Page 19 of So Far Gone

only fifteen at the time, but he considered himself a city kid, unimpressed with backward Stevens County and with his father’s

idea of being a twentieth-century Highlands shepherd.

Emrys’s wife didn’t care for it, either, and after two weeks, she left her moody husband and his erstwhile sheep ranch for a department store job in Tacoma, taking their younger son, Rhys’s Uncle Pete, with her.

When Leonard joined them a month later, Rhys’s grandfather was almost relieved to not have to make the rustic old house habitable for his sulking wife and kids.

He settled into the most basic existence possible, figuring he’d die on this land, not realizing that it would take another forty years.

Rhys could recall his dad taking him to visit craggy, old Grandpa Emrys, who always walked his little ranch in a sheepskin

coat that he’d brought from the old country, even though he never got around to having actual sheep on his sheep ranch. Instead,

he cut firewood and bucked hay bales and did odd jobs in town to make the ends barely meet. Rhys knew his dad hated visiting

his own reclusive father here. “That place destroyed our family,” Leonard told him once. But, for some reason, when the old

man died, Leonard couldn’t bring himself to sell the land. He rented out the house for a while, and sometimes let tenants

live there for free. “It’s basically worthless,” he said. So, sell it , Rhys thought. And yet, when Leonard died, the land became Rhys’s. And, as it turned out, Rhys couldn’t bring himself to

sell it, either.

And now look. He’d pulled a complete Grandpa Emrys—blown up his family, lost his job, and run off to the woods, seeking the tonic of wildness . But the tonic of wildness had been greatly diluted in those seventy years. When Emrys moved into the woods, his closest

neighbor was more than two miles away. Now, Kinnick had four or five neighbors within a mile of his house, and every year,

there seemed to be more construction crews and logging trucks plying the two-lane highway, carving dirt roads and driveways

into these remote foothills, digging wells, pouring foundations, endlessly converting forests and fields to family farmhouses.

When he was a boy, Rhys could remember these woods being full of black bear and elk, moose, coyote, and Canadian lynx.

And now? Here he was, his first morning in the woods, and Kinnick’s wildness tonic consisted of a street gang of unruly raccoons

working its way through his groceries in his cold kitchen. Watching them he wondered if this was the sort of profound epiphany

that Thoreau’s writing had promised:

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

For how could one resign oneself more to the influence of the earth than by watching a pack of belligerent raccoons snarf and chirble the last of your supplies?

As he pondered this question, Kinnick had two related thoughts about his new home: 1. This was going to be more difficult

than he’d imagined. And 2. Until he figured out how the raccoons were getting in his house, he probably needed to get a gun.

***

Kinnick stared at the gun in Chuck Littlefield’s hand. “Jesus. No!”

“You’ve never fired a gun?”

“Well, yes. I mean... I have a pellet gun at my place in the woods—”

“A pellet gun?”

“Yeah. A Dragonfly air-action rifle. For scaring raccoons.”

“An air gun? For scaring raccoons? You didn’t shoot ’em?”

In fact, after discovering the pointlessness of air rifle warning shots , Kinnick had shot two raccoons, in their waddling striped-tail asses, the feisty leader who always hissed at him, and the poor guy with

the battered ear. He could tell it really hurt, too. And, mission accomplished, after that, the pack had limped and hobbled away (pellets embedded in their furry asses)

and had never returned, Kinnick eventually finding the loose floorboard where they were getting in and patching it.

“I hate raccoons,” Chuck said. “They killed my neighbor’s chickens. I would’ve shot every one of them right between their

little black eyes, and I would’ve enjoyed it.” Chuck shook his head, as if the raccoons had taken Kinnick’s grandchildren.

He turned the gun over in his hand. “Look, this isn’t much different than that. Well, except totally different.”

“Chuck, I really don’t think—”

“Relax. The last thing I want is you shooting anyone. But since you’re going to be my only backup there today, I need you

to know how to handle this thing.”

“Backup? What are you—” Kinnick couldn’t even finish the question.

“We’re going in. You and me. Get your grandkids out of Six Flags Reichstag.” He nodded at the flat-roofed sheriff’s office.

“If Captain Fat Ass back there won’t help us, then we’ll do it ourselves.”

Kinnick couldn’t help wondering if Chuck’s courage (or was it foolhardiness?) had to do with Lucy. If he wanted Rhys to go

back and tell her what a brave hero her old boyfriend had been on this adventure. “Look, of course I want to get the kids,

too, but...” Kinnick nodded at the gun. “Not like that.”

“Rhys. I promise. You’re not going to shoot anyone. But these are the same guys who hit you in the face with a leather sap

yesterday. I’d be a stupid asshole if I didn’t at least show you how to handle this thing and give you some way to protect

yourself. And I might be an asshole, but I am not stupid.”

He put the gun in Kinnick’s hand. “Open palm, index finger off to the right, outside the trigger guard. Good. Now close your

other three fingers and thumb around the grip. Excellent.”

“This is a terrible idea.” The gun was cool, weighted toward the front.

“It’s a simple .22 Glock, easy to aim and fire. Easy to secure.”

“Chuck, I don’t—”

“You want your grandkids back?”

“Of course I do!”

“You want to wait two weeks until we can find your daughter and get a writ?”

“Of course not. But I don’t want them to get hurt!”

Chuck made an exasperated, grumbling noise.

“This is what I can never seem to explain to you squishy liberals. This is why you learn to use a gun! So. That. Nobody. Gets hurt! Jesus, you people. You’re like Lucy.

I gave her a gun for her birthday once, and she told me to shove it up my ass.

I promise, you’re not going to need it today, but I’d feel a whole lot better if you at least learned how to hold it.

So that we don’t go in there holding our dicks. ”

Kinnick sighed. “Fine.”

“Okay. At present, this gun does not have a round in the chamber. It isn’t loaded and it isn’t cocked. Now, there are a few more steps to this than there are

shooting raccoons with a pellet gun. First, grab that magazine.”

Rhys reached into the box and removed the magazine, which looked like a heavy metal PEZ dispenser. A single bullet was poking

out of the top.

“Slide that into the grip of the gun.”

Kinnick did.

“Now see that little lever by your thumb? That’s the magazine release. Click that and remove the mag.”

Kinnick did.

“Now slide it back in.”

Kinnick did. He marveled at the balanced weight of the gun when it was loaded like this. It felt so intentional, so well designed.

Suddenly, he pictured that goateed thug swinging his blackjack and he imagined pulling this handgun out and pointing at his

fat smug fa—

Jesus! The shiver that went through his arm! The power! Just holding it, Kinnick felt a rush that he didn’t entirely trust...

but that he rather liked. That word: the weight . That was it. The weight of this gun was the exact weight of his anger and his fear and his sense of displacement. That’s

what the gun weighed. That’s where its incredible balance lay.

“Okay, you’ve got fifteen rounds in the magazine. Now I’m going to show you how to load one of those rounds, how to cock it,

how to turn off the safety, and how to fire it. But we are not going to fire it, are we? We are not going to shoot my truck.” When Kinnick didn’t answer, Chuck said again, “Are we going

to shoot my truck, Rhys?”

“No, we’re not.”

“Good. Now step out of the truck.”

They did. Chuck came around to the passenger side. Kinnick stood holding the gun just outside his truck door, pointed at the

ground, his finger to the side of the trigger guard. Chuck went through the steps again. “Okay, safety off, now it’s ready

to fire. If we had time, I’d take you to the range, have you practice, but we don’t have time. So, I’m going to tell you a

couple of things. And I don’t want you to freak out.”

“I really don’t think—”

“I don’t care what you think. Hold the gun in your right hand and point it at the fender of my truck, above the right front

tire. Finger still out of the trigger guard.”

Kinnick did.

“Now, stand with your feet shoulder width apart, your weaker foot slightly in front of your stronger foot. Good. Now, bend

your front knee but keep your back leg straight, more of your weight on your front foot, bending forward, elbows slightly

bent. Good. Now put both hands on the gun.”

Kinnick did. “This seems like a lot of instruction for something I’m never going to use.”

“Now, pay attention to this part. Everyone thinks you aim for the chest—that’s fine, normally, biggest target. But these para-twats

will likely be wearing Kevlar vests. So—don’t worry, and it’s not going to come to this, but if it does—where should you aim?”

“I-I don’t know. The face?”

“You’d think that, but the face is a lot narrower than the rest of the body, a lot smaller, jerkier.

That’s why turkey hunting is so tough, you gotta pop that sucker’s head so you don’t ruin the meat.

And secondly, you can’t believe how tough it is to look someone in the eye and then shoot them there.

Moves around a lot. Your conscience will kick in and you’ll shift slightly and miss.

It’s just damned hard, shooting a man in the face. ”

“Have you—”