The first white, devouring flash, almost a second long, had dimmed to an orange glow even before she looked back. Only that saved her eyesight. But as she watched, blinking back afterimages of the car's dashboard, something bright and appalling began lighting the road behind her and the trees and the houses, first rivaling and then eclipsing the growing glow of sunrise to the east.
It was light — pure, hellish light, climbing like a hundred ascending yellow-red-purple writhing-together suns. Its heat seared her face. Below it glowed a vast moving pillar of smoke and flame, lit from within by a twisting reddish radiance of its own.
As she watched, mouth a little open in awe and fear, she saw a strange dark line moving down the road toward her. The shock wave, mercifully attenuated in fifteen miles' travel, was still powerful enough when it hit them to tear the blistered convertible top over them to ragged shreds, skid the car sideways, leave her shaken and bruised and the car, with one wheel off the road, in a shallow clay ditch. When she was able to look back it was almost dark again; almost; but still she could make out a reddish glow against the sky and low down to the ground that seemed to be spreading, expanding, as it slowly was overtaken by the new light of sunrise.
"Vy—"
"You be quiet now, Johnny-Jo," she said.
There was something hard in her throat, but now wasn't the time to grieve. "You be quiet now. Go on back to sleep. I'll get you up again pretty soon and we'll be on a boat, be on our way."
As he grew still again beside her she turned again in the seat, looking backward, westward, to where she'd left the major. She could still feel his warmth, she could still almost feel him, in the way a woman feels a man when she is his not by right, not by force, but by her own choice.
But he was gone. Bending forward, she felt for the ignition, blinking as tears stung her eyes. She didn't want to cry. Not for him. She'd never wanted to cry, not for him, not for Johnny, not for herself. But in spite of that the tears spilled out hot onto her cheeks as she groped blindly for the key, sobbing softly, so as not to awaken Turner.
Good-bye, Major Cavalier, she thought, steering the little car back onto the pavement. The wheel vibrated in her hands, but she judged it would hold for the few remaining miles between them and the boat that would carry them, at last, to freedom. Good-bye, Aubrey. You were some kind of man, in your way.
And… thank you.
The advent of e-publishing has made it possible to provide low-cost copies of my out-of-print early books to the many readers who’ve written me over the years asking for them. First to reappear from Northampton House were the Hemlock County series: The Dead of Winter, Winter in the Heart, As the Wolf Loves Winter, and Thunder on the Mountain. Then, my WWII assassination novel, The Only Thing to Fear, and an oral history collection, Happier than this Day and Time. Next will come Stepfather Bank. St. Martin’s Press has already made available most of my diving and modern Navy novels as ebooks. (See the list in the frontispiece for titles.) The Civil War at Sea trilogy, from Simon & Schuster, may also be appearing in that format soon.
The Shiloh Project was originally published by Avon Books in 1981. This edition incorporates a few cleanups and improvements, but is basically that same book. I apologize for any clunkiness in point of view, characterization, dialogue, or plotting, but after all, it was only my second published novel. I’m just happy you can enjoy it once more!
Thank you all, so much, for being my supporters and fans and word-of-mouth promoters over the years. No writer could ask for truer friends.
Yours in the Word,
Dave Poyer.
Website: www.poyer.com
Facebook: David Poyer.