Cat On The Scent

15

Sarah Vane-Tempest rustled with each step, her long pastel skirts swaying. H. Vane and company had departed to join their regiment, already marching toward the old racetrack on the west side of the oak tree. From there they would wheel out of sight, marching southeast until the land flattened out. They'd be at the edge of beautiful hayfields.

Her parasol provided some relief from the warming sun. She twirled it in irritation.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter raced by her. She barely noticed them but she did notice Blair Bainbridge, long legs eating up territory as he hurried to fall in with his regiment. He waved as he dashed by.

Harry, panting, slowed down by Sarah. The cats slowed, too, walking the rest of the way but keeping well ahead of Harry.

Miranda Hogendobber joined Harry and Sarah. She'd been in the hunter barn, which was on the way to the oak tree from the main house. She'd brought Fair some hotcakes, a recipe from her grandmother, who remembered the time of Virginia's sorrows. Since Mrs. Hogendobber's great-grandfather had ridden with the cavalry, she gravitated toward the barn.

“The more I think about those two the madder I get.” Sarah's parasol whirled savagely.

“Making me dizzy,” Mrs. Hogendobber remarked. She meant the twirling parasol.

“What I should have done is crown them with it.” Sarah stopped twirling. “They're like two little boys fighting over a fire truck.”

“Exactly which fire truck?” Harry got to the point.

“The zoning variance.” Sarah closed her parasol. “H. Vane is still livid over Archie squashing his request for a variance to open the quarry. His revenge is to push for the reservoir.”

“But Archie appears to support the reservoir, although, God knows, he has obstructed everything. I told Fair after that commission meeting that Archie is saying one thing but doing another. Who knows what he's really going to do about the reservoir when the chips are down?” Harry hated politics, especially in her own backyard.

“‘Appears' is the operative word. Behind the scenes he's doing everything he can to retard progress. My husband knows all of this, of course.” She sighed. “Henry adores political intrigue.”

“So what side is Sir H. on?” Harry bluntly asked.

“His own.” Sarah laughed, spirits a bit restored.

“Well—” Miranda fanned herself with a program advertising whalebone corsets and hoop skirts as well as bayonets and haversacks. “I hope they mend their fences.”

“Ego! Neither one will make a peace offering.” Sarah tapped her foot with the closed parasol. “How did women wear these things?” She pushed her crinolines forward, and the entire bell of the skirt flowed with them. “The heat doesn't help.” A warm front had moved in and the weather was sticky.

“If you were dropped out of a plane you'd be safe.” Tucker snickered.

Sarah glanced down at the dog, a frown on her pretty mouth; it was as if she knew what the corgi was saying to her. “Damn! I forgot H.'s extra canteen. He'll be furious.”

“What's in the canteen?”

“Glenlivet.” She raised an eyebrow. “He's cheating. I really do think this authenticity thing has gone too far. Do you know they even have rules about how to die?”

“You're kidding!” Harry laughed.

“If you're shot you have to fall down with your head to the side so you can breathe, with your firearm in your hand a bit away from your body. There are other rules but that's the only one I remember. And they decide who will be injured, who will die, and who will survive. That's if it's a general reenactment. If it's a true battle reenactment, like Sharpsburg, the men take on the identities of real soldiers. They have to fall in the exact spots where the real soldiers were hit.”

“Strange,” Miranda muttered.

“Rules for dying?” Harry stooped over to pick up Pewter, who had slowed.

“The obsession with violence. The obsession with that war, especially. No good ever came of it.” Miranda shook her head.

Harry disagreed with her. “The slaves were freed.”

“Yes,” Miranda said, “free to starve. The Yankees were hypocrites. Still are.”

Sarah, raised in Connecticut, smiled tightly. “I'm going back to get my lord and master's canteen. I'll see you at the battle.” She turned and ran as fast as pantaloons, a hoop skirt, and yards of material would allow. Her bonnet, tied under her neck, flapped behind her.

Harry and Miranda reached the beautiful oak tree. Fair had given them tickets for seats on a small reviewing stand. They took their places.

“Follow me!” Mrs. Murphy joyfully commanded as she scampered to the base of the tree, sank her razor-sharp claws in the yielding bark, and climbed high.

Pewter, a good climber, was on her tail.

Tucker, irritated, watched the two giggling felines. She couldn't see anything because everywhere she turned there were humans.

Harry shaded her eyes, glancing up at the cats, who sat on a high, wide branch, their tails swishing to and fro in excitement. She nudged Miranda.

“Best seats in the house.” Miranda laughed.

Tucker returned to Harry, sitting in front of her. “I can't see a thing,” the peeved dog complained.

“Hush, honey.” Harry patted Tucker's silky head.

A low drumroll hushed everyone. A line of Union cannons ran parallel to Route 653. The Confederate cannons, fourteen-pounders, sat at a right angle to the Union artillery. The backs of the artillerymen were visible to the crowd. As both sides began firing, a wealth of smoke belched from the mouths of the guns.

In the far distance Harry heard another drum. Goose bumps covered her arms.

Miranda, too, became silent.

“Do you think if Jefferson Davis had challenged Abe Lincoln to hand-to-hand combat they could have avoided this?” Pewter wondered.

“No.”

Pewter didn't pursue her line of questioning; she was too focused on all she could see from her high perch. The tight squares of opposing regiments fast-stepped into place. On the left the officer in charge of his square raised his saber.

Ahead of the squares both sides sent out skirmishers. For this particular reenactment, the organizers had choreographed hand-to-hand combat among the skirmishers. As they grappled, fought, and threw one another on the ground the cannons fired now with more precision, the harmless shot soaring high over everyone's heads.

Harry coughed. “Stuff scratches.”

Miranda, hanky to her nose, nodded.

As the drumbeats grew louder the crowd strained forward.

They could hear officers calling out orders. The Union regiment at the forefront stopped as the Confederates, still at a distance, moved forward.

“Load,” called out the captain.

The soldiers placed their muskets, barrels out, between their feet. As the officer called out further loading orders, they poured gunpowder down the barrels and rammed the charges home.

“Ha!” Pewter was watching Fair, struggling with his frightened horse.

Mrs. Murphy, knowing Fair was a fine rider, didn't find it quite as funny as Pewter did. “I don't think anyone knows how to get the horses used to this noise and the sulphur smell.”

Fair's big bay shied, dancing sideways. At the next volley of cannon fire the horse reared up, came down on his two forelegs, and bucked straight out with his hind legs, a jolting, snapping, hell of a buck. Fair sat the first one but the succeeding ones, spiced up with a side-to-side twisting action, sent him into the sweet grass with a thud. The horse, no fool, spun around, flying back toward the hunter stables. Fair, disgusted, picked himself up, then looked around, realized he was in a battle, and ran over to join his unit.

Sir H. Vane-Tempest, on the front corner of the first regiment, grimly stared into the billowing smoke. Archie Ingram was farther back in the square, as was Blair Bainbridge. Ridley Kent marched in the second unit behind them.

Mrs. Murphy strained to see through the smoke, which would clear, then close up again with new fire. Reverend Herb Jones, red sash wrapped around his tunic, sat on an upturned wagon to the rear of the battle. The heat had exhausted him.

Dr. Larry Johnson and Ned Tucker were in the third line of the regiment, faces flushed. Everywhere the two cats looked they saw familiar faces in unfamiliar clothes. The smoke thinning over the men's faces like a soft silver veil made them look even more eerie.

The first volley of rifle fire from the Yankees rolled over the turf with a crackle: Small slits of flame leapt from muzzles. Mrs. Murphy hoped they would be smart enough to keep their hands away from the barrel nozzles when ramming home the next charge. A man could lose fingers or part of a hand that way if a spark smoldered deep down in the gun.

By now all but one of the mounted officers had bought some real estate. The only animal moving forward was a huge Belgian draft horse, the horse calm as if on parade.

A few “corpses” dotted the field. Then a shroud of smoke enveloped the field as all guns fired at once. Pop, pop, pop, rifles and handguns reported between the rhythmic firing of the elegant cannons.

“Poor suckers died blind.” Mrs. Murphy's whiskers twitched.

“Ugh.” Pewter shuddered. “Only a human would die for an idea.”

“That's the truth.” The tiger blinked when a bit of smoke floated over the branches. “You know, they can't accept reality. Reality is that everything is happening at once to everybody. There's no special sense to it. So humans invent systems. If one human's system collides with another human's system, they fight.”

“The only reality is nature.” Pewter, not a philosophical cat like Mrs. Murphy, was nonetheless a smart one.

“True enough.” The cat squinted as the smoke cleared. She saw Sir H. Vane-Tempest break from the ranks, never to be outdone, and sprint toward the enemy.

A loud crack, another volley of cannon fire and he went down, a hero to the cause.

The battle grew more intense. Tucker, since she couldn't see, lay on the reviewing stand between Harry's feet. She hated the noise, and the sulphur fumes offended her delicate nose.

After fifteen more minutes of the hardest-fought section of the reenactment, the Yankees broke and ran. That, too, was choreographed. It would never do for the Union troops to wallop Southerners on Southern turf unless it was a precise reenactment of an actual battle won by the Yankees. Not only was this a sop to Southern vanity, but it was also pretty accurate. The North hadn't begun to routinely chalk up victories until the latter part of the war, when victories in the west ensured victories in the east, and tens of thousands died.

The drummers kept drumming as the last smoke wafted over the flat expanse of hayfield, formerly an old airfield. The routed Yankees ran toward Route 653, collected themselves, and turned left, heading for the racetrack.

The wounded, in the name of authenticity, were being carried off on stretchers. A few of the dead had gel packs, which squashed when they fell. The fake blood gave them a realistic appearance.

As the last of the wounded were carried to the hospital tent the dead began to stir. The cats sat in the tree and laughed. Tucker watched with curiosity. She'd moved to the front of the reviewing stand.

One corpse didn't move.

A Confederate, resurrected, walked by without paying attention.

Archie Ingram, formerly deceased, also walked by. He stopped, nudging the body with his boot. Nothing happened.

Many people in the crowd were walking back to the main house, unaware of the unfolding drama.

That fast the two cats backed down the tree, streaking across the field.

“Tucker!” Mrs. Murphy hollered.

The dog left Harry, just now noticing the curious sight, to join the cats.

Archie, down on his hands and knees, turned over the body. It was Sir H. Vane-Tempest.

Mrs. Murphy reached Vane-Tempest before Pewter or Tucker.

As the breathless gray cat caught up, the tiger sniffed the body. “Powder,” was all she said.

The corgi, famous for her scenting abilities, gawked for an instant. “He looks like a piece of swiss cheese.”