I had awoken curled on my side with the scent of ashes and unwashed flesh strong in my nostrils, having dozed perhaps a half hour, at most. What little rest I claimed was plagued by a jumbled, nauseating sequence of nightmares, of men huddled in groups beneath a reddish sky, moaning in anguish and terror as they burned slowly, kindling in an inescapable fire of monstrous proportion. Just before waking, I had spied Sawyer in this crackling landscape, distant from me, his soldier’s uniform in rags, his long hair gone, scalp blackened and bleeding. Somehow I could clearly perceive this, despite the space between us. He had been too damaged to move. I returned to consciousness screaming and thrashing, startling Yancy, who was stamping out the embers from last night’s fire. He said, “Jesus Christ.” Yancy seemed tense, working swiftly to untie my wrists and ankles so that I could manage to ride unassisted. Jack had already saddled our mounts, silently awaiting us.
