[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
whenever it is humanly possible to do so. Armies take prisoners when it's
convenient or unavoidable, using quickly-trained troops who may never have
been under fire before. Troops as green as you two."
"How is it your Texas accent seems to come and go?" I asked Don, "Texas
one minute and no accent at all the next?"
"I noticed that, too," said Anne, busy loading one clip while I loaded the
other. She didn't look up as she spoke.
"I wasn't always a Texas cop," said Don. "Traveled some before I wound up
here."
Don's brusque tone told us more than the words. He didn't really want to
talk about where he'd been or why. We let the matter drop. I rose to get the
tea pitcher as Anne took her place on the back porch firing line and began
firing almost immediately.
Don was watching her shoot, but I noticed his gaze was on Anne as much as
her shooting. He wore a wedding ring, so as soon as Anne had stopped shooting,
I asked how his wife felt about having a cop for a husband.
He realized I'd spotted his interest in Anne and managed to look a bit
sheepish as he replied.
"Well she doesn't like it all that much, but she liked it a lot less when
I was a cop in Houston."
"She worries about you a lot, I suppose," I said.
"Yeah. Her biggest gripe is the hours. Three shifts; three deputies. If
anything comes up, one of us has to slide back into uniform to help out, and
things seem to happen most in the middle of the night."
Anne looked at me quizzically for a moment before she realized the reason
I was showing an uncharacteristically keen interest in Deputy Don's family
life. She gave me a wry little grin and picked up the thread of the
conversation.
"She probably doesn't want anything happening to the father of her
children, either," she said, sipping her tea.
"Yeah," laughed Don, "those were her exact words, too, by damn. Well,
folks, unless you need some more help killing those cans, I guess I'd better
be going. Remember what I said about two quick shots to the body mass from
behind cover AND what I said about being sure he's armed. I don't want to take
you to jail, but if we don't find a weapon, that's where you go."
We shook hands all around and Don left. Neither of us said anything until
we heard his car crunching down the drive. Anne handed me the .45 and a full
clip and sat down.
"Show me how it's done, mister. We're keeping score now."
I aimed and fired two quick shots at one of the cans. One hit, one very
close miss. I went through the clip that way, firing twice quickly at each
target, barely taking time to line up the shots. Anne was watching my
progress.
"He's right," she said, "For what we may be facing, this would be more
effective. You hit four and only missed the others by inches."
I ejected the empty clip, reloaded, and gave her the gun. "Try it that
way," I said. "It feels better, too."
Anne hit four of the cans, as well, and missed the rest by about the same
margin I had. After firing another clip apiece, we cleaned the gun and
reloaded the clips with the last shells in the box. Each magazine had only
five rounds in it, but she said that would be better for the springs that
pushed the shells up if the gun sat unused for a while.
Chapter Eleven
Over dinner we discussed the stringing of wire and cans around the barn
and house. Anne was balking.
"Are you sure we aren't just being paranoid? Going to extremes?"
"Why are you worried about how things seem? We blasted at cans for an hour
with a .45. Was it silly of Deputy Don to come out and show us how to shoot
for best effect on a human being? Or does stringing cans make it seem as if
we're playing war in the back yard?"
I touched her hand as I said, "That's how it feels to me, too, but I'm
going to do it anyway."
After dinner, we strung wire a few inches off the ground in the grass
around the house and barn. Care was taken to avoid the cowpaths, in case one
of the so-far mythical cows should wander into the yard.
We tied the ends of the wires to poles in places sheltered from the wind
and were tying the last can onto the last pole as the sun was going down.
After testing the system at several points, we declared it a success of sorts
and went back in the house.
About two hours later we were in the middle of setting up Anne's stereo
when we heard cans rattle. I had jumped up to go for the .45 when they rattled
again, more than once. I stopped and looked at Anne, who was looking back at
me with the same quizzical expression.
"It's got to be either an animal or an attempt to make one or both of us
go out there to take a look around," I said.
Anne distractedly nodded agreement. All of a sudden, the cans didn't seem
so silly to either of us.
I took the gun from behind the cookbooks and seated a round in the chamber
before peeking out the kitchen window. Nothing. Going to the side window, I
repeated the furtive peek. Nothing. I went to the front and looked carefully
around the area. Nothing was out of place or moving around. I shrugged at
Anne.
There was one window left to check on the south side. We'd left the
previous owner's dark blue curtains up because we found we had more windows
than curtains from her other place. I had to grope to find the pull-cord and
Anne was right behind me as we crouched at the window.
There was a grunting noise from outside as if someone were trying to lift
something. I pointed the pistol and yanked the curtains back, expecting to see
someone or something just outside the window.
There was nothing out there. I lowered the gun and Anne let out a little
sigh of relief.
Then the huge head of a cow suddenly appeared at the window as if from
nowhere, with one mildly curious eye gazing in at us. Anne let out a screech
and nearly fell backwards in surprise at the apparition. She grabbed my belt
to steady herself and I had to grab the window ledge to remain standing.
The cow quickly lost interest and her head dropped back below the window's
edge into the darkness. I realized I'd been pointing the gun at the cow the
whole time and let it fall back to my side. Anne was laughing at our
reactions.
"Didn't we go out of OUR way to keep the cans out of THEIR way?" she
asked. "I seem to remember giving it a lot of thought and planning."
"Well, we thought so at the time, anyway," I said.
"I'm glad you didn't shoot the poor thing," said Anne.
I put the gun back and we went outside to check the wires. The cow was
standing well away from the house, as we had expected. The cow was also
cropping grass right over the wire, shoving it out of her way to reach the
grass she wanted.
"Well, so much for that idea," said Anne, pulling up the pole at the
corner of the front porch and dragging the wire back along the wall away from
the cow.
"Don't give up on it yet," I said, patting the cow. "We can try running
the wires in other directions."
"It's starting to seem silly again, Ed."
"Yeah, but not silly enough to keep me from finding another way to string
'em."
"I don't see how you can if we let the cows wander around as lawnmowers."
Anne came over to pat the cow, which soon decided that two people were too
many and moved a few feet away from the crowd. It munched for a while as we
talked, then moved off in the direction of the barn.
"Whatever you want to do about cans is fine with me," said Anne.
We went back inside the house and finished assembling the stereo, then
hooked up her TV to the roof antenna. The reception was lousy on all but one
channel.
I told her that the antenna was likely out of alignment. When I looked at
her, she was making a vacant-eyed and slack-jawed face at me.
"What?" I asked, mimicking her expression.
Her face became normal. "Of course the antenna's out of alignment," she
laughed, "What else could it be?"
I gave her a wry grin and said, "I'm not the one who bought this pile of
sticks and stones and had to grant knighthood to get cheap hired help. How was
I to know that you had a degree in television repair?"
Anne grinned and threw a sofa cushion at me. Before I'd caught it she had
another on the way. As she grabbed for another, I tossed them back at her and
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]