he turned the field glasses back to the mountains.
'A man should have beliefs, you see,' Sergeant Huxtable said. 'A man without beliefs, Captain, is a man without purpose. Like a ship without a compass.'
Adam still said nothing. He turned the glasses northward. He watched an empty track, then slid the lenses across a wooded ridge.
Huxtable shifted his lump of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other. He had been a cooper in his native Louisiana and then apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in his wife's village in upstate New York. When the war had broken out, Tom Huxtable had visited the white-spired village church, knelt in prayer for twenty minutes, then gone home and taken his rifle from its hooks over the fireplace, a Bible from the drawer in the kitchen table, and a knife from his workshop. Then he had told his wife to keep the squash well watered and gone to join the Northern army. His grandfather had been killed by the British to establish the United States of America, and Tom Huxtable was not minded to let that sacrifice go for nothing.
'It mayn't be my place to say it,' Huxtable now went remorselessly on, 'but Captain Blythe don't have a belief in his body, sir. He'd fight for the devil if the pay was right.' Adam's men were of a like mind with their Sergeant and murmured agreement. 'Mr. Blythe's not in the North by choice, Captain,' Huxtable continued doggedly. 'He says he's fighting for the Union, but we hear he left his hometown a pace ahead of a lynching party. There's talk of a girl, Captain. A white girl of good family. She says Mr. Blythe wrestled her down and—'
'I don't want to know!' Adam said abruptly. Then, thinking he had spoken too fiercely, he turned apologetically to his Sergeant. 'I'm sure Major Galloway has considered all this.'
'Major Galloway's like yourself, sir. A decent man who doesn't believe in evil.'
'And you do?' Adam asked.
'You've seen the plantations in the deep South, sir?' Huxtable asked. 'Yes, sir, I believe in evil.'
'Sir!' The conversation was interrupted by one of Adam's men, who pointed northward. Adam turned and raised the field glasses. For a second his view was of nothing but blurred leaves; then he focused the lenses to see mounted men on a crestline. He counted a dozen riders, but guessed there were more. They were not in uniform but carried rifles slung from their shoulders or thrust into saddle holsters. A second group of horsemen came into view. They had to be partisans: the Southern horsemen who rode Virginia's secret paths to harass the Northern armies.
Huxtable stared at the distant horsemen. 'Captain Blythe will run away,' he said disgustedly.
'He needs to be warned. Come on.' Adam led his troop down from the hilltop. They spurred east, and Adam wished their horses were not so decrepit.
The parched lawn in front of the farmhouse was now a bizarre array of furniture and household goods, which Blythe's men were picking through in search of plunder. There were buckets, spittoons, pictures, lamps, and rush- bottom chairs. There was a sewing machine, a long case clock, two butter churns, a chamber pot, and meal sifters. Some men were trying on suits of clothes while two more were swathed in women's scarves. A man threw a bolt of cloth from an upstairs window, and the bright cloth cascaded across the veranda roof and down to where the horses were picketed in the flower beds. 'Where's Captain Blythe?' Adam demanded of one of the scarfed men.
'In the barn, Cap'n, but he won't thank you for finding him there,' the man answered. Children screamed in the house. Adam threw his reins to Sergeant Huxtable, then ran to the barn, where Corporal Kemble was standing guard. 'You can't go in, sir,' the Corporal said unhappily.
Adam just pushed past the Corporal, unlatched the door, and pushed into the barn. Two empty horse stalls were on the right, an oat cutter stood in the floor's center, while a mound of hay filled the barn's farther end. Blythe was in the hay, struggling with a crying woman.
'Bitch!' Blythe said, slapping her. 'Goddamned bitch!' There was the sound of cloth ripping; then Blythe realized the door had been thrown open, and he turned angrily around. 'What the hell do you want?' He could not recognize the intruder who was silhouetted against the light outside.
'Leave her alone, Blythe!' Adam said.
'Faulconer? You son of a bitch!' Blythe scrambled to his feet and brushed scraps of hay from his hands. 'I'm just questioning this lady, and what I do here is none of your damned business.'
The woman clutched the remnants of her dress to her breasts and pushed herself across the floor. 'He was attacking me, mister!' she called to Adam. 'He was going to —'
'Get out!' Blythe shouted at Adam.
But Adam knew the time had come to make his stand. He drew his revolver, cocked it, then aimed the weapon at Blythe's head. 'Just leave her alone.'
Blythe smiled and shook his head. 'You're a boy, Faulconer. I ain't attacking her! She's a rebel! She fired on us!'
'I never!' the woman called.
'Step away from her!' Adam said. He could sense his heart pounding and recognized his own fear, but he knew Blythe had to be confronted.
'Shoot the interfering son of a bitch, Kemble!' Blythe shouted past Adam to the Corporal.
'Touch the trigger, Corporal, and I'll kill you.' Sergeant Huxtable spoke from beyond the door.
Blythe seemed to find the impasse amusing, for he still grinned as he brushed scraps of hay from his uniform. 'She's a traitor, Faulconer. A damned rebel. You know what the penalty is for firing on a Northern soldier? You've read General Order Number Seven, ain't you?' He had taken the silver case of lucifers from his pocket.
'Just step away from her!' Adam repeated.
'I never wanted to be near her!' Blythe said. 'But the bitch kept trying to stop me from doing my job. And my job, Faulconer, is to burn this property down like Major General John Pope ordered.' He began to strike the lucifers, then to drop the burning matches into the hay. He laughed as the woman tried to beat the flames out with her bare hands. Her torn dress dropped open and Blythe gestured at her. 'Nice titties, Faulconer. Or can't you make a comparison on account of never having seen none?' Blythe chuckled as he dropped more matches and started more fires. 'So why don't you shoot me, Faulconer? Lost your nerve.
'Because I don't want to tell the partisans we're here. There's a group of them a mile north of here. And coming this way.'
Blythe stared at Adam for a heartbeat, then smiled. 'Nice try, boy.'
'Maybe two dozen of them,' Sergeant Huxtable said flatly from the barn door.
Behind Blythe the hay had started to burn fiercely. The woman retreated from the heat, crying. Her hair had come loose to hang either side of her face. She clasped her bodice, then spat at Blythe before running out of the barn. 'Thank you, mister,' she said as she passed Adam.
Blythe watched her go, then looked back to Adam. 'Are you lying to me, Faulconer?' he asked.
'You want to stay here and find out?' Adam asked. 'You want to run the risk of meeting that woman's husband?'
'Goddamn partisans!' Sergeant Seth Kelley shouted his sudden warning from the sunlight outside. ''Bout a mile away, Billy!'
'Jesus hollering Christ!' Blythe swore, then ran past Adam and shouted for his horse. 'Come on, boys! Get out of here! Take what you can, leave the rest! Hurry now! Hurry!'
The hay was well alight, the smoke churning out the barn door. 'Where to?' Sergeant Kelley asked.
'South! Come on!' Blythe was desperate to escape the farm before the partisans arrived. He snatched a bag of plunder, rammed his spurs back, and galloped south toward the woods.
His men followed in ragged order. Adam and his troop were the last to go. They found Blythe a half-mile inside the woods, hesitating over a track leading west and another going south. There were men's voices in the distant air, and that was enough to make Blythe choose the southward track that promised a faster escape because it went downhill. Adam's horses were tired, their lungs wheezing asthmatically and their flanks wet with white sweat, yet still Blythe pressed the pace, not stopping until they had ridden a good six or seven miles from the farmhouse. There was no evidence of any pursuit. 'Bastards probably stopped to put out that fire, Billy,' Seth Kelley opined.
'Can't tell with partisans,' Blythe said. 'Cunning as serpents. Could be anywhere.' He looked nervously around the green woods.
The horsemen had stopped beside a stream that flowed eastward through sunlit woodlands. The horses were
