Laura looks at him apologetically.
They each have a turn. Their dad is in joint lead with Rory, who always works best when he has somebody to show off in front of. Cormac is last. Intense Cormac who thinks too much before he takes a shot.
‘Cara shoots better photos,’ Solomon teases him.
Solomon likes it when Rory takes his turn because it frees the bench beside Laura. He thinks about sitting in Rory’s place, but then thinks it might be petty, that perhaps they’ll jeer him, they’ll read too much into it. So he remains standing and Laura is more interested in watching his shots anyway. Rory never misses one. As the only son who still lives at home with his parents, he has more time to go hunting with his dad.
To everybody’s amusement, Laura mimics the shotguns, the clay pigeon machine, the sound as they’re released, the sound as they’re hit. It’s interesting to Solomon how quickly everybody gets used to her sounds, and they continue without turning to watch her after every sound. Now and then a sound will rouse a chuckle from one of them, a ‘Good one, Laura!’ from his dad, an impressed, surprised cry of delight, never of jest, and Solomon could kiss them all for this.
Rory is now in the lead. Finbar and Solomon are tied. Cormac and Donal are lagging behind. If Solomon gets six out of six, and his dad misses one, then he’ll tie with Rory. He steps up to the mark. Places the shotgun on his shoulder.
‘Good luck, Solomon,’ Laura says, and this softens him.
Behind him, Rory picks up his own shotgun and motions for her to follow. She frowns, but stands quietly and follows him. He moves to the side, out of his family’s eyeshot, but they’re not watching him anyway because they’re all facing the other way, watching Solomon. Rory points at something a little way away in the grass and Laura smiles with delight. It’s a beautiful hare. A silly thing that has wandered off and found itself on a dangerous battlefield. It leaps wildly, trying to find a way out, the shotguns going off around him from the five cabins. Laura smiles and watches it. She hasn’t seen a hare for years, there were none up on the mountain, badgers and rats being the largest mammals, neither of which were something she wanted to see around her home.
While she’s watching it, Rory raises the rifle to his shoulder. Takes aim.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
He fires immediately, causing the others to jump at the sound so close to them, that hasn’t come from Solomon’s gun.
Laura screams. Solomon gets a fright and his finger pulls the trigger. He misses the clay pigeon, not that he cares because he’s so concerned about Laura. He turns around and sees her duck under the wooden rail onto the grass.
‘What’s she doing?’ Donal asks.
‘Laura, no!’ he yells, putting down the gun and running after her.
‘Get back here!’ Finbar yells after him, as do the others, but he ignores them. People are firing all around them, Laura could be hit.
The owner spots them, yells for everyone to hold their fire but word doesn’t reach them instantly, and a few shots are fired as both Laura and Solomon run across the field.
‘Laura! Stop!’ Solomon yells, angry that she has put herself in such danger. He reaches her and wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her towards him, tight to his body. She pushes his arm away, as she looks around the ground in a panic as though she’s searching for something. He lets her go and watches her circling the area, trying to find something, making noises, sounds he can’t decipher. Animal sounds, gunshot sounds.
‘Laura what are you doing?’ He’s calmer now that everybody in the cabins has put down their guns, but they’re all lining up at the rails to watch the spectacle. He doesn’t want her to become a spectacle, part of a circus.
She circles the same patch in the field, eyes down, panicked, making sound after sound, almost in an effort to track it down.
‘Laura,’ he says calmly. ‘I’ll help you. What are you doing?’
He feels his brothers beside him. His dad. He looks at them confused, sees that Rory is hanging behind, looking guilty.
‘What did you do?’ he asks him, roughly.
Rory ignores him.
‘He shot something,’ Cormac says, annoyed with his baby brother. ‘Rory, Jesus, you could have hit one of us. You don’t fire from the cabin.’
‘This isn’t fucking Platoon,’ Donal says.
‘What did you shoot?’ Solomon asks. ‘Did you shoot a bird?’
‘There aren’t any fucking birds,’ Rory says, annoyed that everyone is turning on him now. ‘Why would a bird fly over here?’
‘Ah, don’t touch that, love,’ Finbar says suddenly as he spins around to see her on her knees, on the grass, beside a hare. A hare that has been shot but isn’t yet dead. Laura sobs, tears gushing down her cheeks, as she mimics its dying sounds.