because the valley walls crowded the town on both sides—the planes always lined up with Main Street when they flew low over the town.

The plane grew at startling speed in Ben's sights—it loomed, and the oval jet intake was a growling mouth—and he waited till it was about two seconds and a thousand feet from him; then he sent his bullet up into that mouth: a bullet aimed by a man who'd handled a rifle for sixty years, who could pop the head off a squirrel at a hundred feet. A running squirrel.

That was the signal, Ben's shot.

From under the tree Tom Pace's rifle spoke.

The jet was past town then, and he wheeled to follow it with his eyes; its whining thunder lashed down and pressed his ears, lowering suddenly in pitch as it receded; and though he couldn't hear them for the thunder, he knew that nineteen rifles had roared before it completed its turn, each aimed head-on at the plane. Aimed by men and women who could shoot with Ben, and even outshoot him.

The plane coughed. Lurched. It had time to emit a fuzzy thread of black smoke before it nosed down and melted into the ground and became a long ugly smear of mounds and shreds and tatters of flame.

The sounds of the crash died. Ben heard men shouting; loudest of all was old Jim Liddel's, "Got him ... by God, I prayed, and we got him!"

Behind him Susan was crying.

Ben saw men and women head for the crash-site; immediately they'd start to carry away what debris wasn't too hot to handle. Then they'd wait, and as soon as anything was cool enough it would be carried off and hidden.

And there'd be a burial tonight.

Ben saw that some of the men had carried old Jim's chair out onto the porch of the Town Hall; and he saw that Jim was half-standing out of his cushions, propped up on his fists and still shouting; and Ben wondered if the Maker wasn't on the porch there with Jim, waiting for Jim to fall and make his noise.

He turned away—at seventy you don't want to see a man die—and went inside and put his rifle on the kitchen table. He crossed to the cabinet under the sink to get his reamer and oiling rag. Every rifle was taken care of that way. Right now Tom Pace and Dan Paray were hurrying around gathering rifles to clean them, load them. No rifle must miss 

 Prev. P 17/19 next