Outside, the two walked far enough away from the shed to be out of earshot.
Santee finally let loose the grin he’d been hiding. “So, it’s not every day you get to whitewash a fence, eh, Tom Sawyer?”
Eddie beamed, relieved that he wasn’t in trouble and rather pleased that Santee realized what he was doing. “Yeah.”
“Okay then, time for a command lesson. If one of those kids double-charges a round and blows up a rifle, or worse yet a person, who’s to blame?”
Eddie thought a second, and his face got serious “Me, I guess.”
“Yep. So if you want to make this work, you better watch them. Keep the shifts short so they stay interested. Come up with safety checks for each round you load—after you put the powder in, a wood dowel should drop to the same level in each case.”
“I’d thought of something like that. One caliber and load at a time, too.”
Santee nodded. “Make a schedule. That shed is too small for a bunch of boys in there. I’ll try to get Frank to talk up how important reloading is when he’s around any teenaged boys. That should get you all the help you want.” Eddie nodded, his face earnest.
“Now I’m going to go back in there and give you and those boys the safety lecture of your life, and read you the riot act on letting anyone in there unsupervised. That should scare them into taking this seriously… Tom Sawyer.”
* * *
Santee picked a beautiful day a few weeks later to try out their hand-loaded ammunition. He and Eddie took two hunting rifles, a .30-06 and a .308, along with a few hundred round of ammo loaded to various speeds. The idea was to find a mild but accurate load for each of the two main rifle calibers, and then try some full-power loads for the M-60 and Julie’s wickedly accurate sniper rifle. (One of Julie’s targets was hanging in the reloading shed, so all the shooters in town knew what it—and she—could do.)
To keep the noise from disturbing the townspeople, they’d picked a shooting area far out of town, down a lane that led past the area of the Battle of the Crapper. They tied the rifles, ammo, and various spotting scopes and shooting gear to a primitive, unsteady cart they’d cobbled together and towed the whole assembly behind Eddie’s dirt bike. Eddie rode slowly and carefully, shutting off the motor and coasting downhill whenever possible to save precious gasoline; Santee walked alongside.
On the far edge of the battle site they passed a small clearing. “Look at that,” Eddie said. He stopped the bike and pointed. “Germans have been out here with wood-axes. I wonder how long it took to chop that big tree down?”
“Hard to tell. I had to chop firewood by hand when I was your age, and it was a Pure-D bitch when the wood was tough. I had a good steel axe, too. The natives here probably don’t have anything but bronze or iron axes.”
“Miz Mailey would know, I guess, or another one of the teachers.” Eddie got off the bike to examine the tree. “What I’m wondering is why they did this. It was after the battle—see here where the axe cut through this bullet track—but they just left most of the tree here after they cut it down. I’d only go to all that effort if I wanted that wood.”
Santee was puzzled too, and scouted around the area. “Can’t really tell, I guess. Maybe something scared them off? There are wolves around here; I’ve heard them at night. Or boars; I know wild boars are pretty mean and run in packs. Still, it doesn’t make sense—there are at least four sets of footprints around here, and four people with axes should be able to take care of themselves. Weird.”
They shrugged and went on toward their shooting area, which Eddie’s friends had helped scout out for them. It was in a valley formed by a small creek, pointing up a gentle slope so stray shots wouldn’t escape. They didn’t expect this first set of ammunition to be particularly accurate.