"Like all these weapons, they are single-shot. And watch the recoil — hold it too close to your eye and you'll regret it. As with the others, they're triggered by a spring lever at the rear. They're fired by pulling the cord." He cleared his throat and regarded them. "So… who wants to have a go?"
The boys nodded eagerly.
"Right, I'll fire one first to show you how it's done." He went forward and searched the ground until he found a stone with the approximate dimensions of a matchbox. Then he walked another twenty paces to an outcrop in the middle of the intersection, on which he balanced the rock. Returning, he took a stove gun, not from the display on the sand but from the pad on his hip. The boys gathered by his side, jostling for a view. "Stand a little farther away, will you? Once in a blue moon they backfire."
"What's that mean?" Will asked.
"They blow up in your face."
The warning wasn't lost on the boys, particularly Chester, who edged well away — so much so that he was almost standing with his back against the tunnel wall. Will and Cal were less cautious, positioning themselves a few feet behind Drake, Cal leaning with both hands on his walking stick and giving the demonstration his full attention. He looked for all the world like an observer at a golf tournament.
Drake took his time to aim, then fired. To a boy, they flinched as the crack resounded. Thirty feet away, they saw the impact on the rock outcrop and a spray of fragments and dust. The target stone quaked slightly but remained in place.
"Close enough," Drake said. "These aren't accurate like Elliott's rifle. They're mainly intended for close-quarter use." He turned to Cal. "Now you," he said.
Cal was slightly hesitant, and Drake had to position him correctly, nudging his front foot forward and pulling his shoulders around so that his stance was correct. Cal was disadvantaged by the fact that his left leg was still a little weak, and the strain of holding the position showed on his face.
"OK," Drake said.
Cal pushed the cord at the rear of the tube. Nothing happened.
"Pull it harder — the cocking arm needs to be snapped back," Drake told him.
Cal tried again, but in the process moved the tube way off target. The slug hit the chamber wall some distance away and they heard a zinging as it ricocheted down the tunnel beyond.
"Don't worry, it's your first try. You've never shot a gun before, have you?"
"No," Cal admitted glumly.
"We'll have more opportunities to practice when we get to the deeper levels. Nothing like a spot of big game hunting with the wildlife down there," Drake said enigmatically. Will's ears perked up, wondering what sort of animals these might be, but then Drake told him it was his turn.
The gun went off the first time Will yanked the cord, and they saw the spray of dust just in front of the target this time.
"Not bad," Drake congratulated. "You've shot before."
"I've got an air pistol," Will said, remembering his illicit sessions with his old
Gat gun on Highfield Common.
"With some practice, you'll get better at judging the distance. Now you, Chester."
Chester stepped forward a little hesitantly and took the stove gun from Drake. He hunched his shoulders over, looking very awkward as he tried to aim the device.
"Rest it on the heel of your hand. No, move your hand underneath more. And, for heaven's sake, just relax, boy." Drake took his shoulders and instead of pulling them around as he'd done with Cal, tried to push down on them. "Relax," he said again, "and take your time."
Chester still looked incredibly awkward, his shoulders creeping up again. It seemed forever before he finally tripped the trigger.
None of them could believe their eyes.
There was no shower of chips this time or whirr of a ricochet. With a crack, the bullet hit the target stone dead on, and it whipped down the tunnel beyond in a blur.
"Atta boy!" Drake said, patting the flabbergasted boy on the back. "Bull's-eye"
"Give that kid a coconut!" Will laughed.
Chester was speechless, blinking at the space where the rock had been. Will and Cal congratulated him profusely, but he clearly didn't know what to say, totally confounded by his success.
They knew the training session was over when, with some urgency, Drake immediately bundled up the charges and the stove guns in the roll of material and shoved them back into his rucksack. However, he left one, a medium-sized cylinder, in the sand. Will was looking at it, wondering if he should bring it to Drake's attention, when a stone flew before them and hit the ground, clattering along until it came to rest in the shale by Drake's feet.
It was the very stone that Chester had hit with such accuracy.
A raspy and lisping voice seeped unpleasantly from the shadows, as if a bad smell had been released.
"Always one fer a bit of showmanship, wasn't yer, Drakey?"
Will immediately looked up at Drake, who was alertly watching the darkness, the stove gun at the ready in his hands. His wasn't a perceptibly threatening or defensive stance, but Will saw the deadly intent in Drake's face just before he flipped the lens down over his right eye.
"What are you doing here? You remember the Rule, don't you, Cox? Renegades keep their distance or suffer the consequences," Drake rumbled.
"Yer didn't keep the Rule when yer gimleted poor old Lloyd, did yer? And took 'is girl."
An amorphous figure emerged from farther down the tunnel, a misshapen and hunched bundle illuminated by the boys' lanterns.
"Ahh, I heard yer 'ad some new lovelies. Some ripe meat."
The shape coughed and continued to move forward, as if it were floating just above the ground. Will saw it was a man, wearing what looked to be a brown and extremely filthy shawl over his head and shoulders, like he was a peasant woman. He was painfully bent over, giving the impression he was seriously deformed. Stopping before Drake and the boys, he raised his head. It was a grisly sight. He had a huge growth on one side of his forehead, like a small melon, and the dirt was rubbed away on it, so they could see grayish skin shot through with a network of raised blue veins. There was another of these growths, slightly smaller in size, on his mouth, so that his lips, black and cracked, were drawn into a permanent O. A constant drool of slick, milky saliva ran from his lower lip and down his chin, where it hung like a liquid goatee.
But his eyes were the worst things to behold: perfectly white, like freshly shelled boiled eggs, with no sign of a pupil or an iris whatsoever. They were the only solid, cohesive area of color on him, and all the more shocking for it.
A gnarled-looking hand, like a sun-dried root, poked out of the shawl and described a circle as he spoke.
"Got anything for yer old mucker?" Cox lisped loudly, with a spray of spittle. "Anything fer the poor old man who taught ya all yer know? How's about one of these choice youngsters?"
"I owe you nothing. Just leave," Drake answered stonily. "Before I—"
"Is them the boys the Blackheads is looking fer? Where are yer keepin' them 'idden away, Drakey?" Like a cobra about to strike, his head jutted forward, the white unseeing eyes sliding over Will and Cal, with Chester lurking terrified behind them. Will saw the thick crosses of darkened scars, one over each eye, and the matrix of many more gray gashes across the coal-black skin of his cheeks.
"Their young scent is so" — the man quickly wiped his nose with a swipe from the gnarled hand — "nice and clean."
"You spend too much time in these parts… you look like you're on your last legs, Cox. Perhaps you'd like me to help you along?" Drake said dryly as he held up the stove gun. The man's head swiveled toward him.
"No need fer that, Drakey, not toward yer old friend."
Then the shape bowed with great ceremony and instantly vanished from the area of light. Chester and Cal were still staring at the place where he'd been, but Will was looking at Drake. He couldn't help but notice that Drake's hands were gripping the stove gun so tightly that his knuckles were white.