Luther shook his head.

“Damnedest thing, Jessie, but I couldn’t tell you now what it was exactly we were fighting about. Seems like back in ’fourteen, that Serbian fella shot that Austrian fella? And next thing you know, in ’bout a minute, Germany was threatening Belgium and France was saying, well, you can’t threaten Belgium and then Russia—’member when they were in it?—they’re saying you can’t threaten France and before you know it, everyone’s shooting. Now you, you say you worked in a munitions factory, so I’m wondering—did they tell you what it was about?”

Luther said, “No. To them I think it was just about munitions.”

“Hell,” Cully said with a hearty laugh, “maybe that’s what it was about for all of us. Maybe that’s all indeed. Wouldn’t that be something?” He laughed again and nudged Luther’s thigh with his fist and Luther smiled in agreement because if the whole world were that stupid then it truly was something indeed.

“Yes, suh,” he said.

“I read a bunch,” Cully said. “I hear at Versailles that they’re going to make Germany surrender something like fifteen percent of her coal production and near fifty percent of her steel. Fifty percent. Now how’s that dumb country supposed to ever get back on its feet? You wonder that, Jessie?”

“I’m wondering it now,” he said, and Cully chuckled.

“They supposed to give up, like, another fifteen percent of their territory. And all this for backing the play of a friend. All that. And the thing is, who amongst us picks our friends?”

Luther thought of Jessie and wondered who Cully was thinking of as he stared at the window, his eyes gone wistful or rueful, Luther couldn’t tell.

“No one,” Luther said.

“Exactly. You don’t pick friends. You find each other. And any man don’t back a friend gives up the right to call himself a man in my opinion. And I understand, you gots to pay if you back a bad play by your friend, but do you have to be ground into the dirt? I don’t think so. World apparently thinks different, though.”

He settled back in his seat, his arm loose against the wheel, and Luther wondered if he was expected to say something.

“When I was in the war,” Cully said, “a plane flies over this field one day, starts dropping grenades? Whew. That’s a sight I try to forget. Grenades start hitting the trenches and everyone’s jumping out and the Germans start firing from their trenches and I’ll tell you, Jessie, wasn’t no way to tell hell from hell that day. What would you do?”

“Suh?”

Cully’s fingers rested lightly on the wheel. He looked over. “Stay in the trench with grenades falling on you or jump out into a field where boys were shooting at you?”

“I can’t imagine, suh.”

“I suspect you can’t. Hideous really, the cries boys make when they’re dying. Just hideous.” Cully shuddered and yawned at the same time. “Yes, sir. Sometimes life don’t give you a choice but between the hard thing and the harder thing. Times like that, man can’t afford to lose much time thinking. Just got to get doing.”