(Written in August, 2003. Been a lot of a water under the keel – some of it almighty muddy.)
A few days ago I needed a bit of unwinding time, which, for me, means rifle practice. To shoot accurately, one must focus intensely, ridding the mind of all interference and clutter. When I pull that rifle to my shoulder and lay my head along the buttstock, the entire universe consists of the sights, the target, my right index finger, and my breathing. Nothing else is even on the same planet. There is nothing violent or sadistic in it; it is the pure enjoyment of concentration on a concrete set of tasks, and the pure exhilaration that comes from doing it well – on those occasions that I actually do it well.
It was raining when I left the house that day – a thunderstorm, to be exact, with all its bang and bluster. Driving from Paradise Hills out Los Volcanes, the rain stopped abruptly near Double Eagle Airport, as if I’d driven through a curtain. By the time I got to the range, all was dry, but still quite windy.
I puttered around the range for a while, and practiced with a revolver on a few tin cans that showed an ugly attitude and, quite likely, a taste for Human flesh. (Well, that part might have been sadistic, but I’m telling you, those tin cans deserved everything they got!) About quarter to seven, the wind began to lay, so I set up a rifle target on a cardboard box that was held down by a piece of cement slab someone had discarded nearby. Enjoying the ritual of preparation, I filled my pocket with cartridges, checked the rifle to make sure the bore was clear, and began the 100-yard walk up the sandy ridge to my favorite sitting place. By quarter after seven, the wind had died to the gentlest of catspaws, going from dead calm to just a breath of movement, then back to calm.
This kind of shooting drives some people nuts: shoot three rounds, walk down to check the target, adjust the sights, walk back to the firing position, fire three more rounds… Some days, I’ll do that 15 or 20 times. It is an exercise of purification for me – what garbage the rifle doesn’t knock out of me, the sandy hill sweats away.
On the third or fourth iteration of the shoot-walk-shoot routine, I found myself breathing too heavily to lean over into a good sitting position. Resting the rifle across my lap, I leaned back on my elbows and took a deep breath.
There are instants in life when one is touched so deeply by one’s surroundings that the only possible response is to stare. Before me as I faced south, a long bank of cumulus lay above Magdalena. The upper lobes of the clouds caught the light of the setting sun and threw it back to the world as a blinding white reflection, perfectly framed by the fading purples of the lower layers of cloud and the almost-white blues of the eastern surfaces. That same setting sun sent its rays beneath another bank of cumulus and cumulonimbus that lay over toward Grants, to the west. Those low-angle sunbeams caught every angle, plane, and nuance of the ground around me – every bush, gully, low or high spot, every tin can, even the rifle laying across my lap was highlighted in the warm, golden light.
Over my right shoulder was the roar of trucks on I-40 – growling smoothly up the hill, carrying the needs and commerce of America across that same golden landscape. One after another, a seemingly endless string of trucks paraded past, themselves lit by the sun at their backs.
Above me was the endless bowl of southwestern sky, quite pale overhead, fading to darker blues as my gaze traveled down the sides, until again I found the achingly white and sliver clouds to the south.
Except for the distant, comforting grumble of the trucks – the sound of guardian lions purring in contentment at the gates of my private little kingdom – silence hung on the hillside. A stinkbug scuttled past me, headed for the enormous anthill a few yards away. I almost heard his footsteps.
The sand beneath my back and elbows was warm and compliant, giving me the distinct impression that golden sunlight poured over the back of my body, as well as the front.
And in my lap, a rifle – rich, brown wood, warm, almost black steel, a tan canvas sling.
Only free men may experience such as this. Oh, to be sure, there are any number of thousands of men huddled with rifles on their laps on any number of hills around the world, but what they feel is most certainly not the peace and contentment that bathed me in that marvelous moment. I was not afraid for my life, nor for the lives of my family. I was not hungry or exhausted from living on short rations and no sleep. I was not dealing with the moral questions about patriotism and murder. I was there because it suited me, and because no man might legally stop me. That’s the difference between us and those other men on other hills – we’re free and safe, and they aren’t. Actually, their safety and freedom are negative coefficients of each other – as one rises, the other declines – an inescapable law of existence.
I breathed the clean, warm air. The trucks purred their song of industry and wealth. At home, my little girls were sitting down to dinner. My Dad was probably watching his favorite old TV programs. I was reclining on the warm sand of my native land, gazing in awe at the simple and understated majesty of the scene around me. The unspeakable blessings of God on full display from horizon to horizon.
And in my lap, a rifle.
Wess Rodgers – rebsarge.wordpress.com – Albuquerque
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