Condemned by Lisa Mannetti

                                             in
                       Legends of The Mountain State, edited by Michael Knost

                 It took a long time for me to begin remembering things...like the silvery ping of a bullet whistling past me; the solid chunk when it struck the wood of a door jamb, or the meaty sound and delayed sting when another round buried itself right inside my flesh.

 There were other sounds, too:  sharp voices climbing high and fast. And smells like blood and dirt and November woodsmoke....But, there’s so much I still can’t recall—not completely. 

Honest, I didn’t drink that much whisky the day I scuffled with Creigh. I don’t think I had a black out. And I’d seen plenty of casualties, plenty of men—good men—die. But I sure as blazes didn’t think that a half-assed scheme conjured from Dutch courage would mean that death’d follow me out of camp right up the Lewisburg-Ronceverte Road to the big house where old man Creigh lived—and follow him clear across the state line into Virginia and back again to Montescena....