Elijah kept telling himself, “This is true. I’m standing here, talking to these people; they’ve seen the rebels. The rebs are here, in Pennsylvania. We’re invaded … That little dirty-mouthed girl: she’s looked upon the enemy.” He thought of turning old Salt and whipping him up, racing home for the Vincennes musket. He had powder, but no bullets as yet. The bayonet … “God,” he said to the doctor, hoarsely, “they might even come here. What in time is the army doing?”

Duffey shook his head. His round eyes were very bright. He assured the hysterical travelers that Gettysburg people would at least give them breakfast and let them rest for awhile. He and Huddlestone stood beside the carryall and watched the Zeigenfuss family scrambling down the hill, horses and wagon and featherbeds and all.

“We must hurry, Elijah—poor Kaufman, he was slipping fast, Marta told me! Hurry!” he squawked with a burst of amazing wrath.

Huddlestone flailed old Salt across his gray rump. The horse snorted, and lurched into a stiff gallop. From the top of McPherson’s hill the two men gazed west along the misty strand of the Pike. The sun crept clear of the horizon and gilded distant ribbons of forest, caught a jeweled flash from some farmhouse window.

“Praise Peter,” Duffey sighed, “no enemies in sight.” He meditated for a moment, clinging to the seat as the carryall bounded and wailed across the clods. “I don’t know what they’d want with us, to be sure. I’ve got no calves for them to butcher, poor hungry creatures that they are.”

Elijah sobbed, “Bastards.” His lips felt shapeless and woolly. “The boys’ll all be out as soon as they hear the news, Doc. I ought to be back there.” Elements of Military Art and History began to unleaf itself in his brain; page after page, an incredible volume. “Somebody ought to send a message to Harrisburg,” he heard himself yapping at the doctor.

Old Peter Kaufman had been dead for ten minutes, when they reached the farm. He was ninety-one years old, and had long been ill of heart trouble.

Chapter 4

4.

Three church bells and the fire bell were splintering in a wicked medley; it seemed as if some leafy lining of the village had been shredded to reveal a brass pulsation which had always existed there, but only in this hour was being heard.