through the back of his head, carrying parts of it and splattering them on the wall. Gus screamed. The sergeant goggled at the boy blown backward against the stove. Then he stared at Charles on one knee, his Colt curling out smoke.
The sergeant was scared and consequently slow. Even while he groped for his side arm, he realized he had no time. Wetting himself, he staggered on a crooked path to the back door.
Charles lunged forward, next to Gus's chair, and aimed at the man's back. 'You piece of Yankee shit.' He squeezed the trigger and simultaneously Gus pulled his arm.
The ball went low, hitting the sergeant's left leg. With a yell he pitched through the door he had opened a moment earlier. He slid belly down across the porch and dropped off the edge, leaving a blood-swath on the ice.
'I'm going to kill the —'
'Charles.'
Pale, she gripped his arm and gazed at him, unable to countenance what she saw. The fever in his eyes, the death's-head expression —
'Charles, I'm all right. Let him go.'
'But he may —'
They heard a horse whinny, weight on it suddenly. It went clattering toward the road. Boz and Washington shouted from the barn. Slowly, Charles released the hammer of the Colt and laid the gun on the table. He was shaking.
He grasped the shoulders of her plain dress, leaned down. 'I've never shot a man in the back, but I'd have shot that one. You certain you're all right?'
A small nod. 'Are you?'
'Yes.' The madman's glint was dimming; his facial muscles relaxed. He knelt and freed the ropes they had wound around her and the chair. Yes, she said, they were scouts, unable to resist a bit of foraging in a warm place.
'When you stormed through that door, I thought I'd taken leave of my senses.' She managed a broken laugh, standing, stretching. 'I thought it was a vision. It's been so long since I've seen you.'
'I sent letters.'
'I got them. I sent some, too. Half a dozen.'
'Did you?' The start of a smile.
'You received them, didn't you?'
'Not a one. But that's all right. I'd better go to the barn and untie your men. Sport's down the road — my spurs, too. My gauntlets are in the attic. I came in by the roof. I'm strung out all over this farm.' His mood swinging wildly back to elation, he left the house across the bloody ice.
An hour later, down to his long underwear and bundled in three blankets, he rested by the great hearth. The Westphalia ham reposed on the chopping block. Gus had scrubbed the wall, and the boy's corpse was gone; Washington and Boz had seen to that, after repeatedly shaking Charles's hand and thanking him for saving their mistress and them.
Shivering, Charles stared at the fire, still astounded by his own behavior. He had shot a stripling without a qualm about the victim's age. Then he had been ready, even eager, to kill the sergeant with a bullet in the back — and not on a battlefield, but in a kitchen. Those were extreme and alarming changes. What was happening in this damned war? What was happening to him?
He tried to puzzle it out. It was the duty of a soldier to destroy the enemy, but not with pleasure. Not without some human feeling other than rage. The boy with the scraggly mustache wasn't a counter on a board or a figure in a report. There were parents, a home, innocent ambitions, perhaps a sweetheart — none of that had entered his head until this minute. All he had wanted to do was shoot, as casually as if the target were some game bird in an autumn field.
Gus returned to the kitchen, moving straight to his side. 'What's wrong?'
'Nothing.'
'You looked frightful when I walked in.'
'Cold, that's all.'
'Can you spend Christmas?'
'If you want me to.'
'Want you to — oh, Charles,' she cried as the firelight shimmered on the walls, revealing one stain not quite wiped away. 'I was so frightened during the fighting in town. I lay awake listening to the guns and wondering where you were.' She knelt in front of him, resting her forearms on his blanketed knees, her face soft, damp, no defenses in place. 'What have you done to me, Charles Main? I love you — oh, my God, I can't believe how much I love you,' she exclaimed, reaching up, pulling him down to a kiss.
With his arm around her, he led her along the hall, worried about his dirty underwear. Her room was cold. They tumbled into bed, groping for one another. 'Gus, I need a bath before —'
'Later. Hold me, Charles. I want to forget how that poor boy died.'
'He was a damned evil boy.'
'He thought he was punishing the enemy.'
'There's no manual prescribing the kind of punishment they wanted to inflict on you.'
'Well, it was horrible, but it's over, so do stop debating and love me as hard as — what's this?'
Her fingers had found the leather bag. She insisted on lighting a candle while he unbuttoned his underwear and, after some coaxing, slipped the thong over his head and handed her the bag.
Delight spread over her face as she opened it. 'You've kept the book with you all this time?' The smile vanished. 'The book was hit. You were hit. This is a bullet.'
'What's left of it. Mr. Pope saved my life at Sharpsburg.'
She burst into tears, seized him, began raining kisses on him. They pulled each other's clothes off. The coupling was quick, almost desperate, with a certain clumsiness because the shock of earlier events still lingered. In less than five minutes he fell away from her and fell asleep.
He woke an hour later to find her jogging his shoulder. 'Hot water's in the tub.' She had donned a robe, had better color. Her hair, undone, hung nearly to her waist. 'I'll wash your back, and we'll go to bed again.'
This time, less numb and stunned, Charles lay with her in the cave of warmth beneath the comforter. She kissed his eyes and beard. His hand touched and played with each round breast, then strayed lower. She gripped his wrist and pressed.
Their breathing quickened. Yet there were warnings in his head on this night of shocks and changes.
'Are you sure we should go on? I'm a soldier — I can't get here for months at a time —'
'I know what you are,' she said, caressing gently in the dark.
'Do you? I could ride away and never get back.'
'Don't say such things.'
'Have to, Gus. I'll get out of this bed this minute if you think I should.'
'Do you want that?'
'God, no.'
'I don't either.' Kissing him. Touching him. Rousing him to such rigidity he hurt. 'I know the times are fearful and dangerous. We must accept Pope's advice —' Her mouth slipped across his bearded face, found his lips, opened. Tongues wet and loving touched a moment.
'What's that?'
' 'Whatever is — is right.' ' Another deep, long kiss. 'Love me, Charles.'
He did, and toward the end, she hung her head back and breathed, 'I want you always. Always, always.'
'I love you, Gus.'
'I love you, Charles.'
'— love you —'
'— love you —'
'— love —'
The word cycled up the scale like human music as he pushed to the center of her, and she rose and cried her
