“Come on, lad, up with you!” The sergeant boosted Blythe’s heavy body onto the bed of an empty ammunition wagon that would trundle north to Smoketown before crossing the creek by the upper bridge.

Blythe lay in the wagon and stared at the sky. He smiled. Caton Rothwell, one of the two men who had sworn to kill him, was dead, shot in the back by Blythe himself, and Blythe had sown enough discord to be fairly sure that Starbuck would be removed before the day was through. He chuckled as he admired his own cleverness. Damn it, he thought, but there were few men to touch Billy Blythe for sheer cunning. He fingered his commission, then struggled to sit up. A Pennsylvanian Bucktail officer, wounded in the leg, sat beside him and offered him a cigar. “Hell,” the Pennsylvanian said.

“Life is sure sweet,” Blythe said.

The Pennsylvanian frowned at Blythe’s accent. “Are you a reb?” he asked.

“A major in your army, Captain,” Blythe promoted himself to celebrate his survival. “I was never a man to change allegiance to my country, certainly not on account of a pack of Sambos.” He accepted the Pennsylvanian’s cigar. “Hell,” he went on, “I can understand fighting over land or women, but over darkies?” Blythe shook his head. “Just plain don’t make sense.”

The captain leaned back on the wagon’s sideboard. “Jesus,” he said faintly, still shaking after his time in the cornfield.

“Praise His name,” Blythe said, “praise His holy name.” For Billy Blythe was safe.

Captain Dennison was safe too. He was in the West Woods, where he had found Sergeant Case. The two men were some twenty yards behind the remnants of Starbuck’s battalion, where they were concealed in the muddle of disorganized and leaderless men. “Captain Tumlin didn’t make it,” Dennison said nervously, “leastwise I ain’t seen him. And Cartwright’s dead. So’s Dan Lippincott.”

“So the battalion’s yours,” Case said, and then, after a pause, “or it will be when Starbuck’s dead.”

Dennison shuddered. He had been scared half to death by the retreat across the open country, a retreat marked by the whistle of minie bullets and the jeers of Yankees and the thump of exploding shells.

“Yours,” Case said again, “and you promised to give me back my company. As a captain.”

“I did,” Dennison agreed.

Case pushed a rifle into Dennison’s hands. “It fires true,” he said, “and it’s loaded.”

Dennison stared at the gun as though he had never seen such a thing before. “Swynyard might not confirm me,” he said after a while.

“Bloody hell, Captain, we all have to take our chances,” Case said, then levered down the trigger guard of his captured Sharps rifle to make sure a round was in the breech. It was. That meant he had three rounds in all, and after they were fired the gun would be useless. Dennison looked up at Starbuck and tentatively raised the rifle to his shoulder, but Case pushed it down. “Not now, Captain,” he said scornfully. “Wait till the Yankees come again. Wait till there’s plenty of noise.”