Drive - A Memoir 12th Installment
The
only emotion I miss is anger. Bored, tired, or sad were easy to give
up, as these emotions only involved my own little emotional world.
The irony was the parents still got angry, and that didn’t seem
fair.
We
got our bullet and charged over to the tractor to claim 'dibs' on
driving. Russ won. Well, he was older and faster and, according to
him, smarter. But I was stronger, and I was a warrior.
I loved to work harder, faster, and smarter, and completing every job
better than anyone else of any age. Even though Russ and I were best
friends there was still competitiveness between us. Whether at work,
play, or just plain bragging, we always measured, timed, judged and
argued over who was the fastest, best, strongest, and always who was
the smartest.
He
started the tractor up, and I saddled myself over the nose of the
tractor with my feet on the steering rods, the rifle across my lap.
“Kick
her up into high and let’s fly.” I commanded. The 8N Ford tractor
had a 4 speed plus a 3 speed shifter on the side. When you were in
4th
gear high it would go about 25 miles an hour which was scary fast for
us, and we would go as fast as we dared as often as we could.
We
made good time getting back to the scene of the morning slaughter.
There wasn't an antelope in sight. None. I think they can sense the
death of one of their own or at least smell it. The desert cool night
was already surrendering its hold on the morning air, the sun being
high enough to burn the cool away. We abandoned our flannel shirts at
the tractor. I cranked open the bolt action of the 270 and checked
the chamber, cranked the bolt shut and checked the safety. The rules
were always point the muzzle at the ground and never put a shell in
the chamber until you have the game in sight. These rules were
especially true with this gun. Vernon had adjusted (I think with a
file) the trigger mechanism until the gun had what is called a ‘hair
trigger.’
It took about an ounce of pressure and only the slightest movement to
fire the gun. He believed that if you have to think about pulling the
trigger, you can’t be accurate. There is no such thing as 'squeeze
off a shot.' By the time you squeeeeeeze off a shot, you are not
sighting the gun where and when you want. You sight through the rear
peep and place the front sight post on the mark where you want to
shoot. Nobody, no matter how strong, can hold a gun perfectly steady.
Your mind knows when the sighting is true, and at that moment, the
gun will shoot. Letting the 'unconscious brain/finger connection'
work by instinct instead of thinking about shooting actually makes
the gun
dead accurate.
A
hair trigger gun is
500 more words tomorrow
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Comments