red eye like a rabid ferret. Looks to me just like a classic redneck shootist.
Put one through the belly and leave it to suffer."
"You happy with your blaster against his long gun?" Jak asked.
"Guess so. Unless they set up the match at a half mile or over. Then I'd
struggle."
"Be little point in this testing they have if it was all a cheat," Ryan said,
hearing
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Axler, James - Deathlands 44 - Crucible of Time the layer of doubt that hung
there in his voice.
"STANDARD MATCH TARGET of nine inches across, graded in regular circles from
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ten through to one point. Shoot just four rounds at each distance, beginning
at twenty-five yards, then fifty, then one hundred. Finally at two hundred
paces."
"Long range for a big pistol," said a voice from the watching crowd.
Wolfe half turned. "Anyone object to it? How about you, Sister Mildred?"
The woman shrugged, the beads in her hair tinkling softly. "Doesn't matter to
me,"
she said.
Mildred walked calmly to the mark scratched in the dirt at the end of the
ville's main street. The heavy Czech revolver was at her side, her thumb
already on the short-fall cocking hammer.
The targets had already been nailed to pine trees, one above the other, out at
the agreed distances. Brother Wolfe called out that the outlander would aim at
the higher target and Caitlin at the lower. "We'll spin a silver coin for the
right to shoot first or second."
"Heads," Caitlin called as the glittering coin whirled in the air.
Wolfe neatly caught the coin, peered at it and then quickly pocketed it.
"Heads it is," he called loudly.
Ryan glanced at Mildred, questioning whether she wanted to object to the
blatantly unfair tossing. But she simply shook her head.
"I'll go first," Caitlin said, readying himself on the mark, slowly bringing
the rifle up to his right shoulder, squinting two-eyed along the barrel.
The big .44-caliber blaster was as steady as a rock. The man licked his lips
and held his breath, finger creeping onto the spur trigger.
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Axler, James - Deathlands 44 - Crucible of Time
"Open fire at will, Brother Caitlin," Wolfe said quietly. "And may Blessed
Jesus the marksman guide your bullets to their target."
The crack of the Winchester was flat, the echo of the shot instantly swallowed
up by the vastness of the surrounding forest.
A tall man, as skinny as a lath, stood at a safe distance from the target,
holding a tiny brass folding telescope that looked like it dated back into the
1800s. He raised it to his left eye, hesitated a moment, fiddling with the
delicate adjustment.
"Looks like a ten."
Caitlin fired again. Again a ten.
The third and fourth shots were also dead-center bull's-eye, bringing a round
of hearty applause from the watching Children of the Rock.
"Forty from forty," Wolfe announced. "The saints be praised, Brother Caitlin.
Your turn now, Sister. You may shoot at will."
Mildred stood sideways on, her whole body relaxed. Ryan knew that the woman's
skill with her revolver was unparalleled. It was the sort of skill that had
died out after the long winters. He had no doubt that she could outshoot
anyone he'd ever seen in all Deathlands.
Caitlin was better than adequate with his rifle, but so he should be at only
twenty-
five paces.
Mildred aimed and fired quickly, all four shots seeming to run into one
another, giving an odd quadruple echo that quickly faded into silence.
The elder with the scope took some time. "Looks like all four through the same
hole," he called, bringing a buzz of excitement from the spectators.
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Axler, James - Deathlands 44 - Crucible of Time
"Good shooting, Mildred," Dean shouted, clapping his hands and jumping up and
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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."
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Axler, James - Deathlands 44 - Crucible of Time
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
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Axler, James - Deathlands 44 - Crucible of Time 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.
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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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]