you get outside, in case you need to come back for another look.”
Inside the auditorium, he drifted past the tables displaying dozens of different kinds of rifles and pistols, and scopes, ammo magazines, knives, hatchets, camo shirts and pants, targets of all kinds, books about guns, self-defense, and the Second Amendment. The distinct odor of Hoppe’s No. 9 bore cleaner, mixed with the scent of carnival hot dogs, hung over the auditorium.
Not an unpleasant smell, Dunn thought; like a whiff of WD-40 or the tang of road-trip gasoline.
At the first table, a group of beefy men were gathered around a Barrett .50-caliber rifle mounted on a heavy tripod, available for the bargain price of $9,999.99; on a stand behind the gun, a rack of .50-cal cartridges were mounted in a plexiglass rack, each cartridge bigger than Dunn’s middle finger. He’d seen similar-looking guns in movies—The Hurt Locker, maybe?—but never one in real life. Not something he needed, really. He kept moving.
Looking around, two-thirds of the men at the show had beards and were overweight and out of shape, going for the Papa Hemingway vibe; most of them seemed to be wearing khaki photographer’s vests. The other third were snaky-looking lightweights like himself, jeans and long-sleeved shirts, a bit of camo here and there, distant looks in their eyes. American flags on their rolled-bill hats.
At his first stop, a cafeteria-sized table covered with black rifles, with a few wooden-stocked rifles thrown in, the dealer, one of the Hemingway look-alikes, asked, “See anything you like?”
“I don’t want to burn ammo for the noise of it,” Dunn said. “I’m looking for precision. Out to a thousand yards or so. Starting to do that.”
“Huh. What’s your budget?”
Dunn shrugged: “Cash, up to a grand, maybe a little more.”
“You do look like the precision type,” the man said. He turned toward the back of the room and pointed: “See that POW/MIA flag? Will Gentry had a nice-looking Remington 700 Long Range last night. His table’s right under the flag. Don’t know if he’s still got it, but that’d get you out to a thousand yards for a dollar a yard. Depending on the barrel, of course.”
Dunn nodded: “Thanks.”
“Tell him Bunny sent you,” the man said.
* * *
—
GENTRY WAS ONE OF THE SKINNY KIND, blue suspicious eyes under a black ball cap, which coordinated with a black T-shirt and black jeans. The cap showed gray stars and stripes on the black background, in an American flag design, overprinted with the words, “GUN SAFETY—Rule #1: Carry One.”
He nodded at Dunn: “What can I do you for, my friend?” West Virginia accent, not quite Southern, but not midwestern, either.
“I’m a beginner thousand-yard shooter. Got a piece of property where I can just about reach out that far,” Dunn said. “Bunny told me you had a Remington 700 Long Range that I might like.”
“I do,” Gentry said. “In a seven-millimeter Remington Mag. It’ll poke holes at a thousand yards all day long. Let me get it for you.”
* * *
—
HE WALKED DOWN THE TABLE to a stack of gun cases that was sitting against the back wall, pulled out a solid black case, popped it open. Dunn liked fine machinery, but had never been part of the gun world. Gentry was: he lifted the rifle out of the case—snaky-looking, like the dealer, a skinny weapon with an over-long barrel. Gentry turned it in his hands, stroking it, fondling it.
A fat scope was mounted on top of the rifle.
Gentry passed it over the table and Dunn took it, hefted it, looked through the scope at an exit sign at the other end of the arena. “How many rounds been through it?”
Gentry shrugged. “Don’t know, but the barrel’s good. I took it out last week.”
He went back to the case and pulled out a folded piece of tan paper. Unfolded, it was a target, with five seven-millimeter holes grouped in a space that could be covered with a bottle cap. “An inch and a quarter off a bench at two hundred yards,” Gentry said.
“Good shooting,” Dunn said. He looked through the scope some