Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/68594
Missouri River, always a capricious and often malicious waterway, is almost within rifle range, and with the memory of a monstrous flood in 1993 that turned The Valley into a vast lake, Finnell is ever conscious of the possibility his dream business could become a soggy nightmare. He has flood insurance, and there is a looming floodwall now between the Valley's many developments and the river. "I hope he has a big truck ready if the river starts to rise," said one potential customer. Floods aside, the building itself is insulated against most other calamities, especially criminal invasion – it's open by invitation only and is protected by an intricate security system. Once, by accident, Finnell activated an alarm button and shortly was surrounded by armed law enforcement while a police helicopter hovered overhead. He paid a fine for the mixup, but says, "I'd rather pay a fine and be safe . . . but I did tell them it wouldn't happen again." The highest-end guns luxuriate behind a vault door stout enough to defeat anyone. Finnell, who buys his firearms rather than featuring them on consignment, once bought two $47,000 guns, which caused his wife some anxiety, but both sold quickly. Beyond his passion for the young company, his love of big game hunting glows like an incandescent wick. For Finnell, the greatest lure in hunting is for something that is fully capable of hunting you. One such encounter was at the end of a three-week leopard and Cape buffalo safari in Zimbabwe. There had been a recent mauling by a leopard at an adjacent camp that had everyone on edge and extra cautious. "We walked in about a mile and a half to check on an impala bait. We didn't have a blind set up yet," Finnell recalls. "The tracker whispered, 'Bwana! Bwana! There!' The guide rose up and the leopard took off. The guide said we'd come back later that evening and I said, 'No, this is the animal I want. I'll spend the whole day.' "We decided to move back about 50 yards from where the animal had seen us and set up a ground blind. After a whole day of waiting and glassing, suddenly the birds quit calling and you could have heard a pin drop. The leopard appeared exactly where we had been standing earlier that morning. He looked directly at us, but the sun was in his eyes so he didn't notice us." Finnell had trained for a frontal or side shot, but the animal faced away from him, a difficult shot. "I'm looking through the scope trying to decide where that apple- sized spot was that's his heart. My mind is yelling at me, 'don't make a mistake!'" Finnell set the crosshairs between the shoulder blades of the cat. "I squeezed the trigger SPOR TIN G CL ASSICS 96