T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

There is one more home for the two other members of Holt's inner-inner circle: Laura and Thurmond Messinger. This is the adobe church that has stood on the grounds since 1853, topped by a wooden cross to tell travelers they would be treated with Christian respect here. Holt gutted the old interior when moved onto Liberty Ridge, in keeping with his desire to provide the Messingers with a convenient place to live, and with his profoundly bitter loss of faith in the church after the shooting of his wife and son. Much remains of the old religious ambience inside. Because, as Holt discovered, a church is always mainly a church no matter what you do to it. This is fine with Laura Messinger, a Catholic, and Thurmond, a lapsed Presbyterian.

Nearby, in a loose archipelago that borders a rolling central landscape verdant with grass and trees and flowers, stand four spacious cottages where the cadets of Liberty Operations are trained. One building is for classroom sessions. One is for martial-arts work. The third is an indoor pistol range and the four a library stocked with books that are handpicked by Holt and required reading for any cadet hoping to graduate into Libery Operations. These volumes include the Old Testament, The Riverside Shakespeare, The Man-eaters of Kumaon, the Magna Carta, the Constitution of the United States and Holt's own self-published rumination, Conscience and Character. Beyond these are the recreation building, two bungalows for the live-in help, two generous guest flats; and several outbuildings for the vehicles, the helicopter, propane, generators, water supply and storage. The helipad and tennis courts are hidden in a hollow on the other side the main house, as are the swimming pool, whirlpool, rock garden and aviary. Down by the grove are four sizeable cabins for the citrus workers. Beside the lake sit the boathouse, another guest cottage, the kennels for Holt's army of springers, the marina and the drydock. Beside the drydock is a large cinderblock structure, windowless and cheerless as a coffin. Inside is the notorious "Holt Alley," a walk-through small-arms range featuring a city block with 25 bad guy mannequins that can pop out at you from just about anywhere, and 15 innocents who scuttle about their daily lives. No one has ever shot a perfect score in less than three minutes and fifteen seconds.

On the south end of the lake is the beach, cabanas, and the rifle and pistol range. Next to the rifle benches is a modified sporting clays course where, since the beginning of August, Vann Holt has spent many hours getting ready for quail season.

As the sun loosens its orange into the western sky, Holt stands here, on the sporting clays range, at the last station. Behind him is the tower, with its mechanical throwers, stacks of targets, platforms and railings. Holt is in a small wooden cage shaped like a portable toilet stall, with the front and back panels cut away but the two side panels up, to make his shots more difficult. He is a large man, thick-limbed and suntanned. His straight silver hair is neatly trimmed on the sides and back, but in front it juts outward over his forehead like a youngster's. His face is slender, clean shaven and deeply lined; his mouth is taut but unexpressive; his eyes, though pale gray, are now a kind of translucent blue behind the yellow lenses of his shooting glasses. He is dressed in khakis, chukkas and a blue oxford shirt, and has a shell pouch around his waist. He raises the shotgun to his shoulder and calls "pu//." It is not the sharp pull! of the aggressive shooter, not the interrogative pull? of the hesitant shooter, but an unhurried, relaxed command that somehow sounds like a prefix. Puuull… His voice is deep and clear. The clay bird hurls from his blinded left side, streaks in front of him, rising, then disappears in a cracking little cloud of black dust. Holt steps back and reloads, staring down at his gun in the way a tennis player might ponder the strings of his racquet. There is a distinct air about him. Seen from any angle, Vann Holt is a man who emanates assurance, engagement and capability.

Behind the station, Lane Fargo rests his gun across the crook of one elbow and watches.

Holt steps forward into the box again and calls for the second bird. It comes from his left again, but flies lower, faster, and more directly away from him. There is a quick pop, a short follow-through of barrel, and the disc jumps ahead, nicked but still flying.

"The magic pellet," says Lane Fargo. "Pick up your double now, Boss."

Holt appears not to hear. He steps back, breaks open his Browning over-and-under, puts the spent shell into his pouch, then pushes two thin green. 28 gauge loads into his gun and snaps it shut. He enters the station house again, positions his feet and raises the stock to his shoulder. Everything he does seems deliberate, experienced. He calls for the bird in his usual way, puuull…, the way that seems to presage an automatic bursting of his target. The first bird whizzes away, untouched, through the report of Holt's gun. Then the second, faster and further out, escapes too, streaking across the clay-blackened range and settling out of sight behind a hillock.

For a moment Holt stands there, looking out as if he can see them again, each missed bird. He raises the gun again and makes the shots in his imagination. Then he backs out of the station, breaks open his weapon, removes the shells and joins his partner.

"Well, that's an eighty-four," says Fargo. "Put you in A's almost any club in the world."

"Behind them again."

"Yep."

Lane Fargo goes into the station, knocks down both singles and the double. He's shooting a. 12 gauge with a heavy load, and the report of his gun booms across the range. He returns to Holt with a cautious look, but apparently pleased.

"Ninety," he says.

"That's good shooting, Lane. You'll slay them tomorrow."

They case their guns and lay them in the bed of a little pickup truck.

"You're not picking them up as soon, Boss," says Fargo.

"The eyes."

"I'm not happy about that."

"I'm less."

"Give you one of my own if I could."

"Hang on to what's yours, Lane."

"Stay out ahead of 'em tomorrow, and you'll limit by ten, Vann."

"Nine-thirty, Lane," says Holt with a warm, genuine, and somewhat impish smile.

Holt is quiet as they drive back toward the Big House. He has, in his law enforcement years, confronted his own mortality enough to be familiar with it, but this new enemy, which introduced itself during a yearly physical eight months ago, is more unnerving than any creep with a gun. What demoralizes him most is not the fact that the disease is inoperable, nor the slow sapping of his strength, but rather the inexorable diminishment of his eyesight. Fifty-five years of 20/10 vision and now some of the clay birds are just a blur.

Much to do, he thinks, while there's still daylight inside.

"Lane, we'll cast off at five tomorrow."

"I'm ready. You want to me to take care of the guns and dogs?"

Holt, of course, has taken care of the guns and dogs for the last thirty-five opening days of his life. He shakes his head and tells Fargo he'll handle it. Fargo is the only one he has told about the blood, and he regrets it. Nothing on earth is more irritating to Vann Holt than condescension. Lane Fargo means well and that is what makes it so disgusting.

"Got those covered, Lane."

"Yes, sir."

Later that night, after dinner and a brief discussion with his daughter about which dogs to take in the morning, Holt roams the main house. Still dressed as he was at the range but without the shell pouch, he has a tumbler of scotch and water in his hand rather than the Browning. He has replaced his shooting glasses with heavy bifocals.

It is late-almost midnight-and he is done with the work of the day. He has talked to the caretaker down at the Lake Riverside Estates place; he has confirmed times and weight loads with his helicopter pilot; he has spent almost an hour on the phone with a close personal friend who is in the middle of a messy divorce. He has talked briefly with Carolyn, his wife.