Twenty minutes later, I was ready for whatever they were going to tell me and they were looking a doubtful.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think those\u2019ll work where we\u2019re going.\u201d Brock gestured with some distaste at the gun over my left shoulder.
\nI raised and eyebrow. \u201cYou ever shot a gun, Brock?\u201d
\nThe dwarf glared at me, finally shaking his head.
\n\u201dThen how the hell would you know?\u201d
\nHe shrugged. I ignored him. The gun I\u2019d chosen, an open-sight .300 cal Savage, was a family heirloom that my great-grandfather had bought the year of its making. My grandfather, who’d taught me to use my first gun when I was six, had an Alaskan grizzly pelt in his guest bedroom that this gun had taken. The stock was solid hardwood with a stainless steel shoulder plate; the barrel was three and a half feet of blued steel.
\nFrankly, if the thing didn\u2019t fire \u2018where we were going\u2019, I\u2019d could do worse than just hitting things with it.
\nBhuto seemed to have a different sort of problem with my other choice. \u201cDo you not have a more… formidable hand-weapon, Sean?\u201d
\nI readjusted my grib on my old \u2018herding stick\u2019, which I\u2019d found in a barrel of similar tools in the machine shed. I\u2019d cut it from an ash tree when I was thirteen and had used the four-foot club whenever I had to push one of our bulls into a new pasture on foot.
\nI could have explained, but I didn\u2019t really feel as though it was my turn.
\nI motioned towards the trees behind the house. \u201cLet\u2019s just go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twenty minutes later, I was ready for whatever they were going to tell me and they were looking a doubtful. \u201cI don\u2019t think those\u2019ll work where we\u2019re going.\u201d Brock gestured with some distaste at the gun over my left shoulder. I raised and eyebrow. \u201cYou ever shot a gun, Brock?\u201d The dwarf glared at me, … <\/p>\n