Shotgun Shell Quotes

News flash, lady. There are no queens anymore,” Shane said. He loaded shells in a shotgun and snapped it shut, then searched for a place to strap it on that didn’t interfere with the flamethrower. “No queens, no kings, no emperors. Not in America. Only CEOs. Same thing, but not so many crowns.

I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos – in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever – was infinitely more comforting than the truth. Because the truth is that my God is coming back. When he arrives I’ll be waiting for him with a shotgun. And I’m keeping the last shell for myself.

Somehow Chinese toxins fit right in with the Don’s taste in gear. Austrian shotgun shells, Cuban baseball bats, Israeli silencers, Russian things he could only guess at—the Don was known for his upscale mob accessories.

Markov died while trying to fit a small, slippery shotgun shell into a narrow gun barrel, in the dark, at thirty below zero—with a tiger bearing down on him from ten yards away.

If there’s a disaster, do you go over to your neighbor’s house with: a) a covered dish or b) a shotgun? It’s game theory. If you believe your neighbor is coming over with a shotgun, you’d be an idiot to pick a); if she believes the same thing about you, you can bet she’s not going to choose a) either. The way to get to a) is to do a) even if you think your neighbor will pick b). Sometimes she’ll point her gun at you and tell you to get off her land, but if she was only holding the gun because she thought you’d have one, then she’ll put on the safety and you can have a potluck.

What God would allow such a curse to befall his people? No one will say it aloud, but many, many congregants are having a crisis of the soul. Many are putting their faith in shotgun shells and .357s, not the carpenter from Galilee.

...my beloved Eudosia [a member of Buckley's household staff], who is Cuban, very large, quite old, and altogether superstitious, and speaks only a word or two of English (even though she has been with us for 19 years), is quite certain that the gentleman who raped the 16-year-old girl in New Caanan three years ago and escaped has successfully eluded the police only because of his resourceful determination to ravage Eudosia before he dies. Accordingly she demanded, and I gave her, a shotgun, into which I have inserted two empty shells. Still, Eudosia with blank cartridges is more formidable than Eugene McCarthy with The Bomb.

I know we don’t need everyone in the world to agree for this to work, but there’s got to be a critical mass of covered-dish people or we’ll never win.” “Okay.” Gretyl broke her silence—she’d been prodding the screen in a way that radiated leave-me-alone-I’m-working (Gretyl was good at this). “What’s a ‘covered dish’ person?” “Oh. If there’s a disaster, do you go over to your neighbor’s house with: a) a covered dish or b) a shotgun? It’s game theory. If you believe your neighbor is coming over with a shotgun, you’d be an idiot to pick a); if she believes the same thing about you, you can bet she’s not going to choose a) either. The way to get to a) is to do a) even if you think your neighbor will pick b). Sometimes she’ll point her gun at you and tell you to get off her land, but if she was only holding the gun because she thought you’d have one, then she’ll put on the safety and you can have a potluck.

When Reed was old enough to go dove-hunting, I figured out that he was more into shooting shells than actually hunting. He wanted to fire his gun as much as possible. Whenever a dove flew by, I heard boom! Boom! Boom! I tried to tell him that shotguns weren’t heat-seeking missiles and that he had to aim at the bird. But when the next dove flew overhead, I heard boom! Boom! Boom! The first time we went dove-hunting, I think he went through two boxes of shells before he finally connected.

Sunday morning dawned bright and cloudless. Ernest awoke early as always. He put on the red "Emporor's robe" and padded softly down the carpeted stairway. The early sunlight lay in pools on the living room floor. He had noticed that the guns were locked up in the basement. But the keys, as he well knew, were on the window ledge above the kitchen sink. He tiptoed down the basement stairs and unlocked the storage room. It smelled as dank as a grave. He chose a double-barreled Boss shotgun with a tight choke. He had used it for years of pigeon shooting. He took some shells from one of the boxes in the storage room, closed and locked the door, and climbed the basement stairs. If he saw the bright day outside, it did not deter him. He crossed the living room to the front foyer, a shrinelike entryway five by seven feet, with oak-paneled walls and a floor of linoleum tile. He had held for years to the maxim: "il faut (d'abord) durer". Now it had been succeeded by another: "il faut (apres tout) mourir". The idea, if not the phrase, filled all his mind. He slipped in two shells, lowered the gun butt carefully to the floor, leaned forward, pressed the twin barrels against his forehead just above the eyebrows, and tripped both triggers.

We got into my old Corolla and started drifting around the streets of Tokyo at 2:30 a.m., looking for a bakery. There we were, me clutching the steering wheel, she in the navigator's seat, the two of us scanning the street like hungry eagles in search of prey. Stretched out on the backseat, long and stiff as a dead fish, was a Remington automatic shotgun. Its shells rustled dryly in the pocket of my wife's windbreaker. We had two black ski masks in the glove compartment. Why my wife owned a shotgun, I had no idea. Or ski masks. Neither of us had ever skied. But she didn't explain and I didn't ask. Married life is weird, I felt.

Ecstasy that must look pretty from inside—to core not just an apple but the entire orchard, the family, even the dog. Leave the shells to the crows. A field of red lampshades in the dark Garden of Myiasis. This is no cultivated haven. This is the earth riddled with a brother. The furrows are mountains. Waves of sand and we are ships wrecked. What’s left of a fleet of one hundred shadows shattered and bleached. A crop gone to sticks. The honeysuckle sags with bright sour powder. We have followed the flames, followed him here, where all the black birds in the world have fallen like a shotgun blast to the faded ground. The vines have hardened to worms baking in the desert heat. We are at the gate, shaking the gate, climbing the gate, clanging our cups against the gate. This is no garden. This is my brother and I need a shovel to love him.

His teeth began to chatter. God All-Mighty! he thought, why haven't I realized it all these years? All these years I've gone around with a--SKELETON--inside me! How is it we take ourselves for granted? How is it we never question our bodies and our being? A skeleton. One of those jointed, snowy, hard things, one of those foul, dry, brittle, gouge-eyed, skull-faced, shake-fingered, rattling things that sway from neck-chains in abandoned webbed closets, one of those things found on the desert all long and scattered like dice! He stood upright, because he could not bear to remain seated. Inside me now, he grasped his stomach, his head, inside my head is a--skull. One of those curved carapaces which holds my brain like an electrical jelly, one of those cracked shells with the holes in front like two holes shot through it by a double-barreled shotgun! With its grottoes and caverns of bone, its revetments and placements for my flesh, my smelling, my seeing, my hearing, my thinking! A skull, encompassing my brain, allowing it exit through its brittle windows to see the outside world!

NBC News reporter David Gregory was on a tear. Lecturing the NRA president—and the rest of the world—on the need for gun restrictions, the D.C. media darling and host of NBC’s boring Sunday morning gabfest, Meet the Press, Gregory displayed a thirty-round magazine during an interview. This was a violation of District of Columbia law, which specifically makes it illegal to own, transfer, or sell “high-capacity ammunition.” Conservatives demanded the Mr. Gregory, a proponent of strict gun control laws, be arrested and charged for his clear violation of the laws he supports. Instead the District of Columbia’s attorney general, Irv Nathan, gave Gregory a pass: Having carefully reviewed all of the facts and circumstances of this matter, as it does in every case involving firearms-related offenses or any other potential violation of D.C. law within our criminal jurisdiction, OAG has determined to exercise its prosecutorial discretion to decline to bring criminal charges against Mr. Gregory, who has no criminal record, or any other NBC employee based on the events associated with the December 23, 2012 broadcast. What irked people even more was the attorney general admitted that NBC had willfully violated D.C. law. As he noted: No specific intent is required for this violation, and ignorance of the law or even confusion about it is no defense. We therefore did not rely in making our judgment on the feeble and unsatisfactory efforts that NBC made to determine whether or not it was lawful to possess, display and broadcast this large capacity magazine as a means of fostering the public policy debate. Although there appears to have been some misinformation provided initially, NBC was clearly and timely advised by an MPD employee that its plans to exhibit on the broadcast a high capacity-magazine would violate D.C. law. David Gregory gets a pass, but not Mark Witaschek. Witaschek was the subject of not one but two raids on his home by D.C. police. The second time that police raided Witaschek’s home, they did so with a SWAT team and even pulled his terrified teenage son out of the shower. They found inoperable muzzleloader bullets (replicas, not live ammunition, no primer) and an inoperable shotgun shell, a tchotchke from a hunting trip. Witaschek, in compliance with D.C. laws, kept his guns out of D.C. and at a family member’s home in Virginia. It wasn’t good enough for the courts, who tangled him up in a two-year court battle that he fought on principle but eventually lost. As punishment, the court forced him to register as a gun offender, even though he never had a firearm in the city. Witaschek is listed as a “gun offender”—not to be confused with “sex offender,” though that’s exactly the intent: to draw some sort of correlation, to make possession of a common firearm seem as perverse as sexual offenses. If only Mark Witaschek got the break that David Gregory received.

to exonerate him. Given the personalities involved, Skarpellos and Lama, I would suddenly discover that Tony was playing cribbage with a dozen elderly matrons the night Ben was killed. “Suspects are your job,” I tell Nelson. “I think we’re satisfied with the defendant we have. All we need to know is who helped her. Who carried the body, used the shotgun,” he says. “It’s an offer made to fail. Even if she were willing to enter a plea to a crime she didn’t commit in order to save her life, she can’t fulfill the terms.” He looks at me, like “Nice story, but it won’t wash.” Lama kicks in. “Have you heard,” he says, “we got a photo ID party goin’ down at the office? Seems the lady was a creature of habit. Ended up at the same place every night. A motel clerk from hell says she brought her entire stable of studs to his front door. We got him lookin’ at pictures of all her friends. Only a matter of time. Then the deal’s off.” Harry meets this with some logic. “To listen to you, our client already had all the freedom she could ask for. Lovers on every corner, and a cozy home to come home to when she got tired,” says Harry. “Why would she want to kill the meal ticket?” “Seems the victim was getting a little tired of her indiscretions. He was considering a divorce,” says Nelson. “You have read the prenuptial agreement? A divorce, and it was back to work for your client.” Harry and I look at one another. “Who told you Ben was considering a divorce?” I ask. “We have a witness,” says Nelson. He is not the kind to gloat over bad news delivered to an adversary. “You haven’t disclosed him to us.” “True,” he says. “We discovered him after the prelim. We’re still checking it out. When we have everything we’ll pass it along. But I will tell you, it sounds like gospel.” Lama’s expression is Cheshire cat-like, beaming from the corner of the couch. I sense that this is his doing. “I think you should talk to your client. I’m sure she’ll see reason,” says Nelson. “If you move, I think I can convince the judge to go along with the deal.” “I’ll have to talk to her,” I tell him, “but I can’t hold out much hope.” “Talk,” he says. “But let me know your answer soon. If we’re going to trial, I intend to ask for an early date.

If anything's to be praised, it's most likely how the west wind becomes the east wind, when a frozen bough sways leftward, voicing its creaking protests, and your cough flies across the Great Plains to Dakota's forests. At noon, shouldering a shotgun, fire at what may well be a rabbit in snowfields, so that a shell widens the breach between the pen that puts up these limping awkward lines and the creature leaving real tracks in the white. On occasion the head combines its existence with that of a hand, not to fetch more lines but to cup an ear under the pouring slur of their common voice. Like a new centaur. There is always a possibility left to let yourself out to the street whose brown length will soothe the eye with doorways, the slender forking of willows, the patchwork puddles, with simply walking. The hair on my gourd is stirred by a breeze and the street, in distance, tapering to a V, is like a face to a chin; and a barking puppy flies out of a gateway like crumpled paper. A street. Some houses, let's say, are better than others. To take one item, some have richer windows. What's more, if you go insane, it won't happen, at least, inside them. ... and when 'the future' is uttered, swarms of mice rush out of the Russian language and gnaw a piece of ripened memory which is twice as hole-ridden as real cheese. After all these years it hardly matters who or what stands in the corner, hidden by heavy drapes, and your mind resounds not with a seraphic 'do', only their rustle. Life, that no one dares to appraise, like that gift horse's mouth, bares its teeth in a grin at each encounter. What gets left of a man amounts to a part. To his spoken part. To a part of speech. Not that I am losing my grip; I am just tired of summer. You reach for a shirt in a drawer and the day is wasted. If only winter were here for snow to smother all these streets, these humans; but first, the blasted green. I would sleep in my clothes or just pluck a borrowed book, while what's left of the year's slack rhythm, like a dog abandoning its blind owner, crosses the road at the usual zebra. Freedom is when you forget the spelling of the tyrant's name and your mouth's saliva is sweeter than Persian pie, and though your brain is wrung tight as the horn of a ram nothing drops from your pale-blue eye.

I’m a believer. And like I said, I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos—in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever—was infinitely more comforting than the truth. Because the truth is that my God is coming back. When he arrives I’ll be waiting for him with a shotgun. And I’m keeping the last shell for myself.     A

Whitey passed me the gun I’d made for him during the afternoon and followed it. It was a good gun, but not handy for housebreaking. I’d gone into a second-hand shop and picked up one of the best guns the Winchester people ever made – an 1897 model twelve-gauge shotgun. That’s the one with the hammer. The new hammerless pumps are quieter and maybe they work a little smoother. But those old hammer guns never hung up and there was never a question about ’em being ready for action. All you have to do is pull the hammer back and pull the trigger. I’d taken a hacksaw and cut the barrel off just in front of the pump grip. There were five shells in the barrel and another in the chamber, and all loaded with number one buck shot. That’s the size that loads sixteen in a shell, and for close-range work that’s just dandy. They’re big enough to blow a man to hell and back, and there’s enough of them to spread out and take in a lot of territory. It was the logical weapon for Whitey, because he didn’t know any more about a pistol than a cat knows about heaven. And he’d shot a rifle and shotgun a few times. And he was out for blood. It wasn’t that he’d been roughed up in my room at the time I killed Maury Cullen – because that didn’t bother him. That was just a piece of hard luck to him. When I’d been knocked out and my gun taken from me no doubt the barman had rolled me and found my address and had remembered it. Whitey had just happened to be calling when they came after me. It wasn’t that. It was the girl being killed that was getting him crazy. And he was getting crazy, no mistake. He was a little punchy anyway, from a few too many fights, and when he got excited it hit him. I whispered: “Now remember! I make the play, if there’s one made. Wait for me and back me up.

Shakespeare Zombie Apocalypse Sonnet 18b Shall I compare thee to a rotting carcass? Thou art more tangy and more pungent. Shotgun shells pierceth thy heart vent not Thy voracity, nor impair fair purpose of thy judgment. Sometimes I taketh a ball-pein to thy head and shatter thy skull with explosive splatter. Thy complexion doth dims from ash to dust As yolk spilleth from egg of thy gray matter. In two-fortnights hence, thou art undying Thy eternal winter's promise shall not fade, Nor lose possession of thy Zombie leg-drag, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, So long as the dead can walk, or blind eyes can see, So long lives this gentle ode, and gives thee phantasy.

pockets, feeling the extra shotgun shells, and then reached over his shoulder and felt the bat, ready to grab if needed. He had combat knives sheathed in both boots, but it was rare that he got to use those. He brought them

Aunt Birdie laughed. “That’s my Sophie.” “What the . . .” Travis picked up the shotgun and ejected both shells. “Aunt Birdie, you brought a loaded gun over here with that baby?” “She’ll be six years old in a few weeks. And there ain’t a way in hell I can kill a man with an unloaded gun. I don’t have the strength to beat him to death with the butt,” Aunt Birdie fussed. “Lord!” He rolled his eyes upward. “You probably can’t kill him with an

Blood at the Root' is an attempt to understand how the people of my home place arrived at that moment, and to trace the origins of the 'whites only' world they fought so desperately to preserve. To do that, we will need to go all the way back to the beginning of the racial cleansing, in the violent months of September and October 1912. That was the autumn when white men first loaded their saddlebags with shotgun shells, coils of rope, cans of kerosene, and sticks of dynamite - and used them to send the black people of Forsyth County running for their lives.

Nine shotgun shells would kill just about anything. Except Drake. Drake scared her deep down. He had been the first person in her life to hit her. To this day she could remember the sting and force of his slap. She could remember the certainty that he would quickly escalate to closed-fist punches. That he would beat her and that the beating would give him pleasure so that nothing she could ever say would stop him. He had forced her to insult Little Pete. To betray him. It hadn’t bothered Petey, of course. But it had eaten at her insides. It seemed almost quaint now when she recalled that guilt. She’d had no way of knowing then that she would someday do far, far worse. Fear of that psychopath was part of the reason she had needed to manipulate Sam. She had needed Sam’s protection for herself and even more for Little Pete. Drake wasn’t Caine. Caine was a heartless, ruthless sociopath who would do anything to increase his power. But Caine didn’t revel in pain and violence and fear. However amoral, Caine was rational. To Caine’s eyes Astrid was just another pawn on the chessboard. To Drake she was a victim waiting to be destroyed for the sheer pleasure it would bring him. Astrid knew she couldn’t kill Drake with the shotgun. She could blow his head off his shoulders and still not kill him. But that image brought her some sense of reassurance.

Fuck,” Syn growled. He was still thinking of solutions when he heard something scrape against his doorknob. Something metal was tampering with the lock. If he were anywhere else in the apartment he wouldn’t have heard it, but he was right next to the door, so he could hear someone trying to get in. He instinctually moved to stand in front of Furi, pulling his Sig from its holster and unlocking the safety. He felt Furi tensing behind him. He could hear the tool manipulating the lock mechanism. Is this bastard really fuckin’ brave enough to break into my home in broad goddamn daylight? Syn was in awe at the size of this guy’s balls. The closet door was arm's length away. He yanked it open and grabbed the blanket off the top shelf, pulling his loaded twelve-gauge shotgun down just as the door eased open. All Syn could see was the tip of a black boot. Furi griped his shoulder. “Hey. Listen to this!” Syn yelled out. He put the stock of the gun firmly against his shoulder and pulled the pump back in two extremely swift moves. The sound was extremely loud and intimidating in the quiet room, by far the scariest sound an intruder could hear. “Don’t shoot, Dirty Harry.” The irritating chuckle that followed was unmistakable. “Son of a bitch,” Syn grumbled. “Day, have you lost your fuckin’ mind?” His Lieutenants came all the way through the door, Day laughing at the pissed look on Syn's face and Furi leaning on the wall behind him recovering from a panic attack. “Syn. What the hell is going on man? Are you really gonna put a buckshot in someone you think is breakin’ into your little-ass apartment? Because, you do know that that’s excessive force, right?” God asked, looking at him expectantly. “I was just scaring them off. No one comes in after hearing that sound, trust me.” Syn removed the shell and placed the gun back in the closet, covering it with the blanket. He turned to look at Furi. He looked a little pale but he was okay. Syn spun back around, “Day. Knock on my damn door like a normal visitor and wait for me to say come in!” Day pfftd, plopping down on the couch. “You don’t invite the wind. The wind just–” “Stop saying that stupid wind bullshit. Because if your door is shut and you weather guard that bitch then the wind stays the fuck out until ... You. Open. The. Door.” Syn’s dark eyes bored into Day’s hazel ones. God’s laugh was raspy, while Day looked bewildered. “But we’re family.” “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Syn grumbled, he had to get going; he had no time to explain to Day about how to behave in civilized society. He turned serious eyes back on Furi. “I gotta go, but I really think–” Furi pulled Syn to him before he could finish the sentence, kissed him hard on the mouth before turning, heading to the bedroom. “Just concentrate on your job and don’t take any officers away from their assignments to follow me. There could be someone out there who really needs their help.” Syn didn’t get to say anything else because Furi had closed the bedroom door. End of discussion.

A most unusual place of concealment had been chosen, and one where the money had escaped discovery, although on several occasions, in searching the house, the detectives had literally held it in their hands. Schwartz had taken a quantity of the cartridges he bought for his shot-gun, and emptying them, had put in each shell one of the fifty- or one-hundred-dollar bills, upon which he had then loaded in the powder and the shot in the usual way, so that the shells presented the ordinary appearance as they lay in the drawer.

She got out of bed and went to her closet. In the back was the gun safe her father had installed when Haley was born. She entered the combination and opened the heavy door. Inside, one lone weapon, her dad’s old shotgun, leaned in the corner. She slid the gun under her bed and tucked a few shells into her pocket, but she didn’t feel any safer. If someone broke into the house, would she hear? Would she

That sound, the sound of a shell inserted into the receiver of the shotgun changed everything.

Big G.B. said, "Your Daddy ain't magic." I said, "He ain't?" He said, "Naw, there ain't any magic." I said, "What about the blind man's dummy? Is Joesph of Arimathea magic?" He said, "Get your shotgun, Sugar." I went to the corner near the stove and took my shotgun by the barrel. I got my shell bag and looked at Big G.B.to see what he was thinking. His face didn't tell me. I stood by the kitchen door holding the shotgun and shells. I said, "Is Joseph of Arimathea magic, Big G.B.?" He said, "There ain't no magic. Magic is the same as sentimental. Scratch the surface of sentimental and you know what you find?--Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Magic is German in nature and evil and not real. Scratch magic, Sugar, and you're looking for death.

After taking a shell from her apron pocket and putting it carefully into the weapon’s chamber, she pointed the shotgun away from the house and Dancer, who was tethered nearby, and drew back on the trigger. There was a deafening explosion, and Lily was flung backwards onto the ground, the butt of the shotgun striking her square in the stomach as she fell. It sure wasn’t anything like using a .22 caliber to hunt grouse. “Damnation!” she shouted, struggling back to her feet.

She yanked open the door, and her smile faded. The same Indian who had wanted to trade two horses for her was standing on the apple crate that served as a front step, his black hair dripping with water, his calico shirt so wet that his copper skin showed through in places. “No house!” he said. Lily was paralyzed for a moment. Here it was, she thought, the moment she’d been warned about. She was going to be scalped, or ravaged, or carried off to an Indian village. Maybe all three. She cast a desperate glance toward the shutgun, at the same time smiling broadly at the Indian. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said, “but of course you can see that there is a house.” “Woman go away!” the Indian insisted. Lily’s heart was flailing in her throat like a bird trapped in a chimney, but she squared her shoulders and put out her chin. “I’m not going anywhere, you rude man,” she replied. “This is my land, and I have the papers to prove it!” The Indian spouted a flock of curses; Lily knew the words for what they were only because of their tone. She started to close the door. “If you’re going to be nasty,” she said, “you’ll just have to leave.” Undaunted, the red man pushed past Lily and strode right over to the stove. He got a cup from the shelf, filled it with coffee, and took a sip. He grimaced. “You got firewater?” he demanded. “Better with firewater.” Lily had never been so frightened or so angry in her life. With one hand to her bosom she edged toward the shotgun. “No firewater,” she said apologetically, “but there is a little sugar. There”—she pointed—“in the blue bowl.” When her unwanted guest turned around to look for the sugar, Lily lunged for the shotgun and cocked it. There was no shell in the chamber; she could only hope the Indian wouldn’t guess. “All right, you,” she said, narrowing her eyes and pointing the shotgun. “Get out of here right now. Just ride away and there won’t be any trouble.” The Indian stared at her for a moment, then had the audacity to burst out laughing. “The major’s right about you,” he said in perfectly clear English. “You are a hellcat.” Now it was Lily who stared, slowly lowering the shotgun. “So that’s why Caleb wasn’t alarmed that day when you and your friends rode up and made all that fuss about the land. He knows you.” “The name’s Charlie Fast Horse,” the man said, offering his hand. Lily’s blood was rushing to her head like lava flowing to the top of an erupting volcano. “Why, that polecat—that rounder—that son-of-a—” Charlie Fast Horse set his coffee aside and held out both hands in a plea for peace. “Calm down, now, Miss Lily,” he pleaded. “It was just a harmless little joke, after all.” “When I see that scoundrel again I’m going to peel off his hide!” Charlie was edging toward the door. “Lord knows I’d like to warm myself by your fire, Miss Lily, but I’ve got to be going. No, no—don’t plead with me to stay.” “Get out of here!” Lily screamed, and Charlie Fast Horse ran for his life. Obviously he didn’t know the shotgun wasn’t loaded. The

What brings you to house of God?” The church’s Orthodox priest approached them with his hands up, speaking calmly in Hungarian-accented English. “We seek refuge from evil men, father,” Aleks replied, flashing an Interpol identification card before hefting one of the heavy pews toward the door. Kurtz helped him wedge it against the wood. The priest disappeared through a side door into the vestibule and returned moments later with an ancient-looking double-barreled shotgun and bandolier of shells. As he moved to secure the other doors in the church, Kurtz gave the priest a quizzical look. “Someone must defend the church,” the priest said as he cracked open the weapon and dropped a pair of cartridges into the chambers. He stood protectively over Aurelia. “I spent a little time in the army when I was a younger man.

The men kept coming. They thought there was no way Johnson would fire on them. He was signing his death sentence if he did. Johnson went to his cabinet and got the shotgun shells. He was dead no matter what he did.

When Ruthie pressed her face against the window of her closet-sized room, she could see Trapper Peak, the tallest in the Bitterroots, hooked like a finger beckoning her above the tree line. Circled by bald eagles and white with snow eleven months of the year, it reassured her that men were small scrabbling things, crawling across the ice unaware of the depths below. The boys in her class made each other bleed with straightened paper clips. Her father’s friends—Kent Willis, Raymond Pompey, and the Salish brothers Terry and Billy French—drank themselves into stupors of displaced rage and stumbled outside to shoot bottles off a busted washing machine. The glass shards glinted kaleidoscopically in the morning sunlight while the men snored in the living room, their arms sprawled tenderly over each other’s chests, showing affection in sleep in a way that would be impossible awake. Tiptoeing around them to the bathroom, Ruthie wanted to fly away. She climbed on top of the toilet and wedged her head through the small window. Her gray eyes had a yellow ring in the irises like the beginning of an explosion, noticed by strangers, that she hoped would allow her to see farther. She tasted a storm approaching in the air. Saw herself zooming over the spent shotgun shells, the glittering pattern of glass, the cannibalized dump truck her father used as a kind of fort—full of discarded whiskey pints and Bowhunter magazines—to perch atop Trapper Peak and look back down on her life, free from its bonds and humiliations.

There’s a reason why a twelve-gauge shotgun is the weapon of choice for home defense. It’s a hell of a lot more lethal than anything you can hide in your pants. A double-ought shell has twelve pellets, each of them the size of a .38 bullet.

An even more modern marijuana cult, on traditional shamanistic lines, was shown on “CBS News” in 1970, featuring some American G.I.s in Vietnam. The soldiers used a shotgun – regarded religiously and named “Ralph” – to inhale large quantities of the weed and become thoroughly stoned. The squad leader, acting like a Stone Age shaman, ejected the shells from the shotgun, inserted the grass into the breach and then blew the smoke into the mouth of each of the men in turn. Professor Peter Furst, an anthropologist, has commented that such “spontaneous ritualization” almost seems to be innate in the use of psychedelic drugs (cf., the story immediately above, and the tradition of passing the joint in a magic circle among even the most casual smokers) and that the use of a weapon of death is strangely similar to the way in which some South American Indians use tubes similar to deadly blowguns in psychedelic religious rites.

Guns are one of the many things which haven't changed as much as everyone thought they would. Sure, there was a period when you saw laser pistols on the streets. Problem was, it was a little too easy to catch a reflection in the heat of the moment and end up slicing your own head off. Also, they were just a bit plasticky. When you go marching into some bad situation you want to be racking a shell into a pump-action shotgun. It feels right. It feels tough. It scares the shit out of the other guy. Nervously fingering a little switch wasn't visceral enough and neither was the sound the lasers made. You don't want something which goes ‘tzzz’ or ‘schvip’. You want something which goes CRACK! or BANG! Trust me; I know what I'm talking about. The manufacturers tried to get round the problem by putting little speakers in the laser which played a sampled bang when you pulled the trigger, but it always sounded a bit tinny. And the ones that played a snatch of Chopin's Death March were just fucking silly. Then there was a phase of guns which had moral qualms. Originally, they came out of the home defence market. The guns had a built-in database of legal precedent, monitored any given situation closely, and wouldn't let you fire unless they were sure you had a good cause for a self-defence plea. Most of these guns had other settings too, like ‘Justifiable Homicide’, ‘Manslaughter’, ‘Murder Two’, and ultimately ‘Murder One’. I kept mine on ‘Murder One’ the whole time. So did everyone else. The whole thing was completely pointless. In the end I threw mine away.

Some days a small wooden boat of local fishermen comes to shore, and they trade lobsters or crabs for shotgun shells and jugs of fresh water. The men look like explorers from another time. They are burned dark by the sun and they laugh easily and sometimes they try to talk to me, and my mother translates. I love them. They are heroic, alive, and something to aspire to.

Inside they’d have found the aforementioned shotgun (a custom-made triple-barrel sawed-off), two hundred shells, Dave’s blood-splattered chainsaw, the green mystery box taken from Dave’s shed, a bag of Dave’s clothes, a bottle of Grey Goose, a bad black velvet painting of Jesus and a fucking flamethrower.

freeze freeze freeze makes me a little self-conscious too. The words come out a little tentative. Almost like a request. But I had with me the greatest conversation-stopper ever made: a pump-action shotgun. At the cost of one unfired shell, I could make the kind of sound that would freeze any three men to any three spots in the world. The most intimidating noise ever heard. Crunch crunch. My ejected shell hit the leaves at my feet and the three guys froze solid. I said, “Now the rifles hit the deck.” Normal voice, normal pitch, normal tone. The sandy-haired guy dropped his rifle first. He was pretty damn quick about it. Then went the older guy, and last of the three came the wiry one. “Stand still now,” I said. “Don’t give me a reason.” Normal voice, normal pitch, normal tone. They stood reasonably still. Their arms came up a little, out from their sides, slowly, and they ended up a small distance from their bodies, where they held them. They spread their fingers. No doubt they spread their toes inside their boots and sneakers and shoes. Anything to appear unarmed and undangerous. I said, “And now you take three big paces backward.” They complied, all three guys, all three taking exaggerated stumbling steps, and all three ending up more than a body’s length from their rifles. I said, “And now you turn around.” Chapter 52 I had never seen any of them before. After the slow spin the older guy had ended up facing me on my left. He was completely unknown to me. He was just a guy, not very significant, a little pouchy and worn. The guy in the middle was the sandy-haired one. He was like the older man would have been, had he grown up twenty years later and

You bitch!” the sister screamed as blood poured out of her side. “Fuck you.” Paige walked toward the blonde girl and fired off another shotgun shell into her head.

One heavy rifle (.35 cal.) for defense against large animals. To be carried by myself. 200 cartridges. One light rifle (.225 cal.) for securing small game for the pot. To be carried by the boy. 500 cartridges. One shotgun (20 gauge) for small game and birds. Packed on the lead mule. 160 shells. One case (200 boxes in all) of matches. Forty lb. of flour. Yeast. Two lb. tea (local). Ten lb. sugar. Ten lb. salt. Kitchen gear. Multivitamins. Aid kit. Wall tent, with repair kit for, and extra pegs and rope. Two sleeping bags. Utility tarp to use as ground cloth. Spare pair of boots (for myself). Extra clothing, shave kit, etc. Box of books—some I brought from Earth,

These actions are stressing the wildlife. When people get too close, it will always be the animal that pays the price. If the animal is a bear, it will be hazed with noisy cracker shells from a twelve-gauge shotgun to startle it, or shot with non-lethal rubber bullets or beanbag rounds, or relocated from the area where it wants to live—and all because park visitors are unable to control themselves.

have to kill whoever’s chasing you. Can you do that?” Corman hesitated. “I—I never kilt nobody before,” Corman said. Slocum weighed the man’s words. Corman was obviously frightened, scared of losing his life. But was he also afraid of killing someone, even in self-defense? That was what separated the men from the boys. Corman had years on him, but perhaps not much wisdom. “Ever shoot a Winchester? Or a Henry?” Corman nodded. “Both,” he said. “I have a Yellow Boy.” He paused. “Back at my digs.” “That’s a heavy rifle,” Slocum said. “The Winchester is lighter.” “I know.” “Well, if push comes to shove, you can have my Winchester. It’s loaded. Just jack a shell into the chamber and start shooting.” “Do you think it will come to that?” “You’re the one being chased, Corman. What do you think?” Corman went silent. But he listened to the wind, and wisps of fog, or cloud, were beginning to seep into the cracks of the boulders around them and creep along the ground like thin cotton batting, ever so slowly. Slocum checked the Winchester and handed it to Corman. He went to his bedroll and took out the sawed-off Greener shotgun that he kept rolled up in it. He grabbed some shells from his saddlebag and put two in the shotgun, and snapped the barrel back into the receiver, where it locked. The shotshells were all double-ought buck and, at close range, would tear a man to pieces. Besides the Colt .45 six-gun on his

But I had with me the greatest conversation-stopper ever made: a pump-action shotgun. At the cost of one unfired shell, I could make the kind of sound that would freeze any three men to any three spots in the world. The most intimidating noise ever heard. Crunch crunch. My ejected shell hit the leaves at my feet and the three guys froze solid.

By the time darkness crept up on them outside the store, they had enough bullets to load a half-dozen magazines, four clips for the M4A1s, and fifty shotgun shells.

To the clothing, he added a pump shotgun and a box of shells. A Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol went in his Tahoe’s gun safe with two extra magazines. If he needed more than fifty-one shots at somebody, he deserved to die.

Nowadays, people often ask me what it’s like hunting with my dad. We’ve actually had offers of tens of thousands of dollars from people who want to spend a day in Phil’s blind. It always amazes us because when we were growing up, duck hunting was our everyday life. When we were kids, we were always in the blind with Dad. I don’t remember my first hunt or the first duck I killed, like other young hunters. It was a different time and Phil wasn’t exactly a traditional dad. He didn’t take pictures of our first duck. It wasn’t sentimental; it was just life. We hunted and fished because we wouldn’t eat if we didn’t. Phil’s number one concern was always safety. If you were careless with a loaded gun, you would not come back to the blind. You’d be stuck at home with Mom the next time. Also, you had to be prepared because Phil wasn’t gonna baby you out there. If you didn’t wear the proper clothes, you were gonna freeze your butt off. And I did many times! You had to get your stuff together as well: shells, guns, and whatever you needed. I will never forget a time when I was about ten and we were all going on a dove hunt. It was opening day, and we were all excited. I was shooting a .410 shotgun, but I could only find one shell. Since we were leaving early in the morning, Phil let me know we wouldn’t be able to stop at a store because none of them would be open that early in the morning. “You better make that shot count,” Phil told me. So I shadowed Phil during the entire hunt, watching him drop ‘em. I rant to fetch the birds for Phil, and if any were still alive, he would pinch their heads. With one flick of Phil’s wrist, the dove’s head separated from its body. I was fascinated and yet a little freaked out. You can’t be sensitive when you’re hunting with Phil. I kept throwing my shotgun up to shoot, but I knew I had only one shot. Finally, about eleven o’clock in the morning, I saw my opportunity. I told Phil I was gonna take my shot. He was supportive and told me to make it count. Boom! Wouldn’t you know I smoked the dove? I couldn’t believe it. I went one-for-one with only one shell. As I turned to look at my dad with the biggest smile ever, I noticed he was putting his gun down. He’d shot at the exact same time. He wanted to make sure my shot counted. “Good shot, Willie boy, put your safety back on,” Phil told me. I didn’t know why the safety mattered since I only had one shell, but he wanted to instill the practice in my brain. We’ll never know who hit that bird, but believe me, I told Jase that I got it for sure.

I kept throwing my shotgun up to shoot, but I knew I had only one shot. Finally, about eleven o’clock in the morning, I saw my opportunity. I told Phil I was gonna take my shot. He was supportive and told me to make it count. Boom! Wouldn’t you know I smoked the dove? I couldn’t believe it. I went one-for-one with only one shell. As I turned to look at my dad with the biggest smile ever, I noticed he was putting his gun down. He’d shot at the exact same time. He wanted to make sure my shot counted.