Trick of Light

by Bayer-William

  In my bunk, I try to work it out. Taking a picture of a person is a way of "shooting" him, but the stakes, as Dakota points out, aren't nearly as high. A camera is a tool and so is a gun. One records images, the other kills. The difference lies in the irretrievability of the act. Take a lousy picture and you get a lousy picture. Take a lousy shot, and maybe you get shot yourself.

  But it goes deeper. Taking a photograph is an act of capture, while firing a weapon is an act of destruction. If I'm not fast enough on the range, maybe it's because I'm trying too hard to make the perfect shot, compose the sight-picture too well, turn the target into some kind of work of art. I've got to stop worrying about how the target's going to look. Accuracy, not marksmanship. Fire, stop the aggressor, save myself.

  On the second day, classroom work takes a different form. Dakota describes actual gunfights, diagrams the positions of the shooters, shows us videotaped interviews with the survivors, analyzes what happened, then asks us to extract the lessons.

  The lessons are clear: Speed, confidence, focus prevail. Indecision, fear, reluctance to fight all lead to loss.

  On the range I become more aggressive. And my photophobia, as in the dojo, bothers me less than expected considering the intensity of the light. In the various confrontation exercises—close-up shooting, pivots and turns, fast draws, quick reloading, shooting while moving, firing at moving targets, shooting from prone position, shooting while rolling, shooting from improvised cover—I try not to think, just react as if my life depended on it.

  Dakota rides me, Mike is compassionate. They employ a whole spectrum of techniques—shouting orders, coddling, mocking my failures, sympathizing with my difficulties, forcing me to anger, whipsawing-me with their "good cop/bad cop" routine. I'm not the only one to get such treatment. Each woman has her deficiencies. Our instructors smartly focus on our weaknesses, then present us with exercises to correct them.

  "Don't be afraid of stress," Dakota exhorts. "Stress can be your friend. Let it feed your energy."

  When there's a break I go up to her. "Rita's always telling us pain can be our friend."

  Dakota smiles. "Stress, pain—they're pretty much the same, I think."

  At dusk we practice low-light shooting, then, after dinner, go back out for a two-hour session of night shooting. As expected I'm superior at both, by far the best in the group. But Dakota refuses to compliment me.

  "Yeah, you're accurate, Kay," she tells me, "but frankly, your tactics suck. Also I'm clocking your Mozambiques at one point seven, one point eight. Gotta get it down, way down. Speed it up or you're not going to pass the course."

  Suddenly I'm in a sweat. To go through all this, lay out so much money, spend four days with my eyes constantly bombarded by light, my ears assailed by noise, then fail—the prospect's unimaginable. Now, focusing my anger on Dakota, I stop blaming myself for being wimpy and slow.

  She wants me to go in and blast, fine, I'll blast her stupid targets to shreds! She wants me to do a 1.5 second Mozambique, I'll give her a fuckin' 1.4!

  Combat shooting's not like aikido. There're no spiritual depths, least not that I can see. For all the talk about thinking of your gun as an extension of your arm, I find it totally unlike weapons training at the dojo. Here the aim is not to disarm or neutralize your opponent's energy, it's to put a hole in his head. Stopping means killing. Render harmless means render dead. It's the finality that makes it so difficult. When I think about it, I'm not able to do it.

  Nine P.M.: No moon. One by one Dakota has us crawl through the dust, pistol in hand, while she activates a moving target mounted on a wire. I fire twice, roll, fire a third shot at the target head.

  "Got him," Mike yells. "You killed him, Kay. You get to live!" Suddenly, caught up in his fervor, I roar out my delight.

  "That's what I want to hear," Dakota shouts. "When you're visceral, you're engaged."

  Day three: I'm on a roll. Maybe getting too cocky for my own good. I'm so used to thinking before I shoot, composing the frame, asking myself what I want from the shot, that now, released from all that, my shooting starts getting wild.

  Dakota notices, pulls me off the firing line, assigns Mike to run me through special drills. He takes me to another range on the other side of the ranch, talks me down, then walks me through the basics once again.

  "Yeah, of course it's fun," he tells me, "but it shouldn't become a game. Combat's serious. We don't shoot with paint balls here. Stay steady, cool, alert. Now let's see you do some Mozambiques."

  Dakota lectures us on split-second decisions, differentiating, for instance, between a child holding out an ice cream cone and a short person threatening us with a revolver. She reviews situations where cops made terrible mistakes, mistook a crowbar for a rifle, a cap pistol for a real pistol, a colleague reaching for a badge or a criminal reaching for a gun.

  We learn about different carrying techniques especially suitable for women, the pros and cons of manufactured-for-women guns (Dakota scoffs at them, telling us small guns are harder to shoot and have a more vicious recoil), how to keep a gun when there're kids in the house, how to defend one's home, special problems facing women when they shoot.

  On the range we practice combat against two and then multiple assailants, emptying our pistols and speed-reloading, advanced tactics such as knowing when and how to retreat, close-up shooting (fifty percent of all law enforcement shootings take place within nine feet), accurate medium-distance shooting (fifty feet), sweeping a building, working a corner, shooting from vehicles, weapon retention, disarming an armed assailant, quick-draw strokes, step-back techniques, one-handed shooting, weak-hand shooting, alternate shooting stances and, for me the most crucial drill of all, spot target assessment in crisis situations.

  Tomorrow afternoon, after morning drills, we'll be tested on our skills, culminating with individual sessions inside Dakota's "Fun House," a two-story windowless building tricked up with little rooms, creepy dark corners, staircases both ordinary and spiral, pop-out targets that emerge from closets, mannequin opponents who unexpectedly materialize.

  Invited by the motel women to join them for dinner at a roadhouse just outside Nevada City, Diane, Lydia, Sharon and I listen raptly as they speak with awe of the difficulties and vicissitudes of the Fun House—rumors that it's unbeatable, that no one gets through it alive, that it's devised to humble even the most adept student, that course graduates refer to it as "Dakota's revenge."

  We go around the table, each telling what brought her to the ranch.

  Lydia, it turns out, was raped last year at gunpoint. Liz, a divorce attorney, tells us she's being stalked by the husband of a client who blames her for ruining his life. Cheryl, the web site designer from San Jose, lives in fear of her ex, a cop who beat her, and on the day she told him she was leaving, grabbed her and held a loaded pistol to her head.

  When it's my turn, I tell them that two weeks ago I was caught trespassing on private property, and since the guys who caught me had guns, I was afraid to use my martial arts skills to fight them off.

  "Seeing how terrified I was, they thought they'd have themselves some sport, so they tied me to a pool table, then probed me with a gun barrel. Now I dream about it. Every night I dream about it. I came here to get over the nightmare, and to learn how to handle myself if I'm ever in such a situation again."

  We break up early. Tomorrow, after all, is a big day. Everyone wishes everyone else good luck. Then it's: "Night. See you on the range."

  I'm to the Fun House, having just stepped through the door, Dakota right behind me, so close I can feel her breath on my neck. It's hot in here, maybe a hundred degrees. The air's close. My T-shirt's sticking to my back. I smell gunpowder and shoe leather, gun oil and sweat.

  I inch toward an archway.

  "Step in," Dakota says, "then sweep the room."

  I step in and sweep the way we were taught, staying away from the walls, holding out my gun, moving it in arcs. No one here, so I move on.

  The n
ext room's small, with a closet near the corner, door slightly ajar. Someone's hiding in there —I know it!

  I move out of range of the closet, make sure there's no one else in the room, then approach from the side. Suddenly I reach out with my foot and kick the door open all the way. At the same moment I yell: "Throw it out, dickhead!"

  Alas, no one's there.

  "You just gave away your position," Dakota says.

  The next room's a narrow hall with two sets of stairs, one leading to the second floor, the other to the cellar.

  I decide to ignore the cellar. No way can I safely descend. Anyhow, we were taught not to pursue an intruder, rather retreat to a safe room, take cover and defend.

  I move toward the stairs leading up. Just then the cellar door slams. As I turn toward the sound, I catch a glimpse of a figure at the top of the stairs. I turn back, fire up at him three times, a classic Mozambique. Then I turn back toward the cellar door, just in time to catch sight of another figure. I'm about to blast him when I realize he's a kid.

  "Go back to the cellar," I yell.

  "Good, Kay!" Dakota whispers. "You didn't shoot little Johnny. But you still got to deal with the bad guys upstairs."

  No way, I realize, am I going to be able to mount those stairs without stepping into someone's line of fire.

  "No!" I whisper back. "I'm going back to the cellar where I can protect little Johnny best by covering the door."

  Dakota doesn't say anything, just moves behind me as I skittishly inch my way back down into the hall. Just then I hear a door fling open. I flatten myself against the wall, Dakota right beside me.

  "He's coming down. What're you going to do?" she whispers.

  I don't answer, instead count silently to three, then step out fast and rake the stairs with fire: Bam!bam! Bam!bam!bam! Then nothing, just the echo of my shots and the smell of gun smoke hanging in the air. I step back, continue toward the cellar door. Just as I reach it, it flies open. Since little Johnny's hiding in there, I hold my fire. A big mistake. A man-size mannequin pops up, gun in hand.

  "You're dead, Kay," Dakota informs me deadpan. "When you turned your back on the door, he slipped in. Also, you made a big mistake. You've only got one round left. After you blasted the stairs you should have changed magazines. Even if you'd fired at the big guy, he'd have had the advantage."

  I holster my pistol. "Okay, so I'm dead—what happens now?"

  Dakota grins. "Basically it was an impossible exercise—so you pass."

  We all pass. If we didn't, Dakota says, she'd feel as though she failed. We hug one another. Four days of stress. We're bonded now, sisters-in-arms. We exchange addresses, promise to stay in touch. Cheryl offers me a lift to San Jose. From there it's but an hour by bus to home.

  Tuesday morning: I enter a store called Gun City near the Hall of Justice. At the counter, a kindly middle-aged woman asks how she may help.

  "I'm looking to buy an H and K P7M8."

  "Certainly . . ."

  She pulls a carton off the shelf behind, opens it, lays the pistol before me on a black velvet pad, the kind you'd find on the counter at a jewelry store.

  I pick the weapon up, rack the slide, eject the magazine, inspect it, slam it back, cock the gun, dry-fire.

  "Just what I want. I'll take it."

  I hand her my credit card, sign the necessary papers. She hands me a booklet: "The Gun-Owner's Guide to Staying Legal in California." After the obligatory ten-day waiting period, I can return to pick my weapon up. The entire transaction takes no more than five minutes.

  At eight tonight I load my pockets with quarters, walk down to Polk Street, find a public phone in a bar, dial Vince Carroll's home number in Fort Bragg.

  Vince picks up on the second ring.

  "Know who I am?" I ask.

  "Sorry, ma'am, I don't."

  "You never heard me speak, did you?"

  Silence. "Who is this?"

  "Your secret admirer," I tell him cheerily.

  Another silence, this one longer. "What d'you want?"

  "You said I wouldn't remember anything. Let me tell you, I remember plenty."

  "Look, I can't talk now. How can I get in touch?"

  "You gotta be kidding!"

  "I'll meet you anyplace you want. You name it, I'll be there. I'll come alone."

  "Sorry, Vince, you haven't earned enough trust for that."

  "What do I do to earn it?"

  "Chipper and Buckoboy—give me their full names and home addresses."

  "Sorry—no can do."

  "You can do. You don't like them, you'd like to get rid of them. I can take care of that." Silence. "Also I want the gun."

  "What gun?"

  "You know the one I mean."

  "We've got hundreds of guns . . ."

  "The special gun. The one with the special engraving."

  "You're nuts!"

  "Am I? Must've been my overnight at the club made me this way. I know things about you, Vince. About your law enforcement career. How you testified against your buddy. That took guts. But there was no guts in what was done to me. That was a coward's game. You know it too."

  "Like I said, I'll meet you."

  "I'll think about it. Meantime, you think about showing me good faith. I want those names and addresses. Next time I call, be prepared to give them to me. Understand?"

  "Hey, don't hang—"

  But I do hang up, then slump down to the floor, hands trembling, clothing drenched in sweat.

  I'm sitting in my living room sipping coffee, staring out at the city sparkling in the night. On my lap sits the sketchbook in which I've been trying determinedly yet fruitlessly to draw the bee.

  No use. I can't seem to get it right. No matter how many times I draw it (and I'm getting expert now at drawing bees), it doesn't ring a bell with me, doesn't fit with the scenes on the gun.

  I wonder about myself. I think Dakota's gun course has helped restore my confidence, badly shaken after my encounter in the gun room. But still I feel I'm carrying a burden, one I want very much to lay down. Ever since my fight with Julio Sanchez something's happened to my fun-loving self. I know the last thing I want is to become a woman harboring a grievance, one who's been hurt and can't get over it.

  Knowing I must see through my plan to let my grievance go, I return to sketching. I think of Maddy's good counsel whenever I was working on a project and became stuck:

  Keep struggling with it, Kay. Struggle on it till you work it through. It'll be the times when you don't feel like going on, yet force yourself, that you'll make the breakthroughs.

  Butterfield & Butterfield is on San Bruno Avenue in the warehouse district. I arrive at nine A.M., an hour early to ensure I get a decent seat. Dad told me about this auction, called it "the gun sale of the year."

  I set my leather jacket down on a chair, then check out the exhibition in the main gallery. Hundreds of historical arms—dueling pistols, salon pistols, flintlocks, single-shot derringers, Civil War muskets, percussion carbines, nineteenth-century Colts, Springfields, Winchesters and double-action revolvers—are laid out on display tables and in locked glass-door cabinets. There's also a huge array of twentieth-century small arms—Mausers, Rugers, contemporary Colt and Smith & Wesson pistols and revolvers—plus bullet molds, powder flasks, bowie knives, dirks, sabers, cutlasses, assorted edged weapons and a huge Colt Gatling gun mounted on a gun carriage.

  But the excitement in the gallery is focused on fifteen or so handmade shotguns manufactured by the famous British gunmaker firms Purdey, Holland & Holland, Boss, and Westley Richards. I join a small group of connoisseurs covetously gazing at these exquisitely made hunting and field arms whose allure, I understand, is based not only on their beauty, craftsmanship and superb condition, but also on their noble provenances.

  Two sporting guns in particular attract attention, a twelve-gauge Boss made for Edward VIII when he was Prince of Wales, and an over-and-under made by Westley Richards on commission for T. E. Lawrence—Lawrenc
e of Arabia. It is this gun that I am hoping will attract Ramsey Carson to the auction, for I have come today not to drool over weapons but to observe the bidding and the bidders.

  Nine fifty-five A.M.: I return to the auction room to reclaim my seat. The setup is formal, an elevated lectern in front for the auctioneer, TV monitors above so everyone can see slides of the items as they come up for sale, a couple of hundred chairs lined up in even rows to the back of the room, two long tables on either side, ten telephones lined up on each, attended by auction house employees poised to take bid orders from collectors around the world.

  I check out the crowd. Ninety percent are men, some in suits, others in windbreakers, still others in polo shirts, western shirts with string ties, even one paramilitary type dolled up in fatigues. Noting the way these prospective buyers banter back and forth awaiting the start, I strike up a conversation with my neighbor, an elegant gray-haired gentleman with intent eyes and an ironic smile, decked out in dark blazer and striped bow tie.

  Explaining I'm new to the game, I ask if he wouldn't mind helping me identify the important players. Saying he'd be delighted, he hands me his card ("Cutler 'Cut' Beresford, Rare Gun Appraisal," with a Nob Hill address), then points out several major dealers, adding that close observation of their bidding from the start will reveal much about the current state of the rare gun market and prospects for today's sale.

  I look for Carson, don't find him, think about changing my seat to obtain a better viewing angle on the crowd. But most of the seats are already taken. Figuring I'll spot him if he comes in, I settle back to watch the show.

  The first several lots, nineteenth-century Colt percussion revolvers, are rare and pricey, so at once there's tension in the room.

  The bearded, shaved-headed auctioneer quickly takes control, working with a few aggressive bidders with whom, Cut Beresford tells me, he's worked out signals in advance. I can't see the face of the most active bidder, seated in the first row, but notice that he keeps his head down except when he raises, at which point he tilts it up just the slightest bit. He buys the first two lots at prices considerably above the estimates.