As Spur steps to the line, a framed "doorway" of the saloon, he holds his empty double-barreled shotgun at port arms. He is now under the control of the timer operator, who holds an electronic box next to the shooter's ear. (It records both time and each shot in case there is a dispute as to how many rounds were fired.) The timer says, "Whenever you're ready," and Spur exhales a last breath, then utters the setup line that starts the clock: "I said no guns in town!"

At the beep, he loads the shotgun with shells from his belt and sends two quick blasts into metal knockdown silhouettes 10 feet away, reloads deftly, and fires two more, generating an acrid cloud of blackpowder smoke. With unhurried motions, he steps to a "buggy," stows the shotgun, and picks up the staged rifle. Now he's jacking and firing so fast that at any one moment there are three empties suspended in the air. He shoots 10 rounds at five targets. The rifle joins the shotgun in the buggy, and he slaps leather: five rounds from each six-gun-ba-ping, ba-ping, ba-ping. The report of lead against steel comes so fast it sounds as if he's shooting a machine pistol. He uses the Cooper grip, two hands, supporting hand under the trigger guard, arms extended and elbows slightly bent to absorb recoil. He cocks the hammer with the thumb of his off hand. Later he will tell me that he can fire five rounds in one second and that the black powder creates so much smoke that he has trained himself to fire at the memory of targets rather than at the targets themselves. Some shooters can identify others shooting nearby by the cadence of their shots alone.

"Twenty-four ninety-seven, clean!" bellows the timer, meaning he hit all targets in 24.97 seconds. It's a good time-the best so far. Spur is decidedly hot today. He comes off the line almost dripping adrenaline, shaking the tightness out of his hands and smiling broadly as another shooter takes his place. "Good round, Spur," somebody calls to him. "Smoking 'em!" another says. "Yeah, Dad!" calls his daughter Little Star (a.k.a. Sydney Dominy). She is 14, still eligible to compete as a junior, but has chosen to compete against adult women. She started cowboy shooting at home when she was 5. The smoke wafts into the crowd of shooters waiting their turns. A range officer escorts Spur to the unloading table, where he will eject the spent brass from his revolver and stow his empty guns under more supervision. "I'm doing real good so far," he says. "Just hope I can keep it up."

Sydney tells me this is a welcome respite from the cutthroat competition of school sports. "I play volleyball and track: cross-country, shot put, and discus. But school sports are supercompetitive. The coaches are hard on you, and any team will do whatever they have to do to win. This has some stress, too, but it's a fun kind of stress. You have your family and friends instead of a coach, and they're just really pulling for you. Everybody is here to have fun. Guys at school are sort of blown away when they find out I do this." Me, I'm just glad I'm not 14 myself. She is the kind of girl half the guys in school have a crush on.