The Yankee newspapers called him the Hero of Missionary Ridge. She knew he'd fought at Vicksburg and Shiloh. Maybe he was even the man who'd killed her daddy. It didn't seem right that he was alive when so many brave Confederate soldiers were dead. And it was even more unjust that every breath he drew threatened the only thing she had left in the world.

"How long've you known the major?" she asked cautiously.

Magnus plucked a blade of grass and began to chew on it. "Since Chattanooga. He almost lost his life savin' mine. We been together ever since."

An awful suspicion began to grow inside Kit. "You weren't fightin' for the Yankees, were you, Magnus?"

" 'Course I was fightin' for the Yankees!"

She didn't know why she should be so disappointed, except that she liked Magnus. "You told me you were from Georgia. Why didn't you fight for your home state?"

Magnus removed the blade of grass from his mouth. "You got a lot of nerve, boy. You sit here with a black man and, cool as a cucumber, ask him why he didn't fight for the people who was keepin' him in chains. I was twelve years old when I got freed. I came North. I got a job and went to school. But I wasn't really free, do you understand me? There wasn't a single Negro in this country could really be free as long as his brothers and sisters was slaves."

"It wasn't primarily a question of slavery," she explained patiently. "It was a question of whether a state has the right to govern itself without interference. Slavery was just incidental."

"Mighta been incidental to you, white boy, but it wasn't incidental to me."

Black folks sure were touchy, she thought as he rose and walked away. But later, while she put out the second feed for the horses, she was still mulling over what he'd said. It reminded her of several heated conversations she'd had with Sophronia.