She galloped right past the entrance to the ring, and I began to fear we'd be in Hanover before she slowed down, but after a minute or two she began to walk more sedately. I managed to pick up the reins and get the horse turned around. The stone farmhouse looked like a dollhouse from where we were.
“Nice and slow, girl. Nice and slow.” Maizie cooperated. I sat high in my saddle wishing Garnet could see me now. The horse seemed to know the way back to the barn without any assistance from me. Shortly, she brought me up to the back of one of the long block buildings I'd noticed earlier. There was a row of metal cages, and inside the cages were dozens of barking dogs. The breeding kennel! As Maizie carried me past, I saw these dogs were living in doggie paradise. Well-groomed dogs in clean cages. So different from what I'd seen at the Amish farm. There were Labs, some adorable beagles and golden retrievers, all the different kinds of outdoorsy dogs one would expect to find at an elegant farm like this.
Maizie took me back to the barn, where the other guests were already mounted and ready to go.
“Where did Maizie take you?” Charlotte asked.
“Just around that building,” I said, pointing to the kennel and not mentioning Maize had taken me on a fifty-mile detour. “Your dogs look very well cared for.”
“I told you not to go back there.”
“I didn't have any choice.” I patted Maizie between her ears.
“Let's go, we're holding up the others.”
I followed her quietly. I think I'd expected the hunting scene from the Albert Finney version of Tom Jones, with dogs chasing foxes and horns blaring, but this was not that kind of day. The horses set off across the fields, some galloping, some trotting, and some, like mine, walking sedately. Charlotte stayed next to me, as if she feared I'd fall off, which was a distinct possibility.
“Now we're crossing into the national park,” she pointed out as we came to a low wall built of heaped gray stones. “We're supposed to stay on the marked trails.” She pointed to a small brown-and-white picture of a horseback rider. “Don't go off alone. People frequently get lost here.”
She led the way, talking to me over her shoulder, pointing out things I never would have noticed if I'd been alone. “The stone walls were here before the battle, built with rocks the farmers cleared from their fields. Just imagine what it must have looked like here, with thousands of young men crouched behind these walls, firing at other young men just a few hundred yards away. We're in Pitzer's Wood, where General Longstreet had his troops on July second. There's an observation tower up ahead if you'd like to climb up and take a look at the area.”
“I'll skip it. I don't like heights,” I told her. “You are certainly knowledgeable about the battle.”
“It's hard not to be when you live here. And my husband was such a historian that he made it all quite real for me.”
“You must hate the idea of moving,” I said.
“I'm not going anywhere. Why did you think I'm about to move?”
“It was something someone said. The checkout clerk at Sheetz asked if I were going to buy the place. I assumed it was for sale.”
“Mack and I had talked about moving to Arizona for his health. Obviously there's no need for me to move now. Let's hurry. The others are already out of sight.”
“Don't you want to be up front with your friends?” I asked as we rode up a steep hill.
“Not really. They all know their way around the battlefield. You don't.”
We were now on a narrow trail, which wound through dense woods. “You can see how easy it would be to get lost,” she pointed out.
Despite the closely set trees, I saw a man walking slowly, holding something in front of him. He noticed us at about the same time, and ducked out of sight behind a tree.
“What do you suppose he's doing?” I asked.
“Poaching. That's a metal detector. He's looking for shallow graves to dig up and rob.”
“Isn't that illegal?”
“Of course it is, but people do it all the time. There's a lot of money to be made in selling things from the battlefield. In the old days, you didn't even have to dig. The stuff was lying all over the ground.” We were on a ridge, now, overlooking woods, fields, and rocky plains.
“That's Little Round Top,” she said, pointing to a hill. That rocky area beneath it is Devil's Den. And just to the side of it is the Wheatfield. There were more than four thousand dead and dying down there on the second day of the battle.”
I wanted to show I knew something about the Battle of Gettysburg, so I asked, “Where did Pickett's Charge take place?”
“Near the visitor center. That's where the High Water Mark is, the place where the South lost the war. After that, on July Fourth, Lee's army began to retreat.”
We rode downhill, through another heavily wooded area. This time, when we came out of the trees, we were not alone. There were two groups of about a dozen people each, gathered around picnic tables, but they didn't look like ordinary picnickers. Many in the first group carried American flags, others signs that said SPARE THE DEER AND NO MORE KILLING AT GETTYSBURG. The picketers in the second group carried signs that said HUNTERS DO IT WITH CLASS AND HUNTERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO. A man with silver hair in the first group looked up at us in surprise. He was no more surprised than I when I recognized Ken Nakamura.
Charlotte dismounted. “Let's stretch our legs a minute. I take it you two have met.”
Professor Nakamura walked over to us and bowed low to me. I did the best I could, bowing from the saddle on top of my horse. He inclined his head just slightly when he turned to Charlotte, a sign of disrespect that she didn't seem to recognize.
Before I dismounted, I took a look around to see if there was a wall or something nearby that I could stand on to get back on Maizie. I spotted a stone wall, about three feet high, and figured that would do.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Ken.
“Protesting the deer hunt. Every year, the park service sends out sharpshooters to thin the deer herd. We want to stop the heartless slaughter of these innocent animals. We try to post a presence every Saturday, at least until we're chased away.”
“And that other group?”
“Hunters who think they, and not the park's official gunmen, should be allowed in to shoot the deer.”
“Can we sit down, please?” Charlotte was fanning her face mask. “This thing is so damn hot. I feel like I've been sweating in a sauna.”
She perched on a boulder near the edge of the woods and patted a spot next to her. “Come sit down, Ken. We haven't talked since Christmas.”
He didn't move.
As if he forgot he was holding a flag, his fingers opened, and he dropped it. “I'll get it,” I said, stepping forward and bending over. I heard a cracking sound and something rushed past my left ear with a whistle. “What the-?”
Another crack off in the distance, caused me to turn back around. Ken Nakamura was on his knees, clutching at his chest. As I stared in disbelief, blood oozed between his fingers. He toppled sideways, and I dropped to the ground beside him.
“Get help,” I cried. The men and women from his group rushed over to us. “Someone's shot him.” I ripped off my jacket and was using it to stanch the flow of blood from his wound.
Even the pro-hunting group had gathered around us by now. With them there, I felt safer, for they protected us from more flying bullets.
“I called 911,” a woman said, showing me her cell phone. “So did I,” said half a dozen other people.
Ken was still conscious but was losing blood rapidly, and I feared for the worst. I kept pressure on the wound and hoped for a miracle. After what seemed like hours, but was in reality only a few minutes, a park ranger car pulled up, followed by an ambulance.