Jack turned down a road where, earlier that day, we’d stopped for gas. He drove slowly down the dark back route, as if looking for something, but there was nothing to see. We were in a wooded area, with the occasional sign warning us this was conservation land.

After a couple of miles, he made a three-point turn and headed back, then turned off on some kind of service road, little more than two ruts leading into the forest. The entrance was so faint, I’d missed it the first time, but Jack turned in with the confidence that said he’d already seen it.

The car rocked down the ruts, brush scraping the sides and undercarriage. He drove past the forest edge, then stopped and killed the engine.

Jack got out of the car. I followed. I didn’t ask why we were here. I was enjoying the anticipation of not knowing. I was in the mood to turn off my brain, stop trying to figure it out and just let myself be surprised.

Awaiting instructions, I stood alongside the car, listening to crickets and the distant, unmistakable yowl of coyotes. The hairs on my neck rose at the sound, eerie and mournful. I closed my eyes and drank it in with the rich smell of wet earth and dying foliage.

An ache grew in the pit of my stomach, casting me back twenty-five years to my first “away” summer camp, lying on my cot, smelling marshmallows on my fingers, thinking of hot chocolate and home. I stood there, taking in the smells and the sounds of the forest-the smells and sounds of my lodge, of home-and with that longing, the weight of the evening lifted, fluttered away on the breeze.

A sharp click of the opening trunk.

I walked back to find Jack uncovering a rifle case.

“Target practice?” I said.

“Yeah.”

I looked out, into the forest, black a mere five steps beyond the moonlit clearing. “Kind of dark, don’t you think?”

“That’s the point.” He hefted the case out. “Do much night shooting?”

“Not enough.”

A grunt, as if this should answer my question, which I suppose it did.

He handed me the flashlight. “Got your gun?”

I peeled back my jacket to show him.

“Good.”

He took out the twenty-six-ounce bottle of whiskey from the motel and passed it to me.

“I’ll carry, but I’m not partaking,” I said. “Guns and alcohol don’t mix.”

“That’s the point.”

He shut the trunk. As that light disappeared, I turned on the flashlight and cast it over the dark woods. He waved me toward them, then set out on a narrow path. A few steps, and we were in the forest. We passed a campfire pit near the edge, ringed with beer cans.

The forest closed around us, the sounds of the crickets vanishing under the crunch of dead leaves underfoot. A few more steps, and Jack continued the discussion as if he’d never left off.

“Drink on a job? Big no-no. But sometimes? Don’t have a choice. Can’t always have a cola, nurse a beer. Job might mean you gotta drink.”

I stepped back to let him lead as the path narrowed, but he waved me on again.

I said, “So you need to know how it will affect your reflexes and your judgment. How to counter the liability. Like shooting at night.”

The path forked. Jack’s fingers pressed against the back of my jacket, prodding me to the left. Ahead I could see a moonlit clearing.

“Might never need it,” he said. “But gotta know how. Perfect chance comes? Nighttime? Or had a beer? A coffee? Know how to compensate? Won’t lose the opportunity.”

He stopped in the clearing, put the rifle case on a stump and opened it. Inside was a takedown rifle and nightscope. He handed me the scope.

“Holy shit,” I said, turning it over in my hands. “I’ve got scopes at home, but this is high-tech. James Bond territory. Yours?”

“Nah. Gadgets and me? Don’t mix. That’s Felix’s area. And his scope.”

He held out the rifle for me to attach the scope, but I was still examining it, a slow smile creeping onto my face.

“Thought you’d like that,” he said. “This is done? We’ll talk to Felix. Get you some stuff.”

I could feel my grin stretching, thoughts of the opera house fading, almost gone now-belonging somewhere back there, in the city. Here was the forest, with its reassuring sense of home, of calm and order. And here was something for me to learn, to focus on, to enjoy. A diversion. Which was, of course, the point.

I finished setting up the rifle and played with it for a while under Jack’s tutelage. Once I had the hang of it, he tried a few rounds, then we put it away. Onto the handguns. That was the real practice. I’d used nightscopes-if nothing so fancy-but I had little experience shooting a handgun in the dark. Night-vision goggles would help but, as Jack had said, this was more about preparing for found opportunities, those times when you see the chance to hit a mark, but something is less than perfect, like the lighting or your blood alcohol level.

“Need a target,” Jack said. “Something we can see…”

“Hold on.”

I ran back to the campfire pit and gathered all the silver-label cans, took them to the clearing and let them clatter into a pile by the stump.

“Now, to do this in proper hillbilly style, we’re supposed to drink the beer, then shoot the cans, but we’ll have to settle for empties and whiskey.”

“Works for me.” He squinted into the darkness. “Set ’em up over-”

“Uh-uh. This is supposed to be a challenge, remember?” I drew back my arm, ready to pitch the can. “Whenever you’re ready…”

“Fuck no.”

I turned a grin on him. “You think this is too challenging? Wait for the whiskey shots.”

He laughed, a low rumble that was an actual laugh, maybe the first I’d ever heard from him. Then he took out his gun. “Five bucks.”

“Oh, getting serious now, are we?”

His eyes sparkled in the moonlight. “Nah. You want serious? Wait for the whiskey shots.”

I laughed and threw the can, closing my eyes as I did, hearing the crack of the gun, then the sharp ping of the can. When I looked, he was walking to the beer can pile, moving with his usual slow, deliberate gait, never in a hurry. He bent…then whirled fast, whipping the can without warning.

“Cheat!” I yelled as I fired.

The bullet zinged through the can. Jack shook his head. “Fuck.”

“If you want an advantage over me, you’re going to need to do better than that.”

I passed him the bottle. He uncapped it and took a slug, then paused, letting the alcohol settle into his stomach before handing it back.

“Ten bucks,” he said.

“You got it.”

He got the can, too.

Our shooting, predictably, grew less impressive the more whiskey we consumed. Jack gave me pointers on overcoming the imbalances, but it was less a serious practice than “Let’s get a feel for this”…with a generous heaping of horseplay.

I pulled into the lead quickly, but lost ground the more I drank, with Jack seeming to hit his “low point” early, then staying there. Earlier Jack had said I didn’t seem to be much of a drinker. I suspected the same went for him. It took less than half a bottle to get us both pretty wasted-well beyond the point where we’d ever attempt a hit.

As for Jack, I must admit I was curious to see him drunk. He was one of those guys you can’t imagine stumbling and slurring. And he didn’t, his feet and tongue steady even as I could see the alcohol taking its toll.

I’ll admit, too, that I was curious about how the alcohol might affect his tongue in other ways, but the only thing it did was make his brogue more pronounced. He didn’t start waxing eloquent…or even use more pronouns. Nor did he delve into tales of his sordid youth, as much as I would have loved to hear them.

What did happen was not what I expected. As he drank, that edge I’d seen earlier, when he put on the tux, that hard, dangerous “something” that I glimpsed every now and then, slid to the fore. Not an angry drunk. If anything, he was quicker with a laugh or a joke. Just that edge peeking out, that look in his eyes, in that set of his jaw that said he wasn’t someone you wanted to cross.