I turn my head to glance back at her, and her cheek is an inch from my own. My face grows warm as electricity pings between us.
Juneau lowers her arms and stands up from her crouching position. She puts her fists on her hips and says, “You’re not concentrating. This is important. Even if it’s just for defense, since we won’t be ‘barging in like gangbusters to mow them down,’ as you put it.”
“Got it. I understand,” I say. “Now can you take that position again? I don’t think I can fit this bolt in on my own.”
“Ha!” Juneau says, but with a twinkle in her eye she wraps her arms back around me and helps me fit the arrow into the track carved into the wood.
“Hold the crossbow up, in front of your face, high enough so that you’re looking at your target just over the top of the tiller.” I do as she says, and squint over the weapon toward my target tree, which stands about thirty feet away.
“Now with two fingers, you’re going to pull the trigger, which releases the nut,” Juneau says, and brushes her finger along a long piece of bone that runs along the bottom side of the crossbow.
“You’re so sexy when you speak crossbow to me,” I murmur, and then squeeze the bone lever like she’s showing me, and the crossbow recoils against my shoulder as the arrow goes flying across the clearing . . . and right past the tree.
“You did that on purpose,” Juneau says, standing up from her crouch. “Your aim was good the first time we tried this.”
“Why don’t you shoot?” I ask, rising to my feet. “That way I can watch your technique.”
“Okay,” she says, and taking the crossbow from me, uses one smooth motion to cock the bowstring and slip a bolt into the track. She raises it to face level and aims, and the movement is so natural that the crossbow looks like an extension of her body. Like she’s a part of the forest she carved her weapon from. She’s a puzzle piece that fits perfectly in its place.
Watching her shoot is just one more example of why Juneau was so uncomfortable in Seattle, all nervous and jumpy, like a fish out of water. She belongs in nature, and it belongs to her.
Her fingers squeeze the bone trigger and the bolt goes flying across the clearing, so fast I don’t even see it until it’s embedded into the exact center of the target tree. Juneau smiles and holds the crossbow out to me. “Your turn,” she says.
I take my time cocking the string. “How long have you been doing this?” I ask.
“Since I was seven,” she answers.
“That makes me feel a little bit better,” I say, fumbling as I slip the bolt into the track.
“What have you been doing since you were seven?” Juneau asks.
“Like I said, playing video games,” I respond.
“Well, I’m sure you’d beat me at that,” she says.
“I somehow doubt it,” I say, and look over to where she stands, hand resting casually on hip. She’s so small and reedy it would be easy for someone who didn’t know her to assume she was weak. Which she’d definitely use to her advantage. She could probably take on a whole squad of those guards herself . . . if they didn’t have the advantages of Kevlar and automatic weapons.
I raise the crossbow to shoulder level and hold it the way she had, my left hand supporting the weapon from underneath, and the fingers of my right hand under the trigger. I fire. The bolt embeds itself firmly into the tree, directly to the right of her bolt. Juneau exhales and pats my shoulder. “That’s okay,” she jibes. “We can’t both be perfect.”
“Oh yeah?” I exclaim, and swing her off her feet into an off-ground hug that sends her squirming for terra firma.
“One more time,” she yells. “You might come close but you can’t beat me. Let’s see what you can do from a shorter range.”
We move forward ten feet, and Juneau pulls her big bowie knife out of a kind of holster she’s slung around her waist. “My knife against your crossbow,” she says, and pulling her elbow straight up so that the knife is positioned behind her shoulder, steps forward and flings it toward the tree. I see a flash of silver as a stray sunbeam reflects off the metal, and in less than a second, the blade sticks firmly into the tree next to her bolt.
“Remind me never to make you mad,” I say in awe. Before she can respond, I raise the crossbow again and shoot, this time lodging my bolt into the bark a hairsbreadth away from the knife.
“Not bad!” Juneau says admiringly, and runs to gather the knife and bolts from the tree. She comes back and hands me the arrows and we spend the next half hour trying to beat each other. I haven’t had this much fun in years.
Finally Juneau takes the crossbow from me, loads a bolt, and says, “What should we hunt for dinner?”