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“Thought I’d give it a try,” Letty said. She held up the case. “Brought my good gun.”
“Still carrying the 938?”
“Yup. In the Sticky,” meaning her pocket holster.
The woman who’d come to meet her said, “Cocked and locked, I hope.”
“Of course,” Letty said.
The woman grinned and said, “Of course.”
The woman saidher name was Jane Longstreet. She was black, thin, looked to be in her mid-forties, her trim dark hair touched with strands of gray. She wore an antique African trade-bead necklace, an open-necked man’s white dress shirt worn loose, and jeans. The shirt showed a bump on her left hip, a cross-draw holster.
With Cartwright hooked into a different conversation, Longstreet told Letty that the program would consist of three rounds of shooting with evaluations—“It’s competitive, but we pass it off as friendly.” Then the day’s honoree, Elaine Shelton, would give a half-hour talk on .177-caliber Olympic air pistols.
“We serve a modest round of alcohol during the talk. Some of the ladies like their G&Ts and red wine, though we don’t want anyone driving their cars off the lane. That happened once and we had a dirty time getting her out of the ditch. We finally had to put a chain on the Kubota and drag her out backwards.”
“How do you get to be a member?” Letty asked.
“You’re a candidate, if you wish to be. We evaluate candidates by email. If we decide to offer membership, the candidate will get an invitation to our next meeting. If we decide not to, she won’t hear from us. Dues are... modest.”
“Fair enough,” Letty said. “Though I’m not terribly social.”
“That’s not disqualifying,” Longstreet said, glancing around. “Some of our members are only social in the sense of beingsociopathic. All of them are decent shots, though. Ranging from good to fantastic.”
The socializing continuedfor a while; several handguns and one rifle were produced by various women to be examined, discussed, and, in a few cases, argued over. Letty found herself being moved from one circle of women to the next, to look at guns, talk about her own, relating what happened in the gunfight at Pershing, Texas. It occurred to her after the first few minutes that she was being interviewed.
An hour aftershe arrived, the members began drifting out the back of the Quonset, carrying their guns. The shooting itself took place at ranges dug into the valley wall, one for pistols, one for long guns. The pistol range was nothing fancy: cutbank dirt walls as backstops, with targets stretched between wooden racks.
The women were a bit ragtag, Letty thought: some camo here, a boonie hat there, boots and athletic shoes, sunglasses everywhere, and more than a few cargo pants. The oldest was probably in her sixties and Letty was the youngest. Most seemed to be in their thirties or forties. They were friendly, but with edges.
Letty was wearing jeans she’d had modified by a dry cleaner’s seamstress. An extra piece of material was sewn into the right-hand pocket, which made the pocket gap slightly. The gap allowed her hand to get in fast; the slick interior of the Sticky holster inside meant the gun would come out clean.
They shot in groups of three and times and scores were recorded. They shot at three distances: three yards, seven yards, and twenty-five meters. Speed was essential for the first, speed andaccuracy given equal weight on the second, while precision counted most in the third round.
“You getting tight?” Longstreet asked Letty, as the first group of three moved up to the firing line.
“Not yet. I used to shoot in a police league, including my dad. That’s when I’d get tight—when I started beating him. Neither of us liked to lose. At all.”
“Your father is a U.S. Marshal.”
“You’ve done some research,” Letty said.
“Yes, we have.”
The first two roundswere fired from holsters. Letty had brought an appendix carry holster but asked if her pocket holster qualified: “That’s the one I work with.”
“That’s fine,” Longstreet said.
Another woman said, “Looks like you had some work done on those jeans.”
“A little bit,” Letty said. “Didn’t want to break a nail going in.”
“Yeah, that’s nasty,” the woman said.
“Isn’t it a little slow?” Longstreet asked. “The pocket holster?”
“No,” Letty said. “It’s not.”
