Frustration boiled into anger. “Damn you, old man, you owe me somethin’. I’m your son.”

“A fact that a heavy heart has brought me to regret.”

Pete jerked a thumb toward the kitchen door. “Scully, go in yonder and see what you can find. Hurry up.” He turned back to his father. “You keep tellin’ me how poor you are, but I believe you’ve still got money stashed away. I want it.”

“All the money I had went to the cause. You know that.”

“I just know you told me that, but I think you lied. Now, where’ve you got it?”

“It’s a sorry state you’ve come to, Pete, that you’d rob your own father. I’m only glad your mother isn’t here to see how low you’ve let yourself sink. You’re on the run again, aren’t you?”

“It’s none of your concern if I am. You’ve already disowned me, so what difference does it make?”

“What did you do, steal some more horses?”

“Killed some nigger soldiers, is all.”

“So now you’ve moved up to higher crimes. You’ve added murder to the list.”

“It ain’t murder, killin’ a nigger. The country’s overrun with them as it is.”

“But if they were soldiers the Federals won’t rest ‘til they have a noose around your neck.”

“There was thousands of soldiers killed in the war. What’s three more, especially with them bein’ black?” Pete took a threatening stance. “Now, where’s that money at?”

Tears glistened in the colonel’s dull eyes. “You’ll find a metal box in the bottom of my desk yonder.”

Pete took three quick strides and flung open the double doors in the lower part of the rolltop desk. He grabbed the box so eagerly that it slipped from his grasp and fell heavily to the floor. He lifted it to the desktop and nervously fumbled with the latch. He flipped the box open and plunged his hands into stacks of neatly banded currency. He yelled exuberantly. Then the yell broke off. His face fell.

“Confederate money!” He ripped the bands off several bundles before he turned in disbelief. “Confederate, every damned bit of it. But where’s the real money?”

“That’s it. That’s all there is.”

Pete let a handful of currency float to the floor. “You fool! You damned old fool! You were richer than Croesus, and you let it go to hell for a crazy notion.”

“Not crazy. You wouldn’t call it crazy if we had won.”

Pete could not contain his rage. He drove his fist into his father’s square chin. Colonel Dawkins staggered back, grasping at a chair. He missed it and fell heavily to the floor.