"Ben, I must——"
"God damn it, don't be looking for the pot, use the floor, if they burn us who's to care?" Ben called again to his father, but his voice was swallowed by a bang. Not his father's gun—Jesse Plum's musket, a piece of trash the old man had picked up at third or fourth hand, likely to shoot anywhere but forward. "Come on, Ru!"
"I'm sorry."
"Your coat. Here—I'll button it for you."
"Ben, I didn't pray tonight, nor I didn't forget neither."
"What? Oh, put on your coat!"
"I didn't pray."
Ben forced the boy's arms into the coat and lifted him, amazed at his own strength, at the sureness of his feet on invisible stair-treads. "Ru, you deceive yourself."
"Mr. Williams saith that without prayer——"
"Ru, be still!"