Kathleen Kent - The Outcasts

“So all you want me to do is shoot the rooster?”

Gorman nodded and crossed his arms. “If you overshoot the mark, all you’ll hit is water.”

“And if I undershoot it?”

Gorman shrugged. “New Orleans is a dangerous place, Mr. Cannon. Anyone who lives here accepts that.”

Nate thought about how few tries he’d get. His mind told him it was an impossible shot; he’d fired the gun only once at just over six hundred yards, and, though he’d hit the mark, the shot only nicked the outermost edge of the target. There were four hexagonal bullets left for the rifle, but some quiet caution whispered to him to keep one back, even if it meant losing his chance for information on McGill.

“I have only three bullets,” he said. “And the farthest target I’ve hit was six hundred yards. What happens if I miss?”

Gorman shrugged. “I have every confidence in you. However, I have placed quite a sizable bet on your succeeding. If you were to miss, I wouldn’t encourage you to stay in New Orleans.”

Pierre appeared at the bell-tower door, nodded to Gorman, and then looked expectantly at Nate. There had been a slight morning wind that seemed to be strengthening with the rising temperatures, but in his favor, it was blowing towards the water. The sun was moving westward and before long the reflection off the rooster’s head would be a hindrance.

The people in the church had begun spilling onto Conti Street, walking in the direction of the river, their heads turned expectantly towards the church tower at times, as though waiting for some kind of signal.

Gorman said, as though it were an afterthought, “One more thing, Mr. Cannon. If you do manage to hit the target, it will not sit well with Duverje. He’s threatened to kill anyone who brings down the rooster.”

Nate rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Anything else you want to tell me now to steady my hand? God Almighty,” he muttered. He stared out at the crowd, and one man cupped his palms around his mouth and shouted up at the bell tower, “Go on, you son of a bitch, I’ve got money riding on this here.”

He looked back at Gorman. “You’ll find my man?”

Gorman nodded once and Nate cleared his throat, saying, “All right, then. I need a runner to get my cartridge pack off my saddle. I’ll want some bunting tied to the railing to cradle the barrel, and a rug to kneel on. And some water. I need some water.”

Pierre turned and called down the bell-tower stairs, where a chorus of voices repeated the instructions and Nate realized that there were people lining the stairwell, passing information like a fire brigade handing along buckets of sand.

Folded rugs were placed at Nate’s feet, and cotton packing covered with a cloth—an ornate strip of embroidery that Nate suspected had been taken from the altar—was lashed to the railing, a sloping V couched in the middle. Within twenty minutes a boy had brought his cartridge pack, and Nate carefully measured out the powder and poured it down the barrel. He started to ramrod the wadding down the bore, but thought better of it and added more grains of black powder. He tamped down the stiff wadding, loaded the bullet, and fitted a percussion cap onto the nipple.

He took his position and sighted down the scope at his target. He took a few deep breaths, pulled the hammer back, squeezed the air out of his lungs, and fired. When the smoke cleared, the rooster’s head was still intact, and Nate had no idea how far he had deviated from the target, whether above it or to the side. He didn’t think he had undershot the mark, as he could see no damage to the building below the roofline.

Deerling had once told him that the side scope sometimes influenced the shooter to drag to the left at the moment of firing, so after he repeated the loading process, he edged the centering reticle a thread’s distance to the right. He stared at the target until his open eye began to water and then he squeezed off another shot. Again, the clearing air showed the rooster intact.

He looked up at Gorman, who was staring at him, expressionless. Nate stood to stretch and loosen the muscles in his neck and shoulder, and he drank deeply from the glass of water left for him.

The sun had moved farther across the sky and Nate could see the rooster’s head beginning to glow like a whorehouse beacon, the faceted glass reflecting light in reddish flares. He thought about his next shot and whether he should use the fourth bullet if he missed.

He reloaded, knelt at the railing, and propped the barrel onto the padding. He exhaled until he felt the bellows of his lungs played out, pulled off another shot, and heard the distant dull ping, barely audible, of the bullet hitting something solid. When the smoke cleared, there was a jagged hole in the rooster’s body, but the head remained, and Nate cursed and dropped his head below the stock that was still pressed against his shoulder. He cupped his forehead in one hand, feeling what little grace he had left hopelessly lost against the enormousness of the city below and the task set before him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Gorman lean down and place something on the rug next to him, and when he looked, there were three more hexagonal bullets.

“The man from Spotsylvania didn’t have the rifle,” Gorman said. “But he did manage to part with these. For a price.”

“You’ve had the bullets the whole time?”

“You’re not a cardplayer, are you, Mr. Cannon.”

Gorman leaned against the railing once again, waiting, and Nate struggled to dampen the anger that rode his frustration and tension like barbs on a tight wire.

Gorman said, “I imagine your shots have begun to claim some attention.” He pointed to the distant building, and when Nate looked through the scope again, he saw two men with rifles on the roof, one with a spyglass pointed in his direction.

Nate had used so much black powder for the last three shots that he told Gorman he’d have to clean the rifle bore so it wouldn’t foul. He quickly cleaned the gun while Gorman stood impassively looking out towards the river, the people in the streets craning their necks up to the tower, trying to make sense of the delay.

Nate deliberated for a moment and then loaded a hundred grains of powder into the barrel, ten more grains than the last shot. To his great relief, the new bullet fit down the bore as well as the old, and when he had seated the cap onto the nipple, he raised the barrel once more to the railing. The view from the scope showed Nate that the spyglass man on the target building had seen him take his shooter’s position, and the man frantically waved his partner down, out of sight.

The sometimes buffeting wind had paused. Nate had heard no sounds from the street since a woman’s loud laughter was cut off midbreath with a sharp and exuberant curse. Deerling had once told him regarding the Whitworth not to think about the distance being traversed, that his common sense would try to tell him that it couldn’t reasonably be done. But he reminded Nate that the gun was made for distance, like a good relay horse was made for long travel, and to imagine the bullet as a thought flying easy and sure to his beloved, though the beloved be far away.

He fired off the Whitworth and a second later heard a faint sound like the scattering of leaves, and, without waiting for confirmation, Gorman pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and waved it to the crowd below. Conti Street erupted with cheering and yells, and Nate saw that the number of spectators had grown to fill the avenue like an invading army. He stood up, still holding the Whitworth, his knees and hip popping like corn out of hot coals. He turned away from the street and Gorman nodded, smiling his gentleman’s smile, and extended his arm to the bell-tower door.