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within its limitations she knew she was as good as any man, and as deadly.
    The rest of the window suddenly blew inward and she threw herself to the flooring, more in anger than in fear that she had nearly been killed. And two more shots from the front of the house told her that the reb whose horse had panicked earlier had decided to return and help his comrades.
    Still three to two then, and she could not help thinking that this is the way it would be for the rest of her life—kill one and another takes his place, as Geoff had said about the fighting at Gettysburg. And how long would they be able to hold out? How long before even Geoff was forced into the action, as helpless as he was?
    She gulped for air as she crawled along the floor to the safety of the wall behind her, loosening the clasp at her neck so she would not feel as though she were strangling. If she were lucky, someone would make a try through the back door and her pistol would cut the rebs’ odds by one. Grimly, she pressed against the wall and faced the door, waiting, then spun around to race into the front room when she heard her mother’s hysterical screaming.
    They’ve come in through the second floor, she thought, as she heard her father pounding up the stairs. But when she reached the staircase and looked anxiously upward, there was no shooting, no sound of a struggle. Instead, creeping around the corners like ghosts of thick snakes, were tendrils of smoke. Down the stairs they came, and when she turned to the front room, she saw them poking down through the rafters. Only tendrils at first, then clouds! There was a shuddering crash, and she knew that the rebs had set fire to the roof, and part of it had already collapsed.
    She had flung her pistol aside, and had one hand on the banister when her father loomed in the twisting, acrid fog, Geoff limp in his arms, Cass’s mother scuttling behind. “Get to the root cellar,” he grunted when she dashed forward to help, “and open the trap.”
    She hesitated for only a fraction of a second, turned and raced to the fireplace and threw back the oval braided rug her mother had made some years before. Grabbing the heavy iron ring in the cellar’s trap door, she yanked upward and the door lifted easily on its well-oiled hinges.
    A draught of cool air washed over their faces, clearing their lungs for the moment while Ella fetched a lantern from the granite mantel and lighted it from a spark of the burning ceiling. She looked at no one, but immediately vanished down the stone steps. After a moment she called, and Aaron followed with a now unconscious Geoff. Cass waited anxiously for her father to return, and when he did, dusting grime from his knees, she looked at him questioningly, silently.
    “It’s cooler down there,” he said, bridling at her obvious skepticism. “And there’s water. Don’t forget, girl, it extends out under the front yard. Even if the house burns to the ground, they will be safe.”
    Cass had not missed the implication of his last words, but she could not help glancing apprehensively at the door. “Air,” she said suddenly. “Father, they’ll suffocate if the smoke gets down in there!”
    She looked up for his reply, and heard him choke in horrified surprise. A small red hole suddenly appeared in his forehead, just over his left eye. Before Cass could move, the impact of the ball thrust him backward as though he had been slapped by a vengeful giant, and she could only gape dumbly at the blood and pieces of bone that were smeared on the wall behind him.
    In taking a short step toward his body, she did not hear the door slam open behind her, did not hear the kitchen ceiling crash to the floor. All she knew was that her father was dead and if she did not get into the cellar immediately the rest of the house would collapse around her ears. Numbly, trying not to look at the twisted form crumpled against the wall, she reached down for the iron ring that would open the way to safety,