“Why don’t you buy one of those medical alert buttons instead?”
The laughter came from behind the glass counter.
Seventy-two-year-old Benjamin Mercer stood beneath the fluorescent lights of Ridgeway Sporting Arms, holding his faded canvas cap against his chest.
Three young employees were looking at him.
The tallest one leaned against a display case with his arms folded. He wore a tactical vest over a black shirt, though he had no practical reason to wear either inside the store.
His name tag read KYLE.
Beside him stood a broad-shouldered clerk named Mason, who had spent the previous ten minutes discussing ammunition specifications loudly enough for every customer to hear.
The youngest employee, twenty-one-year-old Noah Briggs, remained near the cash register.
He was the one who had made the joke.
“I’ve fallen,” Noah continued in an exaggerated elderly voice, “and I can’t find my pistol.”
Kyle laughed harder.
Mason tried to suppress his smile and failed.
Benjamin did not react.
His expression remained calm.
Not blank.
Calm.
There was a difference, though none of the young men possessed enough experience to recognize it.
Benjamin placed his cap on the counter.
“I asked for something dependable for home protection,” he said. “Something that can be secured beside the bed.”
Kyle studied him from head to toe.
Benjamin was tall, though age had bent his shoulders slightly forward. A thin silver mustache rested above his mouth. Deep lines crossed a face weathered by desert sun, mountain cold, and decades of waking before dawn.
His hands looked old.