The RECKONING: A Jess Williams Western (35 page)

             
They pulled up at a local motel in Cody, and checked into a small but clean room. They had planned to go to the Wild Bill Hickok Museum the next day, but in the morning they slept in too late and decided to continue on to Arizona. They headed out on highway 14/16 and when they reached Wapiti, they came to a sign that caught Dave’s attention—‘Old Guns of the Old West.’ The sign was in the yard of a big white house just off the highway. On the sign it also said—‘five bucks.’ He decided to stop and check it out. Jean stayed in the car. Dave knocked on the door and a small man who looked to be in his sixties opened the door with a big smile on his face.

             
“You here to see the gun collection?” asked the man.

             
“If that’s okay,” replied Dave. “I always love to see old guns, especially from the Old West.”

             
“Well, come on in. My name is Steve and I have some real neat stuff, but it’ll cost you five bucks to see it.” Dave paid him five dollars, which the man put in his front pocket.

             
“I got the stuff in my basement,” said Steve. “I collected some of it myself, but a lot of it came from my Uncle Henry who collected guns right up until his last heart attack several years ago.”

             
Dave followed him down to the basement and he was quite impressed. Steve had several tables set up and covered with white cotton material and next to each item was a postcard with a description of the item. There were three saddles sitting on homemade wooden stands and the sign next to one said—“Last Saddle used by Jesse James.” Dave wondered about that one. There were several old rifles, a dozen pistols dating back to the eighteen hundreds, and several holsters. Dave took a few pictures. Then, he noticed a stand in one corner of the basement with a fairly long glass case. Steve noticed Dave’s eyes focusing on the glass case.

             
“That’s my best piece. Never saw anything like it before. My Uncle Henry said it was given to him by his lifelong friend, Jess Williams, Jr., who passed away several years before Uncle Henry. Dave walked over to the glass case and when he looked down inside the case, he froze as stiff as a tree.

             
“Oh my God!” Dave exclaimed, his voice trembling.

             
“I know,” said Steve. “It don’t look like any pistol from the eighteen hundreds, but my Uncle Henry said he first seen it way back in 1925 when he first met Jess Williams, Jr.” There was no response from Dave so Steve walked up next to him and looked at Dave, who was just staring down at the gun and holster. The holster was laid out lengthwise and the pistol was lying flat between the belt of the holster and the strap for the leg. It was the holster that had mysteriously disappeared from his locked gun safe. He was certain of it.

             
He looked at the pistol very closely, almost placing his face on the glass. He could just make out the stamping on the one side of the gun. RUGER BLACKHAWK .41 MAGNUM. The custom, hand carved stag horn handles were a little beat up, but they were as beautiful as the day he had picked up the gun from Bob Graham four years ago.

             
There was no logical explanation for what he was looking at, but yet there it was right before his eyes. The gun and holster both showed signs of wear and looked old, but it was the same gun and the same holster. There was no doubt about it in Dave’s mind. Dave must have stood there for five minutes thinking about the gun and holster and how it had disappeared that fateful day. He looked up from the case and looked Steve in the eyes. Steve had a worried look about him.

             
“Are you all right, mister?” he asked.

             
“I’m not really sure,” replied a visibly shaken Dave. “Steve, you’re not going to believe this.”

             
“Believe what?”

             
“This gun and holster that you have in this case is the gun and holster I bought four years ago and it disappeared on the same day I bought it. This is the first time I’ve seen it since.”

             
“You mean you purchased one just like it?” asked Steve.

             
“No, Steve.
This
gun, and
this
holster,” replied Dave emphatically. “I had this gun built by a custom gun builder by the name of Bob Graham. This holster was made for me by Bob Mernickle, of Mernickle Custom Holsters. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.”

             
“It can’t be,” refuted Steve. “I first saw this gun back in 1967 when my Uncle Henry first showed it to me and told me he would give it to me for my collection when he passed on, which was in 1969. I’ve had the gun ever since, right here in my basement in that glass case.”

             
“You said your Uncle Henry got the gun from a Jess Williams, Jr.?” asked Dave.

             
“Yeah, he got the gun from him back in 1959 when Jess Williams, Jr. passed away,” replied Steve. “Jess Williams, Jr. was given the gun and holster on the day his father, Jess Williams, passed away back in 1921. That’s an interesting story all in itself the way my Uncle Henry told me.”

             
“What was the story your Uncle Henry told you?” asked Dave.

             
“Well, as the story goes, Jess Williams, Junior’s father, found the gun mysteriously hanging up in the barn way back in 1876 when Junior’s father was only fourteen. He never figured out how it had gotten there, it just seemed to appear out of nowhere. The strange this is, this happened just after the murders.”

             
“What murders?” asked Dave.

             
“Back in 1876, Jess Williams’s entire family was brutally murdered when he was just a boy. I guess it was quite horrific. They tied his ma up in a doorway and raped her and cut her up so bad you wouldn’t believe it. They even gouged one of her eyes out. They shot his pa out in the field. The story is they ambushed him and he never had a chance. The worst part though, is the little girl, Samantha. I guess one of the guys who did the killings took her in the barn and did things to her that you wouldn’t think any man would do to a little seven-year-old girl. When he finished with her, he beat her up and shot her in the head.

             
Well, Jess was crazy with hate and revenge for the men who killed his family and he went hunting for the men. Jess had gotten pretty good with his pa’s gun; but when he used this gun and holster he found in the barn, he found it gave him an advantage that no other man had. He had a gun and holster that seemed to be designed for a quick draw. That, combined with plenty of practice and a burning desire to hunt the men down, made Jess Williams truly the fastest man on the draw in the Old West, although the history books don’t even mention him. As a matter of fact, Jess Williams turned to bounty hunting and was never beaten on the draw, ever. He finally settled down in 1899 and Jess Williams, Jr. was born in 1902. Jess Williams, Jr. and my Uncle Henry became friend’s early on in life and that’s how Uncle Henry came by the gun and holster. So you see, this can’t be the gun and holster you had four years ago. This gun has been in my family for over forty years and I’ve had it here in the display case since 1969.”

             
Dave had listened to this whole story and somehow, in a strange sort of way, it made some sense to him. This Jess Williams had somehow found his gun back in 1876 in the same mysterious fashion that the gun and holster disappeared in 2002. And Jess Williams had a burning need for the gun, more than Dave Walters needed it, and they both needed it for the same reason, to be the fastest man at drawing and shooting a pistol. It was almost as if, in some unexplainable and unimaginable way, Dave had done something to help Jess Williams find justice in a land and a time that didn’t see much of either. Yes, in a strange surreal sort of way, it made sense to Dave. He had lost an expensive gun and holster, but something good had come of it. He wished he could have met Jess Williams.

             
“Steve, I’ll bet you five bucks that I know the serial number stamped on the other side of the gun, as well as the serial number on the back side of holster,” Dave challenged.

             
“How could you possibly know that?” asked Steve. “I’ve never met you before and you’ve never been in this basement before.”

             
“What if I told you that the serial number on the gun is 40—01079?” asked Dave. Steve had a strange look on his face. He reached inside his front pocket and got a set of keys. He unlocked the case and picked up the gun and turned it over. He read the numbers off, not believing what he was seeing. 40-01079.

             
“I don’t understand,” exclaimed Steve. “How can this be? How could you possibly know that? This gun has been locked in this case since I put it in there in 1969.”

             
“Now, turn over the holster and you’ll find the serial number stamped in the leather. It will be SN020679 and it will also have the name BOB MERNICKLE CUSTOM HOLSTERS and MADE IN CANADA stamped on it,” Dave challenged.

             
Steve turned over the holster and it was exactly as Dave said it was. The serial number was exact. Steve was absolutely and totally dumfounded.

             
“I just don’t understand,” muttered Steve. “How could you possibly have known that? I’ve never met you before and I’m sure you’ve never seen this pistol and holster before. My Uncle Henry never displayed it or showed it to anyone except family as far as I know.”

             
“Steve,” Dave asked, “Do you believe in destiny and fate and all that?”

             
“I sure do, always have.”

             
“So do I.” replied Dave.

             
“Well, what do we do now?” asked Steve, a little worried. Dave simply put his hand out.

             
“I guess you owe me five bucks,” replied Dave. Steve took the same five-dollar bill that Dave had paid him and Dave put it in his front pocket.

             
“Are you going to make a claim for the gun?” asked Steve, a worried look forming on his face. Dave didn’t have to even think about it for even one second.

             
“No. I believe things happen for a reason,” he said bluntly. “I think Jess Williams was destined to have this gun and I simply played a small part in his destiny. Some things that happen in our lives, no matter how unexplainable, are best left unchanged, don’t you think?”

             
“Yes, I believe that’s true,” replied Steve, with a look of relief.

             
Dave thanked Steve again and headed up the stairs. As he walked down the driveway to the car he thought about how destiny had intertwined the fate of both his life and Jess Williams’s life together in such a strange way. He got in the car and closed the door. His wife Jean looked up at him.

             
“Dave, are you okay?” asked his wife, a worried look on her face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

             
Dave let out a sigh. He decided right there he wouldn’t tell his wife what he had just seen. She probably wouldn’t believe him anyway. She still often wondered about his sanity after his claim that the gun simply vanished into thin air.

             
“I’m fine,” replied Dave. “Maybe it’s the altitude. I’ll be fine.”

             
“Well, was it worth the five bucks?”

             
“Oh, yes. I would have paid five hundred bucks to see what I just saw.” Jean looked at him, puzzled. He offered no explanation. He knew better than to try.

             
Dave started the car and drove down the driveway and back onto highway 14/16. As he drove, his thoughts turned to Jess Williams, the bounty hunter and fastest draw in the west. He could picture him wearing his gun and holster and beating the bad guys to the draw. Then he pictured himself there in Jess Williams’s place, back in the old days, shooting it out with the best and always the man standing in the end. As Dave hit the first hill going into Yellowstone Park, his wife looked over at him and noticed he had a strange smile on his lips.

             
Dave was imagining he was facing down some bad guys in the Old West, and he had Jess Williams’s gun and holster and…

Read all the books in the Jess Williams western series

The Reckoning

Brother’s Keeper

Sins of the Father

The Burning

The Dodge City Massacre

Hell Hath no Fury

The River Runs Red

Death Dance

Blood Trail

Badge of Honor

Long Guns

Wanted

Tin Man

Retribution

Hired Gun

Hunted

Resurrection

In Cold Blood