At the foot of the short hill sloping north from the Diamond stood the railroad station. The main track ended at the depot, but a temporary spur curved on toward the new cut in the rocky hill northwest of town. A row of freight cars, transformed into laborers’ shanties, lay along the side track; scrofulous children peeked out at the carriage as it jolted in a circle and halted close to the platform. Someone was singing in a flat tenor: swate Lily, she’s the pride of my life, if she’ll only be my wife … you could smell potatoes frying. A giant in a soiled orange undershirt was sitting on a pile of ties, smoking a pipe.

Tyler climbed out of the carriage. His wife watched with slow amazement: the set of his shoulders, the stiffening of his neck. He was not the same man who had come home, who had lain for six nights in her bed, who had coughed and sworn indiscreetly and answered all her questions in sullen monosyllables. He was an officer, very proud and peremptory, no matter what curling smudge there might be in the soft place above his bowels.

He called to the big Irishman, “When’s that burden train due to start for Hanover Junction?”

The man pointed up the rickety track, where knots of smoke puffed out around the curve. “She’s after taking rails aboard.” He looked at Fanning with clumsy admiration. “Will you ride to the Junction with her, mister?… Maybe you’ll be in General Vincent’s army. It’s me own brother that’s with General Vincent. Patrick Callan is the name, mister—”

Tyler swung on his heel and walked back to the carriage. His boots went wunch, wunch, wunch in the rough bed of cinders. “It’ll be along in a minute. Get that knapsack out, Demon.”

“The new connection west of Gettysburg will be of considerable advantage to our city,” said his father.

“It’s taking them an almighty long time to build it.”

“Labor is at a premium, and materials come high.”

Tyler squinted at the smoke, cottony against the pocked green of Oak Ridge. He sucked his cigar. “At least if the rebels come up here, they’ll be spared the trouble of destroying this road.”

“Nonsense,” declared Mr. Fanning. “They could never penetrate this far.”

“Jeb Stuart did.”

The older man creaked down from the step; the carriage swayed back at the release of his weight. “A hundred thousand armed men would rise in their might if Lee ever showed himself north of the line.”

Tyler laughed unkindly. “I can damn well tell you what Lee did to a hundred thousand of us last month.”

His father’s face was tired and grave. “Your wife, my son! Save that for the camp and barracks, if you please.”

“Oh, Irene doesn’t mind. She’s accustomed to my little blasphemies.”