“What kind are those?” she asked.
He started to fumble for words, again.
She liked him when he was confident, but she found him charming when he fumbled for words.
“It’s okay, just bring ’em,” she said.
“I just…I think you should learn to shoot a few guns,” though he couldn’t think of a reason why.
“You said that,” she said.
“I know,” he said because there was nothing else to say. “But we can’t do too much shooting because every round we shoot is a round I can’t replace—except for reloading. And even then I have just so many bullets, shot, primers, and powder.”
“Okay.”
He opened the door and stepped aside to let her go out first. Stupid was waiting for them.
“Wait,” he said and he ran back into the cabin and disappeared in one of the bedrooms.
When he returned he had a cardboard box and a blanket in one hand and two sets of ear protectors, the ones shooters often call ‘Mickey Mouse ears,’ along with a set of binoculars, in his other.
“What’s the box for?” she asked.
“Whoops; I don’t want her too close to the shooting. It’s bad for her ears. We’ll put her in the box on a blanket. With that and the snowsuit…” he paused.
“…she’ll be warm,” Danielle said finishing his sentence.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” she said.
The man who had shot four people in the field was falling apart over her and her sister, right before her eyes. She was fascinated.
Zach put the box in the snow in a sunny spot away from the cabin. “She’ll get some sun here, but not in her eyes,” he said. “Vitamin D…sunlight,” he added pointing to the sky.
He seemed so awkward that Danielle wanted to laugh, but she didn’t. “That sounds good,” she said.
After they made Whoops comfortable he trod through the snow and hung a target on a stump about twenty feet distant and three more targets, one above another, on an old dead tree about twenty-five yards away. When he returned he took one set of “ears” and started to put them on her.
She stood still and let him.
“Adjust them so they’re comfortable on you,” he said.
She adjusted her hair around them and watched him in anticipation as he put the other set on himself.
“Do you have the Model 60?” he asked.
There was some hesitation until she reached into her pocket and took the handgun out and pointed it at him.
With his left hand he pushed the gun away from himself.
“The first thing you’ve got to learn is not to point the gun at anyone, unless you intend to shoot them.”
“Sorry,” she said.
His awkwardness had suddenly disappeared. In her eyes it was almost like a personality change taking place within him. He was back on his turf, now. He was sure of himself with the guns, just as he had been with his canning and jerking of the meat. She liked that about him.
“Don’t let it happen again,” he said.
“I won’t,” she said and she smiled.
He didn’t.
“Let me have it,” he said.
She did.
He opened the cylinder, unloaded it, and reloaded it with some rounds from his pocket.
“These are lighter loads I’ve loaded myself. They’re thirty-eights.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing to me,” she said.
“Doesn’t have to, right now. But it will, someday.”
“Ya think, huh?”
He ignored that and held the gun out for her to examine and he asked, “Do you see how there’s a groove in the top of the frame of this gun?”
“Yes.”
“It’s what they call a fixed sight.” He handed it back to her and said, “Hold the gun up so you’re looking down the groove to the end of the barrel where the front sight is.”
She did.
“Are you looking at the front sight through the groove?”
“Yes.”
“Get the top of the front sight level with the two sides of the groove.”
“Okay,” she said.
“If you look beyond the front sight, that’s about where the bullet’s going to go if you fire the gun now, as long as you keep the back sight—which is that groove, the front sight, and the target lined up.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“Yes. At least at the range we’ll be shooting. But I want you to hold it with two hands so you’re comfortable. With a two-handed grip you can aim and control it better.”
“So, once the back sight and front sight are lined up, even if I move the gun, wherever it’s aimed, that’s where the bullet is going?”
“That’s right.”
He turned her toward the target and stood behind her.
“See the target that’s closest? Aim for that.”
She brought the revolver up.
“Wait!” he said. “Cock it.”
She looked back at him and he knew she didn’t know the meaning of the term ‘cock.’
“Pull the hammer back.”
She smiled.
“You did this the first night at the cabin,” he said reminding her of when she had threatened to shoot him. He reached around her with both hands, cradled her hands with his left and, with his right thumb he pulled the hammer all the way back. Her hands were soft and warm.
He took his hands away.
“Now that it’s cocked, it will take very little for the gun to go off. When you have the target in your sights, pull the trigger very gently and…”
The gun went off. He could see a hole in the eight-ring.
“Cock it once more and shoot again.”
She pulled the hammer back and seconds later he could see a hole in the nine-ring.
“That’s actually pretty good,” he said.
“When you cock it and shoot it, it’s called single-action mode. This time I want you to try aiming and shooting it in what’s called double-action mode. Instead of cocking it, just pull the trigger. It’s going to be harder and not as accurate.”
“Then why do it?”
“When shooting in self-defense, you don’t always have the luxury of the time to cock it, first. Sometimes, you have to get the shots off as quickly as you can while still trying to be accurate. But shooting in double-action mode will not be as accurate.
“There are three shots left in this gun. Aim—quickly—and just pull the trigger—three times—while trying to shoot as accurately as you can.”
She began to pull the trigger and stopped, but let the trigger go back to its original position and said, “The gun moved a little bit when I started pulling the trigger.”
“That’s why it’s not as accurate to shoot this way. Let me tell you a story. I don’t put much stock in cowboy stories, but did you ever hear of a guy named Wyatt Earp?”
“I think I saw a movie about him and his brothers.”
Zach nodded. “Well, there’s a story about him. It may be apocryphal, but someone is supposed to have once asked him how you were supposed to act in a gunfight and he replied, ‘Take your time…in a hurry.’”
She laughed. “That’s funny, but it sounds true at the same time. You’d be scared in a situation like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Scared and, if you’re not careful, reckless,” he said.
“Scared and shitless,” she corrected him. “So, you want me to take my time in a hurry,” she added.
“Another thing he is reputed to have said is, ‘Speed is good, but accuracy is final.’”
“Sort of the same thing in different words,” she said and smiled at him. Then she turned and started to bring the revolver up but hesitated again and looked back at him. “What’s ‘apocryphal’ mean?”
He liked her sense of curiosity. First it was about what he was canning; now it was about the words. “Fictitious; something that may not be true.”
She aimed and fired three fairly qu
ick shots. The first hit the five-ring and the other two missed the target completely and dug up some snow near the stump.
“That’s okay.”
“It was lousy,” she countered.
“It was good for the first time. You just need practice.”
“Will you let me try it in the future?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said with conviction. But what could she possibly mean by “the future” when she was leaving today, or at the latest, by tomorrow? It seemed like it was the right time to ask her to stay, but how could he when the last one, his wife, killed herself when he tried to make her stay? The words wouldn’t come out.
He asked her for the gun and he thought their fingers seemed to linger on each other’s longer than necessary, as if they were trying to intertwine with each other. He asked himself, how that could happen without her being aware of it? How could it be so provocative to him, yet, from what he could tell, it meant nothing to her? How could she be so oblivious? Did she realize how she was making him feel?
He reloaded the gun with the .357 rounds and pocketed the .38 brass. Then he picked up a big rifle, ejected the en bloc clip, and said, “This is an old M1 Garand. It’s the rifle used by this country in World War Two, Korea, and even in the early days of Vietnam.”
As he went to put another clip in, she pointed to the one he’d removed and asked, “How come those bullets have black tips, but the ones you’re putting in don’t?”
Holding the black-tipped cartridges up he said, “These are M-2 armor-piercing rounds. They have a carbide insert that’ll go through a lot of barriers, including a measured amount of steel, and still do destruction. The regular ammunition…” He held up the other clip. “… is called M-2 Ball, and it’s pretty powerful and it’ll probably do enough damage to a vehicle’s engine to stop it. But the armor-piercing makes it more certain.”
“That’s why you got it? To stop cars and trucks?”
“That’s part of the reason. I once read that during World War Two the American troops in Europe complained that their ammo was useless against German personnel carriers. The personnel carriers had armor plating. Not much, but enough to stop the M-1 ball.”
“M-2 ball,” she corrected him.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant…The military started equipping soldiers at the front with this stuff and it did seem to even up the score a little.”
“You’ve got stories about everything, haven’t you?”
He nodded.
“So, it’s more apt to shoot through something?” she asked.
He nodded, again.
“How do you know all this stuff?” she asked.
“I read a lot and I remember a lot of what I read.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
“I remember saying it, too.”
She laughed, again.
“Let me see ’em?” she said pointing to the armor piercing ammunition.
He handed her the clip and their fingers were briefly all over each other and he started to crave more of that skin-on-skin contact with her.
He took the clip back and pocketed it. “This isn’t all that easy to shoot. First, it’s heavy. Second, you have to put the clip in like this…” And he began to push it in. “…and force it down with your thumb, and get your thumb out of the way before it gets mashed…” And he let the bolt slam forward driving a round into the breech. “Third, it’s going to kick quite a bit until you get used to it.”
He clicked on the safety and handed her the rifle.
She took it and gave him a deadpan look. “It’s heavy.”
“That’s what I said.”
“But it’s heavy.”
He smiled.
He turned her around.
“Bring it up,” he said, “aim, and try shooting at the topmost target.”
She started to raise the rifle. “It’s heavy.”
“Use your trigger finger to push the safety forward.”
She tried to push it forward. “It’s hurting my finger.”
“Yeah.”
She lowered the rifle. “It’s heavy, it’s going to try to eat my thumb when I load it, it’s going to break my finger when I try to push the safety off, and it’s going to beat me up when I try to shoot it. I want to try shooting something that’s nice to me. Why’d you get it, anyway?”
“Did you say all that without taking a breath?”
“Yes. So, why’d you get it?”
“I got three of them. They’re old, but they’re very durable, reliable, accurate, fire a good round—and, ‘back in the day,’ I could get surplus ammo for it that was cheap, spare parts that were plentiful, and they’re almost as good as a lot of rifles that would have cost me three and four times as much. So, I got three of these instead of one of those.”
“It’s heavy,” was her reply, but she smiled and asked, “Can I try another one?”
“Sure. But this one kicks, too.”
He handed her the Remington 870 and their fingers met, again. They both acted as if nothing had happened.
“This is lighter,” she said with a big smile.
“That’s going to make it harder to shoot; the lighter the firearm, the more you feel the recoil.”
“I wanna shoot it.”
“Okay.”
“It looks mean,” she said.
“It is.”
“Have you ever shot anyone with it?” she asked.
He thought she was almost turned on by the thought of it. This, from the girl who had just recently said she hated guns.
“No,” he replied. “But, if I had my druthers, and barring someone wearing body armor, at close range I’d rather have this in my hands than anything else.”
“What kind of gun is it?”
“It’s a 12-gauge shotgun.”
“Isn’t this the kind of gun that you shoot from one side of the street and wipe out everyone on the other side?”
“Only in the movies. I’ve got various loads for birds and small game, but there isn’t much use for them, now. I’ve also got some that have slugs; good for big game…”
“Not much of that either…” she said, but looked at the dog, “…except for you, Stupid.”
The dog’s ears went up at the sound of his name.
Zach smiled. She wasn’t going to let go of his past intention to off the dog and can him.
He continued, “Like I said, they’re good for big game, if you can get close enough for an accurate shot. For self-defense, if you hit a guy in the torso with one of these it’s pretty much sayonara.
“But the round I like best for it is the double-ought buck. One shot at close range sends nine balls, each the diameter of a .33 caliber bullet, at about thirteen hundred twenty-five feet a second, and they hit all at once. It’s like shooting someone nine times, all at once, with a .32 caliber pistol.”
“How much do they scatter?” she asked.
“With the double-ought, the spread is about one inch for every yard. So, at six feet it’s like a two-inch circle. At fifteen feet they make about a five inch circle. At the range we’re shooting, twenty-five yards, figure it’ll be about two-feet wide.”
“That rocks. I wanna shoot it,” she said giddily.
“It kicks.”
“I don’t care.”
It entered his mind, again, that she was getting aroused. But, just as quickly as the thought entered his mind, he dismissed it. She was leaving.
He stepped up behind her and helped guide the butt of the weapon to her shoulder and his left wrist accidentally met with her left breast. He took it away, but she hadn’t flinched and she didn’t say anything.
“Hold it tight against your shoulder. It’s going to come back hard and, if the butt isn’t snug against your shoulder it’s going to hurt like hell.
“It’s going to hurt anyway,” he added, “but shooting it right lessens the pain.”
“Does it hurt you?”
He thought a second. “Not any more. You shoot it a few ti
mes…actually, a few days…and your brain learns to ride with it and it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s the learning curve that’s hard, especially on someone as small as you.”
“Okay. Outta the way; Danielle’s got a shotgun,” she said.
He stepped back and she brought it up.
“Wait,” he commanded, and she paused.
“Kind of lean into it a little bit because it’s going to try to push you backward. It’s going to hurt…” His voice trailed off.
She leaned too far forward and he said, “Not too much.” Then he added, “You’ll understand how much you have to lean into it after the first shot.”
She repositioned herself. “Can I shoot now?”
He stepped forward and said, “This is the safety. Push it so it’ll fire.”
He stepped back. “Anytime. Take the top target.”
There was a short pause, then the shotgun went off. “Shit!” she screamed when its recoil pounded her shoulder. “That hurts!”
He thought she was going to cry, so he started to reach for it saying, “Let’s try a different one.”
She pulled it to her breasts. “No, I want to shoot it again.”
“Why?”
“You said it’s powerful. If it’s that good, I want to know how to shoot it.”
He thought about it. The logical thing was to point out she wouldn’t be there to shoot it again—ever. But he didn’t.
“But first,” she insisted, “show me what kind of bullets it shoots.” She was rubbing her shoulder and he knew she was going to have a bruise.
“Call them rounds—or, in the case of shotguns, shot shells—not bullets,” he said.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He hesitated and wanted to say something to her. Something about staying longer. But the words he was trying to find were like mosquitoes in the dark that are hauntingly close but always out of reach. He started thinking he couldn’t let her and Whoops go back to the road. But he reflexively looked up at the graves. When he tried to make Sandra stay, she found a way out and took everything that mattered to him with her.
“Well?” she asked and he snapped his attention back to her.
“It shoots lots of different loads,” he said and took a round containing double-ought buck from his pocket. “But most of them look sort of like this.”
“God. They’re big.”
Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age Page 30