The shooting at Mattie Devore’s party is the armed attack on Mattie’s home on Wasp Hill Road that ends with Mattie mortally wounded and one of the masked attackers identified as George Footman. Its decisive turn is both domestic and public: an evening organized around Mattie, her daughter Kyra, and their guests becomes a violent assault, while George Kennedy’s measured return fire stops the attackers’ escape and brings the identity of one assailant into the open.

Background and Attack

Before the gunfire, Mike Noonan has settled on a decision and is looking ahead to spending the night with Mattie. Kyra is asleep, and Mattie is directing men who have brought things into the trailer. The attack interrupts this ordinary, expectant scene without warning. Mike hears rapid automatic fire and understands that the sound is gunfire, not thunder.

A car that Mike has seen pass the property once turns back for a second approach. A masked shooter leans from its passenger window and fires toward the trailer and the people outside. The shots shatter a salad bowl on the kitchen table and strike John Storrow, Rommie Bissonette, and George Kennedy. Mattie is near the overturned barbecue, and Mike runs out from the trailer as the gunfire stops.

George Kennedy’s Return Fire

The attackers attempt to drive away in a blue Ford, knocking Mattie’s rural mailbox from its post as they pull onto the road. Though wounded, George Kennedy walks toward the departing car rather than rushing after it. He steadies his pistol with both hands and fires five deliberate shots: the first two hit the trunk, another breaks the rear window, and the fifth punctures a rear tire.

The Ford veers off the road and overturns in a ditch about thirty yards below Mattie’s trailer. It catches fire, trapping the occupants’ escape route and forcing the passenger to struggle out through the window. The scene has reversed: the attackers’ drive-by assault had left the people at the trailer exposed, but George’s gunfire halts their departure and gives him control of the confrontation. He continues watching the car and reloading even as he bleeds from his leg.

Mattie’s Last Moments

Mike reaches Mattie and finds her gravely wounded. John and Rommie are also injured, while George remains standing nearby. Mattie’s attention is fixed on Kyra: she struggles toward Mike and repeatedly tries to ask about her daughter. Mike holds her and tells her that Kyra is safe, asleep, and fine. Once she understands, Mattie stops straining toward the child and collapses onto the grass.

Mike stays with her as a storm gathers overhead. He recalls that he had meant to come to her that night, and he rocks her while the nearby grass burns in small patches from the overturned barbecue. His recollection of her dancing earlier in the evening stands in stark contrast to the scene before him. Mattie’s hand briefly reaches toward his neck, then falls still. The shooting therefore ends not simply with the assailants’ car wrecked, but with the death of the person the attack has gravely wounded.

Revelation and Aftermath

After the car overturns, George Kennedy confronts the surviving passenger and demands that he remove his mask. The man does so: he is George Footman. The identification turns the masked attacker into a known opponent and confirms that the shooting is not an anonymous roadside incident. The driver, still inside the burning car, cries out once and then falls silent.

George orders Mike to find something to bind Footman, explaining that his own bleeding limits how long he can hold him. Meanwhile, John has fallen unconscious, Rommie is trying to stand, and George remains armed on the road. The arrival of the storm and the deserted highway frame the immediate aftermath as a crisis still unfolding: the attack has been interrupted, but its survivors must contend with severe injuries, Mattie’s death, the burning car, and Footman in custody.

Narrative Significance

The attack makes the cost of the custody conflict and surrounding hostility immediate and irreversible: Mattie’s concern for Kyra persists even as she is dying, and Mike’s response is to reassure her that her daughter is safe. The promised night between Mattie and Mike is displaced by a scene of rescue, loss, and attempted protection. Her final question is not about herself but about Kyra, giving the event’s violence a sharply intimate consequence.

The scene also hinges on a reversal of expectation. Mike has anticipated that the night might bring supernatural trouble, but the immediate danger comes instead from armed men in a car. George Kennedy’s deliberate shots then change the balance of power, while the unmasking reveals George Footman as one of the attackers. The shooting thus joins personal catastrophe to a concrete discovery: Mattie is lost, but the concealed identity behind the assault is no longer concealed.