"I hear you," McGregor said, and said no more. He was the only one who could judge what he had to do. He was the only one who could judge how much revenge was enough for him. Now, he was the only one who could judge how much revenge was enough for Alexander. As far as he was concerned, he might kill every Yank north of the border without it being revenge enough for Alexander.

"Maybe he won't come through Rosenfeld," Maude said. Did she sound hopeful? Without a doubt, she did.

"Maybe he won't," McGregor said. "But maybe he will, too. And even if he doesn't, don't you think the newspapers will print where he's going to be and when he's going to be there? If he's having parades, he'll want people to turn out. I suppose I can go meet him somewhere else if I have to."

"You don't have to," Maude said, as she had done before. "Will you please listen to me? You don't have to, not any more."

"Do you think Mary would say the same thing?" McGregor asked.

Maude's lips shaped two silent words. McGregor thought they were Damn you. He'd never heard her curse aloud in all the years he'd known her. He still hadn't, but only by the thinnest of margins. When she did speak aloud, she said, "Mary is a little girl. She doesn't understand that dying is forever."

"She's not so little any more, and if she doesn't understand that after the Yanks murdered Alexander, when do you suppose she will?" McGregor asked.

Maude spun away from him and covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook with sobs. McGregor stamped past her, back out into the cold. When he strode into the barn, the horse snorted, as if surprised to see him again so soon.

He didn't pick up the old wagon wheel and get out the bomb-making tools he hid beneath it. Time enough for that later, when he knew exactly what sort of bomb he needed to build and where he'd have to take it. For now, he just stood there and looked. Even that made him feel better. Slowly, he nodded. In a sense more important than the literal, he knew where he was going again.

Colonel Irving Morrell slammed his fist against the steel side of the test-model barrel. "It's not right, God damn it," he ground out. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in such a temper. When the doctors said his leg wound might keep him from going back to active duty in the early days of the Great War? Maybe not even then.

"What can we do, sir?" Lieutenant Elijah Jenkins said. "We're only soldiers. We haven't got anything to do with deciding which way the country goes."

"And I've always thought that was how things should be, too," Morrell answered. "But when this chowderhead-no, this custardhead-of a Socialist does something like this… I ask you, Lije, doesn't it stick in your craw, too?"

"Of course it does, sir," Jenkins said. "It's not like I voted for the Red son of a bitch-uh, beg pardon."

"Don't bother," Morrell said savagely. "That's what Upton Sinclair is, all right: a Red son of a bitch." He seldom swore; he was not a man who let his feelings run away with his wits. Today, though, he made an exception. "That he should have the gall to propose canceling the rest of the reparations the Rebs still owe us-"

"That's pretty low, all right, sir," Jenkins agreed, "especially after everything we went through to make the CSA have to cough up."

But he'd put his finger on only part of Morrell's fury. "Giving up the reparations is bad enough by itself," Morrell said. "But he wants to throw them away-however many millions or billions of dollars that is-and he won't spend the thousands here to build a proper prototype and get the new-model barrel a step closer to production."

"That's pretty damn stupid, all right," Jenkins said. "If the Rebs can start putting money in their own pockets again instead of in ours, they'll be spoiling for a fight faster than you can say Jack Robinson."

"That's the truth," Morrell said. "That's the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Why can't Sinclair see it? You can't get along with somebody who's bound and determined not to get along with you." He did his best to look on the bright side of things: "Maybe Congress will say no."

"Socialist majority in each house." Jenkins' voice was gloomy. He kicked at the dirt. "After the Confederates licked us in the War of Secession and the Second Mexican War, they weren't dumb enough to try and make friends with us. They knew damn well we weren't their friends. Why can't we figure out they aren't our friends, either?"

"Why? Because workers all across the world have more in common with other workers than they do with other people in their own country." Morrell wasn't usually so sarcastic, but he wasn't usually so irate, either. "What happened in 1914 sure proved that, didn't it? None of the workers would shoot at any of the other workers, would they? That's why we didn't have a war, isn't it?"

"If we didn't have a war, sir, where'd you get that Purple Heart?" Jenkins asked.

"Must have fallen from the sky," Morrell answered. "Pity it couldn't have fallen where Sinclair could see it and have some idea of what it meant."

"Why don't you send it to him, sir?" Jenkins asked eagerly.

"If I did, I'd have to send it in a chamber pot to show him how I felt," Morrell said. "And I'll bet I could fill that chamber pot with medals from men on just this base, too." For a moment, the idea of doing just that held a potent appeal. But then, reluctantly, he shook his head. "It wouldn't do. I'd throw my own career in the pot along with the medal, and somebody has to defend the United States, even if Sinclair isn't up to the job."

"Yes, sir, I suppose so." Jenkins was a bright lad; he could see the sense in that. He was still not very far from being a lad in the literal sense of the word, though, for his grin had a distinct small-boy quality to it as he went on, "It would have been fun to see the look on his face when he opened it, though."

"Well, maybe it would." Morrell laughed. He knew damn well it would. He slapped Jenkins on the back. "See you in the morning." Jenkins nodded and hurried away toward the officers' club, no doubt to have a drink or two or three before supper. In his bachelor days, Morrell might-probably would-have followed him, even if he would have been sure to stop after the second drink. Now, though, he was more than content to hurry home to Agnes.

She greeted him with a chicken stew and indignation: she'd heard the news about Sinclair's proposal to end reparations down in Leavenworth. "It's a disgrace," she said, "nothing but a disgrace. He'll throw money down the drain, but he won't do anything to keep the country strong."

"I said the same thing not an hour ago," Morrell said. "One of the reasons I love you is, we think the same way."

"We certainly do: you think you love me, and I think I love you," Agnes said. Morrell snorted. His wife went on, "Would you like some more dumplings?"

"I sure would," he answered, "but I'll have to run them off one day before too long." He still wasn't close to fat-he didn't think he'd ever be fat the way, say, General Custer's adjutant was fat- but now, for the first time in his life, he wondered if he'd stay scrawny forever. Agnes' determination to put meat on his bones was starting to have some effect. He was also past thirty, which meant the meat he put on had an easier time sticking.

"You served under General Custer," Agnes said a little later. With a mouth full of dumpling, Morrell could only nod. His wife continued, "What do you think about him taking a tour through Canada before he finally comes home for good?"

After swallowing, Morrell said, "I don't begrudge it to him, if that's what you mean. He did better up there than I thought he would, and he's the one who really broke the stalemate in the Great War when he saw what barrels could do and rammed it down Philadelphia's throat. He may be a vain old man, but he's earned his vanity."