CHAPTER 1

I admit to being drowsy after lunch, in the zone, and a little bored. I was trying to interest myself in the routine task of cleaning rust from the barrel of an 1861 .52-caliber Spencer for one of my regular customers, a museum director with an eye to adding to his Western history collection. My brother Scott, the other half of the Irons family gunsmithing team, calls them "cowboy" guns. He prefers Sig Sauers and Glocks. I like the cowboys.

When the shop door crashed open, I woke up fast. My head snapped erect with neck-popping haste and I saw a boy standing there, looking as if he couldn't figure out how that had happened. I felt an emanation of power even then, although I blamed the ice cube chill on the violent April wind–a wind that had snatched the unlatched door right out of the kid's hand.

He should've counted himself fortunate the heavy plate glass didn't rebound back in his face, a very real possibility had not the doorstop caught in the security bars at the bottom.

Luckily for him, the door has all the newest safety features–meaning it was expensive–since it's specially made with a slide-over steel back up for when we're closed. That's an important consideration when the shop in question belongs to a gunsmith.

Of course, it might have helped if there hadn't been two of the young buggers wrestling each other to see who could enter the building first.

I know I winced. Oh, not because of the door, but because I'll swear I felt the circa 1912 brick structure vibrate all the way to the second story roof, as if it too, sensed…something…upon the boys' entrance.

Apparently blind to the world around them, the boys were in hyper drive, excited enough to be poking each other in the ribs, and making back and forth eye contact that hinted at important doings. They looked no more than twelve or thirteen, of an age and upbringing where cynicism had yet to make an indelible mark, yet still plenty young enough to build everyday incidents into great adventures.

One of the boys, an undersized blond with angel blue eyes, swaggered over to the counter where I was working. The pungent, acid sting of the chemicals in use made him sniff, then wrinkle his nose.

"Are you Bethany Irons, the gunsmith?" His voice cracked, a loud and very surprising bass in such a young body.

"Boothenay, dummy," the other boy said, snorting his disdain. "Boothenay Irons. Jeez, Austin, I thought you could read."

"I can!" The blond, Austin, turned a vivid shade of red. "I just got mixed up for a minute. Boothenay–Bethany. They kind of sound the same to me."

"My name often confuses people," I said. The mistake wasn't new to me. "It is a little unusual."

Feigning not to notice the boy's scarlet face and hiding a grin, I lifted the safety goggles I wore to prevent chemicals from splashing in my eyes and asked, "Anyhow, who wants to know? And why?"

The blond, taking me literally, jerked an introductory thumb at his dark-haired friend. "That's Jase. I'm Austin."

"Jase." I smiled at the boy.

Thus encouraged, he said, "Sorry about the door," and made sure it would stay closed before coming forward to stand by the blond.

"Well, Austin, what can I do for you?" These were local boys. I had a vague recollection of seeing them riding their bikes around the neighborhood and skateboarding up and down Millwood's sidewalks. Since Dad and I live above the shop I know a lot of residents by sight, though I may not always be familiar with their names.

In my father's opinion, one I have adopted, a person should never be rude to neighbors–children or adults. A business owner should also keep in mind that every acquaintance, young or old, is a potential customer worthy of respect; something too many businessmen forget. These particular potential customers were rendered temporarily wordless by the fact I didn't throw them out of the store, let alone that I greeted them as if I were glad to see them.

Then Austin burst into speech, talking at rapid-fire speed. "Well, see, we were down by the bridge and we saw this old dude throw something in the river. We saw the water twirl it around a bunch of times, then pop the thing right back out of the water a little ways farther on. Weird, man."

"Uh-huh?" I said on a note of encouragement. Given the stirrings of power, a glimmer of what that something might be had already occurred to me. "And you went to see what the thing was. So, what did he throw?"

"This, " Jase said, and reaching beneath his coat, pulled out a gun. "He threw this."

They were lucky I didn't scream, faint or press the red panic button under the counter. I didn't even flinch much, to tell you the truth. Maybe I'm naive, but I've found my customers generally to be a more honest clientele than you'd find walking the aisles of the average grocery store. I didn't expect any trouble. Not here, not now.

Besides, I wouldn't be in business very long if I had a tizzy every time someone exhibited a gun within inches of my not inconsiderable nose. Keeping a distance, I squinted at the pistol and said, "My, my. He threw it in the river, you say? I wonder why?"

I asked the question, though I had an inkling of the answer.

The gun Jase showed me was an automatic pistol. At a guess, and since they'd mentioned "old dude" in the same breath, it was probably an ex-military weapon the man didn't know how to dispose of and didn't want anyone to know he'd kept after his term of service. Nothing very unique in this. People do it all the time.

Water dribbled slowly out of the gun's barrel onto the shop's uneven wooden floor. A limp, bedraggled weed dangled from the trigger guard. The boy held the pistol like he had a snake by the head.

Copyright © 2003 by Carol Crigger