Choking clouds whipped and billowed around them, the dust fell in adhesive thicknesses over cloth and skin and metal and horseflesh; still it could not hide the pride of their shroudings. Blue, government blue, hot and heavy goods, wool which was too thick for any need, they steamed inside its firm, buttoned folds. Closer, closer, two and two and two forever, with the gaudy notches of their guidons flicking on ahead. They had no faces … this was Tuesday … no one could ever tell how so much dust had been born since that wet Friday, the Friday which seemed so long ago. The clay was dried by days of sunshine. Now its smoke rose up, pestled and pounded, to wash every human line from the faces of men.

Their mouths were wet scars in the plastered blankness, for eyes they had twin holes. Every soldier with a beard had become a patriarch, a hoary Methuselah. In the town, a brass band exhorted with full confidence.

… mandates

Make heroes assemble

When Liberty’s form stands in view …

Far and near you could hear dogs yipping; again Bale looked toward the Fannings’, but still there was no one in sight except Demon and a hysterical Cybo who danced and pirouetted in the yard … Nothing settled yet, he thought. We’ve laid it all on the table, after some foolish parliamentary law. But here is part of the army, and what if the Seventy-second Pennsylvania should come, ho, to the wars?

All the bordering fields were drinking up a saturation of disturbed dust. You could not breathe without drawing heated particles against your nostril linings. The cavalry moved more slowly in the Pike. An order came relayed down the steaming river of men; distantly, a bugle uttered its piercing stammer. There was sudden, oppressive silence which ticked in the ears, and the column stood there halted on the road. Men twisted their stiff shoulders, began to cough and murmur. Almost directly in front of the gate, lifted a cry: there he goes! With a jingling crash, a horse pitched forward and lay shuddering, its fore-legs doubled, its hind-legs stretching and plowing in the dust. The blue rider had leaped clear as the animal went down; he stood with his great, curved saber trailing, wiping his face and gazing down at the mound of ruddy flesh beside him.

“What’s the matter, Bryce?”

The man answered, “Too damn hot, sir.” Other cavalrymen pressed aside, giving room as an officer rattled along the ditch. He swung down; with the private, he bent over the horse.

Dan called across the fence. “Do you want some water?”

“Yuh.” They didn’t turn for a moment, and when they did it was to face him with those same inhuman false-faces of grime and sweat. “If you’ve got an old cloth handy—” added the officer.