“They took away most of the burnt wood.” Brianna took a deep breath, walked up to the empty doorway, and looked around. “Probably charcoal for smoking meat or making gunpowder. I wonder how hard it is to get sulfur these days.”

He glanced at her, not sure whether she was serious or just trying to keep the conversation light until the shock of seeing his first—his only—church destroyed had passed. The only place he’d been—for a little while—a real minister. His chest felt tight and so did his throat—but he put aside his sense of disquiet for the moment and coughed.

“You’re intending to make gunpowder? After what happened with the matches?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but he could tell now that she was deliberately making light of things.

“You know that wasn’t my fault. And I could. I know the formula for gunpowder, and we could dig saltpeter out of people’s old privies.”

“Well, you can, if digging up ancient privies is your notion of fun,” he said, smiling despite himself. “Did your researches tell you how not to blow yourself up while making gunpowder?”

“No, but I know who to ask,” she said, complacent. “Mary Patton.”

Whether she’d intended it or not, the distraction of her conversation was working. The feeling of having been gut-punched had passed, and if he still felt the pangs of memory, he was able to put them aside to be dealt with later.

“And who’s Mary Patton, when she’s at home?”

“A gunpowder maker—I don’t know if there’s a name for that profession. But she and her husband have a powder mill on the Powder Branch of the Wautauga River—that’s why it’s called the Powder Branch. It’s about forty miles from here,” she said casually, squatting to pick up a blackened chunk of charcoal. “I thought I might ride out there next week. There’s a trail—even a road, part of the way.”

“Why?” he asked warily. “And what are you planning to do with that charcoal?”

“Draw,” she said, and tucked it into her bag. “As for Mrs. Patton … we’re going to need gunpowder, you know.”

Now she was serious.

“You mean a lot of gunpowder,” he said slowly. “Not just for hunting.” He didn’t know how much powder the household had; he was no kind of a shot, so didn’t hunt with a gun.

“I do.” She turned her head, and he saw her long, pale throat move as she swallowed. “I read some of Daddy’s book. The Soul of a Rebel.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said, and the qualm he’d suppressed at sight of his ex-church came back with a vengeance. “And?”

“Have you heard of a British soldier called Patrick Ferguson?”

“No. Am I about to?”