Written in Time Read Free

that, in spades—you’ll know.” James Naile grabbed a vintage brown-leather bomber jacket from the larger of the two hall closets, donning it as he said, “Let’s cut through the house, John. It’s faster,” and started walking.  
    John, gray fedora in hand, followed his father, looking once at his mother’s face to see if he could get a clue as to what was about to transpire. She looked oddly sad.  
    “Dad? What’s going on?” John Naile quickened his pace to come even with his father. They left the main hallway, passed the base of the circular staircase and under it toward his father’s office. They passed a small bathroom, a closet, came out from beneath the stairwell and through an open space—sunlight filtered through a floor-to-ceiling bank of windows and washed the checkerboard-pattern black-and-white tiles in a pale yellow light.  
    James Naile quickened his pace, opened the double doors to his office and passed through. “Close them behind you, John.” In some ways, parents never looked at their children as getting past the age of ten or so, John Naile had often thought, and his father’s remark had just confirmed it. “And skip the ‘Gee, I thought I’d leave ‘em open’ riposte, alright?”  
    “Sure.”  
    His father’s office was as he always had seen it since his childhood: big, expensive wooden desk; big, expensive leather desk chair; big, expensive leather couch and easy chairs; a coffee table that matched the desk; the side walls of the fifteen-by-fifteen room obscured floor-to- ceiling with built-in bookshelves; the library steps and a ladder on casters (he could never remember the proper name for one of the things, but thought there was one). The far wall was consumed at its center with double French doors leading out onto a small patio; on either side of the doors stood glass-fronted cabinets. The one on the right was a beautifully executed piece showcasing about a dozen long guns, rifles and shotguns evenly mixed, all premier grades from FN/Browning, Beretta, Winchester, Remington and some of the English gun makers. His father never touched them except to clean them; they were investments only.  
    “Should have offered you a coat, John, or had you get your overcoat from the Cadillac. Long walk to the bomb shelter, and it’s a little cold out.”  
    “The bomb shelter? Why are we—?”  
    “You’ll know. Trust me, son.”  
    The cabinet on the left, as they walked through the double doorway and onto the flagstones beyond—”I know! Close the doors.”—held a solitary bolt-action Remington, a lever-action Winchester, a lever-action Marlin, a Remington pump shotgun, various knives and an assortment of handguns, some of them cowboy-style single actions, all except the four long guns heavily engraved and, like the guns in the flanking cabinet, investment quality.  
    “You ever shoot any of those things, Dad?”  
    “Why? I keep that ‘97 Winchester pump of your grandfather’s in our bedroom, and I’ve got 1911s stashed all over the house, as you’ll recall, I believe.”  
    Once, as a child, John Naile had committed the allbut-unpardonable sin of attempting to show a couple of his buddies one of his dad’s .45 automatics. No Roy Rogers matinees for a very long time after that, and a serious feeling of being considered untrustworthy. His father was not a hobby shooter, John Naile had learned, but a dead shot when he needed to be.  
    That was proven once and forever when they walked into a bank together and the bank was being robbed. John Naile hadn’t even known his father ever carried a gun on his person, but suddenly a little pistol just appeared in his father’s right hand and the bank robber went down with a single shot in the throat.  
    That was the first time—John Naile was twelve—that he had realized that there was more to his father than met the eye.  
    “Why are we going to the bomb shelter?” John Naile plopped his gray fedora on his head,