Chapter 9: Gun Stores and Guns

  When leaving the car store, the boss saw that Ju An was alone and suggested going to a gun store to buy a gun for self-defense.

  "The main thing is not to prevent people from coming in, but there are bears and wolves on the mountain. After living here for a long time, you will get used to it."

  "I want to find someone to help me. I don't have any horses, cows or sheep on my ranch now. Where can I find people?" asked Ju An.

  "If you're looking for someone, there's a bar two streets down, the Shepherd's Bar. Old Billy inside should know, he knows all the good cowboys around here." The shopkeeper said after some thought.

  "Thank you, I think I may still need to trouble you with car problems in the future." Ju An stretched out his hand towards the shop owner.

  "It's alright, don't be polite. Cowboys helping each other out is a tradition here. I have a feeling that in just a few days, we'll meet again." The shop owner smiled mysteriously.

  Saying goodbye to the shop owner, after driving the pickup truck for a few minutes, they arrived at the entrance of the gun store mentioned by the shop owner.

  She carefully looked at the storefront, blue exterior paint, a large sign in front of the door, the sign read "Outdoor Goods Store", Ju An rubbed her head with some doubt, thinking if she had walked into the wrong place.

  There was no security guard at the entrance as I had imagined, and there were no iron bars on the windows. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary store, not much different from a convenience store in China.

  The car stopped at the entrance, and walked into the store with some suspicion.

  As soon as he entered the store, Ju An felt his eyes widening in amazement. The entire wall of the store was hung with various types of rifles, and even a machine gun was placed on one counter.

  There were all sorts of handguns on display in the glass counter, dazzling to the eye. What was most surprising was that as soon as you walked in the door, right in front of you were two sets of small, fully open counters, each little compartment containing rows of yellow bullets, giving off a feeling similar to those displays of dried grapes they sell at supermarkets back home.

  There were several customers in the store chatting with the staff, one of whom was explaining something to a customer while demonstrating, his hands skillfully disassembling and reassembling a gun.

  "Sir, is there anything I can help you with?" said a young man wearing a blue apron.

  "Want to take a look?" Ju An smiled at the young man in a friendly manner.

  "If you need anything, just call me," the young man said with a smile, and then continued chatting with other shop assistants.

  After looking at it for a while, I felt dizzy and saw stars. There were too many guns. Looking at them was like the hardware store in my hometown when I was a kid.

  Accidentally overheard a few shop assistants chatting in hushed tones, discussing whether I was here on vacation or not.

  He beckoned to the young man from earlier: "I want to buy a handgun and a hunting rifle, what do you recommend?"

  The young man smiled and asked Ju An: "What kind of gun have you used before?"

  "Basically haven't used many guns, used AK-47 a few times."

  "Oh, then I recommend the UPS 45 pistol, a police-used handgun," said the young man, taking out a pistol from a counter.

  Then the young man began to explain to Ju An, what manufacturer Hankler Kochi, what shooting accuracy, and then demonstrated how to disassemble the gun and load bullets by himself.

  After the explanation, the young man handed the gun to Ju An. Ju An took the gun and held it in his hand. Because the handle was made of plastic, there was no imagined metallic coldness, and a kind of excitement arose in his heart, which was hard to express.

  Open the insurance, pulled several times sleeve: "Is there a desert eagle here".

  "Some, wait a minute" The shop assistant walked a few steps and opened a cabinet door, taking out a shiny handgun, which was exactly the "Desert Eagle" that Ju An saw in the picture.

  Put down the UPS 45 and pick up the Desert Eagle, it's already domineering enough from the picture, but holding it in your hand is like becoming Schwarzenegger in a movie.

  The salesperson next to him introduced again, what is divided into two types of Mark VII and Mark XIX series. There are also differences in the length of the barrel and the bullets, and finally the salesperson suggested that if it is used as a self-defense pistol, the Desert Eagle has its drawbacks, with a large recoil and a small magazine capacity of only seven rounds.

  Then he asked the staff of the hunting gun store for recommendations, and the staff recommended the Remington 700 rifle, with a dark gray plastic stock and a shiny metal barrel that was exceptionally beautiful.

  "If you're satisfied, you can try it out at the shooting range in the back, sixty-six dollars for a hundred bullets," the young man enthusiastically recommended.

  Ju An nodded and followed the young man into the shooting range behind. As soon as they entered, they heard the sound of gunfire coming from inside nonstop. Upon looking around, there were indeed quite a few people inside.

  The young man brought Ju An to a position and placed several boxes of bullets on the shooting table, teaching Ju An how to load the bullets. Then the two people put on their ear protectors.

  Bang, bang, bang, the crisp sound echoed one after another on the shooting range. The heavy feeling in hand when firing, the bang of gunfire made people's blood boil.

  After trying two handguns in succession, Ju An decided to give up the Desert Eagle, the recoil was really big. Still very satisfied with the UPS 45.

  Then I tried the Remington rifle again, and it felt okay. So I put down the rifle and continued playing with the UPS45 pistol. The whole 100 rounds of ammunition took more than half an hour to finish, and was finally used up by the store employee. He also corrected my grip on the gun and shooting posture, how to aim, and basically accompanied me throughout the process.

  After coming out of the shooting range, Ju An asked: "I want to buy these two guns, what do I need to provide?"

  The young shop assistant smiled and said: "ID card, you also need to fill out some forms."

  Jū ān handed over his driver's license to him, and then he made a phone call with the driver's license. After about ten or so minutes, he came back and told Jū ān that everything was fine.

  "Can't you just make a phone call?"

  "The staff member smiled and said, 'Yeah, usually we just make a phone call to the FBI to confirm there's no criminal record, no history of mental illness, and that you're over 18 for long guns and 21 for handguns. Once the form is filled out, it will be submitted to the FBI to establish a file.'"

  Then he filled out a string of forms under the guidance of the young man.

  The young man then began to promote the bullets to Ju An, what five hundred rounds of discounts, one thousand rounds of discounts, and so on. Ju An then prepared one thousand rounds for each of the two guns.

  When he saw the young man take out the bullets, Ju An was a bit stunned, two small plastic boxes.

  The bill came out, and upon inspection, the handgun was $490, the rifle was $1,300 with a scope, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition were $800. The total came to $2,600. After paying by card, the young man enthusiastically helped Ju An move the guns to the car. Both the handgun and rifle had boxes, and a gun lock was also included as a gift.

  Pulling things, arrived at the Shepherd's Bar.

  Pushing open the door, I saw a sparse crowd of people. In groups of three or five, they chatted, while the entire bar was filled with wooden tones and old photographs hung densely on the walls around us.

  Some people glanced at Jian'an at the door and continued chatting.

  Walked up to the counter, casually found a stool and sat down.

  "Give me a beer," said Ju An to the white-haired bartender.

  The old wine keeper opened the back of the wine barrel dragon head, poured a cup of beer for Ju An and handed it over "First time here, come to travel, my name is Billy".

  "I'm not a tourist, I bought a ranch and I'm looking for some experienced cowboys, the car shop owner introduced them to me," said Ju An with a smile.

  "Oh, you bought a ranch somewhere? I hadn't heard about it," said Billy, casually picking up a towel to wipe down the bar.

  "The original Caomao Flower Ranch is now called Xishui River Ranch. I just bought it yesterday and had a drink of beer to celebrate."

  "That's a big one, now the ranch is not easy to manage, the price of forage has almost doubled" Billy thought for a moment, then smiled "That ranch are you planning to raise cattle or sheep, if it's cattle, over 10,000 heads of cattle is no problem".

  "I'm going to raise a few cows first and see how it goes, I won't raise too many for now, just over a thousand heads will do," said Ju An. "I want to hire a cowboy who understands pastures to help me, I'd like to ask if you have any good people to introduce, what's the monthly salary roughly?"

  "Nowadays, many ranches have changed to tourism, traditional ranches are getting fewer and fewer. Good cowboys with good skills now mostly rely on short-term work, insurance is extra, for $1,500 a month you can hire an experienced cowboy. If you want to find a cowboy for herding, $1,200 a month is enough." He then pointed at the several men in their fifties sitting there and said: "They are all good cowboys, that's Thomas, he has been working on ranches all his life, he has two sons who are also not bad cowboys, one of them seems to still be staying at home.

  Following the direction of Old Bill's pointing finger, Ju An saw a thin old cowboy wearing a white cowboy hat and sporting a thick white mustache in the shape of an "8".