It was sweet, kindly, Doc Stapleton, resident patriarch. With a lever-action rifle. Shooting at bottles.
By the time I crested the ravine and saw him, I was close enough for him to hear me. He turned as I descended. I slowed from a sprint to a stop, and then bent over, hands on my knees, panting like crazy and waiting for my lungs to stop burning.
When I finally looked up, Doc was staring at me like he couldn’t fathom what I was doing there.
“I heard the shots,” I said, gasping. “I thought—” Then I shifted. “You scared me.”
Doc made a pffft noise and then said, “City slicker.”
Fine. We could go with that.
I stood up, still panting, and walked closer. Lined up on rocks against a bend in the ravine were glass bottles—maybe twenty. Green ones, brown ones, clear ones. Below the rocks, on the ground underneath, was a veritable lake of shattered glass.
“Gunshots,” Doc went on, as I took in the sight, “mean a whole different thing in the country.”
As far as he knew. But I nodded. “Target practice.”
Doc held out his gun to me. “Care to take a shot?”
I looked at it. The answer was no, of course. No, I wasn’t going to stand around shooting bottles when I was just on my way to quit my job. No, I wasn’t going to spend one more minute on this loony-bin ranch than I had to. Or blow my cover at the last minute by putting my skills on display.
No. Just, no.
And yet, I did need a minute to catch my breath.
And it might actually feel good to shoot something right now.
And that’s when Doc said, “You don’t have to hit anything,” in a tone like I was hesitating because I didn’t know how to shoot.
I was still resisting that little challenge when he added: “This rifle’s a little tough for ladies to handle, anyway.”
I mean, Come on.
I could spare five minutes. Right?
I held my hands out for the rifle, and I let him hand it to me. Then I let him give me a lesson.
I didn’t lie to him, exactly. I just stayed pleasantly mute while he walked me through the most basic of basic introductions to the gun in my hands: “This is the stock,” he said, “and this is the barrel. This is the trigger. You pull this lever to reload between shots.” Then he pointed at the muzzle. “This is where the bullets come out. Be sure to point that at the ground until you’re ready to make some trouble.”
This is where the bullets come out? The urge to show him up rose in my body like water filling a glass.
“Take that little group over there,” Doc said, gesturing at row of old beer bottles. “If you can hit one, I’ll give you a quarter.”
Wow. There was something so inspiring about being so underestimated.
Right then I decided to do more than just hit the bottles. I was going to hit them with some style.
Fast and easy. Like a badass. And also: from the hip.
“Okay, little lady,” Doc said then. “Just try your best.”
My best?
Okay.
I flipped off the safety, stepped into a comfortable stance, pressed the rifle butt to my hip bone, and pulled the trigger with a BOOM!
The rifle had a hell of a kick, but the first bottle disappeared in a puff of sand.
But I didn’t even stop to enjoy it. As soon as I’d pulled the trigger, I was popping the lever out and back with a satisfying ka-chunk and then pulling the trigger again.
Another BOOM! And another bottle turned to dust.
Then another, then another, then another. BOOM—ka-chunk, BOOM—ka-chunk, BOOM! Right across the row, as the bottles exploded one after the other.
It was over almost as soon as it started.
Then I turned back to Doc with one final shift of the lever—ka-chunk. Nice and ladylike.
I flipped the safety, took the rifle off my hip, and said to Doc’s gaping face, “That was fun.”
I’d just revealed way too much about myself, and I should’ve been halfway back to Houston by now. But it was worth it.
That’s when I noticed something up the ravine.
It was Jack. Watching us. And from the admiring look behind those slightly crooked glasses, he’d seen the whole thing.
He gave me a little salute of respect.
And I gave him a little nod.
And now it was time to get the hell out.
Seventeen
THE FIRST THING I saw when I stepped into surveillance headquarters was Robby and Taylor—with their hands in each other’s back pockets.
Before that image could burn itself too deep into my memory, I coughed.
They sprung apart at the sound, but—