Chapter 1 - The Rifle
“Turner!”
Drill Sergeant Marcus Hayes’s voice cut across the firing range.
I immediately lowered the rifle into the safe position and looked toward him.
“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”
He marched into my lane.
Thirty eight.
Broad shoulders.
Campaign hat pulled low.
The expression he had worn around me since the first week of training was already there.
Disgust disguised as instruction.
“You think you’re some kind of shooter?”
“No, Drill Sergeant.”
That answer usually irritated him because I never gave him the argument he wanted.
He leaned closer.
“You grew up shooting tin cans in Wyoming, so now you think that makes you infantry?”
“No, Drill Sergeant.”
Behind me, the rest of the training company waited at their firing points.
Nobody moved.
Nobody wanted Hayes’s attention.
He looked down at my rifle.
Then abruptly snatched it from my hands.
“Drill Sergeant?”
He slammed it against the wooden barricade.
A crack sounded.
Several trainees flinched.
Hayes struck it again.
The handguard twisted.
The optic mount shifted violently.
Then he shoved the damaged weapon into the dirt at my boots.
“You don’t belong in my infantry, sweetheart.”
My jaw tightened.
“Go find a desk.”
Nobody spoke.
I looked down at the rifle.
Government property.
Issued to me that morning.
A weapon I had inspected exactly the way we had been trained.
Something about Hayes’s anger felt wrong.
Not just cruel.
Desperate.
Range Officer Nolan Beck came walking quickly from the control position.
He was in his forties, calm, severe and famous for stopping training over the smallest safety problem.
“What happened?”
Hayes pointed at me.
“Turner can’t maintain her equipment.”
I looked at him.
“That rifle was functional when I entered the lane.”
Hayes stepped into my space.
“Are you accusing me of damaging Army property?”
“You just damaged it in front of approximately eighty witnesses, Drill Sergeant.”
A trainee behind me made a choking sound.
Hayes’s face reddened.
“Get off my range.”
I did not move.
“Turner!”
I looked past him.
At the rifle slung against his chest.
Instructor weapon.
Clean.
Maintained.
He noticed where I was looking.
“What?”
I heard my grandfather’s voice in my head.
Skill is respect.
Not anger.
Not pride.
Respect.
I said:
“Then let me use yours.”
Silence fell across the range.
Hayes stared.
“What did you say?”
“If my assigned rifle is the problem, let me qualify with yours.”
Beck’s eyes shifted toward me.
Then Hayes.
Something unreadable crossed his face.
Hayes laughed.
“You want my rifle?”
“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”
“You miss once and I’ll personally recommend you for recycle.”
“Understood.”
He pulled it free and thrust it against my chest.
“Take it.”
I did.
Beck stepped closer.
“Sergeant Hayes, once she enters the firing sequence, you stay behind my control line.”
Hayes glared.
“You questioning me too?”
“I’m controlling my range.”
That ended it.
I entered position.
Everything else disappeared.
Hayes.
The company.
The humiliation.
The broken rifle in the dirt.
My breathing slowed.
The first target appeared.
I fired.
Down.
Another.
Down.
Then another.
The qualification sequence accelerated.
Fifty meters.
One hundred.
Farther.
Targets rose and disappeared.
I did not think about score.
I thought about sight picture.
Breathing.
Control.
Grandpa Jack had repeated the same thing when I was twelve.
You’re not trying to prove you’re tough.
You’re proving you’re responsible.
The last target dropped.
Silence.
Then the electronic scoring system updated.
Beck stared.
Another instructor stepped closer.
Hayes began walking toward me.
“What did she get?”
Beck checked again.
His voice carried across the range.
“Perfect score.”
The trainees reacted before they could stop themselves.
A few gasps.
Someone whispered:
“No way.”
Hayes charged forward.
“She had prior range data!”
Beck put an arm across his chest.
“She fired your assigned weapon under my observation.”
“She cheated.”
“How?”
Hayes had no answer.
I cleared the lane under Beck’s commands and returned the rifle.
Hayes snatched it.
Then grabbed my upper arm.
“You’re coming with me.”
I pulled my arm back.
“Drill Sergeant, let go.”
His fingers tightened.
Then tires screamed beyond the range road.
A black military SUV stopped beside the operations shelter.
Everyone turned.
A colonel stepped out.
Dress service uniform.
Silver hair.
Controlled expression.
Two officers followed.
Hayes released me immediately.
His face went pale.
“Sir?”
Colonel Mercer did not answer.
He carried a sealed personnel folder under one arm.
He walked past Hayes.
Stopped in front of me.
“Private Turner?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Emma Turner?”
“Yes, sir.”
He opened the folder.
Removed an old photograph.
Black and white.
Four people stood on a range.
The first was my grandfather.
Jack Turner.
Much younger.
Still unmistakable.
Beside him stood a young soldier I recognized after only a second.
Marcus Hayes.
And beside Hayes stood another young man with a bandage around his shoulder.
I looked from the photograph to Range Officer Beck.
Same eyes.
Same face.
Older now.
Beck looked away.
Colonel Mercer watched me carefully.
Then looked at Hayes.
“Turner.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Ask Sergeant Hayes what happened the last time your grandfather tested him.”
Hayes’s face changed.
Not anger.
May you like
Fear.
And suddenly I understood that he had known exactly who I was long before I ever stepped onto his range.
