"I found out quick that I couldn't beat a good gunman if I used the
old methods. Practice makes perfect; they practiced as much as I did.
So I studied the methods and the great idea come to me. They all use
the whole arm. Look at you! Your shoulder bulges up when you make the
draw, and you raise the whole arm. Matter of fact, you'd ought only to
use your fingers. Not stir a muscle above the wrist. Now try!"
Bull tried--the gun did come clear of the holster.
"No good," he said gravely. "It's magic when you do it, Pete. It just
makes a fool of me."
"Shut up and listen!" Pete said sharply. "I'm telling you a thing
that'll save your life some day!"
He drew a little closer. His emotion made him swell to a greater
stature, and he rose a little on tiptoe as if partly to make up for
the differences between their bulks.
Bull obeyed.
"Now start thinking. Start concentrating on that right hand. There's
nothing else to your body. You see? You forget you got a muscle.
There's three things in the world. You see? Just three things and no
more. There's your gun with a bullet in it; there's your hand that's
going to get the gun out; and there's your target--that doorknob, say!
Keep on thinking. They ain't any more to your body. You're just a hand
and an eye. All your nerves are down there in that hand. They're all
piled down there. That hand is full of electricity. Don't let your
eyes wander. Keep on concentrating. You're stocking the electricity in
that hand. When your hand moves, it'll be as fast as the jump of a
spark! And when that hand moves, the gun is going to come out clean in
it. It's _got_ to come out with it! You hear? It's _got_ to! Your
fingertips catch under the butt; they flick up. They don't draw the
gun; they throw it out of the holster; they pitch the muzzle up, and
the butt comes smack back against the palm of your hand. And in the
same part of a second you pull the trigger. You hear?"
He leaned forward, trembling from head to foot. The eyes of the big
man were beginning to narrow.
"I hear; I understand!" he said through his teeth.
"You don't pull the gun. You _think_ it out of the leather. And then
the bullet hits the doorknob. You don't move your arm. Your arm
doesn't exist. You're just a hand and a brain--thinking! And that
thought sends a bullet at the mark!" He leaped back. "Draw!"
There was a wink of light at the hip of Bull Hunter, and the gun
roared.
Instantly he cried out, alarmed, confused, ashamed.
"I didn't mean to shoot, Pete. I'm a fool! I didn't mean to! It--I
sort of couldn't help it. The--the trigger was just pulled without my
wanting it to! Lord, what'll people think!"
But Pete Reeve had flung his arms around the big man as far as they
would go, and he hugged him in a hysteria of joy. Then he leaped back,
dancing, throwing up his hands.
"You done it!" he cried, his voice squeaking, hysterical.
"I made a fool of myself, all right," said Bull, bewildered by this
exhibition of joy where he had expected anger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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