The splendor of the sun on the crashing water leaves Asia nearly faint with awe, all her senses full to the brim. God the careless? No! God the creator, God the artist wielding his brush of light and liquid.

—

From the divine to the petty. They ride to the Canadian side through streets lined with tawdry curiosity shops, peep shows, and saloons. They pass by insistent pitches for tours, refreshment, pictures, pamphlets, bits of congealed mist, which Mr. Burke tells them not to buy as they are really just white stones. How is it possible that so many people can gaze on the face of God and see only a place where pigeons might be plucked? Asia watches a workman tip a wheelbarrow full of trash into the translucent green waters.

At John’s insistence, they stop on the field where the Battle of Lundy’s Lane was fought. Here Winfield Scott commanded the American troops, Gordon Drummond, the British. The fighting was close, more bayonets than rifles, and when it all ended some nine hundred men had died. It was the bloodiest battle of the War of 1812, Mr. Burke says. Every time they put a foot down, they are stepping on some soldier’s grave.

John talks excitedly to Mr. Burke about the movements of troops. They studied the battle at St. Timothy’s Hall, he tells them. He is showing off. “The armies fought on into the night. You must imagine them fighting by moonlight.”

“ ‘Tongue, lose thy light! Moon, take thy flight! Now die, die, die, die, die,’ ” says Edwin.

Not by moon nor star nor sun, does Asia want to imagine the soldiers gutting each other as if slaughtering hogs. She wants the thunder of the Falls, not the thunder of the guns. She’s impatient to move on. But John is focused on getting Mr. Burke to agree that Drummond’s bureaucratic stubbornness was no match for Scott’s expertise and bravery.

“The battle is generally reckoned a draw,” Mr. Burke says mildly, “except for those who feel that Drummond won outright.”

John loves opposition. “Only because the American casualties were so high! Only because he started with the superior ground!” Every sentence a thrust. “He didn’t outmaneuver Scott, who was by far the superior tactician. He just sent his men forward again and again and again.”

Asia wants to tell Mr. Burke to stop arguing. With all his disdain for mere dogged endurance, John’s debate strategy most resembles Drummond. He will send his men forward again and again and again until his foe is exhausted.

“Are there ghosts?” Jean asks.

“How could there not be?” says Mr. Burke.

—