"I'm telling you Brett, that woman should never touch a gun." Lucas told him, trying to keep his voice down. "I watched her with Jimmy: I think she hit every joist and half the other targets in the range and not her own. Jimmy took it away from her and had to remind her every time he let go that it's a gun not a bow."
"She cried," Anna added, "When Jimmy showed her the pictures of the different animals carcasses." She took a drink from her water bottle, "Brett, you know Maisey is as close to a best friend as I'll ever have, but shooting was a terrible idea."
"She lives on a ranch now," Brett protested.
"She's not improving," Andy pipped up. "I think she's getting worse."
Everyone changed to supportive endearments as Maisey came toward them with a scowl on her face. "You can stop," she told them, "Jimmy just told me I am not allowed back until I can shoot a sling shot accurately every time and I've killed an animal with my bow."
Anna burst out laughing, "Oh my goodness," she apologized, "I'm sorry Maisey but you have been just painful to watch!" Maisey glared, muttering about her being 'some friend' and sat down sulkily, "I'm going to learn to do this, with or without Jimmy!"
"Actually, you're not," Andy looked pained, "Jimmy is the only person in town who owns a gun range and is able to license you. The next closest is Medicine Hat and that's owned by Jimmy's brother Jake." Maisey glared at the doctor.
"Well, the good news is that you're hitting every target I put up in the barn," Brett told her, "You're spot on with a recurve and a compound bow, I think I have a sling somewhere you can use to start practicing with."
"Why is it so hard?" she demanded, "I thought learning to shoot would be easy but it's so backwards!" She glared at her friends when it looked like they were trying not to laugh. "I want to go home." She pouted.
"Not a chance!" Anna told her, "You owe me pub food and pool lessons."
"When did you start offering lessons on shooting pool?" Andy asked, "I'd love to learn how you do that one that looks like you're coming straight down on top of it and it spins and spins. That's a beauty!"
"I'm not offering lessons," Maisey protested, "Anna and I had a bet and I lost."
"Was the bet that you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn?" Jimmy scowled as he walked by, "Forty years of doing this and I've never seen someone so bad."
"Now Jimmy," Brett started but was cut off.
"Not a chance!" Jimmy declared, "I don't care how good she is with a bow, she can't even remember to set the safety on or off!" Maisey flushed, "Now if you don't mind I need to call my brother." Maisey groaned.
"Maybe we should go," Anna threaded her arm into Maisey's, "We could get some food at least, but pool can wait."
"No," Maisey relented, "A bet is a bet. I promised we'd go tonight." She didn't tell anyone but she hoped that playing pool would take her mind off the frustration of not being able to remember a simple task with the gun. Maybe it was just as well, she thought to herself, it's not likely she would be able to shoot anything anyway.
Slim's was busy for a Tuesday night, but the ten cars in the parking lot turned out to belong to a group of folks who were running a pool tournament. Anna begged her to join in, promising to let her out of the bet if she did and then ordered food while Maisey registered. There were two other ladies playing as well as seven men, so Maisey made the tables even. She read through the rules, paid her fee and found a cue, then waited. Her first opponent was, as it turned out, Jimmy's brother.
"So you're the little lady I'm not to let in my shooting range?" he teased, "You don't look big enough to use that cue let alone hold up a rifle." Maisey smiled and waited for him to break. He sunk two balls and scratched the third. "Let's see what you've got," Jake leaned his cue against the wall and watched with his arms crossed.
Maisey could see three easy shots but circled the table, studying it. She checked angles and rechecked them before she finally settled on a plan. The first three shots went down just as easily as she'd expected them to but the fourth shot hadn't lined up as neatly as she'd wanted. She adjusted her angle and called a different shot, it bounced off the corner of the pocket and she scowled. Jake sunk three more before he missed again. She lined up and sank two more shots easily and debated her next move. One one hand Jake only had the 6 and 8 left but on the other she didn't want to make it look like she was winning easily. She studied the table and sunk the last two balls she had on the table, leaving herself with a clear shot for the eight ball. Carefully she bent over the table, adjusting her cue, sighting and adjusting again: the crack of the cue startled on lookers who hadn't been expecting such a powerful motion. The eight ball surged forward into the intended pocket and the cue ball raced backwards into a spin, stopping just beside Jake's 6 ball.
"Well played," Jake shook her hand, "Beauty of a shot on that last ball, I'd have got a lot softer but I don't think I could have got the recoil you did either." Maisey thanked him and reported her win.
Food was waiting when she finished: a nice turkey club sandwich with a salad next to a plate of salt and pepper wings. She devoured the wings and the salad first. The second round of the tournament was called and she won that round, but by a much larger margin: her opponent, a sore loser, grumbled about women who should know their place. Maisey sat to eat her sandwich while Andy and Anna reminded Brett that he could be charged with assault if he touched the other man. Her third and fourth games were more difficult but she continued to win. The final match was announced and Maisey did not want to play.
He leered at her but didn't make any comments. She was nervous: he reminded her of Luke. Brett stayed close but gave her space to play. Her opponent opened the table with a wide open spread: immediately she could see a bank shot that would put three balls in the holes but it was risky. If her angles were off even slightly it wouldn't work. She studied the shot again, ignoring the job request of her opponent before she called the shot and settled in to take it.
The cue was almost straight in the air, her arms stretched their full length: she thought of Luke and what he would do to her if she missed, she thought of her opponent and the knives Luke would have put in his hands to intimidate her. She concentrated and then deliberately popped the cue straight down. The white ball spun in a tight circle around the 3 ball and smacked into the 5 which popped into the 7 before caressing the 6, all four dropped into the pockets she'd indicated and she was left with the 1, 2, and 4. She lined up each shot and silently dropped each one into the pocket she indicated. Finally the eight ball was all that was left. She called a triple bank shot into a side pocket and succeeded. When she surfaced it was to remember that she was not in the basement locked up with a group of perverts and to realize that she'd just wiped the floor with a complete stranger because instead of cowering behind her fear she had used it to motivate her shots.
Jake approached her, "If you put half as much work into learning to shoot as you must have to do what you just did, you'll make a terrific marksman in no time, no matter what my brother says."