Chapter One The Returning Cavalryman

Beneath it, someone had carved new letters. TITAN PROPERTY. The old horse snorted. Jack sat still in the saddle and said nothing. He looked at the board for a long time. Wind pushed the black hair from his forehead and showed a pale scar running from his brow to his temple. Half the fence was down. The well frame leaned crooked. The cattle shed had collapsed into a black shape. Farther off stood the white wooden house where his mother should have lit an oil lamp, where his younger brother should have shouted from the porch, where his father should have sat smoking his pipe. Now the house was only a burned skeleton. There was a fresh grave in front of it.