“That is the gist of it, sir.”
“All right. Then I can then only say this: Earl, I cannot make up my mind in a single evening. I know you must begin to make your preparations. You will do that no matter what I say. So I will ruminate, examine, penetrate the mystery, lock up with the epistemology of it. Excuse the big word, but that is how I must proceed. If I find I cannot support you, Earl, you have to trust me to come to you and tell you. If it comes to it, I will have to go to the authorities. I may consider myself as having no choice, but I will face you square and tell you so eye-to-eye.”
“Fair enough, I suppose,” said Earl.
“In the meantime, you’ll forgive me if I don’t practice my small arms marksmanship. I have said I will find something out about that place. I have begun that effort, and in good faith and in obeyance of my decision, I will proceed. Again, fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” said Earl.
“I wish you could join us enthusiastically,” said Davis Trugood. “But I respect your honesty. As for me, I know my part. It is financial. You cannot fight a war without money.”
36
IT was cool and still in the minutes before dawn, and in that gray flush, only beginning to light some in the east, Earl sat on a shooting bench, enjoying a Lucky Strike. He was early, but he meant to be early.
Around him towered some magnificent Idaho mountains, but he could not see them yet. It was quiet, until at last he heard the sound of an automobile approaching, grinding its way uphill over the cinders of a road to this shooting range.
He watched as a humpbacked Chrysler from some year before the war pulled up next to his own rented Chevy, and a man got out. He was what some might call all hat and no cattle. He was a small man in a large hat. The glowing ember of a lit pipe illuminated his tough little face if you looked carefully, but as he made his preparations, he was all business. He opened the trunk of his car and took out a leather shooting box, which contained at least five pistols or revolvers, as well as a large amount of ammunition and various cleaning tools and chemicals and rags; it had a door flap that could be unlocked and locked in the upward position, and a spotting scope then attached, neatly moored to check targets. You saw them at bull’s-eye matches.
He lugged this thing up just a bit to another bench, and there set it down. He noticed Earl.
“Howdy,” he said.
“Howdy, sir.”
“Looks to be a right fine day, don’t it?”
“It does,” said Earl.
The old man got himself set up. He opened the flap and connected the telescope. He pulled out the case’s drawer to reveal the five guns which turned out, as Earl saw, to be all heavy revolvers manufactured either by Colt on the .41 frame or by Smith & Wesson on the N-frame. Then he removed several plastic boxes, removed the tops, and Earl saw neat rows of cartridges.
Next, out came a roll of paper targets and a staple gun.
“Cease-fire?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Earl.
The old man walked out on the range to a frame fifty yards gone, and quickly stapled the bull’s-eyes to it. He returned to the bench and sat down behind it.
“Range hot?”
“Range hot it would be,” Earl said.
The next thing out was a notebook where, with a scholar’s intensity, he turned to a page where a good deal of data was already recorded, and reviewed it, almost as if he were checking over this morning’s lecture before the students arrived.
So compelling was this immersion into the physics of it that he didn’t look up for quite some time, now and again writing himself a note or underlining something that was already written, occasionally dealing with his briarwood pipe, which, like Sam’s pipe, went out almost as often as it went on.
Finally, the sun came up enough for him to see the target and he removed a revolver—Earl saw it to be a Smith N-frame, with a four-inch barrel well engraved by an artist, and a highly carved, palm-filling ivory stock—opened the cylinder, and slid in six fat cartridges. Setting the gun down on the bench, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cotton.
“Say, friend, don’t know if you mean to shoot yourself or just watch, but I’m going to protect what little hearing I’ve got left with this here cotton. Would you care to help yourself?”
“Sir, my ears already ring like hell and I hear about ten percent of what is said.”
“That’s the damage the guns will do. You should have protected your ears when you were young.”
“Yes, sir,” said Earl.
“Still, I’d use some if I were you.”
Earl agreed, and went over to take a wad from the little man who, approached, was more eyebrow than hat as it turned out. That is, he was about fifty-five years old, with a face that looked like a walnut’s meat if it has dried in the sun over a long period, but what was remarkable were the feathers or whatever the hell they were over his eyes. They were like caterpillars possibly, extravagant things on a face so dour and grim.
Earl stuffed in the cotton as he returned, and then watched.
The old man shot. Six times. Each time the revolver jumped off the bench rest he’d set it on, and the report was loud enough that its pain penetrated unpleasantly through Earl’s cotton earplugs. The old man took no notice. He simply recorded remarks in his notebook with a great deal of patience and detail. He opened the cylinder and used the hand ejector to pump out the six spent shells, which he examined with a great deal of care, again taking notes.
It went on for two hours, with time off for the old man to remove one set of targets, measure them carefully and note them duly in his notebook and hang another.
Finally, at around 9:00, he was done, and it seemed that he had returned to planet Earth. He took his hat off and rubbed his hand through his hair, revealing also that the upper third of his forehead was stark white, as if it had been hidden behind the giant Stetson for years and years, his whole life perhaps. He then cleaned his guns methodically.
Then, at last, he turned.
“You are a patient fellow,” he said to Earl.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Kaye, I am.”
“So I see you know my name.”
“I do, sir. I have heard great things about you. Not merely have I been reading your articles over the years, but a friend of mine, now passed, knew you well in the old days. Is that your .44 Special load you are running?”
“Yes, it is. I’ve got one of my own design Kaye 200 grain semiwadcutters atop varying amounts of Unique. She steps out.”
“I could see the recoil.”
“Oh, that,” said Mr. Kaye. “I don’t pay much attention to that. Recoil’s for sissies to worry about. Are you a sissy, son?”
“Don’t really know, sir.”
“Well, I am seeing how much she’ll take before the pressure signs start showing: you know, bulged primers, tight casing, that sort of thing. I’ll probably blow up three or four guns before I get this one finished and get where I want to be. Now, you mentioned a friend, son. A friend of mine?”
“Yes,” said Earl. “His name was D.A. Parker.”
“D.A.! He is a good man! He is the best! He faced many an armed man in his time, and put most of them facedown in the dust. Say, how’d you know D.A.?”
“It was my privilege to serve with him in some dirty work in Hot Springs. It was a messy fracas. Cost that fine man his life.”
Elmer Kaye’s face knit up in some concern as he factored in this information.
Finally he said, “So you are a lawman? So you saw some of the kind of action D.A. saw. You have faced shots fired in anger.”
“There, sir, and in the war before. And before that, in the Marine Corps. A bit in Nicaragua and some in China, against the Japs even before Pearl Harbor.”
“Hmmm,” grumped the old man. “You are a formidable fellow, then.”
“I am one lucky fellow, truth is.”
“But I’m betting your arrival here was no accident, not if you knew my name and he
ard D.A. Parker chat about me.”
“That is true, Mr. Kaye.”
“Well, what would it be, son? Daylight’s wasting, and I’ve got work to do. Have three pieces due at American Rifleman by the end of the month.”
“Well, sir, it’s about a little trip. A hunting trip.”
“I don’t guide no more.”
“I’d be the guide.”
“Hmmm,” said Elmer Kaye. “I have Africa penciled in for the fall, and Alaska in December. I’m in South America for a bit, but I don’t think that’s until February of fifty-two. I might have some time in January, if it tempts me.”
“Sir, actually it’d be in three weeks, dark of the moon.”
“Three weeks! Impossible.”
“You might make an exception for the game I’ve got in mind.”
“And that would be?”
“Two-legged. Heavily armed. Mean as a skunk. Shoot first, ask questions later. ’Bout fifty of ’em, some with machine guns.”
Elmer leaned forward, his heavy eyebrows narrowed up in what looked like the beginning of formidable anger.
“Say, I don’t think I like where this is going, friend. I’m not some gunman for hire. I am a friend of law enforcement, and have never committed a crime in my life, nor even thought for a second about doing so. You must have me figured for some other kind of fellow, and I don’t care to hear more of it.”
“I know how upstanding you are. That’s why I thought you’d be interested. And I thought to get you to listen to me from here on in, I’d show you something they gave me after the war.”
He reached into his pocket, removed the Medal of Honor and pushed it across to the old man.
“Where?”
“Iwo. Close-in work. Killed a mess of Japs in very short order. Wasn’t happy about it, but they’s killing people in my platoon.”
“You are formidable. Then why on earth—?”
“These boys I’m gunning for need gunning, believe you me, Mr. Kaye. They live on death and pain. They hurt for fun. They run roughshod over all other forms of life, and laugh about it. They are as pure killers as any who walked the earth. And they think nobody can touch them. They are beyond the reach of the law, so isolated they will see all comers a-coming days in advance, and be ready for them. I want to touch them hard in three weeks. I want you and a few others like you to come a-hunting with me. I’ve got a fellow who’ll even pay expenses. And although I can’t guarantee what happens in the fight, I can guarantee that it’s easy in and then easy out, and no law will ever track you down and hold you accountable. You’ll get no credit and no profit from it, but you’ll have a night of gunplay like no other on earth. If this sort of thing matters to you, you’ll never have another chance like this one. Chances like this one are leaving the world as it gets more and more modern. I’m giving you a night in Dodge City, where I bet in your heart of hearts you’ve always wished to be. And you can see what that super .44 you’re working up can do. Now what do you say?”
The old man fixed him square with his intense eyes.
“Okay, son. You’ve piqued my interest. Now tell me all about it.”
An hour later, Elmer Kaye said yes. How could he say anything else? You don’t get but one offer like Earl’s in a lifetime.
37
HE had a professorial mien, with rimless glasses, a fedora, a tweed sports coat, the tie tied perfect and tight. He was about fifty himself, with the worn face of a man who’s been a lot of places and seen a lot of things. Earl watched as he assumed the classic kneeling position and fired.
It was a Winchester Model 70, scoped, and far down-range, a small part of Idaho lit up behind a target. He cocked the rifle effortlessly and fired again, then three more times, in about thirty seconds.
Then he consulted the spotting scope.
“A nice group, Mr. O’Brian?”
The old man looked up, startled. He was used to coming out here by himself, and his eyes examined Earl quickly, reached a judgment, and he decided to answer.
“Not bad,” he said. “Everybody insists you can’t get tight groups with a .270, but that’s because they don’t make bullets carefully enough for it. Fellow in town makes these one at a time for me, weighs ’em out and throws out the ones that are off-weight by just a tenth grain or so. It looks to me like I’m within an inch down-range.”
“Great shooting from the kneeling.”
“You’re a position shooter, are you, sir? A rifleman?”
“I did some shooting in the service, sir. Never worked at it, never was no champion. But in the war, when I shot at someone who was or was planning to shoot at me or my fellows, he usually stayed shot.”
“God bless you for your service.”
“You want me to spot for you, sir?”
“Well, you’re not here to spot for me. You’ve got some kind of proposition, else you wouldn’t have driven all the way out from Lewiston. Are you starting a new magazine? I get fellows trying to get me to write for this new book or that one all the time. But I am staying at Outdoor Life and that’s all there is to it. I have a nice arrangement with them, and the gun companies and the ammunition factories are supportive of my efforts.”
“Well, sir, actually, I don’t think there’s no writing in what I’m here to talk about. You wouldn’t want to write about it. What I’m looking for is a rifleman. He’s got to hit six one-hundred-yard shots in about five seconds, as I’ve figured it out, and it’ll be dark of the moon.”
“Impossible.”
“The targets will be well designated.”
“Well, in that case, any competent marksman could do that. If you were in the service you would be able to come up with dozens of fellows capable of that.”
“It helps that he’s an older fellow.”
“Now why would that be?”
“He’s had his children or decided not to. He’s lain with a few women.”
“Sir, I have lain with only one, and she is to this day my wife and I am a lucky man for it.”
“Yes, sir. But the man I’m looking for has also seen enough things to know there’s not much to miss if he passes on. He won’t fall apart when things get tight. He’s got discipline, talent, solidity, and a sense of values. He ain’t in it for the money. He’s in it for the shooting and the rightness of it. And if he gets killed, he died doing something he was born to do, and that’ll hold him together in the tough moments. And there’s one other thing: I’ve seen enough young men die in the war. I hope to never see it again. Old fellows have some living behind them, so they won’t be bitter if it happens.”
“Then it’s dangerous. I’m sure you’re offering a great deal of money.”
“Expenses. But the fee in other ways is high.”
“And what would those other ways be?”
“Experience. You won’t get a chance to do this one again, and you’re lucky as hell that you’re getting it at all.”
“It sounds illegal.”
“It may be. However, it is righteous.”
“All right, you tell me what it is you’re offering. In plain language.”
“Kills. You’ll get a passel of kills out of it. I’m gambling that an old rifleman like you has it in him to wonder, deep down, how he’d do if the animal on the other end of the scope could shoot back at him. Your kind of rugged fellow must wonder about that all the time.”
Jack O’Brian’s lack of an answer told Earl he’d hit the right note.
“I have no desire to kill men,” he said. “Except that the ultimate usage of the gun is in the hands of a warrior. Not a hunter, but a warrior, defending his tribe. I’m wise enough to know that, and maybe it’s something I hold against myself.”
“I can’t guarantee you you won’t catch a cold from a bullet. It sometimes happens to the best of us. But I can guarantee you the following: easy in, easy out. One night, this would be in three weeks, the total involvement of time being about a week. No police interest. You go home free and clear, and your odds are
good, with surprise on our side.”
“Who are you?” O’Brian then asked.
Earl told him, and got out the medal, and told him some more. Then he handed him a sheet of paper with some names and numbers on them.
“You might know a few of these men. They are old shooters.”
“I know at least three of them. I shot against them at the Nationals. This fellow was squadded two down from me, I believe.”
“I served with each in the war. If you’d like to call them and ask them any question you have about me, that would be fine.”
“I may just do that. Now tell me what this is.”
Earl told him.
Jack O’Brian said yes, with only one proviso.
“I would only ask that the one man who not be requested to join us is a knotty, stubborn, senile, cantankerous bastard named Elmer Kaye. I cannot be in the same room as Elmer Kaye.”
“Can you be in the same house?” said Earl, then gave him the bad news.
38
THE world’s oldest gunman slept in his rocker on the porch, in a blanket wrapped up against the cold, except of course there was no cold, only a memory of it.
Outside it was Montana everywhere you looked. Beyond the far meadows some blue mountains rose out of mist, but so many miles off no details could be tracked. In his chair the old man slept as soundly as the dead. In repose his features softened some. He had an egg-shaped face like a dream granddad and not much hair left. He was pink, as so many men in their seventies become. Though swaddled in the wool, he clearly had stumpy arms and a stumpy body, and short legs. And, like many men of his generation, he was dressed formally, for to face the world, even in sleep, without a tie was to admit that one was a no ’count. But without a hat was even worse, and though he dozed, his round head was crowned in ten gallons’ worth of imposing black Stetson.
Earl wondered if he were indeed dead, but every few minutes or so he’d let out with some low, growly sound from who knew where? He’d stir, shiver, twitch, but only for a second; then it was back to dreamland.