Staff photos by JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Steve Mayer hides behind one of 100 bunkers at Cull Holler Paintball as he watches for opponents making their way up a hillside.

David Atkins shows off the welts left from a game of paintball. Players at Cull Holler cannot shoot within 10 feet of an opponent and must wear masks and operate their guns at safe firing speed.

JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Cull Holler owner Jerry Calvert (left) points out the boundaries with teammates Charles Barnitz (center) and Jeremiah Keeler. Calvert opens his land to paintballers every other Sunday.

SOMEWHERE NEAR TROUTVILLE -- There's a battle raging in these Botetourt County hills.

Men in combat fatigues are sprawled behind piles of logs and in makeshift bunkers, aiming their rifles. There is a constant pop pop pop of small arms fire. Every now and then, someone screams:

"I'm hit!"

The ground turns slowly red.

And yellow. And blue.

Welcome to Cull Holler Paintball.

Every couple of Sundays, a dozen or so guys load up their guns, which are called "markers" in politically correct paintball parlance, descend into this little valley, choose a bunker -- and smack the living daylights out of one another with spattered paint.

What is paintball? Paintball is many things. It is serious and silly, frightening and funny.

In the grand scheme of things, it may represent humankind's ultimate victory over its apparently uncontrollable desire to shoot holes in things, including people.

Paintball is hunting without the death, and war without the blood. Paintball, like war, has guns and bullets, winners and losers -- but in the end everybody gets together to grill burgers and tell stories. Nobody and nothing dies.

Or, as area paintballer David Atkins puts it: "You get to shoot your buddy -- and still be friends afterward."

Surely, this is progress.

'Nice people'

People play paintball all over the place -- sometimes on a very large scale.

They play it in many countries. Some take it very seriously indeed. There are paintball re-enactions, called "scenarios," of battles from the Civil War and from World War II. There are even paintball hand grenades, paintball cannons and paintball tanks.

The paintball warfare here among the oaks and sycamores, however, is on a smaller, more intimate scale.

Jerry Calvert, who owns 62 acres of Botetourt County land, opens part of it up to paintballers every other Sunday at no charge. They often follow their battles with a meal charcoaled on his makeshift grill.

"I've met a lot of nice people doing this," Calvert says.

Calvert, an easy-going Botetourt County elementary school teacher, first played paintball in West Virginia back in the '90s. He liked it so much, he decided to give it a try at home.

First Calvert built bunkers out of logs and boards and metal scraps, for the future combatants to hide behind. Then they sent out a call for players.

That was six years ago. Cull Holler -- the name for the valley is a private joke -- Paintball has been going ever since.

The paintballers on this summer Sunday come from all walks of life. Calvert is a teacher; Atkins, a respiratory therapist. Kyle Inman, who calls him self the Cull Holler Paintball "webcaster and spiritual adviser," works in advertising. The youngest paintballer is 13-year-old Deion Morgan; the oldest would be Calvert, at 47. Inman is actually 50 -- but he's only watching this day. Most of the Cull Holler paintballers are from the Roanoke Valley, though several come from as far away as West Virginia, Calvert said.

There is at least one other paintball field in Western Virginia, Calvert noted. Big Pearl Paintball Inc. is a Christian-based field in Glasgow, according to its Web site, www.bigpearlpaintball.com. Equipment rentals are available, and the entry fee is $15.

Paintball 101

Here are a few things you may not know about paintball:

The candy-colored balls, which explode on contact, making a bright mess, aren't really made with paint. A paint ball, which is about the size of an acorn, packs a sticky biodegradable substance in a gelatin capsule. Its color comes from food dye. It does no permanent harm to the environment, paintball enthusiasts say. (The scuffling boots of paintball warriors may do more.)

Paintballers wear masks to protect their eyes and faces from the balls, which come out of their "marker" barrels at up to 300 feet per second. At Cull Holler, the balls often catch on twigs or branches and explode before reaching their targets, making bright little streaks in the sky.

Exploded paintballs wash out of clothing and off one's skin with little effort. The goop is so easy to wash off, in fact, that people have been known to wipe it off their clothing in the field and pretend they were never hit. Such people are known as "wipers," and it is not a compliment. People who have been hit are supposed to leave the game.

"You get a reputation for that, you're not very welcome," Atkins says of wiping. Other rules vary from place to place, but standard safety rules require the use of safety goggles and limit the velocity of paintballs to less than 300 feet per second. In addition, most paintball fields -- including Cull Holler -- require plugs in the barrels of guns between games, so that paintballs cannot be shot accidentally.

Some paintball players play a version of "Capture the Flag," in which the goal is to seize an objective before the other team can. The Cull Holler paintballers have a flag, but usually nobody gets to it, Calvert said. There is just too much paint flying around.

In fact, the style of play at Cull Holler might best be described as "total war." The paintballers shoot at one another until all the players on one side have been splattered; at that point, the other side wins. Battles at Cull Holler have a 20-minute time limit. After that, everybody -- win, lose or draw -- takes a chat-and-water break before the next battle begins.

OK, now for the $50,000 question: Does it hurt to get shot by a paintball?

"Not too bad," says Atkins, rolling up one sleeve of his fatigues to reveal a couple of major welts.

Ouch!