“What’s the other reason?” I asked.
Jake cleared his throat. “Yeah. Well, if you have to get shot, we want them to shoot you in the vest where you’re protected. If they see you wearing a vest, they’ll shoot you somewhere else, like the head. So, just hide the vest.”
His words had a sobering effect. I walked off to find a relatively private place to put the gear on.
It turned out that it was a little loose after all. Billy got down on his knees in front of me while I lifted my shirt up to my ribs; high enough for him to wrap the sides down tight with duct tape. I felt the shoulders bunching up slightly around my neck when he finished, but the fit was still much better now than when I first put the vest on. I was amazed at how light it was. I was assured that the heavy duty stuff was not as comfortable.
The Tavor was handed back to me, this time with a sling attached to a little swivel at the back, which Billy helped me to pull over my head and adjust the length. He had me shoulder the rifle a few times to ensure that it was all comfortable and that I could get a good view through the optic. He left to rummage around in his baggage for a flannel shirt.
As he did that, Jake moved in front of me and undid my belt without warning. I felt my heart slam in my chest, and my sudden rush of indrawn breath stopped him.
His hands instantly dropped to his sides, leaving each end of my belt to dangle, and he said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
I took a deep breath and got my heart under control. “That’s okay, I’m sorry too. I know you didn’t mean anything. What were you doing?”
He dug through the duffel bag and pulled out a hard plastic pouch about as big as my two fists held together. “For your magazines. This will hold four twenty-rounders. We’ll hang this off your belt on your left hip. It should be natural for you to reach down with your left hand for a magazine change if it becomes necessary.”
“Got it,” I said. “Look, again, I’m really sorry about freaking out. Will you help me to get it on?”
He nodded, not meeting my eye. His face was bright red. His hand reached out and pulled the belt out of the first two loops of my jeans. He threaded the belt through the pouch and then ran the belt back to its original position, taking great care not to come into contact with my body.
“You can cinch that back up,” he said.
“Hey, you’re okay,” I said. “We’re good.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. He went back to the truck to peek at Lizzy and make sure she was alright. He opened the door and started talking quietly to her.
“Here we go,” Billy said as he came back. He was holding out what looked like the world’s oldest and most comfortable flannel by the shoulders for me to slide into. “That looks pretty good,” he said as he circled around me. “Just let that rifle dangle on the sling. Yeah, perfect.” He pulled out four magazines and jammed them into the pouches on my hip.
“Okay, reach back there and grab one of those.”
I did as he asked, noting how hard I had to pull to get it loose. They wouldn’t come bouncing out if I had to run, at least.
“Okay, shoulder the rifle… good. When you reload, you’re going to continue holding the grip with your right hand just like you are now. You’ll insert the magazine with your left hand like so…” He guided my hand into position and showed me what it felt like to set the magazine home. “Good. Now you’ll use your left hand to charge the weapon by pulling that operating lever there on the side.”
I reached up and did so.
“Okay, good deal,” he said, “but now you’re set to pop. You need to be aware of what’s happening with your muzzle at all times, okay? Wherever you have that thing pointed, what’s on the other end will have a really bad day. Pointing down at the ground isn’t enough. If I’m standing in front of you and the rifle goes off, the ricochet from the ground will still bounce into me and kill me, got it? Always point in a safe direction.”
“Got it.”
“In fact,” he continued, appraising me, “you just stay in front of me when we’re out on foot, got it? I want to watch you a bit before I let you get behind me.”
“That’s probably the right idea,” I agreed. I didn’t want to shoot him in the back any more than he wanted to get shot in the back.
“The safety operates just like the one on your M16… you do know how that works, right?”
“I do,” I told him and showed him with my thumb.
“Well, that’s at least one-up you have on Jake,” he mumbled. “Okay, moving on—you eject your magazine with your index finger; just press this button on the side of the guard. Go ahead and do it now.”
I did, and the magazine dropped all the way out of the gun and bounced in the dirt.
“That’s how you do it,” he said. “Don’t reach up to grab it when it comes out. Don’t bend over to pick it up if you’re in a firefight. Just let it fall out on the ground, slap another one in there, and press this little button back here under the stock with your left thumb, understand? We can always come back and collect magazines after any fighting is over.”
“Wait,” I interrupted, “so I pull the lever when I put a magazine in, or I press this button back here?”
Billy nodded. “I get you. It depends on the position of the bolt when you put the magazine in. He rolled the gun over while I held it so I could look at its side. “See that window there? You see how you can’t really look inside there?”
I nodded.
“Okay, watch…” he said and pulled the charging handle back. When he did, a bullet dropped out onto the ground. “See how it’s open now? If you’ve shot the gun dry, that little window will be wedged open. This thing here,” he indicated a hunk of metal deep inside the opening, “is basically the bolt, which blocks another bullet’s entry to the chamber when it’s closed. If the bolt is closed when you load in a new magazine, the top of that magazine slams into it and there’s no way for a bullet to get chambered, so you have to pull that handle to open the bolt and get a bullet into the pipe.”
It started to make sense. “I see. So if the bolt is open when I’ve finished a magazine, I don’t have to open it again.”
“That’s right,” Billy said. He put the dropped bullet back into the magazine and stuck the magazine back in my gun. “Okay, run it.”
“Huh?”
“Point at some spot out in the distance and shoot that mag empty.”
“Aren’t you worried about attracting attention?” I asked.
“Not as worried as I am about getting jumped with a partner who has never fired her weapon. Honestly, we’re pushing the bounds of sensibility as it is. You’d be spending several hours getting comfortable with that thing if this was a perfect world. Now go ahead. Run it.”
I pulled the handle and aimed. I pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“Safety…”
“Yep, sorry,” I said. I flipped the safety lever down, aimed, and pulled the trigger. I want to say that the gun didn’t fire so much as it sneezed; a short little jerk up against my shoulder. From the looks of it and the thickness of its stock, I was expecting it to slam into me, but that wasn’t the case at all. A light, refined little jerk was all it gave me. The sound, on the other hand…