Bent struck for the top of Orry's head. Orry dodged; the casting raked his left temple. The only explosion was one of pain.
Bent smashed the casting against the outermost point of Orry's left shoulder, the stump of his amputated arm. Orry dropped to one knee. Silent tears of pain ran down his cheeks. There was no mistaking Bent's intention. The trapped animal would kill to escape.
'Bastard,' Bent gasped, hitting at Orry's left ear with the casting and nearly knocking him over. Blood ran from a gash in Orry's hair. He had trouble focusing his eyes. The surroundings brightened; he felt heat behind him. The building was afire.
'Arrogant — South Carolina bastard —' Again Bent raised the casting, turning it until he had a sharp point aimed at the top of Orry's skull like some druid's knife. 'Waited
The casting blurred down. Orry aimed the Colt and fired. The ball hit Bent's left wrist, scattering little lumps of flesh and chips of bone. The wound made Bent cry out, jerk the casting to one side, and drop it. The casting grazed the stump of Orry's arm and landed near the fire spreading in the littered straw.
Hatred was powering both men. In all his life, Orry had never felt it so intensely. Scenes clicked in and out of his head like cards in a stereopticon. He saw himself walking an extra tour of guard duty, in a blizzard, thanks to Bent. He saw himself lying in the West Point surgery near death from exposure, courtesy of Bent. He saw the letter from Charles about the officer persecuting him; his sister's face as she spoke of the portrait shown her by a Captain Bellingham —
He came up from his knee, reversing the Colt and leaving it uncocked. He clubbed Bent's head with the base of the butt. Bent shrieked, staggered back.
Orry hit again. Bent's nose squirted blood. He flung his right forearm over his face to protect it, then his left. Bits of flesh were caught in bloody, torn threads of his powder-burned sleeve. Curses poured unconsciously from Orry as he hit again. Bent staggered to the right. Orry hit again. Bent wobbled —
Above the crackle of flames, he heard traces jingling, wheels creaking, rapid hoofbeats. Huntoon and Ashton in flight. It didn't matter. Only this doughy, cringing coward mattered — and Orry's boundless rage, the reaction to years of Bent's lunatic enmity and his discovery here among people who had driven Madeline away.
Bent continued to wobble.
'
'When did you?' Orry screamed, driving his right knee into Bent's genitals. Bent went backward, one staggering step, a second, a third —
Too late, Orry jumped to grab him. Bent's back struck one of the windows. For an instant, hundreds of tiny fires burned in the flying fragments. Bent fell through the sawtoothed opening, one side of his face ripped by glass still in the frame. He screamed as he plummeted. Then Orry heard the pulpy thump of a body hitting something.
Hair in his eyes, Orry stuck his head out the window. Bent had grazed an outcrop, spun away, and was still falling. He smashed into another and then bounced like a ball of India rubber, flying out and down and landing in the water with a mighty splash. A bubbling commotion disturbed the river for a moment. Then — nothing.
Orry strained for some sight of Bent's body, but it was gone, already swept underwater and downstream, toward the red lights pulsing on the wooded horizon.
A half-minute passed. Orry grew conscious of the heat and thickening smoke. A section of siding dissolved into fiery debris. Above him, flames ran along dry rafters. Burning straw was within inches of the coal bomb. Orry leaped and flung the bomb through the open doorway.
He wanted to pry open a crate and take two or three Whitworths for evidence. He barely had time to holster the Colt and snatch the diagram Huntoon had been holding — one corner was already smoking — and slip it into his pocket. Hunched over and struggling to breathe, he dragged Israel Quincy's body toward the door.
One of the beams eaten by the flame disappeared. The rafter above him sagged, broke, and rained sparks and flaming splinters on him. He smelled his hair burning as he gasped and strained, finally pulling Quincy's corpse into the open.
A box of cartridges exploded as he snatched the coal bomb and limped to a safe spot away from the building, whose glare washed out the red lights over Petersburg. All the ammunition blew, the reports rolling away through the night like the volleying of regiments in battle.
Bent. Elkanah Bent. By what twisted route had he come from the United States Army to this place? Transformed himself to Captain Bellingham? Embroiled himself in the plot?
He had two pieces of evidence of that plot. He put the bomb on the ground, unrolled the plan, and examined it in the light from the burning building. At first, because he was so shaken, the arrangements of smaller rectangles within larger ones made no sense. Then he realized he was looking at diagrams representing the different floors of the Treasury Building.
He saw inked crosses, each labeled. Those in the cellar said coal bombs. In a suite of second-floor offices identified by the letters J. D., the label was INCIND. DEVICE. The enormity of it left him weak with awe.
He waited long enough to be sure the collapsing implement building wouldn't threaten the other structures. The wind was blowing flame and smoke out above the James, where he envisioned Elkanah Bent's body drifting seaward in the current. He saw an imaginary picture of cockeyed General Butler on a pier at City Point, struck dumb by the sight of a corpse floating by.
Once Orry started to recover from the shock of Bent's death, a different kind of shock set in. It involved Orry's own behavior. He clearly recalled knowing Bent was whipped, able to be taken prisoner without further struggle. Old grudges had driven Orry's arm then, kept him hitting his tormentor unnecessarily, until Bent fell through the window. He had gone far beyond the demands of self-preservation. He had lost control. As he stood in the glare of the fire, he wondered how a human being could feel so glad someone was dead and so guilty and ashamed at the same time.
The exploding ammunition reminded him that people would be drawn by the noise and flames. He didn't want to waste time on explanations to farmers or military patrols in the area. He forced himself from his shock- induced lethargy, starting toward the farmhouse and discovering that in the fight he had twisted his left ankle. It hurt and made him limp.
Nevertheless, he conducted a rapid search of the house. In the attic he found confirmation of something that had come to mind earlier. The attic was arranged with a few furniture pieces and a square of old carpet — a living area. A large crate standing on end served as an open-sided press for three suits. A few books lay on a smaller crate beside a cot:
Israel Quincy, then, had also searched the house, intentionally failing to discover Powell or his hideaway. Orry didn't know whether Powell would be caught. Perhaps not. But the conspiracy had been aborted a second time and, more important, Orry could now show proofs of its existence.
He limped down the attic stairs and out the back door. All that remained of the implement building were mounds of bright embers. With no more ammunition exploding, he heard voices and horses from the direction of the road.
As fast as he could, he retrieved his evidence and hobbled back across the plowed field to his horse, tethered in the orchard. Mounting, he saw a farmer's wagon pulled up beside the burned building. Three men sat in the wagon, clear as black-paper stencils against the light. Orry reined his horse's head around and took the road to Richmond.
Wearing a striped nightshirt, a sleepy Seddon stared at the man whose pounding on the street door had awakened him. Orry shoved a roll of heavy paper and a lump of coal into the secretary's hand.
'These prove the whole story — these and Quincy's body. He was one of them. When the fire's out, I'm sure we'll find unmelted pieces of the Whitworth rifles. Enough evidence for any reasonable man,' he finished, unable to keep bitterness entirely contained.
