SHARPSHOOTER by BOOMERCAT RATED FRPT

Friendship is where you find it.

"GOOOORRRRRDY! GOOOOOORRRDY? Where are you? Gordy, I wanna come with you!"

Thirteen-year-old Gordon Tracy crouched in the tall withered grass, holding himself very still. This was one time he couldn't give in to his baby brother's whining. For the most part, Alan was pretty good to hang out with, but Gordon had no intention of letting anyone in his family know what he was up to.

Not that they'd care. His two oldest brothers were both away at college and sixteen-year-old John had just gotten his license and was spending all of his time in town with his girlfriend. Gordon loved his grandma, but there were just some things that a guy couldn't talk to a woman about. He'd tried talking to his dad about his problem, but he wasn't able to make his father understand the seriousness of the situation.

No, Gordon was on his own. Fortunately, his friend Jim Caudill had the answer. Jim was a good guy and Gordon never quite understood why adults disliked him so. Gordon's grandma referred to him as 'the hoodlum' and his dad lectured him on falling in with the wrong crowd. He didn't even get that much time with Jim, his swimming coach saw to that. But when Gordon had told Jim his woes, Jim had been the one to offer a series of solutions, finally coming up with one that didn't involve fire or explosives.

Alan had given up and gone back to the house, so Gordon pushed himself to his feet and headed up the long dusty road to Jim's house. Living in rural Kansas had its disadvantages. One of the reasons Gordon spent so much time with his younger brother was because there were no kids his own age nearby. Jim was about as close as anyone, and his house was a good two miles up the road. Even the school bus stop, in the shade of a huge old elm was at least half a mile from Gordon's home.

As he crested a rise, and the bus stop came into view, Gordon paused apprehensively. The bus stop was the source of his current woes. Actually, it was the tree. More specifically, the birds living in the tree. Gordon pulled his baseball cap more firmly down around his ears, and hunching his shoulders, started to run to get past the tree. He hadn't gotten within ten yards of the tree when it started. A flock of gray and white mockingbirds flew up from their perches within the branches of the tree and squawking loudly began to dive bomb the running adolescent.

Flailing his arms to keep the angry birds at a distance, Gordon ran yelling at the top of his lungs. Most of the birds kept their distance, but at least one made a grab at his hair. He was a good twenty yards beyond the stop before the birds let up. As the last ones returned to the tree, Gordon stopped, panting. He looked back at the tree and its hidden menaces with hate in his eyes. The birds never bothered anyone else but him.

It had started in the spring before school let out. His science teacher said it was a breeding pair defending its territory. She said that once the baby birds had fledged, the parents wouldn't be so aggressive. She said they possibly singled out Gordon because of his red hair. Gordon had believed her, but then, when the baby birds had all left the nest, they started attacking him along with their parents. And when he had his head shaved for the first summer swim meet, the birds attacked him anyway.

It had been so bad that he had begged his brother Virgil to drive him to school every day. Virgil hadn't cared one way or the other, so Gordon had been safe. Then summer had come, and with it, serious training for the state swimming championships, and Gordon had forgotten all about the birds.

It had been a rude awakening last week when school started. He had walked with Alan to the bus stop, and there, in front of all of the kids, the birds had started in. They didn't attack anyone but Gordon. He and Alan had spent a miserable ten minutes waiting for the bus shooing the birds away and listening to the laughter of all of the area kids. It was humiliating.

Since that time, Gordon had waited up the road from the stop, only dashing in when the bus appeared. Word had gotten out at his school, and he had endured the taunts of his peers. He defused most of them by laughing along with the tormenters, but inside he seethed at the injustice of it all.

Well, Jim had the answer, and Gordon could hardly wait. He trotted up the road anxious to get started. Finally, the rundown house where Jim lived with his mom and her boyfriend came into view. Gordon felt his heart rise up in his throat. As excited as he was, he didn't want to run into "Uncle" Dave, the boyfriend of Jim's mother. There was something just plain creepy about the guy. Hopefully, he had already left for the bar where Jim's mom worked a double shift as a bartender.

Jim was on the broken down glider swing on the front porch reading a magazine. Gordon swaggered up the weed-strewn path. "Hey, Jimbo."

"Hey, Red. Wanna look at some pictures?"

Jim had access to his "uncle's" dirty magazines, and normally, Gordon would be more that happy to satisfy his budding curiosity about the opposite sex, but today, he had other things on his mind. "Naw. I really wanna shoot that gun of yours."

Both boys affected an air of diffidence. Jim put aside the magazine and with a shrug of his shoulders said "'Kay. Let's go out back."

As Jim led the way, Gordon glanced at the open screen door. "Is Dave around?"

"No. Asshole didn't come home last night." Jim's voice was tinged with hate. "If we're lucky, he's lying dead in a ditch somewheres."

Gordon didn't respond. He knew it wasn't right to talk about people that way, but he couldn't help silently agreeing with his friend. As they circled the house, Jim continued. "Me and mom did okay before he showed up, and we'll do just fine when he's gone. She cried last night. I tried to tell her things'd be okay, but she just wailed. It pissed me off, you know? Dave treats her like crap, and she cries when he's gone."

"D'ya really think he's gone?"

"I dunno. Don't much care, either."

The two boys stopped at a rusted out shed and, looking around to be sure the coast was clear, Jim opened the squeaking door and pulled out a long rifle. Gordon was impressed. The gun was dark with age, but even to Gordon's untrained eye it was well maintained.

"Neat!"

"Yeah. About the only thing the asshole ever did right."

"It's Dave's?"

"No, it's mine. He gave it to me to make up for beating the crap out of me last summer."

"He beat you? What for?"

"Doesn't matter." Jim looked away, uncomfortable talking about it even to his friend. Gordon, for his part, didn't really understand what Jim meant by a beating. His father had never raised his hand in anger to him or any of his brothers, instead preferring to lecture and assign chores to keep his boys in line.

Seeing Jim's discomfort, Gordon changed his tack. "Well, anyway, it's a great gun."

"Yeah. Come on, I've got some targets set up in the field." The two boys ran with the boundless energy of youth, coming to a weed-filled field at the back of the property. On a series of rocks were empty cans set in a row.

Handing the rifle to Gordon, Jim said, "Okay, here you go. Stand like this. Okay, now you look along here to aim. Okay, go ahead."

Gordon sited as Jim had shown him. He pulled the trigger, but hadn't expected the gun to jump in his hands. He was disappointed at the puff of dust that showed just how far off his aim had been. Jim frowned. "Red, you need to do a lot better than that. I only have two boxes of cartridges left, and I don't think I can get any more."

Gordon started. He felt guilty that he hadn't even considered how much the bullets would cost. "Is it that expensive?"

Jim shrugged off the question. "It's not that. You have to be sixteen to buy ammunition, so I'd have to not only have the money, but I'd have to ask Dave to get it for me, and that just ain't gonna happen."

"Can't you ask your mom?"

"Are you kidding me? I'll tell you what. You go ask your grandma first, and if she says no, then I'll ask Mom."

Gordon was shocked. Ask his grandmother to buy ammunition for him? She'd go nuclear so fast his head would spin. The idea was so outrageous that it took him a moment to get Jim's point. When he did, he nodded his head slowly, grinning. "I get it. Your mom doesn't know about the gun."

"Well, she does know about it, but she doesn't like it. Dave gave it to me to show Mom what a great guy he is. Mom had a fit, which pissed him off, which pissed her off. She wanted to take it from me right then and there, so I hid it."

"How'd you learn to shoot it?"

"I got this neat book at the library. It showed me all about taking care of it and stuff."

Gordon blinked at this extraordinary statement. He had never known Jim to voluntarily read anything other than comic books.

"Did you know you can hunt a deer with this kind of gun? As soon as I'm sixteen, I'm gonna get a deer tag and go bag me a big one."

Confused, Gordon said, "There aren't any deer around here."

"Not here, idiot. Up in Canada. Up in Canada, you can live off the land. When I'm sixteen, I'm going up there, and I ain't never coming back."

"What about your mom?"

"I'll send her a postcard. Now, are you gonna shoot or what?"

"I'll shoot." Gordon carefully took aim again, this time holding tight to keep the gun from jumping. His second shot was as far off he mark as his first. Embarrassed, he looked sheepishly at his friend. "I guess I'm not very good at this."

"Naw, I was just as bad at first. It just takes some practice, is all. Try aiming with both eyes open."

"I don't want to use up all your ammo."

"Don't worry about it. You just keep shooting until you get it right."

Gordon was touched by his friend's generosity. He lowered the gun and said sincerely, "Jim, I'll get you some more ammo. I promise you that."

Scoffing to hide his feelings, Jim replied, "And how are you going to do that? Get your granny to go with you to hold your hand?"

Unoffended, Gordon grinned. "Nope. Johnny's sixteen. He'll get it for me."

"And why would he do that?"

"Because I have something on him, why else?" Gordon knew that picture of John with the bottle rocket would come in handy some day.

Jim grinned. Blackmail was something he understood. "Cool!"

Knowing he could replace the ammo he used, Gordon tried again. And again. Throughout the long late summer afternoon, he and Jim shot at the cans. As Jim had promised, it really was just a matter of practice. By the time the sun had set, and the darkening sky made seeing the cans impossible, Gordon was beating Jim in their informal competition two to one.

"I gotta get home. I'm already late, and if I don't show up soon, Dad's likely to get the State Police out looking for me."

It wasn't an idle statement. Several months ago, Gordon and Alan had gotten caught up in a video game at a friend's house. Time had slipped away, and when they realized how late they were, the two boys had high-tailed it for home. They hadn't gotten far before a police cruiser had stopped them, saying they had been reported missing.

"Okay. Listen, if you can get your brother to get that ammunition, we can go take out those birds tomorrow."

Gordon's eyes grew big. The thought of getting rid of the killer birds was vastly appealing, but tomorrow was Sunday. Somehow, he just knew it had to be a sin to shoot mockingbirds on a Sunday. "I'll get the ammo, but I don't know if I can come over tomorrow. Grandma likes to have a big family dinner after church. You wanna come? It's usually something pretty good."

"Naw. Your dad doesn't like me."

Gordon would have protested, but it was true, and he wasn't really sure his father would even let him invite Jim over. "Okay. Look, I'll try to come over tomorrow afternoon, but I can't promise anything."

Jim affected diffidence. "Yeah, okay. Well, if I don't see you tomorrow, I'll see you at school on Monday."

"Yeah. Hey, thanks for showing me how, okay?"

"Ah, what are friends for?"

Gordon Tracy sat staring at his computer screen, lost in a wave of memory. At twenty-five, he was an accomplished aquanaut with a fulfilling vocation. There was little in the world that he couldn't have if he expressed the desire for it.

He thought back on that day when Jim Caudill taught him to shoot. He never had gotten the opportunity to shoot the birds. He couldn't get away that Sunday, and one day the following week, the birds had all disappeared, apparently migrating to parts unknown, never to return again.

He'd kept up the shooting lessons with Jim for the rest of that year. His family never found out about it. Jim had his own blackmail that kept the boys amply supplied with ammunition. By the springtime, Gordon's natural ability had put him on a plateau far above anything Jim could attain.

Gordon supposed it was adolescent jealousy that caused Jim to push him away. That, and a growing fascination with drugs. By the time the boys entered high school the following fall, they had each gone their separate ways, Gordon falling in with the jocks, and Jim with the druggies.

At the time, Gordon didn't think much of it, but later, when as a WASP cadet, he was awarded a sharpshooter medal, thoughts of his childhood friend came to his mind. He tried to hook up with Jim on a couple of occasions, but circumstances prevented it. His life then became more complicated and he didn't have the time to keep trying to contact a guy who was indifferent about it at best.

Gordon looked again at the short article from the Kalvesta Star that an old high school girlfriend had cut and pasted into her email.

SUICIDE BY COP Former Kalvesta resident, James Caudill, 25, died yesterday in a hail of bullets. Police in Dixon, Missouri were called to a FastMart convenience store by a clerk when Caudill apparently attempted to walk out without paying for a case of beer. When police arrived, Caudill allegedly pulled a hunting rifle from the back of his truck.

A negotiator was called, but before arriving, Caudill pointed the gun at officers, and they had no choice but to fire.

Caudill attended school in Kalvesta. He is survived by his mother, Renee Caudill-Hinds, and his stepfather, David Hinds.

Gordon sighed, wondering if there had been anything he could have done to change things. At the time, he hadn't really understood what Jim's life was about. He knew that even without the wealth of his father, he would have still been raised in a loving and supportive environment. It had taken his tour with WASP for Gordon to truly appreciate how very lucky he was.

It was luck that his friend Jim hadn't shared. His father had died in prison and his stepfather beat him. His mother loved him, but never had any time for him. Gordon was afraid that he had been really Jim's only true friend. And despite it all, Gordon still counted Jim as one of his best friends.

That afternoon came to the fore of his mind again. His old girlfriend had sent him the article with an ‘ain't it awful' kind of glee, but Gordon was deeply saddened. Shutting down his computer, Gordon nodded decisively. He would see to it that Jim had a decent funeral, one that he knew Jim's mother couldn't afford.

Getting up, he headed for the lounge. He needed to tell his father that a friend had died.