I Shall Be Near to You(27)

Captain orders the first row of soldiers forward. The noise is a sharp crack and rumbling echo and then there is just the smoke from the guns drifting up and away in the wind.

Then we step forward, Jeremiah to my left and Jimmy to my right, like we’ve practiced. I feel the guns next to me go off before I hear them, and I pull my trigger, the rifle kicking back into my shoulder hard enough for bruising, before I turn and run to keep with Jeremiah, my ears ringing.

‘Ain’t no different than shooting game,’ Henry says when we get back into line. ‘Like we all done before. Except for maybe Ross.’

‘Oh, I’m tougher than any Rebel,’ I say, raising my eyebrow at Henry. ‘And I shot a cow on our farm real clean once.’ But Sully and Henry laugh and Jeremiah says, ‘Shooting livestock ain’t the same thing.’

‘I’ve never done much shooting at home either, but I expect I’ll learn quick,’ Will says, and I could almost hug him.

Henry slaps me on the back and says, ‘You got one more shot off than I thought you would, Roset—I mean Ross.’

Jeremiah turns away like he ain’t even heard a thing.


AFTER WE’VE BEEN practicing skirmishing and loading for what seems like hours, Captain stops us near his big tent and says, ‘It’s time you boys learned some real shooting.’

Jeremiah turns to Sully and Jimmy and Henry, the corners of his mouth turned up, and punches Sully in the shoulder like he ain’t got a care in this world, like he ain’t even noticed me sleeping with my back to him and not saying one word.

The first ten soldiers, Sully one of them, take their places facing ten straw bales with paper targets, and the rest of us line ourselves up behind, our rifles at our sides. Sully shifts his weight from one foot to the other, like he might not wait for orders.

Captain dangles his stopwatch from its fob and shouts, ‘Fire and Load at Will!’

The air goes to humming with cartridge boxes opening, boys muttering, cartridges tearing, and ramrods ramming. The shots ring out like popping corn in Mama’s skillet, first a few bursts and then a whole volley of so much noise it hurts. Mrs. Chalmers stands outside Captain’s big tent, her hands over her ears, watching.

When Captain yells, ‘One minute!’ most the boys have shot twice. Only a few stand back from the line, Sully being one, their smug faces showing they’ve made the standard with their three shots.

Captain marches to inspect the targets of the men who’ve shot three rounds. When he turns to face the Company, he don’t look best pleased.

‘I would rather see you fire one carefully aimed shot in ten minutes than ten poor shots in one minute,’ he says, and his words wipe the smile right off Sully’s face. ‘Next up!’

This time, most the boys at the front take their aim slow, even with Captain holding that watch. Jimmy fires his musket once and starts loading a second time, but then his face goes red as his hair and he steps back. Captain is down the line, standing at Jimmy’s side, and soon as those rifles lower, he is yelling.

‘Soldiers! Every one of you is a fresh fish, but Private O’Malley here has made a mistake I hope none of you will ever make again. What is that mistake, O’Malley?’

Jimmy slumps, his mouth moving, saying something nobody can hear.

‘O’Malley,’ Captain bellows, ‘for those of you who can’t hear, has LOST his rammer, has fired it down the field. Without your rammer, soldiers, you cannot fire. If you cannot fire, you are of NO USE to this Army and of no help to yourself. O’Malley, retrieve your rammer from the field!’

Jimmy tacks across that field, like a cowed dog hunting for scent. He searches for so long, sweeping wider and wider, until Sergeant Ames sends out four other boys to help.

‘I got the blasted f*cker!’ Hiram Binhimer finally shouts, holding it over his head.

Jimmy snatches that rammer like he ain’t the one who lost it and when he comes to our line, no one goes to joking or teasing. Instead, Henry steps out of line and comes at me fast. He grabs my arm.

‘You go next,’ he says.

Jeremiah says, ‘Yeah, let’s see if Ross can do it!’ making everyone look at me. It stings to hear his doubt, like how he used to bet against me every time I joined a spitting contest.

I walk to the front of our line, making myself taller as I set my rifle in front of me, thinking of the steps, load charge ram prime aim fire, load charge ram prime aim fire, load charge ram prime aim fire, until I get the rhythm of it, like my body is doing things and my mind don’t have to tell it. After my minute is up, there are only two holes at the edges of my target but Captain says, ‘You’ve done some fine shooting,’ as he walks past.

I don’t know who he means, me or Ambrose Clark to my right, but I hear my Papa’s warm, proud voice after I shot our hurt cow dead, saying, ‘You done it clean on the first try, Rosetta.’

I smile right at Henry when I walk past and say, ‘Let’s see if you can do better.’


WILL SURPRISES EVERYBODY after we’re done shooting and have eaten supper by pulling out a deck of cards. He’s always reading his Bible and talking about missing church on the Sabbath, so I can’t think how he’s come to have that deck.

He says, ‘This game is five card stud, last card in the hole.’ Them other four settle themselves right down in front of our tent, near enough to the fire to keep the chill off, Sully’s lantern in the middle casting flickers on their faces.