by Tom Cain
So the girl was human, after all.
Zalika had given Carver an opening. He had to make sure he took full advantage.
This time there were no distractions. He did not look around. He did not think about anything but the clays. While the others had been shooting he had studied the clays’ flight patterns, noting precisely where they first appeared, relative to the oak tree, taking his mark from one specific branch. He dusted the first four pairs by the time they reached one o’clock.
As McGuinness pressed the control-button for the fifth time, Carver’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched slightly, and in a moment of pure focus he felt as though the whole world had slowed down around him, so that the clays seemed to be drifting as big and lazy as two black balloons and he had all the time in the world to bring them down. He shot them both before anyone else had even realized they were there, when they’d barely passed twelve on that imaginary clock.
As he placed his cartridges in the bin and turned round to face the others, Carver noticed a wry half-smile on McGuinness’s lips. The gamekeeper caught his eye and gave a fractional nod of acknowledgement.
Zalika’s lead had been reduced to one. Carver was back in the game.
37
‘Now let’s bash some bunnies,’ said Klerk.
The third stand wasn’t based on anywhere fancy. There’s nothing fancy about shooting rabbits, no matter where you are. But that doesn’t make rabbit clays any less of a challenge.
They came out of the trap upright, presenting the full face of the clay to the shooters as they scooted along the ground, bouncing up when they hit a bump, or a thick tuft of grass. McGuinness released the clays on report – in other words, pressing the control for the second clay as soon as he heard the first shot – coming first from the right, then from the left.
Zalika went first and shot flawlessly. She swivelled her gun to the right to pick up the first clay, tracked it until it was directly in front of her, then fired. Without pausing, she kept the gun moving to the left, locked on to the second clay, followed it back into the centre and fired again. She scored two hits, then four, six, eight, ten.
When she had finished, she caught the last two spent cartridges, disposed of them and walked away from the stand as though she had never done anything easier in her life. Memo to Carver: whatever you’ve got, I can handle it.
Carver matched her easily enough for the first four pairs. But the first clay of the final pair took a wicked bounce and he missed. The tenth clay was dusted without any trouble, but he was still left cursing his luck. So much for making a comeback: he was back to two behind.
Klerk shot eight. He was out of the running now, but for all his natural, ferocious competitiveness, he wasn’t bothered. It was enough for him to watch the other two struggle for supremacy.
‘Walk with me a moment,’ he said to Carver as they moved on to the next stand. He nodded towards Zalika, who was chatting to McGuinness. ‘Impressive young woman, isn’t she?’
‘Certainly seems to be,’ Carver agreed.
‘I’ll tell you something, though: this is all new. For years after the kidnap, Zalika was dead to the world, completely blank. She had no energy, no passion. She hardly said a word to me, surly all the time.’
‘Not surprising. She had an incredibly traumatic experience, lost her whole family.’
‘Survivor guilt, the shrinks called it. Christ knows I paid for enough of them. Bought her anything she could possibly want. Nothing worked, she was stuck in the past. Then this whole Gushungo business started. Now she’s a new woman. Take yesterday, playing the secretary – she’d never have done that before.’
‘Sounds like it’s given her a purpose in life.’
Klerk nodded. ‘Ja, that’s exactly what I think, too. She wants to get her hands on that bastard Mabeki. That’s what’s driving her, you mark my words. That and having you about the place.’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘Trust me, she insisted on you being involved. But I’ll tell you what, you had better beat her today or she will be severely disappointed. She will hold you in contempt.’
Klerk put such relish into the word ‘contempt’ that Carver could not help but smile.
‘One more reason to beat her, then,’ he said.
For the fourth test of skill, they stopped in front of a grassy path, three paces wide, that ran between two high blackthorn hedges, one of which was somewhat taller than the other.
‘You ever seen a walk-up before?’ Klerk asked Carver.
Carver shook his head. ‘Nope.’
‘Well, the idea is very simple. You walk steadily down the path. The first clay of each pair is fired without warning, then the second one on report. I tell you, man, some of these bastards fly over the hedge, some run along the ground – there’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen, particularly if you go first.’
‘Which I’ll be doing,’ said Carver.
‘Ja, so I see!’ Klerk laughed. ‘In any case, you are allowed to stop walking to reload. But then you must get on the move again. The two people who are not shooting walk behind the one who is. When we get to the end of the walk, we turn round, come back to the start and repeat the whole process.’
Carver liked the look of the walk-up. It was like being on patrol, knowing that a contact was imminent, ready to shoot the instant danger approached. Wherever the clays came from – left or right, high or low – it made no difference. Carver knew from the first pace he took down the walk that he was going to score ten, and he was not disappointed.
‘Ten straight hits,’ said Klerk as they turned to stroll back to the start. ‘I’m impressed. Donald’s the only man ever to have straighted the walk-up before now. And I have to follow you.’
Carver walked directly behind Klerk as he fired his ten shots, scoring six hits. How was he to know the custom that the next person down the walk-up followed the shooter, so as to get a clear sight of what was in store? Except that Carver did not have to be told that: it was obvious. And so was the irritation that possessed Zalika Stratten as she walked behind him, forced to watch his backside, when she could and should have been taking mental notes on her uncle’s shooting. Good: let her be distracted for once.
Carver spotted a very slight twitch in her neck – a sign of tension at last – as she loaded her opening two cartridges. It didn’t seem to affect her, not at first anyway. She hit the first two pairs and reloaded. The fifth clay came straight up the walk, low and fast. She missed. But before Zalika could curse, or Carver silently cheer, the second clay was released, or what was left of it. The clay had broken in the trap and was now just a scattering of fragments.
‘No bird,’ called McGuinness. ‘The pair will be fired again.’
A smile spread across Zalika’s face. She had been reprieved.
But then McGuinness finished his sentence. ‘However, may I remind you, Miss Zalika, that was a pair on report, and the rules of clay pigeon shooting state that the score for the first bird is counted. I am afraid the miss still stands.’
It said a lot for her strength of mind that she did not let the disappointment distract her. She shot the pair again and hit both times, even though the first counted for nothing. The final two pairs were also disposed of. It was a remarkable recovery, and Carver admired the sheer guts Zalika had displayed. But the fact remained that she had dropped a shot. The gap had come down to one. As they walked to the final stand there was still everything to play for.
38
The stark metallic structure loomed over the shooting ground like a watchtower at a POW camp. But there were no guards standing at its summit, armed with searchlights and machine guns. Instead, two traps were slowly rising up pulleys attached to the outside of the tower, making Carver more uneasy with every second they kept moving.
‘Think of this as a very steep hillside,’ said Klerk. ‘The beaters are about to flush the pheasants off the top of the hill and they’re going to fly right over us, just begging
to be shot.’
‘How high are the traps going?’ Carver asked.
‘One hundred and forty feet.’
At that range, the widely scattered shot from Carver’s gun would be far less effective than the tight, heavily choked patterns Zalika would be punching through the air. Just as the competition reached its climax, she would have a major advantage. It was down to him not to make it a decisive one.
‘That’s some pretty serious shooting,’ he said.
Klerk laughed mischievously. ‘Oh ja, this is the bloody black run all right. And we’ve added a little complication, haven’t we, Donald?’
‘Aye, that we have. I’ve loaded the traps with midi clays. They’re ninety millimetres across instead of the standard one-oh-eight.’
Klerk slapped Carver on the back. ‘No worries for you, eh? I’ve seen you shoot. I’m sure you’ll blow them out of the sky. I know Zalika will, that’s for sure.’
‘Maybe,’ Carver replied, doing his best to sound completely unconcerned. ‘But not before you’ve gone first.’
The clays were released in simultaneous pairs this time, but from two separate traps, meaning that they flew towards Klerk at slightly different heights and angles, forcing him to change his aim between shots. He coped well enough, and his score of seven was more than respectable in the circumstances. But he was really just the warm-up act before the main attractions.
Zalika was second up. She walked up to shoot with her usual air of calm self-control. Her breathing was steady. She lined up the cartridges with her standard ritualistic precision.
Everything seemed fine, yet something wasn’t quite right. She hit the first pair, but only by striking the back edges of the two clays.
Now she faced a real test of character. When a good shot makes a very slight mistake there is always the temptation to over-compensate. It’s very easy, having shot the back of a clay, to aim further ahead of its flight and miss the next one entirely to the front. The best and bravest thing to do is nothing at all. You’re still hitting the clays, so why change anything?
Carver could just imagine the battle going on in Zalika’s head. It was visible in her movements, too: the very slight shake in her hands as she slipped the cartridges into the barrels, the fumbling as she rotated them till they faced the right way.
She was tough: she gutsed it out and hit both the next clays. Now there were just six left for her in the entire competition. She was still a shot up. If she could close out the last three pairs she’d win and Carver could do nothing about it. But the tension was rising, no matter how hard she fought to keep it at bay.
After the fourth shot had been fired, Zalika paused just a second too long, staring at the ground, and she took a long, deliberate breath. When she broke open the barrels she was still lost in her thoughts. She made no attempt to catch the used cartridges but let them fall to the ground. When the new cartridges went in, she did not even look at them, still less line up the writing on their bases before snapping the gun shut again.
Carver knew that she was on a knife-edge. ‘Miss one, miss one,’ he whispered soundlessly to himself.
Zalika did not oblige. She hit the fifth clay all right, but the sixth came out broken, prompting McGuinness to call ‘No bird!’ again.
If anything, this seemed to relax Zalika. She looked far less concerned as she once again discarded the used cartridge, replaced it with a new one and then lined up both cartridges to her satisfaction.
She’d got her routine back again. She’d returned to the zone.
The third pair was replayed. This time Zalika missed the first clay but hit the second. She smiled to herself, blessing her good fortune: when she’d made a mistake, it didn’t matter. Carver could see that she’d remembered McGuinness’s words about the rules of clay pigeon shooting stating that the score for the first bird is counted. On that basis, the first bird was a hit, the hit stood, and she was still one up, just four shots left.
Carver saw the confidence flooding back into Zalika as she dusted the next pair. She was in the final straight now, the finishing line in sight.
The final pair were released. Over they came, the right-hand clay slightly higher than the left, the angle between them widening all the time. Zalika hit the right one first then swung her gun in an arc towards her left shoulder. The swing was smooth, her movements controlled, both her eyes open to give her optimum vision and depth perception.
And yet she missed.
Carver couldn’t believe it. He’d have put any money in the world on Zalika getting the pair. Yet, for the second time, she’d been let down by the final shot in a sequence. Zalika looked equally incredulous, staring at the untouched clay as it continued its gentle arc to the ground as if she could dust it by sheer force of will. She gave a final shake of the head, then snapped the gun open, caught the cartridges with an irritated snap of her fingers and hurled them in the bin before turning and walking back towards the others.
As she walked past Carver, her eyes blazing with defiance, she hissed, ‘Well, you still can’t beat me,’ quietly enough that only he could hear.
Carver said nothing. He had no intention of getting ahead of himself. The end result was just a distraction. He had a job to do first.
He strode towards his firing position not hoping he would shoot well, or even believing that he would. He demanded it.
He banished all thoughts of Zalika, dismissed any worries about the height and size of the clays, or the fact that he’d be firing with unrestricted barrels that would spray his shots across the sky like confetti. He concentrated purely and simply on the element he could control: the quality of his shooting.
The first four clays were obliterated.
When the third pair flew from the traps, Carver hit the first clay smack in the middle, but only caught the leading edge of the second, very nearly missing to the front. Now he was the one who had to fight the temptation to change his technique, the one who had to have faith enough to stick with what he’d been doing.
Carver felt the pounding of his heart against his chest and the itchy stickiness of sweat beneath his armpits. He told himself to get a grip.
‘Pull!’ he called.
The clays were flung from their traps, and at that precise moment the wind, which had blown steadily all day, suddenly flurried. The gust only lasted for a second or two, but it was enough to disturb the flight of the clays. The right-hand one slowed in mid-air and lost height, making the left clay appear to race away from it. Now their courses were radically different, and Carver had to adjust his shot in mid-swing as he locked on to the dropping clay. Somehow he managed to hit it and then jerk his gun left and up, his sights scrabbling across the sky to find the other clay.
Where the hell had it got to?
His spine was arched like a tightly pulled bow and the weight of his head was so far back that he was almost toppling over when he finally found his target. He had no balance, no stillness. He was as ragged as hell.
Carver fired.
The crack of the shot slapped the summer air like a palm to a face, closely followed by a frustrated cry of ‘No!’
Zalika Stratten had not been able to contain her frustration at Carver’s absurd good fortune. The clay had been blown to pieces. Somehow, he’d got everything wrong about the shot except the end result.
After that, the last pair was a formality. Carver came away with a perfect ten.
‘So we tied,’ said Zalika, coldly.
‘You sure?’ Carver replied.
She frowned at him uncertainly. But before she could say anything else there was the sound of a polite cough.
‘I have the scores,’ said McGuinness.
He was holding the score cards in one hand, divided into boxes for each pair of clays. The shots were marked down as ‘kills’ and ‘losses’, a diagonal line across a box indicating that both shots had been kills.
‘Mr Klerk, you came third. I’ve never seen you shoot so well, sir. Good enough to win, I reckon, nine
times out of ten. And you, Miss Zalika, well, I cannae imagine how anyone could shoot like you did and not come out on top.’
She gave a weary smile. ‘Thank you, Donald.’
‘But the winner,’ he continued, ‘is Mr Carver by one.’
‘What?’ Now Zalika’s eyes blazed with furious energy. ‘That’s not possible! It was a tie!’
‘I’m afraid not, Miss. You lost two shots in the final five pairs.’
‘I know, but one of them was in the pair that I had to reshoot. It didn’t count. You said so yourself: the score from the first bird is counted. I killed the first bird.’
‘Aye, so you did. And the score is counted … when you are shooting on report. But these pairs were simultaneous. And I’m afraid the rules are very clear, Miss. If a “no bird” is called in a simultaneous pair, the score for the other bird does not count. You start from scratch when the pair is released again. And you lost the first bird of that pair, as well as the very last bird of all. When Mr Carver killed all ten, he overtook you.’
Zalika sighed. ‘I see.’ She switched her attention back to Carver. ‘So you win, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘But only on a technicality.’
‘A win is a win. That’s how it works.’
She narrowed her eyes and stared at him. ‘You knew that rule all along, didn’t you? When I said you couldn’t win, you knew.’
‘Yeah, I knew I had the beating of you. But I still had to get all ten.’
The look in Zalika’s eye was as cold as bare steel on a frosty morning. But as she turned and walked away from him, Carver swore he could see the beginnings of a smile spreading across her face, almost as though she, not he, were the real winner.
39
Justus Iluko had spent the day at a UN World Food Programme supply centre, trying to persuade officials there to double the size of their deliveries of maize to the refugee camp that had sprung up on his farm. ‘You bring enough food for ten thousand people, but there are many times that number now. You must send more,’ he begged.