‘I took this-here away from Albert in that last fight,’ he said. ‘He had it on me but I took it away outen his hand. He was right on me with this-here when I was inside the barn with the lantern. I thought he’d gone for good and in he comes with the gun on me. But I cut off his wind. He’s up there alongside the barn now. “Are you done?” I said. I had a strangle hold on his throat. Say “I’m done,” I said, and he said it when I eased on his wind a trifle.’

They waited in the thicket until they saw Albert leave the barnlot and go toward the house. He bent low as he walked and kept in the shadows, or he crawled over the ground when he passed the bare yard near the back door. Then they went down the thicket toward Henry’s field, climbing the fence hurriedly, but Jasper hid the pistol deep in the brush before he left Wingate land. Albert had driven away the hogs and had sold them to a trader, had taken them swiftly away in a wagon. Jasper declared that he was ruined unless Mrs Wingate chose to make amends for her son’s thieving. It was said that Tarbell had spied out the hogs and had helped Albert off with them. Now Albert had come back with four of his set to drink all night in the kitchen, but he, Jasper, had given two of them the weight of his fist in the face and he had cut off Albert’s wind until he was blue when they fought inside the house and had made him say ‘Enough’ behind the corncrib. He would have the law on his side, Henry said, but at this Jasper swore an oath and said that he was his own law. He told and retold his grievance, piling up his wrath, crazed by his loss, or he walked about thumping the field with his harsh steps, or he would sit sullenly staring at the ground or lift his head to listen across the field or peer toward Wingate’s expectantly.

‘You still got the hay and your share of the corn,’ Henry said.

He muttered at the ground, recounting his losses. He cursed the corn. They sat on the hill above the quarry for a time, Jasper muttering of his fights with Albert and renewing his curse upon his loss. Then some cry of fire came through the air and other cries calling of fire replied. A light grew along the edge of the sky and a great blaze shot up from Wingate’s out-buildings and Wingate’s barn was burning, the hill standing strange and high because of the flames that topped it.

They went back into the brush where Ellen and Henry had stood before, and by this time many had gathered to fight the flames. The clatter of hoofs was constant on the road.

‘It was that-there lantern,’ Jasper said. ‘That-there lantern caused it.’