He was not an unkind man, only a man with a ledger and a board of directors in St. Paul. I wanted to say to you before tomorrow that the board has not moved on the first, I asked. I did ask. They will not carry that note past November and they will not take a par payment against it.
He turned his hat around in his hands and there is no second prize in this match. I asked about that, too. He looked out at the empty firing line and he had the decency to look at it instead of at her. Second place doesn't pay a note, Mrs. Lambert.
I'm sorry to be the one that says it plain. Somebody has to. He got back in his buggy and drove off. Anna ate half of Martha Foley's pears out of the jar with a spoon. Then she took the rifle out and cleaned a barrel that was already clean, and looked at the plate the way she had not let herself do since the first night, 900 yards.
She had fired one shot at 900 yardds in her life, and she had spent 6 years arranging never to be asked about it. Tomorrow, a man in a good coat was going to make her do it again in front of the whole territory, and she was going to have to be still. She slept about 3 hours. Carl was at Lane 4 at 6:00 in the morning with his glass and a mug of coffee he had brought for her. And there was nobody on that flat but a pit crew hanging steel out at 900.
She lay down. He lay down at her right shoulder, a foot off, the way it is done. Anna went rigid. Carl saw it and said nothing about it. He put his eye to the glass and read the flat out loud in a low voice.
The mirage boiling off the sage, the flag at the 400 pole, the little draw at 600 where the air sat cold and did something ugly to a bullet. He kept talking and after 2 minutes he heard her breathing change and go long. They put nine shots down range in an hour and she did not miss the plate. On the last one, Carl sat up and rubbed his eyes. Who taught you the thread?
My husband. He scouted out of Kio. Nine years he shoot like you. Anna was pushing the empty case into her coat pocket. She stopped with her hand in the pocket.
He was better than me at everything except this, she said. Carl waited. That was all there was. She had told him the whole thing right there in the grass at 6:00 in the morning, and he did not hear a word of it. By 9:00, there were 400 people on that flat.