Last Ghost at Gettysburg

by Paul Ferrante

  “What would I do all day, Dad? Throw on a beret and paint sidewalk scenes? Eat croissants at some chic bistro?”

  “Exactly. Which is why I’ve arranged for you to spend the summer at your Uncle Mike’s in Pennsylvania. Fresh air and home cooked food!”

  “Yeah, but I’ll still miss captain’s practice for cross country. You know I want to make the team as a freshman next year. I’ll have no shot if I’m away all summer.”

  “T.J., you’ll have miles and miles of quiet country to run through, and I’ll tell you what. I’ll call Coach Autieri over at the high school and explain the situation. I’ll tell him you’ll be training on your own and to send over a workout program. That way he’ll remember your name come fall.

  “Son, you’ve gotta help me out here. You know Uncle Mike and Aunt Terri would love to have you, and you’ll get to spend some time with your cousin LouAnne—”

  “Who’s not even my cousin!” T.J. hissed, grasping at straws.

  “Whoa, c’mon, that’s not fair. True, she’s adopted, but Uncle Mike’s raised her like his own since she was a baby. You guys are around the same age. You can hang out.”

  “And do what? Milk cows? Plow the fields? While you two are gallivanting around the Eiffel Tower?”

  “One question, T.J. Have I tried my best to give you a good life? You live in a huge house with every possible convenience. The two of us do loads of stuff together. I let your friends come and go every weekend. But now I need you to do this for me. I don’t ask for much, son.”

  T.J. was dead in the water and he knew it. His father was the best guy in the world, and had worked his butt off to make a good life for them after Mom had died from ovarian cancer.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “This one time.”

  His father came over, sat beside him and draped an arm around his shoulders. T.J. could smell his Cool Water aftershave. “I’ll be back before you know it. Thanks, son,” he whispered.

  Now both of them were crying.

  Chapter Two

  “As The Dan once said, ‘you’re looking bad, my funky one. Has your superfine mind come undone?’”

  “You could say that,” said T.J., rummaging through his dresser.

  “What I wouldn’t give to trade places with you, ya lucky dog,” Bortnicker said with a sigh as T.J. tossed a pair of athletic socks into his suitcase. “I mean, a whole summer to explore Gettysburg! You’ve stepped into it, man.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve stepped into something.” T.J. looked across the room to where Bortnicker perched on his haunches atop T.J.’s computer desk chair. That was just one of Bortnicker’s quirks. He didn’t sit. He perched. Like some squirrel up a tree. Or maybe an owl, with those Coke-bottle glasses and scraggly, unkempt hair that drooped into his eyes. No, wait. He was too skinny to be an owl. What was he, then?

  A guy so weird that the nerds at school wouldn’t even hang out with him. Who didn’t watch TV at all except for the History Channel. Whose sole hobby was his humongous model train set. Who quoted obscure lyrics from Steely Dan songs to fit every conceivable occasion.

  As neighbors from across the street since they were toddlers, T.J. and Bortnicker had grown up together, if you could call it that. Bortnicker was floating somewhere between perpetual childhood and senior citizen sensibility. The guys at school ragged on T.J. for being his friend. Girls mouthed, “He’s so weird,” behind his back. Teachers would either sigh with exasperation or rolled their eyes when Bortnicker went off on one of his tangents in class. He was at his most deadly in social studies, where he relished debating virtually every point the teacher made. This past year had been especially trying, with Mr. O’Neill literally cringing every time Bortnicker’s hand shot up and he uttered his dreaded prologue, “I have TWO questions.” To T.J., whose personality was so reserved that it bordered on timid, Bortnicker could be flat out uncomfortable to be around.

  But it was Bortnicker who had talked him down from the ledge when T.J.’s mom had been diagnosed, and then died, all within a hellish six months. Bortnicker’s own parents had split when he was only two. He lived with his mom, Pippa, who counseled upscale housewives in converting their homes into harmonious havens of feng shui. And they paid her big bucks for this! In fact, if Bortnicker wasn’t happily accompanying her on a weeklong feng shui seminar in Boston the next few days, T.J. had actually considered staying with him for the summer, to which Bortnicker would have gratefully agreed.

  “So when do you leave?” asked Bortnicker, cleaning his fingernails with T.J.’s letter opener. Yuck.

  “Tomorrow. Dad and Wendy are driving me down to my Uncle Mike’s, dropping me off, and flying to Paris out of Philly.”

  “How many hours from here?”

  “’Bout five or so from Fairfield.”

  “Wait a minute!” shouted Bortnicker. He frantically plopped down onto the chair and his fingers flew over the computer keyboard. “Yep,” he said with satisfaction, “Just as I thought. I love MapQuest!”

  “What?”

  “Well, if you take the Merritt Parkway south, cross the New York border and pick up 287 West, go over the Tappan Zee Bridge to Jersey, take the Garden State Parkway to the Jersey Pike to the Penn Pike, you’ll pass through Lancaster County on the way!”

  “So?”

  “The Strasburg Train Museum’s there! One of the best model train exhibits in the world!”

  “I think I’ll pass on that. Besides, Dad and Wendy have a plane to catch. I’m wondering if they’re even gonna stop the car to drop me off at my uncle’s or just open the door and push me out.”

  “You’re being too harsh, Big Mon. You just don’t realize what a great opportunity this is. And what did you say your uncle does down there?”

  “He’s a ranger at the Battlefield Park.”

  “Too cool! You’ll have the run of the place.” He raised an eyebrow. “And wasn’t there the mention of a young female?”

  “You mean my cousin, LouAnne? Please. I haven’t seen her since Mom’s funeral, but I can tell you, she’s about as geeky as—” He stopped short, aware of his face reddening.

  “As me? As geeky as me, T.J.?”

  “Nah, man. That’s not where I was going.”

  “It’s okay. I just have this feeling that you’re gonna have a great time. Remember to bring your laptop so we can stay in touch. Hey, did you know that in the Battle of Gettysburg the Confederate Army approached from the north and the Union Army from the south?

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Civil War Journal. Great show.”

  T.J. filled his cheeks with air, blew them out. Tossed a pair of track shorts in his suitcase. “This is gonna really suck,” he muttered.

  Bortnicker shook his head in disagreement, then smiled and offered, “Remember what The Dan said. ‘If you’re a Major Dude, you tell your friend that if his world breaks apart, it’ll fall together again.’”

  “Profound,” T.J. replied as he rifled a running shoe at Bortnicker’s scraggly head.

  Chapter Three

  Jamie Weeks adjusted the knobs on his metal detector and repositioned the cushioned-fit earphones over his camo cap. Man, this Coinstar 4000XL model was worth the $750 he’d shelled out for it. If there was any precious metal between here and China, it was going to show up on the screen. His ‘phones’ had been pinging like crazy for the past half-hour and he’d dug some neat stuff with his army surplus collapsible spade. Though it was pitch black in the woods near Spangler’s Spring, he could make out one of the items he’d unearthed—a Georgia state button from a Confederate soldier’s tunic. It was hard to determine the condition because, well, it was half-past midnight. And he was here at half-past midnight because he was committing the illegal act of hunting for artifacts on protected national park grounds. There was always the chance he’d get caught by the police or park rangers or whoever patrolled these woods after dark, but what the hay. Jamie was on a personal treasure quest.

  Since he’d been laid
off at the fertilizer plant back in Columbia, South Carolina where he’d toiled for the past ten years, Jamie had realized a lifelong dream: to acquire the best possible metal detector he could afford, load up his battered black Explorer, and hit all the major eastern battlefields between Charleston and Philadelphia. Already, he’d conducted stealth missions at Petersburg, Appomattox, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Fredericksburg and Manassas. Gettysburg would be the final, and hopefully the most lucrative, stop on the treasure trail. By his reckoning he’d found enough buttons, artillery shells, weapons parts and assorted accoutrements to finance his trip and still have an ample pile to display and trade with the other members of his club, who had shortsightedly restricted their expeditions to smaller regional (and legal) areas like farmers’ fields, snake-infested swamps or forests which bordered the sites of Civil War conflicts. Not that there were a lot of them left. Suburban sprawl was turning former battlefields of the South into Wal-Mart megaplexes and gated townhouse communities at an alarming rate.

  Jamie felt that some of the guys went a bit too far—spending hours at local libraries or historical societies delving into dusty military archives to calculate troop movements, campsites and other such stuff. B-O-R-I-N-G. Weeks considered himself a man of action, and there were many collectors or Civil War buffs that would pay some serious coin for his finds. But he had to work fast, figuring he had two more hours max before he’d have to hightail it out of there. A patrol car made the rounds here and there, but he’d always see the headlights coming and lay flat in the military night camos he’d ordered online. It was part of the thrill he experienced every time he ‘went digging.’

  It was probably this extreme focus that prevented him from sensing the man standing behind him. Instead it was the smell, as he furtively dug on his knees for some trinket that tipped him off. Something like a dead animal that’d sat in the woods for a while. He turned and looked up—and smiled with relief.

  “Lord, son, you had me spooked!” he said, shifting to a sitting position and removing his headphones. “I thought you were the Federales or somethin’. Say, that’s some uniform. What’s your outfit?”

  The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your regiment. What unit you supposed to be with?”

  The cavalier stood erect. “I serve with Hampton’s Legion, under the command of General Stuart.”

  “Wow. Very authentic, right down to the material. Or is that a real uniform?” He let out a low whistle of approval. “Boy howdy, that must’ve set you back a pretty penny. Most reenactors just buy the repro duds and such. You look...totally realistic. But I gotta tell you, man, that uniform stinks. Maybe you can air it out or treat it with some of that Fabreze stuff you buy at the Winn-Dixie.”

  Suddenly a whinnying sound cut the air. Weeks peered into the gloomy woods. “You’ve got a horse, too? I’m impressed!”

  “State your business here,” the soldier said evenly, seeming ten feet tall in his spurred boots as he towered over the sitting poacher.

  “Well, heh, I’m kinda in the same boat as you, son, someplace I’m not supposed to be after nightfall. Just digging some artifacts, not bothering anybody.”

  “Artifacts? What artifacts? Please explain yourself.” The soldier’s smell was becoming annoying, and it was reflected in the tone of Jamie’s reply.

  “You know, buttons, bullets and whatnot. Artifacts. What I really want to find is a CSA belt buckle like the one you got there. Primo piece. How much that set you back?”

  “You are excavating this ground for the personal effects of dead soldiers?” The cavalier looked both amazed and disgusted.

  “Well, you don’t have to put it that way, man. I mean, I don’t begrudge you the right to parade around in that uniform in the middle of the night. Whatever turns you on, son. It’s cool with me. Now, why don’t you just jump on your horse and get back to camp or whatever and let me get in some more work before it gets light?”

  “That isn’t possible,” said the soldier, drawing his pistol.

  “Whoa, now, podna, you got no right to be pullin’ that piece on me. I got just as much right to be here as you.”

  “I hardly think so,” the man answered. “In fact, your actions are despicable and disgust me to the marrow. The men whose effects that you turn the earth for died for a cause you could not possibly fathom.” He cocked the hammer of the pistol with his thumb. “And a man of the South as well. My Gawd. It is a pleasure to cleanse this sacred ground of scum like you.”

  Jamie Weeks never had the chance to ask if the Colt .44 was a repro.

  Chapter Four

  Chief Al Warren raised himself up, slowly and painfully, from the knee he’d taken next to Jamie Weeks’ splayed corpse. It was still an hour or so till daybreak, and the CSI team had cordoned off the area with plastic yellow tape while Doc Lamberg, the Adams County coroner, went about his business. This wasn’t good at all. Three murders in two weeks, and the summer season was just kicking into gear. Warren brushed off his pants leg and shuffled over to Rudy Herzog, who was leaning against his cruiser, shakily smoking a cigarette.

  “Okay, Rudy, so let’s go over this,” grunted Warren, tipping back his hat. “You were about a half mile north of here and heard a gunshot. And then?” Warren’s meaty arms were crossed against his barrel chest as he held himself in the chill.

  “Chief, I radioed in the report of shots fired. Then I backtracked along this trail till I found the victim. I checked his vital signs, but he was gone. I mean, no duh, half his head is shot off.” Herzog pressed his eyes closed at the memory, exhaled, then faced the shorter, blocky chief again. “It was 12:47. I radioed Spence for backup and searched the area. It was clean. Nothing. Except... uh...”

  “Except what, Rudy?” Warren hated being awakened in the early hours of the morning, and this was becoming a habit.

  “Except I smelled horse.”

  “Like maybe the shooter was mounted?”

  “Yeah. Now, Chief, I understand it’s dark, but even with the searchlight I couldn’t find any tracks. I know it’s been dry lately, but there should be some trace of hoof prints, right?”

  Warren nodded. “We’ll conduct a more thorough search after daybreak. Soon as they get the meat wagon out of here.”

  As if on cue, Doc Lamberg came up behind Warren and broke into the conversation. Lighting the briar pipe he always smoked on such occasions, the spry old gent, who always wore a shirt and tie, offered his opinion. “Well, time of death was around twelve-thirty, give or take, like Rudy said. This man was shot point blank, between the eyes, with a large caliber weapon. Just like those two kids over at the cemetery.” He snapped his lighter shut as the tobacco caught, filling the air with its sweet smell. “Looks like you’ve got a killer on the loose, Al.” Behind him, a police photographer snapped away.

  “So you think when the ballistics report comes back from Harrisburg it’ll match up?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Warren cursed his luck. He’d retired as a captain from the Philadelphia PD to what he thought would be a cush job as chief in a small tourist town where the greatest danger was some overzealous reenactor blowing out his eardrums from getting too close to an artillery battery during the yearly battle commemoration, or maybe some rowdy students over at Gettysburg College getting beered up and trying to hijack a cannon. And the first seven-plus years had worked out perfectly. Now this. He had three murders, a deputy who was quaking in fright, and a Chamber of Commerce who would have his hide if he even suggested cancelling the weeklong yearly commemoration of the battle, which involved thousands of reenactors, tens of thousands of tourists, and millions of bucks for the local economy.

  “Little over a month,” he muttered.

  “Beg pardon?” asked Lamberg as he watched the EMT zip Weeks into a body bag.

  “Nothing. I just wonder why grown men like Weeks would risk getting arrested and fined just to dig up old junk.”

  “Well,” answered Lamberg,
“I’m no psychologist, but I guess there’s a little Indiana Jones wannabe in all of us. I just don’t think our friend here counted on this.”

  “What I don’t get is, there’s no motive. I mean, we found his wallet on him with a couple hundred bucks and some credit cards. Why would someone just execute the guy? Or those college kids?”

  “You’ll figure it out, Al,” said Lamberg drily, knocking the dottle from his pipe against a tree trunk. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  Chapter Five

  “Okay, we’re here,” said Tom Jackson, turning off the ignition. “We made great time. I’ll pop the trunk. T.J., grab your gear while I see who’s home.” With that, Jackson, Sr. and his girlfriend approached the pale yellow Victorian down the street from the dormitory buildings on Seminary Ridge. The Lutheran institution had served as a makeshift hospital during the battle, as had most buildings in and around Gettysburg, and the cupola of its main building was used as an observation tower.

  “Hey, Tom,” Mike Darcy said as he opened the front screen door and warmly embraced his brother-in-law. Still in his khaki park ranger uniform, he was as broad and burly as T.J. remembered him, with a graying blond military flattop and neatly trimmed goatee. “And this must be Wendy. Welcome!”

  Tom’s girlfriend, a shapely redhead with friendly green eyes, gave a quick wave before she, too, was engulfed in a Darcy bear hug. “You didn’t tell me she was a movie star, Tom!” crowed the ranger as Wendy, visibly relieved, allowed herself to be crushed.

  All of which was making T.J. want to retch as he hefted his suitcase and gym bag with his running stuff over his shoulders. But then Mike was making a beeline for him like a linebacker—which he had been at Michigan State—attacking a power sweep.

  “T.J.! My favorite nephew!” Mike stopped short and held the teen at arm’s length. “Oh boy, you look...” he started tearing up... “more like my sister every time I see you.” This, of course, was followed by another crushing hug. Uncle Mike was, T.J. remembered, one of those touchy-feely people. “Terri!” Mike called out, “The gang’s all here!”