There was a crack of lightning. The fire in the hearth of a white marble fireplace made the dark blueness of the white plantation living room warm and orange against the late afternoon gloom outside. Thunder rumbled as the flames danced in the colonel's icy eyes. He sat in a stately chair of blue silk. His back lay firmly against the back of the chair, but still he remained upright even without the presence of his dragoon. His gaze wandered vacantly into the fire; a muscle in his jaw jumped rhythmically in his entranced state. There was no noise but the continuous crackle of the fire and the distant thunderclouds. Yet rifle shots resemble that of thunder.
Footsteps resounded in the floor above, which moved with a hurried purpose, often followed by a clatter of items falling to the floor. Male voices murmured, echoing a base through the floorboards some order to excavate the rooms of the house.
A flame of a torch flickered past the window of the living room. The noise and movement snapped the colonel out of his trance. He straightened up and stood, his boots thudding against the floorboards; the clinging of his riding spurs chiming metrically in his cadence to the windows looking out the front of the house.
He stood, his arms behind his back, surveying the state of dead slaves, and the other officers searching the grounds. Soldiers passed down the hall to his right carrying items that looked to have a level of importance to them; paintings, silver candelabras, and cutlery, as well as furniture, alcohol, food and clothing. His face remained blank, and with a slight arch of his eyebrow, he turned away from the movements to his right, cocking his jaw slightly to the left as his gaze flicked from person to person as they moved around outside the window.
The lieutenant then made his way slowly out onto the front porch of the plantation, his helmet in the crook of his arm, having snatched it up off of a small end table, watching a few other men move food and livestock to the front of the house. His expression remained stone cold as he surveyed the scene of the massacre. Men straightened at his presence, yet he would simply nod to them and look away as they continued what they were doing as they awkwardly stammered a hasty "Colonel, sir."
He had done his job and the rest of what was to be done was in the hands of his inferiors.
In the blue landscape of the foggy grounds of the plantation, the flashing orange of torches weaved through trees and bushes, in search of hideouts for slaves or other residents of the plantation.
He found his horse, being held by a soldier and placed his helmet onto his head, fastening the strap under his chin. He hoisted his foot up into the stirrup. Letting out a small groan, the Colonel grimaced slightly as if he weren't expecting pain in his stomach, hamstrings and calves. This puzzled him. Before, he could handle anything. A bruise, torn muscles, even a bullet couldn't bring him down. It surprised him to no end that simple muscle pain was enough for him at this moment in time. At that second he realized that he ached. His body, and mainly his head throbbed continuously. Even sitting was difficult for short amounts of time. And riding was sheer agony.
The plantation massacre of two days ago seemed to latch onto his consciousness. The raids had become so much of a routine for him that he lost all excitement for the fights, chases and vigor of the searches. The plundered goods meant nothing to him. All he wanted to do after these attacks was to rest alone. And all of the attention of the women paid to be around the men was of no interest to him.
It was that intensity that entranced him all up until they took over a plantation in a forest, similar to where him and his men were today. It was a family of five and four slaves who were the victims. A mother and father. Three girls and two boys. The father, and the eldest girl put up a fight as well as the two younger boys. Immediately they were shot. The two other girls and the mother ran into the brush. It wasn't long before they were found and the men had their way with them before eventually killing them. The colonel knew that the girls had recognized him, most likely from his reputation as "The Butcher" and his notably horrifying raids. Their screams and wild gazes echoed in his mind. For some obscure reason, he couldn't shake the uneasiness those memories gave him. He would spend moments staring into nothingness, completely oblivious to everything around him. There was something about that particular family that latched onto his consciousness and wouldn't allow be shaken free.
Before, he would analyze people and situations quietly and passively as others did the work for him. He was inherently able to tell if someone was lying to him or worse, committing treason to King and country in the lines of battle without them even a tremble of an eyelash. Now, he didn't even seem conscious to anything going on around him, least of all the intentions of others, which terrified him.
He was only thirty-four. This mental breakdown couldn't be the end of his career as Lieutenant Colonel of the Dragoons. He intended to take over position of General and stay there. Something in his mind was telling him to stop. To stop the massacres of innocent families and the rapes of their lives and homes.
Atop his horse, a velvety black stallion, the Colonel glanced to a few of the soldiers. The saddle in which he sat upon creaked as the horse flinched to the sounds of rifle shots and flashes of torchlight, the Colonel's sore body arching and leaning with the shifts of the horse's body moved and absorbed the scene quietly.
Suddenly, the Colonel felt ill. His stomach was heavy, churning. He breathed in through his nostrils and kept looking to his men, ignoring the rotting sensation in his abdomen, a surge of heat into his upper body made his face damp with an immediate sweat.
Finally, he couldn't stand it. Pungent, stinging bile erupted in his throat and he vomited into the brush, leaning as far away from his horse as he could. One of his men looked on in inept concern as the Colonel tried to maintain his composure after the first heave of sickness into the ground. He hadn't eaten since very early that morning. It had to be at least a few hours in the afternoon.
He took another deep breath and straightened up, running the seam of his leather glove across his lips, and relieved to feel the pain in his stomach subsiding, the fever cooling. His head was what bothered him the most now. It hurt to move his eyes, and the only thing he could really think about was the fact that he wanted a bed to sleep in.
He adjusted in his seat, and looked to the ground, closing his eyes, analyzing the weight of his helmet on his head and how straight his back arched in order to appear upright and in control. Clearing his throat, he turned his horse to face the other men who looked on curiously, and nodded to them, his gaze boring into their skulls, daring them to ever mention what they had just witnessed to anyone else.
This all bothered him, and as the evening settled a chilled, smoky landscape, his dragoons packed up their newfound belongings and searched for camp. The strikingly white plantation now settled into the ground, black and charred, glimmering with embers scattered about. Into the mist, the smoky structure disappeared into the landscape.