Chp 1 Fin's Journey

March 2nd, 1920
Day I
“Somebody next to you may have a gun.”
Words that began the first meeting, calmly spoken in the vestry, as evening's shadow lengthened across the backroom of our small town church. Hands raised and counted, loyalties pledged, so began the bloody drift into war. “That's how this here fight 'n all started so”, says an invisible stern voiced Jeb, before launching with forceful snort and scurrilous snuffle, an assault upon the dim grey air. Here, among residual faded floated palls, I sense the befogged mists of my own mind begin to recede; catching the briefest glimpse of Jed’s disembodied head. See abounding down beneath curl-crumpled hat its familiar drapery of black and side ringlets, all gangly goosed and unloosed in thickening intimate trickling waves. Yet still - my all too-soon-as-appearing-disappearing Jeb eludes – merely vestige and residue, as though beyond these ethereal expanses, behind the blustery tobacco bales and dark shrouded exhales expending in sage-like streams all his smoky-piped-dreams, nothing of substance ever existed.
How poorly my mind’s inner eye vision fares when compared with the inner-ear clarity with which I remember his - Jeb’s voice. Hear it better than ever, perforating the now layered baritone husk, to where the pitch, trill and shrill comes clearly, revealing the once was boy underneath.
Yet hush my thoughts and stem my pen! For he speaks from out our shared past once again, spurring me as part of that once real crowd gathered before him that day towards frenzy.

“Aye him no less, our leader, and yours Fin … your own flesh and blood brother …. My brother too, our brethren, for we loved him the same . . . Terry's words no less. In his blessed honour we fight on."

For a moment, these words galvanise, and once more, I am suddenly light, reeling exultant, a part of the powder keg throng gathered before him. He spoke especially well that day, I heard a good many others say, a crackling fuse of whisk-bladed words, to which no physical bond held you, but nonetheless, in the few fizzling seconds remaining, fixed you fast and spellbound. Possessed of the true believer’s oratorical powers, this swish and sting swordsman was master of the boundless permutations inspiring blood to action, ably fire stoking the veins, turning all else to meaningless bleached ash. Not for him, a hint or even a tint of doubt to clod or cloud the mind, nought to stifle loose drawn lips, to clog icy-entombed throat, or sever the threaded cord that connected these to the permafrost heart underneath.
Yet here, I must admit to feelings of guilt, having spilled too much ink and spent too much time pronouncing with such harshness upon Jeb. Far worse specimens of humanity than he roam these expansive green lands; walk its myriad of wilding trails. Because, (I must acknowledge the attempt), who else, but he tried become my erstwhile guide, to replace what he knew he could not. Who but he, even for that brief time taught me to lie flat and so deathly still. Who else first pressed my flesh with the rifle's dead weight? All too easy, I forget, the good he has done. Ludicrous then, I might go on with my story while ignoring these kindnesses. Therefore, I protest my innocence; I did not set deliberately to cast him as nemesis or demon. Rather, I sought to condemn him while overcome with obsessive haste, and impelled by some unconscious need within to lay blame, to grind someone’s bones to leaven my beggared bowl of its bitter tasting bread. I will say one last thing on this. For perhaps after-all, his inclusion so early on in my story is less accidental then I imagine. That even till now, he has been busy in a final act of kindness, and far from imposter, he is instead, the perfect foil, allowing me to vex my spleen these few memories at a time, as to encourage me to go on.