Spencerville

The attendant passed this on to Mr. Johnson, and the appointment was set. Keith got directions to Neil's sporting goods store, thanked the attendant, and got into the pickup.

Billy said, "What's up?"

"We're going to get a crossbow." He pulled out and headed east.

Billy nodded and asked, "Is there any way we can kill Baxter without killing the dogs?"

"We'll see." Of course, Keith thought, there was a chance of nailing Baxter at a hundred yards or more with the M-16 and the four-power scope. But that's not what Keith wanted to do; he wanted to look into the man's eyes.

Keith found Johnson's house, a small clapboard at the edge of Atlanta, which was to say a few hundred yards from Main Street, and pulled into the driveway.

Dogs barked, and the front porch light came on. Keith and Billy got out of the truck and were met by a tall, wiry man, still chewing on dinner, who introduced himself as Neil. Keith introduced himself and Billy as Bob and Jack. Neil glanced at the old pickup truck for a second and regarded Keith and Billy, probably trying to determine if this was worth his time. He said, "You're from Ohio."

Keith replied, "Yup. Thought I'd try my hand at crossbowing."

"Crossbowing? Hell, that ain't no sport. You want a longbow."

"I'm not an archer. I just want to shoot varmint."

"Yeah? Okay, I only got one kind of crossbow, and you're welcome to it. Come on in."

He led Keith and Billy to an aluminum warehouse-type building set back from the road that had been converted into a sporting goods store. Neil turned on the fluorescent lights. The right wall of the long building was lined with gun racks and counters laden with hunting paraphernalia and ammunition, and Keith figured that Mr. Johnson could outfit an infantry battalion. The left-hand side of the building was stocked with fishing gear, archery equipment, outdoor clothing, tents, and assorted odds and ends for the hunter. Keith didn't see any tennis rackets or running shoes.

Keith was not in a particular hurry at this point, knowing that whatever he was going to do at Grey Lake had to wait until the early hours of the morning. Still, he wanted to get moving, but you didn't show any impatience in a town of six hundred people, and each purchase had to be treated like the deal of the century.

After some polite chatter, Neil Johnson handed Keith the crossbow and said, "This here one is used, made out of fiberglass by a company called Pro Line. Pretty good."

Keith examined the weapon. Essentially, it consisted of a short bow mounted crossways on a riflelike stock also of fiberglass. A trigger arrangement released the drawn string and sent the arrow on its journey along a groove running the length of the top of the stock. "Looks easy."

"Yeah. It's too easy. No sport. You'll be as good as anyone else in a few days. A longbowman got to practice years to get good."

Keith had the feeling that Mr. Johnson was disdainful of the crossbow and of anyone who used it.

In fact, Neil Johnson informed him, "A feller told me once that crossbows was outlawed by the pope back in the days of knights, you know, because it was considered unfit and unfair for Christians to use it."

"You don't say? Did that include shooting rats?"

"Probably not. Anyway, it's real accurate. You got about a sixty-pound pull, and you cock it by putting the stock against your chest, and you draw the string back with both hands. Here, I'll show you." Neil took the crossbow and cocked the string back and hooked it on the trigger catch. He put an arrow in the groove and pointed it down the length of the room at a dusty deer head mounted on the far wall about thirty feet away. He aimed along the sights and pulled the trigger. The short arrow flew out of the crossbow and pierced the deer head right between the eyes, passed through, and stuck into the wooden wall mounting with a thud. "How's that?"

"Very good."

"Yeah. I couldn't do that with a longbow. Okay, so the arrow travels about two hundred feet a second, and if you're leadin' an animal, you got to remember you ain't firin' a rifle, and you got to lead him more. Somethin' else to remember — at forty yards, you're gonna get as much as a four-foot drop in the arrow, so you got to compensate for that." He picked up one of the arrows and said, "These here are fiberglass, with plastic vanes, and this here's a broad-tipped hunting head. They come eight to a box. How many you want?"

Keith looked at the plastic quiver on the counter and said, "Fill 'er up."

"Okay. That's twenty-four. You need anything else?"

"Can you mount a scope on this?"

"Scope? You ain't givin' them rats a chance, are you?"

"Nope."

"Let's see what I got here." Neil found a four-power bow scope and within ten minutes had mounted it on the crossbow. He handed it to Keith and said, "You want to adjust that aim?"

"Sure do."

"I'll set out a target. Step on back to the door. That's about twenty yards."