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The gun seems too heavy for her. Her aim wavers. It makes her look all the more dangerous. “Go home,” she says. Her old-crow voice is scary. “Home. I mean it.”

It’s dark now but he goes—stumbling, tripping.

I’m still panting—groaning at every breath as though I were in pain. Something has been let loose inside me.

I never chanted except secretly to myself. I believe Loo is the only person who ever heard me. I’ve always wondered if chanting had anything to do with anything. As a child I thought it did. Escape always seemed so easy. I thought I’d done it with my songs. And sometimes after a good chant I thought, Any minute, people will come to rescue me. Even Aunt June Harvest would come, and she was dead with the rest. She’s the one started my chanting. I remember standing in her doorway listening. We were a family that didn’t believe in any of the old superstitions, but Aunt June Harvest believed things the rest of us didn’t or weren’t supposed to.

As a child in solitary, I usually chanted up my father. I thought of him opening the door, letting in sunlight—Pada, in full dress uniform, bringing our kind of food. I shouted, “Pada!” Often, after chanting I knew all that I’d seen with my own eyes was false; there had been no deaths and my father was come to rescue me.

I can’t breathe. Loo sits beside me, says, “Sang, Sang.” At first I think she must mean my pet mouse and then I remember I am Sang. She puts the doll in my hand, giving it back. I take it. I turn over onto my hands and knees, then hunker down. Even though I easily escaped this last time, I no longer think chanting has any effect on anything except for my own need to chant, yet I do it now. Though breathless, I chant. How, how, and, And. And, Row, Row. And Row begins to mean row indeed, instead of remember, remember, and I’m as if in our old flat-bottom boat on our pond with my little sister. My sister leans to pull at a water lily. Oar-locks creak. A red-winged blackbird clings to a reed. I hear the bird’s song. At first so sweet and then loud and then much too loud. And then I must have passed out. That’s never happened before.

I come to with Grandma rubbing snow on my face. Then she helps me turn over, raises my head, and holds tea to my lips. Loo and Grandma help me into my sleeping spot under the table. I shiver. They pile quilts on me. Loo puts the doll beside my pillow. I try to give it back but she won’t let me. I say, “I made it for you.” But then I let her. I sleep a sick sleep. Whenever I wake myself up with my yelling, they are there, Grandma in the rocking chair and Loo and the goats on the floor beside me.

The celebration of Victory Day was a success. We had temporarily removed all the WANTED! DANGEROUS MAN AT LARGE posters. The mood was as it should be. We have made them forget that the General still eludes us. We shot into the air, but, as far as we know, all the bullets came down safely. We are pleased. We have toasted ourselves. “Long live and forever,” we said to each other, and “Victory Day throughout eternity.”

Next I know good smells wake me. Grandma is baking an elderberry pie. I don’t wake up angry as I usually do even though at first I think Grandma is celebrating Victory Day, but she says it’s not to celebrate any victories; it’s for me. She says they haven’t had pie in a long time.

“Which side?” I say, thinking to find out at last what side they’re on.

“Just us,” she says, and then, “No sides. Lupine, snakeweed, fireweed people. Asters and rock fringe people.”

The General is to be presumed dead. We’ll not waste any more resources hunting him. He’s no longer of any meaning. What army could he be the general of anymore? We’ll celebrate his death with another night of cannon volleys. The reward set aside for his capture is withdrawn and will revert back to the army, though, just in case, we’ll not publicize that it no longer exists. All the better if people think it’s still on.

I make a little outdoor oven so I can smoke fish for them. I chop