[b]Greg Iles
Not far away lay the big cannons that had held Ulysses Grant at bay for fifty siege days while the citizens of the town ate rat flesh and clung to their long-cherished beliefs. How many had died in that lost cause? Dr. Tarver wondered. Fifty thousand casualties at Gettysburg alone, and for what? To free the slaves who built this house? To preserve the Union? Had Stonewall Jackson died to create a nation of couch potatoes ignorant of their own history and incapable of simple mathematics? If those brave soldiers in blue and gray had seen what lay in the future, they would have laid down their muskets and walked home to their farms.[/b]
Let’s just say I doubt it. Though, sure, point taken.
Because death is the end, and if a man doesn’t speak before it silences him, then the things he holds closest die with him.
But he is still dead, right?
As we move, a roar like the voice of some satanic creature bellows from the staircase. The fire’s voice. I’ve heard it in lots of places, and the sound turns my insides to jelly. There’s a reason human beings will jump ten floors onto concrete to escape being burned alive. That roar is part of it.
You know what that reminds us of.
We rarely act from logic when facing the critical choices of our lives.
Well, you know why I think so.
Kaiser and Lenz are staring at each other like hunters who have walked into a thicket after a lion and found a unicorn.
Yeah, that’s crystal clear.
I’m a man, and I respond to all that you are. But I also feel things that a father feels for a daughter. Mainly, I feel very protective of you. And my first duty is to protect you from me.
Things we just don’t talk about.