Three of the masked intruders had evaded Lou's aim and disappeared back into lives of anonymity in Kansas, but the two dead Jayhawkers had to be accounted for with the law. As if the hoods over their heads, the charred south wall of the barn and a goose egg sized knot on Buck's forehead weren't enough to prove who had been the aggressor, only after an hour's interrogation and a tight rein on her temper was Lou able to convince the sheriff that the killings had been in self-defense. One bright spot, if there was one to be found, was that Wes Stauffer's cousin had lived to hate another day. When the masks were removed, Buck drew a relieved breath and offered up a quick prayer of thanks that their faces were unknown. Even though it was clear that he and Lou were the ones who had been wronged, he hated to think how the town would have reacted had she killed the kin of a much sympathized with local family. Rock Creek was a fickle town. The two dead Jayhawkers looked to still be in their teens, impressionable youth seduced by promises of a glorious holy war. Looking at their pale, lifeless faces it seemed almost impossible that an infatuation with such violence could lure those so young. But then Jesse was young, too, and he seemed to have chosen a similar path.

The barn wall and the section of roof that had been burned could be repaired, but at a cost that would set them back a pretty penny. Not only had the price of lumber increased, but Buck had to reluctantly admit that he couldn't make the necessary repairs by himself. It was a big undertaking and carpentry wasn't exactly his strong suit anyway. Gone were the days when their family was big enough to take on most any task that presented itself. Part of the work would have to be hired out and the cost of labor wouldn't be cheap.

The trail of several dozen horses had been easy enough to follow, though it had taken a few days before he felt up to tracking them. And in those several days, they had made their way back to Oglala land and Chief Ten Killer's village. Buck wasn't surprised that the lead mare had chosen that direction. She was a Sioux pony and knew her way home. After a time he didn't even need to follow the tracks, so sure he was of the herd's destination. Better yet was the sight of the sorrel stallion grazing alongside the mares in the grassland just beyond the Oglala village. Buck dared to think that perhaps their luck was on the rebound. After the past several days they could use it.

Buck rode into the Oglala village, hopeful that the aged and honorable chief would understand his plight. But the old man had taken to his sleeping robes a few weeks before and a new generation was vying for a foothold on leadership. A generation less concerned with honor and more interested in profit. It seemed the braves of Ten Killer's village had acquired a liking for the white man's dollar. Or perhaps more accurately, they had acquired a liking for the taste of what the white man's dollar could buy.

Buck pointed out the clearly visible McCloud brand, but possession was a greater proof of ownership to the new Oglala horse traders than some white man's symbol burned into an animal's rump. For a price, though, they were more than willing to part with the animals. Reluctantly, Buck realized he didn't have many choices and arguing over the horses' rightful ownership only served to increase the price the Oglala demanded for them. Herds of wild horses roamed the plains free for the taking, but one man didn't stand much of a chance in bringing in the number of animals they needed - not to mention that he had already spent countless hours working with these horses. To start over just wasn't a viable option. He left Ten Killer's village, dejected and empty handed, agreeing to return with an absurd amount of money, withdrawn from an already depleted bank account, to buy back what they already owned. So much for luck. He had expected better of these people, but then he had seen what a dollar could do to white men. Perhaps it was naïve to think Indians were immune to greed.

Buck had discovered the ridge - a rocky parapet of flint crowning the broad prairie below - on one of his earlier trips to trade with Ten Killer. You could see for miles in any direction from atop the ridge. An unobstructed view of everything that made this land unique. Everything that made it wild. Everything that gave him back just a little bit of what a confusing world took away. He could let loose of things that weighed on him there, just drift for a while on the rocky outcropping and come away feeling a bit lighter for the meditation. That was exactly what Buck intended to do after his visit to Ten Killer's village, but that afternoon he took no pleasure in it. Took no pleasure in it at all.

The view held everything that would have normally lifted his spirits - the sky beyond the ridge washed in a delicate shade of blue and bright with possibility, the swaying carpet beneath grown lush with early summer rain, a hawk gliding overhead regarding him lazily as if staying up there was the easiest thing in the world to do. But what he saw from his lofty vantage point marred the picture and he feared it might never again be the same.

The Homestead Act had been presented as a gift to the good citizens of the Union, an open invitation to claim a piece of the West as their own. The line of westerly bound wagons, inching across the prairie below him, was proof that the government's offer of free land had been readily accepted. The overloaded wagons lumbered slowly, creaking and groaning, their weight marking their passage through the grassland like a scar.

The terms of the Act were simple. A 160-acre tract of land was available to each and every family who ventured west to claim it. Make some improvements, plant a crop and in five years the land was theirs, free and clear. Improve on what was already unblemished? The very idea ate away at Buck a little more every time he thought about it. String a fence, plow the soil to shreds, stay a few years and land that had belonged to the Indians for as long as the sun had risen upon it would be given away.

There was plenty of room. He knew that. But white lawmakers didn't seem to understand the concept of sharing. The world was a changing place and the line of settlers weaving their way west on the plains below him, headed for their promised land, showed that clearly enough. He feared that some morning he might very well wake up and not recognize any of it. Buck felt himself tightening, squeezed from too many sides, the landscape of everything he knew narrowing to a corridor and he wanted nothing but to get back to the one place he still felt safe. The one place that still made any sense at all. He reined his mount away from the rim of the ridge and headed home to Lou.

Part Two Chapter Nineteen

October 1864

What day was it? They had been seamlessly welded together for so long that he no longer knew. Kid scoured his mind for some sense of the calendar, but nothing presented itself. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. What did the words really mean? What purpose did they serve but to measure the span of time between now and some point in the future? The end of the week, the end of the month. But when the end was no where in sight, did it really matter what day it was? Yes it does, he decided. There was too much disorder already. A man should at least know what day of the week it was. He decided it was Tuesday. It felt like it could be Tuesday. Let someone prove him wrong.

Kid rolled from underneath his blanket into the chilled autumn morning, wishing for the thousandth time he hadn't tossed aside his last winter's overcoat. Taken off a dead Union cavalry officer - a major if memory served him - it had been quite a prize. The dark blue wool coat had been the envy of his tentmates. The wool nap was thick and altogether warm, the coat lined in soft flannel. It hadn't taken Kid long to get over his distaste for the color. A little too big on him, it wrapped around him like an extra blanket while he slept. But when warmer temperatures came, the overcoat became too cumbersome a weight to tote around with him. He had tossed it on the side of the road south of Richmond during a particularly muggy day in May. Well, no matter. From the looks of the camp, things were most likely going to heat up in a hurry anyway.

No one was making coffee and that was always a bad sign. Coffee was a morning ritual as intrinsic to camp life as the issue of ammunition. To bypass it could only mean one thing and he wondered which he would be today. The killer or the killed.

Kid stood in the pale silence of early morning. To the east, just above a huddling line of cedars, the sun was beginning to dribble, thin and watery, into the sky. No doubt it would collect itself at some point and begin its journey with a little more earnestness. Would this be the last morning he would see? The very thought of pending mortality turned every mundane action into something solemn. Would this be the last button he would fasten? The last buckle he would clasp?

To his back lay a treeless plain, a mile or so across, and at the end of the field a grove of what, by their yellowing color, he thought to be sycamores. Even in the still of morning, the air carried the scent of the color brown, cool and dry and hazy with dust. The honking of a flock of wild geese rose behind him, mournful and melancholy, and he assumed there must be water nearby since the birds followed the patchwork of waterways on their autumnal trek. Or perhaps they were as lost as he was, the lay of the land forever blown apart, all recollection of what had once been irretrievably changed.

And somewhere close, too close for his liking, the enemy lay wrapped in the cloak of morning. Perhaps behind the grove of sycamores or bedded down beneath the line of knotted cedars. Or lying hidden and waiting in the dried broomsedge cover. He wondered about them, wondered if they woke to the same thoughts that he did. After all they were just men. Men of a vastly differing philosophy to be sure, but still only men - each traveling on his appointed path toward a predestined stranger, closing in on the ordained moment when one of them would alter the other's course in life. Was his counterpart in Fate waiting for him today? And what of this enemy who might take life from him this October morning? This man who, though completely unknown, would be as intimately linked with him as the mother who gave life to him. At another time might they sit together and converse in pleasant dialogue as decent men do?

Behind him the remnants of the regimental band - consisting now as only a fife player and two cornetists - was tuning up, but God only knew why. Four of the missing musicians had died from one illness or another over the last winter and at least two had turned tail and ran for the hills. He hoped they had been caught by the Provost and properly punished for their desertion. As if a musician had anything to run from.

Once he had enjoyed the full, brassy sound of a marching band and stepped out lively, arms swinging in an unconscious rhythm, to the strains of Dixie or The Bonnie Blue Flag. The instruments hopelessly out of tune now, the feeble, tinny sound grated on him. The incessant tweedling flitted across the morning like the high-pitched chatter of small birds. Kid laughed out loud, though he didn't intend to, at the very idea that such a sound could spur men into action, could fill their hearts with the glory of hearth and home. Would they please just shut up?

He tried to set his mind on something, anything else, but the plane of his thoughts was too wide yet. If they would only get started, it wouldn't be so bad. When the order to move was given and he stepped out with purpose, the closing up of his thoughts could begin. He would move through the house of himself, shuttering the windows, drawing the blinds, draping the furniture, until no part of what he knew of himself remained. He could leave it then and wait somewhere huddled outside, but always with the door slightly ajar so he could get back in when it was all over and safe to be himself again. That was important. He had seen those who had forgotten to leave the door open. Those who wandered, hollow-eyed and lost after a battle, locked out with no place to return to.

Only later, after the shutters were opened and the furniture uncovered and made ready for use again, did his mind acknowledge what he had done. Later when they went wandering by moonlight across a blood spongy field, calling the names of men who would never answer. The smoke cleared, the lamps were lit once more. Consciousness flared, dim at first then bursting into flame, lighting the dark recesses of his mind and he would realize he had lived yet again and at times, wading through the carnage, he had to wonder why.

There was always talk of God after a battle and he wondered what the Lord thought about it all. With the brush of his hand he could clean the mess away. Clean away the litter of broken things. Broken ammunition boxes, splintered artillery limbers, crushed spectacles, pocket watches frozen at some horrific moment in time. Broken lives. God could clean away the pools of blood and mangled bodies if he had a mind to, but come morning it was all still there. And God would see to it that the dawn would break brighter than usual as if to say to those still standing "Look! Take a good look! See what you've done!"

And which of these men coming to life around him were rising to their final morning? Men on the front line who would dissolve in a red mist before his eyes. He'd seen it happen. Seen men simply disappear. Men who had names and birth dates. Men who carried the scented letters of wives or sweethearts in their breast pockets. Men who had fields to plow and children to raise. Men whose unclaimed remains would be cast into a grave of the unknown and could only pray that when the pieces of who they had been were presented at the gates of Heaven, God would put them back together and remember who they were.

He wondered if the Departed were observers in this hideous game. Were they lining up on whichever side of eternity they were deserving of to observe the goings on? Did they cheer their boys on with a ghostly hurrah or where they too repulsed to even watch?

The metallic clatter of bridle and bit floated toward him and Kid knew the Cavalry had joined them. He hated that. Not the Cavalrymen themselves, though like all foot soldiers, he had a fairly low opinion of any other form of soldier. It was having horses there at all that bothered him. War horses came in as many personalities as their human counterparts did. Some stood their ground, daring the enemy's advance, deaf and blind to the chaos churning around them. Others bolted into the charge, nostrils blowing, blood pumping in a roaring thunder through their veins. But then there were others that danced skittishly through battle, wild-eyed and wary even in the silent aftermath as if no one had told them it was over. And he had seen them die terrible anguished deaths that no beast should have to suffer through. He had seen their delicately boned legs hacked off at the fetlock and tossed into a supply wagon when there wasn't ample time to remove their metal shoes on the battlefield. He almost felt worse for the animals that were going to die today than the men falling into line beside him. At least a man had a measure of choice in the matter.

He did have a choice and the realization numbed every other thought for a moment. It would be easy to hide away until whatever was going to happen was finished. Just find some little place, a ditch to ball up in, a hole to slink into, or maybe find a rock to pull over himself until the madness was over. He would know the stories to tell, could imitate the glazed over expression of one who had seen too much. He could just wander away for a while and wondered for a moment why he didn't. And then through the mist of wondering the answer came like a tickling in his brain and he knew why.

Ah yes . . . I remember now. It is my duty.

Part Two Chapter Twenty

St. Joseph, Missouri November 1864

As the last bastion of civilization before the open territories to the west, St. Joseph had swollen in both prosperity and size. The westward migration and arrival of the railroad had seen to that. The telegraph office - the thoroughly modern invention that had brought death to the Pony Express - sat across the street from the former offices of Russell, Majors and Waddell. A sporadic chorus of news hummed across the wire keys bringing the war to the far reaches of the map. Lou favored the café down the block from the telegraph office and frequented the restaurant whenever in the city. The café turned a fine business, as did most local establishments. It seemed the Pony Express was St. Joseph's only failing enterprise. The café bustled with lunch hour activity - the clatter of dishes, the scraping of chair legs against the wooden floor as clientele came and went, the steady drone of conversation.

Lou pushed her plate aside and leaned across the table, twisting her head to better see the column of numbers scrawled across the backside of the auction house bill of sale. "Did you remember the last order from the feed store?" she asked.

Buck nodded. "I got it," he answered and pointed with the tip of his pencil to the last figure in the column. "Right here."

Lou strained a little further. "And the final bill from the lumber mill?"

"Got it, too."

"So . . . " Lou prompted. "Is it enough?"

The tip of the pencil tapped on each figure as Buck added through the column of numbers. He held his free hand up to ward off Lou's impatience; his attention focused on the list of liabilities spread across the tabletop in front of him. When the figures were added through twice, he compared the amount owed to the proceeds of the dozen horses brought to auction printed on the front side of the sale bill. Buck settled back into his chair and set the pencil aside. "It's plenty. Almost a hundred dollars to spare unless we forgot somethin'."

Buck passed the list of the ranch's debts to Lou. Her eyes flitted rapidly up and down the column of numbers. "Best I can recall," she said and drew a relieved breath. "I'll go to the bank first thing when we get home. I don't want to be even a minute late on that loan payment."

"It's not due 'til next week, Lou."

"I know," she answered. "But I just want to get it paid so we don't have to worry about it any longer."

"We were lucky," Buck said. "Horses sold at auction usually don't bring as much as those sold outright."

"Luck didn't have anything to do with it," Lou replied and loosened the drawstring on her purse. She folded the bill of sale neatly in half and tucked the document into the bag. "People will pay for quality. You did a fine job with those horses."

Buck offered a weak smile in acceptance of the compliment. Lou was right. They were animals of quality. He had spent endless hours with those horses - gentling their spirits rather than breaking them, grooming the animals to perfection, his every day concentrated on their care. It was hard enough to part with the stock when he knew who their new owners would be. Horses sold at auction could end up anywhere. Perhaps purchased as a mount for a wagon train guide, scouting the way for more settlers to pour across the plains. Or maybe charging into battle as a cavalry horse. He couldn't even be sure of which cavalry since Missouri's loyalties were still divided between North and South. None of the prospects pleased him, but with expenditures running high, the tight rein on his principles had to be loosened a bit. He preferred not to think about it if he didn't have to. Instead he changed the topic.

"We've got a little time before we need to head back. You said you needed to do some shopping?"

Lou nodded. "Yes, Rachel asked me to pick up a few things for her. I've got a list here somewhere," she said and began sorting through the contents of the bag on her lap.

"You could get somethin' for yourself, too, you know. Rock Creek don't have anything to compare to these stores. There's plenty of money, Lou," Buck assured when she didn't answer. "It's been a rough year, you deserve to treat yourself with somethin' nice."

Lou gnawed on her bottom lip for a moment. "There are some nice stores. It might be fun just to look." She arched her eyebrows teasingly and tilted her head a notch. "You wanna come with me?"

"Oh, no," Buck said and held up his hands in defense of such a torturous proposition. "I think I'll pass, thank you."

Lou's tone sobered. She propped her elbows on the tabletop, her chin resting in her hands. "What are you gonna do then? Like you said, it's still early."

Buck leaned back in his chair and clasped his interlaced fingers across his middle, looking more relaxed than he suddenly felt. There was more to Lou's question than a simple query as to how he would pass the next hour.

"I'm gonna sit here and have another cup of coffee. Maybe read the paper."

"And then . . . " Lou persisted.

Buck sighed deeply and turned to watch the passersby outside the café window. The town bustled in the bright autumn afternoon. People passing through, people settling down. People claiming allegiance to the Union, people who swore to the South. People with money to spend, plenty of people to take it. St. Joseph was full of people, but in all its population only one of them mattered to him.

"I haven't decided yet, Lou."

The pull of Lou's steady gaze turned him back toward her. She locked on his eyes and didn't let go. "She'd be hurt if she knew you were in town and didn't even say 'hello'."

"I know," Buck quietly agreed.

Satisfied her point had been made, Lou pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. She draped her cloak over her shoulders and tied a quick bow under her chin. "So . . . I'll meet you at the livery in . . . say an hour?"

Buck watched Lou leave, then reached for the yellow ware cup. The coffee had cooled and he thought to ask the passing waitress to warm it, but a second thought stopped him and he set the cup back on the checkered tablecloth. He ran his finger around the rim of the cup, then across the molded floral pattern on the side. What was he so nervous about? Of course she would be hurt if he didn't stop by. She was a friend. Just an old friend. The last person in the world he would ever want to hurt. Buck grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and paid the lunch bill before he could change his mind.

The bell overhead jingled as the door closed behind him. Buck stepped off the boardwalk, into the dusty street and headed toward the southerly edge of the business district. She had sent the address along with an open invitation to visit several years earlier and though he had been within easy distance of St. Jo a time or two since, he never sought her out. Without Lou's persistence, he probably wouldn't have this trip either. It was just easier that way.

The chilled autumn air and the scent of seasons changing wrapped around him - the dry scent of hackberry, locust and maple. Their summer attire dropped at their feet, their limbs were naked now. The smell of brown grasses and wood smoke rode on the breeze. There had always been something about this time of year that bothered him. The warm days of growth past, the colors dry and fading - it felt somehow like time was running out. If there was something left undone, it had best be finished in a hurry before winter winds turned the world pale and lifeless and what should have been was nothing more than an empty space in the past.

Buck jammed his fists into his coat pockets as he walked, thinking back to the day he began to let go of her - although it would never be done altogether. Too much had passed between them for that. And not merely a debt, though he had battled darkness to set things right. He would have done anything for her. Still would. But in the end he had wished them well and stepped aside. What else could he do watching her reach out for the arms of the man she would marry?

Buck crossed the street and stepped onto the boardwalk, then stopped for a moment to collect himself a few doors away from the assayers office. He smoothed back his hair, checked that his shirt was tucked neatly under the waistband of his trousers and straightened the collar of his coat - though he didn't know why. It didn't matter what he looked like.

He was gathering his resolve when the door to the assay office swung open and the sounds of an argument burst onto the boardwalk. He didn't intend to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to. Buck turned his back to the young couple and their quarrel, occupying himself half-heartedly with the prices of a bath, shave and haircut posted in the barber shop window. He turned to lean back against the window frame, hazarding a glance in the direction of the couple before fixing his eyes on a knot in the wooden plank beneath his feet. The three years since he had last seen her had added a maturity to her beauty and he could only hope those years had been half as kind to him. Her raven colored hair tumbled down her back in loose waves, a bit longer than he remembered. The intensity of the argument brought a pink flush to her cheeks that accentuated the porcelain perfection. Even in a heated stance, her arms crossed stubbornly across her chest, she was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman he had ever known. Barlow's Camille. His Little Bird.

His attention so completely fixed on Camille, he had to take a second look before realizing why the image of Bill Barlow seemed incomplete. His arms were moving animatedly with the quarrel, or rather, his arm was moving. A pinned up sleeve hung where his left arm should have been. He seemed thinner than Buck remembered. Weathered and older than a mere three years.

Buck heard her say that she was going to be late, then silence and a moment later the sound of Barlow's office door slamming closed. His head snapped toward the sound. She was alone now, but still full of fire. He could see it in the set of her jaw, in the quick, jerked way she wrapped her arms in her cloak. She turned and headed down the boardwalk toward him, her head bowed as if she was walking into a stiff wind, her eyes glued on her path.

"Camille," Buck said and reached out for her arm as she stomped by. He could feel her arm flinch as he touched her and she instinctively pulled away. The fire in her eyes flashed, then quickly dimmed as she realized who her would-be assailant was.

"Buck?" She brought a hand to her chest as if to calm her heart. "You gave me a start."

"I'm sorry," Buck answered. "I didn't mean to scare you. You looked . . . you looked like your mind was on somethin' else."

The flush on Camille's cheeks turned a deeper shade, realizing he had overheard their argument. "Yes, I suppose it was." A smile crept over her face as she regarded her oldest friend. She narrowed her eyes and propped her hands on her hips in mock disapproval. "How long have you been in town and why didn't you let me know you were coming?"

The change in her demeanor was dramatic - the fiery embers of her eyes softened to the rich warm glow he remembered so well, her stance familiar and feminine. It pleased Buck to think that he had something to do with the transformation. "We just got here last night . . . me and Lou. We brought some horses to auction. I've been helpin' her out with their ranch since Kid left for the war," he explained. He let her second question go unanswered. He was still trying to figure out the answer to that one himself. "I heard you say somethin' about being late. Do you need to go somewhere? I could walk you and we could talk on the way."

Camille sighed. "To work. Though I'm not really late. I just needed to get away so I made an excuse," she said a bit guiltily, then began to explain. "I took a job at the mercantile and Bill's upset with me. He doesn't think I should work, but we need . . . " She sighed again, her shoulders sagging as if the weight of her words was heavy. "Bill's had a hard time since losing his arm. He's been home about three months now. He was in the artillery. A canister shell backfired. He's lucky he only lost an arm, though I can't make him see that. I can't make him see much of anything." She was quiet for a moment. "A walk would be very nice. We have some catching up to do."

She didn't offer which side Barlow had fought for and Buck didn't ask. He didn't care. All he cared about was the sadness that had come into her voice. He reached out for her hand and slipped it into his, squeezing gently before letting go. The smoothness of her hand felt good wrapped in his - right where it belonged - and just for a moment, he had to remind himself that her hand wore a wedding band.

************

Lou slipped the small parcel of embroidered handkerchiefs into her bag along with a bottle of lilac water. Rachel would be pleased with them. Thompkins would have charged half again as much for merchandise a fraction of the quality. She closed the door behind her and stepped onto the boardwalk. A gentleman in a finely tailored suit tipped his hat as he passed by and she nodded politely in acceptance of the compliment.

The November chill brushed her cheeks with a rosy blush while she took in the row of shops at her disposal. She turned in the direction of a dress shop in the next block that had caught her eye the evening before. It wasn't so much the shop itself - the storefronts were all similar and equally enticing - but rather the name that had captured her interest. Emma's. Though the dress shop had no connection to Emma Cain, the mere mention of the name sent a current of warm memories flowing through her. She thought back to the "coming out" party Emma had given her after finding the one and only dress she owned hidden under her bunk. It was only Emma's front room and Sweetwater was far from high society, but walking down the steps at a debutante ball couldn't have been any more thrilling. She had felt truly special for the first time in her life. The looks on the boys' faces, seeing her as a young woman and not just a fellow Pony Express rider, was a treasure she would keep safe always. She had never felt pretty before, never been admired - only used. It had taken time and the guidance of two very dear friends to teach her that it wasn't shameful to be a woman. That there was nothing wrong in being pretty and certainly nothing wrong in the innocent thrill of turning a man's head.

Everything about the shop had a decidedly feminine touch - floral wallpaper and soft colors and perfume. It had been a long time since she had bought something for herself. It wouldn't hurt to just look around a bit. Her eyes roamed the shelves taking in row upon row of lacey undergarments. They were certainly nothing that she needed and not exactly suited to operating a horse ranch, but it was fun to imagine how it would feel to wear such finery. Maybe some day.

Lou crossed to the opposite side of the room and noticed an older woman, Emma evidently, trying to convince a rather amply sized customer that it really wouldn't be such a bad thing to try the next larger size. Lou ducked her head to hide her amusement and began browsing though the dresses on display. The latest fashions, straight from Godey's Ladies Book - or more likely copied from Godey's Ladies Book - lined up for her inspection in a parade of headless dress forms. An afternoon dress of green merino with pagoda sleeves and a fluted trimming of darker green at the hem caught her eye. She reached out for the matching sash and rubbed the fabric between her fingers. The wool was soft and warm and very touchable. Visions of herself in green merino, arm in arm with her husband, strolling along St. Joseph's boardwalk on a wintry Sunday afternoon played across her imagination. Perhaps they would see a play or be pampered at one of those restaurants that offered too many courses to count. Or maybe just curl up by a fire and watch the snow fall. But newspaper reports had once again reminded that war wasn't decided in the winter. Kid wouldn't be home any time soon and she had no need for a green merino afternoon dress.

Lou turned to the next sample in the display. It seemed so out of place compared to the others. So dark and somber. Her breath caught in her throat realizing the purpose of the black crepe. Lou felt herself drawn by some dreadful fascination and reached out to touch the fabric. The crepe was cold and stiff and she wondered how it would feel to wear such a terrible thing. Would it turn the wearer cold and stiff, too? There was nothing stylish or pretty or feminine about it. Just black. Cold and black. Lou felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped at the touch.

"I don't believe I carry that one in your size, dear," the shop owner said. "But I'm certain we can find something to fit your needs."

Lou pulled her hand away from the mourning dress as if it was something that might hurt her. "Such a shame," the woman continued and raised her hand to adjust the dress's stiffly starched collar. "A pretty thing like you should be looking for party dresses."

"Do you sell many of these?" Lou asked.

The woman nodded. "Too many. The brides I dressed in white satin only a few years ago I now dress in black crepe. That's what this war has brought us. So many young widows. So much mourning. It's such an awful, awful thing."

"Widow." Lou's vision of herself wrapped in yards of soft green merino wool changed to the harshness of cold dark crepe. She pressed her eyes closed, but the image of herself cloistered in a veil of mourning, growing into an old woman before she had the chance to savor the sweetness of being a young one wouldn't fade.

"Now let me show you the other- "

"No," Lou interrupted, then remembered herself. "No, thank you. I'd like to look at something more colorful. Something like this," she said, turning back to the green afternoon dress. Something alive, she thought. Something pretty, something young. "I don't want to wear black."

Part Two Chapter Twenty-one

Few spoke of glory anymore and those who did had the good sense to do so with sarcasm. Even the taste of victory had lost its sweetness, knowing that for every dead Yankee today, there would be two more coming to take his place tomorrow. After all this time, after all this war, how could there still be so many of them left? It seemed almost as if the enemy was mass produced by some New England factory. A new shipment delivered on demand.

A ribbon of silence worked its way across the pasture, weaving around the toppled fence rails littered like match sticks, through the frost nipped brome grasses where cattle had once drowsily grazed. Churned dust and debris hung in the air and the late day sun sifted through it in a queer half light. The shafts of light lay angled and still on the splintered roof of a farmhouse, its rafters white and fractured against the mangled shingles like broken bones in an open wound. It had once been home to some family, some time, before this madness came to pay a call. Across the pasture where boys had tumbled in play and little girls in pink gingham and streaming hair ribbons had chased after monarch butterflies, knots of ragged men now moved methodically from body to body. A legion of pickpockets.

Kid rifled through the dead soldier's haversack, searching for something, anything that would make the day's fighting worthwhile. It certainly wasn't the piece of ground they had defended. Scouts had already reported columns of blue coated infantry advancing from the east. Land barely held one day would be given away the next and they all knew it. Best to take what you can while you can. It was tough to scavenge on the run. The dead Yankee's haversack yielded two cans of sardines, a good sized chunk of salt pork and a few pieces of hardtack. Kid quickly shoved a piece of hardtack into his mouth and stuffed the remaining rations into his trouser pockets. He nodded to the dead soldier in appreciation. It was unusual to find much on a Yank anymore. Unlike the early days when the Yankees toted around a full week of rations, they now only carried enough for a day or two. Seems the Union had finally realized that their dead boys were feeding the enemy. Kid stripped the cartridge box from the belt around the corpse's waist. He had thoughts of taking the rifle, too, but decided against it in favor of keeping his own. There was a strange connection between a soldier and his gun. His Enfield was every bit as worn out as he was, but it was comfortable and familiar. It lay against his shoulder as if the two were made for each other and to give it up now would just be wrong. Kid knelt beside the fallen soldier and sifted through his trouser pockets. He found nothing more than a crumpled bit of blood spotted paper and on it a hastily scrawled identification - Corporal Eldon Crenshaw, 27th New Hampshire Volunteers, Concord New Hampshire. Kid shook his head in dark humor. Yet another one stamped out by that New England factory.

Kid was measuring the size of the paper thin sole of his own shoe against the pair the departed Corporal Crenshaw wore when he caught sight of Murphy approaching from the direction of the southerner's line. A blood spotted bandage wrapped around Murphy's upper arm brought Kid to his feet, but the older man waved off his concern.

"It ain't nothin'," Murphy said. "Grab what you can, and let's get out of here. All the high and mighties are scurryin' 'round back at camp so I 'spect those Yanks are closin' faster'n they expected. We'll likely fall back to that ridge over yonder and-" Murphy stopped mid-thought and looked around expectantly. "Where is the boy?"

"Ain't Billy with you?" Kid asked.

Murphy shook his head, scanning the figures roaming the pasture. "When I went to get patched up I told him to come find you out here. That coat of his won't do for winter and we was thinkin' some generous Yank might be willin' to give his up. I told him to come find you," he repeated.

"I ain't seen him. Likely he found one on his own," Kid reasoned. "He's probably back at camp waitin' on us."

"I reckon," Murphy said, though he didn't sound terribly convinced. "I told him not to go wanderin' off."

The 43rd was a craft of confusion with General Claridge at the helm when Kid and Murphy returned to camp. There was talk among the enlisted men that orders had been received to fall back behind the piney ridge to the west and await reinforcements from the rear. But the General had lost the top button on his frock coat and refused to act upon the directive until he could present himself in proper dress attire. Just to whom he was to present himself, no one was exactly sure. Yet the commander stood there, poised on an upturned wooden box, bellowing out orders to a dazed ensemble of lesser officers. 'Peculiar' no longer seemed a strong enough word to describe the General. The site of the General's staff on hands and knees, scouring their commander's quarters for a wayward brass button was almost comical in its absurdity. Had Kid remembered how, he might have laughed. Then again, there was nothing funny about what war could do to a man's mind.

"Where the hell has he gotten off to?" Murphy growled as the two men crisscrossed the pasture, having found neither the missing button, nor Billy, in camp. "That boy's gonna have some explainin' to do when I find him."

"Murph," Kid said and reached for the older man's arm. "Billy's growin' up. He ain't a little kid anymore. You need to stop treatin' him like one."

Murphy crossed his arms over his chest and paced a few steps through the dried brome, then turned about and paced a bit more. The sudden image of Teaspoon wearing a path in the bunkhouse porch, checking his watch, waiting for an errant rider flashed through Kid's memory.

"He ain't but a boy and he needs lookin' after," Murphy insisted and Kid offered no further argument, somehow knowing it would have no more affect on his tentmate than trying to convince Teaspoon that there was no need to refer to a grown man as 'son'.

Every field had its own secret places and coming upon one of them always gave the intruder a bit of a start. Bodies not totally convinced they had given up the ghost seemed to be watching, their hollow eyes regarding the living with resentment. Perhaps they were weighing the qualities of the live men against themselves, wondering why they had come up short. The air in such a place was always stale as if it was afraid to take a breath for fear of breaking some bubble of time. The departed were free of all earthly limitations, yet seemed fearful to take that next step, preferring to stay in the suspended moment that hovered between this world and the next. Or perhaps, Kid thought, they just don't know where to go.

A congregation of dead men huddled around the well at the farmhouse. They must have been drawing water when the shell exploded and there they lay, strewn across some woman's front yard - some intact, some in pieces, all seemingly astonished that death would be so persistent as to search out a man while he stopped for a drink of water. Kid stopped inside the fence that encircled the blackened remains of the farmhouse, content to let the dead have the place, and was turning to leave when his eye caught a flicker of movement across the overgrown yard. It was slight, but somehow familiar in the withering sunlight. "Murph," he said in a coarse whisper. "I don't think we need to look no more."

The two men stumbled across the littered yard, past the mocking faces of the dead and knelt beside the boy where he rested against the gnarled trunk of a sweet gum tree. The broad star-shaped leaves dropped around the tree's base made a crude bed and he looked somehow satisfied lying there, a dark blue overcoat and his rifle at his side.

"Aw, Billy," Kid muttered and brushed the back of his hand across the boy's face.

Billy blinked and looked from one hovering face to the next. "Hey, Murphy," he whispered and weakly pawed at the older man's coat. "Hey, Kid."

The boy coughed, spitting up blood, but he didn't seem to notice. A weak smile spread across his face. "I got me one," he said proudly. At first Kid thought he was referring to the overcoat lying beside him, then Billy raised a weak hand, motioning to the crumpled blue clad body lying in the dropped leaves no more than ten yards away. Kid laid his hand on the barrel of Billy's nearly new Enfield, the metal still holding the warmth of a recent discharge. "Finally got me one," the boy repeated.

"Yes, you did, Billy boy," Murphy said. He sank to the ground and grabbed hold of the child's bloody hand. "You surely did."

"Murphy," Billy began. He nodded wearily in the direction of the dead men by the well. "Why are them soldiers all standin' 'round over yonder?"

"Hush, boy," Murphy said and wiped a stream of bloody spittle from Billy's chin. "You don't pay them no mind."

Kid turned to the dead men, half expecting a glimpse of some otherworldly visage. Perhaps a huddle of confused souls clinging to each other in the twilight, or dressing on the dark colors for the final march over the borne. He saw nothing though. Nothing but a pile of dead men and the shadowed emptiness that had taken their place.

Billy lowered his eyes to where his hand lay clamped against his belly. He looked upon the stream of blood spilling through his fingers as if he had only just noticed it. "I'm dyin', ain't I?"

Kid waited for Murphy to answer, but the man only gripped the boy's hand tighter and hung his head as if defeated. In the dimming light, Kid could see ribbons of tears flowing down his friend's face, though Murphy made no sound of crying.

"Do you think maybe it's like sleepin'?" Billy asked, his voice little more than a whisper. "Maybe just sleepin' without no bad dreams? That wouldn't be so bad."

Kid turned back to the boy. "That's right, Billy. Just sleepin' without no dreams."

Billy smiled weakly as if consoled. "Would you write that letter for me like we talked about, Kid? R'member?"

Kid nodded and brushed a stray shock of dirty hair from the boy's eyes. "I remember. Miss Marybeth Holm. Copper Hill, Virginia. I'll make it a long one."

They were quiet then, the shadows lengthening in a light not quite there and not quite gone. Kid thought there should be something to mark such moments of waiting. For all death's romanticized musings, for all its lines of dark verse, there should be something more than a simple slippage of time. Perhaps the parting of a curtain or a gilt edged moment to weigh the possibilities a life represented. But in the end there was nothing more than a heart growing still, fluttering to silence like a moth's wings against the fingers of a closed hand. No time to debate or bargain or plead one's case. It had been decided by whoever kept tally of such things and all they could do was let him go.

Murphy looked off into the timber as Kid passed his hand over the boy's face to close the sightless eyes. "Well, damn," the older man muttered. After a moment Murphy turned back and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. He sighed heavily and reached for the dangling shoelaces on Billy's tattered brogan boots. His voice wavered a bit when he spoke again, though it might have been himself he was speaking to. "Never could keep these damn laces tied. No matter how many times I tell him, he won't keep his shoes tied. I told him not to go wanderin' off by hisself." Murphy raised his eyes to Billy's pale face. "Why won't you listen to me, boy?"

Murphy looked at the rifle lying at the dead boy's side, his eyes narrow and glowing like hot coals against his tear stained face. He reached for the gun, then all at once seemed to be someone else entirely. In a matter of seconds he had bolted to his feet and was standing over the dead Yankee, his hands clasped around the barrel of the Enfield, pounding the enemy soldier with the butt end of the rifle.

"Damn you!" he screamed and brought the weapon down on the man's skull as if the gun was an axe and he was merely splitting wood. Bones cracked under the blow, flesh sprang open, eyes jumped from their sockets. Another blow contorted the dead man's stiffening expression into a grisly toothless grin. Incensed by the mockery, Murphy brought the rifle butt down on the corpse again. "Damn you, you bastard! Damn you to Hell! He weren't but a boy!"

"Murphy!" Kid called from Billy's side, but the fevered man ignored or, in his fury, didn't hear the admonishment. Relentless, he raised the club again and again until the Yankee's face was twisted and tortured like clay in the hands of a demon-spirited sculptor.

Kid jumped to his feet, leaving the dead boy lay. "Murphy!" he cried out, grappling for the weapon before Murphy could deliver another blow to the mangled corpse. "That ain't gonna bring him back!"

The older man tossed off Kid's hold, staring venomously at the wreckage of the dead Yankee as if he expected the broken body to rise up and do battle. Murphy's breath came in sucking gasps, ragged and harsh through his mouth, then he seemed to droop suddenly, like a marionette whose strings had been clipped. Murphy looked from the soldier to the rifle in his hands, the wooden stock dripping a bright crimson stream of blood. For a moment Kid questioned the man's intent and laid a wary warning hand on his arm. He squeezed Murphy's wrist as hard as he could, knowing he was hurting the man, needing to make him feel something else. The muscles in his friend's arm tensed and twitched, then quieted to a trembling, the fight in him gone. Murphy released his hold on the weapon and let it drop to the blood spattered pile of leaves. Quiet now, he stood staring blankly at the ground beneath his feet, his hands fluttering slightly as if he wasn't sure what to do with them. He balled his fists and crossed his arms tightly over his chest to control the tremor. A silence fell between the two men as if they were strangers left alone in a room, neither knowing quite what to say. Kid drew a deep breath and let it out very slowly, then fixed his attention on the dry rattle of unshed leaves overhead as if the answer to this madness might be found in the intricate intertwining of branches.

"We'd best get him buried," Kid finally said. "Daylight's fadin'."

They found a shovel in a shed behind the farmhouse and settled on a soft spot in what must have been a garden. A low fence surrounded the plot where a woman had once tilled the earth and coaxed seeds to life. The soil was barren now save for the clusters of wild violets that seemed to flourish with no care and somehow stayed green well beyond a killing frost. Beyond spade level, the soil grew stubborn and a pick axe found in the same shed had to be used to dig the grave to a depth sufficient to keep scavenging creatures away. The sun was a thin ribbon of gold along the horizon when they finished laying Billy to rest. Kid thought to say something fitting of the moment, some piece of scripture to send the boy's soul heavenward, but not even the simplest verse came to mind. Billy had died for a coat. What possible words of comfort could the Good Book provide for that? "I reckon it's done," he said instead.

Kid heard a popping like firecrackers rising up over the ridge to the east. He looked up from the grave, his eyes reddened and bleary. "They's comin'. We'd best be headed back." Kid turned away from the grave and took a step toward the opening in the fence line.

"No."

Murphy's voice was so low, Kid thought he had misunderstood the man.

"No," Murphy repeated, louder. "I ain't goin' back. I've had enough."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Kid said and turned back.

Murphy shook his head and crossed his arms defensively over his chest. "I ain't fightin' no more."

"Murph," Kid began. "You can't just walk away from your duty."

The older man's arms dropped limply to his side, a hopeless gesture. He looked at Kid, so sure in his conviction, then back to Billy's grave. "We've done our duty. Done it and then some. I ain't killin' no more and if you had any sense you'd leave with me."

"I ain't no deserter," Kid argued.

"Go home, Kid."

"People are dependin' on us. We got a job to do and I ain't no quitter. I didn't think you were either."

Murphy shrugged his thin frame. "Don't matter no more. It's lost. Hell, we're all lost. We're just too blind to see it." He moved toward the opening in the fence line, wearily shouldering his way past Kid when he tried to block the exit.

"The patrols will shoot you for desertin'!" Kid called after him.

"They'll have to catch me first."

"I never took you for a coward, Murphy."

"Better a coward than a fool, Kid," Murphy answered without looking back.

"You just run then! You just run!"

Kid reached for his Enfield and shouldered the piece. The familiarity of the old rifle was comforting. Companionable. He turned away and looked off toward the blackened roofline of the farmhouse. It had held a family together once, bound them together in a fragile security. In scattered pieces now, the framework loomed empty in the darkening silence and he wondered what had become of the family who had called it home. What happens to any of them once the binding walls fall away? There should be something more, he thought. He turned back, needing to part on better terms, but his friend was already gone, swallowed by the camouflage of timber.

Kid raised the collar of his thread-bare coat as protection from the coming night chill. He walked off a ways in the direction of the gunfire, then turned back to Billy's grave. There was no marker, only a slight rise of soil that would settle with the coming rains and soon there would be no indication at all that a soldier lay buried beneath. There should be something more, Kid thought, and walked back to the plot. He knelt beside the mound and drew the letters on the freshly turned grave, then left the boy, entrusting the soil to keep his name. But with so many to account for, after a time even the earth would not remember.

Part Two Chapter Twenty-two

January 1865

Lou curled up a bit more wick in the lamp on the bedside table and turned to the window to draw the muslin curtains closed. She shrugged out of her dress and let it fall to the floor, then stepped out of the puddle of calico and hung the dress next to one of Kid's shirts on a peg beside the bedroom door. Blue chambray. She wasn't quite sure why she had hung the shirt there. Perhaps it was the simple thought that when he came home he would surely need a change of clothes. Or maybe she left it hanging there as a reminder that he still belonged in the room. Whatever the reason, she had washed and pressed it with a hint of starch - just the way Kid liked his shirts - and there it had hung for two and a half years, waiting for him to come home. But after such a length of time, the freshness had long faded and the fabric hung limp from the hook, tired of the waiting.

The glass panes in the window rattled and complained like an old woman's brittle bones in the wind - a wet, thick wind that wrapped its mournful whining around the walls of her bedroom like a shroud. The novelty of a long cold night should have worn off ages ago - Lord knew there had been enough of them - but still the nights crawled past her window. Long, slow nights with only the mechanical heartbeat of the clock on the bureau and the echo of her own breathing to enliven the room.

Lou slipped out of her underclothes and reached for the cotton nightgown laid out across her bed. A flicker of lamplight played across her reflection in the mirror over the bureau. The mirror carried a flaw, a wave in the glass that could startle an unaware viewer. Lou was well aware of the imperfection, but coupled with the dancing shadows, the distortion made her look twice and she dropped the gown back on the bed.

War was hard on women. It stooped their postures and grayed their hair. Libby Morrison, mother of three Nebraska volunteers, had turned from raven haired to nearly white headed in a mere three years. It wasn't just hearsay; Lou had watched the change. War showed in their hands, too. Hands withered by fretful wringing or too many hours clasped in desperate prayer. War aged women as nothing else in life could.

And time was a thief. The steady tick of the clock perched on the bureau, collecting unused hours and days and years, was sad reminder of that fact. Each sweep of the hand marked a little more time stolen away. What becomes of the time robbed from a woman while her man is at war? Is it held somewhere in safekeeping or gone forever like the color of an overwrought mother's hair? Lou stared hard into the clock's face as if by will alone she might cause its hands to stop, or vanish, or cease to be the criminals they were. The hands did seem to linger in the moment, but then that too was merely an illusion of shadow and the passage of time continued on its course.

Were the circles under her eyes another illusion of the light or had time painted the shadows there? She peered closer into the glass to make certain. Yes, she decided, it was only the light. Lou drew herself to full stature before the mirror, taking stock of herself. Time was all the more cunning when coupled with war, but what she saw of her naked reflection didn't displease her. She was still a young woman. Her hair showed no sign of aging. It hung loose around her shoulders, burnished to an almost copper in the lamplight. Her neck was long and thin. Her mother had called the trait aristocratic though as a child Lou had no idea what the word meant. Years later she had asked the meaning of one of the nuns at the orphanage and the definition made her feel a bit special in a time when there was nothing at all to feel special about. Her breasts were poised high on her chest, a bit rounder now that they were no longer bound flat in disguise. Her waist was narrow and her stomach still firm. The outline of her hips had softened a bit, no longer as angular as in her Express riding days, and the curves were pleasing to her eye. Yes . . . she was still young. It hadn't been robbed of her yet.

Lou ran her hands up under her hair and piled the mass atop her head. She twisted her neck to view her profile in the mirror. Aristocratic perhaps? Forced to wear it short for so long though, she preferred the feel of her hair on her neck and tilted her head back letting the loose waves fall. Lou closed her eyes, swaying slightly so the hair tickled her shoulder blades. Her fingers traveled along the curve of her neck, lingering over the pulse points in her throat - a steady beat under the skin, as strong as the ticking of the clock. Her hands fluttered lower, through the valley between her breasts. The skin was smooth and firm and tingled under the coolness of her fingertips. She cupped her hands around the soft mounds, touching herself the way Kid touched her and the remembrance caused a stirring that was pleasing and embarrassing at the same time. As if in reprimand, a chill brushed past her and she shuddered, wrapping her arms around her bare skin to ward off the cold.

She quickly reached for her nightclothes and dropped the gown over her head, then pulled back the wedding ring quilt and crawled between the covers. Even under layers of bedclothes, the chill rippled through her again, raising pin pricks of cold on her skin. Why was this room always so cold? The glass window panes were securely glazed and the sash fit snuggly in the opening. Kid had made sure of it before he left. Just like he had replaced a weak board on the front porch and the damaged shingles on the roof and had white washed the fence because she wanted it clean and white and picture perfect. He had patched and repaired and seen to all her visible wants and needs, but still a chill settled in their bedroom every night. Perhaps not all a woman's wants and needs were visible.

Lou turned to her side and ran her hand over the empty space where her husband should be, then as she had done every night for two and a half years, reached for his pillow and wrapped herself around it. She pressed her eyes closed, but there was no calming quiet behind her closed eyelids - only an unwavering darkness, cold and black and she knew sleep would not come easily. She hadn't slept easily for a very long time. Why would tonight be any different? Outside her window the night began its lonesome journey and the clock on the bureau ticked away a little more time she would never get back.

************

The moon had fully risen and stood tall in the southeastern sky. From its placement, Kid made the time to be a little before midnight. The cold sucked at him. The night was brittle as any he had ever felt, the stars overhead shivering along with him. His blanket was pulled tight around his shoulders and draped over his head, but did little to stave off the cold. Huffs of breath lingered like ghostly apparitions in the heavy air before him as if with each exhale a little more of his soul departed. The early days of a snugly stockaded tent and a makeshift fireplace in winter camp seemed a lifetime ago. No chance for such comforts now. No chance this winter. No chance.

The remnants of the 43rd had stumbled around all day in a steady stream of weather that couldn't decide whether it was rain or snow. They had slid in the mud, tripped over old cotton rows, trying for God only knew what reason to keep their alignment while they argued with the enemy over a piece of land so torn to hell it would never have value again. But neither side cast any consideration on that point and they had battled themselves into the ground over the property. The field lay dark as a nightmare, ripped by artillery, littered with bodies and there Kid sat, shivering in a fog so dense and wet it seemed as if the world had turned upon itself and rain rose from the ground.

Kid rubbed his hands together over the meager fire. His fingers were stiff with cold and crusted blood and for a moment he couldn't remember where the red stain came from. His thoughts narrowed and visions of the afternoon came into focus. Yes . . . he remembered now, saw it clearly - the Federal breastworks. The warrior rush, screaming like the devil himself, flirting with death . . . through the ditches, metal scraping metal, stumbling over the spongy, cast aside bodies of those who had danced a moment too long with the dark maiden. The boy in blue had been sixteen, seventeen at best. He was new at this game; freshly cut from his mama's apron strings. You could tell. You could always tell. He was still a little soft from his mama's table, too. The bayonet had slit his belly open with no effort at all. Like a gutted catfish, Kid remembered. The boy's spilling entrails steamed in the freezing air and Kid had half a thought to thrust his hands into the pocket and warm them in the ropy coils of bowels. What would the chubby Yank's mama think about her baby boy's innards, fat from her bread pudding, warming the hands of a skinny, frost bitten rebel? There hadn't been time for that, though. No time for comforts. But the gush of blood had been warm on his hands for a moment or two and he had welcomed it perhaps more than he should have.

Kid looked about the camp, studying tortured faces in the orange light. He had marched into the fire with these men, step for step, and they had risen up in rage as a singular teeth gnashing being. But in the aftermath of a battle, each man belonged only to himself. Each fought his own demons and some would win the struggle and some would not and some would not know they had lost until later. The young ones sat trembling like a new leaf in a strong gust of wind, like he had in his early days, trying to shake away the images that would not turn loose. Some sat in stoney-eyed silence, rocking slowly back and forth, the demons having already dragged them away to that dark unreachable place that no one talked about. Others wandered away from camp, seeking a bit of solitude in hopes a few moments of carnal pleasure could cleanse their souls of the filth festering up inside.

He reached into his coat for his own source of solace, withdrew a metal flask from the inner pocket and took a long swallow. It's the good stuff, Murphy had told him once, but the good stuff had been gone a long while now and been replaced with whatever brew could be traded for or stolen. This latest concoction tasted of wood smoke and burnt corn and was coarse enough in texture to snag a bit in his throat as it went down. Just a bit mind you. Just enough to take the edge off, Murphy had warned. But Murphy was gone now. Maybe gone home to Kentucky, maybe dead and joined up with Billy. Deserters don't take time to pack and Kid had laid claim to the man's belongings. Murphy's flask and the Enfield were his only companions now. Perhaps it was best that way, too. He could count on them. They were agreeable and did as they were asked to do, unquestioning and unfailing and always at the ready.

Kid brought the flask to his lips again and swallowed hard - the liquor warming him from the inside out, washing away the blood on his hands, scrubbing his conscience until it was clean. Once the slate was clear he could think of her. Kid reached into his breast pocket for Lou's photograph. In the darkness he could only fondle the worn frame, but that was all right. He didn't need to see her likeness to know she was still there. Kid closed his eyes and in the warm numbness he could see her face - the perfect bow of her lips and the soft pink color that rose to her cheeks when she smiled at him, the way she leaned into him when his hand cupped her face. He could almost feel the heat that sparked between her lithe little body and his in the dark hours. The thought warmed him even then. Kid wrapped himself a little tighter and tilted his head back. The night lay over him like a velvet comforter and it helped some to know that the same sky blanketed Lou, too . . . miles away where it was safe and warm and home fires were burning.

************

The hour hand on the clock had made one trip around the dial when Lou finally decided sleep wasn't coming. She turned onto her side and stared at the clock face, but it paid her no attention. Perhaps it even mocked her a little. Well, the clock might hold her prisoner, but she would not be a willing captive. Lou swung her legs over the edge of the bed and dropped her feet to the floor, curling her toes against the cold until she found her slippers. She drew the loose folds of her robe around her and tied the sash at her waist. It would be warmer downstairs by the fire. Perhaps sleep would find her there.

Lou crept along the darkened hallway toward the staircase, carefully side-stepping the boards that were known to creak so as not to wake Buck. He was such a light sleeper it didn't take much. A yellow ribbon of light showed under his door at the opposite end of the hall and she thought that a bit odd. He was never up this late. In fact, he had been quiet all evening, a bit preoccupied, and had retired to his room a little early. Lou crossed the short distance to his room and rapped softly on the door.

"Buck?"

She waited quietly for a moment and when he didn't answer decided he had simply fallen asleep without putting out the lamp. Lou cracked the door open, intending to slip in and snuff out the flame, but the narrow strip of light bleeding through the doorway revealed an empty bed, partially turned down. Lou opened the door a bit wider and found him sitting with his back to the door at a small wooden table by the window. The suspect lamp cast a quivering circle of light on the round tabletop and in its illumination, she made out what looked to be a bottle of liquor.

"Buck?" she questioned again, the door hinges creaking as she swung it open wider. He turned sharply at the sound. "I'm sorry," she said. "I knocked."

Relaxing a bit, he turned back to the window. "I didn't hear you."

Buck Cross didn't hear something. Well, that was a new one. Preoccupied to say the least. "Can I come in?"

"You don't have to ask, Lou," he answered. "It's your house."

It was a small room, sparsely furnished with a bed, washstand with a pitcher and bowl, the wooden table and two chairs. The chairs didn't match each other or the table, nor did the washstand match the bed frame. There hadn't been time or the funds to properly furnish a room for him before Kid left, but it had never seemed to matter to Buck. The bed was draped in a quilt top fashioned on the bear paw pattern that she and Rachel had pieced together - Rachel stitching the bulk of the work while Lou pricked her fingers. She had left the single window uncovered because he liked it that way. It was a man's room, simple and, save for a crumpled towel tossed across the washstand, uncluttered. The mingled scents of soap and leather and gun oil and everything that told the room belonged to a man lingered in the air and wrapped around her as she entered.

"I couldn't sleep so I was goin' downstairs to sit by the fire and saw the light under your door. I thought you'd forgotten to put out the lamp. It's awful late for you to be awake."

Buck shrugged. "I couldn't sleep either." He nodded to the opened bottle on the table. "Thought this might help." He pushed the chair opposite him away from the table with his foot. Lou assumed the gesture to be a limp invitation to join him and sat herself in the chair.

"But Buck, you don't drink," she replied, her brow furrowed in curious lines.

"I know," he answered. Buck studied the amber liquid in the bottle beside him as if it might suddenly jump up and perform some remarkable feat. "Not much anyway."

Lou studied her friend just as carefully. He wore a faded blue work shirt and his buckskin trousers, but the shirt was unbuttoned and his feet were bare. Whether he had started to undress or had risen from bed and began to dress again, she couldn't tell. Whichever the case, the task hadn't held his interest. His eyelids drooped slightly and she wondered how long he had been sitting there in the dark, nursing a bottle.

"I found it in the cupboard downstairs," he offered in explanation. "I'll replace it next time I'm in town."

Lou shook her head and wrapped her robe a bit tighter. "It's not important. I'd forgotten it was even there." She didn't drink much either. Whiskey and honey with a little lemon for taste had been her mother's remedy for a number of ailments, though. Rachel's, too. The memory of being tucked into bed under layers of quilts, the smooth liquid warming her into a dreamless sleep was sweet. What could it hurt? Lou nodded to the bottle. "You gonna share?"

Buck smiled half-heartedly and nudged the bottle to her side of the table. When he drew his arm back, the movement brushed an envelope from the tabletop. She hadn't noticed it before, but lying face up on the floor, what looked to be a woman's handwriting was visible. "What's that?" Lou asked as he reached for the envelope, her curiosity piqued.

Buck righted himself in his chair. He held the letter to the light, holding it loosely between his index and middle finger. He sighed heavily. "It's from Camille."

So that was what had held his attention all evening. Lou eyed him guardedly. "Bad news?"

The corners of his mouth twitched in a sad smile. "Depends on your point of view I guess."

Lou looked puzzled. "I don't understand."

"You can read it," he said and offered the envelope.

"I shouldn't, Buck. It's personal."

He shrugged as if it meant nothing and slumped back into the chair. "It's all right."

Lou took the envelope and removed the letter. The stationery was creased in several places, evidence that it had been read and put away more than once. Her eyes flitted over the text. "She and Barlow are havin' a baby," Lou announced. "Bill is so pleased," she read. "There has been such a change in him since I spoke with you last. Such a weight has been lifted. My husband is home and safe and looking forward to our future. I think everything is going to be fine now. Thank you so much for listening to me. You are such a dear friend." His mood suddenly made sense. "Oh, Buck. Seeing her in St. Jo made you care for her again, didn't it?"

"I never stopped," he answered, so quietly he might have been talking to himself. "We were promised to each other. If she hadn't been taken away we'd be married and it would be my child she's carryin' not his." He was quiet for a moment before he continued, his voice a bit stronger. "They were fighting when I saw her in St. Joseph. I was hopin' . . . " He drew a deep breath and looked away, seemingly embarrassed. "I don't know what I was hopin'."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you into seeing her again."

"It's not your fault, Lou."

"But you were- "

"Lou," he interrupted. "It's not your fault."

Lou looked to Camille's handwriting again. "Such a weight has been lifted. My husband is home and safe and looking forward to our future. I think everything is going to be fine now." A twinge of envy took her by surprise. The wind murmured against the windowpane, the chill seeping through the sill. Lou shivered in the cold and laid the letter aside. For their own reasons, neither said anything more about it. There was nothing more to say.

Lou wasn't sure how long they sat there, quietly commiserating, before realizing she had taken a sip more than was prudent from the bottle. Her eyes felt puffy and she blinked twice at the dancing bits of lace outside the window. No . . . not lace. Snow. She pushed her chair away from the table and moved around Buck to the window, reaching for his shoulder to steady herself when the floor seemed to tilt a bit. She put her hands on the glass panes, tracing the angles of silver frost painted in the corners with her fingertip. Snowflakes were such an oddity. Raindrops, tiny little things, fell with such a clatter, yet huge flakes like these drifted to earth without a sound. Almost secretive.

The late hour and the liquor conspired against her and she felt a rushing in her head. Lou took an unsteady step back from the window. When Buck stood and reached out a hand to steady her, she took it. "It's pretty isn't it?" she said, once securely on her feet again. He placed his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them gently, and she melted back against his chest with her head beneath his chin.

She rested back against him and watched the delicate dance outside the window for a minute, maybe two, maybe longer. "It's late," he finally said and she agreed, yet neither moved to separate. The cold had thickened and hung a veil of fog over the moon, blurring its boundaries so it appeared unsure of itself. The snow twirled and pirouetted in the wind. Such fragile pieces of handiwork. It was white lace, she decided. Frilly flakes of treble and picot stitches. She had worn white lace once . . . white lace on a warm afternoon, bright with promises. But it was cold now and dark and that warm afternoon seemed so far away. Like the lace swirling about outside the window, she couldn't quite touch it.

When he slid his hands to her arms and began rubbing gently, Lou felt a rush of warmth flow through her that was more than liquor and turned away from the snowfall. A steady beat, like the tick of the clock's hands, drummed quietly in his chest and Lou placed her palm over his heart, each measured beat pulsing beneath her fingertips. The rhythm was softer, gentler than the harsh echo of time passing. It was alive and so close, its warmth too inviting. She pressed the side of her face into the hollow of his shoulder and let her eyes close slowly, her tangled thoughts smoothed by the medley of his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing. Lou felt his arms wrap around her and drawn to the warmth, her hands crept under his open shirt. Her fingertips slowly trailed along the contours of his back, over the angles of his shoulder blades, trickling along the dip of his spine - his body so familiar to her, yet so unknown.

Buck moved his hand to brush her hair aside, then traced a line down her cheekbone, cupping her chin to lift her face toward him. When his dark eyes met hers, they echoed the reflection of bewilderment in her own.

"We shouldn't be doin' this, Lou," he whispered.

"I know," she murmured, her fingertips circling in the small of his back. The closeness felt so good, so natural, so trusting and she feared he might back away, but when he moved it was to dip his head to meet hers. Breathing the same breath, wounded and weary, clinging together in the dark. There was an understanding in his touch and when their lips met, a mirrored need in his soul. His kiss was warm with a taste of liquor, his lips soft like suede. The heat was sudden and everywhere and she pressed herself closer to him as an ache she had nearly forgotten began to spread from somewhere deep inside.

His lips moved down her throat and she sighed against him in the dark, drawing in deep breaths of him, every breath giving life to a part of her she feared had long since withered away. Lou fumbled with the sash knotted around her waist until it loosened and her robe slipped from her shoulders, puddling on the floor beneath them. A shudder rippled through her as he eased his hand up under her breast then closed around her, caressing her through her gown. He kissed her again, hungrier, drinking her in as if he had been thirsty for a very long time. She could feel her heart pounding harder, more alive, opening up like something coming out of hiding and wonderful as it was, she wanted more.

Lou put her hand to the back of his neck and drew him closer, running her fingertips down his shoulder as he bent into her. Her hand traveled between them, down his breastbone, across his stomach, lingering at the waistband of his trousers for a moment before working them open. She felt his body tighten against her, his breath catching in his throat as she slid her hand between the fabric and his warm skin and found him, swollen and needy.

"Lou, we… "

"Buck . . . " she whispered, every breath building the walls of secrecy a little higher. " . . . Hush."

Smoke rose from the skillet in a gray huff. The morning’s bacon lay shriveled and black in a pool of dancing grease. Without taking time to consider, Lou reached for the pan and wrapped her unprotected fingers around the cast iron handle. The heat seared itself into her fingertips and she flinched violently. The frying pan dropped back onto the stove top and the grease bounced over the sides, landing on the overheated surface in a burst of pops and crackles. Her hands fluttered uselessly a moment, her mind in a muddle between the need to soothe the pain and the danger of a pan of too-hot grease. Just calm down, Lou commanded herself, then reached for a towel, quickly wrapped the handle and pulled the pan away from the heat before it flamed. She grabbed another towel and tossed it on the table, then sat the pan on the towel to cool. In a few quick steps she was at the sink and raised the pump handle, working it hard to prime the line. Her efforts proved useless, the line had frozen overnight, and with no other remedy in sight, she stuck her burned fingers into her mouth, sucking to relieve the pain.

The resolve that had gotten her out of Buck’s bed and directed her numbed steps to her own room to dress and begin the rituals of the morning as if it was just another morning crumbled. Lou sank limply back against the front edge of the cabinet. Her fingertips still complaining, she shook her hand, trying to fling the pain away. How foolish of her to have touched something so dangerous. How could she have been so careless? She knew better.

She knew better.

Lou jumped at the sound of the back door opening and whipped her head around to find Rachel breezing through the doorway along with a gush of frosted air. “Mornin’, Lou,” she called out, stamping the snow from her shoes on the rug. Rachel stripped off her gloves and tossed them on the table, then slipped out of her coat and had it hung on the peg board by the door before Lou could find her voice. “Isn’t it beautiful this morning? I just love new snow,” Rachel said, brushing away dots of moisture from the wool coat with her hand. “Some of the children were already sleddin’ on the hill over by the pond. It looked like fun, too. If I didn’t think they’d run home tellin’ their folks that their teacher was slidin’ around with her skirts flyin’ up over her head, I’da gone down once myself. Oh . . . I’ll need Buck to give me a ride back to town later. I ran into the doctor on my way to the livery and he offered to drop me off here on his way to the Peterson place so I didn’t have to come out by myself. Their youngest has the croup.”

Lou wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill that had blown in and wracked her brain for a reason why Rachel would be chatting away in her kitchen on a snowy Sunday morning. And why in God’s name this particular Sunday morning when all she really wanted to do was slink up to her own room, bar the door and cry herself a river that could carry her back to this time yesterday.

“Rachel?”

Rachel’s brow furrowed, questioning the uncertainty in Lou’s welcome. “Did you forget? You wanted to work on the new curtains for the front room today. You said you wanted to get an early start . . . or do I have the wrong Sunday?”

Curtains. She remembered now. A nice green homespun print to match her favorite arm chair. Yards and yards of it lay in a brown wrapper in the front room, waiting to be measured and cut and stitched. The curtains were the final touch that would make the room picture perfect. Years earlier she had envisioned it on long Express runs when she needed something other than the pounding of the trail to occupy her thoughts. She had planned every piece of furniture, every curio and pillow top in the home Kid promised they would have. A perfect front room in the perfect house. Kid her perfect husband, she the perfect wife.

Perfect wife.

“No,” Lou answered, forcing a smile. “No . . . this is the right day. It just musta slipped my mind. I don’t have coffee yet,” she added. “The line to the pump froze up.”

“That’s all right. I already had a cup,” Rachel said and pulled a chair away from the table. She eyed the blackened beginnings of breakfast in the frying pan. “Now, Lou,” she remarked, a hint of mischief creeping into her voice. “I remember Buck liked his bacon on the crispy side, but I don’t think even Cody would eat this.”

Lou pasted the smile back on her face. “It got away from me. I guess I wasn’t watchin’.”

Both women turned at the sound of boots on the hardwood floor. “Mornin’, Buck,” Rachel said as he appeared in the doorway.

The visitor’s voice brought him to an abrupt halt. “Mornin’, Rachel,” he answered, then shot a questioning glance to Lou. Lou saw the inquiry in his eyes, like he had joined a game late and didn’t know the rules. She looked away rather than answer. Couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even look at him for fear the scarlet shame would show on her face.

“Did you two stay warm enough last night?” Rachel asked, absently poking her finger at the charred contents of the frying pan.

“What?” Lou asked, a bit too suddenly.

Rachel looked up from the burned bacon. “A while back you were sayin’ how cold the house gets when the wind comes from the north. It blew pretty hard last night.”

“We were fine,” Lou assured, then quickly added in explanation, “I put some extra blankets on the beds. I didn’t really notice it at all. Went to bed early and slept sound all night.”

Rachel regarded her young friend with concern. “Are you feelin’ all right, Lou? You’re a bit pale this mornin’.”

Pale? How could she be pale now that she was colored with a scarlet stain? Lou hazarded a quick glance at Buck in the doorway. She wasn’t quite quick enough and their eyes locked for a moment before flitting away in opposite directions. He didn’t look any different. Shouldn’t he? Wasn’t half this wrong his? How could he just stand there with his thumbs hitched in his waistband, leaving her to fabricate the untruths, her sins multiplying while he had tried to absolve his own with an “I’m sorry” as she slipped out of his bed?

“Lou?” Rachel asked again.

“I’m fine, Rachel. It’s just the cold. The cold bothers me.”

“Excuse me,” Buck muttered. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Rachel asked as he covered the distance that lay between him and the back door in a few quick strides. “You haven’t even had breakfast.”

“I’ve got work to do,” he repeated and grabbed his coat from the peg board.

“But it’s Sunday.”

“It won’t wait,” he insisted and before she could offer further protest, he was out the door.

Lou watched him leave and felt the color fade a bit when he was gone. What did he want anyway? Forgiveness? He had just stood there like a scolded pup in her kitchen doorway, marring her perfect picture. Well, to forgive him, she would have to forgive herself and that was something she simply couldn’t do. She had to bear it though. Somehow she would bear it.

When the door closed Rachel turned back to her young friend. She tried to catch Lou’s eyes, but they kept fluttering around the room like a sparrow, undecided on where to light. “Lou, is everything all right?”

“Of course,” Lou assured, adding a lilt to her voice for cover. “Why do you ask?”

Rachel shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. You just seem a bit out of sorts and Buck certainly got up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe we should work on those curtains another day.”

“My head’s just off somewhere else this mornin’, but everything’s fine, Rachel. Really. Everything’s fine.”

The wind had whipped snow into crystalline sculptures overnight, each of them regarding him critically as Buck cut a path toward the barn. His mouth tasted rotten. He scooped up a handful of snow and bit into it, the cold stinging his teeth. When the icy wash had melted in his mouth, he spat away the brown aftertaste of liquor. The morning sun reflecting off the expanse of white was painful in its clarity and he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the accusing glare. After a moment his hand dropped like a weight to his side, leaving his eyes unprotected. Clarity should be painful.

Lou was his friend. She was Kid’s wife. Kid’s wife.

How could he have been so stupid? Why hadn’t he stopped? They had both known it was wrong. He remembered saying so and she had agreed. Lying in bed after Lou left him he had pieced the picture together, but it was too disgraceful to more than glance at. It had been so long, so long since a woman had given herself to him. But it hadn’t really been for him. He knew that. He had known it then. His weren’t the arms she wanted to hold her while she slept. His was no more the face she saw in her dreams than hers the one he dared to imagine in his own.

Words had never come easily to him and the apology that had slipped out as she turned away from him had been so lame, so useless. What had he hoped to accomplish with an “I’m sorry”?

He had agreed to Kid’s arrangement to help his friends and provide himself a measure of stability, but so much more had happened. He and Lou had built something wonderful between them. Comfort and caring and support and a trust in each other that had proven to be too big. Well, it was gone now. Spoiled by a step too far. He had seen it in her eyes for that half second she had actually looked at him. She wouldn’t even look at him. He hadn’t been able to face the mirror. Did he look as disgusting as he felt?

Buck swung the barn door open and stepped inside. The morning sun shining through the open doorway cast a bright rectangle on the dirt floor where he stood and he felt suddenly exposed by the light. It might have been a witness stand, him the accused, interrogated and waiting to be judged. Buck turned back to the door and pulled it shut, latching it closed. He leaned his forehead against the rough planks of the door, waiting for the darkness to hide him, but yellow streams of light still reached their accusing fingers through the gaps in the boards to deliver their verdict.

Guilty.

Anger and humiliation and disgust and too many other aches to manage converged all at once and Buck threw his fist into the wooden door. The blow ripped his knuckles open and rivulets of blood trickled in tiny crimson streams through his fingers. Pain exploded in a white hot splintered burst that shot all the way to his shoulder and he bit down hard on his lip bringing blood. Buck turned his back to the wall and slid to the dirt floor, cradling the pain, but blinding as it was, it couldn’t cover the glaring agony of his shame.

Part Two
Chapter Twenty-four

Once when she was a girl Lou had disobeyed her mother and ran outside without putting her shoes on. Actually, she had forgotten her shoes on a number of occasions, but only one particular time was worth remembering. The house where she lived with her mother, brother and sister and a father who hadn’t shown his true colors yet, was nothing special. It was clean, always clean, but in need of a bit of repair. The boards of the porch floor were old and rough and needing to be replaced or at least smoothed down a bit. She had bolted across the porch barefoot and lodged a splinter in her foot. Most of the time a splinter was an easy thing to take care of, but this one had broken off inside and there was nothing to grab hold of. Her mother had insisted that they dig the thing out, but Lou had balked at the idea of a needle probing around inside her foot. Surely it would hurt like the dickens and she contended that it would take care of itself if it was just left alone. But it didn’t and after a few days it hurt more than ever and the sliver that had been so well hidden had started to fester. Just grit your teeth together and get it over with, her mother had told her. It will only get worse. You’re a big girl, Louise. Be strong. So she grit her teeth and she didn’t cry because there was only one thing to do with a splinter and that was to pluck it out.

Buck had moved out of the house and into the feed room in the barn. She hadn’t asked him to, but she didn’t tell him not to either. Every morning he knocked on the back door and waited for her to allow him in, ate breakfast in silence, said ‘thank you’ when he was through and went back to the barn to tend the stock or make up enough chores to keep him occupied for the day. At six o’clock, she called him to dinner and they talked business for the length of the meal, then he offered another ‘thank you’ and returned to the barn. Every night of the past week she had gone to bed telling herself that tomorrow would be better. That tomorrow she wouldn’t feel the shame rise to her face as she passed his empty room, wouldn’t feel the need to sit at the far opposite end of the table while they ate supper. That tomorrow she could look at him and see Buck again and not her partner in sin. That tomorrow she could look in the mirror and see her old self and not the scarlet woman she had become. But it didn’t happen and another day went by and it still didn’t happen. The waiting had become nearly unbearable. Lou drew a deep breath and knocked on the feed room door. There was only one thing to do with a splinter.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said when the door opened. It was a small room, musty with odors of grain, the light from the single window diffused by a film of dust on the glass. A narrow cot was crammed into the corner for use as a bed and she wondered vaguely where he had found it. She remembered then. During foaling season he would often sleep in the barn in case one of the mares had trouble. It couldn’t be very warm though. The wind whistled through the cracks in the outside wall. She should bring him another blanket. No, Lou quickly corrected herself. Just grit your teeth.

He had evidently been changing clothes when she knocked. His shirttail was loose and the row of buttons only partially closed. Lou felt a hint of color rise to her face and quickly averted her eyes. How stupid, she thought as her gaze darted around the room. For eighteen months she had lived in a bunkhouse full of men. She had been witness to their dressing and undressing and thought nothing of it. Of course once they discovered that she wasn’t what she appeared to be they had been mindful of her modesty. But for the month or so before she had been found out, she had caught herself now and then surreptitiously enjoying the show the boys didn’t know they were giving. Now she couldn’t even watch Buck button his shirt without feeling ashamed?

Her discomfort was too obvious to miss. Buck turned his back to her and quickly worked the remaining buttons then stuffed his shirttail in place. “I needed to clean up,” he said and grabbed the soiled shirt and towel from the cot, tossing them onto a sack of oats. “Here,” he offered with a weak smile and ran his hand over the blanket that covered his bed to tidy it. “It’s about the best I can do for a chair.”

His invitation couldn’t have been more innocent, but Lou shook her head to decline the offer, her feet securely rooted to the dirt floor beneath the doorway. It was only then she noticed the blood stains on the discarded towel.

“You’re bleeding,” she stated flatly.

Buck looked at her, a bit puzzled, then followed her gaze. “No. It’s not mine. I was just washin’ my hands. I had to cut that stallion. One of the mares came into season early and he tore up half the corral to get to her. I couldn’t trust him. He could have hurt somebody. I’ll trade for a better mannered one from Ten Killer’s village.”

Lou only half heard his reasons for gelding the horse he had taken such pride in, gathering her resolve instead while he rattled off innumerable reasons why such an animal should be neutered.

“You need to leave,” she said.

“It’s too early yet. The Oglala be in winter camp for another month or so. I’ll go when– ”

“No,” she interrupted. Be strong, Louise. It will hurt, but just get it over with. “I don’t want you here.”

Buck drew a deep breath, then let it out very slowly. Banishment. So that would be his sentence. He ducked his head to deflect the sting of the words, but they hit him solidly anyway. They were too big, the blow too heavy to miss. When he finally spoke his voice was little more than a whisper as if a normal tone would bring to light something that was best left in the dark. “It won’t happen again, Lou.”

“I went to the bank this morning and withdrew half the account,” she said and held out a brown envelope bound with a grosgrain ribbon. When he didn’t take it she ventured a step into the room to lay the bundle on the packing crate that served as a bedside table. “Isn’t half what you and Kid agreed to?”

“Lou, you can’t run the place alone.”

“I’ll do just fine on my own,” she contested. “And what I can’t handle I can hire out.”

“You can’t afford–”

“Don’t,” she said and countered his step toward her with a step away from him. Funny that she should feel the need to retreat from her friend. No . . . no longer her friend. Buck was a threat to her perfect picture. They could prick their fingers and take a blood oath. They could pledge their silence, spit in their palms and shake hands to seal the deal. They could cross their hearts and hope to die if they ever told, but the damage done would still be there like a wound that wouldn’t mend. Time, it was said, was the greatest healer. Distance could only hasten the cure. She looked him square in the eyes then, the first time in a week that she’d been able to. “I want you to leave,” she said, her words slow and deliberate and the hardest she had ever said. “And I don’t want you to come back.”

Buck laid a spare shirt across his bed, folded it neatly in half and rolled it tightly collar to hem, then added it to the meager collection of belongings in his saddlebags. He’d never had much in the way of things to call his own, but that suited him. Material possessions meant little. It was the golden bonds of friendship and family that he treasured. They were so much harder to come by and because of their rarity, so much more valuable. In that regard he had considered himself a rich man. A rich man now bankrupt.

Beyond that sudden poverty was the realization that his worst possible fear had come true. Lou was afraid of him. Why else would she have backed away? He had secretly worried over the legacy left to him by his father from the first time he felt the desire that a woman could stir in a man. A decent man would have stopped. A decent man would have never allowed it to start, but he had touched her and when she touched him, knowing it was wrong, he had wanted more. Wanted more and wasn’t satisfied until he was buried in the feel of her. No, it hadn’t been an act of cruelty in the way that nameless bastard had touched his mother, but still the seed he feared he carried had sprouted at the first vulnerable moment and within a heartbeat had grown into a vine that choked every honorable thing out of him. If leaving could possibly restore an ounce of his dignity then he would do so, quickly and quietly.

But where would he go? Back to the Kiowa and subject himself to further rejection? Through all his struggles in the white world he had been able to console himself that if it got too bad he always had the option of going back. That doorway back to his people had been his safety net, a place to land if he fell. Not that it would be easy. He had no assurance that he would be any more welcome as an adult than he had been as a child, but at least there was that hope, that alternative to cling to. What if he went back now and that door closed in his face, too? Where would he go then if all his options were used up?

Buck reached for his coat lying on a feed sack near his bed. A sleeve dragged across the packing crate and the envelope Lou had left him fell to the floor. He stooped to pick it up, a bit surprised by the thinness of the contents. Well, it couldn’t be much. Business had slacked off during the winter and they had been set back with all the expenses of the prior year. Buck studied it for a moment longer, then tossed the envelope onto the cot. His staying on had never been about profit. He threw his coat on, slung the saddle bags over his shoulder and closed the door behind him.

He had invested two and a half years of himself in this place. He could recognize each horse by the sound of its whinny. He knew every length of fence line, knew where the mother cat had hidden her litter. They had finally found it a few weeks earlier, though they had torn half the straw out of the loft in the search. Lou had teased him claiming his tracking skills must be slipping if a gray tabby could elude him. He had retaliated by stuffing straw down her neck and they laughed themselves silly in a rare moment when childish antics blocked out a confused world. He knew she took exactly a teaspoon and a half of sugar in her coffee. Could tell her mood by the color dress she put on in the morning.

Buck thought to take a look around before leaving, then wondered why bother? After all, he was only a guest. Nothing there had ever belonged to him anyway.

Lou fumbled with the hammer, the cold stinging her hands through her gloves. She was somewhat acquainted with a hammer and nails. Masquerading as a boy it had been necessary to learn, though she had never been terribly proficient at the task. Her memory drifted back to one of the hottest days she could recall and a stretch of new fence line Teaspoon insisted couldn’t wait a day longer. Kid had been so attentive, coaching her quietly in how to start the nails, hiding his amusement when she missed the head altogether, nodding his discreet approval when she connected. It had been miserably hot and she had so envied the boys being able to strip their shirts off and cool down. What she would have given just to fan her shirt tails a moment, but Teaspoon had been right there and she had been petrified he might see something that he shouldn’t. Lou half smiled at the thought. Considering the way he had discovered that she was a girl, catching a glimpse of the strips of binding that concealed her breasts paled in comparison. She had worked so hard to hide her real self, to remember to keep her voice low and her backside still when she walked. But hard as it was, it would be so sweet to go back to those early days and start again. This time she could say something more, find some way to keep Kid from leaving and putting her in this mess. Considering what she was hiding now, those early days of fearing that she would be found out paled in comparison, too.

She reached into the tin can beside her, but the oversized work glove made her movements clumsy and she had to remove it to grab a nail. The wind bit at her exposed skin, her cheeks already chaffed raw. The weather seemed to be testing her in the days since she sent Buck away and the leaden color of the sky overhead promised more of the same. The bleakness of the land around her seemed to blend into the haze overhead, the line that separated earth from sky made invisible by the gray blur. Lou dropped to her knees, the cold leeching itself to her skin through her worn trousers. She raised the fence rail into place, holding it with her shoulder while she maneuvered the nail. She had done fine, well, maybe not ‘fine’, but well enough on the straight lengths of the damaged corral, but this inside corner was a different matter. The nail had to enter the post at an angle and it just wasn’t as easy to do as straight on. She bent the nail on the first two tries and had to pry them out with the claw end of the hammer. By the third try, her hand was shivering so badly that the nail moved and she missed it entirely. When the fourth attempt split the board rather than securing it, frustrations overflowed and Lou flung the hammer into the corral. What difference did it make if it was repaired or not? There was no need to keep a gelding separate from the mares. What did Buck think he was doing by cutting the horse anyway? Some misplaced act of contrition? Wasn’t the animal merely doing what came natural? Lou thrust her hands into her coat pockets and stomped out of the corral toward the back door of the house. The stupid horse could just stay cooped up in a stall for all she cared.

Lou kicked the snow off her boots and pulled the door open, coming face to face with a beaming Rachel. “There you are!”

“Rachel, my God! You scared the daylights out of me.”

“I’m sorry, Lou. I knocked on the front door but thought you were upstairs and couldn’t hear me so I came on in. I was just about to go out back to look for you.”

“Why, Rachel?” Lou asked. She shrugged out of her coat and slung it over the back of a chair at the table. “What’s wrong?”

Rachel’s grin widened. “Nothin’s wrong. In fact, looks like everything is just fine,” she said and pulled a tattered envelope from her skirt pocket. “It’s post marked last month, but that’s really not so long ago.”

Rachel held out the envelope, the familiar slant of Kid’s handwriting identifying him as the author of the letter. Post marked in December. A month ago when she was a lonely, yet dutiful wife waiting her husband’s return. A month ago when the seventh commandment was nothing more than a line in an embroidered sampler hanging on the kitchen wall and not a sin stamped in red on her conscience. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

When she didn’t respond, Rachel reached for her friend’s hand and closed Lou’s fingers around the envelope. “Honey, it’s from Kid.”

Lou flinched at the warm touch against her brittle skin. It nearly burned and for a split second, she feared the source of the flame had emanated from the letter itself rather than Rachel’s hand. Lou felt herself go pale. “How did you get this?” she asked once she trusted herself to speak.

“I went by the post office after school to drop off some mail. Marty said neither you or Buck had been in to collect yours all week and he thought you might be anxious to get this one. He really shouldn’t have given out someone else’s mail, but I convinced him it would be all right this time.” Rachel grabbed Lou’s arm and shook her a bit as if the young woman needed to wake up. “Aren’t you gonna read it?”

“Of course I am,” Lou said and sank into the nearest chair.

“Where’s Buck?”

“What?” Lou asked, sharper than she intended.

“Where’s Buck?” Rachel repeated. “He’s been worried about Kid, too.”

Where was Buck? It wasn’t that she hadn’t anticipated having to explain his absence to Rachel. She just hadn’t come up with a plausible reason for his leaving yet and to run head long into the question drained what little color Lou had left in her face.

“He’s not here.”

Rachel placed a steaming cup of coffee before Lou, then poured one for herself and took a seat at the table across from her young friend. “I guess I must have missed him in town then. This is such wonderful news, Lou. How about we make something special for supper tonight to celebrate?”

Lou felt her circle of secrecy begin to tighten around her. Or was it a noose around her neck that was shortening her breath? “Buck won’t be home for supper.”

“Surely he’s not out horse tradin’ in this weather?”

Lou placed the envelope on the table top, her husband’s handwriting staring back at her accusingly. The dark lettering stood starkly against the white of the paper, ready to pounce. She ran her fingertips across the address then pulled away as if the loose tail at the end of each word might reach out and grab her, the tight loops of the closed letters might clutch her in their grip.

Lou swatted the thought away and tried to collect herself – this was no time to fall apart. But when she looked up from the letter into Rachel’s steady gaze, her hastily pasted together defenses began to weaken and her eyes flitted away.

“What’s wrong, Lou?”

“Nothin’,” Lou insisted.

“Lou, I know you. I’ve watched you tear into a letter from Kid so fast I was afraid you’d rip it in your hurry. You usually have every word memorized by now. You’re actin’ like you’re afraid of a letter from your husband, so don’t tell me nothin’s wrong.”

Lou clasped her hands in front of her, unconsciously twirling her wedding band around her finger, while she wrestled with a sudden and overwhelming need to confide. Maybe it would be best if she told. Didn’t things go easier for people who confessed? Or did it only hasten the first stone?

Rachel sighed heavily and sank back into her chair, Lou’s silence saying more than she wanted to hear. “How long, Lou?” she quietly asked.

Lou looked at her, confused. “How long what?”

“How long have you and Buck been enjoyin’ each other’s company?”

Lou breathed a bit easier, though she wondered why she should. “How’d you know?”

Rachel smiled weakly. She’d seen too much of the world not to recognize the look that passes between a man and a woman. She had worn that look herself more times than she cared to recall before learning that taking comfort in the flesh only added thorns to the soul. “I’ve had my suspicions. Last Sunday when I came out, I got the distinct feeling I was interrupting something. Neither one of you has ever had a decent poker face.”

“Just one time, Rachel,” Lou said, then quickly lined up her defense. “I swear there was just one time. We didn’t even mean for it to happen. It was just that . . . Buck got some news from Camille that upset him and I guess I was missin’ Kid and then we started drinkin’ and– ”

“Lou,” Rachel said and reached across the table gathering Lou’s hands into her own. “It happened, it doesn’t matter how. I’m certainly not one to cast judgment anyway, but . . . honey, what about Kid? Do you care for Buck?”

Lou looked up startled by the question. “Of course I do. I mean . . . he’s my friend and I care about him, but not the way I care for Kid. I know it sounds terrible, Rachel, but I just needed not to be alone. Needed somebody I could trust, someone who understood, and Buck was there. If we hadn’t been drinkin’, it never would’ve happened. I guess we just let things go too far and we both know it was wrong. He feels just as bad as I do.”

Rachel sighed under the weight of Lou’s admission. In hearing it, she now carried a part of the burden and had become an accomplice whether she wanted to be or not. “And where is Buck?”

“He’s gone,” Lou said simply.

“He left?”

“I couldn’t have him here, Rachel,” Lou stated defensively. “How can I forget what happened when every time I look at him I remember?”

Rachel propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin heavily on her interlaced fingers. As if it wasn’t already bad enough. Buck hadn’t left. Lou had sent him away. Rachel looked back to Lou, studying her. Strange that her eyes didn’t seem to blink. Perhaps the hardness that had suddenly appeared in them prevented it. “Where did he go?”

“Back to the Kiowa I would think,” Lou said then quickly added, “that’s what he really wanted anyway. He told me a while back that he had done a lot of thinkin’ about it, but then Kid came up with the idea to have him stay out here. Kid knew that he wanted to go back and thought if Buck felt obligated to stay with me, then he wouldn’t leave. Now there’s nothin’ to stop him from doin’ what he wants. He’s probably half way there by now.”

Rachel looked unconvinced. “But still . . .”

“Buck’s strong, Rachel. He’ll be fine.” It was really best this way, Lou told herself. He couldn’t have stayed and Buck knew that, too. She had seen it in the silent acceptance in his eyes as he rode away. “And Kid’s all right,” she said, reaching for the letter, its threat now somehow lessened. “The war is almost over, everybody says so. Another month or two and it’ll all be over. Then Kid will come home and everything will be fine. I can handle the ranch on my own until then. I’ll come up with a reason why Buck had to leave. Kid will never have to know anything. He can’t, Rachel, he can’t. You just have to swear to me that you’ll never tell.”

Rachel sighed resignedly. “Of course I won’t,” she said. “But Lou,” she added, her voice heavy laden with experience. “You never forget. It doesn’t just go away.”

“Everything’s gonna be fine, Rachel,” Lou insisted. She would make sure of it. She would do what was necessary, just as she had done her entire life. She’d hidden things before to protect herself only this time she’d never let it out. All she had to do was lock it up and bury it. Bury it deep.

Part Two Chapter Twenty-five

Cumberland County, Virginia April 8, 1865

“Affix bayonets!”

The order jarred Kid awake. He had fallen asleep standing up, leaning on his rifle. Sleep was slow to shake loose and he didn’t completely grasp the command until he heard the all too familiar rattle of metal. Having been too tired to remove it earlier, his bayonet was already in place, which could have proven a fatal error had he toppled over in his sleep. He preferred, however, to consider the oversight a bit of luck that afforded him another few moments of rest and readily took advantage of it.

When the clatter quieted he opened his eyes once more. He didn’t recognize his surroundings, yet it all seemed familiar to him – a stretch of ground pock marked and scarred by four years of abuse, a gaunt assembly of men wordlessly searching each other for answers, the air so thick with dust and sweat that he could taste the misery. A misery made all the more unpalatable by the bitter tang of retreat.

Retreat. He hated the word and the failure it implied. It rained down heavy on his principles like a thunderstorm blowing in from the west. Yet retreat they had and with what seemed to be the entire Yankee nation bearing down on Richmond, they abandoned the city leaving the center of Virginian gentility, the heart of the Confederacy, to be plundered by northern madmen. Kid wiped his mouth and spat, knowing it wouldn’t relieve him of the taste of bitterness, spitting anyway.

After two days of steady gray rain the sun timidly emerged from behind the clouds and he breathed deeply trying to draw the warmth inside. His blood ran chilly in his veins like it always did before a fight. This waiting was the worst part, always had been, and he set his mind on the blackbirds winging past overhead instead. He followed their skittish flight into a stand of timber until they lit in the skeletal branches. The trees were barren now, but before long the dogwoods would open their showy blossoms and redbuds would spring from out of nowhere only to disappear again once their gaudy purple show was over.

A pale ribbon of smoke rose into the sky beyond the treetops. Not the blanket of gray haze that hung over the gunners, but a thin stream rising from a chimney. Beneath that chimney he could just make out the ridge line of a roof and under the roof would be a family. He imagined it to be a farmhouse, not at all unlike the one where Lou waited. Kid risked a rare look beyond the immediate prospect and let his thoughts wander down the road of time. It was a journey he didn’t dare take very often.

There would be dry tangle of last year’s morning glory wrapped around the porch posts. A couple of floorboards on the porch squeaked underfoot because no matter how well a porch was built there were always a few boards that squeaked. The porch swing was still there and another swing, just a wooden seat really, was suspended by ropes from the branches of a tree. And on that swing sat a little boy with sandy colored hair and his father’s blue eyes and he would pump his short little legs and squeal to be pushed higher because he wanted to grab a piece of the cloud drifting by. Or maybe the child would be a daughter. A tiny little spitfire of a girl with a smile and a stubborn streak to rival her mama’s. Boy or girl wouldn’t matter. Maybe in time there would be both. There would be toys on the porch, too. A wooden horse painted red and white to match the mare in the corral. Or a toy cradle where a doll named Annabelle . . . Annabelle . . .

Funny, Kid thought that he couldn’t remember the name.

. . . a cradle where Annabelle Something lay in blissful make-believe dreaming. And there would be laughter and . . .

“Attention!”

The order snapped Kid back to the present. He grabbed hard at the picture, then let it go and his imaginings dropped away like a dream upon waking. It was a picture he had no current access to anyway and he instead turned his thoughts back to the task at hand.

The 43rd Infantry fell into a sluggish line. No longer Company A or Company B or Company C. Just a haggard group of survivors. Too thin to cast a shadow, propped up by a pride too big to lay down. Ragged and filthy, they looked more like men bound for the poor house than a gear in the machinery of the once heralded Army of Northern Virginia.

Someone down the line was praying and Kid shook his head in bitter amusement. So where was this God? This God who could work magical arithmetic and multiplied fishes to feed the faithful? This God who rained fire down on the enemy and made walls to fall at the blast of a trumpet? Well, God must be slipping a bit or had simply lost interest in the goings on below because He hadn’t shown Himself to the 43rd for quite a while.

Kid thought back to the early days and the wonder of it all. They had come so far together, these men, and many more they had left along they way. Left screaming in field hospitals under the knives of bleary-eyed surgeons, too exhausted to stand, propped up at their operating tables by crutches intended for the wounded. Some he had bid goodbye and were wherever home was, hobbling along shadowed boardwalks with pinned up trouser legs. Some had run off, hiding like criminals from the Provost Marshals by day, slinking along the back roads by night. Others sat in dank prison cells waiting helplessly. But most were dead, left behind in shallow, nameless graves in fields where yellow butterflies flitted among the lupine and foxglove.

Kid set his eyes to the front as General Claridge made a rare appearance before the line. It was protocol for the higher officers, being less dispensable than the enlisted men, to stay to the rear of an engagement, communicating orders by way of courier to the junior officers at the front. Yet there the old warrior was, clad in what remained of his dress uniform, straddled across the back of an agitated bay gelding.

DeLancey Claridge had collected a glowing list of accomplishments in his forty-odd years of military service. A graduate of West Point, class of ’22, his senior dissertation on the battle strategies of the Emperor Napoleon could have rivaled the Frenchman’s own account and won him honors in Napoleonic Theory. Protecting his country’s interest in Texas, he had served with distinction and risen to the rank of major in the war with Mexico. His every thought and deed devoted to his pursuit of military glory, and though his record was riddled with noted peculiarities of his person, he had achieved the rank of Brigadier General in the peace time army. The man had been awarded a medal of valor. Did it really matter if he talked to himself or insisted on wearing his saber while he slept? Genius and oddity were known to walk hand in hand. At the first murmur of choosing up sides he had joined his native Virginians and fought fiercely for a man of his advanced years. But the heat of battle finally having boiled his brains he had walked along the fraying margins of sanity for some time.

The general sat the horse with the carriage of a man half his age. Kid noted that the fingers of one hand were tucked between the buttons of his coat. A new oddity added to an already lengthy list. The general’s shoulders were pulled back in an air of complete confidence and the posture gave the impression of a small man trying to appear taller.

General Claridge paraded his nervous mount up and down the line giving a cursory inspection of his troops. “Voici enfin la bataille que vous attendez depuis longtemps!” he began and a curious regiment pricked their ears forward to hear. “Desormais, la victoire depend de vous. Nous en avons besoin. Conduisez-vous comme vous l’avez fait a Austerlitz, Friendland, Vitebsk, et Smolentz et moi, Napoleon, je vous menerai a la victoire. Et pour la posterite, on pourra dire de chacun d’entre vous, ‘Il etait present a la grande bataille de Waterloo’!”

“What’s he sayin’?” asked the man standing at Kid’s right shoulder.

“Damned if I know,” Kid answered and craned his neck to follow the officer as he moved along the ranks. “The man’s crazy.”

“Well, we’re fixin’ on followin’ him, so what’s that make us?”

The soldier didn’t expect an answer and Kid didn’t offer one. Instead, he set his eyes to the front once more and wondered how it had come to this. How had it gone from speeches and parades and girls waving lace handkerchiefs from behind picket fences to hunger and filth? When did they trade camaraderie and campfires and roach races for bloody chopped off limbs and screams of men who were half what they used to be? When did pride and patriotism become cynicism and chaos and the realization that no one knew what the hell was happening?

Even so, he wasn’t afraid. Those who were afraid had long since passed from these sunlit fields. Nor did he have any further illusions of the grand victory they had been promised. The Confederacy lay on its death bed and the end was only a matter of time now. Days, some said. What had become of those promises, so temptingly wrapped in fine paper and ribbons, he didn’t know. There was little left on that April afternoon that he could hold to his heart as truth, but of one thing he was certain. That when the order came he would shoulder his weapon and step out with a singular purpose, not for glory or valor or gallantry, but because he was a soldier, an old soldier, and after all this war he knew precious little of anything else.

The Union forces were already at the abatis when Claridge’s Brigade was given the order to charge. The barricade ran in a line parallel and about fifty yards to the front of the Rebel position. A properly constructed abatis of sharpened posts secured in the earth and angled toward the oncoming enemy served as an effective deterrent but this one appeared to have been thrown together in a hurry and the blue wave poured through it like water in a sieve. The length of breastworks looked to be in better order. Between the trench itself and the mound of dirt piled alongside, the works offered four to five feet of solid protection. Adding to its security, the fortress of dirt had been topped off with a double row of logs. Notches cut between the rows served as embrasures for rifle barrels. A man could fire away all the live long day in the trench, easy as murder, without ever exposing himself to the enemy. Providing, of course, he had enough ammunition to last all day and Kid was fairly certain none of them did.

Rifle fire from the approaching Union skirmishers chipped away at the log facia and chunks of splintered wood popped into the air like kernels of corn in a hot skillet. The rebel line hit the edge of the pit at a run and Kid slid down the embankment into the damp security. The pool of mud in the bottom of the trench oozed through the holes in his shoes and when he raised his foot the mud made a sucking sound.

“You boys took your sweet time gettin’ here,” a man already stationed at one of the embrasures growled. “We been diggin’ in this slime for two damn days.” Kid didn’t think it possible, but the soldier was filthier than he was and reeked of sweat even in the cool spring air. “Load!” the man bellowed and shoved his empty rifle toward Kid. Kid didn’t like the way he handled a gun. A rifle was a fine instrument to be handled tenderly and it was with more than a little hesitation that he exchanged the spent weapon for his own Enfield.

“Don’t s’pose ya’ll brought any big guns with ya?” the soldier asked. “I’m feelin’ bare-ass naked out here with no backup.”

Kid shook his head and tore the tail from the paper cartridge. There was no need to bite it open yet. The swollen tongue and blistered lips would come later in the heat of things. He poured the powder down the barrel and rammed the ball home. “Saw some yesterday mired down in the mud on the Richmond road. Had a whole team of mules tryin’ to pull ‘em out. Doubt we’ll be seein’ ‘em any time soon.”

“Well, that’s just dandy,” grumbled the soldier without turning around.

“Don’t hear any from across the way,” Kid observed. “Likely theirs is stuck just as deep as ours. What are we dug in for anyway?”

The soldier nodded curtly to the west. “There’s a bridge yonder we’re ordered to hold.” He jerked the Enfield’s trigger, not at all the smooth touch the weapon was accustomed to, and the rifle answered with a sharp recoil that slammed the barrel against the wood surrounding the firing hole. Kid winced as the soldier withdrew the muzzle from the slot, raking the barrel against the roughly carved opening. He tossed the rifle back to Kid. “Now shut up and load!”

A blue wave flooded across the field like a river overflowing its banks, mindless of the wall of gunfire that awaited them. The front runners threw out their hands as if grasping for something that would hold them in this life, then toppled to the ground. They lay there in bloody tangles, some already dead, their souls headed down the road to Purgatory, some still breathing though they likely wouldn’t be for long. The rear ranks tumbled over their fallen comrades, stepped on them and around them and kept on coming.

As soon as the ranks to the front of the trench fired, their rifles were passed back to the rear man for reloading, then passed back to fire, then passed back to reload. An angry hum of balls whizzed overhead and skinned the bark from the logs atop the breastworks. Creeping tendrils of smoke and the acrid yellow odor of sulfur hung in the trench like morning fog. The noise was solid now, the roar of the guns, the snarling and crying out of men adding layer upon layer and the thickness of it all absorbed Kid in a way he had yet to understand. But it was what he knew, what he was good at and when the spent weapon was presented, he bit open the cartridge, rammed the ball down, set the firing cap in place and handed it forward with the precision of a wheel oiled machine. Another gun came to him and another and another.

The front man had turned to exchange weapons when either a well placed or lucky shot found its way through the firing hole and hit him squarely in the back. He arched sharply before pitching forward, clasping Kid in a bloody embrace. The soldier leaned into him as if they were dance partners and Kid struggled with the weight for a moment before the man slipped into the pool of muck at the bottom of the trench. The soldier was dead before he hit the ground, but his body was still busy, twitching and jerking with the violence of his passing. Kid ripped the Enfield from his grip and scrambled forward, the mud sucking at him as he moved. He felt something spongy underfoot, glanced down to see his foot planted in the soldier’s gut, but offered no apology. The man was dead. What did good manners matter?

Kid had heard that because of his apparent disregard for the sacrifice of northern boys, the Union commander had been dubbed ‘Grant the Butcher’ by the newspapers. The site on the opposite side of the breastworks, he decided, added weight to that argument. A fresh line of blue coats sifted through the barricade, yipping their sorry excuse for a battle cry. As if in mockery, the Rebel’s own cry opened at one end of the trench and swelled along its length into a maniacal chorus that might have been sung by the Devil’s own choir. Kid reached far into the depths that drove him and threw his head back, letting loose a howl resonating with all the defiance and danger that beat in heart of rebellion.

Time passed, yet the hours themselves seemed to be caught by some unyielding grasp, replaying over and over again in a relentless loop. A dip into the bottomless barrel of Yankees sent another wave plowing through the barricade and soon they were knocking at the southerner’s line. A bayonet flicked suddenly between the gap in the logs like a silver serpent striking for its prey. The blade bit into the throat of the man to Kid’s right, impaling him through the neck. The soldier choked on his last words and whatever he might have said bubbled from his mouth in a bloody froth. The bayonet jerked up and down, trying to relieve itself of its burden and the dead soldier danced like a puppet before finally falling into the bloody pool in the bottom of the pit.

The smoke stung at Kid’s eyes until he could no longer take aim. He turned away from the rifle slot to wipe his eyes, but the powder on his hands only added fuel to the fire already burning in them. His sleeve offered no better. His head jerked up at a cry overhead and he fired blindly at the boy diving over the top of the breastworks. The would-be hero fell dead, adding himself to the layer of waste in the pit, a look of astonishment on his face. “Well, what did you expect?” Kid wanted to ask, but before he could pose the question, the breastworks were overrun and a swarm of blue flew into the pit.

Rifle fire at point blank range sent a spray of blood and bone spewing out of the trench. With no time to reload, rifles became clubs and sane men became something less. Kid grabbed hold of the Enfield’s barrel and swung level as if the rifle were his bat and the Yankee boy’s head the pitch. The walnut stock crashed against the soldier’s skull and Kid felt the bone give way under the blow. He turned to strike out at another thinking what a strange variation of the game this was. Well, wasn’t that how war was played? You kill mine. I’ll kill yours. Last man standing wins.

Kid felt a tug on his trouser leg and tried to kick himself loose, but the Yankee boy was insistent and twisted the fabric tighter in his grip. A bayonet slice to his middle had cut him wide open. A mass of entrails had crawled out of the wound and lay across his belly like a pile o