around the blade, maintaining contact and pressure the entire time, and ended up landing solidly on the inside of the wrist.
“See?” Thorn said. “Anticipation will get you killed. My first—and best—teacher taught me that. Jamal is setting up expectations and taking advantage of them.”
Marissa nodded. “So how do you avoid that yourself?” she asked.
Thorn shrugged. “Depends on your philosophy. Western mind-set: Anticipate everything. Eastern mind-set: Anticipate nothing. Me, I used to follow the Western way. Very active mind, always thinking, always rethinking. These days, I’m much more Eastern: calmer, flowing, more in the moment.”
He looked over at her and smiled at the expression on her face. “Keep fencing,” he said. “You’ll see.”
The rest of the bout went quickly. Jamal had his opponent off guard and on his heels, and took full advantage of it.
Thorn and Marissa went up to him at the end of the bout.
“Hey, Jamal—great match.”
“Mr. Thorn! Thanks for coming!” He looked at Marissa, and there was no disguising the teenager’s appreciation for her.
“Jamal, this is Marissa Lowe. My fiancee.”
God, he loved saying that. He’d never seriously considered getting married before he’d met her. Now, the idea of not having her around most of the time was painful.
“That’s too bad,” Jamal said. “You being taken, I mean.”
Marissa laughed. “Jamal, I’m old enough to be your mother!”
“No, ma’am, I can’t see that at all. You twenty-five? Twenty-six maybe? My sister. Stepsister.”
She laughed again. “Twenty-five? Not for a long, long time. You don’t have much trouble with women, do you?”
“No, ma’am, I haven’t so far.” He flashed a bright smile at her.
“When you get through making moves on my girl, I’ll buy you a soda,” Thorn said.
“Yes, sir, I could use one. Hard work, waving that sword around. Maybe I could show Ms. Lowe how, if she’s interested?”
“Down, Jamal. I’m way ahead of you.”
They all chuckled.
“Jesus H. Christ! What are you shooting over there, Carruth? It sounded like a damned bomb going off!”
Carruth smiled. “What’s the matter, Milo, a little noise bother you?”
“When it about blows my damned ears out through my headphones, hell, yeah, it bothers me!”
Milo, a short fireplug of a man, ambled down the firing line. It was just the two of them at the range on this rainy Saturday morning. Milo was ex-Army, a green hat who’d done his time before, during, and just after the second Gulf War, and so Carruth had respect for him, even if he was Army and not Navy. The man had been shot at, he had shot back, and that was worth something in Carruth’s world. They bumped into each other at the range now and then, but they weren’t drinking buddies or anything, though they could slap coins at one another.
Carruth held up the new handgun. “This here is your basic 500 Maximum, aka the BMF. Custom-made by Gary Reeder, down in Arizona.”
“I heard of him. BMF? I bet I know what that stands for.”
“Best-made firearm,” Carruth said, his face serious. Then he grinned.
“Looks like a Ruger Bisley,” Milo said. “Stainless steel?”
“Yep, about a five-inch barrel, but the frame is heavier, and stretched a little, on account of the round being a tad on the large side.” He tabled the revolver and picked up a round of the ammo. “Fifty-caliber. This particular specimen is a 435-grain LBT-hard-cast gas-checked bullet made by Cast Performance—developed by John Linebaugh—for the elephant herds in Wyoming.”
“Ain’t no elephant herds in Wyoming,” Milo said.
“Exactly.”
Milo shook his head. “I stepped right into that one.”
Carruth grinned again. “Forty-eight grains of powder for a muzzle velocity around sixteen hundred feet per second.”
“Christ.”
He handed the round to Milo.
“Lord, it makes a .45 auto round look like a runt. Bigger around and twice as tall. You expecting to run into a rampaging water buffalo out on the Mall?”
“I wouldn’t use one of those if I did.” He nodded at the cartridge Milo examined. “
He picked another round up from the bench and handed it to Milo. It was a little shorter. “This is the carry load. The 510-GNR, an itty-bitty 350-grain LBT bullet, a mere thirty-three grains of powder pushing only thirteen hundred and fifty feet per second. That’s Reeder’s proprietary load. The big one is the elephant-stopper. There’s a medium version, halfway between, pretty good for brown bear. The littlest one? That’s the sissy load—for people only.”
Carruth picked up the revolver and offered that to Milo.
Milo said, “You ever tap anybody with it?”
“So far, no.”
“Not all that heavy,” the ex-Green Beret said. “What’s it weigh?”
“Right at three pounds empty. Got five ports milled into the barrel to help with the recoil, though they kinda make it look like a dragon sneezing flame. Piece costs a couple house payments in a good neighborhood. Want to cook off a few?”
Milo hefted the piece. “A 435-grain bullet with forty-eight grains of powder? You got a crowbar to pry it out when it recoils and buries the front sight in my forehead?”
Carruth laughed. “Yeah, it’s a wrist-breaker, all right. Your basic .357 Magnum? Six foot/pounds of recoil, with a 125-grain round. Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry .44 Magnum? Fourteen foot/pounds. Casull’s .454? Thirty-one foot/pounds. This honker? Talking about . . .
“Damn,” Milo said. He handed the revolver back to Carruth.
Carruth laughed again.
Milo shook his head. “What’s the point, man? I mean, it’s way too much gun for anything around here—hell, on the whole continent, the one below us, and those across the nearest two ponds.”
“Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,” Carruth said.
“Yeah, uh huh, right.” He gave the taller man a look.
“Okay. I’m six-two, two-thirty-five, and I can bench-press four hundred pounds. Fifty-caliber is the biggest round allowed by law for a handgun. It’s a man’s piece and I can handle it. No matter what’s coming down the alley in my direction? I can stop it. Lion busts out of the zoo, I can drop it faster than you can blink. Guy in body armor wants to play? I can knock him down and break something even if it doesn’t penetrate the weave—it’d be like getting hit with a sledgehammer. If I need to shoot somebody, he will
Milo shoot his head again. “You fuckin’ SEALs, you’re all fuckin’ crazy, you know that?”
Carruth nodded. “Oh, yeah. Big-time.” What he didn’t tell Milo was that he had a custom-made horsehide holster and belt made by Kramer Leather for the BMF, and that it
