Chapter 20.  Barbecue and More

 

The barbecue was a pleasant affair.  The weather cooperated.  It was about 80 degrees and breezy; very pleasant under the trees surrounding the patio behind the houses.  The ladies had loaded the table in Jan’s kitchen with picnic foods: a salad made of lettuce, cheese bits and blueberries, an Amish potato salad, spicy pork-and-beans, several kinds of chips and dips, and burger buns.  Outside, Dan had his grill covered with beef-burgers, whole-hog sausage patties, and small venison medallions which came from a white-tailed deer he had harvested in the valley below.  After a blessing was offered by Bob, the eager participants chose between iced tea and coffee and filled their paper plates inside, selected meats from the grill outside, and then, sat down at a large, circular picnic table sporting a variety of meat sauces and salad dressings.

 

Conversation was brisk but short-lived.  The men were eager to get to the guns and soon escaped to the plateau outback.  The women became absorbed in a discussion about sewing.

 

Beth was full of questions.  “However did you make those gorgeous blouses you gals had on last night?” she asked.  “How long did it take?”

 

“About two hours,” Jan responded.

 

“I wish I had been here to watch you at work.  I know very little about making clothes.  My sewing has been limited to changing hemlines and replacing missing buttons.  But, you can make beautiful blouses.”

 

“Well,” Jan responded, “why don’t we make one for you after we tidy up the kitchen?”

 

“Really?”

 

“Sure,” Jan continued.  “The men will be tied up for hours down below.  We’ll have our fun up here.”

 

Miriam was thrilled with the idea.  She added, “Hey, we could all wear our matching blouses to Church in the morning.  We’d look like a team in uniforms.  I’d like that.  Look, I can straighten up the kitchen.  Why don’t you two get started, now.”  They did, and Miriam quickly did the cleanup.  She was determined to see the firings of the cannon and the musket.

As Miriam hurried down the hill in her faded, blue jeans and bright, yellow tee-shirt, she noticed her Dad and Doc inspecting and admiring the restored cannon.  Dan was slowly approaching the site seated on his small, red tractor, carefully towing the paraphernalia needed for the shoot.  He parked the rig about 30 feet behind the cannon, dismounted. and took charge.

 

“You will all need to be about 25 feet back from the cannon when we ignite it.”  As he handed out ear plugs, he asserted, “Here, put these in ... Now, come over here and watch me load.”  He secured a pouch of powder. some wadding, a dowel stick, and a fuse from his cart, raised the barrel to a vertical position, and poured the powder in.  As he proceeded, he spoke, “Now, I’ll push the powder to the base with this wad of cotton, using this stick ... Next, I’ll thread this fuse into this touch hole ... till it touches the powder.”  Then, Dan lowered the barrel into firing position and gingerly rolled one of his cannonballs down the chute and tapped it into place.

 

As he adjusted the ratchets on the cannon platform, Dan continued, “Now, I’m aiming at that rock slab on the hillside across the draw ... It’s been a while since I tried this, so I may miss.  Then, I’ll give you gentlemen a try.”  Holding out a box of matches, Dan asked, “Miriam, would you like to light the fuse?”

 

“Yep!” she exclaimed with glee.

 

“Then, we’ll back up and let you strike the match.  Once you set the fuse on fire, you have about 30 seconds to join the rest of us.”

Nervously, she struck a match and lit the fuse.  With six quick steps, she dashed to Dan’s side and grabbed his arm.  The next 20 seconds seemed to drag on, but suddenly, with a roar, the cannonball belched forth.  It landed a few feet shy and a little to the right of the target rock.  The boom echoed around the valley below.  Birds that had been watching the proceedings from nearby trees, took flight, screeching and cawing.  Dan grinned.  Miriam screamed, “Waa-hoo!” as she leaped into the air.  When she landed, she added, “That made my belly rumble!” As she hugged Dan, Chuck and Bob slapped him on the back with words of approval. 

 

Bob exclaimed, “Wow!  What would it be like to serve as a gunman in a large battery of these boomers?”

 

“We’ll have to let the cannon cool before we reload it,” Dan explained.  He wrote the ratchet settings on a scrap of paper.  Then, he raised the cannon nose and used his dowel stick and a wet cotton wad to extinguish any smoldering remains in the tube.

 

While the cannon rested, Dan got the team to help him unroll a large target for the musket shoot and tack its sides to two posts about a yard apart.  These were set 50 feet from the spot at which the Charleyville musket was to be fired.

 

That done, Dan supervised as Bob loaded the cannon.  After reviewing Dan’s notes, he set the horizontal ratchet a few notches to the left and the vertical ratchet a few notches higher.  Again, Miriam lit the fuse and the party watched as the second cannonball skipped off the top-left side of the target rock.  The team cheered vociferously.  A terrified cotton-tail bounced across the grassy plateau headed for “who-knows-where”.  Chuck laughed and cheered, “Bob, you hit it!”

 

As the cannon cooled, Dan explained the operation of the musket.  “First, we half-cock the gun to prevent its accidental firing during loading.”  He rested the weapon on its stock.  “Then, we pour black powder into its muzzle and drop in a musket-ball.”  He detached the ramrod from the belly of the weapon.  “We use this to pack the barrel.  Then, after re-attaching the ramrod, we hold the gun horizontally, and put fine gunpowder in the brass flash-pan and close its lid.  Just before firing, we’ll fully cock the gun.  Then, when we pull the trigger, the flint mechanism will ignite the powder in the flash-pan, and that will ignite the powder in the barrel.  If the flash in the pan doesn’t light the powder in the barrel, we’ll be unsuccessful.  That’s where that old cliché comes from ... you know ... when a fellow looks promising and then fails, we say ‘He’s just a flash in the pan.’”  Dan cracked a grin, and his audience chuckled.

 

Returning to the cannon, Dan helped Chuck prepare for firing.  Doc studied the ratchet settings from the prior blasts, and lowered the vertical setting slightly, and turned the lateral setting a bit to the right.  He, too, asked Miriam to light the fuse.  His missile smashed the target rock squarely, sending chunks of it scurrying down the slope on which it sat.  The boom, the dust, and the clatter spooked several wild turkeys that had been hunkering down in the brush-filled draw.  They scrambled away from the impact and flew into the woods.  It was an awesome, colorful sight.  “We did it!” Chuck proclaimed.  “This is more fun than fireworks!”

 

After a moment of rejoicing, Dan moved on.  “Now, I’m sure you all want to fire the musket, but it produces a big recoil when you pull its trigger, and I don’t want you to get hurt.  There are two ways to deal with this: you can wear this cushioned shoulder vest or you can fire while resting the gun on this crossbar rig over here.  The bayonet fixture of the Charleyville fits into this socket, so the crossbar absorbs the recoil.  Now, let me warn you.  No one is very accurate with a musket.  Don’t feel bad if you miss the target completely.  You’ll soon know why the commanders at Bunker Hill screamed, ‘Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!’  Whose first?”

 

Miriam jumped forward, saying, “I’ll use the rig.  I’ve got to play the violin at Church in the morning.”  Dan cocked the weapon and helped her set it into the socket.  She stared down the sights for a few seconds and pulled the trigger.  The blast and the shock wave from the gun unnerved her.  She nearly let the gun fall to the ground.  As she recovered, she yelled, “Yipes!  That’s wild!”  The men laughed heartily.

 

Dan announced, “Well, my dear, you missed the target.  Your bullet kicked up some dirt a few feet in front of it.  It’s probably my fault.  We’ll use a little more powder on the next shot.”

 

The team took turns, everyone firing 5 shots.  Each of them hit the target a few times, but none of them got a bullseye; not even Dan.  Chuck commented, “I didn’t realize how long the soldiers of that era stood exposed on the battlefield preparing for their next shot.  Amazing!”

 

When the supply of gunpowder was gone, Dan suggested, “Why don’t you fellows go up to the house and visit while Miriam and I shag the cannonballs and clean up?”  Bob and Chuck were ready for a round of refreshment in Jan’s kitchen, so they took their leave.

 

Dan took his smartphone out of his pocket and activated his new app.  Sure enough, the system showed where the balls were, but it was imprecise.  Each ball was within a ten foot circle around the point given by the app, but it might be under a fallen tree or hidden in a patch of weeds.  The search was something like an Easter Egg Hunt.  Miriam and Dan scrambled across the draw and began searching.

 

Miriam paused, hugged Dan and whispered, “My parents love you.  Dad even said, ‘I always wanted a son like that.’  That’s high praise, coming from him.”

 

Dan was touched by her words.  “I don’t know what to say,” he responded.  “I like them too.”

 

As she looked deeply into Dan’s eyes, Miriam’s eyes glistened.  She continued, “I’m so happy.  I’m sailing through the sky.  Now ... I want a kiss for each cannonball we find.”

 

Dan was overwhelmed with emotion.  He encircled her with his strong arms and kissed her cheek.  She shifted her head and found his lips.  After a moment of bliss, they resumed their search.

 

One by one, they found the cannonballs.  And, each time, Miriam got a huge hug and an intense lip kiss from Dan.  The balls were quite heavy, but Miriam’s kisses made them seem as nothing to Dan.  He had brought along a sturdy, canvas shoulder bag for them.  When they loaded the last one into the bag, Dan was lugging about 50 pounds of steel.  They returned to the cart.  Together, they loaded it with all the supplies that were left.  Dan had Miriam drive the tractor back to the machine shed as he walked alongside.  Then, they returned for the cannon and put it in its proper place.  They closed the shed doors, embraced for one last kiss, and strolled, slowly, to Jan’s house, hand in hand.

 

...

Barreling South on Highway 44 in his new Ferrari, Vic was elated.  The fulsome power he felt from under the hood, the deep-throated growl of the engine, and the wind blasting through his hair gave him a rush.  He felt invincible as he screamed, “I’m winning!  Miriam will want to ride in this car.  She’ll want to drive it!  Soon, she’ll be mine!”

 

...

While the shoot thundered down below, Jan and Beth were in Jan’s sewing room, making Beth’s new blouse.  As Jan worked, Beth confided, “Jan, I want you to know how much we approve of Dan.  We were already high on him before we came.  Miriam had filled our heads with wonderful descriptions of him.  But, now that we are here, we’re even more pleased.”

 

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Jan responded.  “Dan’s so taken with Miriam, I think he’s hooked.  And, I love Miriam too.  And, you and Bob seem like ‘old friends’ already.  You know, I think it’s a Christian thing.  We meet for the first time, but we share so many beliefs, and we all have the Holy Spirit within; we seem like kin.”

 

“So true,” Beth said.  “So true.”

 

As Jan proceeded, she explained her actions.  Beth was an avid listener.  She wanted to understand what was going on.  Even so, a thought that was bouncing around in her head, a thought she was reluctant to express for fear of troubling Jan, finally passed through her lips, “How is it, Jan, that you haven’t married again?  You’re so accomplished and so attractive.  How have you managed to stay single?”

 

“Well,” Jan said softly, “I’m still married to Walter.  I know ... I know ... it’s ‘till death us do part’, but I still feel married.  I still wear my wedding band.”

 

“Well, I’m just saying ... I’ve known Chuck for a long time, and I think he admires you.”

 

“Oh,” Jan replied, “there’s a bunch of women at Church who want to be the next Mrs. Angelo.  One of them will catch him.  I don’t think I should compete with them.”

 

...

When Dan and Miriam entered the kitchen through the patio door, Beth and Jan were coming in from the sewing room.  Everyone being together, the women served ice cream and slices from several pies Jan had baked that morning.  The group conversed warmly for an hour or so, enjoying their treats and their companions.  Then, Chuck excused himself, “I need to review my notes for tomorrow’s Sunday School lesson.  I must leave, but let me say, I’ve had a wonderful day ... time spent with terrific friends ... great food ... lots of fun.  Thank you all.  Now, you know, after Church, I’m taking us all to lunch and, then, to see Bo’s artwork.  I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”  Chuck left.  Beth and Miriam went to Miriam’s house to play their violins together, and Bob, Jan and Dan retired to the breezeway to chat and enjoy the music.