"Birch!" Asa's voice cracked across the yard. "Steward! Dunne, Varga—carry this man to the hospital tent."
The two privates looked at each other. It was a small look and it lasted less than a second, and Asa saw it, and they saw that he saw it. Then they came forward and bent to take the scout under the arms.
"I can walk," the scout said.
"You can't," said Iona.
"Then I will learn on the way." He got one foot under him, then the other, and stood swaying between the two troopers, who now had nothing to do but hover. Before he let them lead him off, he turned his head toward the ridge. The sun had slipped, and the rider had become a thinner shape, half swallowed by the glare.
"That is Holloway's horse," the scout said quietly. "The bay with white stockings on the forelegs. He holds his head to the left because of an old bit sore."
"You can't see a bit sore from here," Asa said.
"No. I have ridden behind that horse for three years. I don't need to see it."
When Iona looked again, the ridge was empty. There was only the sun, going down red into the rock.
Lieutenant Ames came through the gate at a half run, buttoning his blouse, his young face pink and alarmed. He looked at the blood in the dust, at the scout limping away, at Corporal Klemm sitting on the ground with red running through his fingers and soaking his mustache.
"Sir? I heard—what in the world—"
"Mr. Ames." Asa's voice was perfectly level. "You will take out the troop book and note the time. At a quarter to seven in the evening, in front of the men, I struck Corporal Klemm in the face with my closed hand. You'll write it in those words."
Ames stared at him. "Sir, if the corporal was insolent to a lady, surely—"
"Those words, Mr. Ames. Nothing added."