"You got him."
"I got him," said Joseph Cory, and turned on his son a sickened face Ben had never known. "What of Jesse?" The choking continued. Goodman Cory's voice climbed, beating down that noise: "Speak up, boy!"
"His gun did blow, he's hurt but not down. He fetched his axe. I think he knows what he's doing."
Goodman Cory reloaded the gun. "Ben, I'm weak." The choking became a bubbling squeal. Goodman Cory stumbled toward the window.
Ben's mother was kneeling in the doorway between the rooms, Reuben clutched in her arms, her cheek against his head. She was praying. The light of the fires showed Ben her moving lips, her dark eyes that now and then sought for him, too. Goodman Cory had halted short of the window, crucified by uncertainty, the flintlock a stiff burden. "Ben," he said—"Ben, hear me...."
The crash of an axe against the oaken door blotted out at last the clamor of a man strangling in his own blood. But Ben could still hear his mother praying.
"A stone axe, not steel," said Joseph Cory, and nodded to Ben as one man to another. "No good against our oak."
"Will you shoot through the door?"
"... and forgive us our trespasses ..."
"Nay—only waste a bullet. Ben, thou art a man—if I'm lost, take care of thy mother and Reuben. Be ready. Readiness—I mean alway—later—all thy life—readiness, wherein I've failed."