Jesse caught him up. Reuben fought in dumb fury, but Jesse held him fast ignoring that, and rushed through the woodshed, opening the door at the far end with a thrust of a horny foot. "Stay close, Ben!" They were stumbling across snow trampled by the flight of others, in the shadow of their own house that stood between them and the fires; then out of that shadow toward a beginning of winter dawn. Men and women were running about here, unrecognizable in wounds and terror and nakedness, people Ben had known all his life, swept into the panic of a crushed anthill. The east wall of the stockade rose cruelly high. There Jesse set Reuben down. The boy swung about mechanically, walking back toward the fires. Ben grabbed and slapped him; he only stared.

Jesse snatched off the wreck of his nightshirt and twisted it into a cord, running it through the belt of Reuben's breeches. "Go first, Ben—I'll h'ist you."

Ben swarmed up somehow. Jesse yelled: "Drop! You must catch him." Then Jesse was up too, clutching the palisade with his knees, hauling on the makeshift rope before Reuben's groping hand could discard it. Jesse gained a grip on Reuben's armpit, and Ben flung himself down. "Ready, Jesse!" But instead of letting Ben catch his brother, the old man leaped with him, turning in mid-air so that he fell under Reuben, who sprawled free and ripped loose the cord.

Ben grabbed the boy's arm. Jesse reeled up on his knees. "Get to Hatfield! I'm undone. The filthy papists've done me in."

Reuben had at least delivered himself from his witless trance. He tugged to free his arm and wailed: "Let me go!"

"Get up, Jesse! You can't sit there so."

Jesse shook his head, a stubborn child. "I stink. There's men fail at everything—you don't understand." He whimpered, trying to cover his crotch. "I be naked, can't you see? You go on. I'm done."

"Let me go, Ben! Let me go back! Let me go, damn you!"

Ben's eyes were watering from the cold and from a billow of smoke the wind flung down on them. "God damn it, Jesse, you think we'd abandon you? Get up!"

"Plague and fire...."