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He’d eluded the man. But he couldn’t elude the accusation. It enraged him.
    He started on, mentally minimizing the failure of his raid on the crib. He probably couldn’t have kept corn kernels in his stomach anyway. He was undoubtedly getting sick all over again. He’d just keep moving.
    His fury toward the farmer abated slowly. A man like that wouldn’t understand what he was doing; no one could understand except a dead Confederate officer, and two women Jeremiah had never seen.
    As he limped from the woods and angled toward a dirt highway in the deepening darkness, his heartbeat slowed. He climbed the shoulder of the road and turned in the right direction after a backward glance to assure himself the farmer hadn’t taken to horseback after him.
    No, he hadn’t. The road stretched silent, winding into the black and scarlet autumn sunset.
    He swallowed, concerned about being sick again. Sickness would only delay him further. Was there anyone left in the whole damn world who’d understand what he was doing? What if those women called obeying an order desertion? If they did, his flight and all its perils would count for nothing.
    Just like the war itself.
ii
    A mile or so down the road Jeremiah began pondering a question he’d asked himself many times, without finding an answer. What really had become of the war he’d gone to fight? That brave, honorable war for the St. Andrew’s cross of the Confederacy and all it represented?
    He thought he knew part of the answer. The bravery had been rendered worthless by military routs, and a widespread sense of impending defeat. The honor had been turned into a mockery by behavior he’d witnessed among the men on his own side.
    Gradually, the shock of his encounter with the farmer passed. He honestly couldn’t blame or hate the man now that he’d escaped him. The beautiful night soothed the anger and brought understanding.
    A high-riding white moon blazed, then darkened as thin clouds sailed past. The color of the countryside changed from moment to moment: silver to sable to silver again. A breeze rustled the branches of a plum orchard to his left, out there past a little brook that ran beside the road. He heard the sound of rabbits hopping in the orchard. Somewhere, late-blooming wild roses fumed their sweetness into the air.
    His belly began to growl again. His intestines seemed to be clutched by a strong hand, then released.
    The sickness had left him helplessly weak for half a dozen days at Lovejoy’s Station where he’d rested in early September, recovering from a light wound. At Jonesboro a Yank ball had sliced the flesh of his left upper arm. The ball would have killed him if it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Colonel Rose.
    Rose had been trying to rally the troops under his command during the Jonesboro action. He’d seen the Union sharpshooter take aim at Jeremiah, who was kneeling and loading with frantic speed. Rose had lunged and knocked Jeremiah over—again demonstrating that he was the kind of man Jeremiah wanted to be himself—
    An honorable soldier.
    Scarcely eight hours later, Rose lay beneath the lantern of a field hospital, mortally wounded.
    That night he revealed a side to his personality Jeremiah had never seen before—deeply hidden bitterness and pessimism. Pain destroyed his pretense when he gave Jeremiah a letter to his loved ones. Rose had written the letter a few days earlier, using the only material available—brown butcher’s paper.
    Jeremiah could still vividly recall how Lieutenant Colonel Rose had looked in those moments before his death. The field hospital lantern lit the sweat in his beard like little jewels. He grimaced, summoned strength as best he could, whispered to his orderly, “Take the letter home for me, Jeremiah. My wife and daughter—they’ll need you more than this pitiful army needs you. My God, you know we’re done for. Have you counted—”
    A violent, prolonged fit of coughing interrupted him. Jeremiah stayed rigid,