“Hit’s Rondal come back,” I called, and turned back to see if it was so, to watch him leap. I caught a glimpse of dark metal, and then the boxcar spat fire.

I fell onto my back and hit my head in the gravel. I saw Sam Gore kneel and fire his rifle. Then he jerked backwards like a rag doll and lay twisted and still. I tried to scream but the clatter of machine guns was deafening. Bullets ripped open the tents with great tearing sounds; those closest to the tracks collapsed.

I wept at the pain in my arm. A pool of blood spread darkly across the ground near my shoulder. I turned my head so I wouldn’t see it. The gravel was sharp against my cheek. Then I passed out.

I recall Albion’s face near mine, and a numbness in my arm, which I later learned was from his belt wrapped tight to stop the bleeding.

I must have questioned him, for he told me Sam was dead and he had seen several other bodies. My next memory is of a hospital ward. Albion and Miles stood beside my bed and argued.

“You going to pay for everbody else that got shot up?”

“You can’t deny her medical care if I’m willing to pay for it.”

“Didnt say I would deny her. But it aint right for the hospital to put folks out that has been shot.”

“—can’t answer for the hospital. I suppose they’re overcrowded.”

“She wouldnt want to go with you. I hate to say it, but it’s true.”

“—not in any shape to be particular.”

“—take her myself, but I cant leave the county until the trial.”

Ben Honaker’s face hovered over mine. His fine blond hair looked soft as a baby’s.

“Honey, you want to go home?”

I tried to smile and nod my head.

“—wrap her up good.”

“Aint cold no more,” I whispered. “Hot.”

I saw my room at the Homeplace, the familiar oak chest, the gray checked wallpaper. Aunt Becka put spoons to my mouth, Flora bathed my face. I slept, and was content.

I took the pneumonia on top of the gunshot wound. I was near death for over a week and slept for most of a month without memory. Then I woke to see the window standing wide open. The white curtains flowed like water. Flora perched on the edge of the bed, set her hand to my cheek.

“Hit aint even April yet, but it’s turned unseasonable warm.”

“Hit’s lovely,” I said.

She started to cry and called for Aunt Becka.

By early April I was able to sit on the porch in the afternoon sun wrapped in one of Flora’s quilts. I wondered about Albion, how they were in the camps, if the warm weather had heartened them. I stared for hours at the folded mountains. The trees were white as bones and tipped with red buds, as though they had been turned upside down and dipped in blood.