eah, pull it and paste it. This I
want to see."

He handed the handset to the radioman and glared at Jed. "So now
you're some kinda wise guy, huh, hillbilly? You think you can keep
shootin' on luck? The pits say you been hitting the same spot every
time. Nobody can do that. Now, go ahead, hillbilly. I want to see you
do it again."

Jed rolled over on his belly, looked and fired. Down went the target
to come up again with another dead-center marker.

"He did it again," the radioman declared to the corporal.

Weisbaum was beginning to get an awed look on his face. "Go on,
hillbilly, keep firing."

Behind the corporal and the recruit, the radioman was talking softly
to the pits. "He's in position ... he's aiming ... he's holdin--" The
operator stopped talking and shook his handset and held it again to
his ear. Jed fired. A split second later the radio burst into voice.
"... Did it again," the pit operator yelled excitedly.

Jed fired all twenty rounds into the exact same hole and the range
firing came to a screeching halt. By the time he was on the final
round, all other firing had stopped and range officers and safety
NCO's were gathered in a semicircle around the prone mountain boy.

Weisbaum pounded Jed on the back as the young recruit scrambled to his
feet and dusted his fatigues. "Man, what an eye. Wait 'til the old man
sees this. Look," he took Jed by the arm, "you shoot like this all the
time back in them hills you come from?" Jed nodded. "I thought so,"
Weisbaum cried happily. "Go sit down and take it easy. I want the old
man to come out and see this."

* * * * *

Jed smiled happily and walked off the firing line amidst the admiring
stares of his fellow recruits. He flung himself on the ground in the
shade of a stack of ammunition boxes and grinned to himself. Shucks,
all that excitement over a little shooting. Back home he did it all
the time. But it'd make Ma proud to know he could do something real
good. He let his mind travel for the first time in weeks.

On the range road a few feet away, a convoy of trucks carrying another
recruit company to the ranges farther down the line, suddenly
spluttered and came to a stop as their engines died.

"Ma," Jed thought, "you busy?"

Behind the cabin in Bluebird Gulch, Ma Cromwell laid down the axe she
had been splitting firewood with and closed her eyes. "'Bout time you
remembered your maw," she replied. "You all right, Sonny?"