"Willard said he never saw Joe that day," Franklin said to the Shades, and thought of him and Joseph catching Mud Puppies in stream. Jody had followed Joe like a little shadow, and would always do so, even when he told her to stay away. Franklin recalled he had told her to be well clear of the battle, yet she'd defied him.

"I think you'll learn more than you care to know," Cassidy said, sting of compassion pricked the heart. Every death of a compatriot was akin to losing an uncle, father, or brother.

"We'll follow," he looked away from the bounty hunter, "and we'll have the truth of it."

The ghost of Joseph moved at a ginger pace, until they progressed away from the battlefield. Willard looked past his superior, gaze on the darkness. Cassidy frowned. Over a hillock, he caught a glance at a troop of Union soldiers, who came from the direction opposite of their encampment. They stood at the bottom of a horseshoe shaped large hill. About the perimeter, a troop of Grays hid in wait, ready to ambush. The leader of the Blues shook his head with a grin. On cue, the trap was sprung. All of the Northerners were cut down in a sudden hail of bullets.

Joseph jerked, looked at the ambush, and rushed over. Ghosts of Confederates tossed Union soldiers, and bodies were swallowed by the earth. Flesh and bone crawled up, as if in a mass grave. He spoke to nothing, hands thrust at the air. "Whoever he speaks to," Cassidy shivered, "they're still alive." Thought of death returning him to that forest slid down the spine like a razor of ice.

The Confederates grabbed Joseph, who shook his head. Someone began to beat him, and Franklin lurched forward, but was stopped by the bounty hunter. It was a memory, playing out, like a drop of Hell upon the earth. Tougher than he was devious, he went for a gun on one of the spectral Grays. Back his head jerked, and into the earth Joe fell. They shoveled dirt down, all worked fast.

Air grew heavy, thickened. Before it had been bedlam, ghosts fought valiantly until their ends. Hysteria gripped them, until all were savage. Heavens above filled with the boom of cannon, which even in a hollow facsimile, it filled the battlefield. Screams of agony or death warred with bellows of savage glee and malevolent cries. Bellies full of rage, both sides charged into the fray without fear, only hate.

"The dead don't lie," Leon said, and cocked the hammer on the revolver. Chaos about battlefield left him untouched, for part of him missed it. After his home was burned, he had burned as many farms as he could, even slipped away from the army to torch Northern scum. "We mean to have the gold," he'd dreamed of the fires he would start, "a bigger share for who's left." Often, he would dream of the conflagrations, so awoke wet and sticky. He licked dry lips.

"Why did you murder him?"! Franklin staggered forward. "You knew where Joe was all along!"

He turned the gun on him, "I'm not going to die broke and broken down." They'd danced, in the flames, Leon recalled. The screams were ecstasy, pleasure and pain. Sometimes, he considered lying with fire, a mistress of rapture.

Cassidy winced at the hungry ringing, "Did you boys ever consider that they already moved the gold?" Shift of deepest black moved over the trench. "Joseph wanted to throw off the scent to the thieves," his grin grew stony.

He smiled, "Mason contacted a few friends. The gold never made it to the station in Hemlock Hurst."

"Someone else stole it," the bounty hunter countered, but searched the dark, which grew ever deeper. Chatter of teeth grew, Leon turned, but Cassidy moved his hands. Back the Gray pointed the gun with a frown. "Men like you," he shrugged, "you die penniless in a gutter, no matter how much gold you steal." Ringing grew, and he gritted teeth against it, "You're murderous, traitorous dog, who should've been court marshalled."

"I'm tired of your lip, Mister," Leon thought of them covered in pitch, devoured by flame, and shivered with bliss. Before him, the moonlight died. He frowned, searched for them, gun waved about, but the darkness was too deep. Chatter of teeth rose behind him, yet he would never turn his back on a man such as Cassidy. Cool grip, gigantic in size, seized him, and the air whooshed from his lungs. Veins bulged from the immense pressure; blood spread across the whites of his eyes to turn a deep crimson. The veil of black lifted. He saw Cassidy and Franklin recoiled, faces drained of color.

The skeletal giant tore Leon's head off, fountain of blood sprayed up. Greedily the darkness sucked at the ragged stump. Franklin covered his mouth, guts flipped. At this horror the world grayed before Cassidy, who swore this was only a dream. Both fell away from the drained corpse.

"They murdered him," Franklin snatched at anything to pull his mind from the insanity. He leaned against the trench wall, for his legs grew weak.

"Men forget their honor," he watched him struggled to stand, "with so much gold. They see all to gain, and none of which they'll lose." The bounty hunter looked at Leon, eyes flicked back to the one armed man. He refused to even think of the absence of space that loomed above the battlefield.

A hand went to where the other arm should have been, if not for trying to save Joseph's son Garrett that day. Eyes turned from Leon's corpse, he looked to where his friend was buried. Out of the earth, Garrett climbed. He looked at Franklin, unlike the other spirits. For a moment, the apparition smiled, but began to walk out into the battlefield. The one armed man pleaded for him to stop, but he never tarried. Forgiveness he begged, tears stung. Cassidy followed him, felt the blood at his temple, and wondered if this was all a brain addled hallucination.