Parnell Hall - The Wrong Gun

Steve Winslow leaned back in his chair, cocked his head, and looked across his desk at the man holding the gun.

Russ Timberlaine looked like he’d stepped out of the road company of Indians. He could have played Ned Buntline, Buffalo Bill or Wild Bill Hickok, no problem. His blond hair hung to his shoulders. He was dressed in boots, jeans, denim shirt, buckskin vest and cowboy hat. He was a tall man, say six-six, broad-shouldered and solid. Looking at him, the term cowpuncher came to mind. He looked like he could stop a stampede just by standing there and letting the cattle run into him.

Completing the picture was a hand tooled gun belt and holster. The holster was now empty, since Russ Timberlaine had drawn the gun.

“Know anything about guns?” Timberlaine said.

Steve Winslow shook his head. “Not a thing.”

Timberlaine glanced over at Tracy Garvin. “What about you, young lady?”

Tracy shook the long blonde hair out of her face, pushed her glasses up on her nose. She smiled. “Only what I read in books.”

“What kind of books?”

“Murder mysteries.”

Timberlaine grinned and shook his head. “Then you know about as much as the boss. Ninety percent inaccurate, those things are.”

Timberlaine chuckled, looked at the gun a moment, then turned it around and extended it to Steve. “Here, take a look.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’d better not mess with it.”

Timberlaine nodded approvingly. “Good man. I wish more people had that attitude.” He extended the gun. “Go ahead. Take it. It’s not loaded. I just say it is, ’cause you should always handle a gun as if it were loaded. If your reaction is not to touch it, you’ve got the right idea. Here. Go on. Take it.”

Steve took the gun, turned it over in his hand. Knowing nothing about guns, there wasn’t much for him to observe. It was a revolver, that he could tell. And it seemed to go with the Wild West image Russ Timberlaine was attempting to cultivate. It had what appeared to be wooden handles, though again Steve couldn’t tell if that’s what they really were.

Steve noticed a flaw on one of them. Looking closer, he saw that it was a scratch. He tilted the handle, made it more visible. Sure enough, the letter R had been scratched onto the handle of the gun.

Steve looked up to find Russ Timberlaine watching him closely.

“Well?” Timberlaine said.

Steve pointed. “This R on the handle. Is that for Russ?”

Timberlaine winced. “Hell, no. You think I’d deface one of my guns.”

Steve smiled. “Obviously not. So what’s the R?”

“The R is for Robbins. As in Pete Robbins. As in Pistol Pete Robbins.”

“You’re kidding.”

Timberlaine grinned. “Not at all. They really existed. The Kids and the Pistols. Hell, even the Deadeyes and the Two-guns and the Slims and the Reds. Anybody ever killed anybody got some kind of nickname laid on ’em.”

“Like Pistol Pete Robbins?”

“Exactly. Now that son of a bitch, Pistol Pete, killed five guys that they know of, and lived to the ripe old age of twenty-six, when he was gunned down by, get this, Sheriff Montana Pride.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” Timberlaine’s eyes were gleaming. “The pride of Montana. He must have taken some kidding over that, which might explain why he was such a mean son of a bitch. At any rate, guess who this Montana Pride turned out to be?”

“Pistol Pete’s boyhood friend?”

“Bingo.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, these things are documented.”

“By whom? Mexican maidens who play guitars and sing?”

Timberlaine grinned. “It’s not as bad as all that. There were newspapers back then. Some of the accounts written exist to this day. There’s a lot of stuff on microfilm, and if you dig you can find it.”

“Fine. So?”

“So the legend of Pistol Pete is an authenticated part of the history of the Old West.”

Steve nodded. “I see. And this gun is therefore valuable.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Steve frowned. “Why not?”

Russ Timberlaine shrugged and shook his head. “It’s the wrong gun.”

Steve Winslow frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not my gun. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s not mine.”

“You mean someone switched guns on you?”

“Exactly.”

“How could that happen?”

“I don’t know how it could happen. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. The point is it did.”

“So this gun is not Pistol-Pete-whoever’s despite the R on the handle?”

“Of course not. Someone scratched the R on the handle to make it look like mine. It could have been done yesterday.”

“Is that when the gun was stolen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh?”

“I noticed it last week. That’s why I’m here now. Obviously that’s the first time I noticed. But when was the last time I looked at the gun? I mean carefully enough to see the difference. I try to think back and I don’t know.”

“Where was the gun kept?”

“That’s just it. In a display case. In my study. Along with a bunch of other guns. Glass enclosed. The gun sits in a rack. If I glanced at it lying there in the case I might not notice. I’m trying to think. When was the last time I took it out, picked it up? The last time I know for sure. And damn it all, I can’t remember.”

Steve held up his hand. “O.K.,” he said. “Pardon me for a moment, but as I said, I know nothing about guns. How do you identify your gun, and how do you know this isn’t it? Are you going by the serial number?”

Timberlaine shook his head. He pointed. “Turn the gun over. Look there, on the other side of the barrel in front of the cylinder. See those scratches?”

Steve turned the gun over and looked. The area Timberlaine had indicated was a crosshatch of metal scratches. “That’s where the serial number was,” Timberlaine said. “Only it’s been filed off. On my gun and on this one.”

“Why? On the real gun, I mean.”

“Theory is Pistol Pete did it himself. Apparently a lot of cowboys did. Superstitious. Didn’t want a number on their gun. The gun was their lifeline. Always workin’ on it. Cleaning and oiling it. Carving things in the handle. So a lot of them took the numbers off.”

“If there’s no number, how can you tell this isn’t yours?”

“How do you know one painting’s an original and another’s a copy? I know my gun, and that isn’t it.”

“Fine, but could you give me a concrete reason?”

“Sure. Just look at it. See the cylinder? You’ll notice the metal on the cylinder’s slightly lighter than the metal on the barrel. See that? Why, because this gun’s been rebuilt and the cylinder’s been replaced. See what I’m sayin’? The cylinder’s newer than the rest of the gun, so it’s lighter in color.

“That’s one thing. For another thing, the whole gun is lighter in color. Than the real gun, I mean. That means the whole gun is probably more recent. My gun dates back to 1862. What this is I couldn’t tell you.”

“I see.”

“Then there’s the handles. To begin with, the wood’s lighter. And if that weren’t enough, look at the R. Whoever did this rubbed something in the scratches to try to age ’em, but you can tell the difference. No way that R is a hundred and some odd years old. That carving is fresh.”

Timberlaine looked up. “You want more?”

“No, that’s pretty convincing. All right, someone stole your gun and substituted a duplicate. I’ll buy that. Tell me. The original-was it valuable?”