Chapter 8 - The Next Shot Didn’t Need An Audience
Six months later, I was back at Fort Meredith.
Different course.
Same range complex.
Mason was still there.
Quieter.
Not transformed.
He still had opinions about everything.
He had simply become marginally better at distinguishing opinions from instructions.
That counts.
A young corporal lined up for qualification.
He missed.
Mason looked toward the observers.
I saw the reflex.
Perform.
Make the standard look hard.
Then he stopped.
Walked over.
Corrected the issue without humiliating him.
Returned.
No joke.
No crowd.
The corporal tried again.
Better.
Mason noticed me watching.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You have that face.”
“Everybody says that.”
“Because you do.”
Colonel Hale was gone now.
Retired.
No senior officer behind Mason to impress.
That probably helped.
Maybe character is partly what remains when the audience changes.
My turn came.
I took the assigned lane.
Nobody laughed when I started at the designated closer target.
Nobody interpreted it.
I completed the sequence.
Moved on.
When I finished, Mason looked at the score.
“Good.”
That was all.
No grandmother.
No challenge.
No need for me to prove that the first target said nothing about the last.
I collected my equipment.
Then noticed the old target frame.
Same one.
Still in service.
The backing had been replaced.
No dog tag behind it.
Obviously.
I touched the side of the frame once.
Mason noticed.
“You keep the tag?”
“Yes.”
“Going to give it to your dad?”
“Maybe.”
“Evan?”
“Maybe.”
“Helpful.”
“I try.”
He smiled.
Then:
“You ever figure out why your dad gave you the same name?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
I thought about how to answer without turning my aunt into the story of her death.
“He missed hearing it used normally.”
Mason frowned.
“That’s actually pretty good.”
“Don't tell him.”
“Why?”
“He’ll become unbearable.”
Fair.
A trainee called Mason from two lanes over.
He went.
I stayed near the frame for a moment longer.
Twenty-seven years earlier, Aunt Rachel Kane had stopped an exercise because she saw something she did not trust.
A young lieutenant made his disagreement too visible.
Her younger brother made his pride more important than her instruction.
Her fiancé spent decades demanding one sentence.
My father spent decades avoiding another.
Then I arrived and found her name buried behind a target because none of those men had figured out how to carry their own parts directly.
I could have turned that into another family inheritance.
I didn't want to.
My aunt's choices were hers.
Dad's were his.
Hale's were his.
Evan's were his.
Mine were mine.
I walked back toward the firing line.
The next trainee was already setting up.
Nobody knew what had once been hidden behind the frame.
Nobody needed to.
Mason gave the command to begin.
The trainee fired.
A target moved.
No laughter.
No history.
May you like
Just a shot being evaluated for what it actually was.
That seemed like a decent place to leave the past.
