Westergaard had just caught the firework flash of a muzzle low in the reticle when the van window shattered apart in his face.
He jolted back as something struck his cheek. As he landed, he hit the joystick at his elbow and the shooting platform canted violently to the right and down, spilling the rifle with a clatter.
He reached up and felt something warm and wet.
How? he thought, looking in wonder at his blood there on his fingertips.
Westergaard patted at his head. A narrow gouge had been stripped across his ear. As he probed the wound, it flapped disgustingly almost in two. The bullet had cut the back end of it above the lobe neatly almost in half.
He looked down at the rifle where the scope had been destroyed.
The scope? He’d hit his scope, he realized. How?
Something strange happened then. A cocktail of feelings he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time pulsed through him.
Envy mixed with fear.
“What’s up with your heavy breathing now, buddy?” the American said in his ear. “I know I’m pretty sexy, but I hate to break it to you. I’m just not that kind of guy.”
Westergaard sat up and looked out the shattered back window. Down the street a block beside the building where he’d just missed the American, he saw a maroon minivan drive out of the parking lot onto Stout.
“No!” he yelled as he lunged over to his right and grabbed at the rifle. Then he screamed as it wouldn’t budge. It had become stuck somehow in the tilted-over platform.
“My, my, you sound upset,” the American said. “Let me guess, your little sister won’t lend you her clothes anymore? No wait, one of your girlie man soccer teams lost again?”
Westergaard gritted his teeth as he screamed again.
“Yes!” the American said. “That’s a sound I like. Music to my ears. Sounds to me like you’re bleeding. Please tell me I nicked something good. Strike a gusher, did I? Well, I warned you. We have a saying in these here parts. Sometimes the bear gets you.”
“You’ve made a mistake,” Westergaard said very evenly as he watched the minivan depart. “A grave mistake.”
“Au contraire,” the American said as a hand shot out the minivan’s driver’s side window, middle finger extended skyward.
“Drawing your blood is what I call a good start,” he said. “You like round one? Let me assure you, round two is going to be a real Sunday church barbecue. Ta-ta.”