Free Orchid Blues by Stuart Woods

clearing and stopped in their tracks.
    “Good God!” Holly said under her breath.

Fifteen
    BEFORE THEM WAS A SLANTING PIT, BULLDOZED out of the sandy Florida earth. It was shallow at the end near them and deepened as it went back another two hundred or so feet. At the far end it was maybe ten feet deep, and earth was piled up behind it for another twenty feet. At the deep end of the pit was the ruin of a school bus, two dead pickup trucks and a collection of other junk vehicles. Immediately before them, as the crowd strung out across the width of the pit, was an assortment of weapons, most of them automatic, on tripods, in shooting stands of various kinds and some in the hands of shooters of both genders.
    Ham went to a picnic table, picked something out of a box and returned to Holly. “I reckon we’d better use these,” he said, offering her a set of foam earplugs.
    Holly rolled the plugs into narrow strips, then inserted them into her ears, where they expanded quickly to fill the ear canals.
    “There’s the Barrett’s rifle,” Ham said, nodding toward the firing line.
    “I can’t hear you,” Holly said. “I’ve got plugs in my ears.”
    “What?”
    “What?”
    Ham pointed, and Holly followed his finger toward the evil-looking weapon, mounted on the roof of a Humvee, which was parked on the firing line.
    “Oh,” Holly said.
    “What?”
    “Oh, shut up, Ham!” she half shouted.
    Ham started to reply, but, at some unnoticed signal, all hell broke loose.
    A cacophony of gunfire erupted, and Holly saw holes appearing in the rusted bodies of the vehicles, but not the school bus. Glass shattered and danced in the light.
    The earplugs were not enough, and simultaneously, Ham and Holly clapped their hands over their ears. The firing continued for a full five minutes, then, apparently at another signal, abruptly stopped. The shooters all lowered their weapons, and all turned to look at the Humvee. A man climbed up onto the vehicle’s roof and shoved a large clip into his weapon, then sat down cross-legged and sighted on the school bus. The crowd grew quiet.
    The shooter took his time, then squeezed off a round. Holly was amazed at how much noise the gun made. Then the projectile hit the front of the school bus and two things happened almost at once. First, the bus’s hood flew into the air, then it was followed by the engine, which popped up out of its bay a good three feet high.
    Then the shooter sighted again and put three rounds into the bus, along its length. Abruptly, the bus exploded into a huge ball of flame.
    Ham reached over and pulled one of Holly’s earplugs out. “That’s your phosphorus-tipped round.”
    “But why the big explosion?” Holly asked.
    “I guess they must have put a few gas cans in the bus.”
    The crowd erupted in cheering, and the man on the Humvee roof stood up and took several bows.
    “Well,” Holly said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like that.”
    “I have,” Ham said.
    With the show over, the crowd began to drift away from the pit, back toward the tent, revealing picnic tables spread along the grass on the lakeward side of the tent. Holly had not noticed until now that they were on a rise, and that the lake could be seen a couple of hundred yards away.
    “I don’t think I feel like staying for lunch,” Holly said.
    “Let’s take a hike, then,” Ham replied. “But we’re supposed to check with that Peck Rawlings guy first.”
    “There he is,” Holly said, pointing.
    Ham led the way, and they approached the man who was, apparently, their host. “Mr. Rawlings?” Ham said.
    Rawlings turned. “Call me Peck,” he said.
    “Well, Peck, we’re going to be on our way. You said to check with you first.”
    “What did you think of our little demonstration?” the man asked.
    Holly tried to muster some enthusiasm. “That was really something,” she said.
    “Yeah, boy,” Ham echoed. “I haven’t seen that much firepower all at once since