Sergeant Burton, a large barrel-chested man, grabbed Lawrence and was choking him. The war seeped into their everyday lives; conflicts they were in during the war were brought back home. Lawrence, the young soldier, was fighting a battle at home worse than the combat he was in during the war. Everything in his civilian life paid the price for getting in the way of the illness that he brought back. His relationship with his neighbors, his failing health, his work, and, most of all, his love for Abigail suffered. Lawrence's PTSD condition branded him a coward after he came home from the Civil War. But he was bound and determined to fight like he had never fought before for his sanity. "If I could believe that my life would be easier," Lawrence said, looking at Daniel and then staring into the fire. "If I could only get this bug out of my brain, if I could only make it stop buzzing, if I could only squish it under my foot, everything would be all right." Then they buried this great hulk of a man under the wall. An evil had been done away with, and they thought that would be the end of it-but they were wrong. The killing haunted all their lives, and hung over the farm like an unseen ghost.