Shella (19 page)

They all had guns.

I wondered if Monroe knew any Indians.

We walked back in the woods. There was a pond. Quiet.

“It’s our land,” the Indian said. “We own it. We bought it. Paid for it. Nobody comes on our land. Not now.”

We kept walking. Something moved in the woods next to us. One of the dogs.

We came to a clearing. The Indian walked away from
the others. They kind of squatted on the ground, watching everything except us.

“You ever shoot a gun?” the Indian asked me.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. We have to work this out, be real careful. We only get this one chance. Understand?”

“Yes.” I didn’t, but I knew he’d say more.

“Remember the acid test I told you about? You have to do someone. Like, just to be doing it. That should get you close enough. But you can’t do it your way. If they know you work with your hands, they won’t let you get close to the head man. Searching you wouldn’t do any good, see? So the first job, you got to do it like a shooter. That’s what we’re going to show you.”

“I never …”

“I know. You don’t have to be any marksman, just know how it works.”

He took a gun out of his coat. A silver gun. He squatted down. I got down next to him. He turned the gun sideways so I could see what he was doing. He pushed a piece of metal with his thumb and the round part fell sideways out of the gun. He tilted the gun in his hand and the bullets spilled out.

“There’s two ways to fire this, okay? Single-action and double-action, it’s called. You can cock it first, like this.…” He pulled back the hammer. I heard a click. “Then just pull the trigger.” The gun clicked again. He slid something forward with his thumb, opened it up, held it sideways. “See? The hammer has this little spur on it. The spur comes forward, it hits the cartridge right in the center.…” He showed me a bullet. It had a little round dot on the back, right in the center. “That’s the primer. It
kicks off the powder inside, and the bullet shoots out the front. You see?”

“Yes.”

“Or you can just pull the trigger without cocking it.” He did it. Click, click, click. The round part turned every time he pulled the trigger.

“See how it works?”

“Yes.”

He opened the gun again, handed it to me. “Look down the barrel,” he said.

I did it. He made a grunting noise, took the gun out of my hand. “No. Not like that. Here, watch me.” He let the light come over his shoulder, held his thumbnail where the bullet would come out, looked down the barrel from the back end. He handed it to me. I did what he did.

“What do you see?”

“It’s all cut up inside. Twisted cuts.”

“Those are lands and grooves. When the bullet comes through, they make it spin.” He twirled his finger in the air, like a corkscrew. “It makes the bullet go straight.”

“Okay.”

“Hold it in your hand. Get the feel.”

I took the gun. It had a heavy, solid weight. Like it was all one piece, not a bunch of parts. The grip was black rubber. I closed my eyes, getting the sense. Like a pool cue. Swinging it in little circles. I ran my fingers all over it.

I felt the Indian tap me on the shoulder.

“You go away someplace?”

“What?”

“You’ve been holding that piece for half a damn hour, man.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess …”

“You ready to learn now? Learn how to kill somebody with that thing?”

“I already know how,” I told him.

He gave me a funny look. Took the gun from me, opened it up, put the bullets in. Stood there with it in his hand.

“With a pistol, you don’t really aim it. You point it, just like your finger. Like it’s growing out of your hand. Get a balance.…” He spread his legs, crouched a little bit, held the gun in two hands, one hand wrapped around the other. “Keep your weight low, raise the pistol, sight along the line, okay? Keep the sight just below what you’re aiming at. Take a deep breath, let it out. Then
squeeze
the trigger, don’t jerk it. Squeeze it so slow you won’t even know when it’s pulled back far enough to go off. It makes a loud noise—you’re not used to it, it can spook you. So … put these on.” He handed me earmuffs, it looked like. Only the round parts were red. Red plastic, I think. There was foam all around the inside. I fit it over my head. He put one on too, only his earpieces were blue.

I watched the gun in his hands. He walked over, took out a knife, scratched a big X in a tree that was lying on its side. “It’s dead,” he said. Like he wouldn’t shoot a tree that was alive. Then we stepped off about twenty-five feet.

“Watch,” he said. He took his stance. I watched his finger move back. There was a crack. It was loud, even with the earmuffs. We walked back over to the tree. You could see the bullet hole just to the right of the X.

“When you use this, you crank them all off. Six shots. Shoot fast.
Empty
the gun. This is a Ruger, Speed Six. Nice, simple piece. It won’t jam on you, like an automatic does sometimes. Thirty-eight Special. It’ll kill a man, but
the more bullets you put into him, the more certain you make it.”

He pulled the trigger again. Five times. It sounded like the cracks ran into each other, one loud boom. I saw wood chips fly from the dead tree. We walked back over. The center of the X was all eaten out.

The Indian opened the gun, tipped it back, put the empty bullets in his pocket. “Another thing,” he said, “with a revolver, you don’t leave cartridges behind at the scene. You use this, you do just what I did, okay? Save the cartridges, dump them someplace else.”

“Okay.”

“You ready to try it?”

“Yes.”

He handed me the gun, six bullets. I did what he did, put them inside. Then I took the same stance he did, crouched there, focusing in on the tree. I took a deep breath, let it out. I could feel my heart beat slower. Slower. I pulled the trigger.

“What are you doing?”

I stopped, turned to him. “What you told me. Pulling it slow.”

“Not
that
slow, goddamn it! That trigger was actually moving, that’s what you’re telling me?”

“Sure.”

“How could you tell?”

“I could feel it.”

“Damn! Okay, I’m sorry. You got to do it a
little
quicker, okay? You’ll be shooting a person, not a damn target. People move.”

“You said …”

“Forget
what I said. Try it again, okay?”

I did it again. The first shot made the gun jump in my hands. I fired as it came back down, did it again, picking up the rhythm. Then the gun was empty.

We walked back over. There were more rips in the tree, all around the X.

“He’s a natural,” a voice said. Another one of the Indians. They must of walked into the clearing while I was shooting.

“I told you,” the Indian said.

I practiced some more with the gun. They had all kinds of guns. Rifles, shotguns, a big black pistol that spit bullets out so fast it was like a hose squirting. They worked with the different guns, trading them back and forth. I tried the silver gun in one hand. Then in the other. After a while, it didn’t make a difference. It sounded like a war.

Later, one of them brought some sandwiches and cold lemonade. It tasted good. Fresh and clean.

In the afternoon, a woman came into the clearing. An Indian woman, with her hair in braids. She had a bow in her hand. We all sat around while she practiced with the bow and arrows. She was good.

She came over to where I was sitting. Bent down and looked at me. Her eyes were black. Not just the little round part in the center. All black.

“You’re the one,” she said.

The Indian was next to me. “That’s him,” he said.

She kept looking at me. “My brother is in their prison,” she said. “My own brother. Hiram. From the white man’s
Bible, they named him. They separated us, but Hiram came for me. He brought me to my people. Now you will help bring him to me.”

Nobody said anything. She held out her hand to me. I took it. Came to my feet, not letting my weight pull against her, but she felt strong enough to do it.

She handed me the bow. “Shall I show you?”

“Yes,” I told her. I don’t know why I said that.

We walked away from the others. She handed me an arrow. I held it in my hands. It didn’t feel right. I shook my head. She smiled, handed me another.

I put it in the bow. I could see how to do it from watching her. She walked away. Pulled a leaf from one of the trees. She licked the back of the leaf, pasted it right over the X the Indian had cut into the dead tree. Then she came back to where I was.

I pulled back the string. I made my left fist into a stone. I pulled all the weight out of my body, put it into my right hand. I could see down the length of the arrow. It was straight. I saw the tip of the arrow, saw the leaf, brought them together. In between my heartbeats, I let the string go.

It went through the middle of the leaf.

The woman bowed her head, like she was in church.

“My name is Ruth,” she said.

Then she took the bow from me and walked out of the clearing.

On the drive back to Chicago, the Indian told me how it would work.

“You keep the pistol,” he said. “It’s ice-cold. Came right off the production line at the factory, never been registered. The way they’ll work it, they’ll take it from you after the hit. Tell you they’re going to get rid of it for you. But they’ll keep it. Just in case. It’ll have your prints all over it, so they’ll always have something on you. You can’t wear surgeon’s gloves, can’t act like a pro around them. You’re supposed to be this white-trash nigger-hater, okay? Those kind, they never think things through. You’re joining the group ’cause you like to kill niggers, see? Hate’s their game. At least that’s the game for the troops. The generals, they always have something going on the side.”

“What do I do?”

“Do? You don’t do nothing. Not for them. You hit one of
our
contracts, see? That’s if it works. If they let you go cruising around, tell you to pick a target at random, we can make that work. But if they just
bring
one to you, you got to do it. Just do it. They’ll have your prints, so what? Fingerprints don’t have a clock on them. You’re dead, right? If they threaten you with the prints on the gun, just act scared.” He looked at me, watching close. “Can you do that?”