Sins of the Father (22 page)

T HAD BEEN FOUR YEARS NOW
since Dave Walters had lost his custom pistol and holster from his gun locker. The gun disappeared in 2002 from the gun locker that he was now staring at, which is something he did quite often, still wondering if some unknown spirit or entity would somehow come out from it, grab him and take him to some unknown time or place. His hands literally shook every time he opened the gun locker. He finished his beer and

headed for the fridge for another one. His wife, Jean, had been working on the computer all day trying to finish up with a project that she had started a few months ago. She finally turned off the computer, grabbed several sheets of paper from the printer, and walked into the kitchen just as Dave was popping the top off another cold beer.

“Why thank you, dear,” she said playfully, as she grabbed the beer from his hand.
“Well, I guess you’re welcome, sweetie,” said Dave, as he went back to the fridge again and grabbed another beer. “How’s the family tree going?”
Jean made some unrecognizable grunting sound as she plopped down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “If I had known how much work this was going to be, I wouldn’t have started it in the first place.”
“So what did you find? Are we related to some famous rich people or royalty somewhere?”
“No, I didn’t find anything really unusual, no kings, no queens and no royalty.”
“Damn, I guess I’ll have to keep buying my lottery tickets,” said Dave as he sat down at the table with Jean.
“I did find out something interesting, though.”
“What?”
“Well, on my side of the family, I was able to go all the way back to the early 1700s. All of the relatives I could find were from a common background and all were fairly poor people. A few of the men in my family tree were in the military but no high-ranking positions. I had a distant cousin who was killed in the civil war but for the most part, nothing worth talking about. I did find something interesting in your family tree, though.”
“Really, what did you find?” Dave asked, his interest peaking a little.
“Well, you have this avid interest in western history and the gunfighters from back then, and you compete in fast draw and cowboy action shooting, and I found out something that might be interesting to you.”
Dave’s interest peaked a little more. “Go on, what did you find out?”
Jean shuffled some papers until she found the one she wanted. “Here it is. It seems that you are related somehow to a gunfighter in the late 1800s. He was born around 1862, as far as I can tell from the records, and he died in 1921. He married a woman by the name of Martha Heller…”
Dave cut her off in mid-sentence. “Heller is my mother’s maiden name.”
“Well, if you’ll let me finish, I’ll make the connection.”
Dave shut up but his interest now turned to excitement. Jean continued her explanation. “As I said, he married a Martha Heller and they had one son who passed away in 1959. Martha Heller is related to your mother and that means that you are related in some way to this gunfighter Jess Williams.”
Some of the beer squirted out of Dave’s mouth at the mention of Jess Williams’ name.
“What the hell—are you okay, dear?” Jean asked.
“Did you say his name was Jess Williams?”
“Yes, do you know of him? You’ve never mentioned that you had a real old west gunfighter in your family?”
Dave didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. His head was reeling with thoughts darting around and around in his head. He was trying to get his brain wrapped around what Jean had just told him. He remembered back a few months earlier when he and Jean had taken a trip through Yellowstone National Park. He remembered how after going through Yellowstone they had stayed overnight in Cody, Wyoming and the day they left; they had stopped at the old man’s big white house in Wapiti, just outside of Cody. He remembered paying the five dollars to see the old man’s gun collection in the man’s basement and he remembered seeing his gun and holster, the one that disappeared four years earlier, in the case in the basement. He remembered how the old man, Steve, had told him how his Uncle Henry had gotten the gun from a Jess Williams Jr., and that Steve’s uncle had given Steve the gun in 1969. Steve had told Dave the whole story, which was told to him by his Uncle Henry about Jess Williams and how he had found the pistol and holster right after his family was brutally murdered. Dave, who had been looking right at his wife all this time but really looking into some far beyond that Jean could not see, finally spoke.
“You said he had a son, what was his name? Wait, don’t tell me; let me guess. His son’s name was Jess Williams Jr., wasn’t it?”
Jean looked back down at the papers. “Why yes, that was his name but how did you know that? Dave, are you okay? You have that same look on your face that you had that day you walked out of that man’s house after looking at his old gun collection when we were out in Wyoming. I always wondered about that.”
Dave looked at her but he didn’t respond. His mind was reeling now.
So, this was the connection,
Dave thought to himself. He had purchased the custom gun and holster and somehow, it went back in time to Jess Williams. And now, he had discovered that he was related to Jess Williams through his mother’s side. His mother was related to Jess Williams and somehow, for some unknown reason, fate had taken the gun from Dave and delivered it to Jess Williams when he had needed it the most. Dave almost ran to the gun locker in the bedroom and started twisting the dial on the locker. Jean followed him, a worried look on her face now. Dave had never told her about finding his gun and holster in the man’s basement in Wapiti, Wyoming.
“What are you doing?” asked Jean.
“Just wait a minute, I need to find out.”
“Find out what for God’s sake!”
“Just give me a minute,” he said, as he finally finished up the combination and put his hand on the handle; little beads of nervous sweat now beginning to form on his forehead. He slowly opened it up and when he did, he gasped, stumbled backwards from the gun locker, and sat down on the bed, a contorted look on his face. There, in all its glory, was the custom gun and holster he had purchased four years ago. The same custom gun and holster that he had seen in the old man’s house in Wapiti, Wyoming a few months back. It was worn quite a bit but that was understandable knowing what he knew now.
Jean walked up to the cabinet. “Oh my God, whose gun is that? I’ve never seen it before. And how did it get in there? Did you buy another gun after losing that last one and been hiding it from me all this time?” Dave couldn’t speak yet but shook his head as if to say no.
Jean looked the gun and holster over carefully. “Well, this one has sure been used a lot. It looks pretty worn out but it looks just like most of the guns you guys shoot with at all the fast draw competitions.”
Dave finally regained enough composure to speak. “You know me well enough to know that it wouldn’t look like that if I had been using it the last four years. You know how meticulous I am about taking care of my guns and holsters.”
Jean looked at the other gun and holster that was hanging in the locker that Dave had continued to use after losing the new one he had gotten from Bob Graham and Bob Mernickle. It was in better condition than the now older and worn out gun and holster that had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. “Well, I have to agree with you on that. You do take care of your guns and holsters. So what is the explanation for this?” she said, pointing to the gun that Dave had lost four years ago.
Dave thought about telling her the whole story but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Hell, he couldn’t believe it himself. At least he finally understood the connection and why the gun had disappeared and found its way back to Jess Williams, and now back to him. He stood up, walked over to the gun locker, and closed it.
“You’re not going to look at it?” asked Jean.
“Not right now,” said Dave as he headed back to the kitchen and grabbed his cold beer. He took a sip and just stood there in front of the fridge and stared at the ceiling.
Jean sat back down at the kitchen table and kept staring at her husband, still worried about him. She decided to try to lighten up the conversation. “Well, you’ve had an interesting moment. Maybe one day you’ll tell me the rest of what you know, but I’ll leave it up to you. I did find one interesting tidbit on my family tree, or maybe you would call it more of a coincidence.”
“What did you find?”
“Remember when we took that vacation and went to Yellowstone and all through Wyoming?”
“Yeah?” replied Dave, looking more nervous; if that was at all possible.
“Well, when we left Cody, Wyoming, you stopped in a little town call Wapiti. I only remember it because you stopped at some old guys house to see some old guns and stuff and when you came back out to the car, you looked as white as a ghost, kind of like you do right now.”
“Yeah, but what about it?”
“When I was doing my family tree, I found out I’m related to someone who lived in Wapiti, Wyoming. What are the odds of that?”
Dave, who had been taking a swallow of beer almost chocked on it. He coughed several times trying to clear his throat. “Who the hell were you related to in Wapiti, Wyoming?”
“His name is Henry Meyers and I remember it because when I looked at his death certificate it said he died in 1969 but they listed his name on the death certificate as ‘Uncle’ Henry Meyers. I thought that kind of odd but maybe that’s what everybody called him or something.”
When the beer can hit the floor the beer splashed all the way to the ceiling.

A red car pulled up in the driveway and Steve heard it. He had been watching television but he clicked it off and slowly walked to the door and opened it. There was an old man at the door and he was just about to knock when Steve opened the door.

“That’s fine, it’s in the basement, but it’ll cost you five bucks.”
The man pulled out a five-dollar bill from his wallet and Steve motioned for him to come on in and follow him. The man did and Steve led him down the stairs to the basement.
“Look around all you want, I have some pretty nice stuff.”
“Yeah, you do, I love all this stuff. I use to compete in fast draw competition but I’m getting a little older and slower now, so I mostly do Cowboy Action Shooting. Hey, what do you have in the display case over there,” the man said, as he walked over to the display case.
“Oh, that’s my best piece. Everyone that sees it says the same thing. I had a guy stop here a couple of months ago and claimed it was his and that he bought it four years ago and…”
The other man cut him off in mid-sentence. “Mister, there’s nothing in this case.”
Steve almost tripped over his own feet as he rushed over to the display case. He gasped at the sight of the empty display case. “I don’t understand. It was there last night when I was cleaning up down here. I have the only key and the display case is still locked.”
“Maybe you moved it and don’t remember.”
“No, I always leave it in the display case, I never take it out, I just don’t understand.”
“Maybe you should call the police and report it as stolen. You have insurance, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but you couldn’t replace it no matter how much money they paid.”
Steve thought about the history of the gun and the man who had shown up before claiming it was his gun and holster. He remembered that the man knew the serial number on the gun and the holster and how strange the whole story was. Steve looked at the man in his basement. “Mister, do you believe in destiny and fate and that sometimes things happen for a reason, even though we may never understand why?”
“Yeah, I think everything happens for a reason. Sometimes we don’t know why but that’s just the way it is.”
“So do I.”
“So, what are you going to do about your missing gun and holster?”
Steve looked down at the case, thought about it for a moment, and then looked back up at the man in his basement. “Not a damned thing,” said Steve, finality in his voice.

“That boy squealed like a stuck pig,” laughed Burt, as he swaggered in front of the bar with a bottle of cheap whiskey in his right hand and a shot glass in his left. “Yep, he squealed and squealed and he never stopped squealing all the while I was having my way with him. By God, I swear he squealed louder than his little sister,” said Burt as he downed another shot of whiskey. Derek Brogan, who had been drinking along with Burt, refilled his shot glass. He spilled some of it on the bar, his hand unsteady now from the cheap whiskey.

“Man, I might have done the little girl or the mother, but I don’t think I could’ve done that,” said Brogan.
“Hell, it all feels the same if you close your eyes.”
“Just the same, I think I’ll stick with whores.”
Mick Masters, Bart Swan and Paul Natcher had continued to listen to the conversation between Derek Brogan and Burt Bolin and they became more agitated with each second.
“Mister, we don’t want to hear any more about what you did to that little boy,” said Masters.
“Yeah,” added Bart, “I don’t know why you would want to brag about it anyway. No man in his right mind would do something like that. It’s a sick thing what you did.”
Burt Bolin was drunk and slurring his words heavily now. “I don’t give two shits what you want to listen to,” Burt said as he glared at the three men at the table. “I do whatever I want, and I do it to whoever I want to. Besides, it ain’t the first time I done it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be bragging about it to anyone,” said Paul Natcher. “It just ain’t right to do that to a little boy; much less to another man.”
Janey Henderson came out from the kitchen and brought three plates of food for the three men sitting at the table. She, too, had been listening to Burt Bolin brag about what he had done; and she was biting her tongue and trying not to say anything for fear of what Burt might do. He was a dangerous man and one without a conscience.
“Yeah, well I’m a Bolin and we Bolin’s do whatever we please and we don’t answer to no one. I’ll tell you something else; I made his mama watch me do it. She was screaming like a wildcat what had its tail set on fire. I asked her if she wanted me to make him stop squealing and she screamed ‘yes’. Do you know what I did then?”
No one in the room wanted to ask the question and none of them wanted to hear the answer. Burt swaggered over to the table. “What, no one wants to know?”
“Not really,” answered Paul, a disgusted tone in his voice.
“Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway. I strangled him to death with the rope he was using to hold up his little britches. His face went all red and his eyes were bugging out of his head and his mama was screaming—‘Stop it! Stop it!’ So I did…right after he quit breathing. Then, I did the same thing to his little sister. Man, you should’ve heard the mama screaming then. Of course, mama quit screaming after I put a bullet right between those pretty blue eyes.”
Masters, who had picked up a chicken leg to bite into, sat it back down on the plate. “I don’t think I can eat now after that.”
Burt walked over to Mick Masters’ plate of food and picked up the chicken leg and took a big bite out of it. He ignored the look of indignation on Masters’ face. “Hell, that’s pretty damn good food, woman,” he said to Janey, who was standing by the door to the kitchen.
“You filthy swine! Why don’t you get out of this saloon and get out of this town! You should be ashamed for what you did to that family, and to go around bragging about it…well…it just isn’t right!”
Burt swaggered over to Janey who was shivering with fear now. She knew the three men at the table wouldn’t help her. They weren’t wearing any guns; and even if they were, they were no match for Burt Bolin and Janey knew that. “Well, well, well, it seems like the woman here is the only one with any backbone,” said Bolin, as he took another big bite out of the chicken leg, chewing it with his mouth open and standing about one foot away from Janey. “I’ll tell you what, woman. You get your ass back in that kitchen or I’ll take you back there myself and personally show you what I did to that little boy. You get my meaning?”
Janey slithered against the wall toward the door and quickly went back inside the kitchen, praying that Burt Bolin didn’t follow her. Bolin walked back to the table and threw the half eaten chicken leg back onto Mick Masters’ plate. Then he walked back to the bar next to Derek Brogan and ordered another bottle of whiskey from the barkeep.
Listening to all of this, the rage in Jess had welled up inside him, screaming to get out. He held it in, as usual, using the rage for strength to do what he knew he needed to do. He had been listening to the entire conversation between Burt Bolin, Derek Brogan and the three men at the table. He motioned for the barkeep and he ordered a fine bottle of brandy. He turned to the man who had been standing at the bar between him and Burt Bolin, just to his left. “Here, mister, why don’t you take this fine bottle of brandy and go sit at that table over there and enjoy it?”
“Why, thanks Mister. I usually can’t afford this stuff. Why don’t you join me?”
“Maybe later, but right now, I really need you to go and sit over at that table.”
“Well, I ain’t going to argue with any man who buys me a fine bottle of brandy. You come and join me whenever you’re ready.”
The man had a wide smile when he sat down at the table. He threw his cheap whiskey out of his shot glass and onto the floor and filled it with the fine brandy. He took a nice sip and savored the flavor and he held the glass up with a smile of approval at Jess. Jess nodded to him as if saying
you’re welcome
and then turned to face Burt Bolin, with no one between them now.
Bolin, who had noticed Jess buying the bottle of fine brandy, turned to face Jess. “I don’t see you buying me a nice bottle of fine brandy like that. I think you should buy everyone in here a bottle of that stuff.”
Jess looked at the three men at the table and smiled and then his eyes turned back to Bolin. “You know what, I just might do that, but I have something else in mind for you.”
Before Bolin could answer, a flash of metal flew across the short distance between Jess and Bolin, and Jess’ bowie knife plunged deep into Bolin’s left thigh. Bolin put both of his hands on his thigh and began screaming. Derek Brogan had begun to reach for his gun but Jess’ pistol was already out, cocked, and pointed at Brogan.
“Mister, if you value your life, you will be out of this saloon in two seconds. If you don’t, I promise you that I will pull this trigger without giving you so much as a chance, and I won’t say it again.” said Jess.
Brogan, who immediately realized that he had gotten himself into something he had nothing to do with, almost tripped over Mick Masters’ right foot as he ran for the front door and straight to the livery. Bolin was still screaming as he began to remove the bowie knife from his thigh. He locked eyes with Jess as he slowly removed it. Jess was glaring back at Bolin.
“So, is that what it sounded like?” asked Jess, a sarcastic tone in his voice.
“What?” screamed Bolin as he held the bowie knife in his right hand; his left hand still holding his left thigh.
“When you were just screaming. Did it sound like that little boy screaming?”
“Hell no,” said Bolin defiantly. He screamed worse than that.”
“Well then, we’ll just have to work at it a little longer,” answered Jess, as he put a slug into Bolin’s right hand.