SMALLEST FASTEST SLOWEST.

OLDEST NEWEST LOUDEST GREATEST.

HOTTEST COLDEST STRONGEST.

As his father had known he would be, Henry was fascinated. He had never heard of such a book. "Thanks, Dad!" He gave his father as forceful a hug as he could.

"A little on the dry side, don't you think?" A listing of unrelated facts was not Catherine Bowman's idea of the ideal book to curl up with at night in a comfortable chair.

"We'll see if it bores him," her husband said with a laugh. Both of them knew their son well enough to know that was the last thing that was likely to happen.

"Can I go to my room now?" Henry asked. His parents both nodded. He ran up the stairs clutching his new treasure.

Henry Bowman spent most of the afternoon poring over the Guinness Book. The Table of Contents listed various categories such as The Natural World, Human Achievements, Man-Made Objects, and the Animal Kingdom, which made it easy to find interesting areas to explore. It was also the first time Henry had ever used an index, and he was delighted at his discovery that he could dream up something and then find it immediately.

He was thrilled when he saw that what his father had told him was confirmed by this book: The tallest known man in the world had lived just across the river from them in Alton, Illinois. His name was Robert Wadlow, and he had grown to a height of 8'10" before he died. Walter had met him, as the two men had shared the same doctor. Henry learned that other people had claimed to be much taller, some insisting they were over ten feet, but would always be proven wrong when they were measured. When he read this, he got goose bumps as a revelation struck him. Teddy Block at school tells lies, but some grownups do it too! If you don't know someone really well, you need to get the proof, no matter how old they are!

As Henry continued searching, he saw that many people had made claims that they could not back up, but the Guinness Book only accepted records that were proven.

As he was looking through the section on sports records, his mind began to wander. The listed times for running and swimming various distances didn't mean anything to him, and he was about to go back to the section about thinnest and heaviest people when the word Shooting caught his eye. My Uncle Max shoots clay pigeons, and rifles and pistols too he thought excitedly. I'll look up the best shooter and next time he comes over I'll ask if he's ever met him.

Henry examined the information listed but it was in the form of a table, and the types of competition were confusing. Free pistol? Running deer? What kind of contests were these? Further, all of the record-holders were from other countries. It was not nearly as compelling as the photos of weight lifters or the descriptions of men who had survived falling from airplanes without a parachute. He continued to look through the section about guns and shooting when another item grabbed his attention.

Block-Tossing. The world record for shooting a rifle at 2" wooden blocks thrown into the air is 72,491 (nine misses out of 72,500 thrown) by Adolph Topperwein (U.S.), accomplished over a 12-day period at the San Antonio, Texas fairgrounds in 1906.

Revolver. The greatest rapid fire feat was that of Ed. McGivern (U.S.), who, on August 20th, 1932, at the Lead Club Range, S.D., twice fired five shots in .45 seconds at 15 feet which could be covered by a silver half-dollar.

Henry completely forgot about the world's biggest ship or fastest airplane. Five shots from a revolver in less than a half second. A man who used a rifle to shoot over 72,000 wooden blocks, and only missed nine. And it took a week and a half to do it! Ordinary people did these things. Henry felt shivers run down his spine. I wonder if my Uncle Max has heard of these men. He continued looking through the section on guns and shooting when he came upon another interesting item: Highest Caliber. The largest guns made were 2-bores. Less than a dozen of these were made by two English wildfowl gunmakers about 1885. Normally the largest guns made are double-barreled 4-bore rifles weighing up to 26 lbs., which can be handled only by men of exceptional physique.

Henry read the words over and over. He knew that wildfowl meant birds, and that the 2-bores described were shotguns. But a 26-pound rifle! ...can be handled only by men of exceptional physique. The words gave a powerful jolt to his imagination. Henry thought of his father lifting their new refrigerator on his back and putting it in the kitchen. Dad could shoot one of those. So could Uncle Max. Maybe Uncle Max even has one!

Henry Bowman closed his eyes. He was grown up, holding the enormous double-barreled rifle to his shoulder. The corded muscles in his arms stood out under tension as he held the rifle firmly in position, both eyes open. As he pulled the t rigger, a deafening roar filled the air and he was rocked backwards by the recoil. Smoke and flame belched out of the gun's muzzle, and a hole he could stick his thumb into with room to spare appeared in the dead tree. Chunks of dead wood exploded out the back side of the tree as the huge bullet exited. He brought the rifle back down out of recoil, leaned forward, and pulled the trigger a second time. Once again the huge rifle thundered, and the hole in the tree enlarged slightly as the second bullet went in almost right on top of the first. He lowered the rifle and smiled with satisfaction.

Henry opened his eyes, stood up, and walked downstairs to ask his parents when Uncle Max was going to visit. The six-year-old had no way of knowing that double rifles like the 4-bores mentioned in the Guinness Book had dual triggers, not the single trigger he had imagined. Apart from that minor error, Henry had accurately seen into the future. Something else had happened, as well.

Henry Bowman had just become a member of the gun culture.

June 6, 1959 "Going to miss hunting with you, Ray." The owner of East Bay Sports smiled as he spoke to his younger friend. "Never had a customer before or since that knew as much as you about reading sign or where the likeliest spot was to find game." East Bay Sports was Gene's attempt to give sportsmen in the Boston area an emporium similar to Abercrombie & Fitch in New York City. He had come pretty close, and Raymond dropped in often when he was free. He liked Gene a lot.

"When I came here from Colorado in '55,1 was afraid that everything would be so built up there wouldn't be any good hunting at all." Ray grinned at his friend.

"You're as bad as these folks around here that think everything west of Pennsylvania is a vast wasteland." Gene was originally from New Mexico. He changed the subject. "Listen, as a kind of graduation present, if you want anything before you leave, I'll give you twenty percent off anything in the store, ten off any guns here on consignment. I got to make a little something on you," he added with a chuckle. It was well known that the fee for all consignment sales was twenty percent.

"That's very generous of you, Gene. You sure you want to do that? Your prices have always been very reasonable, to my way of thinking." Ray did not like the idea of taking advantage of their friendship. The owner shrugged and leaned on the glass-topped display case filled with flyfishing paraphernalia. "You taught me a few things these past four years about tracking. Anything you buy, I can replace." "Not the stuff on consignment."

"Hell, that doesn't matter. If it's still in the rack it's obviously not a real hot item. You got something particular in mind?" The older man looked at Raymond with keen interest.

Raymond nodded and gave a small smile. "I got a little money as a graduation present from my uncle yesterday. I'll take the Holland."

A broad smile creased the face of the store owner. "Now why did I have an idea you were going to say that?" He walked away from the gun case and over to the picture window in the front of the store. Cradled in a horizontal rack in the center of the display was a Holland & Holland side-by-side double rifle in caliber .600 Nitro. The gun was ornately engraved and weighed 14 1/2 pounds. Above it was a sign that Gene had made. He had hoped it would help sell the gun. The rifle had been owned by an elderly man who had commissioned it from the famous London gunmaker prior to World War I. He had died five months ago, and neither his widow nor his daughter had any attachment to the beautiful rifle. It had been on consignment for three months and had failed to attract a buyer. Raymond looked at the large sign.

Largest Rifle Ever Made Holland & Holland .600 Nitro Express With Fitted Leather Trunk case And 250 Rounds Of Ammunition

$800.

Gene lifted the rifle out of its stand and handed it to Ray for perhaps the fifth time in three months. Raymond threw it up to his shoulder with a fluid motion. His face laid easily on the stock's cheekpiece and the sights lined up instantly with his right eye. "Whoever had this built years ago must have been my size. The stock fits just right. It would be really frustrating if it had too much drop, or some other fault that would be hard to change."

"Think you'll make it to Africa?"

Ray shrugged. "Some day. Law school comes first. Then I've got to get established. But I think that before I'm thirty-five I should be able to afford a decent safari." He swung the big rifle up to his shoulder once more, imagining that an angry cape buffalo was fifteen yards in front of the muzzle. Another customer walked over and joined the two men. He was in his fifties, and had come in to pick up some twenty-gauge shotgun shells.

"A little too much gun, don't you think?" Ray and Gene turned to look at the man.

"No such thing as too much gun when the game weighs six tons and is likely to decide to kill you," Ray said. "Gene's sign in the window isn't quite accurate, though. This .600 is the largest modern, smokeless powder rifle ever made. Back in the late 1800s before cordite was invented, the Brits built some much larger black powder rifles. I saw a picture of an 8-bore double rifle once that must have weighed eighteen pounds," Ray said easily. The newcomer snorted.

"You an African hunter, son?" the man asked with more than a little scorn. Raymond paused to look the man straight in the eye before replying.

"Not yet." The man looked slightly chastened and took a different tack.

"Well, that thing's awfully expensive and heavy. Winchester makes their Model 70 in .458 Magnum now, and it holds four shots and probably only weighs half of what that English gun does, if you're really serious about hunting big game. And a bolt action will take a lot more pressure than that side-by-side there." The man's confidence level was returning as he continued to talk. Raymond smiled benignly.

"That's one opinion. The other side to that argument is that high pressure bolt-action loads can also mean sticky case extraction in an African climate. No big deal if you're shooting a deer a hundred yards away. Not the same thing if it's something dangerous at twenty feet.

"The .458 does duplicate the power of some of the medium-sized English double rifles such as the .450 Nitro, just like you said. No bolt action that I know of, though, will throw a sixty-two caliber bullet like this rifle will. It has been my experience, on large American game at least, that big, heavy bullets kill more reliably and cleanly than smaller ones.

"I also like the fact that with a double rifle, you essentially have two complete rifles that are already loaded. You have a second shot as soon as you can pull the gun down out of recoil, and if something breaks, like a firing pin, you can continue to reload and shoot the remaining good barrel. A broken firing pin in a bolt action in Africa will get you killed.

"Last of all, and the Winchester rep would shoot me if he was here, the Model 70 is mass produced for American hunting. Ninety-nine percent of them are thirty caliber or smaller. If they occasionally balk when you work the bolt quickly, which I have had them do, or if they sometimes fail to extract, which I have also had them do, it's a minor irritation for someone on a deer or elk hunt. In Africa, it's a disaster.

"Winchester went and put a .458 barrel on the same action and the same stock as their .270 and they call it an African rifle. In the four years that I've known Gene, he's sent back three Model 70s in .375 caliber that split their stocks from recoil. I suspect their new .458 is going to be an even worse warranty problem for Winchester if any customers actually shoot it very much, as anyone serious about hunting Africa would." He hefted the Holland again and stared at it.

"This rifle was designed and built by a company that has supplied professional market hunters in Africa for over a century. I'd feel a lot more confident with it in my hands than a tarted-up deer rifle." Raymond handed the gun to Gene and reached in his pocket for his money clip. He peeled off $800 and handed the bills to his friend. After a moment's deliberation, he turned back to the other customer.

"Gene's too polite to say it, but if this was my store and some loudmouth came in and tried to kill a sale on a rifle that cost half as much as a decent car, I'd tell him to go buy his shotgun shells at the local hardware store and never come back." The older man's jaw dropped. Then he turned on his heel without a word and went to the clothing section of the shop.

"Hey, I'm sorry, Gene. For four years I've listened to fools like that give advice when it wasn't wanted, and I'm going home in tomorrow, and I just couldn't help myself."

The owner laughed softly. He was biting his lip so that the distant customer couldn't hear. "You only said what I wanted to. You got to realize, though, a lot of people operate on envy. Guy like that," he said, nodding towards the back of the store, "he would never spend the money to buy a rifle like this, let alone the cost of a safari, no matter how much he has in the bank. Even if someone gave it all to him, he wouldn't have the nerve to go. Guy like that gets very uncomfortable at the notion of a young fellow like you who intends to make it happen. Makes him feel like going out with his box of skeet shells isn't any fun any more." Gene's face took on a sad expression.

"Problem is," he went on, "people like him, they get half a chance, they'll do their level best to screw it up for anyone else. You got to watch out for them all the time. Envy and resentment are terrible things." He took the bills to the cash register, rang up $720, added sales tax, and gave Raymond his change. "You want all the ammo now, or should I keep it here until you're about to leave?"

"Keep it and the rifle, too. I'm moving out of my room tomorrow and won't have anyplace to store it before I go. I'll be by around noon day after tomorrow, if that's okay."

"I'll be here all day Monday."

Raymond looked pensive. He chose his next words carefully. "I shouldn't have unloaded on that poor guy. He was just talking. I doubt he cares one way or another what I or anyone else does with his money." "I hope you're right. But there's a lot of envy out there. Just hope you never find yourself under the authority of someone with a big dose of it."

Raymond Johnson left East Bay Sports and walked to his car. In a few minutes, thoughts of seeing Colorado again would push what Gene had said from his mind. Over thirty years later, he would remember his friend's words as clearly as if they had been tattooed on his flesh.

It was moments like this that made him wish he had become a dermatologist in California instead of an obstetrician in New York City. He looked down at the pitiful thing to which the Gutierrez woman had just given birth. The baby girl's head was unusually small, and only smooth skin was visible where her eyes should have been. He pinched off the umbilical cord and slapped the baby on the back to get her breathing. She made a faint sound, but her lungs did start working.

The doctor realized immediately that the baby girl was blind and brain damaged, and it filled him with great sadness. He wished her respiratory system were equally defective, to save the family some long-term heartbreak. He'd seen enough babies to know that this one would almost certainly live, if that was indeed the proper term for a body without benefit of a spirit.

He looked down at the barely-conscious woman on the delivery table, and made a quick decision. "Take over for me here," he instructed the attending nurse. "I need to tell the father." He pulled his mask down and walked out of the delivery room.

The young intern watched the tired, hopeful face of Pedro Gutierrez collapse when the maintenance man saw the look in his eyes.

That day was one of the few that the young doctor truly hated his job.

The big man and the little boy walked into the showroom on Olive Street, and Henry's jaw dropped. Wow! I've never seen so many guns in one place before-not even at Uncle Max's. In addition to rack upon rack of rifles and rows of glass cases displaying pistols, there was a full size mounted polar bear standing midway between the front door and the far wall. The walls that did not have gun racks on them were covered with framed photos of men and women. Some were shooting, and others were smiling at the camera, kneeling next to game animals. A very pleasant aroma was faintly present also. It reminded Henry of a workshop .

"Welcome to Goodman's," said the man behind the counter. He was short and rather pear-shaped, with round glasses, a prominent nose, and curly black hair that was starting to turn grey.

"Al, this is my nephew Henry Bowman. He's my sister Catherine's son, he's six years old, and his summer vacation just started. Henry, this is Al Goodman. He and his brother Harold own this place." Henry stepped up and shook the man's hand once, using a firm grip as his father had taught him. Al Goodman's handshake felt as if the man were unconscious.

"Pleased to meet you," Henry said politely. He could not help looking away from the mild-looking owner and staring at the wealth of fascinating sights throughout the store. Al Goodman had a knowing look on his face. He had seen this happen before.

"Is Henry here to get his first rifle?" Al asked mildly. His voice had a nasal quality, but it was not unpleasant. A rifle? Henry thought with a start. That can't be right.

"Not just yet," Max answered. "But we'll be back for that before too many more years go by. I thought I'd introduce Henry to this place, and you and Harold, and maybe see if there isn't a pocketknife or two he'd like to have. He also wants to look at a gun he read about, if you've got one in the store."

"Well, the knives are over here." Al walked to the glass display case at the end of the row, nearest the front window of the store. Henry walked over and peered into it. There were more than a hundred different knives, ranging from small folding penknives to large hunting blades. Henry's eyes were drawn to a massive Bowie knife that was the center of the display. Its blade gleamed like a mirror.

"This is one that every boy should have," said Al in a monotone, pulling a box out of the case and laying it on the glass top. Henry felt mild disappointment at the small size of the box, but he opened it and pulled out a medium-sized folding knife with red sides bearing a white cross. He turned it over in his small hands, examining it. It had several blades folded into it on one side, and a spiral device folded into the other.

"Swiss Army Knife," Al Goodman explained, taking the knife from Henry and opening the main blade and then the smaller blade. "Has two sizes of knife blades, one for general cutting and the other for delicate work." He folded them back and opened another blade with his thumbnail. "This is a standard-size screwdriver, and this part," he said, pointing to the curve d cutout on the side of the screwdriver blade, "is a bottle opener." Henry immediately recognized that it was exactly the right shape to open soft drink bottles, and a huge smile came over his face. Al closed the blade and opened another. "This one is a small screwdriver," he said, touching the blade's tip, "and this part is a can opener." Al continued with his presentation. "Here you have a Phillips screwdriver, this is a leather punch, and this curly thing here is a corkscrew, for opening wine bottles. Yo u can lend it to your Uncle Max when he gets thirsty," Al added, deadpan.

The Bowie was forgotten. Henry was enthralled. It will fit in my pocket, and I can take it anywhere! Whenever we have sodas outside, people are always looking for the opener. And Dad has to go to the basement whenever he needs a screwdriver upstairs to fix something. Henry imagined reaching into his pocket and pulling out his knife when his father needed to open a soda bottle or tighten the thing on the screen door that made it close slowly instead of slamming.

Henry didn't see Max Collins roll his eyes. "Don't you want a real knife, like this one here?" the big man asked. He pointed to a large, stag-handled folding knife with two blades half-opened for display and nickelsilver bolsters on each end. The word CASE was etched on the larger blade. Al Goodman reached in and withdrew it. He placed it on the glass next to the multifunction tool.

Henry stared at the knife. It was very impressive. He licked his lips and looked back at the red pocketknife. "Maybe you'd like a larger Swiss Army Knife," Al droned, pretending not to notice Max Collins' pained expression.

"Larger!" Henry said reflexively. The store owner withdrew another cardboard box from the case and opened it. He handed Henry a knife similar to the first one, but twice as thick.