“And then?”

“And then get a beer with your pilot. Wait for my call. If it doesn’t come, then get another beer and drink it for me, and remember me for a few years. Tell my wife I died snipered up all the way.”

“Come on, Gunny. Come with me. We’ll both give ’em the package, we’ll both get the beer, followed by a steak. Then we’ll start in on the hard stuff. How much bourbon can a town called Indian Rapids have, anyway? We’ll drink it all and wake up in three days. The feds can pick up that last Irishman. He’s not going anywhere for a while.”

“No, he is. And I know where. And I’m going too.”

“Then let me come along. This time I’ll be the bait and you can do the shooting.”

“No, Chuck, that film has to reach the FBI, and the sooner the better. Constable will hear about this shit somehow, and once that happens, he’ll bolt. With his dough, he’ll be long gone before the feds can pick him up. That’s why you’ve got to get the film to them. So I want Anto Grogan after me, not you. Long as I’m alive, he’ll come after me.”

“Christ, Gunny. You’re going to set yourself up for this motherfucker, aren’t you? You’re going to gull him into taking the shot and pray that he misses, and then you’ll shoot back. With that scope on top, he isn’t going to miss. You think you can get a killing shot off from seven hundred yards with 168 grains of lead in your chest, while you’re bleeding out? It doesn’t have to happen. You don’t have to be the last man to die in a long-ago lost war. You call me up and invite me on this little war party and now I have to leave before the end and I don’t get to cover the hero but have to just let him sit out there on his lonesome? That ain’t no bargain, Gunny.”

“For me it’s the best bargain. I lost my spotter, Chuck. I couldn’t bring him back from the war. So you have to get out of here now, and fast. Only two things count. Getting the film to the FBI and getting Chuck home in time for his daughter’s graduation. Go, Chuck. DEROS, Chuck. Now.”

“You goddamned Marine Corps bad-ass gunnery sergeant retired. Jesus, you are all old-fashioned man, that’s all I can say. I thought you guys had all died off, but dammit, you’re too salty to die.”

“Go on, get out of here, Lance Corporal.”

Chuck clapped Swagger on the shoulder and gunned up his ATV and headed west.

Texas Red celebrated his success with a very fine buffalo steak-low in fats, low in sodium, low in calories-and a 2001 Château Sociando-Mallet, served in his motor home by Chin, his chef. It was still midafternoon: he hadn’t breakfasted because he hated to shoot on a full stomach, and so his first order of business after finishing his four events-four more tomorrow and four on Sunday-was to eat. His second order of business was business: calls to stockbrokers, vice presidents, PR folks, and so forth, pleased to note he was recovering from the meltdown well enough. He noted with pleasure no incoming from either Bill Fedders in DC or by satellite from the Irishmen at his main ranch.

That done, he summoned the ever-plain Ms. Jantz and had her take dictation for an hour, then got his daily blow job, surprisingly intense for a non-Viagrafied event. The shooting had gotten juices all astir in a way that was unusual. Then he dismissed her, with the admonition, “Get me Clell.”

Clell appeared shortly thereafter, all rangy gun pro, with the big hands, the smoothness of encoded neural pathways, the data bank beyond measure.

“So,” he said, “no bullshit. Critique. Forget I’m paying you three times what you charge. Give me the truth, as if I’m a little punk trying to hang out with the great Clell Rush.”

“Yes sir.”

“Yes, Tom.”

“Yes, Tom. First thing is, congrats. You shot well today. Dynamite. I think you’ve beaten the grip slippage that seems to screw you up sometimes. You were hard and tight and the gun stayed set. Even on the exchange, when you holstered the righthand piece and cross-drew from the left holster, even that was tight. It was a good chance to screw up, and happily, you evaded it.”

“I’m liking what I’m hearing. Sure you’re not just trying to pick up a bonus?”

“It ain’t just suck-up, Tom. Look at the standings. You’re number four. You’ve never been that high in the standings at this point before. Last year, as I recall, you’s about number fifteen. There’s no way of coming back from fifteen. You’re still in the hunt.”

“How about rifle and shotgun?”

“You plan to save handgun mistakes on rifle and shotgun, and that’s fine, but I thought you ran too hard on the rifle. That’s a sophisticated motion, throwing the lever but not so hard you pull the muzzle out of control, keeping that left hand in good command, closing up and touching off, then throwing even while you’re moving to the next target. You done well, I’m not saying that, but I thought you’s a little overexcited. It was the first event, you had adrenaline, so you brought it off. Don’t know how tomorrow will be, or the next day, if you don’t drop back into second gear, particularly on the last few rounds.”

“Good advice,” said Tom.

“As for the shotgun, maybe the same thing, but since there’s only four reloads, it’s not likely you’ll turn to fumblethumbs that quickly. Though by the time you get to shotgun, your hands are tired from all the shooting you’ve just completed. But your fingers are so happy when they’re on the shotguns, even a trumpet gun like the ninety-seven, I don’t think that’s going to be your problem.”

“Hmm, I’ve got a problem? I thought you were telling me how damn good I was.”

“Well, it’s a problem most men have. Called pride. It goeth before a tumble, or so the book says.”

“I’m listening.”

“I feel you pushing too hard. It almost means too much to you. I’m worried that late, tired, your hands all beat to hell, you’ll face a challenge where you need your best. And you won’t be able to find it, Texas Red. Because you are a man of accomplishment, you cannot conceive of failure. Yet even the Kid hisself failed; he went out unarmed, and along come Pat Garrett and put a jujube of lead into his gut. The Kid was proud; in his pride he got away from his greatness, and his greatness was doing all them little things right, like always sitting with his back to the wall and forswearing that fourth drink, because it was the fourth one that slowed him, and always carrying a gun. That night in Fort Sumner, he’s feeling so Kid, so invulnerable, he gets cocky, he gets sloppy, and he can’t conceive of a man coming into his own space and facing him. He’s unarmed, except for a butcher knife. He steps into his bedroom, quien está? he asks, who’s there, he knows someone’s there, he’s holding that knife, and it’s still in him to make it through the night, all he has to do is be the Kid and lunge, and he lives till two and twenty. But his mind freezes, and old Pat, slower, grumpier, used up, old Pat gets big iron whipped out fast and puts a forty-four into him. And down goes the Kid.”

“You see that in me?”

“You ain’t no Kid, Mr. Constable, not by a long shot. But I’m worried there’ll come a time when you think you is. And as the Kid found out, thinking you’re the Kid can get a man killed.”