“I will!” Dan shouldered the musket and returned to the ranks.

The first thing he noticed was that the gun and the bullet box were heavy. The musket weighed a lot more than his bow-stave had. Maybe the bullet box wasn't heavier than the quiver full of arrows, but it packed its weight into much less space. Matchlock bullets were balls of lead, each one as thick as his thumb. They weren't so deadly as the long, pointed rounds Old Time rifles fired, but you still didn't want to stop one with your face or your chest.

Chuck snorted like his father when Dad was exasperated.

“Here-you wear them like this.” The sergeant put the bullet box on Dan 's belt. The ramrod went there, too. He looped the powder horn over Dan 's left shoulder. He wrapped the slow-match around Dan 's right upper arm. Dan knew where everything was supposed to go, but he'd never had to worry about it himself before. Now he did. Now he was a musketeer.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” he said. Chuck only snorted again. Dan asked, “Now when do I really get to shoot?”

“New musketeers will start practicing this afternoon.” Chuck answered. “These aren't like Old Time rifles. We make the guns and the bullets and the powder ourselves. They aren't gone forever once we use them up-we can get more whenever we need them. So you'll have plenty of practice.” His smile turned nasty, even for a sergeant's. “And you won't have any excuses for missing what you aim at, you hear?”

“Yes, Sergeant!” Dan said loudly. Saying Yes, Sergeant! as loud as you could was almost always the right answer.

Sure enough, the Valley army had set up a firing range not far from the archery targets. Chuck scowled at the men who stood in front of him, and at the uncertain way they held their matchlocks. “I'm supposed to turn you into proper musketeers?” he growled, rolling his eyes. “It's like asking me to turn a bunch of jackasses into racehorses, and that's the truth. But it's what they told me to do, so I've got to do it.”

Sergeants always said common soldiers were the dumbest things on two legs, so Dan didn't get uptight about one more insult. He'd heard too many. He knew they didn't mean much. If Chuck didn't say crude things about the men under him, he probably wouldn't know what to say.

“Ground your muskets!” he ordered, and held his vertically with the stock on the ground so they would know what he meant. '“Now pour a charge of powder!”

Dan had already discovered that the tip of the powder horn came off. It made a miniature horn, one that held a single charge of powder. He poured in the gunpowder, and then carefully poured it down the muzzle of his musket. One luckless fellow spilled his powder instead. Chuck reamed him up one side and down the other. Dan thanked heaven he hadn't goofed.

“Stuff in your wads!” Chuck said.

In the bullet box, along with the musket balls and a flask of priming powder, were little squares of cloth. Dan took one, folded it up. and stuffed it down the muzzle. He used the ramrod to force it down toward the bottom of the musket barrel.

“Now the bullet!” Chuck said. A couple of men laughed. Chuck glared at them. “Think it's funny, do you? When you're really fighting, you can forget. You can-unless you're trained so you do it right without thinking about it. Most of you lugs don't think real good anyway, so you better get it down pat.”

The bullet in Dan 's hand felt heavy, as if it meant business. It w^ras a tight fit when it went into the muzzle. It had to be, or the gas from the burning gunpowder would get around it and not push it forward.

Chuck used the ramrod again. “Ram that baby home,” he said. “Really ram it down there. Don't be shy-you've got to seat it firmly.”

Dan imitated him in that step as he had in the others. He felt the sweat spring out on his forehead as he thrust with the ramrod again and again. You could shoot arrows faster than musket balls. Musket balls carried farther, though. And you were supposed to need less practice once you got the hang of using a matchlock, too.

Once you did, yeah. Till you did…

“Fix your match in the serpentine,” Chuck commanded. The swiveling piece that brought the match down onto the touch-hole had a groove into which the thick string would fit. “Leave a couple of inches sticking out. Now pour your priming powder into the touch-hole. Just a little, mind.”

The priming powder from the small flask in the bullet box was much more finely ground than the ordinary black powder in the powder horn. That made it burn faster and more reliably.

“Now if you were in battle, you'd already have your match burning, right?” Chuck said.

“Yes, Sergeant,” Dan chorused along with the rest of the new musketeers. When it rained, matchlocks weren't good for much. Luckily, that wasn't a worry very often in the Valley or on the Westside.

Chuck had a lighter-a real Old Time Zippo. “I have a devil of a time finding flints for this now, but I manage,” he said. He flicked the Zippo-and it lit. There was no more Old Time lighter fluid. He used strong spirits instead. The flame was blue and almost invisible. “Now nobody pull the trigger till I give the order, you hear?” he warned. “You'll be sorry if you do. Got it? Dig me?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Dan said again. Chuck walked along the line of musketeers, lighting one length of slowmatch after another. The smell of burning gunpowder didn't make Dan think of battle. It smelled like fireworks, and reminded him of the Fourth of July and of October 23, the day the Valley's first king broke away from Los Angeles after the Fire fell.

“All right!”' Chuck shouted. “Aim at the target!”

Along with the rest of the new musketeers, Dan did just that. It wasn't much more than a hundred yards away, but suddenly it seemed very small. He tried not to let his hands shake. He wanted a bulls-eye more than anything.

Chuck got behind the soldiers with the matchlocks before he gave his next order: “'Fire!”

Dan pulled the trigger. Down came the serpentine. The burning match set off the priming powder around the touch-hole. The priming powder hissed and fizzed. Half a heartbeat later, the main charge went off-Boom! The heavy matchlock bucked against Dan 's shoulder. Flame and a big puff of gray smoke burst from the muzzle.

“Wow!” Dan said, coughing from all the sulfurous smoke. When matchlocks fired a volley, they almost hid what they fired at. Was that where the phrase fog of war came from? Dan wouldn't have been surprised. But now he'd shot off a gun. He really and truly had. He felt proud enough to burst.

“Now its sale to stand in front of you people again,” Chuck said. “I'm going to go over to the target and see how you did.”

“We slaughtered 'em!” a musketeer said.

“Yeah!” Dan nodded. He thought so, too. If he hadn't put his musket ball right through the center of the target…

Chuck walked over, took the paper down from the mound of earth that caught bullets, and carried it back. “Three hits,” he said, displaying the target. It was a lot bigger close up. “Fifteen of you shooting at it, and three hits. Maybe the rest of you would've scared the bad guys a little. Maybe. But three out of fifteen! I know a matchlock's not a real accurate gun. Even so, you can do better than that. You can, and you will, or I'll know the reason why. Reload!”

As Dan started the complicated job of getting another bullet into the matchlock, he realized being a musketeer wasn't just an honor. Like anything else, it was a lot of work.

The first thing Liz noticed when she opened the door and saw Dan standing in the street was the matchlock on his shoulder. The second thing she noticed was how proud of himself he looked. She didn't laugh, though she wanted to. He would have got mad-she could see that.

“You had a bow before,” she said gravely.

“I got promoted,” he said. “I'm a musketeer now.”