I watched the visible flags, then moved my focus to the canyon walls.
A pale ribbon of dust climbed near the southern cut.
A scrub branch halfway up the ridge shook against the prevailing flow.
Two birds crossed the canyon, dropped suddenly, and corrected upward.
The hidden current was there.
It was stronger than it had been during Briggs’s relay.
I adjusted for distance, density, spin, and the rising cross-current.
Then I waited.
Hale shifted behind me.
“Problem?”
“No.”
The air changed every seventeen to twenty-three seconds.
The operators had been firing when the near flag settled, believing the lull extended downrange.
It did not.
The lull at the firing line arrived just before the middle current peaked.
I waited through the calm.
Then I fired.
The report snapped through the canyon.
A moment later, steel rang.
“Hit,” the spotter called.
“Center left.”
No one celebrated.
One impact could be luck.
I cycled the action and watched the dust ribbon.
Second shot.
“Hit.
Center.”
Third.
“Hit.”
Hale folded his arms.
On the fourth round, the southern current weakened.
I reduced the hold and fired before the near flag moved.
“Hit.
Center right.”
Briggs lowered his binoculars and looked at the canyon rather than the target.
He had begun to see the pattern.
Rounds five and six struck steel.
The seventh landed low at the edge.
“Hit,” the spotter said.
Hale stepped forward.
“Barely.”
I stayed behind the rifle.
“Steel does not grade pride, Colonel.”
A few eyes shifted toward him.
The eighth round struck near center.
The ninth followed.
Before the tenth, I lifted my head from the stock.
“Sergeant Briggs, what do you see at the southern cut?”
He raised his glass.
“Dust climbing against the main flow.
Maybe eight feet per second vertical, pushing east at the top.”
“And the target basin?”
“Almost still.”
“So where is most of the correction?”
He studied it for another second.
