, and, with the rising sun to my back and a subtle breeze in my face, set off into the woods. I whistled Yankee Doodle as I walked, my rifle lying on my shoulder, knowing no creature in its right mind would venture this close to death.
"This, Edward, is why you choose to go on," I thought as I walked among the trees.
The forest has a soothing quiet that city life simply can't provide, and I spent much of my time absorbing it.
After about an hour trot, I stopped to load the rifle and set some baited snares with a thin chord of twine. Then, I left my original line and adopted a path along a ridge, giving me a view of the forest below on either side. I crept as quietly as an injured guerrilla fighter can, watching the trees and listening for any unnatural rustle of leaves or snap of branches. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of red against the green leaves. I slowly crouched to a shooting position, bringing my rifle up to my shoulder. Judging the distance at about twenty yards, I adjusted my aim slightly above my mark. Holding in half a breath, I gently took slack out of the trigger.
The flash and bang of the black powder echoed through the emptiness of the woods, and the Redcoat fell. I tensed and dropped to the ground in terror, thinking about all of the other British soldiers that could have seen me. I prone crawled to the edge of the ridge, and saw no Redcoats watching. I only saw a fat red squirrel lying on the ground next to its tree. My muscles relaxed, and I stood back up to catch my breath. I was shaking again, and the cold sweat was back. I leaned over against a tree and tried to bring myself back. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, and when I opened them, I was still in the woods with my rifle. This time, though, there were no men in red hunting me down to claim a bounty. I was hunting red squirrels to claim a meager living.
I walked over to the spot where it fell and began to collect the treasure it held. After skinning and cutting the meat from the body, I used what remained to bait another snare. I threw some salt on the meat and stored it in a knapsack along with the pelt.
I continued on in the same way until the sun was well past its apogee above the horizon. Then, still hunting all the while, I turned around and began to make my way back to where I began.
I did not lose control again, but it took a lot of my concentration. Some days were like this one in that way. I had had easier days; there had been several when I did not have to focus on reality at all. There had also been some days during which I seized up every time I took a shot. I would have much liked to crawl into my bed and sleep the pain away, but that would mean would have no food to eat when I awoke again.
Along the way back to the initial spot, I checked my traps. Only one of the three I sat had been sprung, but it held a large squirrel that yielded large pieces of meat and a fine skin. When I arrived back at the place where I had set the initial traps, I had a full bag of pelts and meat from six squirrels and a small fox. I had hoped to find something in my last snares, but what I found was not what I had hoped to find. In the snare I found a piece of rolled paper. Next to another I found a pile of entrails, presumably from a squirrel. I took the scroll from the trap and unrolled it. On it was written a note in clean, neat handwriting which read as follows: