Abner & Me

by Dan Gutman

  It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. There was no getting around the sound. The pounding was vibrating the ground like rumbling thunder. A patch of dry grass was on fire near me.

  Was somebody dropping bombs on us? I didn’t hear the sound of airplanes. I didn’t hear the sound of anything except explosions and bullets.

  “Where’s Abner Doubleday?” I thought I heard Mom say, though I couldn’t be sure.

  Abner Doubleday? I had forgotten all about Abner Doubleday. Who cared about Abner Doubleday? All I cared about was staying alive and protecting my mother.

  How could I have put her in this situation? I should have stood up to her when she said she wanted to go back in time with me. Too late for that now. I had to deal with the situation we were in.

  “Something must have gone wrong!” I shouted back at her.

  “No kidding!”

  I’m sure my mother had thought we would just drift peacefully back to 1863, like in a dream. We would open our eyes and be sitting in Abner Doubleday’s parlor at some fancy tea party. There would be people in old-time clothes playing violins and harpsichords, and people outside playing croquet. Like in those boring movies Mom likes so much.

  I could taste dirt in my mouth. It was in my nose and ears too. It was in my hair, my clothes, my shoes.

  There was a bullet lodged in the dirt a few inches from my head. I plucked it out of the ground to look at it. It didn’t look like a modern bullet. It almost looked like it was made of rough stone, with a point and four or five little ridges going around it.

  “Watch out, Joey!” Mom shouted.

  She was pointing off to the left. I looked that way just in time to see a horse charging toward me. There was no time to react. It was going to trample me. I closed my eyes and tensed every muscle in my body for the impact.

  I didn’t die. When I opened my eyes, I saw the horse galloping off into the woods. It must have jumped over me.

  Somewhere in the distance, I could swear I heard the sound of a trumpet. I couldn’t see anything. Smoke was everywhere, and I was keeping my head down. Whoever was out there, they sure didn’t like us.

  I didn’t have time to wonder about such things because at that instant something smashed into a tree behind me with a thud. It might have been a cannonball.

  There was a long, slow cracking noise, like a creaky door opening. I turned around to see the tree splitting down the middle. One side was coming down, and it was falling in our direction.

  “Watch out, Mom!” I hollered.

  Instinctively, we both rolled to our left. The tree trunk slammed down right where we had been lying. It pushed the tombstone I was hiding behind into the ground like a hammer driving in a nail with one blow.

  Mom and I huddled against the tree trunk, and against each other. The tree was better protection than the tombstones.

  The bombardment went on and on. I didn’t know how long. I lost all concept of time. Maybe it was five minutes, maybe half an hour.

  It was a miracle that we hadn’t been hit. Or maybe one of us had been hit and didn’t even know it. How would I know? The worst injury I ever had was a sprained ankle. For all I knew, you didn’t feel anything when a bullet hit you. But I didn’t feel any excruciating pain anywhere, I’ll say that much.

  More explosions. More bullets. When would it end? This couldn’t go on forever. Whoever was shooting at us would have to run out of ammunition at some point.

  A piece of paper blew over and got stuck on the tree trunk. I reached out to grab it.

  Suddenly I realized what was going on. The date on it was June 1863.

  “Mom,” I said, “I think this is the Civil War!”

  “Gee, ya think?” she said sarcastically.

  How could I have been so dumb? I knew I was sending us back to 1863. Mrs. Van Hook had taught us about the Civil War in social studies. I might not have paid all that much attention, but I knew it began in 1861, and it was the bloodiest war in American history. It never occurred to me that I might send us right into the middle of it.

  There was a merciful second or two when there were no explosions. I took the risk of raising my head a few inches over the tree trunk to see what I could see.

  There was a flag attached to the tree trunk. It looked like an American flag, except that it didn’t have as many stars as a regular flag. Well, that made sense. There are fifty stars for fifty states, and they didn’t have fifty states in 1863. I wasn’t going to bother counting them.

  The flag was ripped. Bullets had torn through it in a bunch of places.

  “The flag, Mom!” I shouted. “They’re not shooting at us! They must be shooting at the flag.”

  There was another explosion in the air over our heads, and stuff showered down around us. I wrapped my arms around Mom to shield her.

  Maybe if I took the flag and threw it as far away as possible, they would stop shooting at us. But I couldn’t reach the flag. I wasn’t about to go get it, either.

  If I couldn’t get rid of the flag, I’d have to get rid of us.

  “Mom!” I shouted in her ear. “We’ve got to make a run for it.”

  “Are you out of your mind, Joey? We’ll get killed!”

  “We’ve got no chance if we stay here,” I shouted at her. “Eventually we’re going to get hit.”

  “I’m staying right here!” my mother said. “And so are you.”

  A couple of bullets thwacked into the tree trunk, inches from our heads.

  “We’re going to get killed if we stay here!” I shouted. “We’ve got to get away from the flag.”

  “No!”

  There was no arguing with her. She’s my mother. I can’t tell her what to do. So I did the only thing I could do, the only thing that made any sense to me in the situation.

  I scooped up my mother in both arms and made a run for it.

  8

  The Firestorm

  “ARE YOU CRAZY?” MY MOTHER SCREAMED IN MY EAR AS I carried her across the cemetery.

  I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just wanted to get the two of us away from that flag before we got killed.

  My mother is skinny. She weighs about a hundred pounds. I know that because she’s constantly telling me, “I have to go on Weight Watchers. I’m a hundred pounds. I’m so fat.” Women are always complaining about how fat they are, even if they are skinny. It felt like I was carrying a feather. Bullets, explosions, and bombs going off all around have a way of distracting you from minor inconveniences, like trying to run through a graveyard while carrying a one-hundred-pound woman.

  I almost tripped over a bunch of tree roots. Something landed ten yards to the left of me and exploded when it hit the ground. I kept running. If we were going to get killed, there was nothing I could do about it. I had to make a run for it.

  I was looking around frantically for a place for us to hide from the explosions. The smoke was thick. It was hard to see very far in any direction.

  “Over there!” Mom shouted, pointing at a ditch about twenty yards to the right. A stone house would have been my preference, but I couldn’t be choosy. I ran over to where she pointed, and we just about dove into the ditch.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “I think so.”

  Mom checked to see if there were any bullet holes in my clothing. Not finding any, she checked herself. Her nurse’s uniform was caked with dirt, but no blood. Explosions were still going off, but they weren’t right next to us anymore.

  “We’ve got to get out of here, Mom,” I said. “I made a big mistake.”

  “Get out your baseball cards,” she said hurriedly.

  I was fumbling around in my pockets to dig out the cards that would take us home, when I sensed that somebody was looking at me. Sometimes you just know that somebody is looking at you.

  I looked up. We weren’t alone in the ditch.

  There were four guys staring at us. Their mouths were open, like they couldn’t believe
what they were looking at.

  They had to be Union soldiers. I had seen enough Civil War movies and pictures to recognize the blue uniforms. These guys didn’t look much older than me. Their faces were black from gunpowder, dust, and dirt. Each of them had a long rifle in his hands, and one of them had a snare drum.

  Little John

  “Who in thunderation are you?” one of the boys finally asked. He was the tallest one, and probably the oldest. He had a thin beard. I noticed he had no shoes on.

  “I’m Joe Stoshack,” I said, sticking out my hand. “Most people call me Stosh. And this is my mother.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Mom said, brushing dirt off herself.

  “You brought your mother?”

  This came from a little guy, even shorter than me. He was the one with the drum.

  “How did you get here?” asked the third one, a blond-haired boy.

  “We, uh…got a little lost,” I said.

  “Let’s just shoot ’em,” the fourth boy said. “They may be Rebs.”

  “Shut your mouth, Willie,” said the tall one, who seemed to be in charge.

  “We’re not Rebs!” I said, raising my hands to show I didn’t have a weapon. I remembered from social studies that the Confederates in the Civil War were called Rebels.

  The tall kid told us his name was Joshua, and that they were all part of the 151st Pennsylvania. The short guy with the drum said his name was Little John, and the blond kid’s name was Rufus. We shook hands all around, except for that Willie guy who had said he wanted to shoot us.

  “Stand around squawkin’ all you want,” Willie said. “But I’m here to shoot Rebs.”

  Willie positioned himself at the edge of the ditch and put his gun to his shoulder. But before he could pull the trigger, a bullet slammed into him. He spun around and fell backward against the back wall of the ditch.

  “They got Willie!” Joshua shouted.

  The other three gathered around Willie trying to help him, but he was screaming out from the pain, yelling, “Don’t touch me! Don’t take me to the doctor! Just let me die here!” He was holding his shoulder, and I could see blood on his hands.

  Mom rushed over and knelt down next to Willie, taking his head in her hands. He was looking dazed and confused, like he might black out.

  “Can you tell me your name?” she asked him. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Willie Biddle,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I’m in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Just let me die!”

  Mom and I looked at each other. We were at the Battle of Gettysburg! I didn’t know much about it, but I knew it was probably the most famous battle of the Civil War.

  “You’re going to be okay,” she assured Willie. “I’m a nurse. I can help you. You’re not going to die.”

  “No doctor!” Willie screamed. “Promise me you won’t get the doctors.”

  “Shhhh,” Mom said. “Let me have a look at this.”

  Mom ripped off Willie’s sleeve, and it was a bloody mess. Joshua, Little John, and Rufus turned away. So did I. Open wounds have never been my favorite thing to look at.

  “I’m glad I brought along a first aid kit,” Mom told Willie. “I’ll have you patched up in no time.”

  “Ma’am,” Willie grunted, “I’m sorry I said we should shoot you and your boy.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Mom said.

  While Mom tended to Willie’s wounds, Joshua picked up his rifle. Little John and Rufus picked up theirs too. I could still hear gunshots and explosions, but they were mostly in the distance.

  “Must’ve been a stray bullet that got Willie,” Joshua said. “But the Rebs could be makin’ another charge any minute. We better be ready for ’em.”

  “What about him?” Little John asked. “We need every man we got.”

  They all looked at me.

  “Can you shoot?” Joshua asked me. “Do you know how to handle a rifle?”

  “Yeah, but I, uh…don’t have a gun,” I said. “I don’t even have a uniform.”

  “We’ll fix you up,” Joshua said. He led me over to the other end of the ditch, where, I noticed for the first time, there was another soldier. He was lying against the side of the wall, his eyes closed.

  “This is Alexander,” Joshua said, pulling a pipe out of his pocket and sticking it in his mouth. “Don’t think him rude if he don’t shake your hand. He can’t on account of he’s dead. We’ll bury him later. But I reckon he won’t be needing his rifle no more. He won’t mind if you take it.”

  I had never seen a dead body before. Alexander was just lying there. It looked like he was asleep. His body wasn’t riddled with bullets or anything. He looked so peaceful, like he was about to wake up any second, stretch out his arms, and ask the others what went on while he was napping.

  Joshua filled his pipe with some tobacco he scooped out of a pouch, and then he lit it.

  “Smoking is bad for you,” I advised him.

  Alexander looked like he was asleep.

  Joshua took a puff on his pipe and glanced over at Alexander sitting in the ditch.

  “Sure didn’t do him no good,” he said.

  Little John turned away as Joshua and Rufus took off Alexander’s uniform and gave it to me. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but it would do. I slipped the baseball out of my pocket and put it into the pocket of the uniform.

  “You know how to shoot a Springfield, Stosh?” Joshua asked, handing me the dead boy’s rifle.

  “Not exactly…”

  Before his accident, my dad taught me how to shoot a gun. It was an old .22 caliber Remington. He used to take me out to a field near our house for target practice. We’d shoot at cans and bottles and stuff. I was pretty good. Mom never approved of my firing guns. It was one of the many things Dad liked to do that she didn’t approve of.

  The Springfield was as tall as I am, and I’m over five and a half feet now. Joshua handed it to me, and it was heavy, maybe ten pounds. He slung a leather bag around my neck that looked a little like a lady’s purse. Joshua called it a “shot bag.”

  “You got twenty cartridges in here,” he said.

  Joshua took one cartridge out. It was about the size of a Chap Stick, and it was wrapped in paper. He put the tip of the cartridge in his mouth, bit it off, and spit the paper on the ground. Then he poured some black stuff—gunpowder, I figured—out of the cartridge and down the barrel of the gun.

  “This is your minié ball,” he said, holding up a bullet, which was also inside the paper cartridge. He dropped it into the barrel on top of the powder.

  “This is your ramrod,” he said, taking a long, thin piece of metal that had been attached to the barrel of the gun. It had a little round thing on one end. Joshua slipped the ramrod into the barrel of the gun and shoved it in there like a plunger two or three times to push the bullet and powder down as far as they would go.

  “That’s all there is to it,” Joshua said, handing me the rifle. “Now you’re ready to shoot some Rebs.”

  Unbelievable! This gun shot just one bullet at a time. It had taken Joshua at least twenty seconds to load the thing. Once it was fired, I’d have to go through the whole procedure all over again.

  I just assumed soldiers always fought wars with machine guns, which can fire hundreds of rounds a minute when you pulled the trigger once. I had to remind myself that this was 1863. No high-tech stuff. No helicopters. No night-vision goggles. No laser-guided smart bombs or drones. The Civil War was a bunch of guys—kids, even—running around with single-shot rifles. They didn’t even have shields, armor, or helmets.

  Heck, the telephone wasn’t even invented yet.

  “If your aim is true,” Joshua said after he handed me the rifle, “you can take down a man from a hundred yards or more.”

  I took the gun hesitantly. I had never fired a gun at a person before. In fact, I had been carefully trained to never even point a gun anywhere near a person. I didn’t want to shoot at people. It didn’t seem right. I didn’t know if
I could do it. I hoped I wouldn’t have to.

  Mom was still tending to Willie Biddle, dressing his wounds and so forth. I went over to Little John, the short one with the drum. He told me we had good position, dug into this ditch and up on a hill where we could look down on the Confederates. John wiped some mud off his drum.

  “What’s the drum for?” I asked him.

  Little John looked at me like I was stupid. “Well, I’m a drummer boy, ain’t I?”

  “So what do you do with the drum?”

  “It’s so the general can signal the men what to do,” he said. “Say, you ain’t never been in a battle before, have you?”

  “No. Why doesn’t the general just tell them what to do?”

  “Can’t always hear,” Little John replied. “It gets pretty loud out here.”

  I didn’t see anybody around who looked like a general. I guessed that the 151st Pennsylvania was scattered across the cemetery in the fighting and these four guys found themselves in this ditch. Some of the smoke had cleared from the field now. I could see off into the distance.

  Little John told me he knew about ten different drum calls. There’s a drumbeat that means “march,” and a drumbeat that means “left face,” and another drumbeat that means it’s time to eat. I asked him to play me a few of them, but he said he couldn’t because it might confuse the soldiers.

  “Why do you have to carry a gun if you’re the drummer?”

  “It ain’t my gun,” he said matter-of-factly. “I took it off a dead man. Like he said, we need every man we got.”

  Suddenly, a shrieking, high-pitched scream came out of the distant woods. It sounded like a wounded animal.

  “What’s that?” I asked, turning to look for the source of the sound. The hairs on my arm were standing up.

  “The Rebel yell,” Little John said, putting down his drum and picking up his rifle.

  “Here they come again!” shouted Joshua.

  In the distance, a long line of men started to appear. There were maybe a thousand of them, coming out of the woods. They were walking toward us.