Colonel Freeleigh slowly opened his eyes.

“Boy, Colonel,” said Charlie, “that was fine. Now how about Pawnee Bill?”

“Pawnee Bill . . . ?”

“And the time you was on the prairie way back in ’75.”

“Pawnee Bill . . .” The colonel moved into darkness. “Eighteen seventy-five . . .yes, me and Pawnee Bill on a little rise in the middle of the prairie, waiting. ‘Shh!’ says Pawnee Bill. ‘Listen.’ The prairie like a big stage all set for the storm to come. Thunder. Soft. Thunder again. Not so soft. And across that prairie as far as the eye could see this big ominous yellow-dark cloud full of black lightning, somehow sunk to earth, fifty miles wide, fifty miles long, a mile high, and no more than an inch off the ground. ‘Lord!’ I cried, ‘Lord!’—from up on my hill—‘lord!’ the earth pounded like a mad heart, boys, a heart gone to panic. My bones shook fit to break. The earth shook: rat-a-tat rat-a-tat, boom! Rumble. That’s a rare word: rumble. Oh, how that mighty storm rumbled along down, up, and over the rises, and all you could see was the cloud and nothing inside. ‘That’s them!’ cried Pawnee Bill. And the cloud was dust! Not vapors or rain, no, but prairie dust flung up from the tinder-dry grass like fine corn meal, like pollen all blazed with sunlight now, for the sun had come out. I shouted again! Why? Because in all that hell-fire filtering dust now a veil moved aside and I saw them, I swear it! The grand army of the ancient prairie: the bison, the buffalo!”

The colonel let the silence build, then broke it again.

“Heads like giant Negroes’ fists, bodies like locomotives! Twenty, fifty, two hundred thousand iron missiles shot out of the west, gone off the track and flailing cinders, their eyes like blazing coals, rumbling toward oblivion!

“I saw that the dust rose up and for a little while showed me that sea of humps, of dolloping manes, black shaggy waves rising, falling . . .‘Shoot!’ says Pawnee Bill. ‘Shoot!’ And I cock and aim. ‘Shoot’ he says. And I stand there feeling like God’s right hand, looking at the great vision of strength and violence going by, going by, midnight at noon, like a glinty funeral train all black and long and sad and forever and you don’t fire at a funeral train, now do you, boys? do you? All I wanted then was for the dust to sink again and cover the black shapes of doom which pummeled and jostled on in great burdensome commotions. And, boys, the dust came down. The cloud hid the million feet that were drumming up the thunder and dusting out the storm. I heard Pawnee Bill curse and hit my arm. But I was glad I hadn’t touched that cloud or the power within that cloud with so much as a pellet of lead. I just wanted to stand watching time bundle by in great trundlings all hid by the storm the bison made and carried with them toward eternity.

“An hour, three hours, six, it took for the storm to pass on away over the horizon toward less kind men than me. Pawnee Bill was gone, I stood alone, stone deaf. I walked all numb through a town a hundred miles south and heard not the voices of men and was satisfied not to hear. For a little while I wanted to remember the thunder. I hear it still, on summer afternoons like this when the rain shapes over the lake; a fearsome, wondrous sound . . .one I wish you might have heard . . .”

The dim light filtered through Colonel Freeleigh’s nose which was large and like white porcelain which cupped a very thin and tepid orange tea indeed.

“Is he asleep?” asked Douglas at last.

“No,” said Charlie. “Just recharging his batteries.”

Colonel Freeleigh breathed swiftly, softly, as if he’d run a long way. At last he opened his eyes.

“Yes, sir” said Charlie, in admiration.

“Hello Charlie.” The colonel smiled at the boys puzzledly.

“That’s Doug and that’s John,” said Charlie.

“How-de-do, boys.”

The boys said hello.

“But—” said Douglas. “Where is the—?”

“My gosh, you’re dumb!” Charlie jabbed Douglas in the arm. He turned to the colonel. “You were saying, sir?”

“Was I?” murmured the old man.

“The Civil War,” suggested John Huff quietly. “Does he remember that?”

“Do I remember?” said the colonel. “Oh, I do, I do!” His voice trembled as he shut up his eyes again. “Everything! Except . . .which side I fought on . . .”

“The color of your uniform—” Charlie began.

“Colors begin to run on you,” whispered the colonel. “it’s gotten hazy. I see soldiers with me, but a long time ago 1 stopped seeing color in their coats or caps. I was born in Illinois, raised in Virginia, married in New York, built a house in Tennessee and now, very late, here I am, good Lord, back in Green Town. So you see why the colors run and blend . . .”

“But you remember which side of hills you fought on?” Charlie did not raise his voice. “Did the sun rise on your left or right? Did you march toward Canada or Mexico?”

“Seems some mornings the sun rose on my good right hand, some mornings over my left shoulder. We marched all directions. It’s most seventy years since. You forget suns and mornings that long past.”

“You remember winning, don’t you? A battle won, somewhere?”

“No,” said the old man, deep under. “I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time. War’s never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms. All I remember is a lot of losing and sadness and nothing good but the end of it. The end of it, Charles, that was a winning all to itself, having nothing to do with guns. But I don’t suppose that’s the kind of victory you boys mean for me to talk on.”

“Antietam,” said John Huff. “Ask about Antietam.”

“I was there.”

The boys’ eyes grew bright. “Bull Run, ask him Bull Run . . .”

“I was there.” Softly.

“What about Shiloh?”

“There’s never been a year in my life I haven’t thought, what a lovely name and what a shame to see it only on battle records.”

“Shiloh, then. Fort Sumter?”

“I saw the first puffs of powder smoke.” A dreaming voice. “So many things come back, oh, so many things. T remember songs. ‘AU’s quiet along the Potomac tonight, where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, or the light of the watchfire, are gleaming. Remember, remember . . . ‘AU quiet along the Potomac tonight; no sound save the rush of the river; while soft falls the dew on the face of the dead—the picket’s off duty forever!’ . . . After the surrender, Mr. Lincoln, on the White House balcony asked the band to play, ‘Look away, look away, look away, Dixie land.’ . . . And then there was the Boston lady who one night wrote a song will last a thousand years: ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Late nights I feel my mouth move singing back in another time. ‘Ye Cavaliers of Dixie! Who guard the Southern shores . . .’ ‘When the boys come home in triumph, brother, with the laurels they shall gain . . .’ So many songs, sung on both sides, blowing north, blowing south on the night winds. ‘We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more . . .’ ‘Tenting tonight, tenting tonight, tenting on the old camp ground.’ ‘Hurrah, hurrah, we bring the Jubilee, hurrah, hurrah, the flag that makes us free . . .”

The old man’s voice faded.

The boys sat for a long while without moving. Then Charlie turned and looked at Douglas and said, “Well, is he or isn’t he?” Douglas breathed twice and said, “He sure is.”

The colonel opened his eyes.

“I sure am what?” he asked.

“A Time Machine,” murmured Douglas. “A Time Machine.”

The colonel looked at the boys for a full five seconds. Now it was his voice that was full of awe.

“Is that what you boys call me?” “Yes, sir, Colonel.”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel sat slowly back in his chair and looked at the boys and looked at his hands and then looked at the blank wall beyond them steadily.