provide.”
***
The range was a half-mile walk down another dirt road, away from the creek into the scrubland, past scattered trees and immobile rocking-horse oil pumps. Ranya felt more confident with her hair trimmed evenly, and the residual ink on her neck scrubbed off with Olivia’s cold cream. She had gratefully accepted the offer to wash up in their camper’s tiny bathroom, and felt much better with a fresh face and clean teeth.
As she walked, she reflected upon the fact that all of the clothes she wore belonged to a dead woman, from her tan leather hiking boots, to her green ball cap and even Linssen’s gold-rimmed aviator-style sunglasses. This was more than a little bit creepy, but after years of nothing but prison denim, it felt nice to be dressed in casual civilian clothes.
She walked on, enjoying her aloneness, reveling in her anonymity. There were no terrain features to speak of anywhere around Barlow’s Creek, it was practically dead flat over vast expanses of land to the horizon. Willows, cottonwoods, and cattails defined the course of the creek to the east and the west. Only trees, oil pumps and occasional houses broke the monotonous uniformity of the land.
The slap-dash outdoor shooting range was like many she had visited in Virginia before the troubles. The firing line consisted of a dozen rough unpainted wooden tables, with a plywood roof extending above all of them to protect the shooters from the mid-day sun. Two hundred yards from the firing line, there was a bulldozed dirt berm for a bullet backstop. This berm was the only “hill” in the vicinity. A few cars, pickup trucks, motorcycles and bicycles were parked on the grass behind the firing line.
A red flag twenty feet up a pole announced that the range was open. Nobody paid her any attention as she dropped her brown pack on an empty table at the left end. There was a small plywood range shack behind them, with a hand-painted sign advertising reloaded ammunition and targets for sale. The firing line was hot. Four men were shooting rifles from sandbagged positions on the tables at paper and cardboard targets 100 yards away.
Ranya had only the Glock pistol and two full magazines of 9mm bullets, just thirty rounds in all, which she had taken from Linssen’s bedroom. She had no plan, no itinerary, just a general desire to get to Albuquerque somehow, and the range had drawn her back to the sights and sounds of her youth. Any shooting range was familiar, friendly territory, a place where she felt that she had the best chance of making the kinds of contacts that she would need to assist her on her way.
A pair of men behind one table fiddled with a Mini-14 rifle, they couldn’t get the stuck magazine out. The rifle reminded her of the ‘gun guards’ in the fields back at D-Camp, she wondered if they knew that she had escaped yet. A full size black AR-15 also lay on the table, along with gun cases and nylon zipper bags. Going back five years to the last she had heard, semi-auto rifles had been outlawed, but here they were, lying out in the open. A tall range safety officer wearing a red ball cap walked over. He tersely admonished the two for inadvertently pointing the muzzle of their rifle sideways down the firing line, while they tugged at the magazine. The lanky RSO appeared to be in his mid-fifties, she thought. The same age her father would have been, if he had not been murdered.
***
The range master finished with the two men, and walked over to Ranya’s end table. “Howdy. You new around here?” He noted her pack, with the rolled-up blanket tied underneath.
“Just got in,” she replied.
“What’re you shooting today?” She had no visible gun case or range bag.
“Glock 19.” She pulled the 9mm pistol from a side pouch on her pack. “I’d trade it for a .45 though, a model 1911. That’s more what I’m used to. Anybody around here trade guns?”
The man laughed. “Anybody here
***
The range was a half-mile walk down another dirt road, away from the creek into the scrubland, past scattered trees and immobile rocking-horse oil pumps. Ranya felt more confident with her hair trimmed evenly, and the residual ink on her neck scrubbed off with Olivia’s cold cream. She had gratefully accepted the offer to wash up in their camper’s tiny bathroom, and felt much better with a fresh face and clean teeth.
As she walked, she reflected upon the fact that all of the clothes she wore belonged to a dead woman, from her tan leather hiking boots, to her green ball cap and even Linssen’s gold-rimmed aviator-style sunglasses. This was more than a little bit creepy, but after years of nothing but prison denim, it felt nice to be dressed in casual civilian clothes.
She walked on, enjoying her aloneness, reveling in her anonymity. There were no terrain features to speak of anywhere around Barlow’s Creek, it was practically dead flat over vast expanses of land to the horizon. Willows, cottonwoods, and cattails defined the course of the creek to the east and the west. Only trees, oil pumps and occasional houses broke the monotonous uniformity of the land.
The slap-dash outdoor shooting range was like many she had visited in Virginia before the troubles. The firing line consisted of a dozen rough unpainted wooden tables, with a plywood roof extending above all of them to protect the shooters from the mid-day sun. Two hundred yards from the firing line, there was a bulldozed dirt berm for a bullet backstop. This berm was the only “hill” in the vicinity. A few cars, pickup trucks, motorcycles and bicycles were parked on the grass behind the firing line.
A red flag twenty feet up a pole announced that the range was open. Nobody paid her any attention as she dropped her brown pack on an empty table at the left end. There was a small plywood range shack behind them, with a hand-painted sign advertising reloaded ammunition and targets for sale. The firing line was hot. Four men were shooting rifles from sandbagged positions on the tables at paper and cardboard targets 100 yards away.
Ranya had only the Glock pistol and two full magazines of 9mm bullets, just thirty rounds in all, which she had taken from Linssen’s bedroom. She had no plan, no itinerary, just a general desire to get to Albuquerque somehow, and the range had drawn her back to the sights and sounds of her youth. Any shooting range was familiar, friendly territory, a place where she felt that she had the best chance of making the kinds of contacts that she would need to assist her on her way.
A pair of men behind one table fiddled with a Mini-14 rifle, they couldn’t get the stuck magazine out. The rifle reminded her of the ‘gun guards’ in the fields back at D-Camp, she wondered if they knew that she had escaped yet. A full size black AR-15 also lay on the table, along with gun cases and nylon zipper bags. Going back five years to the last she had heard, semi-auto rifles had been outlawed, but here they were, lying out in the open. A tall range safety officer wearing a red ball cap walked over. He tersely admonished the two for inadvertently pointing the muzzle of their rifle sideways down the firing line, while they tugged at the magazine. The lanky RSO appeared to be in his mid-fifties, she thought. The same age her father would have been, if he had not been murdered.
***
The range master finished with the two men, and walked over to Ranya’s end table. “Howdy. You new around here?” He noted her pack, with the rolled-up blanket tied underneath.
“Just got in,” she replied.
“What’re you shooting today?” She had no visible gun case or range bag.
“Glock 19.” She pulled the 9mm pistol from a side pouch on her pack. “I’d trade it for a .45 though, a model 1911. That’s more what I’m used to. Anybody around here trade guns?”
The man laughed. “Anybody here
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