Unforced Error by Michael Bowen Read Free Book Online

Seikos.
    â€œWho’d your wife vote for in the last presidential election, if you don’t mind my asking?” a third infantryman demanded.
    Rep spotted the trick a nanosecond too late to keep “Abraham Lincoln” from slipping out of his mouth. The others guffawed as the questioner removed his hat and shook his head at the thought of a woman voting. The approach of an emphatically contemporary couple saved Rep from further commentary.
    â€œExcuse me,” the female half of the couple asked the group, “may we take your picture?”
    â€œFact is,” the man who’d asked about Melissa’s voting habits said, “the only picture I have here is a pencil sketch of my wife that her sister drew for me to take along when I signed up. I am partial to it, and would be much obliged if you did
not
take it.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” the woman said after Peter whispered to her. “I didn’t mean ‘take your picture.’ May we make your image?”
    â€œOh, most certainly,” the man said with an oddly quaint bow.
    All six members of the group promptly assumed studied poses around the stacked muskets while the woman cheerfully snapped off four shots.
    â€œWe’ll see you at retreat,” Peter told the group as the photo op wrapped up. “We have to get our recruit here a little more kit.”
    Peter strode off and Rep followed him. The encampment was spread over four acres of rolling pasture well north of downtown but still within Kansas City’s ample borders. Some men sat at campsites, playing checkers or reading Bibles. Others, in groups of six or eight, marched and drilled. Counting blue and gray troops together, Rep thought there were nearly a hundred re-enactors here already. Most of those he saw were infantry, but he noticed a smattering of cavalry and one artillery unit on each side as well.
    As they trudged, Peter pointed to an open area perhaps a hundred yards square. A row of hay bales stood at one end, while four men in a medley of uniforms stood at the other, firing revolvers at targets on the bales.
    â€œFiring range,” Peter explained. “There’ll be a black powder shooting competition on Friday afternoon.”
    â€œYou mean those things fire real bullets?” Rep asked.
    â€œVery real,” Peter said, grinning at the naïve question. “Fifty-four caliber, some of them. The reason I’m pointing it out to you, though, is that if you go down the hill directly behind those bales and then hike about eighty feet, you’ll find some Port-a-Potties. A lot of the guys actually use regulation latrines, but I figured you might not want to get that realistic.”
    â€œYou got that right,” Rep said.
    Another two-hundred strides brought them to the sutlers’ tent. Sixty feet long and thirty wide and with its canvas rolled up on one of the long sides, it sheltered merchants hawking everything from Civil War songbooks to Enfield rifled muskets and period handguns. Racks and coat-trees groaned under the weight of complete uniforms for all branches of both armies. Replicas of eyeglasses and pocket watches from the era, cartridge boxes, and canteens covered tables. The sutlers all wore convincing nineteenth-century civilian dress, but Rep noticed that the prices on their wares were right up to date.
    At the far end of the tent, Rep saw a sutler and a guy in a gray uniform, standing about three feet apart and ostentatiously ignoring each other. Before he could speculate too far on what that might be about, Peter led him to a different merchant with a bristling, black beard.
    â€œEvening to you, trooper Damon,” the man said.
    â€œEvening, Mr. Jameson,” Peter said. “Private Pennyworth here thinks he might be in the market for a saber.”
    â€œWell, I don’t have anything quite as elegant as that model 1840 heavy cavalry dragoon saber you’re wearing with its half-basket handguard and