Chapter 4 - Preparing for Battle

I spent the rest of the day preparing. I had long ago decided to go as Zorro. Firstly, coz Zorro was quick and cunning as a coyote. More important, coz Zorro wore black.    

I considered the outfit lying on my bed. I had to concede Ma had done a pretty good job this year. Everything from boots to bandana was the perfect shade of midnight black. She hadn’t been able to find silver buttons like she wanted, opting instead for black as well, which suited me jus’ fine. The black sombrero was a little small and wonky, but I had already decided to ditch it in favor of the bandana when the time came. The bullwhip I wasn’t too sure about. Despite days of practicing, I still couldn’t get it to tie itself around a tree branch the way Zorro could. As an instrument of escape, it was next to useless, but I could at least crack it good and proper. And that might, that jus’ might be enough to keep Grendel at bay long enough if the need arose. The stick rapier was definitely useless. Might as well try and stab a bear to death with a pencil for all the good that would do. But I would take it anyway cause it looked alright, and Ma had gone through the trouble.  

My real dilemma was what to do with my jars. The one I would need shortly. The other, I figured, was too darn risky to bring, but I also didn’t want to leave it behind. My folks had already drawn their fair share of low luck, and the thought of Ma maybe finding and opening it left me cold. In the end, I wrapped each in a rag and stashed both in the bottom of my school rucksack, which had been emptied for the evening’s adventures, along with the bullwhip and bandana. Then, I went over my plan. 

As challenger, I was code-bound to go first. If I was successful, Norman’d have to equal or better me to retain his Battalion ranking. The code was Chester’s idea and had been in force for two years now. One Saturday back when they were ten, fed up with Chester always running the show, Maurice had briefly wrestled the leadership away from him. The fight had been vicious. Vicious and quick.

Maurice, bigger and heavier, had floored a surprised Chester with a roundhouse slap, then proceeded to grab his hair while straddling his back and mash his face into the dirt. Chester had bucked and squirmed for all he was worth, at one point almost throwing Maurice. But Maurice had cleverly yanked Chester’s left arm out from under him and twisted it up between his shoulder blades. With his face scraped to beef, his nose gushing blood, and no way out of the jam he was in, Chester had tapped out. When he got to his feet, his eyes were streaming. The first and only time I’ve ever seen him cry. He said it was just water on account of his nose being bashed. But I wasn’t so sure. I reckon some of that water was tears, but not tears of pain. Something else I couldn’t quite figure at the time. He said nothing, but his black eyes burned like coals the whole way home. 

For the next week, Maurice called the shots, with whole afternoons given over to marchin’ and drillin’ and diggin’ trenches and other dumb grunt stuff. Chester swallowed his medicine silently along with the rest of us, but I could see he was still burning. Hotter, if anything. It came as no surprise to me then when the very next Saturday, Chester, his face scabbed brown and his backside still striped blue from Pa’s belt, squared up to our new General. 

Maurice had all but licked his lips. “Something to say, Colonel Miller?” he had asked. That was as far as he got before Chester was on him. Maurice took that initial onslaught manfully, and it wasn’t long before he had Chester on the ground and in pretty much the same armlock. For a moment, it looked like things might go the same way as before. But Chester pulled a move I’d never seen. Later, I found out he’d learned it from Roach. He twisted out from under Maurice, and the next thing, his legs were wrapped around Maurice’s waist while his arms had Maurice’s neck in a chokehold. At first, Maurice’s face went red. And then it went white-blue. He panicked and slapped the ground, and we could see he was trying to beg mercy. But Chester wouldn’t give him the air. Just kept squeezing until Maurice’s eyes began to roll. 

If Jaybee hadn’t been there…well, it’s a good thing he was. He screamed at Chester that he was killin’ him. And Chester, for once, listened. He rolled off Maurice and got to his feet. But Maurice stayed face down for a long time, mewlin’ and shakin’ like I don’t know what. 

After that, Chester came up with the code. Any man could challenge the man above once a month for the right to outrank him. Challenges had to be physical. Something a soldier would use in a battle. Speed, strength, hand-to-hand combat, and the like. Not who could beat who in a spelling bee, otherwise Maurice or Norman would’ve been bottom dog for sure. Losers could only challenge to reclaim their rank the following month, and only if they hadn’t outright refused the winner’s challenge in the first place. ‘You can’t fight for a title from outside the ring’, as Chester put it. 

For a while, things had gotten interesting, but it wasn’t too long before the natural order returned. As things now stood, the chain of command was Chester, Maurice, Jaybee, Norman, and then me. Though technically, I had yet to earn my Battalion stripes. 

But tonight, I would.

Norman had frowned when I’d challenged him after school the day before. He’d been even less pleased to learn the nature of the challenge. Bravery.

For all his skinny silence, I had long suspected Norman chose to punch below his weight in the Battalion, although I couldn’t figure why. For sure, he could outrun, outclimb, and out-wrestle me, but I was damned if he would out-guts me. Of course, I knew he could, and probably would, just challenge me right back in a month’s time, betting on his own superior abilities. But my plan was to make it known that each of my challenges would require more guts than the last. I was gonna out-guts my way through all of ‘em. Even Chester. In this crowd, it was the only card I had.