Dark of the Moon

finger of dirt and grass, and beyond it, a rocky hillside running up to the crest. The pool walls on the north and south sides went straight up forty feet or so, solid red rock. A local kid had once jumped off the top on a dare, Joan said, had landed in not quite the deepest part, and had broken a couple of foot bones when he hit bottom. “That was the end of that,” she said. “We had to carry him out.”
    The west side was the canyon, with the sun setting right in the center of the slot. It did that in May and August, she said, then swung farther north and south, depending on the season.
    They were facing each other, blowing water, Virgil working on a new game; he had a handful of her pubic hair, and her two hands were on his chest, and he was about to suggest a different move when he caught the reflection up the hillside, beyond the head of the pool.
    He thought it might be water on an eyelash, a refraction off a splash, something else, but then he caught it again and he pushed her head underwater and ducked under himself, caught her arm, and dragged her deeper toward the head of the pool. She struggled against him, but he pulled hard, until he felt the east wall, and then they rose two feet to the surface and she shouted, “Virgil, Virgil, what are you doing…?”
    A frightened tone threaded in her voice as she shook water away from her face.
    Virgil shoved her against the wall and said, urgently, “There’s somebody on the hillside above us. I saw a reflection off glass, off a lens…”
    She turned to look, but they were out of the line, against the face, “What?”
    “Somebody up the hill…”
    “A camera?”
    “Could be a camera,” Virgil said.
    “What else…?”
    “Could be a scope,” he said. “When somebody’s looking at you with glasses, you can usually see their arms.”
    She looked at him, shocked, then looked at their clothes. “Oh…God.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re sure?” she asked, craning her neck to look overhead.
    “I saw it twice.” He looked back at their clothes, and then said, “I want you to stay right here. I’m going underwater to that corner right there, I’m going to come out fast. I don’t think…he’s at least a couple of hundred yards away, maybe three hundred. I don’t think he can get me if I’m moving fast. Once I’m behind that lip, I can get out to the clothes, get my gun.”
    “I thought…”
    “I started carrying it today…tell you later. Now. Stay here. I’m going.”
    He took two deep breaths, then pushed himself straight down the wall. Had to go deep, because the water was clear. When he hit bottom, he oriented himself, pushed off the wall, kept thinking, stay deep, stay deep, felt the bottom shelving, came up slightly off-line, surged forward with a butterfly stroke, lurching toward a groove in the rock and was almost there, almost in, when there was a slap on the wall to the right. One hand slipped and he went down, lurched again, slipping, and then he was into the groove, hurting, registering the crack of a rifle shot, pushed himself up the groove, skinning his knees, crawled up behind the wall, six feet from his weapon.
    Joan shouted, “Virgil, he’s shooting, Virgil!”
    Not hit, he thought. Everything still working. He looked back at the wall and could see the pockmark where the slug had hit: two feet above where his head had been. Not that close, but close enough to scare him.
    He shouted back to Joan, “I’m okay. You stay there.” He started counting. One minute, one minute thirty seconds. Joan made a questioning gesture, and he put up a finger: wait. Two minutes…
     
    W HEN HE ’ D HUNT deer up north, and he’d see a buck threading through the trees, he could focus on any given shot for a minute or two. After that, he’d lose precise focus. He’d trained himself to wait until the deer was right down a shooting lane before he even started to focus, because two minutes were a long time to concentrate on a shot. Two minutes, twenty seconds, and he coiled himself against the wall, spotted his pistol, said to himself, go, go, go: and he went.
    Six feet out, half a second, get the gun, six feet back. The incoming slug was just that fraction of a second too slow, slapping off the rock a yard wide and again, too high.
    He had the gun. He stood, popped his head out for a half second, pulled back. Dropped to his knees, popped his head out again, saw movement: like a bear, somebody in dark clothes near the crest, running toward