NOTE: This story alludes to suicide or suicidal thoughts.

In addition, there is
one swear I felt necessary to include, but it's entirely in reference to animal
feces.
*****
Our town was baptized in the flood that year and the swelling of the river
unearthed relics from long before men settled in these parts. That same year I
buried my wife and infant son, both lost in birth. Months after they were gone,
our train of ragged coaches met the elbow of that great river, and upon our
manifest of provisions and mouths, we would continue no further and abide
where we stood. Two dozen families in wheeled shelters began to fish and
hunt and gather wood for burning and wood for building. The men were
strong and fleet and they fashioned homesteads and fencing and a great
church for the preacher to tout fable and promise. He carried his book with
him and went about our nascent village to bless homes and new mothers alike.
His robes and hat threadbare and humble but black and foreboding as a
doctor of the plague.
Coming to me one evening, he spoke of the beyond and the blissful eternity in
which I was to one day join my love. He spoke quickly and firmly and I nodded
and thought of her in a gown of white with our son in her arms and they were
both searching waters just miles away as if awaiting a vessel. I offered this
vision to the preacher and he nodded and thought deeply.
“She waits for you there,” he said finally, “alongside her kin and beside her
God in the kingdom. All you need do is remember her and you’ll see her again
in the after once your toil is done, and you will know pain nevermore.”
I nodded but without agreement, such was my hurt. The god that would take
from me these blessings was not one I had the desire to know, and I turned a
teary gaze to the preacher and quietly said, “bless you, father.” And he said
“bless you, my son.” And I didn’t feel blessed.
In the first months, I brought deer from the forest, bleeding the carcasses and
carving and salting the meat. I had but a horse called Beau and a rifle and
smithing tools with which I would mend spokes and firearms but such things
were less needed in the village. The coaches had now turned shelters and
animals were now kept to be fed and milked and butchered. I would hang pelts
of slain animals from my saddle and I stunk of blood and shit. The women
would avert their eyes and hold their children as I passed in or out of the
village. After a time, I spoke very little but held the dead close as if they would
speak to me. In the evenings I would roll tobacco and smoke next to the fire
and stare wearily at the steeple atop the church and talk to her. I wouldn’t hear
her voice, but the chirp and howl of beasts beyond the village, and it was
answer aplenty. God was not there with me.
The rain came on a clear day and brought with it a profound darkness. The
steads were strong that they could hold up to formidable winds and bitter cold
but the floodwaters took many of them. It drowned three of our cows and
lifted corn and potato plants out of the earth and took them downstream.
None were hurt but all had lost something in one fashion or another. The
following day, our preacher offered praise to his god that we were spared this
calamity and that we would continue to build in his name and reclaim what
was taken. I refashioned a lean-to from the detritus of another home and
remained near the treeline far from the village. I was spared no calamity and
no god would give back what was taken from me.
I found a book near the water’s edge some days later. Black leather with
ornately gilded lettering on the spine. Not of the preacher, but perhaps of a
traveler from before we settled. I looked northward to the family of deer I had
been tracking and considered leaving the book where it lie. I closed my eyes
and listened for her and felt the wind rise and smelled rosewater on it. I
opened my eyes and the deer had passed out of sight. I looked back to the
south and breathed deeply and then lowered my rifle, hat and myself to the
earth and lifted the book.
The pages within felt damp but pulled apart easily. I sat and read the
beginning, which spoke to the beginning of all things and the creation of man.
“Behold, it was very good,” I whispered to myself as I read. A grin formed
across my face and I looked about to ensure I was alone and that no fun was
being had at my expense. In turning the page, I saw there was no more.
Several hundred empty pages remained, but turning them in succession, a few
held handwritten passages.
And wander ye who know not your path, for it lies before you coursing and
winding and true.
My brow furrowed and I peered north, seeing the family of deer ahead once
more, the tawny flicker of a doe tail and a young calf. I returned to the page
and read the passage again, anxiously thumbing the edge of the leather cover.
I turned to the next passage some pages later.
Be not afraid of what lies behind, but find within your darkness the strength
forward.
The wind lifted my hat from the ground and I placed it atop my head and
stood. I breathed deeply and placed the book in my satchel and lifted my rifle
again. Cold had taken me suddenly, as if a malevolent force were pursuing me
to the treeline. I strode away from the waters and continued my trail of the
deer family. A noticeable heft now affecting my gait.
Evening fell and I returned fruitless and tired to my lean-to outside of the
village. I lit a fire and stared at the book. Firelight glinted upon the lettering of
the spine and in the eyes of Beau staring into mine. “She would have me read
it,” I spoke aloud to him and held the book in my hands for several breaths
before opening it again. The story of genesis was the same, and the creation
was the same, and behold was the same. But I couldn’t reckon the passages
after were as I read them before.
For your path is behind, coursing and writhing, and darkness will carry you
forward.
I quickly turned to the next passage, a more harried and difficult scrawl.
Ye must surrender to fathoms unknown, for in the deep lies your solace.
I felt the soft but quickened thud of my heart as I read this passage again and
again and feared turning to the next. Beau continued to stare, undisturbed by
the flies and mosquitos about its eyes and hind quarters. The fire crackled and
spit and I turned ahead to the following page.
Thine heart, wrought of sorrow and fear, darkens in the light.
Rings of shadow formed in my periphery and my breath abated. I continued to
the next passage.
Ye only need answer and ye may join the one true path.
Beau then began to jump and pull at his reigns, lifting the support of my lean-
to and dropping the canopy upon the fire, snuffing it out in a searing cloud of
gray. I rose to soothe the beast and looked about to see all that could be
retrieved. The book lie closed atop my singed blanket and there I left it to find
another place to rest for the night.
It passed in feverous dream. The river was full of copulating snakes, all of
them writhing as one great living creature. The moon glistened over their
scales and they rose and fell as if something were reaching from beneath to
escape. There was wailing all about and black shapes darted in and out of the
trees and I stood on the bank and watched the river swell and swell until the
snakes licked at my naked toes.
I awoke the next morning and returned to the site of my lean-to, blackened
and wet with dew. The book lie open but to no passage. Then I saw the
watersnake lying beneath the canopy. I held still and the snake glided slowly
back toward the river, it’s scales wet and brilliant in the morning sun. I
gathered my satchel, rifle and then the book and set out with Beau northward
between the water and forest.