Endless Night (43 page)

“Just keep your sunglasses on,” Sharon told him. “Twenty-two shells mostly do nothing more than sting your cheek. But you get hit by a big one, it can hurt pretty bad and even cut you.”

“A flying shell isn’t gonna be lethal,” Dad said, “but any sensible person tries to avoid pain. So keep your distance from ejection ports. If somebody’s firing a revolver, you don’t need to worry about it. Revolvers don’t spit out their spent shells.”

“Okay.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” Jody added, “because we don’t have any revolvers with us.”

“It’s worth pointing out, anyway,” Sharon said.

“Much obliged,” Dad told her. “Now, the other danger area is in front of the muzzle.”

“Jeez, Dad. Isn’t that just slightly
obvious?”

“You’ve been known to get sloppy about it yourself, young lady.”

“Me?”

“Here’s the thing, Andy. Everybody knows the muzzle is dangerous. It’s where the bullets come out. But some people seem to forget about that when they aren’t actually aiming and ready to fire. You’ve always got to be aware of where your muzzle is pointing—when you’re walking with your weapon, when you’re just holding it and doing nothing special, and
especially
when you’re busy reloading it.” He turned his head to Jody. “Paying attention?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Always assume there’s a live round in the chamber and that it’ll go off when you least expect it.”

“And,” Sharon said, “make sure there isn’t a round in the chamber when you don’t want one there.”

“The main rule is ... Jody?”

“Never point your gun at anybody you don’t intend to shoot.”

“Very good.”

Sharon smiled at her. “He really has drummed this stuff into you.”

“Tell her why,” Dad said.

“A safe shooter is a happy ...” She suddenly felt cheap making cracks about it. “He wants me to be able to protect myself and also to know enough so I don’t get hurt by accident. It’s sort of like when he made me take swimming lessons.”

Dad’s head moved up and down very slightly. He whispered, “That’s right.”

Nobody else spoke.

Jody heard the hushed sound of a mild breeze. She heard chirps and clatters and buzzes from nearby insects. A few birds sang.

Then the plastic bag from the gun shop rustled as Sharon reached in. She came out with a handful of small cellophane packages. Inside each wrapper was a pair of bright orange foam ear plugs.

She passed them around. “It’ll get loud,” she told Andy.

They all tore open the wrappers and plugged their ears.

Then Jack took a deep breath and held the pistol toward Andy. “Here you go, pal. It’s loaded. Jody always keeps it loaded, a bullet in the chamber, the safety on. I know that sounds dangerous, but her main reason for having the gun is self-defense. If you need to shoot someone, you might not have time to fool around loading up. You’ve gotta keep it loaded so you can get off a shot fast. Any questions?”

“Not right now. Can I try it?”

“Yep.” Dad gave the gun to Andy, then guided his hand until the muzzle was pointing in the general direction of the soda cans. “There’s your safety. Push it down with your thumb. That’s right. When you see the red dot like that, the safety is off and you’re ready to fire.”

“Should I go ahead?”

“First make sure everyone’s to the rear of your muzzle.”

Andy glanced from side to side. “Yeah, they are.”

“Fine. Now, just point it at any of those cans ...”

“One of those in the front,” Sharon suggested. “A gun like that is for close range.”

“Right,” Dad said. “Now pop a few rounds, see how it goes.”

The pistol jumped a bit and Jody heard a flat
bam!
through her ear plugs. A yard behind one of the soda cans, a plume of dust leaped off the ground.

Bam!
Closer. Behind and slightly to the right.

Bam! Bam! Bam!
Two more misses, but then the can hopped high, tumbling away, and fell to the ground at least a foot beyond where it had started.

“Wow!” Andy yelled. His head snapped around. He wore just about the biggest smile that Jody had ever seen on him. “Did you see that! I did it! I hit it!”

Jody gave him a thumbs up.

“Good shooting!” Sharon called.

Dad said, “You did it once, you can do it again. This time, line your target up in the sights. Put your front sight in the center of the rear sight’s opening so that all three of the white dots form a straight row. Then make it look as if the target is resting on top of the front sight.”

Andy took his time with the next shot. When he fired, his bullet kicked up dust a yard in front of the can. The shot after that missed, too, but came close enough for the shock of its passage to shake the can.

“I think I’m better when I don’t aim,” Andy said.

“It all takes practice,” Dad said.

Bam!

The can tumbled backward.

KRA-BOOM!

The unexpected blast, sharp and loud and shocking in spite of her ear plugs, made Jody jump.

The soda can hit the air like a punted football. It flipped end over end, flashing sunlight, getting smaller, and landed forty or fifty feet back.

Sharon lowered her rifle.

Dad grinned at her and said, “Whoa, Nelly.”

Andy gaped at her, his mouth drooping.

“That’s the difference,” Sharon said, “between a .22 and a .223.”

“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch,” Andy muttered. “Can I try it?”

“Everyone can try it,” Sharon said.

“Later, though,” Dad told Andy. “I want you to stick with the .22 until you’re more comfortable with it. Fire another hundred rounds or so. Jody, why don’t you take turns with him? And show him how to change magazines, reload, whatever else he needs to know. Okay?”

“You hear that?” she asked Andy. “I’m in charge.”

“This is
so
neat!”

“I know, I know. Now, the gun is empty. You know it’s empty because the slide stayed back after the last shot you took. But put the safety back on, anyway. Always have it on when you’re not firing.”

He pushed the lever upward until it covered the red dot on the side of the pistol.

“Good,” Jody said. “Now it’s my turn.” She pulled the spare magazine out of the pocket of her shorts. “Gimme.”

“Can’t I go again? If you let me, I’ll let you go twice in a row.”

She thought about it for a moment. She remembered the look on his face right after he hit the can for the first time. “Okay. You do two magazines, then I’ll do two, and we’ll work it like that. Here, give me the gun. I’ll show you how to reload.”

Andy offered the pistol to her.

“Oh, great,” Jody said. “Planning to shoot me in the stomach?”

He winced and turned the muzzle downrange. “Sorry.”

“That’s the sort of goof that gets people shot.” She saw her father watching. “Right, Dad?” she asked.

“That’s right. Glad you’re paying attention.” Then he turned his attention to Sharon.

Sharon stood off to the side of the car, but near enough to reach her open box of ammo on top of the trunk. She was taking out long, pointed cartridges and thumbing them into a banana clip that glared like chrome in the sunlight.

“Jeez,” Jody muttered. “Look at that.”

Andy looked. “Holy smoke.”

Jody took the pistol from him. Careful to keep it pointing away from everyone, she pressed the release button. The slim black magazine dropped down out of the handle and into her palm. “Ours are just a teensy bit smaller than hers.”

“No kidding.”

“Dad’s gonna make me move up to a .38 one of these days. He thinks I need to have more stopping power. I’ve always tried to talk him out of it, but ...”

“Why talk him out of it? It’d be
neat
to have a bigger gun.”

“Yeah, but I like this one. I don’t wanta change.” She slipped the full magazine into the pistol and slammed it home with the heel of her hand. “Watch me, not her. I’m making you do this next time.”

“I’m watching.”

“Okay. You’ve gotta make sure the magazine is all the way in and locked into place. Then you push this gizmo and the slide rams forward and chambers the round that’s on top. Watch.” She did it. “Now it’s loaded and ready.”

“Except for the safety,” Andy added as he accepted the pistol from her.

“Right. You’re learning.”

Her father, she noticed, had stepped over close to Sharon. They were talking softly as she fed more cartridges into the magazine.

“Should we go ahead and shoot?” she asked.

“Fire away,” Dad said.

“My can’s gone,” Andy complained.

“Pick a different one,” Jody told him. “Any of those four in the front.”

“Is there any special way I should stand?” he asked.

“Any way that feels comfortable. I prefer the Weaver stance, myself.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Spread your feet and crouch a little bit so you’re good and balanced. Then just stick out your arm and shoot. If you want to really take careful aim, you can use your left hand as sort of a platform under your gun hand.”

“Like this?”

“Yep.”

“Here goes!” He squeezed off a shot. A can hopped straight up and dropped back to the ground. “Hey!”

“Great!”

“I wish I could
really
send it flying.”

“The main thing is hitting it, not seeing how far you can make it fly.”

“Yeah, but this little peashooter might not even kill somebody.”

“It’ll kill just as good as that big cannon of Sharon’s.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Every day and twice on Sunday.” He fired again. This time, he missed.

“I’m not kidding. I happen to know that a lot of professional assassins use .22 caliber pistols. Like the secret Israeli hit teams that go after terrorists. They use them. At close range, a .22 is just as good as anything. And it’s quiet enough so that it makes almost no sound at all when it has a silencer.”

He fired again, winging a can so that it fell over but didn’t jump. Then he looked at Jody. “Have you got a silencer for this?”

“You can’t have ’em. They’re illegal.”

“Guys on TV always have them.”

“Yeah, and guys on TV are always putting silencers on revolvers, too. TV is stupid about guns. They never get it right. After this out here, you’ll spot crazy stuff every time you watch something.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Movies are like that, too, most of ’em. Just wait and see. Uh-oh.”

Andy fired and missed. “You made me miss.”

“Sharon’s about to go.”

Andy turned his head to watch.

“You don’t have to stop,” Jody told him. “I’m still waiting for my first turn, you know.”

“I don’t want to miss Sharon.”

Sharon glanced over at them. “Go ahead. I’ll wait till you’re empty.”

Andy emptied his gun with four quick pulls of the trigger. His first shot knocked a can spinning backward. The next three missed, but none by more than a few inches. “Nuts,” he said.

“That was good,” Jody told him. “If you’d been firing those at a bad guy instead of at a little Pepsi can, you would’ve caught him in the chest every time.”

“Really?” He grinned. “Hey, yeah, I bet you’re right.”

“Everybody have your ear plugs in?” Sharon called. “Okay. See that dried stump of wood sticking up, way out there? There, just in front of the hill?”

Jody spotted it. Not a very large target, and quite a distance beyond the farthest of the cans that Sharon had set out. To Jody, it appeared to be less than a foot high, and not much bigger around than her arm. It looked like the remains of the trunk of a small, dead tree.

“Do you see it?” Andy asked her.

“Yeah, do your

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay,” Sharon said. “Here goes. I’m gonna let her rip.”

Taking a few steps back, Dad yelled, “Rock ‘n’ roll!”

Sharon’s gunshots hammered the air.

She seemed to be firing as fast as she could pull the trigger.

The brown stump shook and pieces flew off as the storm of slugs tore into it. Every shot seemed to chew off a hunk, then speed on and blast the hillside and throw a plume of yellow dust into the air.

Dad wasn’t watching the target. His eyes were on Sharon.

Jody checked; that’s where Andy was staring, too.

Watching her there, NRA cap turned backward so its bill stuck out behind her, the rifle jumping with each shot and throwing out flashes of brass as its muzzle spat fire and white smoke, her whole body absorbing the recoils that hit her with quick hard jolts and shook her shirt and made her thighs vibrate even though Jody knew her legs must be almost as solid as wood.

She does look great, Jody thought. No wonder the guys are staring like a couple of nuts. They’re probably wishing they were on the other side so they could watch what the recoils are doing to her boobs.

The shooting stopped. The silence sounded huge. Sharon lowered her rifle and frowned into the distance.

“We’re gonna have to call you Rambo,” Dad said.

“I guess I nailed it pretty good.”

“You destroyed it!”
Andy blurted. He sounded very excited. “Can 1 try it?”

“Maybe later,” Sharon told him. “Right now you need to practice with the pistol.”

“One step at a time,” Dad added.

“But I want to really blast something.”

Jody shook her head. “We’ve created a monster.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

Jack came back from the pay phone at the Arco station on the outskirts of Blythe. He climbed into the driver’s seat. Pulling the shoulder harness across his body, he looked over at Sharon. “Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Did you get through to Nick?” Jody asked from the back seat.

“Yup. Got him at home. He said to tell you hi.”

“They don’t have any leads?” Sharon asked.

“They’re checking out the components of the fire bomb that the shooter left behind in the Zoller house. Doesn’t look promising, though. A mayonnaise jar full of gas, with one of those timers you can buy for turning on your lamps when you’re on vacation. Common stuff. Zero chance of making any headway trying to trace stuff like that. There were also some shoe prints. The shooter stepped in blood and tracked it around the house. He’s probably about six-foot-two.”