Got medals to prove it. You was probably one of them, one of them conscious objectors, Ed said.

Edgewater drained the mug and set it gently atop the bar. He slid his cigarettes into the top of his socks and turned to go. I don’t want any trouble.

Trouble wants you, the big man said. Nobody sets on their dead ass and sniggers at me.

Before Edgewater’d taken the first step a heavy hand fixed on his shirt collar and jerked hard and he felt the buttons pop away and the shirt rip down the back. It all happened very quickly. He whirled and grasped the mug and slammed Ed in the side of the head with it. It didn’t even break and while he was looking at it in a sort of wonder the barkeep disdaining normal means of approach vaulted the bar with a weighted length of sawnoff pool cue and slapped Edgewater hard above the left ear. Edgewater’s knees went to water and he pooled on the floor. The world went light then dark. Somebody kicked him in the side and a wave of nausea rocked him. His vision darkened gray to black and after a while when he came to he could hear sirens. The old man is finally dead and here comes the ambulance, he thought. He looked about. Ed was at the bar downing a shot and the barkeep was at his station and the troglodytes seemed not to have glanced up. Whoop whoop whoop the siren went. A wave of vomit lapped at his feet. Edgewater spat blood and pillowed his head on his arm and closed his eyes.

He slept. He awoke once in an empty cell and in some halflight like twilight or dusk and there was an old man with ferret eyes watching him from the cot across. He dreamed he felt probing hands at his pockets but he rested easy, there was nothing of moment there anyway.

He woke once in the night and the old man was crying, Help me, Jesus, the house is afire. Help me get her out.

Hush, Edgewater told him. There’s no fire.

The house is afire and Lucindy’s in there, the old man persisted.

She’s out, she’s all right, Edgewater said.

The old man whimpered to himself for a time while Edgewater watched what he could see of the still night beyond the high grilled window.

Then Edgewater dreamed he was a pallbearer. There were six of them, Edgewater at the left rear of the bronze casket. It was a huge coffin, leaden, a weight not to be borne, he felt he could not go on. They crossed a wooden bridge through whose slats Edgewater could see the lapping of yellow water far below them and ahead of them a hill rising up, domed and stark and symmetrical, cedars at its crest bowed black and mournful. The horizon was spiked with crosses and spires and graven angels. There were mourners winding ahead ascending the hill, he could hear their cries. The way was so long night fell on them and torches were lit, a winding procession of wavering light. Stop and rest a minute, he dreamed he said. Let’s set it down a while before we go on.