I, Sniper

53

Two hours later they sat in a diner across from Indian Rapids’s only motel, an Econo Lodge, showered and changed into clothes they’d bought in the town’s only store, a beat-up old joint featuring everything from guns to butter. The two men were eating nothing great but a lot of it.

“Didn’t know I was so hungry,” said Bob.

“I can tell you’re gassed. Best get some sleep now. I think you’ve got an advanced case of what I’d call combat stress syndrome.”

“Umph,” said Bob. “Maybe so. Felt better. Called my wife, told her I’d be home in a few days. She wasn’t real sure who I was, and when I finally got her to remember me, she told me my daughters are all grown up and married and have kids.”

“You need to chill for a long, calm year.”

“I wish. Maybe later. I have to go to DC one last time on Tuesday to get this thing straightened out. Then I want to stop in Chicago. I have a gun that belongs to a police officer that I’d like to give to his widow.”

“No rest for the weary,” said Chuck. Then he said, “Look, Bob, nobody’s going to say this, so you’re stuck with me and I’m not any kind of speech maker. Too bad for you. But you wouldn’t let ’em do that to Carl Hitchcock, and by extension to us, the snipers, the mankillers, the bastards way out there with a rifle that never make it into the history books even if they make it back to their own lines. So sniper to sniper, the only thing I can say is-hell, I don’t know-Gee, Roy Rogers, you made all the little buckeroos happy.”

Swagger smiled. That was good enough for him. Then he suddenly felt a wave of fatigue. Time to go.

“Brother Chuck, I’ve got to crash.”

“Got it.”

“You’ll wake me in the morning and we’ll figure out where to go and what to do next.”

“Good.”

“See you then.”

“Gunny, one last thing. I won’t sleep. How in hell did you make that shot? You were what, six hundred yards out, with a mil-dot, and he had that supercomputer-driven thing. But you beat him and put him down before he even got a shot off. How? For God’s sake, that was the greatest shot I ever heard of.”

“Oh, that,” said Bob, as if that were something like picking up a sock. “He thought he was hunting me, but I was hunting him. I knew if it came to Lone Tree, the shooting would be fast and far and it’d be a one-round war. I spent a night in Lone Tree before you came in and even before I went in. I walked it, I studied it on the maps, I tried to learn it good. I figured out where he’d start in if he came on a beeline from the first valley, ’cause he knew where the games would be played. That was the whole point. From there, I tried to figure where he’d shoot from. I discovered that there was a spot he’d move through, either on foot or low crawl, where there wasn’t no wind. That’s because you can’t hardly see it, but about two hundred yards to the right, there’s a knoll, about twenty foot tall, a natural windbreak. So if Anto’s coming down that slope, when he gets to that dead spot, that’s where he’ll shoot. Any sniper would. Why fight the wind at the muzzle if you don’t have to? I lased the range from the spot back to the tree. It was five hundred thirty-seven yards. When I got your rifle, I zeroed it to point of aim, dead bang center, no holdover, right at five thirty-seven. Then I just watched, and when he felt the wind stop, he halted, just for an instant, to process it; then he went to shoot. But I was maybe a half second ahead of him, and I put it on the money, though a little to the right. I was five inches off my center chest hold. Blew his arm out at the root. Wasn’t pretty, but then little in this game is.

“Now, you know what? I’m going to drink some goddamned whiskey tonight, with Chuck McKenzie, Chuck-Chuck-Chuckity-Chuck, the great marine sniper, my friend, the fella who shot three Irish gooney birds off my ass and saved my worthless drunk’s life three times in three seconds. Can you stay up with the old guy, Chuckity-Chuck, you goddamned sniping mankiller, you?”

“Gunny, I will drink to your mankilling ways and my own, and to all the snipers, and we will have ourselves a toot!”