More excerpts:
Ada visits her neighbors, the Swangers...
'Their first talk was of the war, of how the prospects seemed grim, the Federals just over the mountains to the north, and things growing desparate in Virginia if the newspaper accounts of trench warfare in Petersburg were to be believed. Neither Esco nor Sally understood the war in any but the vaguest way, knowing for certain only two things: that they generally disapproved of it, and that Esco had reached an age when he required some help about the farm. For those and many other reasons, they would be glad to see the war done and their boys come walking up the road. Ada asked if there was any news from either of the boys, the two Swanger sons being off to the fighting. But they'd heard not a word in many months and knew not even what state they were in.
'The Swangers had opposed the war from the start and had until recently remained generally sympathetic with the Federals, as had many in the mountains. But Esco had grown bitter with both sides, fearing them about equally now that the Federals were ranked up just over the big mountains to the north. He worried that they would soon come looking for food, take what they want, and leave a man with nothing. He'd been in to the county seat recently, and it was all over town that Kirk and his bluecoats had already started raiding up near the state line. Came down on a family and looted their farm at grey dawn, stole every animal they could find and every bit of portable food they could carry, and set fire to the corncrib in parting.
'-Them's the liberators, Esco said. And our own bunch is as bad or worse. Teague and his Home Guard roaring around like a band of marauders. Setting their own laws as suits them, and them nothing but trash looking for a way to stay out of the army.'
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Inman meets up with a mountain ascetic and healer:
'That last phrase caught Inman's eye. He said it aloud. Pathway to the More Abundant Life.
'-It's what many seek, the woman said. But I'm not sure a sack of flour will set your foot on it.
'-Yes, Inman said. Abundance did seem, in his experience, to be an elusive thing. Unless you counted plenty of hardship. There was ample of that. But abundance of something a man might want was a different matter.
'-Scarcity's much more the general bearing of life, is the way I see it, the woman said.
'-Yes, Inman said.
'The woman leaned to the stove and knocked the last of the fire out of her pipe and put it to her mouth and blew through it until it nearly whistled. She drew a tobacco pouch from an apron pocket and refilled the pipe, tamping the tobacco down hard with a callused thumb. She lit a straw in the stove and held it to the pipe and drew until it was going to her satisfaction.
'-How do you come to have that big red wound and them two little new ones? she said.
'-I took the neck wound out by Globe Tavern last summer.
'-A dramshop knifing?
'-A battle. Below Petersburg.
'-Federals shot you, then?
'-They were making to take the Weldon rail line and we aimed to stop them. We went at it all that afternoon, fighting in pine thickets, broom grass, oil fields, all sorts of a place. Awful flat scrubby country. It was hot and we sweated so bad we could reach down and roll lather off our pant legs with our hands.
'-You've thought a number of times, I guess, that if the ball had struck a thumb's width different you'd be dead? It near to took your head off as it is.
'-Yes.
'-It looks like it could bust open yet.
'-It feels about like it could.
'-And the new ones, how'd you come by them?
'-The usual way. Got shot, Inman said.
'-Federals?
'-No. The other bunch. (The Home Guard.)
'The woman waved her hand through the tobacco smoke like she couldn't be troubled with the confusing details of his wounds. She said, Well, these new ones're not as bad. When they heal up, the hair'll cover them and it'll be just you and your sweetheart to know. She'll feel a little welt when she runs her fingers through your hair. What I want to know is, was it worth it, all that fighting for the big man's ******?
'-That's not the way I saw it.
'-What's the other way? she said. I've traveled a fair bit in the low counties. ******-owning makes the rich man proud and ugly and it makes the poor man mean. It's a curse laid on the land. We've lit a fire and now it's burning us down. God is going to liberate ******s, and fighting to prevent it is against God. Did you own any?
'-No. Not hardly anybody I knew did.
'-Then what stirred you up enough for fighting and dying?
'-Four years ago I maybe could have told you. Now I don't know. I've had all of it I want, though.
'-That's lacking some as an answer.
'-I reckon many of us fought to drive off invaders. One man I knew had been north to the big cities, and he said it was every feature of such places that we were fighting to prevent. All I know is anyone thinking the Federals are willing to die to set loose slaves has got an overly merciful view of mankind.
'-With all those fine reasons for fighting, thing I want to know is why did you run off?
'-Furloughed.
'-Yes, she said, and she reared back and cackled as if a joke had been cracked. Man on furlough, she said. Nary papers, though. Had them stole off him.
'-Lost them.
'She stopped laughing and looked at Inman. She said, Listen here, I lack all affiliation. I don't care no more than spitting in that fire that you've run off.
'And to make her point, she spat a dark gob of matter, arcing it expertly into the open stove door. She looked back at Inman and said, It's dangerous for you, is all.
'He looked her in the eyes and was surprised to find that they were wells of kindness despite all her hard talk. Not a soul he had met in some time drew him out as this goatwoman did, and so he told her what was in his heart. The shame he felt now to think of his zeal in sixty-one to go off and fight the downtrodden mill workers of the Federal army, men so ignorant it took many lessons to convince them to load their cartridges ball foremost. These were the foes, so numberless that not even their own government put much value to them. They just ran them at you for years on end, and there seemed no shortage. You could kill them down until you grew heartsick and they would still keep ranking up to march southward.'
Bringing the