Free Pyramid Lake by Paul Draker Page A

said. “It’s six twenty in the morning.”
    “The early bird gets the best spot at the range,” I said.
    He scratched his bare chest. “Go get a latte and come back in an hour.”
    I spread my fingers and palmed his face, walking him backward into his house, brushing the door wide as I pushed through. His goatee tickled my palm.
    “Get dressed,” I said.
    “I hate it when you do shit like that,” he said. “It’s disrespectful.”
    “I’ll cook breakfast.”
    I could hear him fumbling around in his bathroom while I opened kitchen cupboards. I found eggs in the refrigerator, hiding behind a twelve pack of Big Dogs Leglifter Pale Ale. The eggs were four days past the expiration date but probably still okay. I cracked a half dozen, separated the whites from the yolks, and found a frying pan.
    Roger’s house was laid out identically to mine, a few blocks over. The two-bedroom floor plan was one of four models that had been replicated a few hundred times, cookie-cutter style around us, until the surrounding streets gave way to flat dirt.
    Six years ago, the ghost town of Flanigan, Nevada, had been resurrected from the desert to serve as a bedroom community for Pyramid Lake staff. Most of us lived here now. The off-reservation alternatives—Gerlach, Spanish Springs, and Fernley—were too far. Even Nixon and Wadsworth—reservation towns at the south end of the lake—were a two-hour drive from the facility, and the Tribal Council didn’t want us living on the rez, anyway.
    A disassembled AR-15 rifle lay spread across a towel on the granite countertop that separated the kitchen from the family room. I slid it aside to make room for plates and silverware.
    Roger plopped onto a bar stool on the other side of the counter. He had a Glock 34 holstered on his belt.
    “I can’t eat this,” he said, looking at the plate in front of him.
    “What’s wrong with it?” I took a bite of my eggs, carrying my own plate over.
    “Without the yolks, it’ll taste just like snot. I’ll just have coffee.”
    I shrugged and sat down to finish my breakfast. Something thunked heavily against the granite nearby. I looked up to stare at the dull-silver coffee mug in front of Roger. He was grinning.
    “That’s just all kinds of wrong,” I said, picking it up. It was like lifting a fifteen-pound dumbbell. “How many different types of cancer are you trying to get at once?”
    “Don’t believe the lies the United Nations spreads about DU,” he said. “They just don’t want it in the hands of us civilians when they openly declare the One-World Government.”
    I shook my head. “Only an idiot would drink out of nuclear waste.”
    “It’s depleted uranium, Trev. No radioactivity left.” He reached down by his foot and lifted an ammunition box onto the counter. “Alloyed with a little titanium, DU’s harder than a motherfucker, so let’s go put some holes in stuff.”
    • • •
    The Regional Shooting Facility was an hour and a half south, down State Route 445. Most of the drive was along the lakeshore, with the water sparkling cobalt blue on our left. Roger was driving the Beast, his monster Humvee, and I was riding passenger. The trunk of my Mustang couldn’t have fit all the cases and ammo anyway, because Roger had insisted on bringing six different long guns.
    I thought back to Friday night, the last time I’d driven this stretch, and that in turn made me think of Amy. I missed her like crazy. I wondered if she had gotten the present I sent her yet—an iPhone.
    Tonight I would call Jen to talk to Amy… but soon I’d be able to call my daughter directly.
    Roger kept glancing over at me, like he wanted to ask me something. I could guess what, but I wasn’t interested. Still, I wondered what Cassie was doing right now. In my lab. With Frankenstein.
    “Your new partner,” Roger finally said. “She’s smokin’ hot.”
    I shrugged, and looked out the side window.
    “What’re you, blind, man?” Roger cleared his