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"If someone comes atup to stare at hihostly blade save ?"

"Can I protect you? That depends I a as I am requires concentration and practice, and I was always a disciplined ot into a barrooan," she said dryly

He seeet into the brawl Peter O’Reilly got into the brawl I dragged hiht there, though that ht troops in, the Yankees would have been killed on the spot or hanged for being spies But I didn’t want murder committed Hell, I lost my own life because of it"

"O’Reilly?" Ashley asked "That would have been Charles Osgood’s great-great-great-great-stepgrandfather, right?"

Marshall Donegal nodded, rising and walking to look out on the river He lifted his hands "I lose track of the generations…but, yes He wasn’t a bad fellow, just the kind as quick to anger and to feel an affront He was eager to ‘whomp those Yanks!’ He survived the war I saw him here once, when he ca It made him a different man Emma was sorry for him, of course She offered him work But he went into New Orleans and became a printer"

"Even so, do you think that soht it was a justice that Charles should die since his ancestor brought about the whole thing? Maybe one of the Yankees!" Ashley suggested

"One who perished?" Marshall asked her

"Possibly I mean, if the rebels more or less caused it all because of Peter O’Reilly, and four of the Yankees died, eance"

"Even I’, long over," Marshall said "Other wars have raged since, and will rage in the future," he added sadly

"Yes, but whoever did this has to be sick You don’t drug a man, hide him for a day and half and then take hiel if there isn’t soical e someone after a hundred and fifty years?" Marshall demanded

"I don’t know, but Cliff is a prime suspect because of his faasped "I can’t believe I forgot We do have that old plantation story about the master who supposedly slept with a slave Were you involved?"

He was quiet, and he gave her a curious, sad smile "Not me, and not any plantation master," he said quietly

"But you knoho?"

"Haven’t you ever studied the records?" he asked her

"Of course, but the baby as Cliff’s great-great-whatever just seerew up after the war on the property"

"After the war I was dead, ree on what records we do have," she reminded him "The records for the slaves on the property were kept at the chapel, and the bible recording all the births disappeared so the war, so the lists we still have don’t have birth dates on therand-parent wasn’t a Donegal man"

"Then--who?" she asked

"It was Emma," he told her quietly

Words and numbers see ground

Cliff Boudreaux could not be eliminated Nor could Ramsay Clayton John Ashton was easy to eliminate There were pictures of hiotten an interview on one of the local channels to talk about the history surrounding the city--and to plug his own business He had been on an evening show that broadcast at seven, and he had been going to give a tour that night that included the broadcaster It didn’t take long to verify the fact that he had led the tour, as he had said on air He hadn’t been at thethat had taken place approximately when the Enfield rifle and bayonet hadtheir location at the tiood had been taken into the ceed to clear the field of all the Yankees except for Justin Binder Tom Dixon had attended a party with his wife and children in New York that had gone on ’til ht, and Victor Quibbly had already been in Austin, Texas, on a businesslist and his notes Cliff--no one wanted it to be hiar interests Toby Keaton--okay, so he owned Beaumont, the Creole plantation next door, but he was never in coal family…or it didn’t appear that it could be so Griffin Grant--no a showed exactly where he had been, other than that he had shown up at his office for the usual workaday world on Monday He hadn’t even taken the day off, as so many had Three others to look at would be the sutler, John Martin, Justin Binder, who had stayed in New Orleans at a chain hotel, and Dr Benjamin Austin, who lived in Francisville and had not had office hours after five on the day that Charles had actually been murdered