Brings the Lightning (The Ames Archives Book 1) by Peter Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

to buy more from elsewhere. Will three hundred rounds be sufficient?”
    “Yes, I think so. Next, I’m heading first for the plains, then the mountains. I’m told rifle shots out there are sometimes taken at longer ranges than we’re used to here in the East. I want something that can reach out a goodly distance with accuracy, and still be powerful enough to take down a buffalo or bear. What do you recommend?”
    “I have the very thing.” Fitch took a long, heavy, gleaming rifle from a rack, and passed it over the counter. “This is a Sharps New Model 1859 military rifle, formerly owned by a member of the Second Regiment of Berdan’s Sharpshooters. It fires a linen cartridge holding a .52 caliber 350 grain lead bullet over 64 grains of powder. It has a thirty-inch heavy barrel, a double set trigger and sights graduated to a thousand yards. The Sharpshooter who sold it to me claimed he’d made shots at three to four hundred yards without difficulty, and once at over six hundred yards. It’s in excellent condition overall.”
    Walt inspected it closely. For a former service rifle it had been very well, even lovingly, maintained. “Looks like just what I need. How much?”
    “It’s costly—sixty-five dollars. These rifles are hard to come by. Not many were made of the special Berdan Sharpshooter model, and very few have come onto the civilian market, so they carry a premium.”
    “I can understand that. I’ll take it. Let me have a hundred cartridges for it as well. Finally, I want something small and easily concealed. I was thinking of something like Henry Deringer’s single-shot pistols. I see you have a few on display.”
    “Yes, I do; also Colt’s 1862 Pocket Police Model revolver, a five-shot .36 caliber that I think is a superior weapon for that purpose. The shortest version has a barrel only three-and-a-half inches long. However, you may wish to take advantage of the misfortune of a late customer of mine. He was a riverboat gambler who commissioned me to alter a Colt Army revolver to his specifications. Regrettably, he died in an altercation down in Natchez before he could pay for it and take delivery. If you want a concealed gun, it might suit you very well.”
    He bent, rummaged in a drawer below the counter, and took out something wrapped in baize cloth. He unfolded it to reveal the strangest-looking revolver Walt had ever seen. The grip, frame and cylinder were conventional Colt components, but the hammer spur had been shortened, there was no loading lever, and the barrel had been cut back from eight to about two-and-a-half inches. The stub was topped with a high shotgun-style brass bead instead of a regular front sight. The gun had been expertly refinished.
    “The muzzle blast must be something fierce,” Walt commented as he picked it up.
    “Not as bad as you’d expect. My client planned to load it with fifteen grains of top-grade English priming powder. That burns much faster than regular gunpowder, to give the best possible velocity out of so short a barrel, but without the huge muzzle flash one would otherwise expect. It also has higher pressure, of course, but fifteen grains is only half the normal charge weight of regular powder, so that’s still within safe limits. I’ve made up fifty paper cartridges for it with that load.”
    “Hmm… Accuracy? Power?”
    “It’s designed for conversational distances like this, or across a card table. Accuracy isn’t an issue at such short ranges. As for power, I tested it after I cut down the barrel. From ten feet, a normal Colt Army revolver with its eight-inch barrel will drive a .44 lead ball through four or five one-inch pine boards, spaced an inch apart. A ball from this gun at ten feet, even with its reduced charge, will penetrate one board and lodge in the second. That’s twice as good as a typical Henry Deringer pistol; its ball won’t fully penetrate even one board.”
    “How about that Colt Pocket Police model?”
    “It penetrates