Ty had ridden away on a train—its wheels were still clicking with every whisper of her pulse. And now she could imagine that over beyond South Mountain a mighty car of war came bundling its way through the barley hills, pressing down the nap of wheat and clover. It was not a chariot of the past, no juggernaut, nothing oriental or fantastic; its only fantasy was in the horrific size of wheels and the bald fact of its being in Pennsylvania. North it came, north and east, squeezing the hills aside … full train of war, loaded with a screaming freight of wounded men, a jumbled cargo dead or alive. Ty rode on the prow of it, and now he was joined by Elijah Huddlestone. The rocky earth sighed and quivered, and dreaded the pressure which crackled toward it. That’s war, she told herself, now I know what war is, and may it never come to this town. Buzzards, may the fields never be able to understand you.

Muscle by muscle, she rose in her place. She must go back to the house. She was no longer shaking with the delirium of physical desire. The two men had taken her madness from her, in their talk, and with a last flicker of passion she hated them for it. Now she would go back to the silent bed, the snoring house, the existence which she had cast aside. She would wrap that existence around her, let its stiff folds cover her body and her soul … Silent woman, proper, modest, aloof, and respected by any man who looked at her. A soldier’s wife, a soldier’s widow. Mrs. Captain Fanning expressed the following articles, gratefully received by the U.S. Sanitary Commission: 2 doz. hospital shirts, 2 doz. pairs felt slippers, 4 doz. sheets, 2 doz. pillow cases, 25 yds. san. sheeting, 2 cases surg. dressings, jellies, wines, farina, also tinned milk, dessicated vegetables and Other Articles Too Numerous To Mention. Soldier’s Wife, soldier’s—

The thorns took her in their teeth; it was a vine, a sinew of pain which had curved out of the midnight and torn her again. She sobbed, and tried to strangle the sound as it came.

A match flared, close before her eyes.

Bale said, “Why, you—you—”

Then she blinked into twisting darkness: the wraith of the little flame sputtered and curved in front of her glazing eyes—now it’s purple, now getting green, now it’s pink again.

He asked, “Mrs. Fanning, what is it?”

“I’m—caught in some vines.”

Again, a match. “I’m sorry. All tangled. Do stand still, please. That’s right…” His hand went mauling, caressing around her left arm. “Blackberry vine,” he said. Then the tiny blunt swords had been lifted away, but her whole body felt as if it were wrapped in them still. “Well,” he began, and then said nothing more. The match went out.