fire, or throw a bullet an inch off aim—because that might be the rifle whose aim was right.

"Lucky we got that one," he said. "I think he saw us, Suse ... he come in low and sudden, and I think he saw us."

"Was—was it one of theirs, Ben ... or one of ours?"

"Don't know. I didn't even look. I can't tell 'em apart. Owen'll be around to tell me when they find out ... but I reckon it was one of ours. If he saw us and didn't shoot, then I reckon it was one of ours. Like the last one."

"Oh, Ben," Susan said. "Ben, ain't it against God?"

Ben stood looking out the window over the sink; watching a cloud of yellow dust settle over the wreckage of the plane, and a cloud of black smoke rising from the wreckage to darken the yellow. He knew some of the men would be passing buckets from the well, and spading dirt on the flames where they weren't too hot to get to.

"That's the way it is," he said. "That's how we decided. God didn't stop the bomb dropping, Suse ... for whatever reasons He had. It don't seem He'd deny us the right to shoot rifles, for the reasons we got. If we get turned away at the Gates, we'll know we was wrong. But I don't think so."

Quiet was returning to the valley; the birds had already started singing again. You could hear the trees. From the direction of the creek came Windy Harris, running, and he broke the quiet with a shout as he saw Ben by the window: "Got it, huh, Ben?"

"Sure did," Ben said, and Windy ran on.

Ben looked toward the porch of the Town Hall. Old Jim had sunk back into his pillowed chair, and he was shaking his fist, and Ben could hear him yelling, "Got it ... got it, we did!"

He'll be around for a while yet, old Jim, Ben thought, and turned back to the table. He sat down and listened to the sounds of the valley, and his eyes were the eyes of the valley—they'd seen a lot, and understood enough of it.

"It don't matter whose it was," he said. "All of a cloth." He slid the reamer into the barrel of the rifle, and worked it. "The hell with the war. Even if it's over, the hell with it. With any war. Nothing's ever going to give us back what we lost. Let 'em stay away, all them that's to blame. Them and their planes and wars and bombs ... they're crazy!" His lips curled as he worked the reamer. "Let 'em stay out o' what 

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