Winchester 1887 by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online

cupful of water, and then heading through the kitchen and into the bedroom.
    â€œWhat’s Pa doing?” Jacob asked.
    â€œHe’ll be along,” Libbie said. “Come help me with the laundry.”
    â€œBut I want James!”
    â€œHush.”
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    When he stepped back outside, Millard Mann had changed. Not just clothes—although he wore trail duds and a linen duster that, surprisingly, still fit him—but the weapons he carried.
    His family was surprised. They had seen him as a railroad boss and with the Jenks, a .54-caliber carbine he had handled since the Civil War that he used when hunting deer.
    That was long ago . . . when he was but a mere button himself, much younger even than James. He had only used that carbine for deer hunting; ducks and other game he usually opted for the Colt twelve-gauge shotgun, but those weapons he had left behind.
    He had opened the old trunk in the bedroom, pulled out the blankets, the heirlooms, the clothes, and keepsakes until he had found the long fringed leather rifle sock and withdrawn a rifle Kris and Jacob didn’t remember having ever seen.
    It was a Winchester Model 1873 repeating rifle. One of One Thousand. The dream rifle of just about every shooter in the United States.
    Something else was different.
    He had buckled on a long-barreled Colt Army .44. That, too, had been used during the Civil War, but back around 1871, a man who’d worked for Colt, Charles Richards, had gotten a patent for his plan of converting the old percussion cap-and-ball Colts to cartridge revolvers. A year later, William Mason, who had also worked for Colt, improved on Richards’ methods.
    To Millard’s surprise, the Richards-Mason conversion model .44 felt natural. As if he had been wearing it all his life. He would buy shells for it in McAdam, clean the pistol, and ride south.
    â€œWhere you going, Pa?” Kris asked.
    â€œTo find James.”
    No one mentioned the short gun strapped to his hip, but every eye kept falling to it.
    â€œWill you take the train?” Libbie asked.
    Millard nodded. “I’ll ask Luke to bring the horse back. And check on you every now and then. I expect James to go all the way to Fort Worth—providing no brassy railroad dick tosses him off for freeloading—but he might get off in Wichita Falls, Henrietta, Bowie . . . just no telling. But I’ll find him.” He leaned over and kissed Libbie’s cheek, and knelt to hug his youngest son and daughter.
    At forty-five years old and after years of railroading, he felt different, too. Hadn’t felt this way since those few years after the war, when he and his brothers—the dearly departed Jimmy and Borden—had sown their share of oats in the wild Panhandle as Texas went through Yankee Reconstruction.
    Some words from Jimmy ran through his mind. He couldn’t remember when Jimmy had said them, certainly before Jacob had been born. He smiled at the memory.
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    â€œYou ain’t cut out for this life, Brother.”
    Millard sipped his whiskey. “What kind of life you think suits me, Jimmy?”
    Jimmy smiled that devilish smile of his. “Like mine.”
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    Millard shook off the memory and looked at the horse. Probably shouldn’t have bothered unsaddling the mare, but, well, the notion hadn’t struck him until he had finished that second cup of water.
    â€œI’ll write you,” he told his wife. “You kids be good.” Hurriedly, he made his way back toward the corral before his resolve faltered.
    Fort Smith, Arkansas
    â€œYou were not surprised by the death of Deputy Mann?” Judge Parker asked. “I should say, former Deputy Mann.”
    â€œNo.” Jackson Sixpersons did not care much for being in the judge’s chambers. Too stuffy and being in the room with the powerful white man gave him an uneasy feeling.
    â€œI see.” But clearly, the judge did not.
    Sixpersons knew