Chapter 14

Before we could ‘Let’s’ we had an important part of shooting blackpowder to do ... clean the guns. Black is corrosive as all-get-out and neutralizing said corrosiveness is a pretty damn good idea. Black left in a bore can eat away rifling and even rust completely shut the channel between flintlock and barrel.

There are compounds today that the shooters of the 18th or 19th century had no access to. But ... even today ... some newly discovered Pennsylvania firearms have pristine bores, wood and locks. Flintlock rifles replaced with percussion rifles and... ‘This old junk goes in the attic,’ to be discovered in 1960 by the crew cleaning oiut the house so it can be demolished. The wood cleaned up nicely, a Golcher, or a Beck but 1769 by the date. The barrel? Hot water, lye soap and care...

That’s what we did ... boiled crick water and scrubbed mattress ticking patches through our barrels until clear water. A bit of grease through a still hot bore and done. I’ll tell you right now ... cleaning a fouled rifle with a woman doing the same thing can be a lot of fun. The cleaning was accomplished in fifteen minutes ... the horsing around took the rest of two hours. We were pretty grimy at the finish ... and wet.

There is a bend in the crick that is surrounded by brambles and Alder and the bend does what bends do ... deepened the bed. One can stand in ice water up to ones neck if one is crazy enough.

“Ice water?”

“Straight off the snowpack.”

“Oh. Brrr.”

Some enterprising soul built a sweat lodge next to the crick. When your body is steaming ... the dip in the crick isn’t too bad ... refreshing, actually ... welcome.

Wood fire ... rocks heated yellow ... tight spaces ... oooh ... great ... and fun in mixed company.

A ‘religious experience’ if same sex does it.

A religious experience had just finished ... and there were rocks still in the fire.

Yup.

Pretty soon...

“Hello the sweat?” A male voice.

“Hello.”

It was a harmony hello.

“Mind if we join?”

“Please,” that’s a female.

I had no idea teens were that friendly.