“Starts out good, ends badly.”
“I know what you mean.”
I had seen Jim with his shirt off. The scars on his body from his dad’s belt gave me confidence that he knew exactly what I meant.
“We’re here,” he said, pulling the old Ford off the dirt road we’d been on for the last several minutes. “Come on, Kip.”
We were parked on a low bluff near a waterfall, its ambient spray misting the pickup’s windshield. From the foot of the falls, the river narrowed and the water churned white as it was squeezed into a smaller course and rushed over large boulders that jutted out of the riverbed. Tall stands of reeds and weepy grasses that had begun to turn a dormant fall-brown stood silent guard along the banks. Except for a huge clearing just beneath the bluff, old pine forests lined both sides of Crooked River and extended well up into the hills as far as the eye could see. With the warming sun overhead and the strong pine scent filling up the air, it was difficult not to find this little corner of Brixton serene and beautiful.
Stepping out of the truck cab, I took an icy cold spray in the face and my ears were assaulted by the roar of the river. After a few seconds, the din of the falls and rapids receded into background noise. I was conscious of Jim watching me.
“Pretty here, isn’t it?”
“That it is, Jim. Thanks for showing it to me.”
“Just give me a second,” he said, unlocking the steel tool carrier affixed to the front end of the truck box. Jim pulled out a stained and faded blue Air Force duffel bag that was as patched as the skin on his back and belly. There was a thin rectangular area near the handle of the bag that had been neatly colored over with a black marking pen. My bet was the Colonel’s name was under the black marker. I didn’t need to be a seer to guess what was in the bag. “This way.” He motioned up the hill. “Come on.”
The low bluff was the last flat bit of land my feet touched for the next ten minutes. We spent that time walking up into the hills above the falls and rapids. I slipped a few times on the pine straw carpet thick beneath the trees. Jim seemed to enjoy my unsteadiness, snickering and yelling for me to catch up.
By the time we got to the little clearing between the trees, I was in a full sweat and gasping for breath. Although I’d managed to maintain a fairly consistent weight over the years, I was completely out of shape and probably a good candidate for a massive coronary. Decades of cigarette smoking and drug and alcohol abuse had only enhanced my chances of an early death.
“You don’t look so good.”
“I feel worse than I look,” I said.
“You oughta start running with me.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
As I regained my composure, I noticed that the roar of the falls and rapids was somewhat muted, but still remarkably pronounced. I noticed too the old bullet scars on the surrounding trees, and the collection of beer cans, plastic soda bottles, and piles of spent casings. And there was a neatly stacked pile of wood partially covered by a tarp sitting in between some trees. The stack of wood seemed as out of place up here as the blockhouse had seemed in the hangar. Jim saw me staring at the pile.
“The ashes,” he said, touching his index finger to his forehead, “from the chapel.”
“The chapel? I’m confused.”
He tapped his forehead again. “The white building. The other night, remember?”
“Oh, those ashes. Right. Everybody had that smudge.”
“That wood is from the first tree we ever used for practice. It’s what we burn for the ashes. Can’t enter the chapel without the ashes.”
“About that, I-”
“In time, Kip. In time. For now, are you ready to shoot?” he asked, reaching into the duffel bag.
I suppose somewhere I’d known this is what Jim was bringing me up here for and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited by the prospect. Since that night at the Air Force base, I’d wanted to get on the inside of whatever it was that had gone on in that white concrete blockhouse. In my bones I knew it was where McGuinn was headed in my book, but he couldn’t get there if I didn’t get there first. I had spent a lot of my time imagining the parameters of the world the character of McGuinn would be thrust into, a world even an experienced killer would find both comfortable and disorienting. Being out here with Jim was the gateway to that world.
I was also a little sick at the idea of shooting. I hadn’t liked my father very much, but even if it had been a complete stranger’s body I’d found that day when I was a kid, it would have fucked with my head. There’s something about the cusp of teenagehood, when the hormones are just beginning to course through you, that makes you especially vulnerable. I sensed that once I took my first shot, there wouldn’t be any going back. Maybe it was already too late to go back.
I pointed at the duffel. “That the Colonel’s bag?”
“It is.”
“What you got there?”
“This look familiar?” Jim asked, unzipping a black nylon and foam gun case.
“Yes, it does.” I smiled in spite of myself, because what he held in his hand was a shiny version of the Colt Python that Frank Vuchovich had used to take my class hostage.
“It’s nickel plated and newer than the one Frank had.” He undid the trigger lock and handed it to me. “Go ahead, take a few shots.”
I tried to recall how Bart had taught me to handle a pistol of this size. I held the big revolver with both hands, tried to relax, and squeezed one off. My arms jumped up and back. Brown bark splinters and pieces of juicy white pulp flew from the trunk of the tree about fifteen yards ahead of me. I got an instant reminder of the thunder that thing produced as the report echoed through the woods. Some birds took wing. Water tumbled down the falls. Wind blew back the tops of the trees. Nothing much changed except my heart rate. There it was again. I was rushing. The first snort of coke, the first taste of a woman, the first sip of scotch: every high is different, but somehow the same.
“Very good. Now watch what happens with the second shot,” Jim said, that knowing smile on his face.
I took a few deep breaths and calmed myself, then aimed at the same tree and let go the second shot I’d ever taken. No splinters this time, only the echo.
“What happened?”
“Funny thing about shooting, Kip. Before you took your first shot, you didn’t know how the Python would recoil. Once you knew, you anticipated. So even before you got the second shot off, you were pulling your arms back. The only thing you were in danger of hitting with that second round there was a red-tailed hawk in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t fret. You’ll get better.”
I hoped so, but for now I was perfectly happy to play with all the Colonel’s toys. I fired a Luger, a.38 Police Special, a.45 Browning, a.40 Glock, a Walther PPK, and a.25 Beretta. It didn’t matter what I shot. I got that same rush every time. The Colonel’s duffel bag was like a magician’s hat. Each time Jim reached in, he seemed to pull out a different automatic or revolver. Whatever I fired and regardless of how badly I missed what I was aiming for, Jim assured me that I would get better.
“Amateur hour’s over, Jim. Now let me see some real shooting,” I said, reaching into the bag and handing him the Browning.
He positively beamed, as I knew he would, at the chance to show off for me. Jim surveyed the landscape, picking out a target.
“See that dried pine cone wedged in there between the branch and the trunk,” he said, pointing the muzzle of the.45 at a tree about fifty feet away.
“I do, the one-”
Before I got the rest of the words out of my mouth, the round obliterated the pine cone. Shot after shot, no matter the weapon in his hand, Jim hit whatever he set his sights on. Then switching hands, he did much the same thing. He even took a few blind shots and hit most of his targets.
“I can make you better at this,” he said, “but I don’t think you’ll ever get as good as me.”
“This is fun, but why would I want to get as good as you?”
“Well, you don’t really have to get as good as me, I guess; but you do have to get better, much better.”
