Where Does My Heart Beat Now- Chapter 38

*Disclaimer: The song(s) in this chapter is Billie Jean by Michael Jackson & Show Them To Me by Rodney Carrington.

Chapter 38

The day everyone had been waiting for had finally arrived, and Gabriel had been up since two o’ clock that morning getting the rest of their belongings loaded into Rob’s trailer. The last items to be loaded were the dresses and crinolines, and when he turned around to go get them, Kate was already standing there with the garment bags. She had the crinolines slung over her shoulder until he was ready for them. Once everything was safely packed inside the trailer, Gabriel shut and locked the door.

“Now we just have to wait on the others to get here so we can load the horses,” he pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time, “It was a good thing Casey brought the horses over last night, because knowing him, he’ll be dragging up right at three-thirty.”

Headlights flashed across the yard when the two of them were on their way back to the house, and Gabriel recognized his brother’s burnt orange Chevy Avalanche pull up beside Kate’s lime green Camaro she had been surprised with for Mother’s Day. They watched as Seamus got out of his truck and went around to the other side to get something out. They were surprised to see him carrying a small animal carrier when he joined them. A little yip came from inside the carrier, and Kate leaned over to see inside, but the darkness kept her from getting a good view of what had made the sound.

“I hope you guys don’t mind that I’m bringing my little princess along for the trip,” Seamus replied, the sound of sleep still in his voice, “I didn’t have anyone to watch her while we were gone.”

Gabriel turned and headed for the house to see how close their parents were to being ready, “She won’t bother us a bit. Go ahead and put her in Dad’s truck if that’s where you’re planning on riding.”

A few minutes later the rest of the 1^st Texas started to show up with their trucks and trailers, and parked along the driveway. They had all planned to caravan on the drive up to Pennsylvania with Gabriel in the lead since he had the GPS. The sound of Sean’s black diesel truck coming up the drive caught their attention, and they could see what looked to be a large decal on the side of his truck with some writing on it; however, they couldn’t make it out in the darkness. After everyone was gathered around in the front yard, Gabriel went through roll call to make sure that everyone was there. When he got to Casey’s name he received no reply. To see if he hadn’t missed him answering, he looked up and saw that his cousin was nowhere to be found.

“See, Kate… What did I tell you earlier? I told you he’d wait until the last damn minute to show up,” Gabriel rolled his eyes and sighed heavily; he had told everyone the day before to be on time.

Just as he was getting ready to rant about how Casey was always late, his cousin’s dark blue lifted up truck barreled up the drive and screeched to a stop next to Seamus’s truck. He climbed out of his tall truck and went around to the other side to get his daughter out, and then walked zombie-like in their direction. They watched as Casey drug his feet when he walked toward them while carrying Tate in her carrier and her diaper bag slung over his opposite shoulder. He looked as if he had literally just rolled out of bed and threw on a pair of torn jeans and a black tank top. The bottoms of his jeans were stuffed sloppily in his red and dark brown cowboy boots, and to add to his rugged appearance, his hair looked as if it hadn’t even been touched. The only greeting he gave them when he stopped in the circle was a grunt.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Seamus chuckled, slapping his hand on Casey’s shoulder, “Did you have too much sex last night… Oh wait, you don’t have a girlfriend, so that means you must have been going through this month’s issue of Playboy.”

Casey threw Seamus a nasty glare, “You’re one to be talking. I don’t see anyone with jugs hanging off of you.”

Seamus shrugged, but Casey kept talking; only he directed it to the others.

“I wanna know whose idea it was to leave at three freakin’ thirty in the morning! Me hens aren’t even awake at this time.”

Rob walked over and threw a lead rope at him, “Oh, stop your bitching and help us get these horses loaded so we can get on the road. You can get you an energy drink when we stop to fill the trucks up.”

It didn’t take them long to get the horses loaded into the trailer, and after they locked the door to the trailer, everyone headed to the trucks they would be riding in. After getting in the passenger seat of Gabriel’s truck, Kate turned on the GPS and set it for their destination while Gabriel went to the house to get Shannon and Charlie. She watched from the truck as he locked the front door and grabbed their daughter’s carrier with her still fast asleep inside it. Shannon didn’t wake up when he buckled her into the back seat next to Tate and Casey, who sat there tucking a blanket around Tate’s feet and then popped her pacifier into her mouth. Casey prayed she didn’t fuss too much, as she had been cranky for the past week since she had a new tooth erupting. It would make for one miserable drive if they had to listen to a teething infant wail for over twelve hundred miles.

Gabriel hopped into the driver’s seat, a huge grin on his face knowing that they were on their way to what would be their biggest reenactment ever. He pulled out of the drive with the rest of the trucks and trailers right behind him. When they drove through the town it was virtually deserted being that it was still very early in the morning and most people were sound asleep in their homes. As they left Jefferson, the lights faded into the distance behind them, making another grin creep across Gabriel’s face; there was no turning back. If they had forgotten anything, it was too late and they would just have to deal.

Pulling onto the highway a little while later, he glanced back in the rearview mirror and smiled at the sight of his cousin asleep with his head on the side of Tate’s carrier with her grasping onto his finger as she slept. Even Shannon was still asleep, which surprised him; he figured she’d have woken up by then, wanting to be fed. To break the silence in the truck, he turned on the radio to listen to some country music to help keep him awake, seeing as Kate had also fallen asleep. Then again, it was still dark outside. They’d drive for a few hours and then stop to take a break and get breakfast before getting back on the road.

 

“Are we there, yet? Are we there, yet?”

Three hours later Casey had woken up and was already driving Kate and Gabriel to insanity. He was obviously bored from the way he stared blankly out the window at the trees passing by. To tune him out, Kate tried to read a little of a magazine she had brought along while Gabriel had turned up the music, but their efforts were futile. His voice penetrated deep in their heads to the point of Kate wanting to throw the GPS at him just to shut him up.

“Are we there now? I’ve got to pee like a racehorse,” Casey leaned forward and put his elbows on the front seats.

“NO! We are not there, yet!” Gabriel had finally had enough of his constant talking and whining, “We are only in Arkansas. We won’t get to Gettysburg until tomorrow afternoon.”

Casey sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, “But I can’t hold it that long!”

Kate looked over to her husband and replied, “Can we kick him out here?”

Gabriel sighed heavily, “As much as I’d like to, no,” he picked up the walkie talkie he had synchronized with the ones in Rob and Sean’s trucks and called them, “Hey, are you guys ready to stop for a bit? Casey needs to tinkle… and I’m getting hungry.”

“Sounds good to us. I need to stretch my legs, anyways,” Rob’s voice came over the other end a few seconds later.

“Same here!” Sean agreed from his side.

Gabriel stepped out of his truck, thankful for a chance to stretch his legs…and to get away from his cousin’s antics. They weren’t even halfway to Pennsylvania and Casey had already driven both him and Kate to the brink of insanity. He had just about had enough.

“How are you two handling him?” Riley asked, amused as he watched his son do a mad dash for the restrooms.

“We’re NOT handling him,” Gabriel sighed in frustration. “He’s already making me want to do something drastic. In fact, he’s lucky I haven’t strangled him yet!”

“Bad luck, Gabe!” Seamus chuckled after joining the rest of the group near the front of the restaurant.

“Can’t one of you guys take him for the rest of the way?” Gabriel gave the others a hopeful glance, but was immediately met by refusals. “Damn.”

“Sorry son,” Rob laughed at Gabriel’s expression, “You’ll just have to deal.”

“Well, if we arrive at Gettysburg with a corpse, don’t blame us,” Kate said, just as frustrated as her husband was, “He’s asking for it.”

The rest of breakfast was quiet, save for a few chuckles at the thought of the conversation that passed and a very confused Casey returning from the restroom to find a very frustrated Gabriel. Needless to say, he was quiet for the next hour or so.

 

Rob’s truck had turned into a party bus by the time the caravan rolled over the Mississippi River into Memphis, Tennessee. Everyone in the truck was having a blast singing the songs that came on the radio, some of them getting very animated with their singing. At the moment, they happened to be jamming to Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’, with Riley doing his best to impersonate the King of Pop’s falsetto voice. Since they had quite a bit of a drive left until they stopped for the night, they decided to make the most of it.

“People always told me be careful of what you do. And don’t go around breaking young girls’ hearts. And mother always told me be careful of who you love. And be careful of what you do, because the lie becomes the truth…”

As soon as he got to the chorus, the rest of them in the truck joined in with their own renditions of Michael Jackson.

“Billie Jean is not my lover. She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one. But the kid is not my son. She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son…”

Meanwhile in Gabriel’s truck, they were in the middle of singing along with the radio, as well… or more precisely, Casey was since Kate and Gabriel couldn’t get past the song that he was singing very enthusiastically. Kate tried her best to ignore her husband’s cousin, but it was damn near impossible. Gabriel, on the other hand, kept his focus on the road ahead of them and just shook his head in wonder; he knew they couldn’t come back from the trip without Casey doing something to stun and amaze them. All of them would have been okay if the song he had chosen to sing along with wasn’t ‘Show Them to Me’ by Rodney Carrington.

“… I don’t care if they don’t match or one’s bigger than the other. You can show me one and I’ll imagine the other,” Casey threw a wink toward Kate, eliciting a middle finger from her in return, “Even if you’re really old, there’s nothing wrong. Don’t be sad you’re b***s ain’t bad, they’re just a little loooong!”

Kate slowly turned to face Gabriel, her jaws clenched tightly, “I swear I am going to kill him before we get to Pennsylvania.”

“Here,” he handed her a small knife that he kept in the console in case he ever needed it for something, “Just don’t get blood on my seats.”

“Show them to me, show them to me. Lift up your shirt and let the whole world see. Just disrobe, show your globes and a happy man I’ll be. If you got dos chi chi’s… Show them to me…”

All Kate and Gabriel could do was to ignore Casey, because they were stuck with him until they stopped for the night, and none of them knew when or where that was going to be. Gabriel had hoped to make it to Knoxville, Tennessee before they stopped to get a hotel; all that would be left of the drive was the haul north through Virginia, and they would tackle that the next day. He figured if they got up early and left by six o’clock, they would make it to Gettysburg in the early afternoon. And the sooner they got there, the more time they would have to get camp set up and go sightseeing.

Gabriel slipped into a daydream, picturing the peak of Little Round Top, where Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain ordered his famous bayonet charge; the woods where General John Reynolds was killed; and the long stretch of fields where thousands of Confederate soldiers were slaughtered as they made their brave, but futile march to overtake the Union lines on the crest of Cemetery Ridge. He couldn’t wait to put his feet on the very same ground and feel the energy coming from the earth which had been soaked with the blood of the thousands upon thousands of men who had given their lives for what they believed in.

The sound of Shannon crying pulled him out of his daydream, causing him to glance into the rearview mirror to see what had upset her. A small smile came to his face when he saw his cousin gently stroking her tiny hand and talking to her softly in an effort to calm her. It was heartwarming to see Casey trying his hardest to soothe her even though Shannon was not about to stop crying.

Of course he’s going to try to figure out what’s wrong with her, Gabriel thought happily. He may appear to be an idiot at times, but when he sees a baby upset, his daddy instincts kick in.

“Gabe, I’m pretty sure Shannon’s hungry. Do you have a bottle made?” Casey asked a few minutes later, still rubbing Shannon’s hand.

Gabriel glanced back at Casey, “And what do you expect to warm it up with? Kate’s just gonna have to nurse her.”

Kate gave him an appalled look, “You want me to take my baby out of her safe carrier and nurse her while we are going seventy-five miles per hour down the interstate? Are you crazy?!”

“Well, do you have any better suggestions? It’s not like we can hold a lighter underneath it until it warms up…”

The truck cab was silent for the next ten seconds while they thought about what Gabriel had mentioned. It was quite possible that it would actually work, and the men wouldn’t have to deal with an unhappy mommy. Almost immediately Casey dug through his bag and pulled out a Zippo lighter with a grin. After Kate handed him a premade bottle with a sigh, he flipped open the metal lid of the lighter and put the flame underneath the bottle, occasionally rotating the bottle to make sure all of it got heated. Satisfied that he had kept the flame on it long enough, he put the lighter away and tested the liquid on his wrist to ensure that it was the right temperature before giving it to the hungry infant. Casey eased the n****e of the bottle into Shannon’s mouth, and she started to suck on it almost ravenously, which surprised him.

Kate was pleased to see that her daughter was happy and that Casey had helped to make her happy, “I’m shocked, Casey. You’re a pretty awesome dad.”

“Thank you, Kate,” Casey smiled at her compliment; he was glad to hear that someone thought he was a good father. If only Aoife had thought the same. Glancing back to the little baby, Casey couldn’t help but feel his heart warm at the sight of his cousin’s daughter in her carrier, sucking contentedly from her bottle as he held onto it. It made him wish that his little girl was still that small even though she was just starting to walk. Would he ever remarry? He didn’t know, but he was bound and determined to find the perfect mother for his baby girl.

 

The caravan rolled into Knoxville, Tennessee later that afternoon, and Gabriel started to look for a hotel that had a big enough parking lot to accommodate all of their trailers. There was still a lot of daylight left; however, the others were just as tired as he was and wanted to flop onto a soft bed with a good dinner in their bellies, and Kate wanted a relaxing shower to ease her stiff back from sitting for so long. First, they would get their rooms, and then they would go in search of food to satisfy their growling stomachs.

To Seamus’s displeasure, he ended up rooming with Casey and Tate, not that he minded the baby. He wasn’t looking forward to his cousin’s obnoxious snoring and the occasional talking in his sleep he had the misfortune of hearing when they were at the Jefferson reenactment. Hearing Casey talk about bending a woman over and screwing her silly was not something he wanted to relive any time soon.

Dropping his bag on the bed closest to the window and setting the animal carrier on the floor next to the bed, Seamus turned to Casey, “Alright, I’m claiming the bed next to the air conditioner, because I get hot very easily at night, and I don’t think you want to see this stud stripping to get cool.”

“I wouldn’t want to see you strip anyways,” Casey said as he changed Tate’s diaper, “Besides, I wouldn’t want the whole size thing to come between us.”

Seamus ignored Casey’s comment and disappeared into the small bathroom with bottles of his shampoo and conditioner, as well as an expensive-looking bottle of body wash, “And don’t you even think about touching my body wash. That crap was expensive!”

“Then why’d you even buy it?” Casey muttered to himself before following Seamus out of their room with Tate on his hip to meet up with the others in the lobby.

Once in the hotel’s lobby, the large group decided to walk to the nearest fast food place to get dinner. They were in luck when they discovered a group of eateries within a couple blocks of the hotel, which made everyone happy since they had different tastes in food. All of them ate quickly, as they were ready to collapse on their beds and watch T.V. or just get an early bedtime in seeing as they’d be up early the next morning for the rest of the drive.

 

Back in their room, Gabriel relaxed on the king size bed with Shannon nestled in his arms while she sucked down the last drops of formula from her bottle. He could feel exhaustion setting in and was almost ready to ask Casey to drive the rest of the way, but he knew the road down South Mountain would be a challenging obstacle since it was a steep grade. He’d heard from re-enactors that had been to Gettysburg before that that particular road tested their driving abilities and made them discover muscles in the lower halves of their bodies they didn’t even know they had. Not that he didn’t trust his cousin’s driving skills; he just didn’t want his truck and trailer dangling precariously over a guardrail.

That’s gonna be a fun drive. Hope my brakes are good, he looked down at his daughter, who looked up at him with the n****e of the bottle still in her mouth even though she had sucked the bottle dry moments before, “You could use a nap, Shannon. I’ll have Mommy feed you one more time before putting you to bed later,” shifting the infant up to his shoulder, Gabriel gently patted her back to burp her.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to pass out,” Kate walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head like a turban with another one around her body. She sat down on the end of the bed after pulling a silk chemise and matching panties out of her bag, “I’ll be glad when we finally get there. I’m excited to see the Appalachians.”

“Me too, baby. I can’t wait to drive up Emmitsburg Road into the town and see all of the monuments scattered in the fields,” Gabriel laid Shannon down beside him and covered her small body up with her yellow blanket so that he could change into his pajama pants.

Kate flopped onto her back and stared up at the hotel room ceiling, thinking about what was to come in the next few days. She’d never been to a place with so much history, and like her husband, couldn’t wait to see where everything happened all those years before. It will melt my heart to see Gabe so happy when he sees everything. I may never get him away from the place.

 

Midnight arrived and Seamus was still wide awake, sprawled out on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. As he had feared, Casey was doing his best to keep him awake with his snoring, and what made it worse was the fact that it was the open-mouthed kind of snoring. e hjad

 He had tried to sleep, but as soon as Casey had gone to bed that opportunity disappeared. At some point he had tried covering his head with the pillows and sleeping with toilet paper stuffed in his ears. No matter what Seamus did, the sound of the snoring seeped through.

I’ve got to get some sleep. Seamus leaned over the bed and found his boots beside the bed, which gave him a nasty idea. He picked one up before throwing it at his cousin across the room.

The heel of the boot hit Casey on the stomach, making the other male flail around under the sheets until he found the boot beside him on the bed. After realizing what had hit him, he said, “What the hell, Seamus?! You’re throwing boots at me, now?”

“For the love of all things holy, SHUT UP!” Seamus yelled, not even caring if he woke the people in the other rooms, “I’m trying to sleep! And that’s hard to do when I’ve got you over there sounding like a damn wood chipper!”

Casey rolled over onto his side, keeping his back to Seamus, “Geez, someone’s a light sleeper.”

“Just keep the snoring to a minimum before I kick you out into the hallway,” Seamus turned away from him and put a pillow over his head just in case. If he could get a few hours of sleep, he’d be okay and wouldn’t be grumpy for the rest of the drive.

 

Gabriel’s mood had changed drastically as they neared South Mountain outside of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania the next afternoon; it had started to rain to the point of not being able to see the vehicle in front of them. That would cause problems, especially when it came to the drive down South Mountain. They found out soon enough what a challenge that was. Almost immediately, the road started to wind down around the mountain, making Gabriel keep his foot on the brake pedal to keep the truck from skidding out of control. Along the drive down the mountain, the sight of runaway truck pits just made them more uneasy, knowing that they might have to use one of those if Gabriel couldn’t control his truck.

“Oh, my God! Gabriel, slow down!” Kate cringed when the truck nearly hit a guardrail going around a sharp turn, “You’re going to send us over the edge!”

“Kate, I know what I’m doing. Calm down,” Gabriel kept his eyes on the road ahead of him despite barely being able to see anything through the sheeting rain.

About that same time an impatient driver decided to pass them a little too close for Kate’s liking, causing her to panic, “Watch out for that car!”

“Woman! Do you want to drive?”

“NO!” Casey shrieked, knowing that they would surely die if Gabriel let Kate drive the rest of the way down the winding, slick road.

Everyone in the green truck was relieved when they reached the bottom of South Mountain, and strangely enough the rain had stopped, almost as if they had just been caught in the only rain shower in Pennsylvania. Along the side of the road they were starting to see historical markers, indicating that they were getting close to their destination. Gabriel could feel his excitement building. When he glanced at the GPS and saw that they were only five miles out, he accelerated on the gas pedal.

“Honey, please don’t get pulled over from speeding,” Kate hid an amused grin; she knew the trip meant everything to her husband, “We’ll get there soon enough.”

After turning onto Pumping Station Road, they looked off to their left and noticed a field and some woods packed with white canvas tents and hundreds of cars; they had finally made it. Before setting up camp, every single one of them had to register and turn the horses’ papers in to give them the okay to participate in the reenactment. The worst part was standing in the mile long line for the registration. To keep himself from going crazy while waiting, Gabriel glanced around at the scenery, but that was when he looked to the east and his eyes fell on the two hills in the distance, one of them being a little higher than the other: The Round Tops.

They were finally standing on hallowed ground… Well, they would be once they went into town.

Gabriel couldn’t help the huge grin that spread across his face. It was the moment he had been waiting for " probably one of the happiest, yet big ones of his life. He felt quite delirious as excitement overtook him. As soon as he was able to get the tent up he was going exploring. There was just so much he wanted to do and see.

Noticing his cousin’s goofy smile, and pretty sure that Gabriel wasn’t paying attention to the line anymore, Casey spoke up, “Uh, Gabriel, you okay?”

Snapped out of his thoughts, Gabriel tried to refocus his attention on moving up the line, “Never been better.”

Kate chuckled at their exchange. She was excited, too, since they had made it to Gettysburg but she hoped that Gabriel would be able to hold his excitement in long enough to get the more important things out of the way first. They would go exploring later.

 

The 1^st Texas Cavalry found a nice place to camp in a thick grove of trees near the Confederate artillery camp. Gabriel backed his trailer into a clearing after spotting a prime location underneath the boughs of a few trees to put their wall tent. Casey was the first one out of the truck, as he wanted to get the horse line ready so that he could get them unloaded and tied up. He stepped into the trailer’s tack room and came back out with a long rope before tying it behind the row of tents in a clearing, both ends tied around the trunks of two trees. He noticed a trough of water and bales of hay off to the side, which was a good sign that they would be taken care of by the event coordinators. Without waiting for the others, Casey opened up the trailer door and received a chorus of whinnies from the trailer’s occupants.

“I bet you guys are ready to get out and walk around,” he led Athena and Dionysus outside, one horse on either side of him.

While he was busy with the horses, Kate and Gabriel were in the middle of sliding the brace beam of the tent through the holes in the canvas at the same time that Riley and Seamus were unloading the poles from Rob’s trailer. As soon as they had the beam hoisted in the air above their heads, the two men quickly stuck their poles into the beam and stood the tent up.

“Are my pole dancers ready? Kate and I are gonna get the four corners staked down,” Gabriel laughed at his joke and went over to get a couple of stakes and ropes.

Seamus ran his hand over his abs in exaggeration, “Oh yeah, baby. I just love rubbing my goods against a wooden pole covered in splinters.”

“Whatever you do, you had better not let go of that pole,” Kate shook her hammer at Seamus, a dangerous look in her eyes, “or you won’t have any goods to worry about getting splinters in.”

Just like they had in Jefferson, it didn’t take them more than twenty minutes to get the tents set up and their belongings dumped inside; they would worry about organizing everything later. Remembering his traveling companion, Seamus hurried over to Rob’s truck and removed the pink animal carrier from the back seat. The others gathered around to investigate when he set the carrier on the ground and opened the door. All of them stared amazed at the tiny ball of white fluff that walked out of the carrier and over to its owner, its fluffy tail wagging happily. On closer inspection, they saw that the little dog was wearing a Confederate battle flag collar covered in coordinating rhinestones and had its toenails painted a bright red. Putting two and two together, all of them figured out that the dog was a girl.

“What the hell is it?!” Casey broke the silence while staring at the dog bouncing up on Seamus’s legs, waiting for him to pick her up, “It looks like something I’d wax me truck with.”

Seamus bent over to pick up his dog and held her tucked underneath his arm, “This is Tutu. She’s a teacup Pomeranian.”

“Tutu? You couldn’t have come up with something more manly?”

“She’s a girl, you idiot!” Kate walked over and started to scratch Tutu between the ears, making the little dog wag her tail in full force, “And don’t you even think about saying anything bad about her. She’s just the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen!”

The dog’s owner lifted her up and rubbed his nose against Tutu’s, receiving a face full of licks afterwards, “She’s Daddy’s little diva. Yes, she is!”

Casey couldn’t stand the sight of his cousin cooing to a dog, especially one as small as she was. He turned away from the group and walked off toward his own tent to check on Tate, “I think I’m gonna be sick…”

 

The sun was already dipping down in the western sky when the Dawson’s decided to go into the town of Gettysburg to scope out a place to eat dinner. While most of them were more concerned about getting food in their stomachs, Gabriel couldn’t wait to see the battlefield with the hundreds of monuments scattered throughout it, and they would have to drive straight through the middle of the battlefield to get to the town. Afraid that Gabriel wouldn’t pay attention to the road on the way there, Casey got behind the wheel after they unloaded the trailer in the designated area for the cavalry, and his cousin and Kate occupied the backseat and the passenger seat. Nearly hitting another truck in the process, Casey squealed out onto the main road in the direction of Emmitsburg Road a few miles east of their location. Kate clung to the handle on the door, afraid that Casey would smash into something; she didn’t trust his driving any more than she could throw him. With his fast driving, it didn’t take them long to reach the main road into Gettysburg, and once again, Casey peeled out onto that road.

“Casey, dear,” Kate spoke up while still holding onto her door, “Can you please not kill us with your horrid driving?”

Casey took his eyes off of the road to look at her, “I’ll have you know that I passed me driving test on the first try.”

“The instructor probably passed you just so he wouldn’t have to see you a second time,” she mumbled more so to herself than to him.

The two in the front of the cab jumped when Gabriel squealed with excitement after they entered the battlefield. He was almost ready to claw his way out of the truck just so he could go read some of the monuments, “Ooh! It’s the Peach Orchard!” Careful not to bump into Shannon’s carrier, he leaned over to look out of the window on his left side and shuddered, “Oh…my… God. The fields where Pickett’s Charge took place. I must walk over them…”

“You okay, Gabe?” Casey looked into the rearview mirror and cocked an eyebrow in questioning when he saw his cousin almost drooling as he looked out the window, “You sound like you’re gonna have an orgasm.”

And that was when Gabriel saw it on the crest of Cemetery Ridge ahead of them at their one o’ clock with many tourists surrounding it: the unmistakable Copse of Trees. The small cluster of trees had been the place where the Confederate infantrymen had intended to converge on the Union center at the climax of Pickett’s Charge. He wanted to run over to the trees and read the plaque in front of them, and he also wanted to find the location where Brigadier General Lewis Armistead had been shot, knowing it was near The Angle, which was only a few yards away from the Copse of Trees.

Stay calm, Gabe. You’ll have plenty of time to walk around the battlefield. Gabriel forced himself to look away from the battlefield. The sound of his stomach growling caught his attention, telling him that he needed to eat soon.

Casey drove past the Gettysburg National Cemetery and pulled into a gas station at an intersection where Emmitsburg Road met with the former Baltimore Pike. All three of them clambered out of the truck, taking the babies with them.

“Okay,” Casey said after he pulled his phone out of his pocket and read a text from Seamus, “Shay said he’s gonna meet us here in a minute while the others look for somewhere to eat. He wants to go look around town for a bit,” he quickly typed back a message and sent it.

Not long afterwards, Gabriel waved when he saw Seamus across the street, walking their way. He checked the traffic before running across the street to their location. The Dawson’s then made their way up the street toward the Jennie Wade Winery where they were joined by Sean and Ava. It looked as if they had already been inside the winery since Ava held a brown paper sack with a skinny bottle top sticking out of the top of it. Apparently they were going to do some drinking that night when they got back to camp.

  “We got a little time, so let’s go explore,” Sean led the way with the others behind him, looking around at the old buildings and souvenir shops as they passed them.

While walking around the streets of Gettysburg and appearing amazed by how many tourists were out and about, Gabriel, Kate, Seamus, Casey, Sean and Ava decided to check out some of the historical buildings around the town, including many of the souvenir shops. After leaving one of the souvenir shops, Gabriel led them down the street as if he knew the town by the back of his own hand. It didn’t take them long to reach the intersection where Casey had parked the truck at the gas station, and then they veered off to the left, heading down Baltimore Street toward Evergreen Cemetery. They passed a tall hotel, which looked out of place amongst the historic buildings, but as soon as they passed the hotel, Gabriel stopped in front of a small red-bricked building that had a statue of a young woman carrying a loaf of bread and a water pitcher standing in the front flowerbed. The rest of them followed suit.

“What’s this place, honey?” Kate questioned while admiring how quaint the building was.

“This, a mhuirnín,” Gabriel gestured proudly toward the building, “is the Jennie Wade House… the site of the only civilian casualty in Gettysburg. She, her mother, and her two brothers had come to this house once the fighting started on July first. While they were here, they helped to take care of her sister’s newborn baby, which had been born a few days prior. On the morning of July third, Jennie was at the stove baking bread when a bullet went through two doors and struck her through the heart, killing her instantly. The bullet was later found in her corset. She was only twenty-years-old when she was killed.”

“I still think that is so sad that she died so young,” Ava commented as she read the plaque at the base of the statue.

“Now,” Gabriel turned in the direction of the cemetery, and pointed, “Her final resting place is in Evergreen Cemetery, along with her boyfriend, Jack Skelly, who died after her without ever knowing she had been killed.”

Kate eyed her husband suspiciously, “Is this place haunted?”

A laugh escaped his lips, “This whole town and surrounding battlefield is haunted, what are you talking about? It’s Gettysburg, honey… the ultimate playground for the paranormal,” he started to walk around the house to the side closest to the hotel, and stopped in front of a red door, “and this is where the bullet went through.”

They could see a nickel-sized hole on the far right of the door, right at waist level. Seamus leaned over to look through the hole and saw another door on the inside with a hole through it, and right behind it was an old stove. When he backed away, they each took turns peering through the bullet hole.

“I see some kind of plaque on the door in there,” Casey remarked while still bent over.

Gabriel nodded, “There is an old wives tale that if you are single and you stick your ring finger through the hole, you’ll get engaged or married within a year,” he slapped his cousin on the back, making Casey look up, “Seeing as you’re the only one here without a woman, it can’t hurt to give it a go.”

“Well, what about Seamus? He doesn’t have one.”

“I’m in the process. We’ve been talking on Facebook for a while,” Seamus responded with a grin.

“S**t,” he bent back over and carefully slid the ring finger of his left hand through the hole.

Sean chuckled, adding, “Don’t forget to make a wish.”

Casey closed his eyes for a moment as he silently wished to find a woman to date. As soon as he was done, he opened his eyes and stood up, but when he went to move away from the door he realized that his finger wasn’t budging from the hole. Putting his other hand on the door to give him some leverage, Casey tried pulling again, but still nothing. The hell?

“Are you coming, Casey?” Seamus questioned as the others started to walk away.

Casey looked back at them, his eyes wide with shock, “I can’t get me finger out!”

By then, Gabriel had made his way over and shook his head in exasperation when he saw his cousin’s finger stuck in the hole, “You are the only dumbass I know who can get their finger stuck in a door.”

“It wasn’t me fault!” Casey gave another useless tug, “Well, what do you think we should do?”

Gabriel thought about some options before he turned to the rest of the group, “Does anyone have a knife?”

All of them looked around at each other, expecting someone to respond. Some of them felt around in their pockets in hopes of finding a pocketknife, but the search was in vain… until Seamus reached into his boot and pulled out a foot-long double-edged Arkansas Toothpick, much to everyone’s surprise; they weren’t going to question why he was walking around with a giant knife stuffed in his boot.

“Will this do?” He asked as he handed the blade to his brother.

“Oh, good. You’re going to make the hole bigger so I can get me finger out,” Casey felt relief wash over him.

“Negative,” Gabriel turned the knife over and over in his hand, “I’m not in the mood to go to prison for destroying a national landmark… I’m just going to cut your finger off so we can get out of here.”

Casey’s eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed, “If you even think about cutting off me finger, I will choke you while you sleep.”

Without saying a word, Gabriel handed the knife back to Seamus and answered his phone, which had started to ring rather obnoxiously. I’ve got to change this ringtone to something less annoying; something like ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’. “Yes, mother… Well, Casey managed to get his finger stuck in the bullet hole at the Jennie Wade House… Yes, I know he’s a dumbass,” Gabriel shot a look in his cousin’s direction, “… I have no idea how we’re going to get him out of the door… We’ve already tried that, Mom. He won’t let us cut his finger off… Alright, we’ll meet you guys at the pizza parlor as soon as we get Fat Finger Fred unstuck from the door… Okay, Mom, see ya in a bit,” he put his phone back in his pocket after hanging up.

Another five minutes passed while everyone thought of ways to get Casey free from the door. Sean suggested going inside the house from another door to push his finger out, but the house had already been locked up for the evening. Kate thought about one of the guys getting behind Casey and pulling, but all of the men dismissed that idea for the fact that it would make them appear gay.

Eventually, Casey spoke up, “Ah ‘ight, I got this… Does anyone have any Astroglide?”

“Casey, why would any of us be walking around with lubricant in our pockets? None of us have that problem where we’d need it,” Seamus remarked.

“Well, we need something wet,” Casey looked over at Ava and Kate, who were leaning against the fence inspecting their nails, “Which one of you fine ladies would like to get horny?”

Kate stepped over to him with her jaw clenched and slapped him across the face; she knew what he was insinuating and was not about to agree to it no matter how long he remained stuck in the door, “Does that answer your retarded question?”

“It was just a thought! Gabriel, control your wife.”

Gabriel smirked, “Kate, slap him again.”

“No!” Casey shouted, at that point ready to claw his arm off.

A few minutes later, Sean ran down to the gas station where they had parked the truck in hopes of finding something to help them get Casey out of the door. He walked down the aisle where the feminine hygiene products were and picked up a small bottle of Summer’s Eve before heading up to the counter to pay. While he was checking Sean out, the clerk gave him an odd look.

“It’s not for me, I swear.”

As soon as he had paid for the bottle, he took off in the direction of the Jennie Wade House. When he arrived, the others were still thinking up ways to get Casey out of the door. As for Casey, he sat on the ground with his back against the door and his arm twisted up behind him, a frustrated look on his face.

“Here! This should work!” Sean tossed the bottle of cleansing wash to Gabriel, who took a quick look at it before popping open the lid, but Casey stopped him right as he was about to squeeze it over his hand.

“Oh, hell no!” he objected as soon as he realized what Sean had bought at the gas station, “I am not about to smell like a woman’s d****e for the rest of the day.”

The others in the group waited by the fence, ready to just walk away and leave Casey stuck in the door. He would be found the next morning when they opened the Jennie Wade House back up and they’d return him back to the campsite. How they’d free him from the door wasn’t really a concern to them anymore. Even Gabriel was ready to walk away, only his was for a very good reason. The unmistakable feeling of a full bladder crept up on him with the only bathroom back at the gas station. If he didn’t leave soon he’d have to seek out a new pair of jeans.

“I’m gonna have to leave you guys for a bit. Gabe’s got to tinkle…” He started off in the direction of the gas station. That was his intention before Casey called after him.

“ Hey! Come over here and pee on me hand!”

Gabriel turned around to stare at his cousin incredulously; his cousin got kinkier and kinkier every time he saw him, “You want me to do what?”

Casey leaned against the door in a squatting position while bracing his left arm with his right. He could feel that arm lose feeling as it had gone numb from him sitting on the ground with it being twisted over his head, “Pee on me hand. It’s the only way we’re going to get me out of this damn door. Please!”

I’m never going to let him live this one down! Trying to hide the huge smirk on his face from the humiliating end to Casey’s epic fail, Gabriel sauntered over to his cousin, already unzipping his jeans in preparation. At that point he didn’t care where he emptied his bladder, but the situation would make the go all the more enjoyable, “Alright now, none of you better be looking at Little Gabe,” keeping his back turned to the others, he aimed for the finger stuck in the bullet hole and forced himself to relax enough to let mother nature take over.

Casey wiggled his hand around in different directions in hopes that their last ditch effort worked. If not, he’d be spending the night hanging from a door. At first the two men had their doubts when nothing happened, but Casey’s finger slowly started to work itself free. In order to move things along and help him out, Seamus wrapped his arms around Casey’s waist before pulling back on him. By then he didn’t care if they looked like a bunch of gay friends rubbing on each other, he just wanted to eat. When Gabriel was nearly done, he grabbed a hold of Casey’s wrist and pulled on it at the same time Seamus pulled back on the other male. There was a sucking sound as his finger was freed from the hole, and the force at which it happened sent Seamus and Casey flying back into the fence. Everyone cracked up in a fit of laughter, including Gabriel, who had just rejoined Kate after fixing his jeans.

“Can we go eat now? My stomach is about ready to gnaw its way out of me,” Ava tapped her foot impatiently while waiting for the men to compose themselves.

All of them started off in the direction of Tommy’s Pizza without bothering to clean the door off. They would just let the park rangers take care of that.

 

The older members of the family had saved them seats at a large table inside of the pizza parlor. They had ordered a large supreme pizza, which everyone dug right into. Not a word passed around the group for a long time until Mae became curious about how they finally rescued Casey from the door. She would later regret asking what had happened to Casey.

“So, how did they manage to get you unstuck, Casey?”

Her nephew forced a lump of food down and replied, “Gabe went onesies on me hand.”

“I hope you washed that hand before eating… So, what do you have to say about putting your finger in that door in the first place?” She took a drink from her water as she waited for his explanation.

“That was the tightest hole I have ever had me finger in,” Casey said, stuffing the crust of his pizza slice into his mouth.

In reaction to his answer, Mae sprayed her mouthful of water onto the table; Seamus nearly choked on his bite of pizza along with Ava, who turned a bright shade of red in embarrassment; Gabriel fell out of his chair onto the floor, making Sean laugh at him; Casey’s father and Rob just sat there in their seats, shaking their heads in utter amazement that Casey had even said something like that out loud; and Kate brought her forehead down to the tabletop where she thumped it repeatedly in hopes of giving herself a concussion. It was obvious that the Dawson’s couldn’t be a normal family, especially with Casey’s crude ways.

“What? Did I say something?” He looked around at the others, and then went to grab another slice of the pizza.

The rest of their dinner turned out to be rather peaceful despite Casey’s comment at the beginning of their meal. Once they had their bellies full, they loaded back up to head to their campsite to finish organizing their belongings how they wanted them. It was quite a beautiful evening, perfect for a stroll through the suttlery. But first things were first…