They pushed the horses as hard as Rusty dared. He could not ride fast enough to outrun the memory of the anguished scream from Dawkins’s wife. The rest of her life she would carry the image of Caleb Dawkins sprawled in his own blood, just as Clemmie Monahan would have to live with the sight of her husband and her son lying lifeless in a wagon. War was hell on men, but in its way it was as bad or worse on women, he thought.

The first couple of hours went well enough, though the pain in the leg was increasing. By noon Rusty had to grit his teeth, cold sweat breaking out on his face.

James said, “I’m gettin’ hungry. Ain’t et nothin’ since a midnight supper.”

It had been longer than that since Rusty had eaten, but he doubted he could hold anything on his stomach if he had it. He was nauseous, the pain grown almost beyond endurance. “The sooner we get to camp, the sooner you can eat.”

Sometime later he realized he was hunched in the saddle. He had difficulty focusing his eyes. Once he tried to throw up, but his stomach held nothing to yield. He had long since holstered the pistol for fear of dropping it.

He felt helpless when James drew up beside him and took the weapon from him. James demanded, “What makes you think you can keep somebody under arrest when you can’t hardly even stay in the saddle?”

Rusty heard himself mumbling that James was still his prisoner, but he knew that was no longer true. He was James’s prisoner, if James chose to take advantage of the situation.

James’s voice stung. “When you needed help, my family took you in like their own. Now look how you paid them back. I ought to shoot you the way I shot Dawkins.” He raised the pistol.

Purdy pushed his horse between his grandson and Rusty. He gripped the barrel of James’s pistol and forced it downward. “No, James. You’ve caused grief enough already. Whether you can see it or not, Rusty was right in what he done.”

James turned on the older man. “You didn’t do me no favors either, leadin’ him to Dawkins’s place to stop me. My own grandpa.”

“Yes, I’m your grandfather, and when you were growin’ up I tried to teach you better than what I’ve seen from you today. I didn’t teach you to kill people.”

“There wasn’t no war then. There is now, and it’s all about killin’.”

“You’re not killin’ Rusty.”

James lowered the pistol. “No, I ain’t. I ought to, but I got a feelin’ from my sister that she kind of likes him. Damned if I can see why. So you can go home and tell her I let him live. He can go on to Belknap by himself.”

“The shape he’s in, he might not make it alone. He’s liable to fall off that horse and lay there and die.”