The Old Man(59)

When Hank judged they had gone far enough he studied the area until he found a low hillside he could use as a backstop. He set up a dead tree limb and anchored it in the sandy dirt at the foot of the hill. “This will have to do as a target.”

“Okay. What do I do?”

“First you learn a little bit about semiauto pistols,” he said. “They’re not wildly different from each other.” He unzipped his backpack, took out a small pistol, and held it up. “This is a Beretta Nano. It’s about as small as a good 9mm pistol gets, and it will probably fit your hand pretty well. This catch releases the magazine. On this model there’s another release on the other side of the grips, but that’s unusual. The magazine holds six rounds, and you can also put a round in the chamber if you want to carry it that way. I don’t. If I really expected to have to shoot seven times, I’d go somewhere else instead.”

“All right,” she said.

“You pull the trigger and the trigger bar pushes the striker back against its spring. Right near the end of your pull, the cocking lever frees the striker and it pops forward, hits the primer, and the round in the chamber is fired. The slide recoils, ejecting the brass casing, and comes forward again, letting the next round be pushed up into the chamber. You get to pull the trigger six times, and then there are no more rounds in the magazine. On the last round, when the slide goes back it stays there, with the chamber open like this.”

“Got it.”

“Watch how I load it.” He released the empty magazine and loaded six rounds into it, then pushed it upward under the grips.

“You have to charge the weapon like this.” He pulled back the slide and released it. “That lets the first round into the chamber.”

He had her put in the earplugs and fit the ear protectors over them, and then put on his own.

He turned toward the upright branch he had set up. He held the pistol in a two-handed stance and fired a round into the center. Then he handed her the pistol, grips first. “Your turn.”

He watched her imitate his stance, then adjusted her hands. “The left hand will help your right to hold it steady. You want the front sight dot to sit between the two rear sights. Put it on the target and you’re ready to fire. Don’t drag the sight off the target with your finger. Just use the last joint of your finger to pull it straight back. When you’re ready, fire.”

She fired and the round knocked a chip off the tree limb.

“Very good. Now fire the rest.” He watched her fire, and noticed that she looked more comfortable each time.

When she fired the last round and the slide stayed back, he took the pistol, reloaded it, put it in his coat pocket, and lifted another pistol out of the backpack. “This is a Colt Commander. It’s bigger and heavier, obviously. It’s chambered for .45 ACP, and it’s not designed for concealed carry. It has a little more stopping power than the 9mm. Its magazine holds seven rounds and you can carry one in the chamber. As I said before, I don’t usually do that.”

He went through the whole process again for Marcia, showing her the parts and the mechanism, and then how to load and fire the weapon. He handed her the Commander and let her fire it. After each shot he made a comment, either a correction or encouragement.

After she had emptied the magazine he taught her how to clear the pistol and reload. Then he had her return to the Beretta Nano, release the magazine, check the load, reinsert the magazine and charge the weapon, and then fire those rounds. When she’d fired the last round she reloaded the magazine, then fired through that magazine.

He made her alternate weapons, firing a magazine at a time. He changed targets, finding smaller branches and placing them farther away, always watching her form and accuracy until she had fired a hundred rounds.

“Are you confident that if something terrible were happening, you could pick up either one of these, load, and fire accurately?”

“I know I could,” she said.

“All right, then,” he said. “Reload them both one more time and then help me collect all the brass.”

“I can help you pick it up first,” she offered.

“No,” he said. “Reload first. We’re not people who can afford to have all our weapons unloaded at once.”

He knelt to pick up the brass casings that had been ejected from the pistols. Then he took both pistols, checked to be sure they were fully loaded, and put them in the backpack. When they had picked up the brass they headed to their car. When they were back at the cabin he cleaned the weapons and put them away.

The next day Hank checked and modified his bugout kits. Each contained a few thousand dollars in cash, a Beretta Nano pistol with two spare magazines, and the licenses, credit cards, and passports of a Canadian couple named Alan and Marie Spencer. He set aside the two pistols with silencers he had taken from the two killers in Chicago. He loaded them and put them both in the nightstand on his side of the bed.

Just as he was finishing these tasks, Marcia came in. She could see that the kit he was filling now had a driver’s license with her picture on it, and the pistol. “What’s going on, Hank?”

“Nothing,” he said. “We’re in a good, comfortable place right now, where we have privacy and time. If we don’t use a little of it to get ready for trouble, maybe we’re not earning the chance to keep going. If we don’t earn it, maybe we won’t get it.”