Great American Novel

CHAPTER I

 "God created men; but it was Colonel Colt who made them equal."

...Old Frontier Saying                     

        The case itself would have been a beautiful addition to any coll­ection of fine things.  I was a mahogany with two gold in­laid hinges and latches.  The lid of the box had been hand-carved to show a scene of a stage coach rolling through the frontier on a dusty road.  On a rock ledge above the coach, two Indians were pointing their bowed ar­rows, and riding up toward the Indians from the stage road came a cow waddie on the back of a beauti­fully carved horse and holding a drawn long-barreled revolver.

        The lid was so well carved and the so finely varnished that it could have hung in any fine art gallery.  But the real prize was inside the box.  There wooden slats, covered with a fine cloth, parti­tioning small section of the box.

        A rectangular section in the upper left side of the box con­tained two paper-wrapped packages printed with the label, "Six Combus­tible Envelope Cartrid­ges made of Hatard's powder especi­ally for Col. Colt's Patent revolving holster pistol."  The words "Col. Colts Patent" were printed in a double-block outline image.

        In a triangular section of the box using half of the right side of the rectangles as its base, was a bulb-shaped brass powder flask.  Em­bossed with eagles fanning their wings and cannons mounted about flag-shields and inlaid with tiny strings of gold, the flask shined as if it were coated with oil.  A tiny spring-operated thumb spout topped the tear-like bulb.

        The next section of the box, below the triangle and rec­tangle but sill on the left side of the box, contained an odd-looking tool device. One end seemed to be a screw driver with a wooden carved swing-arm handle.  The other end was bulb with a little wrench and a pick.  This plain-looking tool, ornate only in the circles carved in the swing arm, rested in a strange seven-sided compartment of the box.

        In the lower right corner of the box was another rectangular slated section.  The center of this section held a wooden inlay of slats that formed a perfect circle in the center of the rec­tangle.  And in this circle was a round metal can, less than an inch across.  Printed on top of the can was:  "Eley Brothers 250 metal lined caps for use with Colt's patented powder pistols.  Manufac­tured in London."

        Each of these sections had a wooden lid cut in the exact shape of the section.  The lid too was covered with a fine cloth.  And a hand-carved wooden button-like knob was attached to each lid to make a handle.  The lids would fit smugly and could be just dropped into place.

        But the largest section of the box was a five-sided sec­tion.  And it was in that section that the gun rested.  It wasn't your typical over-the-counter Colt Revolver.  Obvious­ly this was an old ball and cap model.  Cap and ball guns were rarely seen anymore.

        Since as early as 1872 when the Colt company had intro­duced the famed .45 caliber "Peacemaker," ball and cap pistols had been seen less and less.  Though Colonel Sam Colt (who wasn't really a colonel at all) had died back in 1862, his company had lived on to become the password for holster guns in America and in England.

        But this wasn't even the standard production Hartford, Connec­ticut Colt.  This was a very special gun.  In the first place it was one of the famed Colt Presentation models.  The

barrel was etched with lace-like designs that stretched from the front sight to the body of the gun.  There at the body, just where the barrel began to touch the body, three inlaid old circles smoke-ringed around the weapon.  For the rest of the barrel that reached back to the cylinder there was a gold inlay design of two foxes in a battle.  The gun was a beautiful silver color with these golden designs seeming to done on the metal.  The rest of the metal parts of the weapon were etched with more lace-like design and embossed with tiny hunting scenes, wild horse scenes, and cowboy shooting scenes.

        The metal was so heavily ornamented that it seemed a shame to think of this beautiful work of art as a tool to wield death.

        Below the metal parts of the weapon, thought it should have never been a weapon, the grips were made from a finely carved charter oak.  The scene on the grips showed a single leaf budding from a series of branches of a mighty limb.

        And the cylinder itself, bordered by inlaid hand alternating silver and gold, was engraved with a stage coach scene.

        But even this beauty was not the real treasure of the gun.  This weapon had been produced by the Patent Arms Manu­facturing Company, Samuel Colt's first factory, in Peterson, New Jersey.  And the actual gunsmithing, before the finish­ing, had been done by Elishak. Root himself...Colt's right hand man and the man who built the company after its founder dies.

        This weapon had been in one-of-a-kind gift made espe­cially for one man and presented to that man by Root, Colt and famed diplomat (and former Connec­ticut governor) Thomas Seymour.

        And that was the real treasure of this gun, for below the carved wooden grips on the butt of the gun...the saddle band...on the single strand of metal was a name.  The one-word name was inlaid in fold from braided golden strings.  The name stood alone; not to be questioned as a first name or a last name.  In fact, it was more like a statement than a name.

        But any man who caught glimpse of the holstered gun would see the statement; would see the name in gold:  Walker.

        But that was a long time ago.  The gun box with its beauti­fully carved top had not even been opened in 15 years.  It was on a top shelf, hidden with the memories that had been locked away with it.

        But because a person hide a box away in a dark closet, that does not make the box go away; it is still there even though it is hidden.  And safely on that shelf it could be brought out at anytime.  That must have been the purpose of putting it there in the first place...to being it out at some­time, otherwise it would have been sold, thrown away or discarded.

        An idea, like a love...or a hate...or a revenge is the same way.  Because that idea has been put on a dark shelf for 15 years does not mean that the idea is gone.  And just like that box, the idea was kept on that shelf so that it could be brought out at anytime.  That had been the purpose of keeping the idea all those years...to bring it out at sometime; to bring it out at the right time.

        So on the right day, fifteen years after a woman's love had died for every human being except her five-year-old son, she remem­bered the day that her Walker had been gunned down.

        And it was as she pulled that memory off of its shelf she called for her son, now twenty-years-old.

        He knew as soon as he saw her face that something was very important.  He'd never seen that look in his mother's eyes before.  Then when she spoke with a seriousness in her voice that he'd never heard, he felt a icy hand touch some place deep in his spine.  And he didn't say a word as his mother spoke.

        "Now your father is 20 years dead.  It's time we had a man and a gun," she spoke to him with a power that he never knew a woman's voice could command.

        To his own dismay, he knew exactly what he would have to do.  His mother didn't even have to explain that port to him.  And he knew that once he left the farm that night he would never be back; he would never see his mother again.  But it was something that had to be done.  Since he was five-years-old he'd known that someday it would have to be done.

        He took the carved box down from its hidden place on the shelf.  He pulled the latches aside and lifted the lid.  And the gun was there.  As he picked it up, his mother brought him the holster for it.

        And, finally it was that very day and at the very moment as he strapped the bottom leather of the holster to his leg that history would cause to be written.  Men's freewill died at that instant.  From then on history would be only parts for actors who would follow a script they'd never seen.

        Picking up the fun was not the end, but strapping it on was.