“Good shooting, Mildred,” Dean shouted, clapping his hands and jumping up and down excitedly.
“Fish in a barrel,” she snorted.
Both of them scored maximums at fifty yards.
Attention shifted to the hundred-yard target, a tiny square of white pinned to a ponderosa.
Caitlin hawked and gobbed, the greenish lump of spittle striking a stunted larch to his right, dangling there, catching the sunlight.
“Me first, I reckon,” he muttered. Ryan had always been a keen student of body language, and he noticed that something of the spring had gone from the shootist’s step. He moved a little more slowly, as if his confidence had been eroded by Mildred’s performance so far.
He was firing more slowly at each distance, taking around fifteen seconds at the hundred-yard marker, giving the skinny man time to check each shot.
“Ten.”
Applause.
“Ten again, Brother Caitlin.”
More applause from the Children of the Rock. Mildred watched impassively.
There was a long delay. “Nine.”
“What?”
“Sorry, Brother. Clipped the line between eight and nine, but I call it a clear nine.”
The last shot hit the bull’s-eye again, giving him 119 out of a possible 120. It was pretty fair shooting, though Ryan reckoned that he could have probably matched it himself.
Mildred stepped up, quickly and easily scoring bull’s-eyes with her four shots.
“On to the last set of markers,” Wolfe announced, pointing into the distance, at two hundred paces, where the target seemed almost invisible.
“Sweating,” Jak whispered to Ryan. The teenager was right. A thin sheen of perspiration lined Caitlin’s forehead, trickling down the side of his nose onto the stubbled chin.
“When you’re ready, Brother,” Wolfe said, holding up his good hand for quiet.
“I’m ready.”
“Nine.”
A hum of excitement ran through the crowd.
“Take your time,” Wolfe urged, biting his lip anxiously. “Just take all the time you need.”
“Puts more pressure on the son of a bitch,” J.B. said quietly.
They heard the crack of the rifle, and the faint hum of the .44 round as it sliced through the pine-scented sunlight between the tall trees.
Another long pause.
“Eight.”
Caitlin muttered a colorful curse under his breath. He walked around his mark in a small circle, kicking his heels into the damp ground.
“Two more shots left,” Wolfe said encouragingly. “Make them count, Brother.”
The barrel of the rifle was visibly trembling as the man took aim for the penultimate time. With an effort he lowered it, wiping sweat from his forehead. He sighted again, squeezing the trigger, the Winchester 94 kicking against his shoulder.
“Four.”
“You sure about that, Brother?” Wolfe shouted, his voice rising above the gasp of dismay.
“Fear so. Aye, fear so. Just a four. One round remaining. Brother Caitlin’s score stands at…”
There was a moment’s hesitation for the mathematics. “From one hundred and fifty, his score is 144.”
“One hundred and forty,” the Armorer called without a moment’s pause.
“No.” Wolfe stared at the man with the telescope. “Check your numbering, Brother.”
“It’s 140,” Krysty agreed. “Missed one point up to this last round of shots. And he scored a nine and an eight and the last four. That’s nine. Plus one makes ten. One hundred and forty even.”
Nobody argued.
“Woman won’t hit fuck-all at this range with her toy!” yelled a man from the back of the crowd. “Nothing to worry about, Carlo.”
He scored a seven with his last round, making 147 out of 160.
Mildred hadn’t missed a single shot yet, putting them all into the center of her target with a monotonous regularity. Now she stood there on the mark, calm and unflurried, the light wind tugging at her beaded hair, the long-barreled Czech revolver seeming an extension of her body. “Ten.”
That gave her 130 out of 130, meaning she needed only seventeen from the last thirty to win.
There was a tense silence, broken by Wolfe dropping his own hand-blaster onto the dirt with a sudden, loud clatter that made everyone jump. The interruption coincided perfectly with Mildred’s fourteenth shot.
“Bastard!” Jak spit.
“Sorry,” Wolfe muttered. “Slipped.”
“How many?” Mildred asked, the most serene person there.
“Take that again,” Ryan said.
But the woman only smiled back at him. “No worries, friend.”