Wages of Sin

CHAPTER TEN

One look at the firing line and Margo's gut muscles tightened in dismay.

Please, anyone but that bunch!

Maybe they were just finishing up their session?

Margo's nostrils pinched tight, causing her upper lip to curl in a completely unconscious expression of disgust. The group of five intent paleontologists she'd met at the uptime station in New York, where Shangri-La's Primary opened, were just beginning to unpack a luggage cart, laying out their sundry gun cases for a private lesson.

Aw, rats. Some of Ann's lessons took hours to complete.

She didn't dislike the paleontologists, exactly. Well, not the woman, anyway. But three of the four men had spent their entire time in Primary's uptime waiting lounge all but drooling while they stared directly at her. Or, rather, at her chest. It was a reaction she was more than accustomed to, but she still didn't like it.

Chalk up another change, Margo. You don't like being stared at anymore.

Already, the group had noticed her and the renewed stares made her feel like a sleazy 42nd Street hooker. Margo began to consider-seriously-buying some of the uglier but more fully concealing peasant clothing in Connie Logan's Clothes & Stuff.

Paleontologists, hah!

The only truly interesting thing Margo had discovered about them was where and when, exactly, they were heading. Cope and Marsh had fought over a huge chunk of territory. She shook her head slightly.

The damned fools were deliberately walking right into the middle of the fight, hoping to rescue one of the new-species fossil skeletons that one side or the other had smashed up into tiny, useless fragments, so that it had been lost to science forever. The girl, one of three graduate students selected for this trip, had explained; at least, she'd mentioned somethin about a diary one of their professors had stumble on in a used bookstore, written by one of the actual field agents charged with bringing back as many intact new specimens as possible.

Using that diary as a guide, they'd plotted out this madcap adventure and actually expected not only to find and rescue one or more of the smashed skeletons, but to get the bones back through the Wild West Gate and uptime to the museum affiliated with their university.

Margo was glad they'd had enough sense to take her advice an get some good instruction on how to use whatever they'd brought along, but that did not mean she wanted to practice with them.

Come on, Margo, bear up l Maybe if I take that farthest lane? If it's not reserved already, it ought to do. The lanes were sometimes reserved in advance for a scout who was planning to push an unexplored gate and wanted to learn to use a nice, little hideout gun. It was a practice Kit disapproved of-and a habit he had very carefully made certain she never picked up, but scouts were independent agents, so to speak, so each made his own decisions on what to take downtime. Kit had warned her there were a few really marginal scouts who routinely broke what he considered to be the sacred rules of scouting.

Carrying a gun downtime into an unknown time and place, where any gun might be an anachronism, wasn't stupid. It was suicidal.

She didn't spot anyone else on the range, though, which bolstered her hopes. The paleontologists were talking excitedly while dumping gun cases onto Ann's benches. Lots of gun cases. Margo winced at the way they just casually bounced the stuff around, allowing them to slide to the floor, banging them together, using the muzzle end of a thin leather case to shove a larger, much heavier case farther down the bench to make room for the rifle with its now-possibly-ruined front sight. They'd be learning about sighting in and zeroing rifles, or Margo didn't know Ann Vinh Mulhaney.

When Ann noticed that only one of her five students was opening the gun cases for inspection, while four of the group had their attention directed elsewhere, she glanced around. Then smiled so brightly Margo's eyes misted a little.

"Oh, it's you," Ann laughed. "I thought maybe Marilyn Monro's ghost had jiggled in or something."

That statement caused several reddened faces and sudden diligence with as-yet-unloaded gear. Margo's face had gone terribly hot. Marilyn Monroe, the twentieth-century sex goddess? That, Margo would never be, but she enjoyed the compliment just the same. Ann nodded her over. Margo would have loved a long heart-to-heart with Ann-but now was not the time.

Oh, well, she thought as she headed resolutely toward them, at least I'll finally get to see what firearms these `learned' idiots brought along. Making the best of it, Margo covered the intervening space with a cheery, "Hi, Ann! Hope things have been fantastic."

Ann laughed and gave her a swift-hard-hug, then stepped back. She had to look up a fair ways to find Margo's eyes-and Margo was not even remotely tall. Ann was just tiny.

"Yes, they have been. Utterly and completely fantastic. I'm going to have another kid in about seven months." She patted her belly gently. "So no wrestling," she chuckled. "Anyway, that's Sven's forte, not mine." Her eyes crinkled in a fond smile as she studied Margo. "Just look at you, girl. You're still growing! I thought so, earlier, but the way Malcolm was mauling you, it was hard to tell."

Margo's cheeks flushed again, hotter than before. The ring on her finger tugged downward, it was so heavy. She knew Ann had noticed it the moment she'd walked into the range.

"Good!" Ann decided, hands planted on hips in her usual stance. "You look better with some meat on those bones and some color in your cheeks, you scrawny little Irish alley cat. One thing's for sure, that baleful green glare hasn't changed. Not a bit."

Margo grinned. "How're the wagers going"

Ann blinked. "Wagers?"

"About how soon I'll be in your condition."

"Oh, that wager." Ann's eyes crinkled again. "Hot and heavy betting, both for and against. Everyone knows how determined you are about your profession, but everyone also knows that Malcolm Moore is a very, um, how to put it intense individual when it comes to getting what he wants."

They grinned at one another. Then Margo noticed the paleontologists, who stood listening in silence, several of them round-eyed with shock. Aw, rats. Here I am doing just what I said I wouldn't do.

Ann, perhaps guessing some of what was happening inside her head, just touched the back of Margo's hand with her fingertips, bringing her back to the reality outside Margo's thoughts. Margo blinked. Ann asked gently, "Have you come to brush up with a lesson? If you did, you'll have to wait a while. Or do you just want to brush up with a stack of targets and whatever you care to shoot?"

Margo nodded. "Thought You'd try a Winchester model 73 first. Malcolms taking us to Denver, so I thought I might as well tackle period rifles. I'll try a model 76 Centennial later."

"just those two?"

Margo let go a genuine, healthy laugh. "And who taught me to carry only the right weapon for the job? This is just this morning's practice session. Tomorrow morning I have a date with handguns of every imaginable design and manufacture, just so long as they were invented before 1885; then Sven gets a crack at me before lunch."

Anne's eyes brightened. ,Oooh, can I come watch? I don't have a class scheduled..."

Margo just rolled her eyes. "I can't stop you. Besides, I might need help crawling out of the gym."

Ann laughed heartily. "Okay, imp. It's a deal." Ann's eyes sparkled with anticipation. "You're head's on straight, kid, even if you were stuck in an uptime college for six months. A college I'm certain does not have a shooting range."

"Are you kidding?" It came out sour as early Minnesota apples, still green and hard as walnuts on the tree. "A shooting range? No way real." That new bit of uptime slang hadn't filtered down to La-La Land yet, given the startlement in Ann's eyes.

"They just outlawed metallic emery boards, for God's sake."

Ann shook her head, eyes dark with sorrow. "It's been lousy uptime for a long time. Why do you think we moved our family to Shangri-La Station?" She shivered at some memory she was unwilling to share, then sighed. "Well, you might as well get started. Use lane four, if you don't mind. I'm going to start the class on basic safety before we move to pistol and rifle types. You know where the keys are, right?"

Five sets of jaws dropped-again.

Margo grinned back. "Yep. I even"-she dropped a wicked wink--know where you hide the pole guns and laser-guided dart guns, never mind the really cool stuff. Hey, is that Browning Automatic Rifle working again? I really liked shooting it before it malfunctioned." She considered pride versus humility in front of this bunch of geeks, and decided on humility-hoping it would be a lesson to them. "And I'm still utterly mortified that I, uh, caused it to malfunction last time I used it, then couldn't figure out how to machine a new part. Is it fixed yet? I did send the money to repair it." She batted pretty lashes and sounded wistful as a half-drowned kitten.

Ann just laughed. "Oh, you're impossible as ever, imp Weepy one second, hell-bound-for-leather the next. Go on and get whatever you need and let me get back to paying customers." Her smile took any possible sting out of the words. But she had not answered Margo's question about the B.A.R. Rats!

Before she left, Margo glanced at the rifles and pistols that had been quietly laid out on the benches while they spoke. Uh-oh. Thought so. Smart-but stupid. Typical academicians. You'd think they'd eventually change.

Margo found the keys right off, then unlocked a largish room built inside the range itself. Made entirely of steel four inches thick in every dimension, with a heavy door whose hingepins were on the inside, it contained firearms of literally every time period from their invention in the 1300s onward. Door still open, she half heard Ann say lightly to her new students, "Why did I ... Margo ... keys? Oh, that's only because ... time scout. Still in ... already very good at her job. Her first scouting adventure ... very dangerous... unstable gate. But she got everybody out but one ... malaria."

Margo squirmed--all 'eighty-sixers knew who'd pulled her bacon out of the fire (literally) on that trip; but she was still young and vain enough to wish she could've seen the expressions on those stuffy academic faces as it registered: a woman time scout. She grinned-then suddenly sucked in air as a horrifying thought sent her belly plummeting groundward.

Oh, damn! She figured she had about three months before those five idiots out there blabbed to every uptime newsie in the business that a woman time scout by the name of Margo Smith was working out of TT-86. She'd be swarmed over by reporters, particularly the tabloid kind. And they were nearly impossible to shake off once they got interested in you.

Now she'd never get any studying done. She abruptly understood her grandfather's uncompromising, lifelong hatred of news reporters. Well, Margo, my girl, just make the best of at and maybe you'll build up a reputation big enough to satisfy even your ego.

She grinned at herself, having learned quite a few things about Margo Smith this day she'd never even guessed existed, and plucked a beautiful Winchester Model 73 .44-40 from the rifle rack, automatically checking to be certain it wasn't loaded. She laid it carefully aside, muzzle pointed away from the open door. She found ammo for a Model 76 Centennial in .45-75 Winchester, remembering vaguely that Ann carried a couple of the rifles in stock. She discovered a beauty of a lever-action Winchester Model 76 Centennial-clearly original-which was very similar to the 73, but beefier and in a more powerful caliber. It, too, was safely unloaded. The Centennial was for serious shooting. She'd have to remember to ask Ann to reserve them for the Denver trip.

The size of the 76 caused Margo to remember Koot van Beek's rifle and that great, horrid Cape Buffalo. That was a barely scabbed over memory, too. She hastily snagged the Centennial, along with a modern cleaning kit with brushes for both rifles. Never, ever again would Margo travel down a gate without the right weapons close at hand.

Putting aside the memory, Margo carted all the items to an empty shooting bench on lane four. Ann glanced up and nodded approvingly, her goggles in one hand, her ear muffs slid down around her neck, in "lecture mode."

"Let me know when you're ready to go `hot,' Margo," she called down the line.

Margo nodded and curiously studied the beginning of the lesson as she prepared to practice. It look from here like the paleontologists were giving Ann a very difficult time.

One of them-Margo's electronic earmuffs picked up conversations from an astonishing distance demanded in a voice that would have frozen lava, "We are not renting and wearing this crap! Why would we possibly need eye and hearing protection? This is supposed"-the word dripped venom-"to be a trial run for our field work. We'll have none of this junk downtime! Will we?"

Margo continued shamelessly eavesdropping-how else did one survive in a cruel world, particularly when one was studying to become a real scout whose job was to overhear and remember just such conversations? Ann was clearly working hard not to shout obscenities in Vietnamese and Gaelic at her recalcitrant pupils.

As Margo's first, lamentable lessons had shown, while Ann could instruct willing students to a high degree of skill, she couldn't instill intelligence. Result?

Some customers refused to listen, went downtime improperly armed and/or trained, and usually came back needing a hospital-or staying downtime in a long pine box.

Time Tours, Inc., of course, liked to keep that kind of publicity to a strict minimum, but the company executives-looking for ever more gate profit-did nothing about requiring weapons or self-defense training before allowing a tourist to go downtime. Lessons with the terminal's pro's were strictly on a voluntary basis.

Maybe she ought to suggest required classes to Bull Morgan. She snorted. He'd no doubt tell her it was a tourist's business to get training, not his, and if they were stupid enough to go downtime without it, they deserved whatever they got. Besides, Bull Morgan would never have such a rule, because La-La Land was a place were folks fought, ignored, and thumbed noses at rules, rather than making new ones.

At any rate, it looked like Ann could use some help corralling this bunch of jerks into listening instead of tossing their academic credentials around like spiked morning stars. She sighed and left everything on her chosen bench, muzzles pointed downrange, then plunged in.

"Hi, guys!" Margo called, friendly-like, baiting her hook with a honeyed voice. Margo smiled sweetly, a dire warning to every person who knew her well, Ann actually winced-then she swept off shooting glasses and protective earmuffs and shook out vibrant hair.

"See these?" She held out the earmuffs, determined to give this her best effort. "These are hearing protectors. On a firing range, you wear them. Period. You can lose most of your hearing mighty fast unless you put hearing protection on before somebody starts target practice."

"How would you know?"

One man she couldn't quite see shot the question in her general direction.

She shrugged. "Because I lost part of my hearing in this ear on a deadly little street in Whitechapel one bitter cold morning in 1888."

Silence reigned.

She didn't add that Malcolm had done the shooting. But the hearing loss, slight as it was, was genuine.

She added, "I lost more when an unstable gate opened up and I fell through it right into The Battle of Orleans. Joan of Arc and some really pissed off English knights and archers and some-er French nobles were taking a beating and hating it. Orleans was a really intense battle. Damn near got myself killed-twice-before I was back safe in the station's infirmary.

"Then some more of my hearing went bye-bye in South Africa, running from sixteenth-century Portuguese traders. I got caught in the middle of a firefight. Some friends of mine who'd figured out I was in trouble had come to help and I got caught between them and a whole, unwashed mass of murderous traders who were really riled up. They'd already decided to burn my assistant and me at the stake."

Margo managed to hold back the near-instinctive shudders such memories brought-and in suppressing them, Margo understood her grandfather more than she'd ever believed possible. It was little wonder he'd turned her down so rudely in the Down Time Bar & Grill that first day.

"Believe me, black powder guns are loud. You do want to be able to hear when you get downtime?" Margo questioned sweetly.

"As for these," she wiggled the clear, wrap-around shooting glasses between two fingers, "even a novice should be able to figure out what they're for. I do take it that nobody wants to go blind?"

Nobody answered, despite an angry stirring near the back of the group. Margo shrugged. "They're your eyes and ears. You got replacements lined up for'em, go right ahead without the safety equipment. But then," she smiled sweetly again, "I'm wagering you're just the teeniest bit brighter than that. By the time you've earned a master's, never mind a Ph.D, you've supposedly learned what's irrelevant and beneath notice from what's not only correct, but essential. Right?"

Behind the paleontologists Ann had covered her lips with both hands to hold in laughter. Tears appeared in her eyes when five heads nodded like marionettes in sync.

"Thanks, Margo,, for taking your time to help out. I'm sure these folks will save their ears from the noise you're about to generate!" Ann added pointedly. The group sheepishly picked up its safety equipment and began donning it.

Margo retrieved her Winchester Model 73-the most popular rifle in the Old West-from her own shooting bench. She loaded the Model 73 and called out, "Ann, I'm going hot!" She then lined up her first shot.

BOOM!

To her right, all five paleontologists jumped, despite the dampening qualities of their hearing gear.

BOOM! A little high and right, she muttered to herself, correcting her aiming point rather than adjusting the sights, using a method called "Kentucky windage," where you simply moved the sight picture to the other side of the target the same distance you missed or until you simply "felt right." The third BOOM! put the bullet exactly where she wanted it: inside the ten ring. She finished the magazine, pleased that the only shots outside the nine ring were those two initial placement shots. Didn't throw a single round! And that, despite months without even picking up a gun. She continued with her practice, nonetheless.

After a while, Margo smiled at her latest target and put the rifle down. She was tempted to return to the group, if only to see what sort of firearms they had, but was reluctant to disturb Ann's class any more than she already had. As if divining her interest, Ann looked up and waved Margo over.

Upon her arrival, Ann motioned almost imperceptibly for Margo to hold her own inspection. Margo realized this inspection-and everything that went with it was, in fact, a lesson Ann was using to judge her improvements, her judgment. She took a good long look at the neatly arranged firearms. She confirmed at a glance what she'd suspected earlier.

"Mmmm ... they do have some nice Winchester Model 94's here, don't they, Ann? It really is too bad." She glanced over toward the paleontologists. "You're gonna have to ditch 'em, every last one. Anachronistic as he-heck. For one thing, the whole feed system on a 94's different from the Model 73 and 76."

A deep, angry voice behind the knot of grad students demand, "What does that have to do with anything? Standing right here they look just alike!"

Hooo, boy. Ivy League and pissed. Not good.

She shook her head. "Sorry, but no, they don't look alike."

"Not at all," Ann chimed in, startling Margo at first until she saw the tiniest bit of a dip from Ann's left eyelid. She felt better immediately.

"Now," Ann was saying, "where you're going, some folks are going to see those Model 94's up-close enough to notice."

"Can't be avoided," Margo added, enjoying the seesaw rhythm as they took turns. Maybe if I'm desperate for something to do on weekends, l could try my hand at teaching. I've got pretty good credentials, after all.

Modest, Margo was not. And finally she could revel in it to her heart's content, the way cats simply fold their bodies into pretzel-twists around anything loaded with catnip.

"Young woman," one of the men began, voice surprisingly deep for the acceptably trendy cadaver he called a body, "are you questioning my judgment? I," he went on, arrogant as a New York cabbie, either suggested or chose each and every one of these firearms myself." He cleared an Ichabod Crane throat delicately, feigning (and not very well) humility. "NCAA Rifle Team four years running. Harvard."

Harvard? Aw, nuts! I'm losing my touch. She'd have bet for sure he was a Yalie.

She caught and held his gaze squarely, long enough to let him know she wasn't impressed, then replied politely, "Well, sir, I'm sure you were wonderful with a perfectly balanced match rifle-Anscheutz Model 54? Thought so," as he nodded stiffly.

Someone behind the tall professor said, "Wow! A real classic!" to which someone else whispered, "And a college rifle team! Do you have any idea how scarce those are now?"

Margo hid a smile as the man's face went red, though humiliating him would be so easy and so fun, the point was to get the folks to learn. Before the man could turn and chastise the speakers, Margo said forcefully, "An Anscheutz Model 54's a great match rifle-but choosing a gun to bet your life on is a little bit different.

"No," she revised, "a whole lot different."

The professor, his pride clearly damaged, opened his mouth to reply. In the pause, Ann stepped in, a savvy businesswoman smoothing ruffled feathers.

"You'll have to forgive Margo's abrupt manner, Dr. Reginald-Harding. I do assure you, all time scouts are usually a bit... direct."

The professor's scowl lightened. Ann Vinh Mulhaney gave him her most winning smile, a sure sign that she personally detested him, all the while coveting as much of his grant money as she could shake loose. "But scouts do know what they're talking about if they didn't, they wouldn't survive long. And this one," she nodded toward Margo, "has had the best possible training available. I taught her firearms and other projectile weapons, Sven Bailey taught her martial arts and bladed weapons. `Kit' Carson set up her whole training schedule and did a good bit of the teaching. Then, of course, the best freelance time guide in the business, taught her what the rest of us didn't. Like how to really survive downtime in the East End of London, 1888."

Sounding as if he were sucking lemons, the professor said, "Well then, would you please explain why our firearms are either anachronistic or unsuitable?"

Ooh, bet it hurt your platinum tongue to say that.

"All right." She could be civil if he could, although it cost her considerable effort. But she was learning. It was a skill that would doubtless stand her in very good stead as a scout. It was also, she realized abruptly, a skill her grandfather had perfected long ago to stay alive and had retained as a life-long habit, just to protect himself from crowds of awestruck uptimers gawking and asking him stupid questions. He'd shouted and fumed at her because he knew what she had yet to learn for herself controlling pride and anger were utterly critical for a scout, something she hadn't realized before.

Good grief! These idiots were actually teaching her something!

"All Right. First, open the actions-Ann will assist you, if necessary-and check to be sure your rifle is unloaded."

They went through the drill, she and Ann moving back and forth along the line, correcting here, demonstrating there. Clearly, La-La Land's expert firearms instructor was having the time of her life, taking Margo's orders, for this, too, was a test of everything Margo had learned from her. Good thing I kept studying at college with those books Kit sent.

Margo nodded. "Okay, work the action and look down into the top of the loading mechanism while you do it."

They obeyed, opening and closing the actions slowly.

"Notice anything?"

One of the younger men spoke up first. "The loading ramp flips up, like a toggle. And there is not so much room in the loading ramp and chamber as with many rifles."

"Very good."

The young man started, looking up in brief astonishment; then grinned belatedly. "Thanks."

"Okay, class," Ann took her turn in an astonishingly commanding voice, "anybody guess why the Model 94's feed system is constructed that way?" It was clear that only the younger man had much knowledge about guns in general. He glanced at all the others, finding only blank faces, before clearing his throat. "It would be a fairly smooth way to bring a cartridge into the chamber. Not so many moving parts, I think."

Ann nodded. "Very good." She glanced at Margo, silently saying, "Over to you."

Margo drew a deep breath for courage and plunged in feet first, her limited experiences gripped in both hands like daggers.

"Yes, you've noticed something very important about the Winchester 94. The 94's feed system does flip like a toggle, or to use an easier analogy, it tips like a teeter-totter every time you shoot, to bring a new cartridge up into the chamber. Okay, everybody lay down their rifles and gather 'round me."

In a moment, she was loosely surrounded by the group. "Now look," she picked up the Model 73 and proceeded to tip it up so everyone could watch, "at the difference here." She worked the lever slowly, so they could see the difference. "On a Model 73 or 76, the feed system just moves straight up and down. Like an elevator. That's important to all of you for your downtime research. Anybody care to guess why?"

Several chewed their lip s. The young woman spoke up. "Because somebody'd notice the difference while we're getting our gear together in Denver?"

"Too right. No Old Westerner's going to miss that difference. They pay attention to guns. All guns. For one thing, guns keep 'em alive, and I haven't met a man yet who didn't just love tinkering with the toys-or tools-of his choice."

Both male grad students went red at the unintended double entendre. She ignored them as she ignored most boys. "Now, go get your Model 94s and keep the muzzles pointed toward the ceiling."

Eventually, they all returned to her side, Model 94s held carefully, muzzles rigidly pointed toward the ceiling.

"Okay. Look at the outside of each rifle. This side plate on my Model 73, for instance, doesn't exist at all on your Model 94s. Again, every Old Westerner who notices that your rifles don't have a side plate and believe me, someone, maybe several someone's, will notice! So the second they spot that little detail, they'll know it's something they've never seen before. And they'll get mighty curious about it. Curiosity about your group or your gear is the very last thing you want."

She smiled coldly and drove home the point like hammering in a wooden stake.

"Any Old Westerner seeing these 94s is going to wonder just what in heck they are and where in heck you got 'em. I think the only other Model 94s in existence in 1885 were in a workshop in Ogden, Utah, where the Browning Brothers were just finishing up inventing it. Winchester bought up the rights like a fish snapping up a fly, because the improvements the Browning Brothers had made over the Model 73 and the Model 76 were so good.

"But the Model 94 didn't come out for a while, because Winchester had to buy manufacturing rights from the Browning Brothers, and they had to play with the design a little until it was as good as they could make it, then Winchester had to tool up their factory to accommodate the changes the 94 would require, that sort of thing-all the normal delays between prototype and commercial release."

Before she could say anything else-or any of the paleontologists could draw upon their courage to ask a question-the weapons-range door opened, admitting a cool draft, Malcolm, and closely following him, Kit Carson.