'So, Ad went to the San Antonio Fair Grounds with a couple of relays of
throwers, some official witnesses, three Winchester M-03 self-loading
.22 rifles, and a--here's that word again--bunch of ammunition. He had
his assistants stand about twenty-five feet in front of him. They
tossed a block high into the air, and he snapped off a shot, only one,
per block.
'He shot more than fourteen hundred of the little blocks before he had
a miss. After that, he went more than fourteen thousand straight, hit
every one.'
'Jesus. That's a bunch, all right.'
'Not yet it isn't. He did this for a week, seven hours a day. At the
end of that time, he had fired at fifty thousand blocks. Of fifty
thousand tries, he missed exactly... four.'
'Good Lord,' Morrison said.
'With a rifle? Not a shotgun?'
Morrison had done some target shooting as a boy with his father's .22
rifle. The idea of hitting fifty thousand blocks sitting on a table at
twenty-five feet and only missing four was amazing. To hit them flying
through the air? That was astounding.
Ventura smiled.
'It gets better. He was averaging more than a thousand blocks an hour,
one every three and a half seconds or so, and so he finished ahead of
schedule-he had allowed himself ten days. He had the record and could
have quit, but he didn't. Instead, he had his assistants salvage some
of the least-damaged blocks, got more ammo, and started shooting again.
He was getting a bit tired after a week of constant shooting, so his
tally fell off a little, but he shot for three more days.
'All totaled, he fired at seventy-two thousand, five hundred blocks.
His final score was seventy-two thousand, four hundred and ninety-one.
He missed nine.
'Sixty-eight and a half hours of point-and-shoot. Although there have
been shooters who have actually potted more blocks since, none of them
have done it under the same conditions, so the record still stands. I
have a picture of Topperwein, in a black suit--with a tie--boots, and a
campaign hat, sitting atop a mountain of shot-up blocks, his rifle
cradled in his arm.'
Morrison shook his head.
'I can't even imagine waggling my finger seventy thousand times, much
less maintaining enough concentration to shoot accurately that many
times.'
'Frankly, neither can I. Topperwein was the best exhibition shooter who
ever lived. But he was also a relatively uneducated man from a little
town in Texas, using bare-bones .22 rifles, no laser sights, no
shooting glasses, no electronic hearing protection, nothing. Not
exactly what you'd call high tech, and his accuracy percentage was
.99988. More than a hundred years later, with all of this'--he waved
one hand to take in the computer gear-'at your command, you'd think you
could improve on target shooting.'
Morrison considered that. Yes, you'd think so. Then again, with a tap
of a single finger, he could drive seventy thousand people mad in a few
