He was thinking this as Celine navigated the truck to Cooke City. It was the first time they had ever been shot at, and he was wondering where she had gotten the training to draw her gun that fast, and even more impressively, to stay so calm in the face of surprise gunfire. No, even more than that: To come alive. To quicken and harden. He had seen how fast she reacted, rising instead of shrinking, scanning and searching, reckoning angles and cover. He also noticed that her breathing, if anything, got more relaxed, fuller. He could only conclude that this kind of crisis made her happy. Kind of a marvel. Well.
Hank had told him once about the second time he had seen her shoot. Celine was in Sun Valley helping Mimi die, and Hank had come up from Denver to say goodbye to his aunt. They were driving through Hailey, it was a breezy spring afternoon, and Celine had noticed a cement-block gun shop by the river and asked Hank to pull over. The man behind the counter was wearing a cowboy hat and coveralls, like a rancher who’d been working on his tractor, except that he wasn’t working on a motor, he was cleaning a Walther. He had the pieces scattered on a cloth. His expression became more and more intrigued as he watched the petite, genteel city slicker browse the guns and home in on a very large sidearm under the counter.
“May I see that one?” Celine had said, pointing down, her gold bracelet tapping the glass.
“This? This 1911? It’s a Colt ma’am, .45 caliber. A gift?”
Celine looked up, smiled at him quizzically. “For me, of course.”
He grinned. “It’s a little big. I recommend—you might start off with a .22.”
Hank had acted out the voices, it was hilarious, and Pete had managed to emit an audible laugh. “Well, I’d just like to see this one,” Celine said. “I’ve never held it.” Which was possibly true.
The man shrugged, reached in with a hand like a paw, and with the barrel facing toward the floor released the magazine and set it on the counter and tugged back the slide enough to check the chamber, then handed it to her on two flat palms the way gun dealers do, like a sacrament. He stepped back and watched her with a certain indulgence; he was now ready to be entertained, and he had the courtesy to not cross his arms. Celine picked up the black semiauto, raised an eyebrow at the man, plucked the magazine from the counter, slid it into the base of the grip, and banged it home with the heel of her palm. Then she wrapped the frame with both hands, left over right, slight pressure of the left against the slightly bent right arm, and sighted at the door. Hank saw the man’s mouth work to the side like he was probing a sore tooth with his tongue. He could read his thoughts as if they were in a cartoon bubble over his hat: Hunh, pretty good stance. Must watch a lot of cop shows on TV.
Celine is really little according to the tape measure. The gun looked huge as she held it. She brought it down. “Heavy,” she said.
“Helps with the recoil,” he said. She nodded. He said, “Plus I can see the grip’s much too big. We could modify it for you.”
“Could you?”
He really did look perplexed. And curious. Who the heck was this woman? She could barely lift the damn thing. He touched the frayed sleeve of his coverall and glanced at his watch. “Heck,” he said, “already five. I was closing in half an hour anyway. Let’s go shoot this thing. Want to?”
That’s how they ended up in Dick Roop Jr.’s Bronco, bouncing up a Forest Service road to an arroyo above Hailey. It was a narrow gully shaded by ponderosas. An old log lay against a dirt bank. A fire pit and scattered empties, a favorite party spot. Dick picked up four cans and three bottles and lined them up on the log in no particular order. He walked back about twenty-five feet and held the gun down and said, “Mrs. Watkins? This is how you rack it. Now you hold it down and away like so. Don’t want to shoot your pretty toes off.” Celine nodded, very attentive and polite. He grinned and pulled the slide. “Here’s the safety, you work it with your thumb like so. It’s always on until you’re ready to fire. You think you can remember that?”
“I’ll certainly try, Mr. Roop.”
“Now it’s going to kick like a mule so make sure your right arm is locked like I saw you do before.” He handed her the gun and stepped back. “Try to hit that first can on the left.”
Celine took half a step back with her right foot and half turned and lifted the pistol and wrapped it in her hands and smiled at Mr. Roop. Then she lowered the gun. She pursed her lips and breathed. Hank’s gut tightened. He knew she should be using oxygen at this altitude. Well, she was very stubborn.
“Don’t be scared,” Dick said.
She glanced at him, and only Hank would have seen in the look the slightest shade of annoyance. “I’ll try,” she said.
Then she lifted her hands swiftly and fired, concatenate echoes, a blizzard of shots, two then three, then one, then one, the slightest of beats between as if she were firing to music, and cans flew into air and bottles broke and sprayed glass and the log was emptied of targets and the echoes rolled down the gully. The last shot sent a can against the cliff into the air. She turned to smile at Dick Roop the Younger, and his expression was priceless. One could not exaggerate or caricature the disbelief. The shock. The perfect awe. He took off his cowboy hat and ran his hand through his thinning hair, and Hank thought his hand shook a little. He spat.
Celine let her lungs get what fill they could of the cool mountain air and stepped over to the man and handed him the gun, and said, “I like it. Stopping power is what we’re after.” Big smile. “Yes, please modify the grips, if you would. I’d like to pick it up next week if that’s possible. The background check shouldn’t take more than a day I wouldn’t think.”
It took him a moment to find his voice. They bounced back down the dirt track in his Bronco and on the way he stopped calling her Mrs. Watkins and was now calling her Celine.
The story did not surprise Pete, of course, who knew that she went regularly to the range on DeKalb Avenue and every few years up to the Lethal Force Institute in New Hampshire for refresher courses. But responding under live fire is another kettle of fish. Hmph. He noticed as she drove that she checked the side mirrors often.
Cooke City was hopping, there were pickups and rusting SUVs parked up and down Main. They decided to visit the bar first and make their calls later. They parked at the motel and walked slowly across. Blues Night at the Beartooth was their most popular event. The Choke Setters were all the rage in the valley, all the way to Livingston. Celine realized that they were barhopping today, and what a different vibe this one had than the last joint. The place wasn’t bursting at the seams, but there were at least twenty-three patrons ranged along the bar and scattered among the tables. Can a blues band be called a trio? Celine didn’t know, but there were three of them: a very fat, baby-faced man on bass in loose jeans and a Sara Lee Frozen Dinner T-shirt; a scrawny teenage kid with hair down over his shoulders and a sparse blond beard on lead guitar; and a woman who might have been his mom on drums—young middle age in a business-casual polyester black skirt and hose and an ivory-colored faux-silk blouse. With plastic pearl buttons. Hair to the neck and curled. All the details Celine had trained herself to see. It was maybe the oddest combo she had ever witnessed.