Читать книгу The Long Rifle - Stewart Edward White - Страница 24

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Andy went direct to the living room of the farmhouse, took down from its pegs the old Kentucky rifle, and went out. His grandmother was sitting, as usual, in her Boston rocker, but he did not look in her direction. Once outside he loaded the weapon. Never had he done so more deliberately and carefully, filling exactly with the glittering French powder the conical measure that hung below the powder horn, centering precisely the linen patch beneath the ball, driving without undue pressure the missile delicately home, shaking with untrembling hand the fine grains of the priming powder into the pan. Then he closed down the frizzen and walked around the house, through the orchard to the edge of the field, where he disposed himself with deadly deliberation behind the fence, thrusting the muzzle of the rifle through the rails.

Birkholm had taken over the seeding. He was now at midfield. His shirt was open at the throat, caught by a button halfway down his chest. The front sight of the rifle came to rest on the point of the V thus formed; settled slowly into the notch of the rear sight. Andrew pressed the trigger. He was entirely cool; wholly single-minded; without qualm or doubt. It was as though all the currents of life ran in the channel of this one inevitable action.

The rifle missed fire.

Contrary to what might be supposed by one unfamiliar with old-fashioned arms, this was a very unusual occurrence, if the weapon was well found with sharp flints and proper powder. It had never before happened to Andrew. The click of so sharp a break in a usual sequence seemed to shock him awake. He passed his hand across his eyes, stared at the rifle, at the slowly nearing figure of his stepfather. He shuddered, arose, and returned swiftly to the house.

His entrance to the front room encountered his grandmother’s piercing black eyes upon him.

“Andrew, come here,” she commanded. For a moment she compelled his gaze with hers. “I heard no shot,” then said she. He made no reply. “What happened?” she insisted.

“Miss fire,” he muttered.

“How can that be?” she cried sharply, as though someone dear to her had been unjustly accused. “In distraction you did not prime!” She seized the piece from his hand and raised the frizzen from the pan in examination. With astonishing strength in one apparently so frail, she flung the long weapon to the position of aim through the open window and pulled the trigger. The rifle roared in reverberation from the walls, the powder smoke thickened the air of the room. For a moment she sat tense and upright, then dropped the piece across her lap.

“It was the will of the Lord,” then said she softly, and relaxed to her chair back with a sigh.

In the fields Birkholm raised his head at the sound of the shot.

“At it again!” he muttered vindictively, in his usual upsurge of resentment against the silly waste of time and money. He told himself that this time he would put his foot down once and for all; and he flung the seed viciously against the placid bosom of the earth.