It is God’s house, he says. Smell. Like the incense.

Bambino, I say. He puts his arms around me. He doesn’t speak.

Baby, I say in the inglese. You are my baby.

We run with the butterflies. Help them to fly, mama says.

Oh, mama, I cannot touch the wings. I hurt, I break.

But Francesco, ah! He picks up with his fingers, he is so gentle.

He throws and the butterfly is gone.

Again, I cry, again. Save them all.

He flings and they leap from his hand like purple and gold fairies, their wings shine like precious jewels, they flash like the wine the priest pours. They go, fast.

Where do they go, I wonder.

Francesco smiles. To the angels, he says.

My mama is with the angels, I say. But she visits me. I squeeze his face with my hands. Bambino, let me wash your face. It is so dirty, and no one washes like your mama.

We kneel beside the river. The smoke does not choke us here. He gives me his red scarf and I dip it in the water. I clean the folds beneath his eyes, the tender skin.

I kiss his forehead. He presses my hand against his cheek.

I must wait for your brothers, I say. They will come to me. I must wait for Mama.

I will take you, he says. I know the place.

It is very clean here. Francesco comes every day and Mama makes my bed at night. Soon we will go to the angels.

Seventeen

CARRIE BISHOP

RONDAL LLOYD CAME TO MY TENT EARLY ONE SUMMER MORNING and shook me awake.

“I got to talk to you.”

I sat up, wrapped my quilt around me and blinked stupidly at him. He smelled of burnt wood.

“Where’s Albion?” he asked.

“He’s with Doc standing watch over the Ledford baby. What you been up to?”

He pulled up the only chair and sat down. “We burnt part of Davidson last night. They was a big fight. I reckon they’s at least ten men laying dead up there. But Number Five and Number Eight stood with us. Hit’s Number Two that’s kept working, but I think we got them scairt. They’re staying home now.”

He spoke easily of the shooting. But that morning there was such a look on his face. His was not the face of a man who has watched others die. His was the look of Moses who has seen the burning bush.

“I want to tell you what happened. I thought you’d know what I should do.”

“Tell me.”

“We set the big house on fire.”

“Lytton Davidson’s?”

“That’s right. He took off for Philadelphy when the strike broke out, so we burnt it down. But just after we set the fire, I thought I’d best run in and see that they wasnt nobody in there. Sure enough they was a woman in a big room at the back. I learnt later on that she’s an Italian that worked for Davidson as a maid. Isom says her old man run off after the Number Six explosion and Davidson moved her into the big house. It appears she lost four sons at Number Six. Isom says one of them was a damn good baseball player.