2008-9-19 05:32:00
by Ted Dewey
The following morning Henry got up bright and early. There was work to be done and very little time in which to do it. He put the old single-barrel shotgun over his shoulder and headed for the machine shop.
It had been late in the afternoon when the chopper had set them down in The Valley of Hope. It was too late to start his new project, he thought. After a good night's sleep he would be ready.
Now he had come to a decision that there was no simple easy way to get into that shed. They would just have to arm themselves with the best tools available, and get going.
This old single-barrel shotgun seemed to be the only answer. Put some sort of a silencer on it so that when he blew the head off that pointed eared monster of a dog, it wouldn't wake the whole neighborhood, and the results would be quick and painless. That brown-eyed devil would never know what hit him!
He put the old gun down on the workbench and studied it carefully. A silencer on a shotgun.... He had seen them on pistols and rifles but never a shotgun.
He must build a device that slipped over the end of the barrel -- something like the muffler on a gasoline engine. Something that would let the shot go through but muffle the sound.
He picked up the old gun, broke it at the breach, held it up to his eye and looked down the barrel. It was bright and shiny.
The moment the shot emerged from the front it would start to spread. At ten feet it was very little. At fifty yards: it covered a pattern of about six feet in diameter.
A silencer should extend at least a foot in front of the muzzle, he thought, and the inside of it would be large enough for the expanding shot. But how much would that be?
There was one sure way of finding out, he concluded. He pocketed a shell, picked up the gun and glanced around the building. Over in one corner of the room was a small cardboard box. This should do very nicely, he thought. There would be no guesswork on this project. He picked it up and headed for the door.
The air car was parked in front of the shop. Better not do any shooting here he thought. He placed the gun and other items in the seat, crawled under the wheel beside them and took off.
About a half mile off the creek the road passed through a sandy embankment. He drove to this place, shut off the motor and got out. This experiment would only take a minute or so.
After the test, Henry was surprised as to how little the shot had spread. At the distance of one foot the hole in the cardboard box was only a quarter of an inch larger than that of the gun barrel.
Henry had never built a silencer before, but he assumed that he could use the same principle as that of an automobile muffler.
With this information he believed he could now build a silencer that would do the job. He drove back to the shop and went to work.
The thing was quite simple to make. The inside of it was slightly larger than the outside of the gun barrel. He built it of light sheet metal. Through this he bored several rows of holes about an inch apart. The outside was another tube about two inches in diameter.
There was part of a roll of rock wool insulation left over from building his house. He fitted a piece of this between the two layers of metal and then soldered the two round pieces of metal with a hole in the middle to each end.
He then removed the front sight from the gun and slipped the contraption over the barrel. It was a good tight fit and took a little tapping with a wooden hammer to get it on a couple of inches.
Finally it was ready. He put the gun to his shoulder and looked over the top of the metal silencer. If he aimed about an inch high it would be right on target, he thought.
The shop door opened and in walked Rodney Goldsmith and Oran Thomas. "I see you are hard at it," Rodney grinned. "And how is your project coming along?"
Henry lowered the gun and stood it up beside him.
"What in the world do you have there?" Thomas asked.
Rodney's smile grew larger, "I'll bet I can guess."
Henry blushed, "I just finished the darn thing. Don't know how it will work, but we can give it a try."
"What in the world is it?" Thomas asked.
"A mad dog killer," said Rodney. He held out his hand, "Mind if I take a look?"
Henry handed him the gun.
"You sure did a neat job," Rodney commented. "I hope it works. Do you think a shotgun is better than a rifle?"
Henry nodded. "Much better. A shotgun at close range will kill anything that walks. At fifty feet it will tear a grizzly bear to pieces. And you don't have to be right on target either."
Rodney patted the gun then turned to Thomas. "This baby," he said, "should take care of one of our biggest problems. Mainly that pointed eared Doberman that is chained to that doorstep, and at the same time not wake-up the whole neighborhood."
Thomas took the gun from Rodney and gave it a good looking over. "I don't know much about silencers but I'll bet it works. Why don't we go give it a try?"
"Where will we go?" Rodney asked.
"Why go anywhere?" Henry took the gun and slipped a shell into the chamber. He walked over to the wall opened the window then stepped back a couple of paces. He put the gun to his shoulder and pointed out the window.
"See that big rock over there on that hillside?"
Both men nodded.
Henry pulled back the hammer with his thumb then pulled the trigger.
Startled by his actions both men clapped their hands over their ears.
The gun bucked against Henry's shoulder and shoved him back a couple of feet. There was a loud WHOOSH. Dust arose from the rock on the hillside. The room smelled of burnt gunpowder.
Henry lowered the gun and grinned. "Now what do you think?"
Both men were amazed. Once again Henry was a hero. The gun had made so little noise that the men with their hands over their ears heard nothing.'
Henry leaned the gun against the wall. "So much for that," he said. "Next I am going to build an ax, something like the firemen use so we can cut a hole in that metal wall and insert the lighted bomb.
I have helped put up several of those sheds and I know just how they are built. They are made of aluminum and have metal studs sixteen inches apart. A few good swings with the right tool will give us an opening. We will have to work fast for he could have several alarm systems. We'll have to get out of there in a hurry."
Both men nodded in agreement.
"I reported to Oran everything that happened," Rodney told Henry, "right down to the last detail. I told him about the letter in the mail box and everything in it. He agrees with us that the shed must go, regardless of what it takes with it."
Oran Thomas nodded. "It is purely self-defense gentlemen. They moved on to our property here and built a clubhouse and an arsenal. We destroyed that, and, as you know, that also was an act of self-defense. If we had not done this very likely we would all be dead by now. Yes gentlemen that shed must go!"
"According to that letter we borrowed from the mail box," Rodney told him, "some guy from Chicago who signs his name with just an 'A' will arrive in Phoenix at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. He is also bringing his 'boys' with him. Just how many he didn't say."
"It will probably take them a couple of days to get organized then they will strike," added Henry.
Rodney began pacing up and down the room. His anger was rising. "That dirty bastard," he said, "is a licensed pilot. And I would bet most anything that he intends to rent a good sized chopper out of Phoenix to do the job!"
Oran Thomas nodded in agreement. "Then that shed," he said, "had better go tomorrow night."
Rodney nodded: "That is our plan. We will take off just as soon as Henry is finished with his ax."
-- End Of Chapter Thirty-One --
Copyright © 2008 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved