Scott held the small rifle almost reverentially. He gently ran his hands over the stock before picking it up and squinting down the sight. Instantly he was transported back in time.
He had been eight. It was a long, hot summer in Kansas, and Mom had been really ill. This pregnancy was worrying him, Mom had never been ill with Gordon, and he was too young when she was carrying John and Virgil, so yeah, Scott was worried. Dad had packed the three oldest off to spend their summer vacation on the farm with Grandpa and Grandma.
It was awesome. He easily fell back into the old routine he'd had the last time he had stayed, and this time he was old enough to help out around the farm. Feeding the chickens and ducks now was Virgil's job, John's job was to help with the horses and his? He helped with the pigs and with the fields.
He came down early one morning – early for city folk, late for farm folk – and found Grandma had packed a picnic lunch for him and Grandpa, but not for his brothers, and he was to hurry out to the truck as Grandpa was waiting.
Carrying the basket out and climbing into the old beat-up, used-to-be-blue-but-now-no-idea-what-colour-it-is pickup, nothing was said as they drove away. They drove for quite a while before Grandpa stopped and turned to Scott.
'Scott, you be growing up to be a fine young man, and it's about time I taught you to shoot. Your Pa was your age when I taught him how to shoot, and I was eight when my Pa taught me.' To the adventurous child this was so exciting!
For the remainder of the week Grant took Scott out every day and taught him how to handle the rifle he'd gifted him. It was a vintage rifle, passed down the Tracy line for generations. It should have been his dad's, but Grant had known since his boy was young that it would not. He only hoped that one of his grandkids would want the farm.
John wouldn't, he was too much like his father – head all filled with knowledge and learning and books and stars. Virgil might, but then last summer he'd become vegetarian when he'd watched Grant kill the chicken for Sunday dinner. But he did love the farm and the machinery used in the farm.
Scott, well, Grant was unsure about his eldest grandson. He was as adventurous as his boy had been, possibly even more so, and all he talked about was flying, but there was a core to Scott that was all family even at his young age, so Grant nestled a hope that once all that flying was out of his system Scott would return to the farm, the seat of the family. Every Tracy did.
Scott learnt how to load and unload, how to shoot a moving and still target, how to clean his gun until it was gleaming, how to use a scope. But more than that, Grandpa made sure he knew about the sanctity of life, even of the pests that destroy the green wheat like the jackrabbit does, or the destructive behaviour of deer. That mountain lions and bobcats rarely caused harm to the farm and could just be left to go about their business as long as the animals were safe. That there were times that shooting was permitted and times that it is not, even on the farm.
The second week John came out with them, curiosity getting the better of the boy and his thirst for knowledge needing to be sated. It transpired that John was a natural, hitting targets with the frequency of a far more advanced student. Scott for that matter was no less accurate, and Grant found himself marvelling that an eight- and seven-year-old could out-shoot him. He found that hilarious.
The third week Virgil joined in. He didn't want to shoot, declaring killing animals something he was not willing to do, but he wasn't averse to shooting at the target range. He understood the need to keep the farm pest-free and to have protection, particularly against bears and coyotes if they needed to. Just don't ask him to do it.
By Virgil's eighth birthday all three boys were proficient and couldn't wait to show their parents.
After that, every stay at the farm had Scott out with Grandpa and his gun. They sometimes had long chats about the past, about how the farm had grown and practices had changed, how Grant had grown up on the farm, left it for a life of adventure only to return seven years later to take over. Scott learnt about the history of the state he grew up in during those precious years in a moving and vibrant way, far more than he learnt at school. He learnt to track and hunt cottontails and jackrabbits, deer and coyote. How to read the ground and the nature around him to see what creatures passed by in the night. How to see a rattler in the wheat.
Scott sighed and put the rifle down carefully. Those days were a lifetime ago, a time that he couldn't see anything further than flying and returning to the good ground he had been raised from. Now look where he was.
John had never taken the shooting further than that one week, and that had come as no surprise to anyone. Virgil kept his hand in occasionally on the range Grandpa Grant had set up, but once their Grandpa had gone he'd stopped too.
Gordon and Alan had never had the opportunity, but Scott had ensured that Gordon at least had the opportunity, the fourteen-year-old teaching his eight-year-old on their own farm, gifting him the rifle and trying to teach him as Grandpa had taught him.
Gordon was another natural, with an uncanny sense, being able to hit targets at a distance that astounded Scott, and he had in turn gifted his most treasured possession to his brother. This was a personal and private connection that was just Scott and Gordon, no one else, and both brothers relished the time together, continuing right up until Scott left for university.
It had not come as any surprise when Gordon declared his interest in joining WASP. The boy was more Fish than Pilot anyway, and Scott in particular helped argue Gordon's corner that he could get his college education whilst training better than he could if he was forced to attend college. Smart he may be, academic he was not, and their father readily agreed to the option.
When Gordon showed off his shooting skills only Scott was unsurprised. They may both be military, but while Scott could and did use his gun, it was not a focus of his training since he was airborne for the majority of his military career. Gordon, though, was more land/sea based, and as such used hand weapons much more.
It soon became evident that Gordon could out-shoot any of them with the rifle, with the possible exception of John who refused to take part in the game. Scott didn't mind at all, he was proud of his brother and secretly pleased that he had been able to share in that training, passing on generations of knowledge that was now still being used.
He didn't know that Gordon still had her. Scott chuckled when he remembered a serious nine-year-old Gordon explaining to his 15-year-old self that all guns were female and needed names, and that he was going to call his Bessie after the sturdy ancient horse they all learnt to ride on, because the rifle was ancient and sturdy and taught generations of Tracy's. He'd been quite touched at the earnestness of his brother.
Of course, being a crack shot with a rifle didn't always equate to a good shot with a handgun, and Scott still remembered the first time his father and Brains had introduced the four oldest to the new tranq guns International Rescue were going to use. There would always be a need to defend themselves and their equipment from harm, and this had seemed the best option.
Jeff changed his mind after seeing his sons perform through the obstacle course they had set up as a training challenge. Virgil managed to shoot himself in the foot, John had flatly refused, but Gordon…
Scott and Gordon were behind a door, knowing that somewhere behind that door was their father, waiting to shoot them. As the door swooshed back, something made Gordon jump and he fired. Shooting Scott in the back. At point blank range. Thankfully, the tranq was short-lived, but the bruising was livid for quite a few days, as was the ribbing he was subjected to from his brothers.
No, iR had other ways to keep it's operatives safe. And if on occasion either Scott or Gordon needed to call on their military histories, if on occasion that also required their skills with firearms, well no one was going to mention it.