The One-Eyed Man

by Ron Currie

  “Second Amendment,” I said. “States’ rights. Probably some border control frustration wrapped up in vague white supremacist notions, for good measure.”

  “My dear,” Theodore said, “we have to get you out of there.”

  “That’s what Claire keeps saying. But I think getting word to the FBI is probably the first priority.”

  “Well yes,” Theodore said, “but we need to have some sort of plan, do we not?”

  “I’m not sure what plan we can come up with that won’t include law enforcement,” I said. “It’s hard to know for certain, but they’ve got probably a hundred armed men here, Theodore.”

  “Sweet and sour Jesus.”

  “Also, they said if they don’t hear from federal officials within an hour of this phone call, they’re going to shoot one of us.”

  “Do you think they mean it?”

  “I’m not sure if they know whether they mean it,” I said. “They don’t seem to be the best-organized bunch, and it’s clear this whole situation is spontaneous and thus sort of volatile. I mean, consider the fact that they put hoods on us so we couldn’t see where we were going, but pretty much the moment we got here they wanted to call the feds and give them the latitude and longitude.”

  “Also that the hood was actually an empty potato chip bag,” Theodore said.

  “So probably best to just do what they’re asking, for now. Unless you can find a lot more Russians to hire in a very short time frame.”

  “Please, my dear,” Theodore said, “don’t joke about that. I feel awful enough as it is.”

  “I wasn’t joking,” I said.

  The guard who’d been assigned to me came back into the room, rifle slung across his chest, eyebrows raised.

  “Just about finished,” I said to him.

  He twirled an index finger through the air in front of him: Wrap it up.

  “Theodore, I have to go,” I said.

  “Is everything alright?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just being told it’s time to end the call.”

  “When will I talk to you next?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I doubt they’ll be giving me my phone again anytime soon, now that I’ve done what they wanted.”

  “Well I’m coming down there, my dear,” Theodore said.

  “You can if you like. Though I’m not sure what it will avail anyone.”

  “Oh, it will avail,” Theodore said. “I’ll walk right in the front door if I have to.”

  “Theodore,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “This is, without question, a bad situation,” I told him. “I’m not sure it would be improved if they had three hostages instead of two.”

  There was a pause.

  “I mean, just logically speaking,” I added.

  “My dear,” Theodore said, “I will be there soon.”

  He hung up. I held the phone out to the guard, and he took it with a swipe of his hand. “Let’s go,” he said. “Got someone wants to see you.”

  20

  THE INHERITOR OF THE SPIRIT OF DAVY CROCKETT, OR WHO THE FUCK EVER

  I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, given Cold Dead Fingers’ raison d’être, but for a property that was otherwise a crumbling frontier-era ranch, they had a remarkably large and very modern indoor gun range, complete with a dozen shooting booths, adjustable-speed target carriage systems, light fixtures capable of simulating any time of day or weather condition, and remarkably effective central air-conditioning.

  “Crowdfunded,” I was told by Abraham Trumbull, the man who’d wanted to see me. “This is a two-million-dollar facility. Raised the money in less than a month.”

  “That’s impressive?” I asked. “I confess I don’t know much about crowdfunding.”

  Trumbull stood six and a half feet tall, his chest and shoulders I-beam thick, a fact evident even through the brown duster he wore in the meat-locker cold of the firing range. The Desert Eagle he held, one of those large-caliber pistols sometimes referred to colloquially as a hand cannon, looked no bigger than a derringer in his grip. He loaded a fresh magazine into the weapon and motioned to a set of olive drab earmuffs resting on the shelf in front of us. “You’re going to want to put those on,” he said. “This thing goes boom, for real.”

  As I fiddled with the earmuffs, trying to find a comfortable fit, Trumbull explained the larger context of crowdfunding. “There’ve been projects that raised a couple million in just a day,” he said. “Movies and video games, usually. But two million for a private firing range? Yes, that is impressive. Then again, this is Texas.”

  I finished adjusting the earmuffs and put my hands in my pockets.

  “You ready?” Trumbull asked. He chambered a round.

  “I think I’m all set, yes,” I told him.

  Trumbull checked the safety and turned the gun around so the butt faced me. “There you go,” he said.

  “I thought you were practicing, or whatever those knowledgeable in such things call it,” I said.

  “Usually just ‘shooting,’” Trumbull said, still holding the Desert Eagle out to me.

  “You want me to fire that?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “How do you know I won’t use it on you?” I asked.

  Trumbull smiled. “I’m pretty good at reading people,” he said. “Besides, if you even started turning the barrel in my direction, I’d break your hand so fast you’d forget to say ‘ouch.’”

  I took the pistol. It was precisely as heavy as it appeared.

  Trumbull stepped to the side of the shooting booth. “That’s a fifty cal. Six in the clip, one in the chamber. It’s accurate to about one hundred fifty meters, but we’ll start you at twenty. Try not to point that anywhere but downrange, please. Unless you want to shoot your foot clean off. In which case, keep doing what you’re doing now.”

  I didn’t realize I’d let the gun drop to my side. Now I lifted it and, as instructed, pointed it down the alley toward the target.

  “Never fired a gun before, I take it,” Trumbull said.

  “Is it that obvious?” I asked.

  Trumbull stepped in and adjusted my hands, using one foot to widen my stance. “Safety off,” he said. “Keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot. Line up the front and back sights on your target. Try to avoid closing your eyes when you fire.”

  “Sort of a dizzying amount of instructions,” I said.

  “We’re not just popping off rounds,” Trumbull said. “This is an art.”

  “Okay,” I said. It felt like I was holding a bowling ball at arm’s length. The muscles in my shoulders began to sing.

  “It’s impossible to focus on both the sights and the target at the same time,” Trumbull said. “So you want to keep the sights sharp in your vision, and let the target go a little fuzzy.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  Trumbull stepped away. “Keep the wrist on your strong hand locked. Otherwise you’ll end up with a broken nose.”

  “And my strong hand is my right hand,” I said.

  “Correct.”

  “Okay,” I said, not at all certain that my wrist was locked in the way Trumbull wanted.

  “Here’s the important part,” Trumbull said. “Make damn sure you’re ready to kill whatever you’re aiming at.”

  “I have to do that with a paper target?” I asked.

  “It’s a good idea to practice the mind-set.”

  As instructed, I let the target—a life-size cartoon of a police officer in blue patrol uniform—go fuzzy. I lined up the front and back sights repeatedly, but the weight of the pistol made keeping them aligned near impossible; it didn’t take long to realize that if I waited for my aim to become and remain perfectly true, I would never fire a round. So, thinking of Peggy’s fondness for the phrase “Can’t see it from my house” whenever she’d decided something could not or need not be flawless, I let my finger slide in against the trig
ger and fired.

  The barrel of the gun flipped up like a gymnast performing a back handspring, the front sight slicing my cheek as cleanly as a razor. I tumbled backward out of the shooting booth. A few seconds later, having recovered my senses, I was surprised to realize that I’d somehow managed to hold on to the gun.

  Trumbull leaned out of the booth and looked down at me, the corners of his mouth twitching, like an improv actor trying not to break character. “Congratulations,” he said. “You just scored a kill shot on the ceiling.”

  “That was unexpected,” I said.

  Trumbull extended a hand. “You want to try again?” he asked.

  “I guess so,” I said, rising to my feet with his help.

  After using a handkerchief proffered by Trumbull to clean my cheek, I hoisted the Desert Eagle again, this time with a much clearer sense of what Trumbull meant by a locked wrist. I emptied all seven rounds in the clip and managed to hit the cartoon police officer twice without concussing myself in the process.

  “How’s that feel?” Trumbull asked. He took the pistol from me, removed the clip, and gave the slide a brisk pull.

  “Interesting,” I told him. “Also physically invigorating in a way I never would have anticipated.”

  Trumbull smiled, which turned out to be a low-wattage affair despite his large, square, and freakishly white teeth. “Well especially with the Desert Eagle. It’s a workout just holding that piece, let alone firing it. But you realize what you’re feeling, right? The reason you’re flushed and out of breath? Pupils dilated? Maybe a slight, tingly stirring in the groin?”

  “I’m not feeling anything in my groin,” I said.

  “All the same,” Trumbull said.

  “I didn’t realize there was going to be a quiz afterward,” I said.

  “It’s because for the first time in your life, you’ve satisfied one of man’s most primeval needs,” Trumbull said.

  “That being.”

  “To hold the power to kill in your hands.”

  I looked downrange at the paper policeman. “Okay,” I said.

  Trumbull plugged fresh rounds into the clip with his thumb. “Among the most essential experiences a human being can have,” he said. “On a level with sex.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I can see you’re skeptical,” Trumbull said. He hit a switch on the wall, and the target slid toward us with the spooky smoothness of a mechanical rabbit at a dog track. “Let me explain it to you this way. You know how people on your end of the political spectrum are always extolling the virtues of Native Americans?”

  “I don’t have an end of the political spectrum,” I said.

  “In any event, liberals and progressives,” Trumbull went on. “They view Natives as some kind of saintly race. Appropriate their cultural and spiritual practices, while the people themselves are left to rot on the shittiest tracts of land in the country.”

  “That’s probably a fair assessment,” I said.

  “Do you know what a scalp lock is?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Trumbull slapped the magazine into the Desert Eagle and chambered a round. “Actually, you probably know what a scalp lock is, but just haven’t heard the term. Any number of traditional Native haircuts qualify. The Mohawk, for example, is a scalp lock. As is a top knot.”

  “Well sure,” I said. “I know what those are.”

  Trumbull placed the pistol on a counter and loaded a fresh target into the holder. He hit the switch again, and watched as the target slid downrange.

  “Some people would tell you that the purpose of the scalp lock, as its name implies, was to make scalping the wearer more difficult,” Trumbull said, keeping his eyes on the retreating target as he spoke. “But talk to some true elders, if you can find them, and they’ll tell you what they told me: if you wore a scalp lock, it was to make scalping you easier.”

  “It’s hard to understand why one would want to do that,” I said.

  By now the target had reached the end of the range—fifty meters distant, according to the digital display on the wall next to the switch.

  “That seems a lot farther than fifty meters,” I said.

  Trumbull squared up and raised the pistol. “That’s because you’re used to just looking at things,” he said. “Not trying to shoot them.”

  The Desert Eagle erupted, thunderous reports coming in startlingly quick succession, seven rounds in less than three seconds. When Trumbull had finished, he secured the weapon and placed his earmuffs on the counter, hitting the switch to bring the target back to us.

  “Whatever the purpose of the scalp lock,” he said, “its very existence indicates that Natives—those saintly people—believed violence was natural and inevitable. They expected it. They prepared for it. They sought it out.”

  “Sure,” I said. “That’s fairly well documented.”

  “And willfully ignored,” Trumbull said. “Because for liberals to acknowledge this inconvenient fact would be to admit that the people they revere and the people they revile are not all that different.”

  “Just so I’m clear,” I said, “the people they revile are people like you?”

  “Correct.”

  The target finished its journey back, and in the absence of the carriage’s whirring the firing range swelled with a peculiar hollow silence. Trumbull reached out with one hand and ripped the target down to inspect it. He was, not surprisingly, an exceptional shot: at half the length of a football field, he’d put three rounds through the policeman’s hat and four in his chest.

  “Something I meant to ask,” I said to him.

  “Go ahead,” he said, still admiring his marksmanship.

  “Why do your targets feature policemen instead of the more traditional ‘generic armed bad guy’ motif?”

  Trumbull let the target fall to his side and fixed me with a gaze. “Now who ever told you the police were the good guys?” he asked.

  The entrance to the firing range opened, nearly blinding me with a column of sunlight, though I was able to make out the silhouette of a man as he stepped into the doorway.

  “Frank just showed up,” this man told Trumbull.

  Trumbull stared silently for a moment, then said, “So send him in.”

  • • •

  Frank, it turned out, was a police officer. Despite this, he was considered one of the good guys, for two reasons: first, because Trumbull believed county sheriffs were the only legitimate law enforcement in the country, and second, because in addition to being sheriff, Frank was also a member in good standing of Cold Dead Fingers. This latter fact was at the moment something of a problem, however, since Frank, being a sworn officer of the law, was understandably upset that an organization to which he’d paid dues for twenty years had committed a double kidnapping.

  “For Christ’s sake, Abe,” Frank said, pacing around the back of the firing range and gesticulating wildly as he talked, “do you know what we’re talking about here? We’re talking Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, man. We’re talking the ever-loving Eff. Bee. Eye.”

  “That’s the whole idea, Frank,” Trumbull said.

  “I can’t do nothing about this,” Frank said. “This is federal all the way.”

  “You can do something,” Trumbull told him. “You can stand with us and wait for them to show up.”

  “I mean, what were you even thinking?” Frank asked.

  “Or you could arrest me and save your bacon,” Trumbull suggested. “I recognize your authority to do so, as sheriff. Though of course as a human being, and a free man, I would lose respect for you entirely.”

  “No one’s arresting you, Abe, Chrissake,” Frank said. He removed his cap and mopped at his pate with a yellowed handkerchief, then pointed at me. “This him?”

  Trumbull nodded.

  “And the two of you are just hanging out here in the gun range,” Frank said. He put his cap back on and adjusted it with shaky hands. “Real casual like.”

  “He’s a
n agreeable sort,” Trumbull said.

  “Shit, if he’s so agreeable, why not give him a gun, let him take some target practice, while you’re at it?”

  “Already did,” Trumbull said.

  Frank looked at me, incredulous. I nodded with what I hoped was an apologetic expression.

  “You listen to me, Abe,” Frank said. He turned back to Trumbull and reached up to put a hand on his shoulder, more supplication than demand. “There is no way to completely unfuck this situation. They’re coming, and they know you have the guns. But you can still half-unfuck it.”

  “Let’s say for sake of argument that I had an interest in, to use your quite colorful term, unfucking the situation,” Trumbull said. “How would you suggest I do that?”

  “Simple,” Frank said. “Let him and the girl go. Now. Before anyone gets hurt.”

  Trumbull shook his head.

  “Abe, I’m telling you,” Frank said. “You think you’re in control of this. But you’re not. It will get out of control very quickly. Like, Waco out of control.”

  “You know,” I said, “I made more or less the same analogy. Though it’s sort of an obvious one, really. Texas. Guns. Fervent adherence to an ideology the rest of society considers borderline insane.”

  “Shut up,” Frank said, pointing a finger at me. “You, buddy, are seen and not fucking heard, right at the moment.”

  “Frank,” Trumbull said, “please don’t be rude to my guest.”

  Frank looked at him. “Your guest?” he said. “Your guest?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Don’t be rude to him? Oh, please forgive me.” Frank started up again with the pacing. “You know what else might be considered rude, Abe? Kidnapping someone. A sensible man might think that’s somewhat rude, too.”

  “Except I didn’t kidnap him,” Trumbull said. “That was a spur-of-the-moment act committed by others in the organization.”

  Frank held his hands out to his sides, palms up. “All the more reason to let them go, then,” he said.

  Trumbull sighed, leaned back against an ammunition shelf, and made a show of excavating something from under one of his fingernails. “You know, Frank,” he said, “for years we’ve satisfied ourselves with refusing to file tax returns, and not much else. You’ve been firing rounds and running your mouth along with the rest of us. Now it’s time. Now we’ll see if you meant what you said. If you did, then stay here. If you didn’t—if you are in fact a cheese-eating rat fuck coward—then get back out there and play lawman.”