Haven’t got a handkerchief, Dan thought. Left it somewhere. He began to drive with one hand, holding his sleeve across his mouth and nose. His gaze fell toward the front buggy wheel; he let the mare pick her own path; somehow she was more accustomed to this rank spoilage, than he. Well, he thought, she’s hauled Finis Sketchley around for years and— Wheel went over a roll of blankets. Playing cards. Under-drawers. Cup. Revolver. An open book … it was insane of him: he pulled on the reins, got out and went back, stepping over muskets, and picked up the book. It was Irving’s Sketch-Book, and the greasy wheel had mutilated across the page where Master Simon explained the feudal antiquity of peacocks. On the fly-leaf was written in faded ink: Artie’s Christmas book. From Coz. December the 25, 1842. There were rusty spatters all over the cover. Dan threw the book as far as he could.

Well, he thought, I didn’t think we were here so soon—not at this place. I had never intended to come here again. Some birds flew up past the rock-oak grove; there were plump gray and purplish pillows, long-shaped, covering the whole daisy field and heaped thickly across the low wall. A young soldier stepped from behind a shredded stump and a tangle of wheel-spokes … caisson blew up, it made a hole in the sky, Dan remembered that noise, he would remember it forever. Called for help as the son of—

The boy sentinel had a handkerchief tied across his mouth and nose. He dragged his musket, trailing the butt across the ground. His eyes looked bilious. He croaked, Lezzee yur pass. Dan said, “Whoa.” He sat there looking stonily at the soldier. The boy said, Ain’t lettenem go over field thouta pass, and retched between the words. Lezzee it … “Oh, hell,” Bale said. He drove on without looking back … He could feel that the atmosphere was disordered, high against the blue china sky, and when he had lifted his gaze from the revolving metal tire he found the whole zenith being ridden by wide-winged birds that wheeled and wheeled, spun slowly, flapped their wings with mighty effort when they did move them. Haven’t seen any for years. Maybe these came over from the Blue Ridge. Tyler stood back there and shot at them; they flew.

A lot of teams over along the Emmetsburg road; canvas-topped wagons, most of them. The buggy went over another log, and the sorrel shied nervously, her ears sticking up like trowels. A pot-bellied negro was sitting squarely in the path, his back against a rock, his arms flung wide. “Get up,” Dan said, and sawed on the left rein. It wasn’t a negro, no, no … the mare trotted for a time, whickering uncomfortable; the buggy jounced over things.