A burly sergeant in Union blue jumped up from behind a log. He aimed and put a rifle ball into the head of the mare at the front of the herd. She bellowed and fell. A chestnut behind her stumbled and went down. Charles heard bone snap as he galloped on. The sergeant's sooty face broke into a smile. He blew a hole in the head of the chestnut.

The heat seared Charles's face. The smoke all but blinded him. He'd completely lost sight of Ab and the others in the gray-clad raiding party. Only the need to get the animals to General Hampton pushed him on through the inferno that mingled sunlight with fire.

His lungs began to hurt, strangled for air. He thought he saw a gap ahead that marked the end of the burning wood. He applied spurs; Sport responded gallantly. "Ab, straight ahead. Do you see it?"

There was no response except more rifle fire, more outcries, more sounds of horses and men tumbling into the burning leaves that carpeted the ground. Charles jammed his hat on his head and yanked out his .44-caliber Army Colt and thumbed the hammer back. In front of him, strung across the escape lane, three Union soldiers raised bayonets. They turned sideways to the stampeding horses. One soldier rammed his bayonet into the belly of a piebald. A geyser of blood splashed him. With a great agonized whinny, the piebald went down.

Such vicious brutality to an animal drove Charles past all reason. He fired two rounds, but Sport was racing over such rough ground he couldn't hope for a hit. With the herd flowing around them, the three Union boys took aim. One ball tore right between Sport's eyes and splattered blood on Charles's face. He let out a demented scream as the gray's forelegs buckled, tossing him forward.

He landed hard and came up on hands and knees, groggy. Another smiling Union boy dodged in with his bayonet. Charles had an impression of orange light too bright to stare at, heat so intense he could almost feel it broil his skin. The Union boy stepped past Sport, down and dying, and rammed the bayonet into Charles's belly and ripped upward, tearing him open from navel to breastbone.