"Looks to me like an advance guard of them New York Stonewalls," one of his trusty raiders muttered.
"He does have that look about him. Not exactly swishy, but them's certainly faggy garments."
"'ppears to be a chore for Colonel Dixie," said Narvel Boggs, hitching up his golden sash and striding forth to meet the walking insult, the good ground of Virginia quaking with his tread, his black eyes striking intimidating sparks like twin meteors streaking toward his foemen.
On the way he passed the impossibly old Asian, who greeted him. "Hail, O illustrious general of the South."
"One side, slope," growled Colonel Dixie, who threw his protective cloak around the fair flower of Southern womanhood and the cream of Dixie manhood, but no other persons.
In that moment Colonel Dixie, the Meteor of the Second Civil War, stood poised on the brink of eternity. And never dreamed it. The face that launched a thousand comic books, TV cartoons, lunch boxes, coloring books and CD-ROM games stood a hairbreadth away from being peeled from its skull by a flurry of exceptionally long fingernails, when from a screen of trees just west of the Crater came a bloodcurdling battle cry.
"HURRRAAAH!"
And out of the pines came a wave of blue uniforms pushing shot and smoke and the stirring storm of battle ahead of it.
The deadly fingernails withdrew.
And the Third Battle of the Crater was under way.
Chapter 11
The California Summer Vacation Musketeers poured out of the trees, screaming like banshees, fully two hundred strong. They wore Union blue, with light blue infantry piping, and welded assorted muskets, including Maynard rifles, Brown Bess shotguns and Sharps carbines.
For a frozen moment the Unified Confederate Disunion Alliance stood rooted, the Sixth Virginia Foot, Stonewall Detachment of the Virginia National Guard and Colonel Dixie's Raiders alike. Down Crater Road the Kentucky Bootless Bluegrass Band skidded to a callused stop, hesitated and then came pounding up, venting a whooping rebel yell that froze the blood.
Over the din a lone voice called, "Prepare for action, men!"
It was the ringing clarion voice of Captain Royal Wooten Page, CSA. He clambered atop a tank and spearing his plumed bicorne hat on a cavalry saber, leaped fearlessly into the fray, waving it aloft for all to see. "Follow me!" he cried.
He got about a dozen feet before the dashing figure of Colonel Dixie swept in, tripped him and appropriated his saber.
"For God and Dixie!" Colonel Dixie bellowed, slashing at the sky with the saber-speared hat. "Not necessarily in that order!"
All along the Union line officers followed suit, lifting their chapeaus high on their swords.
Drawn inexorably by ancient enmities their ancestors had believed laid to rest in a courthouse surrender at Appomattox, two opposing waves of men surged toward one another, collided and ran together like oil and water mixing.
At first the overwhelming Union numbers stood to take the day. But the Kentucky Bootless Bluegrass Band, recovering their muskets from the back seat of the car where they had been stashed, made a flanking maneuver and opened up with a withering enfilading fire that cut many a man down.
Unfortunately, due to the confused disposition of the opposing forces, they struck down nearly as many Confederate brethren as Union foes. History recorded it as a brilliant if desperate stroke, but of course the unwritten truth was that it was an equal mix of panic and sheer idiocy.
From other quarters reinforcements put in their appearance.
The First Massachusetts Interpretive Cavalry, which had been hiding in the easternmost reaches of Petersburg National Battlefield, came slipping up to see what all the commotion was about. When they grasped the enormity of what their startled eyes beheld, they picked up stones and sticks and waded in.
The Louisiana Costume Zouaves also poured into Crater Field. They took one look and after some hesitation took the Union side of the engagement. Confusion ensued.
Confusion became a close-quarters tumult, and tumult gave way to a ferocious frenzy of clubbing and fisticuffs as the nearness of friend and foe alike precluded reloading of muzzle-loading rifles.
"BEHOLD, Remo," proclaimed the Master of Sinanju. "Your long-lost roots."
"Looks like a giant barroom brawl," Remo Williams remarked from the high ground of Cemetery Ridge.
Chiun narrowed his eyes to imperious knife slits. "Once begun, the madness of war cannot be halted."
"You saying there's nothing we can do?"
"The madness must be allowed to run its course."
"I'm for stepping in and stepping on toes."
"What will that accomplish?"
"You can fight or you can hop. But you can't hop and fight at the same time."
"True, but an army possesses toes in multitude. You have only two feet to stamp with."
"We can't let this go on all day."
"They are doing no more killing. See? The vultures have realized this and even now circle hungrily."
Remo looked up. TV news helicopters were beating near, camera lenses angling around like the electronic orbs of robotic voyeurs.
"Vultures is right," said Remo, picking up a rock and letting it fly. The stone whizzed skyward and bounced off a Plexiglas chopper cockpit. The cockpit spiderwebbed, turning white as snow. The pilot wrestled his ship to an open patch of turf. The other ships withdrew out of what they assumed to be the range of stray musket balls.
"I can't just watch," Remo said, starting down off the ridge.
"You can if you are on strike," Chiun pointed out.
"I'll strike in another way," Remo said, and moved into the fray.
"And I will help you, if only to hasten you along in your folly," sighed Chiun, following reluctantly.
MICKEY WEISINGER HEARD the not very distant thud and jostle of battle from the open clearing where Beasley technicians were laying great colorful swatches of silk on the grass as the hot-air engines began firing.
He said, "I think the shooting's died down."
"Our musketeers are under strict instructions to close with the enemy as quickly as possible so things don't get too bloody," Bob Beasley said affably. "After all, this is a media event."
"The radio says it's practically civil war."
"Think of it as a sort of a made-for-TV movie with light casualties."
The first balloon began to take shape. It was pink. They were all pink. Even the wicker baskets were painted a creamy pink. As the fabric filled, the smiling face of Monongahela Mouse, world-famous mascot of the Sam Beasley entertainment empire, swelled into merry life.
"That's your car," Bob Beasley said, guiding Mickey to the waiting basket. Beasley concepteers were fitting giant pink disks to each side of the basket, from which trailed insulated wires.
"What the hell are these things?" Mickey wanted to know.
"Mongo's ears."
"Mongo's ears are black. These are pink. Hot pink."
Bob Beasley chuckled. "You don't know how right you are."
"Huh?"
"Just climb in."
Mickey clambered in, finding himself standing amid a profusion of wiring and stacked car batteries.
Other balloons filled with hot air, revealing the faces of Dingbat Duck, Mucky Moose and other famous Beasley characters. All were smiling the identical vacant grin that, market researchers informed Mickey Weisinger when he'd first ordered them redesigned, people interpreted according to their own moods. And since they reflected each person's mood exactly, they could not be improved on.
Every basket was fitted with four pink Mongo Mouse ears, like lollipops made from frozen pink lemonade, so no matter what angle they were viewed from, the famous mouse ears jutted unmistakably. As he looked closely, Mickey realized that they were transparent plastic, like lenses. Inside each ear networks of filaments and semiconductors formed electronic webs.