Outlawed(21)

“Again,” the Kid said.

I shot the rest of the magazine.

“I see what we’re up against,” the Kid said. “Tell me something, Doctor. If a young medical professional like yourself hopes to assassinate an underripe pear, where should she rest her eyes as she takes aim?”

The Kid’s voice both beguiled and confused me.

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said.

The Kid sighed.

“Where do you look when you shoot?”

“At the pear?” I ventured.

“Wrong,” the Kid said, unholstering a revolver with a handle made of bone.

“This is the front sight,” the Kid said, pointing to a small crest of metal at the mouth of the barrel. “And this”—the Kid pointed to a notched piece of metal where the barrel met the handle—“is the rear sight. Now, when you take your aim, you line the front sight up with your target, in this case your pear. Then you line the notch in the rear sight up with the front sight. Then you forget the pear exists. The front sight is all that matters. You watch that front sight like it’s the only water in an endless desert, and you’re dying of thirst.”

The Kid lifted the revolver and squinted an eye. “Now, once you have your enemy—in this case your pear—in your sights, what do you do next?”

“Pull the trigger?” I asked.

“Very good,” the Kid said. “You pull the trigger. But when you do, you don’t move your hand—if you do, the gun will move, and you’ll miss your shot. You don’t move your arm—if you do, the gun will move, and you’ll miss your shot. You don’t move your shoulder—if you do, the gun will move, and you’ll miss your shot. The only part of your whole God-given body that moves is your solitary index finger, and if you can manage that, and you keep your eye on the front sight like it’s water in the desert, why then your unlucky pear will soon have breathed his last.”

The Kid’s shot rang in the quiet orchard. It was not as perfect as Elzy’s—the bullet clipped the side of the pear, sending it spinning off the stump and onto the ground. But it was much better than anything I could manage.

“Your turn,” the Kid said.

I set up a fresh pear and took eleven paces back. This time I lined up the sights and tried to forget about the pear. I tried to hold my hand still.

My shot fell low, boring into the soft wood of the stump, leaving a pale scar behind.

“Again,” the Kid said.

This time the bullet sailed above the pear and into the trees at the edge of the clearing, frightening a squirrel.

“Stop,” the Kid said. “At this rate, your pear’s friends are going to form up a posse and capture you before you harm a hair on their leader’s head.”

I would have found the Kid amusing if I wasn’t so exhausted from trying to do something I clearly couldn’t do.

“I’m sorry,” I said, tears gathering in my throat.

“Assassins never apologize,” the Kid said. “Time to try another tack, Doctor. Put down your gun and point at the pear.”

I didn’t understand, but I did as the Kid asked.

“Now focus your eyes on the tip of your finger. Desert, water, et cetera.”

I looked at my fingernail, black-rimmed from cleaning the firepit the night before.

“Now focus on the pear.”

I looked at the fruit, pale green splotched with scabby brown, a small thing grown tough in a hard place.

“Now your finger again.”

Back and forth we went, I don’t know how many times, but I know that when the Kid finally told me to try again with the gun, I understood how to let the target go and focus only on the sight, and I hit the pear square in the belly.

“Excellent,” said the Kid. “Your first kill. Now do it again.”

I had forgotten the calm of it, another person’s voice guiding me. The Kid sounded nothing like Mama—Mama’s voice was soft, with a roughness in it that she said came from childhood whooping cough, and the Kid’s was clear and loud, like the voices of the twelfth-form boys who got picked to read aloud from the almanac at the beginning of every school day. But unlike those boys, both the Kid and Mama could make me feel hypnotized, as though their words moved my very limbs, as though my hands were their hands.

Hours passed in the orchard and when dark began to fall I could hit a pear at fifteen paces nine times out of ten. I didn’t think I would ever be a great shot, and I was right about that, but now I knew how it felt to aim and fire true, and I sensed—and I was right about this, too—that the knowledge would never leave me.

Soon after the sun fell behind the rocks, I heard Cassie banging a pan lid with a spoon to call everyone to the firepit for dinner.

“Just a moment,” the Kid said to me. “I have a question for you.”

I holstered the gun and came close. The Kid’s expression was difficult to read—layers of bluster and confidence slipped to reveal something softer and more uncertain below.

“Your medical experience,” the Kid said. “Does it extend to the treatment of insomnia?”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s one of the most common problems during pregnancy. Usually we’d tell the woman to start with hot milk before bed—”

The Kid cut me off.