22
BLACK BEN
Ben kept thinking they would stop to make camp, but they didn’t. They kept right on going. It was dark, and he couldn’t see anything except for vague shadows. He could hear the horses blowing and he could feel the rope biting into his neck and the bitter frigid wind howling past his ears. His head was pounding, and there was some place back between his eyes that throbbed painfully. But what was really disconcerting was that his tongue was bloating in his mouth and he could barely keep from biting it.
“You know what lost us the war?” Lyle had somehow dropped back and fallen in line on the other side of Ben. “Don’t answer. I expect that would be hard in your present condition. You just listen because I feel like talking. Shoes. That’s what lost us the war. The Yanks had them
