Culpepper's Cannon Read online

  “You can keep it if you want, sir,” Amos said.

  “You don’t mind? I mean, it is yours.”

  “I don’t mind. You’re going to shoot me anyway, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” He wrinkled up his face in disgust. “War is such a nasty business.” He sighed. “But still, it must be done, mustn’t it?” He looked back down at the desk and picked up Amos’s digital wristwatch. Amos had asked for it for Christmas last year because with a push of a button it converted to a Space Zowies video game. But he had broken the wristband, so he kept it in his pocket.

  “Oh, look at this!” the captain said. “There’s numbers on it!”

  “It’s a watch, sir.”

  “A watch? But there are no hands. Eight forty-five. That is the right time. But—oh my goodness! It just changed to eight forty-six!”

  “It’s called a digital watch, sir.”

  “A digital watch?”

  “Yes, sir, and there’s more to it than that. It’s also a video game.”

  “A video game?” The captain looked back up at Amos. “Do you play that on a football field?”

  “No, sir. Let me show you.” He walked around the desk and leaned over the captain’s shoulder. “Now,” he said, “when you push this button …” He pushed the mode button, and the time disappeared. Little Space Zowies started to descend toward the bottom of the screen. “And now you shoot them with this button.” He pushed the fire button, and one of the Zowies disappeared in a tiny digital explosion.

  “Oh, my heavens!” the captain cried. “Let me try!” He pulled the watch away from Amos’s fingers and started pushing the buttons. There was another tiny digital explosion.

  “I got one!”

  “Good for you, sir.”

  “My, but this is good fun.” The captain was leaning over the desk now, too absorbed in the invasion of the Space Zowies to worry about a suspected spy. Amos slipped quietly out the canvas door of the tent and disappeared into the darkness.

  •6

  It was close to midnight now, and cold. Amos had been hiding in a stack of barrels near the southeast corner of the plaza for hours, waiting for the plaza to clear. There was a huge pile of boxes fifty yards west of the monument. He had been watching it for hours and had seen no movement. If Dunc was hiding there, he had hidden himself well.

  The plaza was empty now except for one guard who was patrolling its perimeter. Every time he passed Amos, he walked slower and paid less attention. Amos figured three or four more rounds, and the guard would be walking in his sleep.

  Amos rubbed his legs. He had been sitting cross-legged for a long time, and they were starting to get numb. He didn’t try to stretch them out. A little brown spotted dog had crawled up in his lap and fallen asleep. Amos didn’t mind. The little guy kept him warm.

  Amos peered around the barrel directly in front of him and watched the guard. He had quit walking around the plaza and was leaning against a building on the far side. Amos watched as his head started to fall then bob back up again. He did it over and over until his head looked like a yo-yo. Finally it went down and didn’t come back up. Amos waited. The guard’s knees started to bend, and a moment later he slid down the wall to the ground and collapsed in a little heap. Amos woke the dog up and it yipped in complaint, then crawled out of his lap and settled itself against a barrel to sleep again. Amos stood up.

  The hours of sitting had left pains like long needles in his knees, and he had to take a few minutes to rub them out. When they were gone, he looked around the plaza again. Except for the sleeping guard it was empty. He starting tiptoeing toward the monument. Halfway there, a door opened on the far side of the plaza. Yellow lamplight streamed out and framed the silhouette of Bremish as he stepped into the night.

  Amos froze like a rabbit caught on the freeway in a pair of headlights, half frightened out of his wits. The sergeant stood in the doorway of the building with his hands on his hips and stared across the plaza. Evidently his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet, because he looked directly at Amos and didn’t seem to see him. His moustache glowed red in the light, and the steam from his breath rose above it so his face looked like a bonfire. He hadn’t seen Amos yet, but it wouldn’t be long before he did.

  Amos stood still a moment longer, undecided about what he should do. He looked back to the barrels he had been hiding in. Too far. He slunk silently to his right until the monument blocked his view of Bremish, then tiptoed up to it. He stuck one eye around its corner.

  Bremish was still standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, but now another man was standing there with him. “You got a light?” the other man asked.

  “Yeah, McClarsky,” Bremish said. “I’ve got a light if you’ve got a spare cigar.”

  “Sure.” McClarsky reached into his pocket, took out a cigar, and gave it to Bremish. The sergeant’s match lit up his face for a moment, then he handed the match to McClarsky. McClarsky lit his cigar and closed the door behind him. In the dim moonlight the glowing ends of the cigars looked like two fireflies. They danced silently around the door for a few moments, then started moving toward the monument. Amos pulled his head back and held his breath.

  The two men stopped on the other side of the monument. They were so close, Amos could smell their cigars and the sweat on their bodies.

  “Nice night,” McClarsky said.

  “Too cold,” Bremish replied.

  “A little.” The two men were silent for a moment. “I hear the Virginia’s going out again tomorrow,” McClarsky said. “A couple more days like the one she had today, and the blockade will be taken care of.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “About those spies.”

  “You really think they were spies? They were just kids.”

  “But did you see the way they were dressed? They were dressed too strange to be just kids. And the things in the second spy’s pockets. Top-secret things. He had this little sphere that he actually convinced the captain was a toy.”

  “I saw that sphere. It could have been a toy.”

  Bremish snorted. “You need to start seeing things through a trained military eye.”

  “And what did your trained military eye see?”

  “Cannon shot. A new, special kind of cannon shot. The way that thing bounced around, it could kill ten people.”

  “You could be right.”

  Bremish snorted again. “I know I’m right.” He started walking around the monument with McClarsky following him. Amos had to tiptoe quickly to stay on the opposite side.

  “You want to see something funny?” Bremish said.

  “Sure.”

  “Watch this.” He whistled, and Amos saw the little dog come from behind the barrels toward the monument, wagging its tail. He looked at Amos and wagged his tail harder for a moment, then went around the monument to where Bremish was standing.

  “Good dog,” Bremish said. “You want a piece of candy?” Amos looked around the corner. The dog was sitting up on its back legs, begging. Bremish was leaning over it. All of a sudden he jabbed his cigar against the dog’s nose, and the dog ran yelping back toward the barrels. Bremish burst out in a roar of laughter.

  “Why do you do things like that?” McClarsky asked.

  “It makes me feel good,” Bremish said. He puffed on his cigar. “And I’ll do the same thing to those spies if I ever catch them. They’re not the two innocent boys they make themselves out to be. Maybe the end of a cigar will make them tell the truth.” He took another puff, and the end of the cigar glowed red. All of the sudden he took the cigar out of his mouth and stared across the plaza.

  “Where’s that guard?” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guard!”

  Amos heard a snuffling and snorting from where the guard had fallen asleep. Luckily, the guard was on the same side of th
e monument as Bremish and McClarsky.

  “Yes, Sergeant?” the guard asked. Amos could hear the sleep in his voice.

  “What are you doing over there?”

  “I thought I heard something,” the guard lied.

  “Oh?” Bremish said. “Could it be one of the spies?”

  “Yeah, that’s it!” the guard said. “It could be one of the spies!”

  “Let’s go,” Bremish told McClarsky. The two men started walking toward the guard. As soon as they left, Amos slunk like a shadow toward the boxes, where he hoped Dunc would be waiting.

  Amos was hiding in the boxes by the time Bremish and McClarsky got back to the monument. The guard was with them. Amos looked around. There was no one else hiding with him.

  “Nothing,” Bremish growled.

  “I swear, I know I heard something,” the guard lied again.

  “Maybe it was a rat,” McClarsky suggested.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Bremish threw his cigar on the ground. “Keep your eyes open, guard.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “It’s cold out here,” Bremish said. “Come on, McClarsky. Let’s go back inside.” He led the smaller man back toward the door they had come out of. There was a splash of light when the door opened, and Amos had to duck behind a box. When the door closed, it was dark again.

  The guard resumed his patrol around the plaza. Amos waited. It only took two trips before he was leaning against the wall and sound asleep again.

  Amos started quietly searching through the boxes. He couldn’t tell what was in them, but they were big and heavy, and Amos assumed they were filled with ammunition. He thought for a moment that maybe Bremish had hidden gold in them, but no one in the whole world could own that much gold. After a few minutes he found a note tucked between two slats of a wooden box on the side of the pile farthest away from the monument. It was almost too dark to read it in the moonlight.

  “Sorry I couldn’t make it,” the note read. “I have to hide from Bremish. Look out for him. He’s a big man, and I think he’s really dangerous. He’s a sergeant in the Army and pure mean.” Amos looked up. He thought he heard a noise, but it was just the guard snoring. “I think I’ve figured out the pulses,” Dunc continued. “I think they have something to do with either how many people have gone through or how many more people can go through, you know what I mean? I saw three when I went through. How many did you see? Forget about the cannons for your paper. Do it on the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack. It happens tomorrow. Go down by the docks. I’ll be waiting for you there. If we don’t see each other, just go through the portal after the battle and I’ll see you back home. I’m sure you remember the directions and the code word. Dunc.”

  “Directions?” Amos said out loud, almost too loud. “Dunc, you know how I am with directions. And the code word was … was … well, it was g-a-z-something. You can tell me tomorrow.” He peeked over the boxes at the guard. He was still asleep. Amos stood up and crept across the plaza in the direction that he thought led to the docks. He had to find Dunc.

  •7

  “This,” the man said in a voice that sounded like gravel being swished around in a bucket, “is an historic day. This is a day for celebration!”

  Amos looked at the man. He had a long black moustache that curled up to tickle each side of his nose and a big smile on his face. He looked like he wanted to celebrate. Amos didn’t feel like celebrating. After spending the night sleeping on a coil of rope under a smelly horse blanket to try to keep warm, no one would feel like celebrating.

  The man climbed on top of a crate and raised his hands to quiet the tittering of the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, please!” The crowd quieted itself down. Some of the women had parasols and closed them so the people behind them could see better. Others looked at Amos and whispered among themselves before they turned to face the man. It’s because I’m ugly, he thought, and my mother dresses me funny.

  The man raised his hands again and then dropped them to his sides. “You are here to witness an historic event,” he said. The crowd started tittering again, and a few of the more enthusiastic members started to clap and cheer.

  “An historic event,” the man repeated, “that will change the course of the war!” Now there was a general round of applause. A few members of a brass band that waited impatiently off to one side started playing “Dixie,” but the band conductor cut them off.

  “An historic event,” the man said for the third time, “that will break this blockade that is choking the life out of your sons and daughters, that is choking the life out of our very city, that is choking the life out of our dear Confederacy!” The applause was louder and Amos joined in, partly so he would not look too conspicuous and partly because he was getting caught up in the fervor of it all.

  “And this grand ship,” the man said, motioning with his arm, “is what is going to do it!” Everyone was cheering now, and try as he might, the conductor couldn’t keep the band from breaking out in an impromptu run of “Dixie.” The crowd started singing the words, and Amos cheered just because he didn’t know what else to do.

  He looked through his clapping hands at the ship. It was a strange-looking vessel, all flat and metal and low, with what looked like a huge iron pup tent staked out on its deck and barrels of cannons peering out of the tent like open-mouthed Cub Scouts. It was the Merrimack, or as the southerners preferred, the Virginia. Today was the day that they thought it would sail out into the harbor and break the blockade. Today was the day it would actually sail out into the harbor and come back after fighting the Monitor, no worse for the battle but with the blockade still intact. All the cheering was for nothing. Amos stopped cheering, not only because the historic day the gravel-voiced man had been promising wouldn’t happen, but also because it suddenly occurred to him that Dunc had promised to be here but was nowhere to be seen.

  A steam whistle on the ship tooted once, and the crowd went wild as the ship started to pull slowly away from the pier. Amos searched frantically for Dunc but found him nowhere. As he searched, he saw a big man in front of him with a parrot on his shoulder. The parrot turned around and looked at Amos, belched, and went to the bathroom all down the back of the man’s coat. The man said a word that Amos had once thought of but had never used—even when he got his thumb caught in the spokes of his bicycle—and the bird said, “Treasure map.” Amos stopped searching for a moment and looked at the bird. It looked so familiar.…

  The ship tooted again, and Amos realized he didn’t have time to try and figure out how he remembered the parrot. He began searching again. As he looked, a pretty girl with long dark hair flowing out from beneath a pink bonnet turned her head to look at him. She smiled. Right at him. Amos froze.

  The girl was Melissa.

  •8

  Melissa smiled at him again and leaned her head toward another girl who was standing next to her. She watched him with big blue eyes, and even through the crowd Amos could hear her speak.

  “Look at that strange-looking boy over there,” she said. “Isn’t he ever so cute?” The other girl looked, and together they giggled. Amos reached down to pick his jaw up off the ground.

  “She must have been looking for me when I went through the hole,” he whispered to himself. “She must have seen how I did it and gone through after me. She must really love me if she’s willing to travel through time to be with me.” Melissa waved, and he raised his hand to wave back. His hand was shaking so hard, he didn’t have to wave it. It waved itself. All these years, all this time she’s loved me.

  “Be cool now,” he said to himself, “just be cool. They like it when you’re cool.” He lowered his hand and put on his cool expression. Melissa looked at him and said something to her friend that he didn’t hear.

  “All right, you’re cool,” he said, as if he were trying to convince himself. “Now go over and talk to her.” He didn’t know what he would say. He had never spoken to her before, and Melissa had only said six words to him i
n his whole life. He had been standing next to her in the lunch line at school, and she had turned to him and said, “Hey, you’re standing on my foot.”

  Now Amos’s shoes were untied, and when he tried to take a step forward, he found that he was standing on his shoelaces. He started falling down. Great, he had time to think—she finally loves me, and I’m going to make a complete dork out of myself.

  He fell forward into an elderly woman who shrieked and started beating him with her parasol. He took a step back and raised his arms to fend off the blows. He took another step back, and on the third step back his heel caught on a mooring line, and he fell off the pier head over heels into the water.

  Dork, he thought—classic dork. Just before his head went under, he saw, upside down, the aft part of the Merrimack. There was a white piece of notebook paper wedged between two plates of armor.

  The water was cold. He came up sputtering, with dirt and mud running from his hair into his eyes. Two overhand reaches brought him to the Merrimack. As he reached for the gunwale, strong hands grabbed his shoulders and started to pull him up. He clawed the paper note and shoved it into his pocket before they had him on the deck.

  “You all right, son?” A sailor with sunburned skin and creases around his eyes was looking at him.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just tripped.”

  “I’ll say you did.” The ship had stopped and was slowly backing up toward the pier. Amos looked at the sailor, then at the people in the crowd. Some where laughing, and some looked concerned. Melissa looked concerned.

  “Where’d you get these funny clothes, son?” the sailor asked.

  “I got them … my mom made them.”

  “She’s not much for making clothes, is she?” They were at the pier now, and the sailor helped him off the ship. “Tell your mom to get you some dry, less funny clothes,” he said.

  “I will.”