Read Marine Sniper for Free Online Page B
Authors: Charles Henderson
rifle through the prickly vines of a blackberry bush. Pushing with his toes, he
- slid across pine needles and damp earth without making a sound. There he lay hidden beneath an umbrella of tangled vines.
Today, he hunted the Japanese, much the way he stalked squirrels and rabbits with his J. C. Higgins .22-caliber, single-shot rifle, which he had gotten for his tenth birthday. He rarely missed a shot.
Carlos hunted small game to put meat on the family table. His mother and father had separated, and now he and his two-year-old brother, Billy Jack, had accompanied their mother here to live with their grandmother. They were poor.
But peering down the old Mauser's sights on this warm
spring day, Carlos did not think of food as he drew bead on a
tortoise. A tortoise, which now became a well-camouflaged
-_ Japanese sniper-the deadliest sworn enemy of Edson's
Raiders, heroes of the Pacific.
However, the young warrior's dog failed to appreciate the intense situation, and she trotted over to the tortoise, nudged it with her nose, and began barking. The tortoise clamped shut. , Carlos rolled from under the vines and thorns and stood : erect, holding the long rifle by its muzzle and resting its butt on his toe. "Sassy!" he shouted, frowning at the dog. Then he glanced down at his clothes. No longer in the South Pacific, but back in the woods of Geyer Springs, Arkansas, he realized feat he had trouble. Muddy circles outlined the knees on his once-clean jeans. His T-shirt had fared no better. He frantically dusted off the loose soil, but the muddy stains on his knees and T-shirt remained. That meant a problem at home.
Carlos's grandmother never understood that Marines cannot fight in combat and keep their knees clean-especially : twelve-year-old Marines.
"Canr-looos," her voice sang through the woods. '£. "Commm-inggg," he answered apprehensively.
May 20, Carios celebrated his twelfth birthday and opened his gifts. He found one special present that dwarfed the importance of all the others-a Remington 12-gauge, single-snot shotgun. His mother and grandmother both thought that he should have something for his twelfth birthday that required more responsibility, something that would give him a better edge than his .22 rifle.
Carios Hathcock had an exceptional ability to shoot a rifle well, even at age twelve. When he saw the long and narrow box, he knew that its contents could only be one thing-a new rifle or a shotgun.
There was a certain fineness about firearms for the young shooter. He never saw them as toys but as tools crafted for a purpose mat he greatly respected and enjoyed-hunting.
Now, with a shotgun, Carios's grandmother thought, be could hunt dove and pheasant and quail when they came in season. Carios saw the shotgun as a more efficient firepower to snap-shoot the squirrels and rabbits that often flashed through the brush before he could draw down on them with his rifle.
Carios opened the box containing his new shotgun and shells at nine o'clock mat morning. By nine thirty he walked in the woods with the gun resting over his forearm, its breach broken open and a shell chambered.
A sudden gray flash caught his attention. In a single motion, Carios snapped the breach shut and raised the gun to his shoulder. He heard the rabbit skitter through the weeds ahead, so he waited for another flash of fur. This time he would be ready.
The flash again caught his eye, but this time it was several yards away. He fired the gun and watched the rabbit run up and over a hill. He had missed.
By eleven o'clock Carios had killed nothing, and he had missed several shots-easy shots. He put the shotgun away and returned to the woods with his single-shot rifle. The .22 may not have had the spread, but with it Carios never failed to bring home meat. Just past noon, he returned home with two squirrels and a cottontail rabbit dangling from a
- slid across pine needles and damp earth without making a sound. There he lay hidden beneath an umbrella of tangled vines.
Today, he hunted the Japanese, much the way he stalked squirrels and rabbits with his J. C. Higgins .22-caliber, single-shot rifle, which he had gotten for his tenth birthday. He rarely missed a shot.
Carlos hunted small game to put meat on the family table. His mother and father had separated, and now he and his two-year-old brother, Billy Jack, had accompanied their mother here to live with their grandmother. They were poor.
But peering down the old Mauser's sights on this warm
spring day, Carlos did not think of food as he drew bead on a
tortoise. A tortoise, which now became a well-camouflaged
-_ Japanese sniper-the deadliest sworn enemy of Edson's
Raiders, heroes of the Pacific.
However, the young warrior's dog failed to appreciate the intense situation, and she trotted over to the tortoise, nudged it with her nose, and began barking. The tortoise clamped shut. , Carlos rolled from under the vines and thorns and stood : erect, holding the long rifle by its muzzle and resting its butt on his toe. "Sassy!" he shouted, frowning at the dog. Then he glanced down at his clothes. No longer in the South Pacific, but back in the woods of Geyer Springs, Arkansas, he realized feat he had trouble. Muddy circles outlined the knees on his once-clean jeans. His T-shirt had fared no better. He frantically dusted off the loose soil, but the muddy stains on his knees and T-shirt remained. That meant a problem at home.
Carlos's grandmother never understood that Marines cannot fight in combat and keep their knees clean-especially : twelve-year-old Marines.
"Canr-looos," her voice sang through the woods. '£. "Commm-inggg," he answered apprehensively.
May 20, Carios celebrated his twelfth birthday and opened his gifts. He found one special present that dwarfed the importance of all the others-a Remington 12-gauge, single-snot shotgun. His mother and grandmother both thought that he should have something for his twelfth birthday that required more responsibility, something that would give him a better edge than his .22 rifle.
Carios Hathcock had an exceptional ability to shoot a rifle well, even at age twelve. When he saw the long and narrow box, he knew that its contents could only be one thing-a new rifle or a shotgun.
There was a certain fineness about firearms for the young shooter. He never saw them as toys but as tools crafted for a purpose mat he greatly respected and enjoyed-hunting.
Now, with a shotgun, Carios's grandmother thought, be could hunt dove and pheasant and quail when they came in season. Carios saw the shotgun as a more efficient firepower to snap-shoot the squirrels and rabbits that often flashed through the brush before he could draw down on them with his rifle.
Carios opened the box containing his new shotgun and shells at nine o'clock mat morning. By nine thirty he walked in the woods with the gun resting over his forearm, its breach broken open and a shell chambered.
A sudden gray flash caught his attention. In a single motion, Carios snapped the breach shut and raised the gun to his shoulder. He heard the rabbit skitter through the weeds ahead, so he waited for another flash of fur. This time he would be ready.
The flash again caught his eye, but this time it was several yards away. He fired the gun and watched the rabbit run up and over a hill. He had missed.
By eleven o'clock Carios had killed nothing, and he had missed several shots-easy shots. He put the shotgun away and returned to the woods with his single-shot rifle. The .22 may not have had the spread, but with it Carios never failed to bring home meat. Just past noon, he returned home with two squirrels and a cottontail rabbit dangling from a
Similar Books
It Was You
Anna Cruise
Russian Spring
Norman Spinrad
Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 13
Maggody, the Moonbeams
Saving Gideon
Amy Lillard
My Noiseless Entourage: Poems
Charles Simic
The Genesis Secret:
Tom Knox
Lord and Master
Kait Jagger
The Hidden
Bill Pronzini
Tarnished Steel
Carmen Faye