The Barn, sequel to 'How to say goodbye to a stranger'

“I guess we’d better introduce ourselves,” said the Sheriff. “My name’s Jeff, what do I call you?”

“Jake” replied the stranger laconically.

“Not Black Jake from Wyoming?”

“Nope shot him a month ago, not nearly as good as his reputation!”

The two men had arrived at the barn after this exchange of information, so Jeff used the key he’d got from the saloon and opened the door.

Jake gazed round the inside of the structure with the practiced gaze of a professional on entering a strange building. The walls had been lined with heavy timber up to a height of six feet or so. A low table stood just in front of them as they entered, while at the far end was a strongly made low retaining wall holding back several tons of well packed earth. This wall also supported a large table in front of it and was obviously used for targets such as bottles or tin cans. The light inside was surprisingly good and came in through large windows located just above the reinforced walls.

“Right then” said Jeff, “speed first then accuracy afterwards?”

“Sounds fair to me,” was the reply, “how do we check speed without me killing you?”

“Two ways, first the poker chip draw; although not very accurate unless there’s a big difference between us.”

Jeff opened a drawer under the table and produced a poker chip from the contents. Then placing the chip on the back of his gun hand he held his arm out at shoulder height pointing his gun at the stop butts at the end of the barn. He turned his wrist and went for his gun as the chip fell and managed to fire three times just as the chip hit the floor.

“Two shots,” said Jake, inaccurately.

Then he took his turn and also fired three times. “Three!” He exclaimed triumphantly.

“I reckon we’re about equal allowing for personal scoring methods,” said Jeff, “just to make sure we’ll try the wax bullet system.”

Jeff reached down again into the drawer and produced a shallow tray with about half an inch of old melted candle grease in the bottom. He also put a box full of empty .45 cartridge cases beside the candle wax with a box of new percussion caps.

“We press the open end of a case into the wax, fit a new percussion cap and ‘hey presto’ non lethal cartridge.”

“So what?”

Jeff held back a sigh, no point in riling Jake, so he continued patiently. “Put on this vest and you’ll see. There’s a target two inches in diameter on the front just over your heart. We each wear one and can have as many goes as you like at killing each other. Just stop shooting when you feel a thump on your chest, that means you’re as good as dead! The wax bullet will stick there so that we can check accuracy if needed. The percussion cap has enough power to fire the wax for about 30 feet. If we stand 20 feet apart that should be fair enough, agreed?”

Jake was practically laughing as he unloaded his gun and began filling the blank cases with wax.

“You can have the drop on me if you like,” said Jeff “and we’ll go on from there for as long as you want.”

Guns loaded with wax bullets, the men faced each other at the agreed distance.

Jake’s hand flashed down to his gun, cocking the hammer as he brought it up to waist height. He was amazed to feel two shots thump him in the chest before he’d pulled the trigger.

“Guess you got lucky there Sheriff, I’ll have another go to set the record straight.”

Jeff grinned at Jake, as the men reloaded their guns and fired again with the same result.

Jake kept the contest going for five more attempts, finally on the last one he managed to squeeze off a shot that missed his target by a good few feet before he was hit.

“Ok you’re faster than me at close range but how good are you at a longer distance with real bullets?”

The men cleaned their guns and reloaded with normal cartridges.

Jeff set up a few tin cans on the table at the end of the range. Jake fanned his gun and blasted the complete row in one easy sweeping motion. Jeff walked down the range again and set up another row.

His first shot hit one can, but he kept the thing dancing in the air with each of his next four shots.

Jake started to looked upset again.

“One more thing before we go,” said Jeff, “shooting the bottom off bottles!”

“Give it a rest Sheriff, that’s far too easy; surely any kid can do that.”

Jeff went down the range for the last time arranging six bottles so that the open ends pointed towards the firing point. “Three each, I’ll go first”

Three bottles exploded in time with the reports from Jeff’s gun. Jake walked down range in his turn to have a look. The bottom of each bottle had disappeared leaving the neck portion intact.

He came back looking thoughtful. Then no matter how carefully he aimed with each shot he succeeded only in smashing his three bottles completely.

“Well if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed it possible!”

He was still shaking his head disbelievingly as the two men walked out of the barn.