Chapter 2

Adam parked near a log cabin that served as the gun club’s clubhouse. He tilted his seat and from the back retrieved a long wooden case and a tackle box. Then, he popped the trunk and removed a packet of 100-yard rifle targets.

Kara stepped from the passenger’s side. Adam glanced at her -- she was wearing jeans and a tee shirt, her light brown hair tied in a ponytail.

“This is the club,” he remarked.

“It’s quiet.”

“We’re apt to see some members show up. It gets busy in the fall, when guys come in to zero the sights on their deer rifles.”

“Have you ever gone deer hunting with one of your rifles?”

“No. I’m not into killing things ... although I do believe that hunting is a defensible activity.”

“You said you have a life membership?” she asked.

“Yeah ... When I was in high school, the club needed funds to develop this range. I always was interested in shooting, although back then all I had was a bolt-action .22. The club was selling life memberships for two hundred bucks each, so for my sixteenth birthday my dad bought me one. It was a good deal, too. Now dues are a hundred bucks a year.”

Adam approached an electrical box with a side-arm switch and pulled on it. Red lights began flashing on the posts supporting the roof over the firing line. “This signals someone’s up range,” he said. He picked up a target frame and hiked out to the one hundred yard line, set up the frame and stapled the target to it.

Returning to the line he threw the switch to turn off the warning lights. He set the case on a bench and opened it. From it he took the musket and a cleaning rod. “Here,” he said and handed her a pair of earplugs. Then, Adam opened the tackle box and removed a cardboard box filled with paper cartridges.

Kara picked one up. “I used to help my dad make these for his re-enacting,” she said. “He had a dowel...”

Adam picked up a short length of dowel. “Like this?”

“Exactly. He had a cardboard template. I’d cut out pieces of newsprint, roll them up and fill them with black powder. We used a little wad of Kleenex instead of a slug.”

Adam picked up a lead slug and handed it to her. “This is a Minie ball -- the hollow base expands and engages the rifling in the barrel. It’s what made these so accurate. The specs called for one to hit a man-sized target at a hundred yards, and an object the size of a company front at a mile. If one of those were to hit you -- you’d be a casualty. Hit in a limb -- you’d lose the limb. Hit anywhere else and you’re dead ... maybe not right away, but you’re gone. Add to that the fact that armies were still using tactics for inaccurate smoothbore muskets -- it’s no wonder the American Civil War was so bloody.” Adam tore off a square from a strip of cloth. With the cleaning rod he ran it down and up the barrel of the musket. “I’m cleaning out the oil ... Do you remember how to load one of these?”

“I think so...” Kara bit off the bottom of the cartridge and poured the powder into the barrel.”

“Just slip the slug in, broad-end first.” Kara pushed the slug into the barrel and followed it with the paper from the cartridge. Then she withdrew the ramrod and pushed it into the muzzle. “Make sure the round is seated against the powder charge,” he instructed.

“Oh, it is,” she replied as she withdrew the ramrod and replaced it under the musket’s barrel.

From a small tin Adam removed a percussion cap and handed it to her. She pulled back the hammer to half cock and set the cap on the nipple. “Go ahead and take a shot,” he said. “You can shoot off the bench if you’d like.”

“I’ll try it like this.”

“Offhand...” He handed her a pair of safety glasses. “Sometimes the cap shatters.”

She slipped on the glasses, pulled back the hammer to full-cock and lifted the musket. “Does it kick?” she asked.

“No. A gentle nudge, maybe.”

Kara put her finger on the trigger and aimed at the target. With a boom and a cloud of smoke the musket discharged. “Well done,” Adam said. “You didn’t even flinch.”

“It does remind me of being with my dad,” she said. “The noise, the flash, the smoke ... It doesn’t smell like I remember. I remember it smelling like rotten eggs.”

“You were probably using black powder,” he replied. “I’m using Pyrodex.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a black powder replacement. Genuine black powder is getting harder and harder to come by, especially after 9/11. Pyrodex performs the same but is less sensitive. It’s not classified as an explosive, like black powder. It won’t work in a flintlock but it works fine in one of these...” He lifted a pair of binoculars and peered at the target. “I do believe you hit it.”

“Let me see...” She took the binoculars from him. “I don’t see it...”

“Lower left corner about seven o’clock.”

“Oh, yeah...”

Adam ran first a damp and then a dry cleaning patch down the barrel. He picked up a cartridge and reloaded. “I’ll try one offhand.”

Kara picked up the binoculars and watched the target as Adam took his shot. “Clean miss, I think,” she said.

“Probably -- I don’t have the upper body strength to hold that thing steady. You’re a stronger man than I am, Kara.”

“I work with my arms,” she said. “You work with your head.”

“And, fingers ... Want to try another shot?”

“Okay...”

Adam packed the musket into its case. Well -- I’ll need to clean that when I get home.”

“That little ritual I remember well,” she said.

He sat behind the wheel and started the car. She pulled the door closed on her side and fastened her belt. “Did you have fun?” he asked.

“I did.”

“Care for a drive? I can show you where I grew up.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not far from here.” He headed onto a county trunk and drove past farms and fields. “My folks wanted to live out in the country,” he said. “So, my dad bought a parcel of land from a farmer who was retiring and had the house built. I must’ve been around ten when we moved out here.” He pulled into a driveway. “Well -- here it is. My childhood home.”

“Who lives here now?”

“Oh, my mom and dad still live here. They’re away at the moment. Every other year they take a trip to Europe.”

“Do your folks still work?”

“Oh, yes.” He stepped out of the car and walked around the property. “I’ll send them a note that I stopped by and the place looks intact.”

Kara walked beside him. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked.

“One brother ... deceased.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Wasn’t really unexpected. Jack had trouble with drugs and alcohol. He drank himself to death ... but not after being in some trouble with the law. He always said he was the black sheep ... and he seemed proud of it, too. Shall we go?”

Adam backed the mustang out of the driveway and headed down the country road. “Look at that,” he said. “The old Chambers place ... with a for-sale sign.” They approached a stone farmhouse. In the driveway was parked a white SUV with “Town and Country Realty” on its side. “Shall we stop in?”

“Sure,” Kara said.

Adam parked the Mustang in the driveway. He and Kara climbed to the porch and to the closed screen door. “Hello,” he called.

“Come in,” came a voice from inside the house. They walked in and saw an older man with a digital camera. “I was just taking some pictures.”

“I grew up around here,” Adam said. “I knew the folks who lived here.”

“You knew Ginny Chambers?” the realtor said. “She passed away a couple of months ago. Her estate is putting the place on the market.”

“My dad told me,” Adam said, “that Ray Chambers ran a small dairy farm here ... that up to the sixties he farmed the old-fashioned way -- with horses. Then, he closed down the farm. At that point Alma Chambers threw him out. When I was a kid and would come trick-or-treating, Alma would tell us to get lost. She was a mean old biddy -- in her nineties, and living here with her spinster daughter Virginia. Ginny Chambers wasn’t much nicer.”

“I didn’t know either of them,” the realtor said.

“Mind if we look around?”

“Go ahead.”

Adam and Kara began looking over the house. “I love stone houses,” Kara said.

“So do I. This place must’ve been built in the mid eighteen-hundreds.”

“It looks like the electrical work was done in the thirties,” she replied.

“That’s probably about when they ran power lines out here. In those days, this was pretty isolated.” He pointed to a plate on the wall. “I love the old-fashioned push-button switches, with the mother-of-pearl on the button.”

“There are renovation supply places that sell modern versions of those,” she remarked. “They are expensive.” Kara pointed to the receptacles. “All the wiring probably needs to be re-done to bring the place up to code. None of the outlets are grounded. I wonder if the boxes are grounded.”

“Shall we take a look in the basement?” he asked.

Kara followed him down a flight of creaky wooden stairs. “The furnace looks like a coal-burner converted to oil,” he remarked. “My grandparents had one of those. Over there must’ve been the coal bin.”

“Hot water heat with radiators,” she said. “I don’t know about plumbing codes but I’d be surprised if that didn’t need to be re-done, also.”

“All that work just to live in the place?” he asked.

“You could live here, as-is,” she replied. “Maybe put on a new roof. As soon as you open up a wall for remodeling -- then everything has to be brought up to code. That’s the problem with re-habbing old properties. Sometimes it’s cheaper to bulldoze the place and start from scratch.”

“Look over here,” Adam said, pointing. “How often do you see a cistern in the basement?”

“Collect rainwater?”

“Not potable,” he muttered. “Definitely interesting...”

They climbed the stairs to the first floor. “What do you think, folks?”

“Looks like a handyman’s special,” Adam replied.

“That it is. Take a card and a flier.”

Adam picked up the items and they headed back to his car. “Getting hungry?” he asked.

“A bit.”

“Let’s head over to The Reef.”

“Dinner there again?” she asked. “Last time you had that certificate. It was good, but I thought it a bit pricey.”

“It is a bit pricey. No, I was going stop at Luther’s general store. It’s the other business that’s been on the reef since the canal days. He makes a really good bake-at-home pizza that I remember as a kid. We could pick up some beer ... take it back to my place ... heat it up in my now-fully-functional oven.”

“Okay...”

“Another slice?” he asked.

“One more ... I have never seen someone slice a whole pepperoni lengthwise and then spread it on a pizza like a sunburst.”

“This is really good.” He opened another bottle of beer. “Split it?”

“Okay.”

He topped up her glass. “You said your mother works part-time,” he remarked.

“Yes.” She reached back and removed the tie holding her ponytail. “Ponytail was getting lopsided...” She began gathering her hair to re-tie it.

“I think you should leave your hair down,” Adam said. “I like how it frames your face.”

Kara shrugged and shook her hair. “Saves me the trouble of tying it up ... and it covers up my big ears.”

“You were saying about your mom...”