“Not from here.” Rafe started walking off. Jeremy and Emilie followed him as they passed the twenty-yard line, the thirty-yard line, the forty-yard line…
“No way,” Emilie said. “Are you serious? Are we in another zip code?”
“If this were the Olympics, we’d be way out there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to a line even farther back. He pulled an arrow and nocked it. “You need a stabilizer and a sight to shoot from there, though. But we practiced for hunting, not contests. If you’re good at forty yards, you’re amazing at twenty. Unless you’re Jeremy.”
“That would hurt my feelings if I had any,” Jeremy said. But Rafe saw him wink at Emilie for some reason.
Rafe ignored them both, then released his arrow with a zzzt, which landed with a satisfying thud in the gold inner ring.
“West—by God!—Virginia!” Rafe and Jeremy shouted in unison.
“Wow, you people really do say that.” Emilie peered down the field. “Was that a bull’s-eye? I need binoculars to see that far.”
Rafe shrugged. “Not quite, but close.” Rapidly, he put four more arrows into the gold. His bow already felt like an extension of his arms. It belonged to him in a way that his father’s bow never had. He pulled a sixth arrow and nocked it.
“New bow?” Jeremy asked. Rafe shot his arrow. Gold. He held out his bow and let Jeremy take it. He whistled in appreciation. “Fit for a king.”
“From Mom,” Rafe said as he took it back. “In case I need it in the Crow tomorrow.”
“You’re coming with us?” Emilie asked, dancing in place, which warmed his heart.
“I won’t say Mom’s okay with it, but she’s not going to stop me.”
Jeremy said, “I knew it. But I’m glad she gave you her blessing.”
“So glad you’re coming with us,” Emilie said. “You’re kind of scary, but I think that’ll work in our favor.”
“Am I scary?” he asked Jeremy.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe not scary,” Emilie answered. “Intimidating? Mainly because you don’t talk constantly, and I do not relate to that at all. Also, you are holding a weapon.”
“So are you,” Rafe said.
“Yeah, but I don’t know how to use mine.”
“Show Emilie how you kill the spider,” Jeremy said.
“What’s a spider?” Emilie asked. “I assume you don’t mean an actual spider. Because I object to the senseless killing of spiders. Unless it’s two a.m. and one’s on my bed.”
Jeremy pointed at the target, squinting one eye. “That little cross in the middle of the gold is the spider. We used to play a game where we’d try to hit it in one, dead center, from forty yards. You kill the spider in one, you win the world.”
“Killing the spider at forty yards in one shot is practically impossible,” Rafe reminded him. “You can’t even see it from here without a sight.”
“If it’s an impossible shot,” Jeremy said, “why did your father spend his entire life trying to make it?”
“Why not try? Even if you’re off-center, it’s still ten points,” Rafe said.
“I still can’t see it,” Emilie said. “Let me look.” She jogged down the field toward the target, chanting, “Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me…”
Rafe looked at Jeremy. “You think she wants me to shoot her?”
“You can kill the spider in one. I know you can. You know you can.”
From the target, Emilie waved her hand and whistled for them.
“This thing?” She pointed at the tiny cross inside the very center ring.
“That thing!” Jeremy replied.
“No way!”
“She’s right,” Rafe said. “No way. If Dad couldn’t do it—”
“I’ve seen you do it.”
Rafe looked at him. “When did I—”
“Twice,” Jeremy said. “Once when we were missing. But the first time, right here.” He pointed at the shooting line under Rafe’s feet. “You stood there, took one shot, and killed the spider.”
“That never—”
“It happened. It was a perfect shot. I knew you’d done it the second the arrow hit the target. Even your dad knew. Your dad knew, and you saw what I saw—his ego dying right before his own eyes, being outshot by his fourteen-year-old son, who liked to draw sketches of poodles. It killed him that you made that shot, so you said, ‘I think it’s off-center.’ Then you ran down the field to the target, and I was right behind you, Rafe. I was there. I saw you pull out the arrow. I saw you tear the paper to hide the evidence. And you yelled back to your father, ‘It was off-center, Dad!’ ” He rolled his eyes in disgust. “I don’t know who I was more pissed at—you for lying to make him feel better or your father for looking so relieved.”
“I remember that day, and I missed it. By a hair, yeah, but I missed it.”
“You didn’t miss it.” Jeremy looked at him, wouldn’t look away.
