“I know this.”
“So why don’t we alter his curriculum accordingly?” I asked.
“That’s a fine idea,” he conceded too easily.
I sat up a bit and stared at him in shock. “What? No argument?”
He only rolled his eyes.
“No, seriously. No argument? No telling me ‘you’ve got this’ or dismissing me? I must confess, I suspect I’m living in an alternate universe.” I pretended to check out the window. “Nope, pigs aren’t flying.”
“Har, har.” He sighed, parking the truck.
He leaned over and removed his pistol from the glove compartment. I got out, not wanting to be anywhere near it. I had a healthy respect for guns. Very healthy.
“You’re scared of it,” he proclaimed to the wind.
“I’m not,” I said, moving to the other side of him, the side without the gun.
“After we check things out, you’re going to shoot it.”
My mouth dropped open to my chest. “Absolutely not!”
He stopped short and grinned at me. “You absolutely are. I can’t have you frightened of it. What if there’s occasion to use it?”
“I’ll never have need to hold it, much less use it.”
“Don’t be naive, Sophie.”
“I won’t need to know.”
“This is a ‘just in case’ kind of situation. Once I teach you how to aim and shoot it, I won’t ever ask you to use it again.”
“Fine,” I gritted, continuing on without him.
I could hear him snicker below his breath behind me. “It’s not funny,” I sang.
“I beg to differ. This is going to be delightful for me.”
I deliberately walked faster.
“Stop,” he said, catching up. “I’ll stop teasing. Just stay near me.”
I obeyed but didn’t acknowledge him. We searched the entire watering hole and found no evidence that anyone was there. We rounded the entire bit of land and were nearing the truck. I made a mad dash toward it, hoping he’d have somehow miraculously forgotten our lesson, but there was no such luck.
“Wrong way, Sophie,” I heard him say. I stopped, disrupting the dirt beneath my feet and turned around, slightly winded.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. Now, follow me.”
He led me toward a covered area and found a thick rotting stump, picking it up as if it weighed nothing and setting it against a still-standing tree.
“This is your target,” he said, checking the barrel and unloading the gun of all bullets.
“Why are you removing the bullets if this is a shooting lesson?”
“Because there are a few rules you need to recognize first, and I think you’d be more comfortable holding an unloaded gun.”