Eddie spoke up. “Do you have plenty of shells for the shotgun? Sixteen-gauge is a bit out of style, but I’m sure I can round up some more in town.”
She pointed to the closet. “Twelve boxes should be more than enough, plenty of buckshot and slugs, too. Now you get along, take those back to the army, then go visit the Bradleys next door. Owen used to brag over his hunting rifle something fierce, and Grace won’t know what to do with it.”
Santee practically bowed his way out of the house, followed by Eddie. “Yes ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
As the door closed, Santee wiped his brow, though it wasn’t a warm day. This was as hard a job as he’d had in twenty years. Talk sweet and mind your tongue around the ladies—enough to drive a fucking preacher to swearing!
“That went well.” Eddie said. “She’s a little oldfashioned, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. Nice, though. Let’s hope they’re all that easy.” They carried the rifles back to Mrs. Tippett’s front room (now an arms depot) and planned their next sortie.
* * *
Santee said stiffly, “Well, okay, Mr. Jones. We’re only supposed to pick up what guns there are to spare.”
“Fine. I got none to spare.” Bobby Jones was a loud, fat, redneck-looking man in a dirty T-shirt who (according to Eddie’s friend Jeff) worked as a mechanic and handyman and was the person to call if you wanted it cheap and didn’t care if it was done right.
Eddie was absolutely sure that Jones was lying. “Okay,” he said, turning as if to leave. “Say, when did you shoot that deer? Nice rack on him.” He pointed to the stuffed head on the wall.
Thus primed, Jones went into a long, boring description of the hunt. “…Anyways, Coop and me and Doug went there the year before, scouting around for sign…”
Santee looked impatient, but Eddie listened attentively. Once, when Jones was looking away, he signaled Santee to stay quiet.
“… Anyways, I finally got him down to the car and got old Dickey Estes to stuff him for me.”
Eddie nodded. “Great. Thanks. Well, we gotta go now…”
Santee and Eddie stepped outside, and as Jones stood in the doorway, Eddie turned and said to him, “I think we’ll go talk to Coop and Doug next. Is Dickey Estes still around?”
Jones suddenly stopped as he was closing the door on the Chief Weapons Scrounger and his young assistant. He realized what Eddie had done and tried to think of a way around it. Mild panic washed over his face as he looked at Eddie.
Eddie carefully kept his face blank, showing nothing that could directly challenge the large man. Jones’ hunting buddies would surely tell them about the guy’s guns—and Eddie was sure he had several to spare. That’s why he’d put up with the long story, of course. Now that the trap was sprung, Jones could only admit he had some rifles to donate, or be disrespected as a hoarder by his friends.
Jones looked at Eddie, then slumped his shoulders. “Wait a minute,” was all he said as he went.
Ten minutes later Santee and his assistant were struggling back to Mrs. Tippett’s with eight rifles and assorted ammo. “Slick, Eddie! Good job. I didn’t see how you could really be interested in that stupid long-winded story of his… We’ve got to get a wagon or something!” He’d almost dropped a box of shells and had to reposition his load. “So, what made you think of that?”
Eddie grinned bashfully “I learned it playing Dungeons and Dragons. We had a similar problem back in Bloomtree, but it was with one of the Elven blacksmiths. Worked out about the same, except for the cursed gauntlets we got stuck with.”
Santee chuckled. “Well, we better check these rifles. I bet some of them don’t work. From the look of that guy’s house he knows nothing about cleaning.”
* * *
“So we have a total mishmash.” Santee had just handed his written report to Mike Stearns and Frank Jackson, who were standing in Mrs. Tippett’s crowded front room among piles of firearms and ammo. “A bunch of deer rifles in, by my count, fifteen different civilian calibers, and no more than a few hundred rounds of ammo for most of them. A bunch of foreign military rifles, mostly German 8mm. The thing we have the most loaded ammo for is the SKS—everyone who bought a rifle bought a case or two when it was cheap, but we only have a half dozen of the rifles and they’re under-powered for long-range shooting. And that ammo isn’t reloadable; it’s mostly Chinese military surplus crap from the ’90s and the cases are steel, not brass. So when that ammo’s gone, the damn rifles are useless.”