I turned my head. A yard from the rags I lay on, the white-haired man, looking older than pharaoh, sat sleeping with his back against the wall.
The shotgun was gripped in one big, gnarled hand. His head was tilted back, blue-veined eyelids shut. I sat up, and at my movement his eyes opened.
He lay relaxed for a moment, as though life had to return from some place far away. Then he raised his head. His face was hollow and lined. His white hair was thin. A coarse-woven shirt hung loose across wide shoulders that had been Herculean once. But now Hercules was old, old. He looked at me expectantly.
"Who are you?" I said. "Why did you follow me? What happened to the house? Where's my family? Who owns the bully-boys in green?" My jaw hurt when I spoke. I put my hand up and felt it gingerly.
"You fell," the old man said, in a voice that rumbled like a subterranean volcano.
"The understatement of the year, Pop." I tried to get up. Nausea knotted my stomach.
"You have to rest," the old man said, looking concerned. "Before the Baron's men come...." He paused, looking at me as though he expected me to say something profound.
"I want to know where the people are that live here!" My yell came out as weak as church-social punch. "A woman and a boy...."
He was shaking his head. "You have to do something quick. The soldiers will come back, search every house—"
I sat up, ignoring the little men driving spikes into my skull. "I don't give a damn about soldiers! Where's my family? What's happened?" I reached out and gripped his arm. "How long was I down there? What year is this?"