Court said, “You can see him when this is all over.” After a beat, he said, “I mean, that’s up to Skip. Maybe he doesn’t like you.”
Jim smiled a little. With the smile still on his face, he said, “You’re in some trouble?”
“I need to help you pack some things. You’re coming with me. Hopefully for just a few days. Maybe a few weeks.” He sighed. “Please don’t make this difficult.”
Again, Jim didn’t seem terribly surprised. “We got time for coffee first?”
Court looked at the sky. “How long till this rain hits?”
“You’ve been gone so long you can’t tell?”
Court scanned to the east, towards the coast. Thinking a moment, he said, “Could be any time now.”
“Nah,” Jim answered back. “We’ve got an hour.”
Court shrugged. “Okay. I guess there’s time for coffee.”
Jim turned around, headed back inside. “When you’re my age, son, there’salwaystime for coffee.”
Court followed him in.
—
This was not the house Court grew up in; that had been on the property next door. At some point that house had been damaged in a storm, long after Court moved away, and Jim tore it down and put up a double-wide trailer, and he lived there for a decade.
He’d just bought this home next door to his dilapidated trailer two years earlier. It wasn’t any larger, but it was a little newer than his long-lost home and a lot nicer than the double-wide.
They sipped coffee at the table, Court in the seat just vacated by Skip, and it was awkward at first. Court watched his dad move, was taken by how old he seemed, but he was also taken by how little he seemed to have changed otherwise.
Court looked out the back window and caught a side view of the disused farm next door, where he grew up. He knew that back behind the rowof pine trees some two hundred yards from the road, a row of gun ranges, a massive shoot house, and several bunkhouses and classroom buildings used to stand. His father had been a private firearms instructor to SWAT teams from all over the United States, and many from abroad, and they’d all come right here to Baker County to train under the great James Ray Gentry.
Court said, “Is the shoot house still standing?”
Jim sniffed. “It’s teetering, for sure, but it’s still there.” With a smile he said, “Maybe the storm that’s coming this morning will be the one that finally knocks it down. I go back there and walk around every now and then, just for old times’ sake. Take my pistol back to the ranges, get a little practice in.”
“Can you still shoot?”
“Yeah, but not like I could ten years ago.” He pulled off his glasses and held them up. “Vision’s gone to hell. I see double if I don’t wear these.” He put them back on. “Plus, I had a stroke.”
“I heard. You okay?”
The father looked at the son a long time. Finally, he broke the staring contest, said, “Aboveground and upright. That’s something.”
“Yeah,” Court said. “That’s something.”
“How ’bout you, son? Can you still shoot?”
“You were around for my upbringing, Dad. Why the hell would you think I would be good atanythingelse?”
The elder Gentry smiled at this. Court was being a little passive-aggressive with his dad, and he regretted it immediately; he was about to get to the reason for his visit, but then his dad said, “What are you carrying?”
Court drew Zack’s pistol and handed it over without removing the magazine or clearing the weapon.
Jim Gentry’s eyes widened as he took it. “A Staccato P4? Only seen ’em on the Internet. You made of money?” he asked his son. The pistols sold for upwards of three thousand dollars each.
Court laughed. “It’s a buddy’s gun, actually. I borrowed it. Be careful holding it.”
“I know how to hold a damn pistol,” Jim said as he looked through the holographic optic.
