Powderfinger - The events are clearly occuring somewhere in the American South. The young fella with the rifle probably belongs to a family of moonshiners, and is watching as a police or government revenuer launch approaches his family's dock. He's not sure what to do. The sensible thing to do would be...run! But he's an inexperienced kid, so he hangs in there, as if paralyzed or fascinated, and keeps watching as the boat draws inexorably closer. Government boats have numbers on the bow. This boat has a large gun of some kind on it, and it fires a shell when it gets within range....he sees the shot coming (you actually can see artillery shells or cannonballs in the air sometimes for just a moment...I've see actual film of that from WWII...specially with a fairly low velocity artillery piece)...he raises his rifle in a futile gesture of defiance and is blown to kingdom come, along with much of the dock he was standing on.

That's my take on it. One more little guy rubbed out by the big system.

- LH