Sister wailed from the potato bin: neither had she known the mind of the Lord, but she hoped that He was guarding her among the potatoes. Simon, she cried, Simon—a big ca’tridge went through Vandercooks’ garret yesterday—please come down cellar, oh, Simon—please!… Reverend Solt opened the stair door and called past the row of milk crocks, “No man is safe from what wrath is in store for him, Annie. You should recollect the Psalms better than you do. ‘O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?’ I am going down to the corner.”

He progressed as far as Quackenboss’s woodshed, and this was the Revelation come to life: the yellow smoke coughed above Gettysburg … Henry Niede’s farm. No, it was far past there—somewhere near the Sherfy place. The ground felt its rock foundation sundering underneath, and a bucket of nails fell from a shelf in the woodshed. Then a gun exploded, close beside the minister, and he turned his white face to see the two bare-armed Confederate soldiers who sprawled in Quackenboss’s bean patch and poked their guns between pickets of the warped fence. They were aiming toward the cemetery; you saw the cones of fir trees, and felt the sun mirroring on tombstones up there.

“You better get to hell out of here, Uncle. This is hot.”

A hot pebble grazed the shed, gouging a long furrow of splinters. “I tolt you the first time,” growled the sharp-shooter.

They had long, glistening tubes fastened atop their rifles; these were no guns such as Reverend Solt had ever seen before.

“He’s a pusson,” said the other man.

They both grinned over the sedge of beans. “I’m sorry, parson. Didn’t notice the cloth. I wish you’d get for home, though.”

Another gouge at the woodshed—lower, this time—and an echo clicked among chimneys of the nearby house. Reverent Solt creaked down to his knees, and took out a blue cotton handkerchief. He patted his wet neck. He asked: “Are you prepared?”

The guns clanged in unison. Again brown eyes studied him. “I hope you are, parson, if you stay around here.”

“Them’s mean Yanks, pusson.”

“Especially since they’re liable to throw a shell down here any minute.”

“That is in the Scriptures,” the minister said. “All of this is. ‘And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.’”

They chuckled among the beans. “I don’t reckon I want to be beheld, do you, Dart?”

Reverend Solt wiped his face. “I would not jest, my son. Not in the sin you are doing.”