Free The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane

used again. Stanton poured a charge and a half of ffg Peerless black powder into a graduated brass powder measure and transferred the charge by pouring it through a funnel into the muzzle of the first pistol. He did the same with the second as Quinn held the other upright in his hand and looked into the funnel as the silvery grains sank and vanished. Then Quinn held both pistols upright. Stanton unwrapped a small black cloth that had been twisted into a sack and held it out to Quinn. “Sure you wouldn’t rather use these?” In the sack was a nest of perfect, round lead balls so new they were only slightly darkened with oxidation and each with a single shiny spot like the eye of a pea where the sprue had been cut. These must have been from the stained-glass-window lead. Quinn declined. They loaded the wax balls once again, which were more than sufficient to arouse Quinn’s interest; the extra charge of powder promised the loser something.
    Quinn did the counting as he rehearsed the two previous duels. He knew now that he had to turn, sight efficiently and quickly and without rushing, and squeeze off the shot. As he counted, he could feel the gun well fitted in his hand, hanging straight. His thumb and last three fingers were hard around the fluted grip and comfortable. His forefinger curved through the engraved and chased oval trigger guard, the slender, flat, polished trigger in the crevice of the first joint. Quinn knew the trigger was crisp and light, resisting then yielding like a breaking glass rod. All of it seemed, for once, understandable and controlled enough that at Ten! he turned, swung the long pistol up cleanly, the hammer cocked already to expose the sights, and fired. “Wowee!” cried Stanton. “I heard that one under my ear! Now, stay where you are. This is an affair of honor…” The shot rang metallically in the narrow gallery. Quinn fell. A sudden flood of dark red in his mind made him think he had been knocked unconscious. It was his throat this time. He was on the floor, choking there and trying to breathe. His wind seemed restricted to a channel the size of a pinpoint. It was only by violent fetching of his lungs that he enlarged this channel, millimeter by millimeter, until he could breathe again. He sat up, his face bathed in tears of pain, his legs splayed before him and, taking the slender pistol by the barrel in both hands, smashed it repeatedly on the floor until its beautiful, fluted stock and inlaid dragon locks were in pieces around him. He reached up and held his hands to his throat and saw Stanton, standing where he had been, serious, his pistol stuck in the top of his pants, hands plunged in his pockets, watching Quinn get up, look over at him again and mount the stairs. “I’m sorry, James,” he said with unhappiness in his voice. “But I really can’t let you pull that on the girl I love. How else could I make you understand?” Quinn didn’t answer; he was sure he could not have. He felt a little more certain now that Stanton was a madman with unnatural power over him.
    He only went as far as his porch. The pain in his throat was settled in one spot and throbbed. His feelings were hurt enough that, in his way, he wanted no retaliation. Stanton’s unkindness seemed conclusive. He wished to put his mind off it and wondered if his voice was affected. He would say something. He picked up Pendennis and opened to the first page. He began to read aloud, “One fine morning in the full London season, Major Arthur Pendennis came over from his lodgings, according to his custom, to breakfast at a certain club in Pall Mall.” The speaking soothed the bruised tissue of his throat. He read thirty pages more aloud, conscious of the silence around him, and found himself engrossed in the novel’s progress. He read until dark.
    When the sun fell, he went inside and put on a sweater. He turned on every light in every dark room. He