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September 27, 1871 The dining car swayed like a slow waltz, brass lamps throwing soft halos across polished silver and the dark glass of...

September 26, 1871 We’re close now—I can feel it. The line between sleep and waking grows thinner each night. I keep drifting into...

September 25, 1871 We passed through Sullivan under a sky that wept without rain. Just a dull, steady mist that blurred the world into a...

September 24, 1871 The hills grow narrower. The light feels… off. Even the sun, when it appears, has taken on a tarnished hue, like brass...

September 23, 1871 We paused at a rural depot near Bonne Terre just before sunset. No one disembarked but me. I told Ma I needed air. The...

September 23, 1871 The train cuts through Missouri like a blade, and still the landscape refuses to bleed. The trees stand too still. The...

Journal Entry – September 21, 1871 The air hangs thick with the scent of wagon grease, smears of black oil mingling with the earthy aroma...

Journal Entry – September 20, 1871 I have not thought of that night in years—the night I stood at the edge of the black wood, invited...

Journal Entry – September 18, 1871 The evening draped Louisville in a hush of gray and violet, the kind of light that makes every alley...

Journal Entry – September 17, 1871 The dawn breaks sullen and gray, as though the heavens have grown weary of their own watchfulness....

Journal Entry – September 16, 1871 The morning sky is a pale sheet of pewter, a dull hush settling over the town like the final note of a...

Journal Entry – September 15th, 1871 The scent of iron shavings lingers in the damp spring air, a stark reminder of the labor that fuels...

September 14th 1871 Journal Entry – October 1, 1871 Somewhere West of Louisville I dreamed of the pit again. Not the one behind the...

Journal Entry – September 11, 1871 Today, the streets of Louisville are alive with an odd mixture of scents: the tangy essence of...

Journal Entry – September 10, 1871 April 10, 1871 Today, the streets of Louisville seemed slick as the sky threatened to burst. Wagon...

October Approaches There’s a shift in the air tonight. You can taste it if you’re quiet long enough. The warmth is leaving the soil. The...

Journal Entry – April 9, 1871 **April 9, 1871** Today, the scent of iron shavings hung thick in the air, a pungent reminder of the...

Journal Entry – April 8, 1871 **Cincinnati, April 8, 1871** The wet hemp rope stings my palms as I thread it through the platforms of...

Journal Entry – April 7, 1871 April 7, 1871 The lantern glass rattles in the wind, an eerie echo of the solitude that cloaks this city...

Journal Entry – April 3, 1871 As dawn broke over the city, the river was cloaked in a thick fog, swirling around the towering steeples...