Darkness the Color of Snow (22 page)

“If you're going to pull the trigger, blow something away. No sense in wasting a trigger squeeze on nothing.”

They drove up the state highway, then off on an unmarked side road and through the woods until they came to a dirt road, barely more than a ­couple of wheel ruts. At the end of the road, they came to a fence posted No Trespassing.

The sign had been riddled with bullets and was held together by little more than rust.

The fence had once been chained and locked, but the chain hung from the fence, the lock nearly touching the ground. “Open the gate,” Matt told him, and Ronny got out, pulled the chain through a link in the fence, then pushed the gate open as Matt drove the Cherokee through. He was still holding the Magnum.

They drove farther down the two-­track road until the woods opened up to what seemed to be an abandoned gravel pit. The road skirted the pit and went on into the woods. A ­couple of piles of gravel and dirt remained, but mostly it was bare ground scraped out to a depth of twenty or thirty feet. The pit was full of old machinery, trucks, appliances, and other trash someone had hauled out here. Ronny had lived in Lydell all his life, but he had never seen this.

“What's down the other road?” he asked.

“Nothing. Trees. Nothing important. Most ­people don't know this place is here, except the ones who dump their shit here. It's a cool place. The cops don't even come out here. Come on. Let's rock. Ronny, give me the gun and get the beer. Get the empties, too. Lock and load, men. Lock and load.”

Paul Stablein broke open the boxes of ammunition on the hood of the Cherokee and started loading the guns. Ronny watched in fascination as he filled first the cylinder of the revolver, then the magazine of the automatic with bright, brassy rounds.

Matt took two beers and handed one to Ronny. “I think our virgie ought to get the first shots. Stabes, give him the Colt.”

“What should I shoot?”

“No sense shooting at the empties. You couldn't hit them anyway. Just walk down into the pit and shoot the first haji you see.”

Ronny took the Colt, which was heavier than the Magnum, picked up his beer with his left hand, and started down into the pit. He was looking for a big bottle or can to shoot, and he came to a refrigerator, door still on, leaning toward him.

“There. On your right. Get him, man.”

Ronny spun to his right, leveled the .45 at the refrigerator, and pulled the trigger. Nothing.

“Pull the slide back. You got to cock it, dude.”

Yeah. He remembered that from the movies. He set the beer down and reached across his body and pulled the slide back with his left hand, re-­leveled the big Colt, and pulled the trigger.

The recoil knocked him back, sending his right hand back over his shoulder. Behind him he heard their laughter.

“Kicks like a bastard, don't it?”

Ronny looked at the refrigerator. There was a clean hole in the front right side of the door and a big gash on the side where the bullet had come out. He had never felt anything like that before. The noise was amazing, and the jagged gash on the side of the box was a beautiful thing.

“Got him, man. But you're going to dislocate your shoulder if you keep trying to shoot like a guy on TV.”

He was aware then of the pain in his shoulder, elbow, and wrist from the gun's recoil. “Wow,” he said.

“Here,” Matt said. “Give me the gun. Let me show you how it's done.”

Matt set down his beer and took the gun from Ronny. He took a ­couple of steps back, motioning Ronny to get behind him. Matt held the Colt out in front of him, centered on his body, holding it with both hands, arms extended. He fired off four quick rounds, knocking the refrigerator back a bit until it wobbled and fell.

“Dead,” Matt said. “I shot that fucker dead.”

He gave the gun back to Ronny. “Two hands, my man. Two hands. Quick. Get that chair.”

Ronny turned to where Matt pointed. It was an old chrome dining room chair with a torn vinyl back and seat. He pointed the gun at it and aimed it the way he had seen Matt aim and fired off two shots in quick succession. Neither of them hit.

“Slow, dude. Slow. And lock your wrists. That second shot was three feet over it.”

Ronny pointed the gun at the back of the chair, braced his upper arms against his chest, locked his wrists, aimed, and fired. This time the chair slammed backward, flipped up in the air, and crashed down a foot away

“Whoa,” Matt said. “A killah. My man Ronny is a stone killah.”

“That thing really has a kick to it,” Ronny said, as if he had been shooting guns his whole life and just encountered this kind of recoil for the first time.

“Nothing. Stabes, give him the Magnum. This thing is empty anyway.”

The sharp crack of the pistol jolted him, and the recoil was much harder than the Colt's. “Wow,” he said. “You could stop anything with that.”

“No man. The .45's better for stopping shit. It flat lays things down.”

“It doesn't matter,” Ronny said. “It doesn't matter. They're great. Both of them. Just fantastic.” He sighted at a car door standing against some lumber. He fired three shots, trying to hold the Magnum steady. It was really hard. He fired three more, resighting after each shot. The door filled with deeply punched holes that knocked off the paint and rust in a neat circle around it. “Fantastic,” he said. “Just fantastic.”

“Here's what we're going to do,” Matt said. “We're each going to take both guns, one at a time, fully loaded. Fourteen shots. Walk through the dump and every time you even think there's a haji, blast him. I'm going to reload these with hollow points. Keep that in mind. We'll take turns.”

Ronny gave the gun reluctantly to Stablein. He walked over to the cooler, took a beer, closed the cooler lid, and sat on it as he watched Stablein reload the guns, then move through the pit in a semi-­crouch, arms extended and locked in front of him. Matt nudged his arm. “Watch this. See about ten feet in front of him to the right? You can barely see it, but he's going to see it as soon as he comes around the bend there.”

Ronny looked where Matt pointed, didn't see, then did. It was the white tank of an old toilet. Almost immediately, Stablein went into a full crouch, whirled around, and fired, missing it. He reset himself.

“No, dude,” Matt yelled. “No good. Everyone gets one shot at the crapper. That's it. One shot. Go on.” Laferiere turned back to Ronny. That's the prize, man. Hit the shitter. That thing is really going to blow.”

When Stablein came back, they reloaded both guns and gave them to Bobby Cabella. Cabella made his way through the junk standing straight up, walking with an exaggerated swagger. He turned alternately right and left, snapping off shots with the Magnum, hitting various piles of garbage. It was impossible to tell if he was hitting targets, because any bit of the garbage could have been a target or not.

“He's a pretty good shot,” Ronny said.

“He's better than Stabes, here, but he's not the best.”

“That's you?”

“Just wait and see,” Matt said.

Cabella was continuing to move right and left as he rounded the small turn that brought him into position for the toilet. He took careful aim and pulled the trigger. Nothing.

“Dude,” Laferiere laughed. “You forgot to count. You forgot to count, you stupid douche.” Cabella took the .45 Colt from his belt and replaced it with the empty Magnum.

“No, man. You don't get another shot at it. You only get one try. No. You forgot to count. You're through, man.”

“The fuck I am.”

“The fuck you are,” Laferiere yelled. “I'm not kidding here. You're done. You pull that fucking trigger, and you're going to be shit when you get back here.”

Cabella turned and faced them, bringing the .45 around in front of him until it was aimed at Laferiere, who took a drink with his left hand and gave Cabella the finger with his right. Ronny was frozen at the sight of the .45 aimed in his direction, but he, too, brought up a finger in defiance of Cabella.

Suddenly Cabella whirled and fired wildly past the toilet. Laferiere began a laugh that was nearly a howl. “And then he misses it. The dumb fuck takes another shot and misses it. You see that? He's a good shot, too. But he fucking missed.” Laferiere was laughing so hard the beer was coming out his nose. Caught up, Ronny couldn't stop laughing, either.

Cabella shot seven more times at various objects and then started the climb back out of the pit and up to where Ronny and Laferiere stood.

“You can go next,” Matt said, still laughing.

“No. It's OK. You go.”

“Rock, paper, scissors, man.”

On three, Ronny held his hand out flat to Matt's fist. “Paper covers rock.”

“Load him up,” Laferiere said to Cabella. “He's next.”

“You load him up, then go fuck yourself,” Bobby said.

Laferiere laughed and took the guns, loading the Magnum first and handing it to Ronny. Then he took the clip out of the .45 and began pushing bullets into it. When he filled it and slid it back home, he turned to Bobby Cabella and kicked him hard in the back of the leg. Cabella went down with a yelp and Laferiere climbed on top of him and held the .45 at the side of Bobby's nose.

“You want me to blow your fucking nose off? That what you want, little man?

“Because you know I will. You made two mistakes out there. You took a shot I told you not to, and you missed. You're shit, man. I ought to kill you just for that.” He stood up then, still holding the .45 on Cabella, made a small motion with his arm, and said, “Pow.” Then he handed the gun to Ronny.

“Go to it, my man. You're not going to hit the crapper, you know. You think you are, but you're not. It's mine, man.” Laferiere reached a hand down to Bobby, who took Matt's hand and pulled himself upright. Ronny looked on, bewildered. “He knows I was fucking with him. He knows that. Don't you, Bobby?”

“That's all you do, is fuck with me.”

Laferiere gave a laugh and swung his arm around Bobby's shoulder, pulled him toward him, and kissed his forehead. Then to Ronny, “OK. Let's see what you got.”

Ronny started down the path through the garbage, slowly and cautiously. He carried the .45 in his right hand and the Magnum stuck down the back of his jeans like he had seen on TV. He wanted to shoot at the toilet with the .45 because it was easier to control. He shot at a gallon paint can and missed, then at a chunk of red plastic from a car taillight. He hit the edge of that. He was keeping careful count of his shots. When he got to shot six, he thought about the chance that Matt had short-­loaded the .45. There was no way to look and see. He fired the sixth at the back of an old wooden chair that fell back in a shower of splinters when he hit it. The next shot was the seventh. He took a ­couple of extra steps, stopped, sighted the toilet tank, and pulled the trigger.

It was a beautiful thing. The toilet tank did not just break, it exploded in a corona of white porcelain and dirty rain water flying through the air. Behind him he could hear cheering and laughter. He took a step back and threw his arms in the air. It was, probably, the coolest thing he had ever seen. All that was left of the tank was a few jagged pieces of porcelain. He looked back to where the guys stood. Cabella and Stablein were high fiving. Matt Laferiere stood with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

For a moment, he didn't know what to do. He had six more bullets in the Magnum and one more in the .45. He wanted to keep shooting, but there seemed to be nothing worth shooting now. He took the Magnum from behind his back and fired off all six rounds into the air, relishing the sound and smell of it. Then he aimed the .45 at the bowl of the toilet and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The slide was fully retracted. The magazine was empty. Matt had loaded seven bullets, not eight.

He walked back to where they stood together. Bobby Cabella reached out and gave him a high five. Paul Stablein gave him a small punch in the shoulder.

“Nice shooting,” Matt said. “Why'd you go for it with your seventh shot?”

Ronny shrugged. “It seemed like time.”

“You weren't planning on taking another shot at it, were you?”

“No. No, just the one.”

“Because normally you'd wait until your last shot, not the next to the last.”

“Turns out, there was no next shot. That was the last one.”

“No, man. I loaded it myself.”

Ronny shook his head. “I think you lost count.”

Matt grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “You lost count. I didn't lose count. That was your eighth shot, dude.”

“You just said it was my seventh.” He looked over at Stablein and Cabella. Stablein looked away and Cabella shrugged.

“It was your eighth. Gun holds eight.”

He started to say something. He wanted to insist that he had kept his count. It was his seventh shot. There was no eighth bullet. “Well, it doesn't matter. I got it.”

“It matters. Are you saying I short-­loaded you?”

Ronny was confused now. How had this changed so fast? Just a minute ago, everything was cool. It was fun. Now Matt was clearly mad, ready to fight. He thought about Laferiere holding the gun to Cabella's nose. Would he really have pulled the trigger? Why would you hold a loaded gun to your friend's head? What would make you that mad? He didn't know, and now he was starting to be scared.

“I'm not saying anything, man. Nothing. Can I have another beer?”

The simple question seemed to knock Laferiere off his stance a little. “Hell, yes. It's why we're here. Have another. Get me one, too.”

“You going to shoot, Matt?” Cabella asked.

Laferiere shook his head. “No. No more shooting. Buffalo Bill here took the prize. It's beer time.”

They grabbed beers from the cooler. The atmosphere had cleared like the sky after a storm. “Buffalo Bill,” Stablein said.