It was a Winchester Model 70, scoped, and far down-range, a small part of Idaho lit up behind a target. He cocked the rifle effortlessly and fired again, then three more times, in about thirty seconds.
Then he consulted the spotting scope.
'A nice group, Mr. O'Brian?'
The old man looked up, startled. He was used to coming out here by himself, and his eyes examined Earl quickly, reached a judgment, and he decided to answer.
'Not bad,' he said. 'Everybody insists you can't get tight groups with a.270, but that's because they don't make bullets carefully enough for it. Fellow in town makes these one at a time for me, weighs ' out and throws out the ones that are off-weight by just a tenth grain or so. It looks to me like I'm within an inch downrange.'
'Great shooting from the kneeling.'
'You're a position shooter, are you, sir? A rifleman?'
'I did some shooting in the service, sir. Never worked at it, never was no champion. But in the war, when I shot at someone who was or was planning to shoot at me or my fellows, he usually stayed shot.'
'God bless you for your service.'
'You want me to spot for you, sir?'
'Well, you're not here to spot for me. You've got some kind of proposition, else you wouldn't have driven all the way out from Lewiston. Are you starting a new magazine? I get fellows trying to get me to write for this new book or that one all the time. But I am staying at Outdoor Life and that's all there is to it. I have a nice arrangement with them, and the gun companies and the ammunition factories are supportive of my efforts.'
'Well, sir, actually, I don't think there's no writing in what I'm here to talk about. You wouldn't want to write about it. What I'm looking for is a rifleman. He's got to hit six one-hundred-yard shots in about five seconds, as I've figured it out, and it'll be dark of the moon.'
'Impossible.'
'The targets will be well designated.'
'Well, in that case, any competent marksman could do that. If you were in the service you would be able to come up with dozens of fellows capable of that.'
'It helps that he's an older fellow.'
'Now why would that be?'
'He's had his children or decided not to. He's lain with a few women.'
'Sir, I have lain with only one, and she is to this day my wife and I am a lucky man for it.'
'Yes, sir. But the man I'm looking for has also seen enough things to know there's not much to miss if he passes on. He won't fall apart when things get tight. He's got discipline, talent, solidity, and a sense of values. He ain't in it for the money. He's in it for the shooting and the Tightness of it. And if he gets killed, he died doing something he was born to do, and that'll hold him together in the tough moments. And there's one other thing: I've seen enough young men die in the war. I hope to never see it again. Old fellows have some living behind them, so they won't be bitter if it happens.'
'Then it's dangerous. I'm sure you're offering a great deal of money.'
'Expenses. But the fee in other ways is high.'
'And what would those other ways be?'
'Experience. You won't get a chance to do this one again, and you're lucky as hell that you're getting it at all.'
'It sounds illegal.'
'It may be. However, it is righteous.'
'All right, you tell me what it is you're offering. In plain language.'
'Kills. You'll get a passel of kills out of it. I'm gambling that an old rifleman like you has it in him to wonder, deep down, how he'd do if the animal on the other end of the scope could shoot back at him.
Your kind of rugged fellow must wonder about that all the time.' Jack O'Brian's lack of an answer told Earl he'd hit the right note.
'I have no desire to kill men,' he said. 'Except that the ultimate usage of the gun is in the hands of a warrior. Not a hunter, but a warrior, defending his tribe. I'm wise enough to know that, and maybe it's something I hold against myself.'
'I can't guarantee you you won't catch a cold from a bullet. It sometimes happens to the best of us. But I can guarantee you the following: easy in, easy out. One night, this would be in three weeks, the total involvement of time being about a week. No police interest.
You go home free and clear, and your odds are good, with surprise on our side.'
'Who are you?' O'Brian then asked.
Earl told him, and got out the medal, and told him some more. Then he handed him a sheet of paper with some names and numbers on them.
'You might know a few of these men. They are old shooters.'
'I know at least three of them. I shot against them at the Nationals.
This fellow was squadded two down from me, I believe.'
'I served with each in the war. If you'd like to call them and ask them any question you have about me, that would be fine.'
'I may just do that. Now tell me what this is.' Earl told him.
Jack O'Brian said yes, with only one proviso.
'I would only ask that the one man who not be requested to join us is a knotty, stubborn, senile, cantankerous bastard named Elmer Kaye. I cannot be in the same room as Elmer Kaye.' 'Can you be in the same house?' said Earl, then gave him the bad news.
The world's oldest gunman slept in his rocker on the porch, in a blanket wrapped up against the cold, except of course there was no cold, only a memory of it.
Outside it was Montana everywhere you looked. Beyond the far meadows some blue mountains rose out of mist, but so many miles off no details could be tracked. In his chair the old man slept as soundly as the dead.
In repose his features softened some. He had an eggshaped face like a dream granddad and not much hair left. He was pink, as so many men in their seventies become. Though swaddled in the wool, he clearly had stumpy arms and a stumpy body, and short legs. And, like many men of his generation, he was dressed formally, for to face the world, even in sleep, without a tie was to admit that one was a no '. But without a hat was even worse, and though he dozed, his round head was crowned in ten gallons' worth of imposing black Stetson.
Earl wondered if he were indeed dead, but every few minutes or so he'd let out with some low, growly sound from who knew where? He'd stir, shiver, twitch, but only for a second; then it was back to dreamland.
'Mr. Swagger,' his granddaughter said, as she brought him another cup of coffee, 'I'm sure grand pap wouldn't mind if you nudged him awake.'
'Thank you, young lady, but I feel Mr. Ed has earned his sleep, and I'll not be taking any of it from him.'
She was a pretty girl, possibly twenty, with the kind of pugnacious jaw that suggested that under her sugar lay considerable spice. Earl marked her down as a firecracker, even as she twinkled at him.
'I swear, he sleeps the day away most of the time. He needs an eight-hour nap so he'll be fresh for his twelve-hour-night sleep.'
'He's running down some.'
'Just a bit. If he comes to in a good mood, he'll still be a one-man fire station.'
'That's what I'm betting on.'
'I'm sure he will. He so likes his visitors.'
Earl waited an hour, then two. He smoked three or four Luckies, but mostly he just sat patiently.
Finally, well past the noon hour, the old man stirred with more gumption than ever before, seemed to spit and cough and struggle a bit with his breathing, and came out of his sleep as a man comes out of the water that's just tried to kill him.
'Huh? Wha? Umph, er, ah, whoa, what the??'
He blinked, spluttered, shook his head, and looked about.
'Sally? Sally, honey?'
'Yes, Grandpap,' came the cry from within.
'I must have dozed.'
