Carbon Tet: Rapidan, Virginia, December 1910

Henry Fenton's daughter-in-law, Nelle, ordered new fire extinguishers. They were shipped by rail, and when they arrived at the depot, Henry hitched horse to wagon and fetched them back to the mill he operated with his son Richard. Henry was eighty-two and proud of his strength. By himself, he unloaded the wooden crate labeled fire grenades and carried it into the office.

Richard jumped to his feet and said, "Pa, that's too heavy for you."

Henry was sweating, and after he set the box on his desk, his arms held that curious rising sensation. Together, he and Richard pried off the top of the crate. There were a dozen tomato-red glass bulbs filled with liquid and packed in straw.

"How do they work?" Henry asked.

"Chemicals," Richard said. "They suck the oxygen out of a fire. Nelle got enough for the mill, the house, and the stable."

Richard had faith, Henry knew, in anything Nelle bought, not only because they were married, but because she was from the North.

Henry cupped one of the extinguishers in his hands. It was the size of a baby's head. The globular heaviness felt like concentrated power, though the glass was as cold as December wind.

"Take a look at these gadgets," Henry called out to the farmers who were having their corn ground.

Royce McCampbell was among them, a big, lazy man, always late getting his harvest in. He strolled into the office, accepted the object from Henry, and held it up to the window. In the winter light, it glowed ruby red.

"What's inside?" McCampbell said.

"Carbon tetrachloride," said Richard. "The old ones had salt water."

"Huh," McCampbell said.

Richard rummaged in the straw and picked out several metal loops.

"These are the holders," he said. "You nail them onto the wall." He read the instructions aloud. "In the event of fire, the wire rings will melt, and the grenade will spring out automatically. Alternatively, throw the grenade at the base of the flames."

"In the war," Henry said, "a grenade was something you threw to start a fire. Let's make a fire and test 'em out."

"Oh yeah," McCampbell crowed, reaching in his pocket. "Here, I got matches."

"No, these cost too much to waste," Richard said. He plucked the grenade out of McCampbell's hand and bundled everything back into the crate.

"You're no fun, Richard," McCampbell said, and Henry had to agree.

A white swan swept into view, framed by the office window, and landed on the Rapidan River. Gliding on the clear, dark water above the dam, it traced figure eights.

McCampbell whistled. "My grandfather had swans on his pond, but during the war, him and his family got so hungry, they ate them."

Henry had never heard this story. He caught Richard's eye and grinned, but Richard didn't smile back. Richard took folks mighty serious.

"Did he say how they tasted?" Henry asked.

McCampbell laughed. "Naw, he didn't."

The McCampbells had some taint of old scandal: a love affair with a preacher's wife, Henry thought it was. Royce's father? No, farther back, must be the swan-eater.

"Richard, call Nelle," Henry said. "Tell her to bring the baby to see this."

The telephone at the mill was new. Richard picked up one part of it and spoke into another.

It amazed Henry that his son had married a woman so rich and well-traveled, a Philadelphian. Henry's own house, where he lived with his wife Fannie and their unmarried daughter Iris, was comfortable enough, but Nelle and Richard's was new and enormous, with a needle shower that spurted water out of tiny holes, and radiators housed in wooden cabinets. Nelle bemoaned the gas-lighting. Electricity had not reached Rapidan. Her stable, where she kept her Thoroughbreds, was nicer than most houses. She had taken more interest in the building of the stable than the house. She'd made Richard move the ribbon case three times.

Henry followed Richard and McCampbell outside. Snow had fallen the previous night. Only...