The Far Side (23 page)

“Shit,” Kris said, feeling faint.

“So, you do what you can, knowing that you have to be more than just a little sure.”

“And the guy who told you what they did?” Andie asked.

“You ever see the movie
Commando
?” Ezra asked.  Before they could speak Ezra spoke first.  “The colonel held the fucker upside down out the door of a chopper.  The official report said that after questioning, he was released.”

Kris closed her eyes.  Andie was more direct.  “I’d like to think we’re better than that.”

“Yeah, you’d think.  That bastard had helped kill a dozen people, including a three month old.  He tried to kill us.  You thought we’d read him his rights and haul him off to do ten to twenty in an American jail?”

“Does it ever stop?” Andie asked.

“Sure.  We didn’t fly halfway around the world and blow up three thousand Afghans.  They came here and blew up three thousand Americans.  They can surrender or die.”

“This can wait for another time,” Kris told them.  “I want to look around outside.  Walk a couple of hundred feet along the shelf here and see what we see.”  She tapped the pistol nestled under her left armpit.  “It might help if I at least know how to shoot this.”

They went outside and walked a ways, turned around, and walked back.  Gravel, rocks large and small, mostly rounded pieces of limestone.  A couple of times Ezra leaned down and rubbed at the soil, but then would stand up again and they’d keep on.  Finally they were back in front of the cave.

“What’s with the dirt?” Andie asked.

Ezra smiled slightly.  “There’s no Smokey the Bear here.  There’s a thin layer of ash in some of the deeper cracks and crevices, and I’m pretty sure a lot of the rocks show charring, but it’s heavily weathered.”  He waved around them.  “You’d need a forest here, for it to burn like that.  But there’s nothing here, not a trace.”

“There used to be a forest in northern Arizona too,” Andie said dismissively.  “It’s all fossilized now.  At the park they say a big flow of mud came from somewhere and buried all the trees in the forest.”

“I want to learn to shoot,” Kris said stubbornly.

“I already know,” Andie said with undue pride.

“Sure, Andie,” Ezra said mildly.  “Let’s see you shoot that rock over there,” he pointed to one about a hundred yards away.

“With a pistol I can hit out to about fifty feet.  Of course, Kit wasn’t a total idiot -- I don’t have one.”

Ezra bowed to her and then undid his shoulder holster and gave the holster and weapon to Andie, then a handful of cartridges.  “Now, slowly walk forward, get in range and let fly.  Try not to shoot us.”

She flipped him a bird and then stalked forward after she put holster on.  To Kris’ surprise, Andie didn’t do any fast draw stuff.  She just pulled the pistol out, lined up and fired.  The rock shattered.  It had been probably sixty feet away from her when she shot, not fifty.  On the other hand the rock was about a foot on a side.

Andie put the safety back on and ejected the clip and took a bullet from her pocket and inserted it into the clip, and then slid the clip back in the pistol.  She put the pistol back in the holster and walked back to Ezra.

“I shot the rock -- not you or Kris.  I reloaded.  I’ll clean the pistol later, okay?”

“Okay, Andie.”  Ezra turned to Kris.  “What did Andie do wrong, just now?”

Kris laughed nervously.  “I have no idea.”

“She has a swelled head, because the rock wasn’t shooting back and then didn’t bleed when she shot it.  Moreover, the rock wasn’t moving and neither was she.  It’s a might more difficult with one or the other and much harder still when you’re moving and so is your target.  People, as a general rule, won’t stand still and let you shoot at them.  And if you stand still, they’ll shoot you instead -- so you’d better be moving as well.”

“I can hit ninety percent or better with a skeet gun,” Andie said, a little angry.

“Clay pigeons don’t shoot back either,” Ezra said with equanimity, “and you get to stand still to shoot.”

He turned to Kris.  “Now, if you would, please remove the pistol from the holster.”

There followed a lesson for the next half hour, before Ezra had Kris aim at another rock.  It was larger and closer than Andie’s had been, but she’d already figured that it was better to take her time and get used to things.

She fired and was a little low.  She fired again, being more careful, and the bullet went right.  The third time the bullet went even more to the right.

“Do you know what you’re doing wrong?” Ezra asked Kris.

“Nope, it’s like I’m getting worse, not better.”

“The first time, you got a righteous shot off and just had the wrong sight picture.  The next two times the noise and recoil had spooked you and you were jerking the trigger.  The third shot you were really spooked and jerked really hard.

“What you want to do is line up on the target as best as you can and slowly squeeze the trigger.  Don’t jerk.  It’s trite but true: you want the shot to surprise you.  Jerk afterwards all you want, the kick has already messed up the sight picture for you.

“Take your time, put the pistol back on target, and squeeze off another shot.”

“And how does taking your time help when someone is shooting at you?” Andie said, a nasty tone in her voice.

Ezra was serious.  “Andie, in a fire fight in Afghanistan, we would regularly kill a hundred, hundred and fifty and sometimes as many as two hundred of them for every one of us they killed.  Why?”

“They jerk the trigger?” Andie was sarcastic.

“Yes.  Which means they never hit the guy they’re shooting at -- if they hit someone, it’s likely two or three people over from where they were aiming.  But, even worse than jerking that shot off, is holding the trigger down on your AK.  They are all macho dudes and feel like they need machine guns.

“We call it ‘spray and pray.’  As you noticed, Kris, after each shot, your pistol is pointing a few feet high.  With a machine gun, you fire that first shot and, after that, you’re shooting at the ravens and vultures.  Sometimes they realize that and stop and re-aim, but mostly they don’t stop until the clip is empty.

“In either case, we’ve been picking them off while they are shooting holes in the sky.  Let me tell you, you look around and see two-thirds of your buddies dead on the ground around you and all those Americans bellied down in cover and shooting the shit out of the rest of you -- well, let’s just say constipation isn’t something you suffer in your last minutes.  Or seconds.”

He stopped talking.  “Now I need both of you to listen and do exactly what I say.  Kris, put the pistol away right now, as is.  Turn to face me before you do.  Andie, keep your hand away from your weapon.  Do what I tell you!  We’ve got company!”

* * *

It had been two weeks and Melek was indeed bored out of his skull.  On the other hand, he and his men had the day shift now and at least he could look at what was boring, instead of guessing about it.

He and the lieutenant had been talking about the fine points of archery when a very strange noise came from outside.  It was, Melek thought, a ways off, but it had been loud enough so that he could hear echoes off the mountainside.

The lieutenant turned to Landrew, dozing at the window, “Turn out the others.  String bows.”

The afternoon shift was mostly awake, and they heard the order.  In no time, the privates were stringing bows and handing them up to Melek and the lieutenant, then the other corporals until, finally, everyone was set.

Melek had been looking around carefully.  “I can’t see anything.  With the echoes, I can’t be sure where the sound came from.”

The lieutenant had a sour expression on his face.  “Sergeant Melek, carefully, poke your head out the exit and see what you can see.  I’ll take over here.”

Melek hated it, but after all, he was the one with the most experience.  The lieutenant was right, even if Melek didn’t like it.

He walked to the door and opened it a tiny crack, staying inside.  He hadn’t bothered with a bow.

Nothing happened, so he moved at a crouch outside and up the first two steps.  Then, cautiously and slowly, he started to lift up.  He looked around carefully with just his head visible.  He didn’t hear or see anything.  Maybe, he thought, it had been a lightning bolt.  He looked at the cloudless sky and decided that had to be wishful thinking.

He carefully scanned the area close by that he could see, and when he saw nothing, moved his scrutiny further away.  The lieutenant hissed from inside.  “What do you see?”

“Nothing, Lieutenant,” Melek replied, tamping down his temper.  Like he wouldn’t have told the lieutenant if he’d seen something?

There was just the sparse scrub of the steps, the mountain beyond.

“What’s out there, Sergeant?” the lieutenant asked again.

“Nothing that I can see.” Melek repeated.  “What’s in front?”

“Landrew and Cellon are watching out the front, they don’t see anything either.”

Well, now if the lieutenant would just shut up...  He’d done what he had to do -- he had his men looking in both directions.  Now it was just a matter of localizing the sounds...

There was another of those sounds, then a moment later another and then another.  There was a fraction of a second between the original sound and the echoes, and he quickly found what he was looking for.

They were further away than he would have imagined, at least four hundred yards.  There were three of them and at that distance he couldn’t see much.  Worse, what he could see didn’t make sense.

One of the three had shoulder-length hair -- but was wearing pants.  A woman would have long hair and a dress.  The other two had shorter hair and pants as well.  If the one with long hair had been wearing a dress it would have been a simple observation.  Moreover, one of the other two was very short, like a child.

“Okay, Lieutenant, I see them.  There are about four hundred yards away, and about a hundred feet higher than we are.  I am not sure who they are.  All of them are wearing pants, but one has the long hair of a woman.  I can’t tell much about them at this distance, except that one of them is much shorter than the other two -- like a child.”

“What are they doing?”

“I have no idea.  Talking about something.”

“And the sounds?”

“I have no idea.  They are far away, Lieutenant.”

“Do you see what sort of bows they carry?”

Melek kicked himself.  Why hadn’t he bothered to look?  He decided to stick to the safe answer.  “It’s too far to tell, Lieutenant.  I don’t see anything that looks like a bow.”  One of them moved slightly and made a liar out of him.

“Wait, one moved.  He’s got a very short bow across his back.  The others don’t.  The one with the bow is one of those with short hair.”

Melek thought swiftly.  “Send up Landrew -- his hair is the color of sand.  One of the other two has hair the color of sunlight and the short one’s hair is black.  All have fair skin.”  The last meant that they weren’t their eastern enemies.  Probably.

Landrew appeared a moment later, and Melek explained where the others were, and Landrew carefully peeked over the top of the slit trench and saw them.  “If they move, you have to tell the lieutenant, understand, Landrew?”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

“And move as little as you can!”

Melek sank slowly when two of the three heads had their backs to him, and the other was side on.

He went inside and spoke to the lieutenant.  “Four of us can slide out the slit and go downhill a bit, and then along here.  They won’t be able to see us.  We can get close and appear suddenly and make the one with a bow drop his.”

“And if the others have bows, too?”

“We shoot it out,” Melek said, sounding more confident than he felt.  There was another of the loud sounds.  He tried not to grimace.

“There is always the chance, Sergeant, that these are people who are either castaways or here for some innocent purpose.  Try to take prisoners.”

Melek nodded.  Then he was given a boost up, and handed his bow.  In a moment, four of them were running single file through the desert.  As usual, Melek looked around the sky, making sure no dralka were visible, and then led them up the mountain.

He slowed, walking in a crouch, with the others further back.  In spite of that, he saw the one with the bow jerk up and stare right at him.

He spoke softly for the others.   “Line abreast, arrows nocked, but not drawn.  I’m going with my bow on my back.  Try to give me a little time if it goes bad.”

There were grunts of acknowledgement.  Melek was head and shoulders better than the others with a bow, being able to bring down a dralka with every other shot.  He always wondered why that impressed people... didn’t they realize he picked his shots carefully?

He stood up and walked forward, his palms forward.  The other said something to the others, but the distance was too great to hear what.  The three were lined up abreast as well as his men.  He’d have worried, except as he got closer he realized that he didn’t know what it was over the man’s back, but it wasn’t a bow.