I raised the gun in my hand and leapt from the ground with a noise that only Xena the princess warrior could replicate, Kat at my heels. Sprinting to the middle of the field, I took aim on the man in front of me, the musket directed at his ill-fitting leather vest. My chest heaved with anticipation. As my finger squeezed the trigger, the man's eyes bugged. He froze like a deer in the middle of the highway, one leg raised to flee and the other cemented to the ground.
Bang!
The force of the shot threw me backwards, landing me squarely on my rear end. I would've let out a stream of curses, but the fall had shoved all the air out of my lungs. Instead, I growled through my teeth and pushed myself up on my elbows. Kat grunted and shoved his snout in my face, leaving a fresh patch of slobber to meld with the sweat already coating my face.
"No, no, no, that's not the way it's supposed to go," Butch moaned from the sidelines. He marched onto the field, his baggy Legends of Zelda t-shirt flapping in the wind. "Hazel, you're supposed to die. How many times do I have to tell you that?"
Maybe a few dozen more times. We were supposed to break for lunch an hour ago. My stomach had taken over the sensible part of my personality and replaced it with a hangry monster. All I really wanted was some food.
"Why can't the woman win?" I demanded, gasping for a deeper breath of fresh air. "What is this, some sort of patriarchal nonsense?"
Butch's pimply face morphed from a sweaty shiny mess to a fantastic tomato red mask of frustration. The shadow of a mustache resided above his upper lip, begging to be put out of its misery. He’d just turned twenty this fall, and must’ve thought facial hair would make him look more like a man. It didn’t.
"Because there were no women fighting in the Battle of Uriville in eighteen sixty-seven,” he whined. “You're playing a male soldier. Everyone has their place in this reenactment. You're supposed to die." He squinted at Kat, taking a step back as if he smelled something awful. “And for that matter, soldiers in that time didn’t have pet pigs. This isn’t accurate at all. Didn't you read the instructions I passed out last week?”
The instruction manual might've found a cozy home in my garbage can the moment Butch left my paint shop. If I'd realized he was serious about forcing me into joining the reenactment, I might've actually looked through them.
Nah, who am I kidding? I still wouldn't read it.
"So, let me get this straight." I waved my hands around wildly. "I'm supposed to just run out onto this field in a hundred and fifty degree weather, wearing a uniform that packs in all the heat, forget I have a musket, get shot and die? It's no wonder they nearly lost the town to rebel bandits."
Maybe it was the heat going to my head, but for some reason this late morning I was feeling particularly feisty. Butch had recruited the entire Witch Trials Reenactment Park to take part in the special hundred and fifty year celebration this fall. Upon pain of unemployment, he'd threatened us all.
We'd spent the last few weeks preparing for this momentous occasion and next week was the big event. Maybe it was just my imagination, but Butch's face seem to be sprouting more and more pimples the closer we got to the day.
Waitressing at Golden Days Diner didn't sound so bad right now. So, what if I couldn’t do my art or my magic? At least I’d have my pride.
"You know as well as I do that this town was built by innovators and warriors," Butch said with a quiver in his voice. "If it hadn't been for that battle, they never would've settled in Nebraska and built our beloved home. Don't you dare insult them."
I sighed and gazed out across the field. The casualties of the battle looked wearily up at me, sweat trickling down their faces. A rush of guilt landed on my shoulders. We'd already been at this for three hours this morning. Here I was, just making things more difficult.
With the zipping motion across my lips, I raised my hands in surrender. "All right, all right. I'll do my job."
Butch rubbed his shiny face and gazed at me through distressful eyes. "You'll die?"
"With as much gory pain I can manage."
"Good." He clapped his hands together. "Alright, people. Back to your places."
After a few moans and groans, the battlefield actors picked themselves off the ground and went back to their sides. I was surrounded by Uriville soldiers, our brown uniforms unifying us against the rebel bandits across the field.
In my middle school history class, we'd read about the great battle of eighteen sixty-seven. A caravan of engineers, farmers, and civilians had been making the great trek out west. Their goal had been San Francisco. But in the middle of Nebraska, they were attacked by a traveling band of robbers.
After fearlessly defeating the robbers, they decided to settle down and called the town Uriville. My great-great-great-grandmother had been among the settlers. Of course, it was only months later when they decided she was a witch and tried to burn her on the pyre.
Details, details.
As I waited for them to roll the cannon back to its beginning position, my attention drifted toward the tinkle of music coming from the temporary stage on my left. My cousin, Blythe, sat perched on the little wooden stool, a ukulele in her lap. She had just touched up her bleached blonde bob so that it appeared almost white in the harsh sunlight. Despite the warmth, she wore a lacy pink cardigan and a baby pink wool skirt. Her fingers strummed over the strings as she rehearsed her songs for the big event.
As much as I hated to admit it, she was pretty good. And she ought to be pretty good. She’d been driving us crazy these last few months practicing her ukulele e
very hour of the day. I was about ready to perform a disappearing spell on that overpriced piece of kindling.
Beyond the stage, my other cousin stood crouched over a hunk of century-old machinery with her wrench and screwdriver in hand. Raven was the high-heel wearing, hardware fixing, brown-skinned beauty of the three of us and the final piece of the Half-Moon Witch trio.
Ten times better at fixing machinery than any man in town, she’d been called out to the event grounds to get everything up and running. Sometimes I imagined she liked machinery better than people. It was easier for her to spend most of the day fiddling around with something that needed fixing rather than striking up a conversation. That was okay with me. Next to Blythe’s unending chatter, it was a welcome relief.
I shifted as my uniform chaffed against my thighs and found myself gazing unwilling toward the other side of the field, where a certain off-duty police officer was helping to unload Randy Underwood’s heavy wooden bar from the back of his Ford F-350 pickup. Randy owned the pub in town and always had his special brews on tap for special events. He even carried a line of hard apple cider that I liked to splurge on once in a while. They got the bar down from the truck and headed toward the tented food arena. Ian Larson looked good in his striped short-sleeved polo and worn jeans, laughing with his buddy. He certainly looked better than me.