He enjoyed watching his mind work. It was almost as if he could step outside of it and look in through a window at his own process of reasoning. The horse saddened him, old Black Major. He knew it was sentimental, but the death of horses had always affected him more profoundly than the death of men.

He was back in bed now, lying on top of the sheets. The day was already starting to warm up. In a little while, Aunt Bessie would arrive downstairs and begin closing up the house to keep in the cool night air.

The locomotive was an easy riddle: the train wreck on the way to Charleston. And the screaming? Two young ladies in the seat behind him, crushed to death—an awful thing. He had been pinned by luggage and the overturned seat but had managed to drag himself to safety. He’d always had a fool’s luck. He had even pulled other injured passengers from the wreckage—only then did he seek first aid.

Arbitrary, how it all worked, he reflected. Things happened at random—where was the Almighty’s plan? It was beyond him. Some died horribly, while others, even scoundrels, were spared. His legs ached this morning. He must get up, walk around, get some blood circulating in the cramped muscles.

Damned legs. In August of’64, his legs had gotten him out of the cavalry. A cavalry soldier wasn’t supposed to need his legs the way a foot soldier did. But riding all day crooked the bones, splayed the joints, atrophied the muscles. How many cavalry soldiers had stunted, spindly legs? Even Bob Lee had short legs and walked with a permanent stiff limp.

Some days, Waddell had to have a boy rub his legs for an hour just to get the blood moving. And that was when he was a young man—God!

And then the strange fever had gotten into him. Swelled his legs until the flesh of his thighs burst apart like seams splitting, the tissue gone all buttery, oozing clear juice and smelling like sour milk. Nothing had ever terrified him so. It was as if his flesh were rotting before his eyes.

His dreams in those days were full of funeral biers and catafalques—he learned later that Abraham Lincoln had similar dreams before the actor from Baltimore put an end to him.

The surgeon wanted to amputate, but Waddell pulled rank. Only one in six was surviving the amputations anyway. Colonel Waddell kept his fine boots.