Crossing (14 page)

“Hello, sir,” Yancy said, rising. “I’ll go take care of BeBe. “ “Don’t unsaddle her,” Jackson instructed him. “We’re just going to have a quick lunch and then you and I are going back to the institute. So you go ahead and saddle up Fancy.”

“Me, sir?” Yancy said with surprise. “But why?”

“You’ll see,” he said over his shoulder as he walked Anna into the house. “It’s a special day.”

T
he parade ground in front of the institute was filled with cadets, not wearing their dress uniforms but in trousers and shirts that looked like work clothes. They stood around in groups, laughing or kicking and throwing balls.

Major Jackson and Yancy rode in and stabled the horses.

“Bring your rifle,” Jackson ordered Yancy.

Without question Yancy took his rifle out of the saddle holster, and they headed out to the field.

Jackson yelled, “Cadet Sims!”

Cadet Erwin Sims, at eighteen, was already tall and deepchested. He had a voice like a foghorn. “Yes, sir!” he said, running up to the major.

“Assemble the men,” Jackson said.

He turned and bellowed out, “All cadets, file in under Major Jackson!”

As the cadets came running toward them, Yancy leaned his musket up against an unused hitching post. He saw that Major Jackson was looking at him with a direct expression. “Would you care to race with our cadets, Mr. Tremayne?”

“Yes, sir, I like to race.”

“Fine, get in line there. Line them up, Mr. Sims, and I’ll give the signal to start. You will be going to the other side of the institute, from this hitching post to that elm tree straight ahead and back. The winner gets a week off of all duties.”

The cheer went up, and as Yancy took his place at the end of the line, he saw he was receiving some angry glances.

The cadet next to him said, “What are you doing here? You’re not a cadet.”

Yancy didn’t answer, merely breathed deeply to prepare.

Jackson called, “Ready—set—go!”

Yancy broke into a burst of speed and ran with all of his might for the tree. It was a short race so he didn’t have to worry about getting winded. He was the first one to arrive at the tree, and he whirled and ran back. He had learned in racing to give his very best at the last part of the race, and he outdid himself and crossed the line. He looked back to see the closest cadet was still thirty yards back.

The cadets all came in huffing from lack of breath.

Jackson had a slight smile. “Well, Mr. Tremayne, you’re quite a runner.”

“The Cheyenne boys race a lot,” he said in a low voice. “It was something that the men thought helped us grow and learn.”

“I don’t know if you know it,” Jackson addressed the cadets, “but Mr. Tremayne here lived with the Cheyenne Indians until he was twelve years old. The Indians are known to be great runners.”

“Major Jackson, I don’t think I ought to get any prize,” Yancy said. “I’m not one of the cadets.”

Jackson nodded with approval. “Very well. Mr. Hooper, you are the next in line and you’re relieved of all duty for the next week. Now, we are going to see what kind of marksmen we have. Go down to the artillery field and get your muskets.”

The small arms were stored in the same shed that held the cannon armaments. The boys, whooping and yelling, ran down to the gully that housed the shed and the cannons.

Jackson nodded for Yancy to get his musket. Together they walked down to the artillery field. “That’s a fine rifle, Mr. Tremayne.”

“Thank you, sir. My father gave it to me. It’s an Enfield rifle musket.”

“I see you take good care of it, too. You have your cartridges and rounds and caps?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Want to try your hand against my cadets?”

“Well—but … they might not like it, sir. I don’t think they much liked that I won the race.”

“Then they need to grow up and act like men and improve themselves and not worry what the man next to them is doing,” Jackson snapped impatiently. “Take the second team, so you can see how we drill.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Teams of five!” Jackson roared. “Step up, men!”

The cadets started jostling around, ranging themselves in fives.

Yancy quickly joined three of the cadets in the second line, and then Cadet Sims joined the four. To Yancy’s surprise, both he and the cadet on his other side grinned at him.

On his left was a rather chubby cadet, with a good-natured smile. “Can you shoot as good as you can run?” he asked.

“I dunno,” Yancy answered honestly. “Never thought about it much.”

“Silence in the ranks!” Jackson ordered, and both boys fell silent, staring straight ahead.

There were twenty-three cadets, and the five targets had been set up at fifty yards.

Jackson waited until all of the cadets were assembled in their teams. When they were all quiet, he called out, “Company! Loading nine times!”

Yancy watched and listened carefully and realized that this meant nine commands required to load and fire the muskets. Jackson barked them out quickly, and Yancy observed the first team, memorizing each movement and each command.

Finally Jackson yelled, “Fire!”

Five loud explosions sounded, then the cadets held their muskets upright by their sides.

Jackson took his binoculars out and surveyed the targets in silence. He nodded briskly. “Not bad, men. Hart, Preston, bull’seye. Manning, Bridges, and Rogers in the red. Team one, ready for battle command?”

“Yes, sir!” the first five cadets called.

“One minute!” Jackson announced. He took out his pocketwatch, glanced at it, waited a few seconds, then commanded, “Load and fire at will!”

A good rifleman was supposed to be able to load and fire in twenty seconds, and get off three rounds in a minute. The speed was important, but so was the repetition of the drill. Many greenhorns, in the excitement of battle, would shoot while their rammers were still in the barrel. The rammer would travel yards away—and then the rifleman had no way to reload his weapon.

Major Jackson drilled the cadets as much as he could with live rounds, begging and scraping the institute for ammunition. If they didn’t have it, he dumb-show drilled them. Almost all of his cadets could fire three rounds in a minute. As could the five cadets on the firing line.

At one minute Jackson called, “Cease fire!” and they had all loaded and shot three times. Jackson ordered Cadet Hart to collect the targets and reset with new ones.

This took a little time, so the friendly cadet next to Yancy spoke to him again in a low voice. “Hi, I’m Charles Satterfield.”

“Yancy Tremayne.”

“How do you know Major Jackson?”

“I work for him and Mrs. Jackson at their house.”

Satterfield’s brown eyes widened. “You work for him? On purpose?”

Yancy nodded his head. “He’s not like this at home, with Mrs. Jackson. He’s different.”

“Different? But—”

“Cadet Satterfield, if I catch you making noise on my field just once more you’re going to be cleaning every cadet’s musket tonight!” Jackson barked.

Satterfield shot to attention. “Yes, sir! No, sir! It won’t happen again, sir!”

“Next team, get ready for commands!” Jackson ordered.

Yancy and the four cadets put their muskets upright next to their sides.

Although Yancy had only observed the “Company! Loading nine times!” routine, he was very quick and picked it up easily. He was even quicker than the cadets. His shot was dead bull’s-eye.

The four cadets were in the red.

In battle drill, Yancy just managed to fire four times in a minute, with every shot a bull’s-eye.

Jackson studied his target carefully then handed it to Yancy. “Here, you ought to take this and show it to your father,” he said in a low voice.

Yancy took the target and said slowly, “No, Major. This isn’t the kind of thing my family is proud of. Amish, you know.”

Jackson nodded with understanding. “Still, you should be proud. Would you like to try a big gun when we get through with muskets?”

Yancy grinned up at him. “I surely would, sir. They look like even more fun.”

Jackson smiled one of his rare, short smiles. “Oh, they are, Mr. Tremayne. They are.”

As soon as all of the cadets had done their musket drills, they started bringing out the ammunition and supplies for the four cannons.

Yancy watched three teams shoot three rounds each this time. Firing a cannon didn’t have any more steps than firing a musket, but it was a good deal more dangerous. He especially observed how careful the cadets were never to step in front of the muzzle and how far they stood back when the gun captain pulled the long lanyard that fired the piece.

Once again he teamed up with the four cadets he had shot the muskets with. The four seemed to just naturally team up together, and they had sort of hung around Yancy when forming the cannon teams. He was relieved; the cadet that had gotten so mad at him at the race was a big, arrogant eighteen-year-old named Franklin Hart, and his dark eye had lit on Yancy more than once during their drills.

Yancy got to be the wormer, then the sponger/rammer, then the primer on their three shots. Cadet Sims was the gun captain; evidently this was a position that was earned and not automatically rotated. Yancy did all right; he was slightly slower than the others, and once he stepped in front of the muzzle when he was sponging.

One of the other cadets—he later found out it was Peyton Stevens—ducked under the gun and pushed Yancy hard. Then he stood up and with a charming smile said, “Don’t want to be standing there, Cheyenne. Sorry about the shove.”

“It’s all right. Better than getting shoved by a six-pound ball,” Yancy said. His gun crew did well, hitting the target with all three rounds.

When the drills were finished and the cadets were returning to the barracks, the four young men he had been shooting with introduced themselves. Cadet Sims was senior, at eighteen, Peyton Stevens was sixteen, and Sandy Owens and Charles Satterfield were fifteen. They shook hands all around.

“Thanks for helping me out today,” Yancy told them.

“No, you helped us out in the musket drill,” Satterfield said.

“Right, Chuckins,” Stevens said lazily. “At least today you didn’t fire your rammer.”

“Oh I only did that once, the second time we drilled,” Chuckins grumbled. “Old Blue Light was yelling at me and made me nervous.”

“Old Blue Light? Is that what you call him?” Yancy asked, glancing at Major Jackson.

“Among other things,” Cadet Sims said. “So are you coming to VMI, Yancy?”

Yancy shook his head. “No, I couldn’t do that. No, I just work for Major Jackson, and I guess he just wanted to bring me today to have some fun.”

“Hard to think of races and gun drills as fun,” Sandy Owens grumbled. He couldn’t run very fast, and he hated the dirt and grime and noise and smell of the musket drills. He secretly, however, did love artillery drill, even if it did get his breeches dirty. He was the best in his class at it.

“Really?” Yancy said in surprise. “I thought it was great.” He saw Major Jackson motioning to him, and he hurriedly said, “I’ve gotta go now. Thanks again, cadets, for the day.”

He joined Major Jackson and they went to the stables and saddled up. Jackson didn’t say anything, and Yancy didn’t either.

They had ridden awhile before Major Jackson said, “That was quite a show you put on there, Mr. Tremayne.”

“I didn’t mean to show off, sir. It’s just that from about the time Indian boys can walk, they race, and their fathers teach them to use a rifle. That’s the kind of life I had. It just comes natural, I guess. And you know, I didn’t do so good with the cannon.”

Jackson answered, “You did real well for your first time. Better than most all of those boys did on their first times. So your father is the one who taught you to shoot like that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But it takes a lot of practice, and a lot of discipline, to get that accurate and that fast.”

Yancy shrugged a little. “It doesn’t seem like a discipline to me, sir. I love it. Not just hunting, but as you say, target practice and speed practice. My father and I used to compete. He always won. Course we don’t do that anymore,” he added with a touch of sadness.

“But don’t you stop, Mr. Tremayne,” Jackson said sternly. “Don’t you stop. You’re young and tough and good at what you do. You’d make a good soldier.”

Yancy was pleased and relished a rare compliment from a man he admired. Then he sighed. “You know, Major Jackson, that the Amish are against any kind of violence. They won’t fight in a war.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that.”

“I’ve wondered about that myself sometimes,” Yancy said hesitantly. “The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

“I’ve read that many times. I have a friend who is a scholar in the Hebrew language. I asked him about that commandment. He told me that the word used in our Bible for
kill
is literally
murder
in the original Hebrew text. ‘Thou shalt not murder.’”

“What’s the difference, sir?”

“You murder someone out of gain, or anger, or jealousy. You take the life to serve yourself. But those who serve as soldiers, they are giving their lives for their country, to preserve it. In most cases they are fighting to save their people from godless armies. So, I tell myself I will not murder, but I will defend my country.”

“Yes, sir,” Yancy said quietly, thinking,
And I would, too
.