Chapter 1 - ONE ARM
Jace Whitfield slammed the bolt-action rifle onto the counter hard enough to make three customers turn around.
Then he pointed directly at the empty sleeve pinned neatly against my right shoulder.
“One arm?” he said, laughing. “You couldn’t chamber a round if your life depended on it.”
Cutler’s Firearms had served the ranching town of Briar Creek, Nebraska, for more than forty years. The front half of the store sold hunting equipment, work boots and ranch supplies. Behind the counter, rifles were mounted against knotty pine walls beneath framed photographs of local hunting seasons.
A narrow indoor test tunnel ran behind the building. It was one of the few ranges in the region capable of stretching a target beyond one hundred yards, which made the store popular with prairie hunters preparing for open-country conditions.
That Saturday afternoon, the shop was crowded.
An older white-haired man stood near the ammunition shelves. A young couple had been comparing compact handguns near the second display case. Two ranchers waited beside the register.
Jace made certain every one of them heard him.
“The bolt alone takes two hands,” he continued. “Loading the magazine one-handed isn’t something most people can manage without dropping ammunition everywhere.”
My name is Evelyn Hayes. I was forty-eight years old, a retired Army marksmanship instructor, and missing my right arm above the shoulder.
I had heard worse from men with more authority than Jace.
So I did not argue.
I placed my small canvas bag on the counter and looked at the precision rifle mounted apart from the ordinary hunting models.
“I’d still like to handle it.”
Jace sighed as though I had asked him to supervise a child with fireworks.
“This isn’t a toy.”
“I know.”
He glanced at the customers, smiled for his audience and lifted the unloaded rifle from its rack. He set it on the counter with exaggerated care.
“Try not to drop it.”
I took it in my left hand.
I did not hurry. I anchored the stock against my hip, stabilized the rifle with my body and cycled the action using the adapted movement I had practiced for seventeen years.
The bolt moved smoothly.
The chamber opened.
The rifle remained under control.
Jace’s smile weakened.
I safely checked the chamber, rested the rifle on the mat and looked toward the range door.
“Open your two-hundred-yard lane.”
“Our line is usually set at one hundred.”
“Then today is a good day to use the rest of it.”
The older man beside the ammunition shelves stopped pretending to read a box.
Jace folded his arms.
“You planning to embarrass yourself at twice the distance?”
“No.”
I picked up my canvas bag.
May you like
“I’m planning to see whether your range performs the way your reports claim it does.”
For the first time, he looked at me instead of my missing arm.
