Duncan shook his head. "We have a million men still under arms, but by this time next year we'll be lucky to have twenty-five thousand. As part of that reduction, the First through the Sixth Volunteer Infantry Regiments are to be mustered out."

"All the Galvanized Yankees?" They were Confederate prisoners who had been put into the Union Army during the war in lieu of going to prison.

"Every last one. They acquitted themselves well, too. They kept the Sioux from slaughtering settlers in Minnesota, rebuilt telegraph lines the hostiles destroyed, garrisoned forts, guarded the stage and mail service. But it's all over."

Charles strode to the window. "Damn it, Jack, I came all the way out here to join one of those regiments."

"I know. But the doors are closed."

Charles turned, his face so forlorn Duncan was deeply moved. This South Carolinian who'd fathered his niece's child was a fine man. But like so many others, he'd been cast adrift in pain and confusion by the end of the war that had occupied him wholly for four years.

"Well, then," Charles said, "I suppose I'll have to swamp floors. Dig ditches —"

"There's another avenue, if you care to try it." Charles waited. "The regular cavalry."

"Hell, that's impossible. The amnesty proclamation excludes West Point men who changed sides."

"You can get around that." Before Charles could ask how, he continued. "There's a surplus of officers left from the war but a shortage of qualified enlisted men. You're a fine horseman and a topnotch soldier — you should be, coming from the Point. They'll take you ahead of all the Irish immigrants and one-armed wonders and escaped jailbirds."

Charles chewed on the cigar, thinking. "What about my boy?"

"Why, we'd just follow the same arrangement we agreed on previously. Maureen and I will keep Gus until you're through with training and posted somewhere. With luck — if you're at Fort Leavenworth or Fort Riley, for instance — you can hire a noncom's wife to nursemaid him. If not, he can stay on with us indefinitely. I love that boy. I'd shoot any man who looked cross­eyed at him."