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“Mr. McClain, if we’re going to be tracking dangerous game, perhaps you should give me that shooting lesson you alluded to earlier?” asked Alfie.
His mentor had promised him yesterday that today he’d give him a shooting lesson. If they were going to go traipsing after a Jersey devil, Alfie just wanted to know how to defend himself! He was fairly certain that nothing would ever get out of hand with Mr. McClain there to protect him, but he had to be safe.
The gruff woodsman spat on the ground before instructing Alfie to, “Ready your rifle, kid.”
Alfie had to fight against the urge to frown. He wasn’t a kid! He was a man! Even if he wasn’t anywhere near his mentor’s equal, he didn’t need the older man to talk down to him like that.
Following his mentor’s orders, Alfie unslung his Winchester rifle from his back and held it in front of himself, awaiting further instructions.
The young man followed his mentor’s one-eyed gaze through the forest. Eventually, Mr. McClain settled on a dead, gray tree. Quick as a whip, the runner of the woods drew one of his revolvers and shot off a branch. Alfie’s eyes went wide and his jaw hung open. He knew that his mentor would be a proficient woodsman, but that had been an astounding display.
“Do that,” was Mr. McClain’s only instruction.
Alfie cast his mind back to all of the books and pamphlets he’d read over the years in anticipation of this odyssey. He conjured up the images of shooting forms he’d seen in diagrams and applied the knowledge to enter a stance that felt comfortable.
Once he shouldered his rifle, he heard his mentor order, “Take your shot, kid.”
There was that term again—kid! He wasn’t a kid! In a moment of familiar frustration, Alfie flinched as he pulled the trigger on his rifle. The limb of the dead tree he’d aimed at remained unscathed. Silently grumbling, Alfie pushed and pulled the lever of his rifle. Aiming again, he fired. He missed again.
“Drat!” he swore.
Alfie could feel his rugged old mentor take up a position behind him a few paces behind him. “Calm down, lad. No need to waste more shells,” murmured his rugged mentor.
The blond man was annoyed and angry now. How hard could it possibly be to shoot a dead tree? His finger moved back to the trigger, but before he could fire another shot, Mr. McClain took another step closer to him.
The wiry and rugged man was pressed up against him now. The furs the man wore as well as the whiskers on his faces brushed against Alfie’s own soft and tender skin. Their faces were touching—it had been a while since Alfie had been lucky enough to have a man this close to his face. He banished that thought as soon as it entered his racing mind.
“Do as I do,” Mr. McClain murmured. Alfie allowed the wiry man’s strong grip to move and pose him. The frontiersman's hands were calloused and scarred, but they were still gentle. One of Mr. McClain’s long fingers crept over his trigger finger.
The older man inhaled, and Alfie matched him. Alfie was suddenly acutely aware of how Mr. McClain smelled of gunsmoke and fresh mud. It was a shockingly intoxicating aroma.
he older man exhaled, and again Alfie mimicked his motions again. With their lungs all empty, Cormac squeezed down on his finger, and Alfie pulled the trigger.
The hanging branch fell down—Alfie had vanquished his foe.
As soon as the branch tumbled to the ground, Mr. McClain has already moved away, and Alfie could already feel himself missing his mentor’s close physical presence. In these wild woods, he appreciated the comfort Mr. McClain’s presence could provide.
“One more, lad. Without my help,” instructed Mr. McClain. ‘Kid’ had left the older man’s vocabulary, and that made Alfie happy. He could hit one more shot, if it would make his mentor proud.