A hum and rustle went up, all through the adjacent rooms. There were jubilant whoops and running footsteps in the hall -- collisions, curses, and over everything the angry droning of scores of body-slobs' call buzzers. Dick took out his own signal box and pressed the button, but the response light did not glow. Probably Sam was too far away; the little wave-senders had a range of only about a hundred and fifty yards ... Or it might be that the sender had plonked out sooner than usual. This model had a bug in it that no one had ever identified, and was commonly good for about three weeks before it quit. In any case, he had a ready-made excuse to part company with Cashel, all at once and in a hurry. With a curt nod to his enemy, Dick plunged into the corridor and worked his way against the stream of guests back to the escalator.
He found Sam without any trouble, down in the Big Hall where he had been pressed into service hanging decorations. Grinning with relief, the slob went off for Dick's gun cart.
The Hall was now almost ready, the walls banked proudly with hybrid blossoms from Dunleavy's gardens; each linen-covered table with its floral centerpiece, gleaming with crystal and silver under the chandeliers. The musicians were tuning up in their alcove; the waiters stood nervously in a clump near the kitchen doors, while Perse the major-domo and two head waiters went dancing from table to table, adjusting a goblet here, straightening a napkin there. Dick's earlier meals seemed to have melted away; he discovered a hollow place inside him, and filched a handful of nuts from the sideboard to fill it.
Then Sam was back with the cart. Dick checked its contents as they went: Marlin carbine, .375 Winchester, Remington 10, the Schloss over-and-under 12 -- a hand-made unique, with the "do wot dupe" plate in its stock -- the Mannlicher-Schoenauer .308, and rounds for all of them; the five-foot trophy stick; the scopes and binoculars in their padded clips; the Ruger .22 target pistol, .38 S. & W. everyday gun, Colt .45, and their ammunition. The bores looked clean, to a cursory inspection, but there was a spot of rust on the Remington's barrel. He made a mental note: time to junk the lot, except for the hand-made, and get dupes from Possum. He buckled on the everyday gun in its holster, out of habit: he was used to the weight on his hip when he was shooting, or going to shoot with any weapon.
Nearly all the male guests were ahead of them; they passed through schools of more leisurely females, drifting in little cheerful clumps and gossiping as they went -- their kindly faces aglow with liqueurs and sociability -- and a scattering of stray children, dogs and mislaid servants. But there was plenty of time stilclass="underline" the grandstand above the rifle range was less than a quarter filled, and most of the young men were standing about in picturesque attitudes on the hillside, each negligently holding his trophy stick with its incised bands of white, yellow and red. Some of the youngest, particularly those whose trophy sticks were bare, were engaging in impromptu contests of their own -- wrestling, slapping, boxing, judo, broad-jumping, spitting, tumbling, knife throwing and the like. Farther up the slope, the governesses had corraled several dozen of the small children and were trying to keep them occupied in ring-around-the-rosy, as usual without much luck: tiny voices raised in glee and anger came piping through the murmur of the crowd.
They passed the Rev. Dr. Hamper, squatting on a hillock, hands clasped below his ecclesiastical knees, head bent, smiling around his pipe as he listened to the visiting Americo-Catholic priest from Fontainebleau. It was the general feeling at Buckhill that Hamper was a mediocre chaplain, his predecessor the Rev. Dr. Morningside being remembered as a model of succinct eloquence; but he was the best natural-born Episcopalian minister Buckhill could get -- so many were being duped by the big Eastern families that naturals were growing very scarce.
There was an outbreak of yelping and snarling up ahead. Through the gathering crowd, Dick caught sight of the two dogs, one a handsome collie, the other a cur -- a grotesque mongrel, part St. Bernard, part Doberman, by the look of him, and part God only knew what. Pressed into the wide circle as it formed, Dick and the slob watched with interest. It was a good fight, as far as it went; but when it seemed the collie was getting the worst of it, a man in green blouse and knee-breeches stepped up and fired a handgun. The collie broke away, startled. The cur was writhing, shot through the hindquarters. The green man aimed carefully and shot him again in the head.
The body kicked once and was still. The crowd began to disperse. As he left with Sam, Dick glanced back and saw a distasteful sight: a small slob-boy dressed in the Buckhill colors, kneeling with his head on the dead dog's chest, and a tray of drinks spilled beside him on the grass.
Well, if the slobs wanted to keep pets, and let them breed at will, what could you do? Down on the flat, the band was beginning to blare "Buckhill Forever"; it was time to get on the line.
The range was almost filled; some of the other first contestants were already firing, and the bitter tang of smokeless powder drifted across. Dick carelessly took the first vacant place, and discovered when it was too late that Cashel was his neighbor. Cash looked around at the same moment, and they stared at each other with helpless distaste; then Cash shrugged and turned away, saying something to his body-slob.
The breeze was light, from nine o'clock. Sam handed him the loaded carbine. Beside him, Cash fired and a voice called, "Ten!"
Dick nodded to the slob at the TV monitor, took his stance and fired. "Ten!" called the slob.
Spah! went Cashel's gun at his ear, and the slob called, "Nine!"
Dick fired again. "Seven!" Not so good, but he'd make it up. He was a better shot than Cash, always had been.
Not today, though. Something in the noisy crowd, or maybe in the morning's frustrations, seemed to have thrown him off. Cash was lining up a good series of tens and nines, while Dick, though he squeezed off each shot with care, was shooting unevenly. "Seven," called the monitor slob. "Nine ... seven ... seven ... " There was an embarrassed pause. "Miss."
A miss, at fifty yards, with his own carbine! Mortification overwhelmed him; he wanted to sink through the shooter's stand, or wrap his gun-barrel around the TV monitor and stalk away. What wouldn't Blashfield say to him on Monday! ...
But there wasn't going to be any Monday: there, he'd forgotten again. Abruptly the sun-warmed cloth over his shoulderblades was no longer pleasant; the carbine had turned to a dead stick of metal in his hands. What was he doing here in a silly picnic shoot, when he ought to be using his last minutes at Buckhill saying good-bye to the lake, or the pheasant woods, or down at the stables ... ?
"Ten!" said Cashel's monitor slob, cheerfully.
Dick glanced over involuntarily, and saw Cashel's gloomy face illuminated by an oafish pleasure. His hands began to shake and his mouth went dry. It seemed to him that the one thing that could give him satisfaction would be to trample that face and kick dirt over it ...
Trembling, he turned away. He knew he had a temper; he got it from his mother's family -all the Dabney men were quarrelsome and short-lived. "If y' want for die in you bed," Blashfield kept telling him, "you'll have to watch y' temper, or either be twice the man of y' guns as y' be."
Somehow he got through the first event, with a score just above the worst duffer's. The second went no better, although he took care to put plenty of distance between himself and) Cash. Afterward, he went past the scoreboard with only a glance. He didn't see his own name, but Cash's was conspicuous, just under the first ten.
His bad luck still held: the pause was just long enough for Cashel himself to blunder out of the crowd and fall into step beside him. All the guests were drifting back toward the house now; with no excuse to break away, they plodded along dumbly together.