High on a cliff, the shooter panned the nightscope back
and forth across the San Pedro Valley. It took a while for
him to locate his chosen target across almost a mile of in
tervening desert. At last, though, he found it. After
first put ting on his ear protection, he pulled the
trigger. In his hands the fifty-caliber sniper rifle
roared to life. He felt certain he had nailed the pump,
but there was no way to tell for sure. The pump didn't
collapse. It just stood there, hit perhaps and with its
interior guts shattered, but outwardly the ma chinery
remained unfazed.
Frustrated, the shooter looked around for some other
possibility. That was when he saw the cattle. Taking a
bead on a dozing cow, he pulled the trigger again and was
gratified to see her legs collapse under her. The shooter
smiled in satisfaction. There was something god like in
being able to kill from that far away, to be able to
strike without warning, like a thunderbolt. The other cat
tle, alarmed and frightened, milled abouti trying to
escape from this unseen threat. Laughing in the face of
their stupidity and panic, he dropped another one, just to
prove he could.
Letting the others go, he pulled off his ear protection
and was starting to take down the tripod when he heard
some one shouting at him, screaming up at him in fear and
out rage. "What are you, crazy? Stop it before someone
gets hurt!"
The shooter could barely believe his ears. Someone was out
there in the desert, a woman, standing somewhere be tween
him and the dead cattle. Someone who had heard him
shooting.
"Sorry," he called back. He was just doing some target
practice. I didn't know anyone was here. Where are you?"
He ducked back down to the tripod. Once again he sent the
nightscope scanning across the desert floor. A minute or
two passed before he caught sight of the green-hued
figure. Moving determinedly, she was trotting away from
him, heading toward the river. It stunned him to realize
that she must have been on the mountain the whole time he
was. Maybe she had seen him and could even identify him.
Reaching a spot of fairly open desert, she darted forward
with all the grace of a panic-stricken deer. The green
image in the high-powered night-vision scope smeared as
she accelerated.
Without pausing to consider, the shooter covered his ears
once more and placed a firm finger back inside the trigger
guard. The woman was much closer than the cattle had been,
so he had some difficulty adjusting his aim. The first
shot caused her to trip and duck. As she limped forward,
he realized he had winged her, but it wasn't enough to
stop her. The second shot did, at least momentarily. She
dropped to the ground, but even then, desperate to get
away, she scrambled to her feet once more and staggered
forward, cradling one arm.
"Damnf" the shooter exclaimed. "Missed again."
His third shot did the job. The bullet caught her in the
middle of the back. She pikhed forward and plummeted
facedown on the rocky ground. This time she stayed down.
He watched for the better part of a minute, but there was
no sign of movement. None at all.
Up on the mountain, the shooter was barely able to con
tain his glee as he gathered his equipment and shell
casings. Killing people did something for him that killing
animals didn't. It made him feel all-powerful and all-
knowing.
He didn't rush, though He took his time. After all, there
was no reason to worry that she'd somehow get up on her
hands and knees and crawl away from him. No, people shot
with fifty-caliber shells weren't mobile enough for that.
He had no doubt that by the time he found her--by the time
he and his trusty knife arrived on the scenc the woman
would still be there, waiting for him.
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