'Absolutely,' I said.
'No problem,' Michael added.
'Shake on it then,' Jess said. We shook hands, and cheers went up around the campfire. Several people said goodnight and scurried away toward tents, and Mel refilled everyone else's coffee mugs without a single complaint about the anachronistic preparation method.
'I tell you what,' the captain said, winking at his crew. 'Let's fire the thing off one more time, just to seal the bargain.'
The crew leaped up with such enthusiasm that I didn't have the heart to protest. After all, I decided, it was so soon after the last shot that most people wouldn't have fallen back asleep.
'In fact, you can help us,' Jess said. 'You can set the whole thing off.'
'Thanks, I appreciate the honor, but – '
'We insist!'
Okay, if it kept them quiet the rest of the night, I'd tap dance on the bloody cannon barrel. But to my surprise, instead of leading us to the cannon, Jess stopped in front of a tent at the edge of the encampment.
'What's this?' I asked.
'Go on, look inside,' Jess said.
Hesitantly, I lifted up one flap of the tent front – and found myself staring at a huge, gleaming, modern sound system, the kind roadies haul around to fuel rock bands.
'Mel, Frank, run those speakers out,' Jess ordered. 'Carrie, you make sure the tape is cued up right.'
Mel and another soldier dragged out a pair of enormous speakers to flank the tent, while a homespun-clad woman put on a pair of earphones, fiddled with some of the controls of the sound system, and nodded to Jess.
'Earplugs, everyone,' Jess ordered. 'You might want to put these on, ma'am. Now, on my cue, just hit that button Carrie's pointing to, and we'll give those no-good redcoats one last volley before we retire for the evening.'
I pressed the button and jumped back. Through the earplugs, I could faintly hear Jess's prerecorded voice ordering his crew through the steps of the firing drill, culminating in a satisfactorily loud boom.
'That's it for the night, folks,' Jess said. Mel and Frank put the speakers away while Carrie, putting the headphones back on, rewound the tape to the proper place.
'That's how come we know your mother had already gone to bed,' Jess explained, as we returned to the campfire. 'As long as there's anyone here to watch us, we go through the whole drill. We like doing it, but it just seems a waste of time and powder to do the whole thing with no one watching. So we assigned a couple of our guys to take turns shadowing her. She heads our way, one of them uses the cell phone, calls my pager, and we're all correct by the time she gets here.'
'Brilliant,' I said.
'And so historically accurate,' Michael murmured.
'Well, hell, we're not nut cases,' Jess said 'We're big on authenticity, don't get me wrong. You get some guys, they're not interested in the history.'
'Just want to come out, fire off their black-powder guns a few times, then sit around and drink beer,' Mel said, frowning at one of the other men lounging around the fire. The man lifted his mug, uttered an improbably loud belch as if it were a toast, and drained the mug.
'Some others, they're so gung-ho they want to come out and pretend the twenty-first century doesn't exist,' Jess said, with a glance at Mel. 'Want to do everything exactly the way it was done back then, no matter how long it takes or if there's a good reason not to. Dig privies instead of using the chemical toilets. Drink unpasteurized milk. Boil their coffee like eggs. Hell, why don't they just go ahead and bleed people when they feel sick; that's pretty authentic.'
'People have a right to do what they like,' Mel put in.
'And I respect that right, as long as they don't come over and try to interfere with our right to do what we like.'
'Halt! Who goes there?' the sentry shouted.
'Is Meg Langslow up here?' came the reply.
'Oh, God,' I said. 'Wesley.'
'Someone you're trying to avoid?' Jess said. 'We could send him back the way he came.'
'I wouldn't want to interfere with the freedom of the press,' I said. 'That's part of what you're all fighting for, isn't it? Let him pass if you want.'
A minute later, Wesley Hatcher scuttled over to where I was sitting.
'I've been looking for you all night,' Wesley said. 'I understand you found the body!'
'Body?' Jess said. 'You mean all that talk about a murder was real? I thought it was just one of those weekend murder games.'
'Oh, it was real, all right,' I said.
'By the time they finally found someone to let me out, the body was gone, and there was nothing to see,' Wesley complained. 'I've got to get an interview with you!'
'Wesley, as Mrs. Fenniman always says, the only thing you've got to do in this world is live until you die. Can I have another cup of your anachronism?' I asked, turning back to Jess.
'Certainly, ma'am,' he said. He served out coffee all round, and we studiously ignored Wesley, who paced up and down, whining an occasional complaint. He sounded pitiful, like a dog that badly needed to be let out.
'Halt! Who goes there?' we heard again.
'Place is Grand Central Station tonight,' Mel muttered.
'Danny must be loving it,' one of the loungers said. 'Usually hard to keep awake on sentry duty this time of night.'
'Hey, Jess,' said one of the two men who now approached the campfire. 'Xavier from the Victory Center wants to know if we could help him out by making some charges.'
'Hate to ask, when you're pretty busy all day,' Xavier said. 'But I'm really in a bind.'
'No problem,' Jess said. 'Thought you made these up way ahead of time, though.'
'We did, weeks ago, but we had a burst pipe in the storeroom last night,' Xavier said. 'Everything is soaked, including the charges.'
'Ouch,' Jess said, and the men around the fire shook their heads in sympathy.
'You want to learn how to do this?' Jess asked. Michael seemed interested, and I'd gotten my second wind, so Jess showed us how to cut trapezoidal pieces of paper in the proper size, measure the precise amount of gunpowder with a little scoop, roll the paper into a cylinder like a clumsy homemade cigar, and twist the ends closed.
I thought it was a little incongruous that we were making authentic colonial-style musket charges using old copies of the
Wesley joined in, too, but I'm not sure how useful he was. He kept looking at me, as if hoping I'd reward him with an interview if he made enough cartridges.
'Be real careful not to go over on the powder,' Xavier said, not for the first time. 'It's better to be a little short than to go over.'
'Just what are these cartridges for, anyway?' Michael asked.
'A lot of times, when a reenactment takes place on park land, they arrange for us to hand out the ammo,' Xavier said. 'For safety reasons.'
'You get some of these guys, like to overcharge to get a bigger bang, and that gets dangerous,' Jess said.
'Not to mention the fools who do black-powder hunting with the same guns and aren't careful about keeping
