“Quagger—who else? He asked if I knew you well, and I said I did. He asked if you was a man who’d kill him because he had wronged you, and I tried to get him to tell the wrong, but he would never do it. He said it had been on his conscience, because he had wronged you when he was angry. I’m thinking that his ailments were true ones, but there was a disorder of the brain behind them all.”

Dan rubbed his thumbs up and down his suspenders. “Why did he move from the Frielings?”

“The rebels—or maybe a straggler or two—stole their chickens. Before that, they hadn’t minded about Quagger’s sympathies, political and all. Maybe they suggested he had given the chickens to the rebels … I admit it sounds like a joke to be laughed at. And he looked shabby and unshaven, as if he had been sleeping in the woods.”

The old man slid out a pink tongue to moisten his lips. “I’m your friend, Dan Bale. It was me who helped you into this world, and I feel responsible. I’d like to have you tell me how Quagger could ever be wronging you.”

Dan exclaimed suddenly. A long dust cloud was pushing up the valley from the south … he spun the doctor in his tracks, and pointed. Together they stared through the writhing lines of heat. “Sakes,” Duffey whispered, “it’s the rebels come back again.”

“But they didn’t go south. They marched to York.”

“This is them, you can wager on it.” The old man said: “This war, Dan. This—armies crowding in the roads, overrunning all creation. It’ll be the death—”

Dan cried, “Look there!” Far beyond the Fairfield road, beyond Long Lane and against the searing fog of Granite Ridge, a little wad of horsemen was emerging from the welter of the parent cloud. They headed rapidly across the fields. Now they could be seen swinging from their horses, lifting rails out of a fence, breaking a path into the sprawling pastures … The two men rested their elbows on the picket railing. From an upper window, Mrs. Knouse was yapping, “Daniel—what is it, Daniel? Is it more soldiers come?” and Duffey wondered whether the woman had been hiding behind limp curtains, straining her ears to listen to the conversation in the yard.

“They’re Union, Doc. Nationals.”

Duffey said, “There’s none about. They’ll be more rebels, more and more.” He asked himself, and was Elijah Huddlestone caught by them? They came out of the south, the south and—

“I can make them out. They’ve got blue uniforms.”

“You’re right, by God,” breathed the doctor. “And I’m happy it’s so. I was thinking about Elijah.”

Dan nodded, without turning. “Yes. If there were Nationals south of here, perhaps he hasn’t been gobbled up.”