Dan hurried through the house to the front, and unlocked the door. At the road gate sat a tall scarecrow on a black horse. The rider was hatless, his face rubbed with charcoal, and one arm hung loose at his side; he sat very still, with all the ridges rocking behind him and smoke foaming high. His horse was rusted thickly over the withers. The man sagged stiffly, as if somewhere in his middle was a pain which cut him, and yet held his sundered nerves together by its very intensity.

“Major Glenn!” Dan heard himself calling. “Major, come in and—” The officer’s head drooped sideways; he scanned the yard and the front of the house, and seemed wondering as he stared. Then his shoulders straightened themselves. “Billy,” he yelled. He nodded toward the man in the doorway, without seeing him at all. “I did have three of them … it’s the Eighth Illinois, Gamble’s brigade. He never knew what hit him, nor did the sorrel.” Then his horse started away of its own accord; he rode slowly down the Pike, bending in his saddle, and the dust of artillery pouring out from the village to meet him.

Chapter 3

3.

As the hours boomed by, the Fannings had prayed, and Mr. Fanning had read a chapter from Demon’s Bible. Lizards and tiny unnamed creatures—things which were damp and jeweled and scaly—scurried on the stone ledges, and you felt their pin-point eyes watching you … The man and his wife talked of their son; they were thankful that he was not in this battle; they hoped that no battles would overcome him, in Virginia or wherever he might be. The young woman listened to their prayers and to the other things they said: and now they discuss my husband, the person who never made me ecstatic, and to whom I have done a cruelty.

Gretel came to regard this war as an electric storm. She made Demon set to work with her, after she had discovered that the explosions would not penetrate the cellar and strike her down. She sorted rows of fruit jars and pickles and jelly glasses. These pears were spoiled, they oozed with smelly brine, they must be thrown out. The melon pickles could go on that lower shelf, and the jellies on the ledge beside them, and here was the bottle of blackberry wine which Mr. Fanning thought had been stolen. Under the little woman’s directions, Demon worked handily, and he divided the battle into Big Ones and Little Ones. “Big One,” he said. “Now come mo’ Big Ones. Reckon Mist Ty, he captain, he not mind no Big Ones.”