“Always,” he said, “always check your weapon. You got no idea how many idjits couldn’t get that through their head, in the War—and believe me, under fire, that don’t pay.” He took the gun back and loaded it for her, deftly practiced, showing off how the cylinder ratcheted as each round socketed home. “I used to pack a loader for speed,” he said, “’fore . . . well, before.” He snapped it shut, slapped it back in Yancey’s hand. “Okay, no more tricks. Go wild.”
Yancey closed her eyes, breathed deep. Then—without giving herself time to think—she raised the gun, sighted, braced herself, and bore down on the trigger with everything she had.
The crack of the shot was louder than anything she’d ever heard, spiking straight through both eardrums like an awl. Wrist on fire, she screamed and staggered back, stench of cordite flattening her lungs. But she kept the gun up somehow, though her arm wavered crazily. And in the second before her eyes squeezed shut, she saw something she hadn’t expected at all—the bottle exploding, a haze of shards.
Chess recoiled slightly himself, more at the scream. But as he straightened he saw the burst bottle, and clapped a hand to Yancey’s shoulder, bracing her ’til she’d got her breath back.
“I suppose,” she managed, ears still ringing, “you’d call that . . . beginner’s luck.”
“Sure. But some beginners are luckier than others.” He stepped back. “Now, let’s try again—without the ruckus.”
By the time the last bottle was disposed of, Yancey’s arms burned equally—Chess had made her practise with both hands, together as well as separately. Her palms felt raw, ears humming tinnily, an acrid cordite stink permanently rooted in her nostrils; the growing heat had plastered her shirt to her back, pulling stickily as she moved. But the gun itself now felt disquietingly familiar. Chess soon stopped reaching ’round to adjust her arms, or pressing clinically upon her waist or shoulder to shift her stance, and the last three or four bottles—some of them not very large—had needed no more than one shot apiece to hit.
Chess pulled his hat off, raking back his hair. “That was . . . halfway decent.”
“Only halfway?”
She’d meant the question honestly, and was startled to see a sudden grin split his beard, white on red. “Hell, Kloves—what’re you doin’, fishin’? I’ve seen blooded veterans couldn’t learn a new firearm quick as you just did.”
Yancey looked down, trying to quash her feelings of absurd flattery, without much success. “It doesn’t seem a . . . demanding weapon, exactly.”
“Yeah, but ‘seem’ is the word makes all the difference.” Chess sobered. “Standing targets on a range is one thing. When the lead starts flyin’, though, that’s somethin’ else entirely, and I’ll tell you this much for free: you got any foolishness in your head about ‘fair fights,’ put it right out, for good. Brawl starts, you’d best be ready to finish it—whatever it takes, fast as you can. ’Cause that’s how it goes, for such as us; womenfolk, I mean. And—”
“—men . . . like you.”
“Oh, I seen flat-out queers far more man-made than myself, missy, believe you me. Killed ’em, too, when they made the mistake of underestimatin’ me just because I have my habits writ large all over. Big don’t mean shit, if you ain’t prepared to either put one wherever’s handy and run, or put one in the head, and walk.”
“Not sure that particular lesson’s going to come as easy as the rest did.”
“Naw, you got the instinct, never fear. Anybody can learn gunplay, but the will to kill? That’s a whole other matter.” He examined her. “Then again, maybe it is that thing you got makes all the difference, after all. Like with me.”
Yancey moistened her lips. “Uther . . .” she began, and swallowed. “He used to say talent was like a poker hand. No matter how good a draw you got, you still had to learn how to play it to make it mean anything.” She held up the gun. “This is yours, like it was forged with you in mind, and no other; I can feel the heft of it, all that time and skill and practice. And that you did all on your own, no matter what else you brought to the table.”
Chess lifted that creepish-lit gaze of his, and fixed her with it. “How long you known what you are, gal?”
Yancey let out a breath, remembering Mala—yet more hurt, older but somehow fresher, a pressed wound. “Most’ve my life, I reckon. Why?”
“Know when I knew?” Without ceremony, Chess pulled his shirttails clear of his belted waist, showing where a scar wormed its way beneath his breastbone like some leprous smile, the whitish-pink of raw haddock. “When Ash Rook pulled my heart out through here and showed it to me, and I didn’t die.”
“That’s when you knew for sure.”
It was out of her mouth before she could think of calling it back, and Chess’s lips thinned at the taste of it. But they both knew it for truth.
“Lesson’s over, for now,” he said, finally. “Have a drink with me.”
“I don’t—”
“You do today.”
More absinthe, naturally. Chess pulled it from his pocket with a mountebank flourish, took a swig and held it out, clearly expecting Yancey to match him. With a sigh, she took a pull, then almost spit the result back out onto the glass a-sparkle at their feet.
“My Lord,” she managed, choking down foul liquorice-moonshine dregs. “This is dreadful stuff! And you prefer it?”
“Got to, eventually. ’Course, there ain’t all too many others ask after this particular swill. So that means whatever stock a place happens to have of it, it’s pretty much mine.”
Yancey took a second shot and coughed, yet kept it down easier, this time; Chess grinned, like he relished the thought of changing her tastes. Perverse as a cat, she thought, knowing he’d pick up on it, and was rewarded by the grin becoming an outright chuckle.
“Strategically thought out, on your part,” she sa