Well, how you think this broom got on my shoulder? All by itself? That’s what I wanted to say, but I looked at the ground. “Yessir, but I’m a hard worker, you’ll see.”
He unlocked the bolt on the door. “They’re cleaning muskets today. Stay out of their way. When you’re done, tap on the door and I’ll let you out.”
I stepped inside. The door slammed. The bolt clicked.
Standing there, trying to get my bearings through the gloom, I sniffed mold and linseed oil and the rancid smell of cooped-up air. Two guards were on the far side with their backs to me, taking a musket apart under one of the windows—all the pieces spread out on a table. One of them turned and said, “It’s Hilde.”
I didn’t clear up the mistake. I started sweeping.
The Arsenal was a single room filled with weapons. My eyes roved over everything. Kegs of gunpowder were stacked in the middle halfway to the ceiling. Arranged neat along the walls were wooden racks filled with muskets and pistols, heaps of cannon balls, and in the back, dozens of wooden chests.
I kept the broom going, working my way round the whole floor, hoping the swish-swish covered the loud, ragged way my breath was coming. The guards’ voices came and went in echoes.
This one could fire on the half-cock. See the mainspring on the hammer? It’s gone bad.
Make sure the ramrod head is tight and there’s no rust on it.
When I was blocked from their view behind the powder kegs, my breath eased up. I got out the feather duster. One by one, I brushed the tops of the wooden chests, pausing each time to look over my shoulder before lifting the lid to peek inside. I found cow horns with leather straps. A tangle of iron hand cuffs. Bars of lead. Pieces of thin rope I guessed to be fuses. But no bullet molds.
Then I noticed an old snare drum propped up against the wall, and behind it was another chest. Picking my way over to it, my lame foot upset the drum, and whamblam, it hit the floor.
Here came the boots stomping. I grabbed the duster and the feathers twitched and shook in my hand like they’d come alive.
The guard yelled at me. “What was that racket?”
“This drum right here fell over.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not Hilde.”
“No, she turned sick. I’m filling in.”
He had a long piece of metal in his hand from the musket. He pointed it at the drum. “We don’t need that sort of carelessness in here!”
“Yessir, I’ll take care.”
He went back to work, but my heart had been beat to butter.
I opened the chest where the drum had leaned and there must’ve been ten bullet molds inside. I pulled out two, slow so they wouldn’t clink, and stuck them in my basket under the rags.
Then I swept the air clean of cobwebs and wiped down the gun racks with oil. When I had the place good as Hilde would’ve done it, I gathered my stuff and tapped on the door.
“Don’t forget the latrine,” the guard at the door said, thumbing toward the rear of the Arsenal.
I headed back there, but I walked right past it and kept going.
That night in my room, I found a little piece of cobweb in my hair. I took a towel and rubbed myself clean, then lay down on top of the story quilt, remembering the smile on Denmark’s face when I’d showed up and pulled a bullet mold from my basket. When I drew out the second one, he’d slapped his leg and said, “You might be the best lieutenant I got.”
I waited for sleep, but it didn’t come. After a while, I went and sat on the back porch steps. The yard was quiet. I eyed the room over the carriage house and wondered if Goodis had looked for me after supper. He would be asleep now. Denmark, too. I was the only one up, worrying about the bowl on the end of the bullet mold, the place they pour the lead. How many people would those musket balls kill? I might’ve passed one of them on the street today. I might pass one tomorrow. I might pass a hundred people who would die cause of me.
The moon was round and white, sitting small at the top of the sky. It seemed the right size to sit in the bowl on the bullet mold. That was what I wished. I wished for