by Roger Herst
Along with the students, she learned that, when handling a bolt-action rifle, the bolt must remain open at all times except on the firing line, and to always point the muzzle away from anything she didn’t intend to shoot. The instructor focused on how to determine if the rifle was loaded, how to pass a firearm to another person, and how to receive one. Eventually the teachers passed around .22 rifles, encouraging their students to practice what they had just learned. The students were to accept possession of a rifle or transfer it to another person only when they were thoroughly satisfied there was no cartridge in the firing position. Like the youngsters, Gabby failed to notice that instructors clandestinely introduced blank bullet casings into the rifles, and then attempted to circulate these weapons among the kids. She made an embarrassing blunder and took possession of a rifle with a blank cartridge lodged in the chamber. Her carelessness became the subject of a stern lecture about how negligence with a weapon could lead to disaster. The kids seemed relieved that it was Gabby who had made the mistake.
They had taken a break and were drinking soft drinks on the clubhouse porch when the sound of loudspeakers wafted up from the highway. Somebody with a trumpet blasted a series of sharp, staccato notes that elicited a chorus of hoots and claps. Gabby observed how little this affected the kids. They were looking forward to shooting on the range. That demonstrators the on road didn’t want them participating in the KISS program completely failed to register.
Tobacco had once flourished on the field cleared for the Izaak Walton Rifle Range. It was enclosed on three sides by a seemingly impenetrable forest of oaks and scrub pine. At the far end, targets were clustered at various distances along the field of fire. Two guards had been posted in front of a raised wooden platform with fifteen shooting benches to ensure that no one could stray forward onto the range. Nearby, a red banner on a flagpole snapped in the afternoon breeze to indicate that the range was active. The range officer, clad in a day glow vest, paraded behind the firing line. A dour, mousey-looking man with a squared jaw, he compensated for his short stature by carrying himself with the authority of a Marine drillmaster. He was clearly prepared to discipline anyone who violated the rules.
On the shooting benches lay small-bore caliber, bolt-action rifles, with their muzzles pointed downfield. A telescope mounted on a chrome stand stood beside each bench. The students had been divvied into teams of two; one student would shoot while the other observed. Their discipline and enthusiasm impressed Gabby. There was no shoving, elbowing, or arguing over who would shoot and who would spot targets through the telescope. One instructor had been assigned to every three teams to help the shooters align their sights on small targets a hundred feet away and to adjust the telescopes. Once these instructors were satisfied the shooters were ready, they gave a signal that allowed each to introduce a single cartridge into the chamber of a rifle. The youngsters needed little encouragement to make their rifles lethal.
Kendra Neils, hunkered over her rifle, was meticulously taking aim when Gabby ambled close to her station, lost in thought. A rifle range was the last place on earth she’d ever expected to be, but her association with Joel was leading her into places that both left her uncomfortable and intrigued her. She paused to watch Kendra and her presence nearby caused the girl to abandon the gun sight and glance up over her shoulder. “You wanna try?” she asked. “It’s easy.”
“Oh no, not me,” Gabby said, stepping back onto the Astroturf at the edge of the shooting platform.
“This gun won’t hurt you,” said Kendra. “Only don’t point it at nothing you don’t want to shoot. I’ll show you how.”
Gabby quickly surveyed the firing line and saw Joel instructing a youngster two stations away. The smell of spent cordite, mixed with the popping sound of the rifles, was surprisingly seductive. For the first time in her life she could comprehend how shooting might excite someone. While this pastime would never be her sport, its fascination was no longer completely unfathomable. A sudden sense of adventure possessed her and she accepted Kendra’s invitation.
“Don’t jerk your trigger finger,” Kendra said as they transferred places. Gabby balanced the Remington Model 512 and set her left elbow squarely on the tabletop for support. The front sight swung into line with the target but, just as quickly, moved past it. Even with the support of the table, positioning the heavy rifle barrel on the target was more difficult than she had anticipated and she wondered if she had sufficient strength. A tremor in her left hand forced her to abandon the thought of a bull’s-eye and accept a lesser goal. Just hitting the target would be enough for her. Each attempt to fix the sights on the black dot down range proved to be more frustrating than the last. Her nerves were not cooperating. When she finally jerked back on the trigger, there was a sharp crack and surprising recoil against her shoulder. She almost feared to look up at the teenage boy manning the telescope.
“You must have missed the whole fucking target, lady,” the spotter said. “You ain’t got near the spot.” The words were harsh, but Gabby could sense an undercurrent of commiseration.
It wasn’t sufficient for Kendra. “Don’t worry,” she said, scowling at the spotter, “nobody gets a bull’s-eye on the first try.” She lifted her eyes first to the near targets and then let them sweep the full length of the range where distant targets awaited marksmen with more high-powered rifles. “Hey, hey” she declared, “I see something moving in the woods back there.”
“I don’t see nothing,” the spotter said, after a quick glance down the range. But he swung his scope in the direction she’d indicated for a better look.
“I did,” Kendra exclaimed, emphatically pointing. “And don’t tell me I didn’t, ‘cause I saw something black move by the trees.”
“There’s nothing,” he growled back.
Their disagreement was loud enough to attract the attention of the range officer, who immediately approached, asking for an explanation. When Kendra insisted she’d seen something move, the officer employed his sergeant’s voice in a commanding bellow. “Cease fire along the range! Cease fire along the range! Everybody. Cease fire immediately.”
One student dispatched a final bullet he had been carefully sighting before the announcement.
“Damn it! You heard me! When I say cease fire, that’s what I mean. The next person who defies my order is finished here. You can pack up and move out. And not just for the afternoon. You’re on my list and not invited back. You kids understand me? Now open your bolts, muzzles pointed down range at all times. If there is a cartridge snagged inside, extract it carefully, or call an instructor. No bolts closed during a cease-fire and a cease-fire is officially on.”
Kendra had sidestepped to nudge aside her spotter and employ the scope herself. While others were trying to find out what closed down the range, she scanned a stand of light-barked sycamores bordering the far end of the range “I got it!” she declared in an exultant voice. “I just saw it again. Down to the right. It’s still in the trees.”
Joel drew alongside Gabby, handing her the binoculars that had hung from his neck during firing. The range officer peered through his own field glasses. “All right,” Joel called to the kids, “see who can confirm Kendra’s spotting. You never, never fire in a direction if you’re not one hundred percent sure where your bullet is going. So we can’t resume shooting until we identify what’s out there.”
As they scanned in silence, they heard the trumpet player toot again at the demonstrators on the road. A drum pounded a beat and somebody was talking through a loudspeaker, though the words remained muffled.
A young girl in a maroon and yellow basketball jacket jumped up and down like a cheerleader, screaming, “I seen it! I done seen it!”
It took several seconds for Joel to extract from her exactly what she she’d seen and where, but as soon as he had, the other spotters trained their scopes on the same location. Confirmation came almost instantaneously. A jet-black object was moving along the perimeter of the woods, heading from eas
t to west. Gabby could see nothing through Joel’s binoculars but was caught up in the excitement and trusted the acuity of younger eyes.
She could see that Joel was nervously considering how this might be related to the demonstration. Had they sent an emissary through the forest to scout out the range? Had they come to disrupt the shooting? Since he could come to no conclusion until he knew what was out there, she returned his binoculars. Kendra’s object came into view several moments later. “By God, it’s a black bear!” he shouted. “Never seen one in this part of Maryland. They’ve got lots of them in the western part of the state, but they rarely come into metropolitan areas. A bloody black bear!”
The kids oohed and aahed as the creature left the protection of the forest and meandered casually onto the open shooting range. It was now identifiable. Near Gabby, two girls clutched each other and one screamed in an excited voice. “They eat people. I seen it on TV. We gotta get out of here!”
The bear continued its approach to the firing platform, spreading the girls’ fear among kids whose only experience with wild animals had come from television documentaries or the zoo.
“Let’s shoot it,” one of the older boys proposed. Another, still beside his shooting stand, lifted a rifle to his shoulders and began to lay a sight on the lumbering beast. A third fumbled with a cartridge for his weapon.
“We’re under cease fire rules,” the range officer barked in an uncompromising voice. “Your weapons remain on the firing tables until I give an order to the contrary. Put every rifle down! Immediately!”
“That bear will eat us,” a girl replied nervously.
The range officer snarled back, “Your .22s are peashooters. A dozen bullets from a .22 would only make that critter angry. He’d go off and bleed someplace. Maybe hurt somebody first.”
Joel paced behind his students, his eyes still keenly peeled on the bear. “Nobody’s shooting any bears around here.”
“We could just scare him off with a few bullets in the ground,” another youngster suggested.
“He’s not doing any harm where he is. Bears rarely attack humans. Besides, he’s much too small. This fellow is only a few years old and probably only recently separated from his mother. What a privilege to see a creature like this.”
Kendra Neils entered the discussion. “If we kill him, then nobody’s gonna see nothing. And that’s not fair. I’ve never seen a bear. I’m tired of just seeing them on TV. This is much better.”
“Let us just put our sights on him,” pleaded a tall youngster in a tattered sweatshirt.
“What’s wrong with that?” Joel cried out, preempting the range officer who was about to explode with recrimination. “Somebody tell me what’s wrong with lining up that bear in your sights?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it,” responded the tall youngster was provocatively.
“You never aim at something you don’t want to shoot,” Kendra said.
“They do it all the time on TV,” somebody objected.
“And what have I taught you about TV, ladies and gentlemen? Joel asked. “Never, never let TV teach you about guns. It’s always wrong. Wrong. WRONG. Tell me, are your weapons loaded right now?”
The youngsters inspected open breeches and declared, “No!”
“Oh yes, they are,” Joel snapped. “When is a gun not loaded?”
Some shrugged their shoulders.
“Never!” Joel answered his own question. “Because a gun is always considered to be loaded. There may not be a cartridge in the chamber, but you must always think of it as loaded. Therefore, the barrel is pointed at all times in a safe direction. Just like a good pilot can’t afford to make a mistake flying an airplane, a good rifleman never has an accident. Our job is to see that accidents don’t happen.”
“Hey, Dr. Fox,” Louise called from the path leading to the clubhouse, “We got company coming up the road. The protestors are trespassing now. They’re on our property. The whole lot of them. Maybe two hundred.”
“Tell them we’ve got youngsters on the firing range. This is no place for people to be wandering around!”
“The bear is heading back toward the trees,” Kendra informed the others, her scope following the creature as it ambled away. “Don’t think he wants to eat anybody today.”
“The range is officially closed,” pronounced the range officer, waving his arms in a signal of caution downrange. “As long as we have uninvited visitors on the property, there will be no more firing. All weapons must be removed immediately. Down with the red range flag. The range is closed until further notice.”
A helicopter painted with the beige, red, and yellow crest of the Maryland State Police swooped down over the treetops and circled widely to the west. A television chopper, far smaller but with cameras loaded on metal struts outside the fuselage, growled at a lower altitude behind it.
“Ralph,” Joel barked to the range officer, “I want all these kids off the range and taken immediately into the clubhouse. Move them around to the back entrance so the demonstrators won’t see them. I smell a fight brewing and I don’t want anybody hurt.”
He gathered Gabby’s arm to escort her, but she held back. “Listen, Joel, I only agreed to observe, not to ruin my reputation in the Coalition. I’d rather not be seen.”
He ran that quickly through his mind and nodded his consent. “Okay. Go with Ralph and the kids. As soon as this is over, I’ll take you home. Thanks for giving us a look.”
There was no time for her to respond. The range officer was in motion, herding reluctant and confused kids from the range. They didn’t understand the sudden change of mood, especially when they were enjoying themselves. Nor did they like being moved without their consent. Several kids attempted to bolt and explore for themselves, but were corralled. Gabby assumed a position in the rear, helping to direct the stragglers.
A path through the forest led to the clubhouse’s rear door, but once inside the youngsters could see through windows to the clubhouse porch. A phalanx of club members, men and women, stood facing the protestors, who were arriving in growing numbers from the highway. Each held a rifle pointed skyward. Aware that the visitors wanted to shut down their club, the youngsters became angry and defensive. A skinny six-footer, his scalp shaved clean like a melon, spearheaded a house rebellion. “We ain’t gonna let them fuck with this club, are we? Let’s go out there and tell them they can’t take it away,” he declared, moving toward the back door.
“You stay exactly where you are,” the range officer warned. “Dr. Fox ordered me to keep you guys out of sight. We’ve got a nasty situation brewing. Go out there and you’ll only make things worse. Guns sometimes make people crazy and, as you can see for yourselves, our people have plenty of guns.”
“You run the range, but we ain’t shooting now,” said another of the older youths.
“This is Dr. Fox’s program,” Gabby added. “You owe it to him to stay put. He’s the only one who can cool down tempers right now. If he doesn't, it’s the end of your club.”
“She’s right,” Kendra Neils spoke up. “Give Dr. Fox a chance.” That she was several years younger than the others and a girl didn’t seem to faze her.
“We just want go outside and tell them we don’t want the place closed,” said the skinny youth, resuming his movement toward the rear door. A few of his fellows started to follow, but paused with uncertainty. He glanced around, looking for inspiration and found it. The gun-racks on the wall were empty, except for a single firearm – the civil war musket Joel had used in his earlier introduction and that Kendra had wanted to fire. He grabbed the musket, raising it high above his head as a battle standard.
“Put that down immediately,” the range officer ordered.
“This is ain’t the rifle range, Grandpa,” another kid called out.
The conflict forced other youngsters to pick sides and supporting one of their own was an easy choice. Several moved toward the gun-toting young leader as he waited near the door, their movement impel
ling others to follow. The range officer swore aloud, almost screaming.
Kendra and a shy young girl looked to Gabby for help. The probability of someone getting hurt was high and half a dozen strategies to avert disaster flashed through her mind, none good. By the time she’d decided what to do, the kids had surged down the back stairs into the dense woods behind the clubhouse.
Addressing Kendra, she said, “I need your help. Follow me.”
On the front deck, eleven members of the Izaak Walton Gun Club, with high-powered hunting rifles angled across their chests, awaited the demonstrators. The breeches of the rifles were closed, indicating the firearms were loaded and their owners were prepared to fire. In order to appear as a neutral broker between hostile parties, Joel stood apart at the bottom of the stairs.
Terrance Koe, one of the club’s most conservative members, called to Joel. “We want all trespassers off the property.” Terrance possessed the concave cheeks and lean body characteristic of a chain smoker who relied more upon tobacco than food. He had built a successful stock brokerage business among wealthy and equally conservative farmers in Frederick County. “This is your mess, Joel. You’d better clean it up before we take matters into our hands. And once we start, I warn you, there are going to be some pretty unhappy campers around here.”
“Is that a threat, Terrance?” Joel asked. He kept his eyes on the demonstrators entering the clearing.
“Take it any way you choose,” Terry replied. “I warned everybody about this. And now it’s come. Your cockamamie scheme is a pipe dream, Joel. Did you really think these goddamn people would sit back and let you get away with it? If somebody gets hurt, it’s not going to be our fault. The law favors owners over trespassers.”
The front row of protesters paused twenty feet in front of Joel, their placards and standards dancing in the air above them. The photographers trotting alongside also halted.
Joel addressed those on the porch. “Let me speak. Put your guns back in the racks. Nobody will listen with a gun pointed at his belly. That only makes folks real mad.”
