Cold Wind - C. J. Box [66]
Nate raised his eyebrows in appreciation.
“It’s not as fast as your .454,” Merle said, “but the knockdown power is greater. The .454 has a TKO of 30, while the .500 goes 39. And according to the man who sold it to me, it’s like getting hit by a freight train as opposed to a car. It’ll knock down a moose or a cape buffalo or a grizzly like nothing else. The penetration is incredible. The bullets just blow through flesh and bone and are rarely ever recovered afterward, which is an attribute I thought you might appreciate.”
Nate nodded. He liked that. “Range?”
“Five-hundred-yard capability,” Merle said, “but it’s most effective within a hundred.
“In the right hands,” he winked at Nate, “and with an adjustable scope, accurate one-thousand-yard shots are not impossible. Plus at close range, one could, you know, knock out a bulldozer.
“Hell,” Merle said, “you’re Nate Romanowski. You’ve got the rep. You’ve got to have the baddest gun known to man or beast.”
Nate said, “I’m getting interested.”
He liked the way it felt in his hand, loved its balance and weight. Large Merle stood behind him, silent, letting him get acquainted with the weapon. Nate kneaded it with his hands, spun it on his finger through the trigger guard, checked out the scope, then opened the cylinder.
He was well practiced with the model. He loaded one large shell, rotated the cylinder past an empty hole, then loaded the next three rounds. The idea was to leave the firing pin resting on the skipped cylinder for safety. Then he raised it like an extension of his right arm and cupped his left hand under his right. He kept both eyes open and cocked it with his left thumb. The snick-snick sound of rotating steel cylinder was tight and sweet, he thought.
The fence they stood next to had warped wooden posts spaced every ten feet. He counted out fifteen posts from where he stood—fifty yards—and fired. The concussion was tremendous and it seemed like the air around them had been sucked away for a second. Large Merle cried out, “Jesus Christ! My ears . . . give a guy some warning.”
The post was split cleanly down the middle. A wisp of smoke and dust rose from the top of the post. The barbed wire strands sang up and down the fence from the impact.
Nate smiled grimly. “A different attitude than the .454,” he said more to himself than Merle. “The .454 is snappy compared to this. The .500 pushes straight back like a mule kick.”
Then he counted out fifteen more posts and blew the top off one at a hundred yards. He let the gun kick back over his left shoulder near his ear, and as he leveled it, he thumbed the hammer on the down stroke. Another heavy boom, and a post a hundred fifty yards away shattered into splinters. He calculated, aimed down the fence line, and fired his last round.
“My God,” Large Merle said, taking his fingers out of his ears. “But you missed the last one.”
“No,” Nate said, “look farther down. At two-fifty.”
The post at two hundred fifty yards was blown cleanly in two, and the top half sagged near the bottom half, held aloft by the strands of wire stapled to it.
“It doesn’t need to be said, but that’s some shooting.”
“Then why say it?” Nate asked. “You did well, Merle. This will do the job. How much?”
“The .500 WE retails for twenty-three hundred dollars without the scope,” Large Merle said. “The shells alone cost three dollars each, so keep that in mind. But given the circumstances, you owe me exactly nothing.”
Nate said, “I don’t like being obligated.”
“Given the circumstances,” Merle said again, “it’s the least I can do. I really liked Alisha, you know. I know how you felt about her.”
Nate said, “Let’s not talk about her, please.” And he raised the weapon and aimed it between Merle’s eyes.
“Tell me again you didn’t know a thing about the people who killed her,” Nate said without inflection.