Orchid Blues (Holly Barker 2)

"All right, we'll have a look around," Ham said. "Thanks."

"And we're going to have a little firepower demonstration a little later," Rawlings said, "if you're interested."

"I'll let you know. C'mon, Holly." They walked slowly on around the big tent. "Well," Ham said, "I guess we're getting the feel of the place."

"Not a very good feeling, is it?" Holly asked.

"You notice anything unusual about this crowd?" Ham asked.

"You mean the lack of anybody any color darker than pink?"

"That, and the absence of any girls in cutoffs with bare bellies or guys with nose rings. I mean, this is still Florida, right?"

"It reminds me of the crowd at a PX," Holly said, "absent the people of color."

"I guess I've gotten so used to what you might call a more diverse population of former hippies and current rappers that I find it strange to be in this crowd. And it's not exactly comforting, either."

"I know what you mean."

They looked at weapon after weapon, at ammunition-loading kits, at holsters, at collections of knives and at more than one collection of Nazi memorabilia.

"I don't think I've ever seen this many Lugers in one place," Holly said.

"Me neither." Ham looked to his right. "What's going on?"

The crowd had thinned, and now people were streaming out the back entrance of the tent. There had been no announcement, no signal.

"Let's find out," Holly said. She and Ham went with the flow, and soon they were back in the humid Florida outdoors, walking down a broad path through pines. Shortly they emerged into a large clearing and stopped in their tracks.

"Good God!" Holly said under her breath.

15

Before them was a slanting pit. bulldozed out of the sandy Florida earth. It was shallow at the end near them and deepened as it went back another two hundred or so feet. At the far end it was maybe ten feet deep, and earth was piled up behind it for another twenty feet. At the deep end of the pit was the ruin of a school bus, two dead pickup trucks and a collection of other junk vehicles. Immediately before them, as the crowd strung out across the width of the pit, was an assortment of weapons, most of them automatic, on tripods, in shooting stands of various kinds and some in the hands of shooters of both genders.

Ham went to a picnic table, picked something out of a box and returned to Holly. "I reckon we'd better use these," he said, offering her a set of foam earplugs.

Holly rolled the plugs into narrow strips, then inserted them into her ears, where they expanded quickly to fill the ear canals.

"There's the Barrett's rifle," Ham said, nodding toward the firing line.

"I can't hear you," Holly said. "I've got plugs in my ears."

"What?"

"What?"

Ham pointed, and Holly followed his finger toward the evil-looking weapon, mounted on the roof of a Humvee, which was parked on the firing line.

"Oh," Holly said.

"What?"

"Oh, shut up, Ham!" she half shouted.

Ham started to reply, but, at some unnoticed signal, all hell broke loose.

A cacophony of gunfire erupted, and Holly saw holes appearing in the rusted bodies of the vehicles, but not the school bus. Glass shattered and danced in the light.