“I see.” He looked her up and down, impersonally, as though he were about to sell her a coat. “Something light,” he said. “What will you be going after?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What game will you be hunting?”
“Oh.” What was man-size? “Deer, I suppose.” He said, “Hmmm. Well, let’s see. Over this way.” He began to show her rifles. She held them, and they all seemed heavy and awkward and unusable in her hands. He stood beside her, talking, pointing out the fine points of the different rifles as she held them, and she had no idea what he was talking about.
She was beginning to get discouraged. She looked around, and saw some other rifles in another case, and said, “What are those?”
“Twenty-twos,” he said. “A little light for what you have in mind.”
“Let me see them,” she said, “they look more my size.”
“They’re not really the best for deer-hunting,” he said, frowning. “They’re what you’d want for small game.”
“That’s all right, I don’t expect to hit anything, anyway.”
He didn’t seem to like that, but he didn’t say anything. Silently he put away the rifles he’d been showing her and led her over to the other case.
“That one,” she said, picking one of them almost at random, simply on the basis of looks.
His expression doubtful, he opened the case and took down the rifle she’d pointed to. “This is the Marlin 39A,” he said. “It holds twenty-five shorts, twenty longs, or eighteen long rifles. It’s forty and a half inches long, weighs six and three quarter pounds. It’s lever-action; like this.” His right hand made a fast down-and-up motion with a metal loop on the bottom of the rifle, making click sounds.
She said, “What’s that for?”
“It chambers your cartridge.” At her expression, he pointed to the smaller barrel under the main barrel. “You load the rounds in here. The lever—”
“You mean the bullets.”
“That’s right, the bullets. You load them in front here. The lever brings one bullet up into firing position, and ejects the used casing from the bullet you’ve already fired.”
“You mean I have to do that with the lever every time I shoot.”
“That’s right.”
“May I—?”
She took the rifle, and tried the lever, and didn’t like it. “No, that’s not for me.” She looked at the other rifles in the case.
“If I may suggest—”
“Yes, of course.”
He put the Marlin away and brought out a different gun. “This is the Remington 66. It holds fifteen long rifles. Those are the bullets. It’s thirty-eight and a half inches long and weighs four pounds.”
“What do I have to do to get the bullet ready to fire?”
“Nothing. It’s auto-load.”
“May I see it?”
“Of course.”
It was the lightest rifle so far, and also the shortest.
She was too self-conscious to hold it up to her shoulder and look down the sights, but of them all, this rifle felt the least cumbersome in her hands. “I’ll take it,” she said.
“Very good. And ammunition?”
“Please.”
The rifle was fifty-four dollars and fifty cents—he wanted to sell her a four-power telescopic sight as well, which she refused—and a box of fifty long rifle .22 caliber bullets was eighty-five cents. She paid in cash, and he carried the cardboard carton with the rifle in it out to the car for her.
Driving back, she suddenly found herself afraid that Parker’s enemies would be waiting for her at the house, and she felt an abrupt deep wave of resentment at him for endangering her home this way. The feeling of resentment didn’t last, but the fear did, and two miles from the house she pulled off the road and took the rifle out of the carton.
She spent fifteen minutes parked off the road, studying the weapon, reading the instruction booklet that had come with it, and very gingerly loading it. She put it down on the back seat, barrel pointing at the right-hand door, and after that, drove much more slowly and cautiously, afraid that a bump in the road would make the thing fire.
There was no one at the house. She fastened both sets of garage doors with the new padlocks, then went in through the kitchen and down the hall and used the interior door to get into the garage again and get the rifle. After not being sure what to do with it at first, she put it down on the sofa in the living room.
She looked at the phone, but it didn’t ring.
Claire fired, and the rifle stock thumped hard into her right shoulder. She grimaced, and stepped backward
