"Your voice hasn't changed at all," he said, which explained how he'd recognized her. "You're not as blond as you used to be, though."

Her golden curls had come out of a bottle. They drew customers, so she'd kept them that color till she managed to escape the life she'd been leading. Bill Reach's looks weren't what they had been, not by a long shot. He looked to be about two steps up from a bum, too. Serves him right, she thought.

But, because he'd been better than some-only out for his own pleasure, not actively cruel-she said, "All right, eat before you go. But don't come back. Don't you ever come back here."

"Is that any way to talk to an old friend?" he demanded indignantly. Maybe that was how he thought of himself. As if she'd made friends with the men who set money on the nightstand! The idea made her want to laugh in his stubbly face. The only thing they'd ever done to make her happy was to get up, get dressed, and leave.

A large shape loomed up beside her: a Confederate officer. "Is this man bothering you, ma'am?" Nicholas H. Kincaid asked. The clear implication was that, if she said yes, Bill Reach would regret it for a long time.

She would have been happier with anyone but Kincaid coming to her aid. He wasn't helping her because he felt like helping her; he was helping because, if she approved of him, he'd have a better chance at laying Edna. She knew how men's minds worked, oh yes she did, all too well.

"It's all right," she said, surprising Reach and disappointing Kincaid. "He didn't mean any harm." She looked that eat-and-get-out warning at the ex-reporter. (What was he doing now? Nothing too well, by the look of him.) Reluctantly, Kincaid went back to his table and sat down again.

Nellie stayed out front till Reach had eaten and left. Then she gathered up his dirty dishes and those from several other tables and carried them in to Edna.

"What's the matter, Ma?" her daughter asked. "You look like you seen a ghost or something."

"Maybe I have," Nellie answered. Her daughter scratched her head.

M ajor Irving Morrell was waiting for the stew pot full of odds and ends to come to a boil when a runner hurried up to him. "Sir," the fellow said, saluting, "I'm supposed to bring you back to division headquarters right away."

"Are you?" Morrell raised an eyebrow. "Well, you're going to have to wait a minute, anyhow." He raised his voice: "Schaefer!"

"Sir?" the senior captain in the battalion called.

"I'm ordered back to Division, Dutch," Morrell told him. "Try not to let the Rebs overrun us till I get back."

"I'll do my best," Captain Schaefer said, chuckling. "As long as you're going back there, see if they'll send another couple of machine guns forward. We can use the firepower."

"I'll do that," Morrell promised. He turned to the runner. "All right, lead the way."

He was sweating by the time he got out of the front-line trenches; the runner had taken him literally, and was setting a hard pace. His wounded leg had unhappy things to say about that. Sternly, he told it to be quiet. It didn't want to listen. He ignored the complaints and pushed on through the hot, muggy summer night.

Division staff was too exalted to try to survive under canvas. They'd taken over several houses in the little town of Smilax, Kentucky. The one to which the runner brought Morrell had sentries all around and a U.S. flag in front of it. He gave the fellow a startled look. "You didn't say General Foulke wanted to see me."

"Yes, sir, that's who," the runner said. He spoke to one of the sentries: "This here's Major Morrell." The soldier nodded and went inside. He emerged a moment later, and held the door open for Morrell to go in and see the divisional commander. As Morrell climbed the stairs, the runner trotted off down the street, perhaps on another mission, perhaps to escape one.

Major General William Dudley Foulke was sitting in the front room scribbling a note when Morrell came in. The general was a plump man in his mid-sixties, with a bald crown, a white fringe around it, and a bushy white mustache. He looked more like a French general than an American one; all he needed was a kepi and a little swagger stick to complete the impression.

"At ease, Major," Foulke said after they exchanged salutes. "Effective immediately, I am removing you from command of your battalion."

"Sir?" Morrell hadn't expected to be summoned before the divisional commander at all, and certainly not for that reason. "On what grounds, sir?"

"What grounds?" Foulke wheezed laughter, then held up a plump, pink hand. "On the grounds that Philadelphia asked me for a younger officer who could fill a staff position there, and that your name topped the list. Are those satisfactory grounds, Major?"

"Uh, yes, sir," Morrell said. "I can't imagine any better ones, and a whole slew that are worse." When General Foulke had told him he was being removed, he'd imagined that slew of worse grounds, though he didn't think he'd given reason for invoking any of them. Stubborn honesty, though, compelled him to add, "After I spent so long in the hospital, sir, I do regret being pulled away from active service again, if you don't mind my saying so."

"I don't mind at all," General Foulke said. "I'd be disappointed if you said anything else, as a matter of fact. A staff officer who likes being a staff officer because he has a soft billet far away from the line isn't a man of the sort the country needs. Men who want to go out and fight, they're the sort who do well for the general staff. You will be fighting, I promise you; the only difference will be, you'll do it with map and telegram, not with a rifle."

"Yes, sir." Morrell knew he should have been overjoyed; a tour on the General Staff would look very good on his record. But he revelled in the rugged outdoor life, whether in the Sonoran desert or the Kentucky mountains. Getting stuck behind a desk struck him as altogether too much like being stuck in a hospital bed.

William Dudley Foulke was thinking along with him, at least up to a point. Steepling his fingers, the general said, "Staff work can be the making of a promising young officer. If you see opportunity, by all means seize it. Here." He handed Morrell a book. "Something for you to read on the train: my translation of the Roman military writer Vegetius. Either it will engage your interest or help you sleep the miles away."

"Thank you very much, sir," Morrell said, wondering whether an ancient writer's precepts would have any bearing on the modern art of war.

"My pleasure." Foulke sighed. "When I was a boy, I thought I would be a lawyer or a scholar. But I was fourteen years old when the Rebs beat us the first time, and I knew then I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the military service of my country. That little volume there is a relic of what might have been, I'm afraid, nothing more." He grew brisk again. "Well, you don't want to hear an old man maundering on about himself. I certainly didn't when I was a young officer, at any rate."

Morrell flushed. That embarrassed him, which only made him flush more. "I'll treasure the book, sir," he said.

"Or perhaps you won't," Foulke said. "It's all right either way, Major. I've sent Philadelphia a wire, letting them know you're on your way. Now the trick will be getting you there. This part of Kentucky isn't what you'd call overburdened with railroads. We'll send you up the Hyden-Hazard road, and east from there to Hazard, where you can catch a train. You're ready to go now, I assume."

"Uh, two things, sir," Morrell said. "First, I promised I'd ask for a couple of more machine guns for my battalion."

"They'll have them," Foulke promised. "What else?"

Morrell looked down at himself. "If I'm going to Philadelphia, shouldn't I cleanup a bit first?"