Free The Hamilton Heir by Valerie Hansen Page A

cavalry.”
    Her gaze settled on Tim. He looked as pleased as the old man. Maybe more so. If his grin had spread any farther she imagined it would have wiggled his ears.
    Tim laughed. “Close your mouth, Ms. Leroux. I told you I keep my promises. Come over here. We need somebody to be General Hood.”
    Grinning, she laid aside her notebook and purse and complied. “Okay, as long as it’s Hood. My daddy would have a conniption if he found out I was pretending to be a Yankee general. What do I do?”
    Tim caught her eye for an instant and raised his eyebrows. Clearly, he didn’t know as much about the skirmish as Stuart did but he was doing his best to participate.
    “We need more cannons! Bring on the fusiliers!” Stuart shouted. “Boom, boom! Gotcha.”
    “Where’s Hood?” Dawn asked.
    Tim had rolled up his shirtsleeves and shed his usual tie as well as his suit jacket. He pointed. “There. Right, Stuart?”
    “Right, boy. He’s advancing on General Thomas. Look out! Here comes more grapeshot! Nasty stuff. Takes out a whole line.” With a flick of his fingers he knocked down a knot of a dozen plastic soldiers.“I used to belong to a group of reenacters, you know, before this bum leg started givin’ me fits. Had the whole authentic outfit, uniform, saber and everything.”
    “Which group?” Dawn asked, thinking of the article she was planning to write.
    “I was a captain in the Tennessee Volunteers,” the old man said proudly. “Most folks don’t realize. There wasn’t no standing army. Not like we have nowadays. Both sides were manned by volunteers that represented their hometowns and states. They provided their own uniforms, too, especially the officers. And guns, them that had ’em. That’s why there wasn’t no good way to keep ’em supplied. Too many different kinds of rifles and pistols, some muzzle-loading, some not. The right cartridges were pure gold to a fightin’ man.”
    Looking to Tim, Stuart grinned. “Say, son, you don’t happen to know where I can get a real cannon, do you? Not a big one. Just a little popgun to make smoke, like they do when a fuse burns down to the black powder.”
    Tim laughed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I was glad to bring you some cavalry, but I can just see you shooting a hole in your house if I gave you a real cannon.”
    That tickled the old man. “Just met me and already he thinks he knows me that well.” He winked at Dawn, then looked a bit surprised and began to frown. “Say, what brings you here? It’s not Wednesday. I may be old but I still have a goodmemory. You were just here last night. This has to be Tuesday.”
    “It is,” she said. Thinking about asking Stuart for an interview made her suddenly nervous and she licked her dry lips. “I’m, um, here on business. Sort of. My boss has asked me to write about interesting people for the Davis Landing Dispatch. ”
    “And you picked me?” He cackled. “What’s so interesting about an old codger with a bum leg and a living room full of toy soldiers?”
    “Your hobby of re-creating history, for one thing,” she said. “And I’d like to hear more about your life. Where you came from, what brought you here, how long you’ve lived in this house, things like that.”
    “Why? Nobody’d be interested.”
    “Yes, they would.” She looked to Tim for support. “We are, aren’t we?”
    He nodded. “Actually, Stuart, it was my idea for Dawn to kick off our new feature with you. Think about it for a second. You care what people did, what kinds of lives they led, over a hundred and fifty years ago. Why wouldn’t others be interested in hearing your story?”
    The old man’s gnarled fingers grasped the tiny figure of a mounted cavalry officer and held it up. “Because these men made a real difference. They may have been on opposite sides but they were all doing what they thought was right.”
    “Like you and my grandfather were doing when you enlisted to fight in World War II?”