All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry

Darrel stirs. What can be happening? A retreat? Men scurry out from their hiding places near the edge like quail before a hunter’s step. I hadn’t known there were so many so close by. They run, crouching low, and gather, some under my tree. Without meaning to, I cry out, startled by how many men were so close all along without my knowing.
By the light of a pair of lanterns, I can see that the men on the other side are doing the same.
I begin to understand. And I wonder, are we back far enough?
    XC.
    Stooping, peering in the dim light, some men take notice of me, and their eyebrows rise. The schoolmaster. Abijah Pratt. Mr. Johnson, Maria’s father. They wonder at me, but not for long. I am not one of the women and children who should be preserved at all cost. I might as well be here. Other men, the strangers from Pinkerton, pause to inspect me. What they don’t know about me shows in their wide, curious eyes.
    I see you loping along the edge of the gorge, your face lit by something bulky and sparkling.
There is a sound like a pebble dropped down a well.
Another. And another. Little thuds as the things land wherever they do. On a floor?
On the ships.
Then:
The earth breaks open with such a loud clap, we fall back and hit our heads on the ground, me and all the watchers crouching under the tree. Even lying on our backs we see it, a wall of flame that rises into the sky above the rim of the gully. We feel its heat blast our faces.
Another roar. Another cascade of fire.
“What’s happened?” Darrel wakes up whimpering.
“Fire from heaven,” says the voice of Preacher Frye. I turn. I hadn’t expected to find him here.
Pathetic screams rise up from the crevice, and horrid smells. There are more explosions, lesser sounds. Their artillery catching fire. Oily black smoke pollutes the bright inferno.
Two booms. Not three.
Silhouetted against the pulsing flames, far off to one side, I see the colonel pace back and forth. Does he realize we can see him? He’s troubled. Why only two explosions?
“That’s Ezra Whiting,” says an older voice behind me, sounding like he’s seeing a ghost. Which, I suppose, he is. A ghost or an angel of fire.
“Ezra Whiting?”
“Can’t be.”
“Who’s Ezra?”
“That’s him, plain as day. Colonel Whiting. He’s s’posed to be dead.”
Your surname has started a fire of its own, here where we sit cowering before our deliverance.
“Ezra!” A man calls out.
“What brung him here?”
You freeze. You hear their voices. In the dark, you can’t see your watchers, so you forgot we could see both of you. “Where in Jesus’s name has he been all this time?”
    XCI.
    Your army may be in a stupor, but you are not. With urgent cries, you summon your men to your side. You train your aim on something in the gorge below.
    The third ship. Those men will be desperate now. Perhaps they are swarming off their decks and risking the perilous climb for a last, desperate battle. Even one ship full of homelanders is more than enough men. And they will fight like wounded bears.
    I watch Roswell Station men load and shoot. Boys Darrel’s age frantically help load guns. Whining bullets land in the dust, not far from where we sit. I tug Darrel backward as much as I can.
    I see, in silhouette, a Roswell Station man collapse to the ground.
Was it not enough, the aid I brought?
    XCII.
    No one else is looking at your father. No one else but me sees Abijah Pratt walk straight toward him and slam him in the shoulders with both fists.
    The colonel topples like mown hay. Now others see, and you do, too. You’re on Abijah Pratt in seconds, yanking him off your father’s body.
    Abijah Pratt’s arms windmill in the air, his screams rise over the shrieking fire. Someone helps your father up. He dusts himself off and stalks away, trying not to seem to favor one knee.
    Abijah attacking the colonel! Now, while we fight for our lives? Does Abijah blame the colonel for his daughter’s death? Will others do the same