The morning had been weighed down by the chaos of Caleb’s confession, which soon led to the emotional unraveling of the entire home. Isabelle was quick to take responsibility for Caleb’s actions, having gone upstairs and pleaded with him to come clean with the sheriff, not knowing how dubious Hackstedde’s title of sheriff might be. After it was over, Caleb paced endlessly about the parlor, walking to the bookshelf, back toward the kitchen, telling them repeatedly of how he only wished to do right. That was all there was for him now. A lifetime of wrong that must be made right.
“You are barely grown,” George told him. “If you only knew the many wrongs awaiting you.”
This one was different, Caleb said. His reticence, his fear, had led to Landry’s death. It was entirely his responsibility.
With that, Prentiss stood up from the dining room table and addressed them all. “My brother’s laying out there!” he exclaimed, and the room fell silent. “Like a bled-out pig. If y’all don’t plan on helping me get him in the ground I’ll do that bit myself.”
The words rang in George’s mind now as he reached the edge of town. There was some relief in the activity of Old Ox. The bodies, the voices, the noises all drowned out the emotions of the last twenty-four hours, and George appreciated the distraction. He left Ridley at his usual post and went on alone. No one bothered him, although a moment of disorientation left him dizzy. It appeared that the town was no longer laid out as he’d once known it to be. Each building was at once familiar and foreign, and he stopped a moment under the awning of an empty merchant’s shop to steady himself. What he needed was rest. With the protection of his father’s wealth, his whole life had maintained the air of an extended tour, and yet now he felt the need for a real one. Time away from it all. But there was so much to do. He needed to focus; he needed to get that coffin.
He neared the square but pulled up at the sight of two stallions tied off in front of Webler’s little brick workhouse. The same horses that had just been at his home. Hackstedde and his deputy. It was not a shock. After all, Hackstedde had stood there, stone-faced, with a perfunctory promise to investigate the veracity of Caleb’s claims. But George found it difficult to imagine a Webler exiting the front door in handcuffs.
He had the urge to go in. He did not know what he would say, or do, but he perceived what little power he had left in town slipping from him. Hands were being dealt in this very building, but he was absent from the table. It would not do. The furniture depot was immediately up ahead, but he turned and walked straight through the roundabout, avoiding the gardening society’s colorful arrangements, and made his way directly toward the very schoolhouse where he had once learned letters and which now acted as the headquarters for the Union Army’s outpost.
“General Glass,” he called out as he neared the door. It did not cross his mind to acknowledge the line of men and women standing beside the building, papers or hats in hand, all of them waiting their turn—something George was not wont to do.
A drab-faced soldier blocked the door before George could proceed. “Visitors are met with in the order they arrive,” he said.
“This is a matter of some urgency,” he said. “Glass! It’s George Walker. I need a word.”
Pointing with a finger, the soldier told him to step back.
In response George put his own finger against the door itself. “You must let me in. What I have to deliver warrants urgent attention.”
To George’s relief （and perhaps to the soldier’s as well）， General Glass emerged from the door, trailed by a young man struggling to balance a tall stack of papers in both hands. A minor uproar traveled down the line of people as Glass slipped away. George was on the general’s trail from the moment he started down the main thoroughfare.
“Mr. Walker,” Glass said, making no effort to mask his irritation, “did you not see the line? I’ll return shortly to speak with those in need of my attention, yourself included.”
“This is no trivial matter, General.”
“No? You mean it extends beyond food rations for starving children and updates on the status of wounded relatives?”
Suddenly George was swallowed in a stream of oncoming traffic and stumbled against a woman carrying luggage. He almost lost track of Glass before hustling back to his side like a lost child returning to his mother.
“How does this squire keep up with you whilst holding those papers?” George said. “He might well double as a circus acrobat.”