As I mentioned last year (ye gods, has it really been over a year since I started work on this?), I have a story with the working title "Three-Line Rifle". I say it's the working title because I had a very good reason for using that title when I started writing, but now I don't think it fits anymore. Allow me to explain by quoting an old blog post:
While it's true that the Mosin-Nagant is called the three-line rifle due to the way the Russians would determine the bore of a weapon by comparing it to a set line and the M9130 required three of them, that's not the reason for the title. No, the real reason, as mentioned in Part 2, is that Grandmother Rifle has been in Bronia's family for generations and my tale will tell the story of three of them: Bronia's use of the rifle for Team Bogatyr; her grandmother Avdotya's exploits with it during World War 2; and great-grandmother Praskovya's adventures with the Night Witches in World War 1. Essentially, it's a story about three family lines of service to Mother Russia and the rifle that binds them all together.Three women, three story lines, Three-Line Rifle. That's how it was supposed to work, and my ambitious plan was to write the stories of all three women and intertwine them together. And if this had been a short story, that could have worked.
Instead, 3LR has blossomed into a novella of currently 19,000 words and a projected total of 25-30,000. Trying to tell three independent stories would probably make it a 100K word monstrosity that I don't know when I'd finish and might be confusing and frustrating to read. At this point I don't know what I'll do with the other two stories; maybe I'll write them later as sequel-prequels, or maybe I'll leave them as back stories and keep writing in the present. Either way, I'll need to change the title to something else. Maybe The Grandmother Rifle Chronicles or something.
But first I have to actually finish writing this story, and I've been in a bit of a slump lately. After giving it some thought I've decided that what I really need is some enthusiastic encouragement from readers, so I will release this chunk of story -- originally published on Patreon for patrons only around this time last year -- for free so that all my subscribers can read it and enjoy it.
This segment is the "origin story" of the story's protagonist, so it's the ideal introduction to my world (which might be somewhat familiar to fans of a certain action-horror series, but hopefully it's unique enough to be its own creature).
At the bottom there is a glossary of Russian words.
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| Image found on Pinterest. |
Three-Line Rifle: Origin
I stood at the gate to the private shooting range out side Volgograd, the rifle case in my right hand heavy and nearly as tall as I was. It was a bright sunny spring day, the air crisp with the sharp smell of gunpowder, the high caliber gunshots cracking with such intensity that I could feel them through my body... or maybe that was just my heart, threatening to burst from my chest.
I took a deep breath in the hopes it would stop my giddiness, but instead I just grinned broadly. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared or filled with self-doubt; this was something I knew I could do. This was where I belonged, and no mouth-breathing neanderthal would tell me otherwise.
“Go away, little girl,” sneered the neanderthal in his striped tank top. I knew that shirt was military issue, the color of the horizontal stripes indicating how he served, but I could never remember if light blue stripes meant marines or Spetsnaz. All I knew was that this Ivan Drago caricature, with his close-cropped hair and bulging neck muscles, was going to let me inside to shoot one way or another. “Private range. Professionals only. Invitation only,” he emphasized.
I nodded briskly, setting the heavy rifle case down on the gravel driveway with a slight crunch and began digging through my suddenly bottomless purse. “Good, we finally agree on something… aha! Here it is.” I pulled out a sheet of folded paper and tried to give it to him, but he just arched a bristly eyebrow. “My invitation.” It made flapping noises as I waved it up at down at him.
He just sneered and laughed at me. “We don’t print invitations, little girl. What are you, press? Some sort of activist? Or maybe just a range bunny looking to score?” He leered at me through broken teeth that would make a hockey player envious. “Whatever you are, we don’t want you, so kindly fuck off.”
I sighed. Before I’d left home for university, baba Praskovya had given me little sachet of dried herbs for my protection. “Boys,” she told me, “often don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. When that happens, throw this in their face and run away.” I took the sachet from the pocket of my purse where it had lived for the past four years and, hoping that it would work just as well against a man who wouldn’t say ‘yes’, I tossed it at his eyes. He wasn’t expecting it, so I had the element of surprise in my favor, but frankly I didn’t know if the herbs would still work after so many years.
In fact, I didn’t even know what they would do, although I was reasonably certain they wouldn’t turn him into a pig or strike him stone dead, because Mama had gotten into a row with Baba over excessive force the first time a boy had broken my heart. Baba wanted to roast him alive and serve him as our Sunday dinner, but Mama finally convinced her that such a thing just wasn’t done this century, and that a curse involving explosive diarrhea in front of the entire school during a slow dance with his new girlfriend would make me happier.
It did, by the way.
The sachet ruptured in a puff of scented powder – pepper and blueberries, maybe? – and unsure if stripey would be on my heels or not, I quickly picked up my rifle case and tottered into the range as fast as I could manage. Gravel crunched under my feet as I stumble-ran down the slight incline, the volume of the gunfire increasing through my pink electronic earmuffs with each step. Once I was within shouting distance of the uniformed men on the wooden platform that delineated the shooting lanes, I risked a look backwards and saw that stripey was still standing there, looking befuddled. I had a brief pang of regret over what I’d done, but I needed this opportunity.
“Hello!” I shouted to the closest man, tall and lean with a waterfall of chestnut hair to his shoulders that contrasted nicely with his black tactical uniform. “Hello! I’m here for the Bogatyr tryouts!” I waved my printed invitation overhead to catch his attention as I trotted towards him on unsteady feet.
He turned and gave me such a grin of amusement that it nearly wrecked me. I’d seen that look before; it was the look men gave to women they thought were cute but incompetent. And in my defense, I am quite cute, especially when my auburn curls frame my face on a good hair day. It’s just that today I wanted to be thought of as competent as well, which is why I was wearing jeans, a turtleneck sweater and boots to a shooting range instead of a dress and heels.
“Well hello,” said chestnut as he walked over to me, his tone that of the indulgent, patient babysitter. “And who might you be?”
I set the rifle case down, winced as it made contact a bit too quickly, then straightened up to my full height and stuck out my right hand. “Bronislava Artemievna Vinogradova, here to shoot qualification for the Bogatyrs.”
He bent at the waist to bring his head closer to mine in a gesture I chose to interpret as polite instead of patronizing and took my hand in his. It was covered in a thin shooting glove but was surprisingly warm. “A pleasure, Bronislava Artemievna. I am Grigori Maksimovich Markov, but please call me Grisha.”
I beamed. “Only if you call me Bronia.”
He smiled broadly and we shook on it, striking the deal. “Well then Bronia, would you please tell me what you’re doing here?”
“She is leaving,” said an angry voice behind me. I whirled, narrowly preventing stripey’s ham-sized fists from landing on my shoulders, and fell into my best fighting crouch.
“Dima, relax,” Grisha said to stripey in a mollifying tone. “I have this. Go back to the gate.”
“She’s a child!” he countered, un-mollified.
“She’s an adult who knows who we are and where we were shooting qualification, despite the fact that we don’t advertise such things. She’s also wearing ear and eye protection, and based on the size of her case I think she has a hunting rifle with her. If she belongs here I’d like to see what she can do, and if she doesn’t belong I’d like to learn how she learned of us.”
Grisha touched my upper arm with his fingers to get my attention, and I relaxed enough to take my eyes off this Dima person and look at him. “What do you say, Bronia? You tell us how you knew we’d be here, and if we like what we hear we’ll let you shoot. If we don’t, I – not Dima, but I – will escort you off the premises. Sound fair?”
I nodded, and the neanderthal stomped and swore in irritation while Grisha called over another man, tall and thin with a bearing like a university professor despite his narrow, tidy uniform. “Bronia,” Grisha introduced, “this is our leader, Anatoli Sergeievich Fyodorov.” He inclined his head in my direction. “Anatoli Sergeievich, this is Bronislava Artemievna Vinogradova. She wishes to shoot for us.” The man reminded me of every headmaster I’d ever had, and I felt the inexplicable urge to curtsy before him.
“How curious,” said the Professor as he eyed me through round-framed glasses that looked like they came from the Soviet era. “I have never heard of her before, and I contact all potential recruits myself. How does she know of us?” He asked this question without taking his eyes off me, as if I might fly away like a scared dove at any moment.
“An excellent question,” Grisha said, turning to look at me, and in reply I noisily waved my invitation at both of them. He took the paper and unfolded it for all to see.
It was an illustration of a young woman sitting on a bench, listening to music on headphones while three zombies menaced her from behind. The ones to either side of her had bullet holes where their eyes used to be, and the third zombie, much smaller with its body obscured by the woman’s head, had a single bullet hole through its nose. At the bottom were the words “5 shots, No misses, 1 km range. Witnessed by me, March 11 2018.” The signature read “Maxim Burov”.
Grisha let out a low whistle. “Maxim Burov, the competitive shooter?”
“No, the freestyle skier,” I snarked, then immediately regretted it. “Da, the shooter. I went to see him compete, and afterwards I asked him if he would sign my target. After he saw me shoot it!” I hastily added.
“Mhm,” said the Professor through tight lips. “And how did you hear of us?”
“Family connections, Anatoli Sergeievich, sir. My grandmother Avdotya was a sniper in the Great Patriotic War and earned the Order of the Red Star. Since then our family has taken pride in our marksmanship as well as our service to the Motherland.” My words became a torrent, rushing out nearly faster than I could think them, so eager was I to have them believe me. “Most recently, my uncle Petya fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and after a few drinks his tongue would loosen and he’d talk about his time in the Hindu Kush. He'd tell stories about the men in white robes who didn’t show up on thermal and who disappeared into smoke, and of sighting Barmanu in this distance, and the one time his unit was attacked by a lion the size of a bear but it had a man’s face and shot shrapnel from its tail. They killed it with an RPG! One of my father’s comrades from the war, Mr. Azad İlkin, still hunts bears and… other things… along the northern border. I believe you contacted him years ago, and he gave the letter to uncle Petya. I found that letter while growing up and knew from the moment I read it that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Everyone in my family has shed blood for Mother Russia and this is how I want to serve, if you’ll have me.” I was practically hyperventilating when I finished and I flushed with embarrassment. Very smooth, Bronia, I chastised myself. Very professional.
Grisha and Dima looked at me, then to each other as if they were trying to process rapid-fire Morse code, then to the Professor whose stoic expression told me nothing except that he was absorbing this information. “Azad İlkin is known to me by reputation,” he said at last, “and your uncle’s stories match the descriptions of the jinn and martichoras of the Kush.” More silence followed.
“Very well,” he said at last, “I find your application acceptable. You may shoot your qualification. What did you bring?”
An idiot grin split my face. I knelt and opened the hard plastic rifle case, slightly scuffed from where I’d set it down too hard, and once I lifted the oilcloth from the weapon inside the stripey neanderthal behind me guffawed. “A Mosin-Nagant? Bozhe moi, she brought a bolt-action rifle old enough to be her grandmother! And she thinks she can join Bogatyr with that relic?”
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I whipped my head around and gave him my best glower. “Grandmother Rifle,” I said slowly, making sure he could hear each word of her name being capitalized, “is the weapon my grandmother used alongside Aliya Moldagulova, the Hero of the Soviet Union, at the battle of Novosokolniki.” With loving hands I lifted her out of the case and rose, still glaring at him. “She has been in my family for generations, passed down from mother to daughter. If you disrespect her then you disrespect my family and all that we have done for Mother Russia, so choose your next words very carefully.” I did not point the rifle at him, although I dearly wanted to do just that.
Dima tensed and scowled, his mouth opening to say something, only to be interrupted by Grisha. “Such passion! Love for family and country is a core value of the Bogatyrs, wouldn’t you agree, Dima? Of course you would,” he continued without stopping, “and so you clearly meant no disrespect to this young lady’s ancestral rifle. I, for one, would love to see what she can do with it. Don’t you, Anatoli Sergeievich?”
The Professor nodded in clinical assessment. “Yes, quite. But in due time. First to pistols.” He gestured to the 25 meter lanes on my left, took a few steps and then stopped to see why I wasn’t moving. “If you would follow me please?”
I blushed a deep crimson. “Anatoli Sergeievich, I am ashamed to tell you that I do not know how to shoot a pistol.” Dima guffawed again, meaner this time, like the bully on that American cartoon The Simpsons.
“I see,” said the Professor. “And what do you know how to shoot?”
I hefted Grandmother Rifle, smiling weakly. “Just this. But I assure you, I am a very good shot with it.”
Grisha came to my rescue. “With respect, Anatoli Sergeievich, if she knows the fundamentals of shooting a bolt-action then bringing her up to speed on modern rifles is easy. Pistols are harder, of course, but then - ”
“Why are you so eager to make excuses for this brat, Grisha?” Dima spat. “Looking to get your khui wet?”
“What did you just call me, Vadim Andreievich?” Grisha shot back, anger in his voice for the first time.
“Gentlemen, please,” said the Professor in a tone of mediation. I took the opportunity to slowly back out of the impending argument and quietly made my way over to the shotgun field, Grandmother Rifle slung over my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” I said to the woman who was standing next to the pigeon thrower and smoking a cigarette. Her long dark hair was tied back in a severe bun and she’d taken off her fatigue blouse, showing a black t-shirt with the words ‘Yob tvoyu mat’ written in a glittery font. She looked older than Dima and Grisha, though not as old as Professor, and looked so very tired that I thought she subsisted on coffee and nicotine. “Can you tell me what’s behind the range that way?” I nodded in the direction the clays would be thrown.
“Just forest,” she muttered, her cigarette bobbing with each syllable. “Miles and miles of forest.” She took a long drag and glowered at me, blowing smoke through her nose like an angry bull.
I put on my most friendly expression and stuck out my hand. “Hi, call me Bronia.”
She looked at my hand like it was rotten, then turned back to look at whatever she was staring at before. “Irina Aleksandrovna. What do you want?”
This was not going according to plan. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the three men headed my way. I had to act quickly.
“Irina Aleksandrovna, I realize this will sound very silly but if you will just turn on the pigeon thrower I promise you that it will deal a devastating blow to Dima’s ego, and from his behavior I think you’d enjoy that.” I tried, and failed miserably, to keep the wheedling tone from my request.
She looked me up and down, then at my slung rifle with a scowl of disapproval, then to the men, then back to me. She shrugged in an exaggerated gesture. “Eh, why the fuck not. Either way, I get to laugh at someone.” She turned the machine on while I took five rounds of 7.62x54R ammo from the nylon pouch on Grandmother Rifle’s stock and thumbed them into the magazine. “Say when.”
“Don’t wait for me,” I said as I took a firing stance. “Just pull whenever it amuses you.”
The tosser thunked as it hurled a clay into the air in a long, low arc. Grandmother Rifle came alive in my hand, quickly finding the pigeon in the 3.5x PU scope and then leading it, compensating for drop and distance to target. “Bang,” I whispered, and Grandmother Rifle echoed my sentiments with a sharp crack and a hard shove against my shoulder. Even braced, she kicked hard.
The bullet took the clay through the middle and it disintegrated in midair. “Again,” I said to Irina, as I worked the bolt to chamber a new round.
Thunk. Bang. Crack. Shatter.
“Again!” Thunk. Bang. Crack. Shatter.
“Again!” I shouted, but this time she fired off two clays, one high and one low. I shot the low one first, then searched for the other one while I worked the bolt. I managed to find it just before its slim form dropped below the tree line and fired. The bullet clipped the pigeon on its rim and it tumbled into the ground. It wasn’t a clean hit, but it still counted.
“Bitch!” I laughed as I ejected the last spent round. “Two at once? You fucking bitch!”
I must have won her over, either with my skill or my daring, because she grinned back at me. “I’ve been called that before. You, though, can call me Irka.”
“You fucking Irka?” I quipped, and we both laughed.
The three men were beside us now, the Professor looking like he’d eaten something sour and the younger two with their mouths open. “How?” asked Grisha.
“The power of family,” I replied, then addressed Grandmother Rifle in their presence for the first time. “Mosinka, hover.” I dropped my hands and she stayed in place, hovering in midair like duck bobbing on the surface of the water.
“Vedma!” cried Vadim.
“Yes,” I agreed with him but addressing to the Professor. “I am a witch, from a long line of witches who served the Motherland, and I can be your witch if you’ll have me. There are worse things out there than us, and I want to help you fight them.”
The Old Professor considered this for a moment, then turned to Grisha. “Grigori Maksimovich, she has enormous talent but precious little skill. If we take her on, it will be in a diminished capacity until she is brought up to speed, and you will be the one responsible for teaching her. Are you willing to do this?”
“Oh hell yes,” Grisha said. “I’ve always wanted to apprentice someone in the sorcery of sniping. She just has to promise not to eat me,” he added with a wink.
“The first joke is free,” I winked back. “Then I start measuring you for an oven.”
Glossary
Spetsnaz: Russian Special Forces.
Baba: Granny. The formal version is "babushka".
Bogatyr: Russian version of a knight-errant.
Da: yes.
Bozhe moi: Oh my god!
Khui: Colloquialism for the penis.
Yob tvoyu mat: Literally, "Go fuck your mother."
Mosinka: The diminutive form of "Mosin." Grandmother Rifle is a Mosin-Nagant, so her nickname in Russian is Mosinka in the same way that Bronislava's nickname is Bronia.
Vedma: Technically "wise woman," but colloquially "witch".
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