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to second guess which direction the battle had swung and where his unit might be.
    Cursing, he moved deeper into the trees, looking for a ditch or gully where he might pass a few hours in relative safety and comfort. Once settled with his back against a mossy embankment, he set his rifle aside and rummaged in his jacket, looking for the stub of a cigar that he’d poached off the company cook.
    Before he lit the stub, he rose carefully and scanned the trees, searching for figures darting through the brush. For all he knew, the battle had shifted and he could be sitting behind enemy lines. A tree splintered and fell near the edge of the field, but he didn’t spot any movement in the undergrowth.
    He lit the cigar and leaned his head back against the embankment, listening to the explosions erupting behind him. Everyone said the war would end soon and this would fade to just a memory. They’d all be going home. He planned to sit in a hot tub for a day, then sleep for a month.
    The ground shook beneath him as artillery brought down another large tree. What irony it would be if he got killed or maimed when it was almost over, after having survived this long with nothing worse than minor flesh wounds. Those were the deaths hardest for families to bear, those that occurred when the end was near. That was a misery his family would not have to bear as he was the last surviving member of the Boston Camerons. His parents were gone. Last year his sister Celia had died in childbirth.
    He was remembering Celia when he caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye.
    Over the years, Cameron had spent countless hours studying Clarence and Della Ward’s wedding photograph. Della Ward had occupied his thoughts as he rode across miles of empty prairie or sat before a solitary campfire. He’d propped her photograph on a succession of bureaus in a succession of boarding houses in the succession of rough and rowdy towns where he’d worn a badge. Occasionally during his long drift through the West, in the later years, he had sometimes fantasized that she was his and waiting for him to come home.
    He knew every nuance of the girl in that photograph, both real and fancied. The curve of her cheek and breast were as familiar as his own palm. He knew exactly where her hair had caught the photographer’s light, could describe her gown in every detail.
    At various times he had read innocence or idealism in her gaze; confidence, apprehension, or vulnerability. The shape of her lips suggested sensuality waiting to be awakened, spoke of sweetness and tender smiles. Other times he saw dreaminess in the shape of her mouth and chin.
    The way she leaned slightly toward Clarence told him that she was dependent and in need of protection, a malleable woman-child eager to please and be cared for. A woman raised to be cherished, to bring gentleness into a man’s life.
    Her letter to her husband had seemed to confirm his judgement of her character. He’d grasped her bewilderment and desperation in every pen stroke. Had seen the young bride floundering beneath demands and fears and responsibilities that nothing in her experience had prepared her to cope with. Even on his first reading, Cameron had understood the impulsiveness of her plea for help and her momentary flash of resentment and hatred for the man who had abandoned her to an overwhelming situation. He’d guessed that she had regretted the letter almost at once.
    The sound of the dinner bell interrupted his reverie, and he drove in the last nail, then climbed down from the barn roof. It had taken three days, but the job was finished. Surprisingly he’d enjoyed the physical labor and sweating under the Texas sun. It occurred to him that he might like a place of his own someday.
    The thought made him smile as he walked toward the rain barrel at the side of the house. Men like him didn’t settle down. If he needed a reminder, all he had to recall was the steady trickle of men riding out here to