This story never quite worked for me, no matter how many rewrites I attempted, but I like it anyway.

Once More to See the Stars

When Baker returned from what they were still calling the Great War he expected to see his fiancée on the docks. He scanned the colorful multitudes that had greeted their ship, fully prepared to see her slim figure among the smiling, handkerchief waving women and their riotous children. Baker was more than ready for the quiet balm of her presence after so many violent years spent writing to it in whistling, shell-blasted trenches, and he smiled to hear his name called at last. He stepped onto the dock and spotted his future father-in-law, waving him down with his cane. Edward looked paler than Baker remembered, haggard and strange in the middle of so many cheerful reunions.

“Hello!” Baker shouted, “There’s a familiar rascal!”

“Welcome home, son,” Edward said, “but I am afraid I have terrible news.”

Baker’s head swiveled around, his eyes impatiently taking in the laughing crowd. “Where is she? Where is my little fox hiding?”

Edward’s eyes squeezed shut as he leaned onto his cane.

“She’s gone, Baker.”

“Gone?” Baker frowned, looking back at his future father-in-law. “Buy I just received a letter from her last week. She said she was going to meet my boat.”

Edward said, opening his pale, teary eyes. “You don’t understand, son. It was a fever. It ate her up in less than two days.”

A soldier and his girl, oblivious to everyone else, bumped into Baker as they passed. Something deep in Baker’s skull made a cracking sound, and he started walking. He walked past Edward, down the dock, through the city, and on into the countryside. He walked day and night, and didn’t stop until he found a mining operation that would have him, that gave him a sturdy pickax and did not ask stupid questions.
*
Ten years later Baker climbed out of his hole. Beyond the darkness it was night, and there were stars everywhere. Baker couldn’t tell if the stars were twinkling, or if it was his eyes, blurring with soot and weariness. His back burned yet his legs felt good, fully stretched as he walked back to camp to collect his final paycheck and get his thinngs.
A village of tents sprouted up around Baker. Their canvas flaps rustled in a breeze that possibly came from inside the tents themselves, from the men lying in cots there who emitted the deep, subterranean snores of the exhausted. Beyond the tents crackled a bonfire where a wiry old man was sitting by himself and smoking a cigar. Baker went over and sat beside him.

“Evening, Boss.”

“Evening,” the old man replied, not looking away from the red fire. “Still bent on leaving, I suppose?”

Baker nodded. “Yes, sir. I suppose so. ”

The fire flared up as the night breeze swept across it, sending sparks floating off into the darkness. An owl hooted at the edge of camp, and then hooted again. One of the men mumbled sleep talk from the tents as Boss took his cigar out of his mouth and considered its smoldering end.

“There’s a Depression on,” the old man said quietly, almost to himself. “It’ll be mighty hard to find work, even for a man who’s still young.”

Baker folded his thick forearms across his chest.

“I’ll be all right, sir. Don’t worry about me.”

They shook hands. Baker picked up his pack in his tent before stopping at the camp’s bathroom, where he scrubbed clean and dressed in his town clothes. He continued beyond camp to the train tracks and set his pack down to wait. He whistled to scare off any animals that happened to smell the sandwiches in his pack, and when a freighter came by, as they did every hour outside camp, Baker dove into an empty boxcar with practiced ease. The train rolled on and Baker watched the stars stream across the boxcar’s doorway, drinking whiskey from his old steel flask and wondering if there really was a heaven. The glowing, diamond-like stars seemed pretty enough to contain a paradise of sorts, but it probably didn’t have people in white robes and haloes, singing along in one huge choir (which was all right. Baker wasn’t much for singing.)

The sun came up as Baker fell deep asleep, his face shielded by his denim coat. The boxcar was not needed, so nobody bothered Baker throughout the sleepy summer day. He woke only when it grew dark again and the wind began to smell like saltwater, content as he ate his last sandwich and watched a warm glow appear on the horizon. The harbor city was even bigger than he remembered, its electric lights astounding after so much darkness. Baker jumped from the train as it slowed and walked until he found a recognizable part of town. From there he headed uphill, toward the city cemetery.

The cemetery’s iron gates were open. Baker went inside, his work boots clomping softly. He found her gravestone covered in a thick fur of moss, which he wiped off with his dirty handkerchief, carefully digging out each carved letter of her name. Baker felt only a little sad as he stood back to take in the starry sky, and for this his heart swelled with gladness.