The Shootout Solution Read online

  Leah whooped.

  Frank despaired. “He’s already got it. I got shooting lessons from my pop and I ain’t never hit nothing ’cept nothing. Are you sure I have to shoot to take the Williamsons out? Couldn’t I just convince them to leave the town alone or something?”

  “Silver-tonguing ain’t going to get justice for your brother, Frank,” King said. “You’re the hero this town needs. You stand up to the Williamsons again, people here will notice. And you stare a man down, a man who tried to kill you and failed, you’ve got something.”

  “I know what I’ll have. Shame. Shame I couldn’t save my brother.”

  “The dead don’t hold nothing over you, Frank. There will be time to bury Juan, but if you don’t learn how to shoot, you’ll be running your whole life. Someone has to protect your family.”

  Frank looked to Maribel, who leaned against the back of the saloon, pointedly not watching the scene. It looked like Maribel was even less interested in guns than her brother, but wanted to show her support.

  “Okay, now try again,” Roman said.

  * * *

  A half hour and another fifty bullets later, Leah had hit ten targets, Frank had hit one. Accidentally. Ten feet from the target he was aiming at.

  “Okay, that’ll have to do for today,” King said. “Frank, why don’t you and I have a talk about breathing and focus. My years as Marshal taught me more than a few things about how men’s minds work, and I reckon your problem is that you’re your own worst enemy. Let’s see if we can’t get your mind and your body on the same side, okay?”

  Frank nodded, eager to hand the gun back to Roman.

  “Roman, you keep working with Lee,” King said.

  Leah shook out her wrist as the two men headed back inside, Maribel joining them after one parting look at Leah.

  Either something in her grip was off, or guns really hurt to hold and fire.

  “Can you show me that grip again? I think I’m doing something wrong,” Leah said.

  “No problem. Let’s start from the beginning, with your stance.”

  Leah adjusted her footing, going for the square stance she’d been taught all of an hour ago. “So, how did you get into this crazy business?”

  “Try this.” Roman pushed her right leg out, widening her stance. “I did a little bit of this, little bit of that, traveled in Africa and the Middle East, and decided I wanted to get out of the corporate violence business. I was looking for a way out, and King found me.”

  “Seems like he’s got a neat little talent for that. Finding people.”

  “That what happened with you, then? Getting tired of comedy?” Roman took the gun and placed it back in her hands, wrapping her right around the grip, her left on her right. “Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. Make a strong frame with your hands, arms, and shoulders. Connect everything through the torso to the feet, or the recoil will spoil your aim.”

  Leah adjusted, trying to figure out what it felt like to connect the hands, arms, torso, and feet with this weapon. She’d learned just enough about guns to know she didn’t like them. “Tired of comedy, no. Tired of receptionisting, yes. You were what? Security? Private military contractor?”

  “Something like that. It was the best way out of a bad situation. Until King came along and showed me a better way.” Roman pointed to the fence. “When you’re ready to fire, sight down the barrel, center your target, place your finger on the trigger, and squeeze.”

  “And when was that?” Leah fired, hitting the fence beneath the can. Better than missing the target zone entirely.

  “Almost ten years ago,” Roman said. “You’re flinching before you fire, anticipating the recoil. Stay steady, exhale as you squeeze the trigger.”

  “And you like it?” Leah took a long breath, recentered on the target, checked her stance and grip, and exhaled, squeezing the trigger.

  And the can went flying. Mostly sideways, a glancing blow, but she’d hit. “Yes!” she said, throwing both hands up in the air.

  “Careful,” Roman said in a level voice, hands out and calming.

  “Ah, yeah,” Leah said, remembering the lethal weapon she was cheering with, bringing the gun back down to a ready position.

  “Better. And yes, I love it. Best job I’ve ever had. The cause is good, the pay is better, and life is better when I’m not on-mission. Out in the field, kicking around in a F.O.B., there’s a lot of down time, but unless you’re back home, there’s always that niggling sliver of fear, that need to be always ready, the idea that even when you’re shirtless and gambling while the guy next to you is dreaming up some stupid prank to pull on his buddy, some a-hole could be about to drop a bomb on you.”

  “Yeah, not a lot of bombing going on in southern Maryland.” Leah stopped herself. “Right? The genre worlds can’t, like, send bombs over from War Movie world to take us out?”

  “Line up another shot,” Roman said. Leah detected a chuckle under his instructor seriousness, and marked herself a point in the comedy success column.

  Leah did her best to repeat the ritual Roman had given her, taking aim at the next can. This shot went wide, but barely.

  “Close. Go ahead and move over so you’ve got the straight shot headed uphill,” Roman said. “And no, the other worlds don’t know that we even exist. Science division says things would get really bad if they did.”

  “Yeah,” Leah said. “Imagine a whole world suddenly realizing they’re in the Matrix all at once.”

  “No one likes to realize they’re not in on the joke. These worlds make sense internally, and even when stories break down, they carry on without any outside interference. If we did more than small fixes, or if the worlds knew what else was out there . . .” Roman stopped, as if trying to remember. “I think the phrase Preeti used was ‘Absolute ontological deterioration,’ which sounds like a bad time.”

  “No one gets to see behind the curtain. Got it.” Leah squared off and fired, hitting the can and sending it flying back.

  “Dead on. Nicely done. When you get out of your way, look what happens?” he said, walking over to retrieve the can. Leah lowered the gun, remembering the muzzle discipline that had started the lecture, along with trigger discipline and ten minutes of other safety discussions. Roman plucked the can up and turned it to show Leah a hole straight through the middle.

  “Story of my life.”

  “Getting out of your own way, or a bullet through the heart?” Roman asked, his instructor’s demeanor cracking.

  “That’s an affirmative to both, good sir,” Leah said.

  “Fair enough. Now, let’s try without moving to recenter.”

  * * *

  King sat Frank down on the bed in the room he shared with his sister. King remained standing.

  “You and your brother stood up to the Williamson gang in the first place. That means you’ve got some courage already. The fact that you ran means that you have fear. Courage and fear go hand in hand, like a horse and rider. Courage is knowing a bronco is bucking and deciding to jump on its back anyway, knowing you may get thrown. So what we need now is to figure out how to get you back on the horse, calm your nerves, until you can prove to yourself that you can ride, that you can conquer your fear. That clear?”

  Frank nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Why did you and your brother step up? What were you thinking when you said yes, when you strapped on that gun belt and went out into the noonday sun to face those bandits?”

  “My brother, he volunteered first. And I . . . I couldn’t let him go alone.”

  “Loyalty, then. You wanted to protect your brother.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just like you want to protect your sister.”

  Frank flexed his hands, looking at the floor. “Yes, sir.”

  “You won’t have to do this alone, Frank. My team, we’ve solved problems like this before. But if some outsider solves a town’s problem for them, what happens? Solving people’s problems for them never
made them more capable of anything.”

  King knelt down to speak to Frank, eye to eye, ignoring the popping in his knees and the accompanying pain. “What I want is to help you save this town. For folks to be able to remember Frank Mendoza as the man who avenged his brother’s death, who ran the Williamson gang out of town with the help of some Marshals. You haven’t lived here long, but this town claims you as their own, that much is clear.”

  “Well, we’ve tried to make friends, since our money ran out. Miss Sarah’s been mighty generous, putting us up here in the saloon.”

  “And you can repay that generosity by believing in yourself.”

  King stood slowly, not interested in spending his aging knees on a pep talk when there was a gunfight on the horizon. Frank was a tricky case. Most heroes-in-waiting just took the smallest push out of the door to get started on the path.

  But this was a breach, and if his brother was meant to be the hero, that’d explain some of the hesitation. But they had the time they had, he just needed to solve the puzzle of Frank. “Think back to a time when you were perfectly calm, when you stood up and licked whatever the problem was.”

  Again, Frank looked at his hands and the floor below.

  “There has to be something. Some time in your life—”

  Frank cut in. “It’s stupid.”

  “I’m sure it’s not. Everyone’s life is their own, Frank. Your triumphs are still triumphs.”

  “I was cooking. It was a dinner party for my cousin’s engagement. The milk went sour, so I had to go and get more, and I forgot about my tortillas, so they burnt and I had to start over. But instead of getting frustrated and giving up, I started over. And it got done, and it was delicious, and the dinner was perfect. After that . . .”

  King cut Frank off, sensing the dip in Frank’s mood. He had to keep the boy focused on the positive.

  “That. That right there. Why did you start over without wallowing?”

  “I knew it had to get done, and worrying weren’t going to help no one.”

  King stopped, pointing a finger. He tapped Frank on the shoulder. “That’s how you need to think. The Williamson gang needs to be stopped. Worrying and panicking won’t help nobody. We can teach you how to shoot, how to move in a fight, find and use cover. You just have to get back on that horse, see?”

  “I was never good at riding, Mr. King. Might be better for you to find another way of talking ’bout this.”

  It’d been a while since King’d had a hero quite this reluctant. But this wasn’t the first time a story breach had gone weird. HQ was getting troubling reports from the other bases, on top of the missions he and the Mid-Atlantic teams had been working. Something was rippling across the worlds. These breaches were different. Maybe some kind of dimensional El Niño or the like, a system of incongruities in the breaches. Yet another topic for his next report to the High Council.

  King went to the door.

  “Here’s a thought. Why don’t we get a head start on dinner, and you show me what you can do. If I see you in your element, maybe I can get an idea of how to make gunfighting make sense, seem less terrifying. And if we don’t, then we still have dinner for everyone. Seems reasonable, don’t you think?”

  Frank stood, more light in his face than he’d seen since he met the boy. “Yes, sir. Everyone needs to eat, and being on the frontier is no excuse for eating poorly.”

  King stepped aside, leaving room for Frank. “In that case, after you.”

  * * *

  Leah had seen firsthand that Frank Mendoza was a public menace with a revolver, but it turned out he was a saint with a saucepan. Which, for a Western, was pretty odd.

  Miss Sarah arranged for the team and the Mendozas to take dinner in the kitchen alone, so Frank could come down without being seen in public. The six of them crowded around a table, making stutter-stop attempts toward conversation that happened with people you’d met, especially in groups.

  Frank was as calm and confident in the kitchen as he was clammy and shaky on the shooting range. Put him in an apron and set a stove and some pots in front of him and he was The Man With No Name. No wasted motion, no hesitation. He poured water and worked a spoon with precision and grace, happily explaining every step.

  Frank had some core of confidence to work from, so getting him to step up would be a matter of connecting that core confidence he had with cooking to shooting.

  Or maybe coming up with some crazy crossover Iron Chef kind of way to make cooking into fighting. Have him go into battle with a meat tenderizer and paring knife.

  Still, as funny as that image was, it was odd. In Leah’s memory of Westerns, most of the reluctant heroes were farm hands or would-be ranchers. They wanted to be gunslingers, but didn’t believe in themselves. Frank definitely didn’t believe in himself, but in any other story, he’d be a supporting character. But King and the team seemed pretty confident that this was their hero. Something about the story just didn’t fit. Maybe that was because the world had gone so off-kilter.

  Everyone was feeling one another out—Maribel and Frank played it close to the chest, King and the Genrenauts were trying to steer conversation away from themselves as best as they could, presumably along their Prime Directive-y agenda to tread lightly. Leah was mostly content to watch King and the Genrenauts work, like having a movie unfold right in front of your eyes, one where half the cast knew they were in a story, and the other half didn’t. Cabin in the Woods without the blood sacrifice.

  Frank chatted up a storm. “You should have seen poor Juan with that dog, they looked like they’d been put through the wash and left out to dry.”

  Shirin and Roman played the role of the easy audience, and Leah remembered herself enough to smile along. The weirdness of the situation, the onion-tastic meta was hitting hard. The wrongness of the story niggled at her mind, like a chunk of popcorn that she couldn’t quite pick out with her tongue. The more she tried to relax and observe, the more the wrongness stood out to her.

  Food, however, made sense. Leah held her plate out for another serving of cornbread. Cooking and serving, Frank was almost a whole other person, completely in his element, not a shaking hand to be seen. But did that mean he could stand up to the bandits?

  Frank dished out food to the entire Genrenauts team, as well as filling plates for saloon staff and customers. All while keeping up his end of a conversation about the Mendozas’ life before they’d come out West.

  “Why leave Texas?” Shirin asked.

  Frank shared a look with his sister, who had changed out of the frippery and was wearing a simple floral dress.

  Maribel picked up the conversational thread. “Well, you see Frank here wants to open a restaurant, but there weren’t no way he could do it in Wichita Falls, Texas. He won’t settle for anything less than the fanciest of clientele, with the prices to match. So we saved up as much as we could, sold most everything we owned aside from Frank’s pots, Juan’s guns, and my books, and bought ourselves tickets as far west as we could manage. That got us here. We’d only meant to stay long enough to buy the tickets to San Francisco.”

  “I know I could get a job in any restaurant out there, if they would only give me a chance,” Frank added.

  Maribel set her dish in the sink and kissed Frank on the cheek. She said something in Spanish, then walked out the back door.

  Leah wiped her mouth with a napkin and stood, following Maribel on a hunch she didn’t know she’d had until she was halfway to the door.

  But King and company had talked about following your instincts and everything, so she went with it.

  Winds drew sand into swirls, catching the red-pink light of the setting sun. The same wind tickled at the hem of Maribel’s dress. The woman leaned against a wooden pillar of the back porch, looking west to the sunset.

  “Everything alright?” Leah asked, stepping into Maribel’s field of vision. The woman bristled for a moment, then relaxed.

  “I’m fine. Just like watching the sunset, is
all. It’s the same sun, no matter where you go, but it seems a little brighter here, the moon a little closer. Or maybe this town’s really that much smaller.”

  “I thought you came from a small town?”

  “Small, but not tiny. This here’s a stopover town, perfectly fine aside from the bandits, but nowhere for us to put down roots. Especially after . . .”

  “I bet. I imagine if I were in your shoes, I couldn’t put this town in my”—Leah caught herself before using totally out-of-genre language—“dust fast enough.”

  “Turns out it’s not easy to just up and make money when you’re away from home. Ms. Sarah’s been right kind to us, and she treats Frank better than any fancy San Francisco restaurant would, I reckon.”

  “And how are you dealing with, I mean, having to . . . ?” Leah asked.

  “I ain’t had to take no customers, if’n that’s what you’re asking about. And I don’t intend to start, if you’re asking.”

  Leah wondered if the PPM would hide a blush. She focused on the story, trying to hold the structure in her mind, the moving parts that were Maribel and Frank and the bandits. But how did it all fit together? Her gut told her Maribel would play a bigger role in this story. She stood out too much to be just the doting sister.

  “I made a deal with Ms. Sarah,” Maribel continued. “She needed to look like she had more girls on her roster, so I dress the part but if someone picks me, I fake like I’m sick. I was faking a fainting spell when your friend started in about the Williamsons.”

  “Wouldn’t people notice eventually?” There’s more to her. But what? Leah thought, racking her brain for the right angle.

  She shrugged. “Eventually. Ms. Sarah looked to be getting a bit nervous, but she didn’t want to lose Frank’s cooking. And the other girls are plenty nice to me, especially since I ain’t taking their money. And on account of me looking out for their little ones while they work.”

  “That’s . . . a lot simpler, I guess. So what are you going to do when you get out to the coast?”

  Maribel looked out to the sunset, like she was looking all the way to the coast, to her future. “Keep Frank out of trouble, run the parts of the restaurant he can’t be bothered with, assuming he can get the money together to give it a shot. Frank talks big, but he’s not the one for follow-through.”