The RECKONING: A Jess Williams Western

by Robert J. Thomas

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher. They are solely the imagination of the author and/or publisher and the imagination of events that may or may not possibly happen.

  Copyright © 2002 by Robert J. Thomas

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, or stored into or introduced into any electronic or mechanical method without the express written permission of the author and/or publisher. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author and/or the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  Publication Date: October 2003 Published by R & T Enterprise, Inc.

  Cover Illustration by Dave Hile, Hile Illustration and Design LLC, Ann Arbor, Michigan

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication

  (Provided by Quality Books, Inc.)

  Thomas, Robert J., 1950-

  The reckoning : the first in a series of Jess

  Jess Williams novels / by Robert J. Thomas. -- 1st ed.

  p. cm. -- (Jess Williams novels; 1)

  ISBN# 0-9668304-1-5 / AMAZON AISN NUMBER / B005C5Z31Y

  LCCN 2002095662

  1. Revenge--Fiction. 2. Western stories.

  I. Title.

  PS3620.H637R43 2003 813’.6

  QBI33-1498

  The Reckoning

  The first in a series of Jess Williams Westerns

  By – Robert J. Thomas

  This one is for Mom, Blanche T. Thomas,

  Who we lost in October 2002.

  She will be missed by many, but especially by her three sons Anthony, Daniel and me.

  We love you Mom!

  Prologue

  Year 2002

  “What’s the number?” asked Dave.

  “Forty-nine hundredths of a second!” Pat replied loudly since the two of them were wearing shooting earmuffs.

  “Not bad, but still not good enough!” said Dave.

  The two shots were so close together they sounded like one shot, but there were definitely two shots flying out of the barrel of Dave Walters’s custom built competition pistol. Dave was pulling the first shot by thumbing the specially designed hammer back as he drew the pistol and the second shot was fanned by the middle finger of his left hand. The two balloon targets were about five feet apart and about fifteen feet away. He was using the customary wax bullets, which were used for competition fast draw. Dave holstered his pistol and drew and fired two more shots.

  “How about that time?” Dave asked.

  “Forty-seven hundredths of a second! He replied. It’s getting hot out here! How much longer?”

  “I’m finished!”

  Dave Walters had been at it for two hours trying to get his fast draw down under the four tenth of a second mark. That’s where he needed to be in order to seriously compete in the world championship title for fast draw. Dave had been competing in fast draw competitions for several years now and he had won some matches, but he was hell-bent on being the fast draw champion of the world. Pat Johnson was his good friend and also competed in fast draw competition. They had spent the last two hours at The Shooting Corral, which was a local gun range with a specialty. It had an area where competitors in fast draw and cowboy action shooting could ply their trade and practice.

  “Hey, you did okay, said Pat as the two of them removed their ear muffs. “Maybe after you pick up that new pistol you ordered, you’ll break the four tenths of a second mark.”

  “I sure hope so. My wife has been giving me a real ass-full about buying a new pistol. She wanted some new bedroom furniture and she’s getting impatient.”

  “Tell her that when you become the new fast draw champion of the world, you’ll be able to buy her a whole house full of furniture,” boasted Pat.

  “Sure I will. You sure know how to help a guy out,” replied Dave.

  “So, when are you getting it?” he asked.

  “I called Bob Graham today and he said it’s ready,” he replied. Want to go with me?”

  “You bet! I’d love to meet Graham. I hear he’s one of the top custom gun builders in the country. Maybe I can get him to build me one.”

  “Okay,” said Dave, as he threw his stuff into the trunk of his car and closed it. “I’ll pick you up on Saturday.”

  “I’ll be waiting and breakfast is on you this time,” said Pat.

  Dave picked Pat up on Saturday at seven in the morning. They stopped to have breakfast and then drove the hundred and fifty miles to Bob Graham’s house. Bob Graham had been building custom built competition guns for years and he was a skilled craftsman. He could build anything you needed or wanted. He was an artist extraordinaire. He greeted them at the front door of his house with his usual wide grin.

  “Morning fellows, how was your drive?” asked Graham.

  “Just fine,” replied Dave. “This is my good friend Pat Johnson and he’s a shooter, too.”

  “Well, I’ve got the gun all set and ready for you to check out,” exclaimed Graham.

  “Great,” replied Dave. “You did say this morning that you got the FD7 model holster from Mernickle Custom Holsters, right?”

  “It just came in yesterday; it’s in the box here,” said Graham as he opened the box. “It fits the gun beautifully and I think you’re going to like the way it handles. Bob Mernickle sure knows how to work leather into a functional yet beautiful piece of art.”

  Graham walked into another room and came back out with the newly custom built pistol in a plastic case. When Dave opened the case, his expression was one of a kid who had just gotten the gift he had always wanted for Christmas, but never got. The gun was beautiful. When Dave ordered the gun, he asked Graham, who is also an accomplished artist, to carve him a custom set of handgrips for the new gun. The handgrips were carved from the stag horns of the Sambar deer from India.

  “You like those handgrips, Dave?” asked Graham.

  “They’re beautiful,” he agreed. “And the way the grips flare out at the bottom just makes the gun feel so much more comfortable in my hand.”

  “They’re not just pretty, they’re functional,” replied Graham. “You’ll find that they help get the gun out of the holster much easier than the stock grips the gun originally came with.”

  Dave looked the gun over some more. It was perfectly balanced. Graham explained how he had lathed the barrel small enough to be able to fit an aluminum shroud over the steel barrel. That made the gun lighter, perfectly balanced, easier to draw and allowed for the gun to shoot live .45 caliber ammunition as well as wax bullets; which was something else Dave had expressly wanted.

  Graham explained to Dave that he started with a Ruger Blackhawk .41 magnum caliber single-shot revolver and customized just about everything. There was not much original left of the gun. Besides changing out the barrel and making it a .45 caliber, he cut the trigger guard in half and changed the trigger to one that was about three times as wide as the original one. He installed a special fanning-type hammer that could also be thumb-cocked. The hammer rose straight up instead of curving back, which made it much easier to fan. Graham replaced many of the gun’s original parts with aluminum to lighten it. Any part that was not changed to aluminum was nickel-plated. It truly was a work of art.


  “Bob, I think he’s going to drool all over that gun,” Pat said jokingly. Bob Graham patted Dave on the shoulder.

  “Go ahead and put the holster on and try it out,” exclaimed Graham. “I think you’ll like the way it just glides out of the holster.”

  Dave picked up the holster and looked it over. It, too, was a work of art. Bob Mernickle was born to work magic on leather, Dave thought to himself. He gently slipped the gun into the holster and it fit perfectly. Dave worked the action of the gun and it was smooth. He dry-fired the gun several times, both thumbing and fanning it. It worked better than he ever dreamed it might.

  “I love it!” Dave exclaimed, as he placed his hand on Graham’s shoulder. “With this gun and this holster, I know I can get a chance at the championship title now.”

  “Probably; as long as I’m not competing at the same time,” said Graham playfully. They all laughed. The men and women who competed in fast draw were fierce competitors, but also a friendly bunch who believed in good sportsmanship. Dave thanked Graham again and packed up his new pistol and holster. Pat spoke with Graham for a few minutes about building a custom gun for him.

  Dave and Pat drove back and Dave dropped Pat off in the late afternoon and headed home; his new pistol and holster in the trunk of the car. When Dave got home, he took the gun out of the case and looked it over once more. He read the serial number on the side of the gun: 40-01079. He looked the holster over once more and took note of the serial number stamped on the back of the holster: SN020679. The name ‘BOB MERNICKLE CUSTOM HOLSTERS’ was stamped on the back as well as the model number, FD7, and the words ‘MADE IN CANADA’. He put the gun in the holster and hung it up in his stand-up gun locker and locked it.

  He was watching television when his wife came in the door. He waited for her to say something first since he didn’t know how mad she still was over the purchase of a new gun and holster instead of the new furniture she had been asking for. After she put her things away, she walked up behind Dave who was sitting in an old ragged recliner with several holes in the leather.

  “Well,” she said sarcastically, “you’re going to show me anyway, so why don’t you just do it now and get it over with.”

  Dave jumped up out of the recliner and headed for the gun locker with a boyish grin on his face. Before he got around the corner, he heard her shout—“And I am going to get that new furniture before you get any more guns or holsters, agreed?”

  “Agreed!” Dave hollered from the bedroom. He spun the dial on the gun case and opened the door with his combination. He reached in to pick the holster off the hook and his hand reached for air as he let out a gasp of absolute horror and stepped back until he reached the foot of the bed. He let out a loud moan as he sat down on the edge of the bed. Horror washed over him as the realization of what he was experiencing right now finally took hold of him. The new gun and holster he placed in his gun locker not more than one hour ago, were gone!

  Dave didn’t sleep very well that night. He tossed and turned repeatedly and he had several nightmares throughout the night. He woke earlier than usual and he was sweating profusely. He got up and went into the bathroom to wash off his face with some cool water. As he did, he thought about the nightmares, and while most of them were somewhat vague in his mind now, there was one that he remembered very vividly. It was one of a little girl lying in a pile of hay—with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead.

  CHAPTER ONE

  May 1876

  Jess Williams wasn’t unlike most young men growing up in Kansas in the late 1800’s. He worked on the family farm and did odd jobs around town for extra money to help his family. He never had much time for play. He just turned fourteen a few months ago. He was a slender young man, standing five foot eight inches high.

  His father, John, built their ranch from the ground up. He started with only eight head of cattle and his herd had now grown to over one hundred head. He had crops planted on about ten acres of fertile rich black soil. John hadn’t always been a farmer and a rancher. He worked cattle drives when he was younger and he worked as a sheriff in a few small towns in Texas where he grew up. Not tough towns though. His duties mostly consisted of breaking up fights in saloons and locking up the drunks who couldn’t let go of the bar without falling flat on their asses.

  After his last job as sheriff in a little town in Texas called Sparta, he decided to pack up and just roam around until he found somewhere he could call home. After almost a year of wandering around, he found some land just five miles outside of a small town called Black Creek, in the state of Kansas. Good fertile land and the Black Creek ran right through the middle of the property. He spent some time in the small town. He rode around the area visiting some of the other ranchers and farmers. Everyone he talked to seemed downright friendly. He liked the area and he decided he was going to spend the rest of his life there. He was sure of it. He spent some nights camped out on the land that he planned to settle on. One night, just before dusk, when he was getting a campfire started to cook him some beans and salt pork, he actually picked out the site for the family cemetery. There was a giant oak tree about five hundred feet from where he decided he would build the house. The oak tree would provide some shade for the future gravesites. John was a planner in life for sure.

  John first met Jess’s mom, Becky, in town and he thought she was just the prettiest woman he had ever laid eyes on. He decided right then and there he was going to marry Becky. John was just that way. He decided quickly about what he wanted to do and then he would set out to do it. He still had some of the money he saved from his work as a sheriff, but it wasn’t enough to build the house. He worked several odd jobs around town and for some of the surrounding ranches to earn enough money to buy the lumber and materials he needed to build the house. Of course, he preferred working in town since it gave him more opportunities to see Becky.

  Becky was a seamstress and a darn good one. She had a little shop behind Smythe’s general store where the townspeople could drop off their clothes for repair or to be fitted for new ones. Mr. Smythe didn’t charge her any rent. Instead, he took a small cut of what money she made and, of course, he had all his clothes tailored for free. Becky first saw John when he came into the general store for supplies. She knew right off he was different from most men. She was interested, but certainly had no idea that he had already fallen deeply in love with her.

  Jess’s sister, Samantha, was seven and full of brimstone and hellfire. She was always getting into trouble and usually getting away with everything. Although she sometimes helped Jess with chores, she usually caused him more work and grief. Mostly, she would tag along with him and bug him until he just wanted to thump her on the back of her head. The only thing that stopped him from doing so was the knowledge that he would get a switch taken to his backside and that was something he worked real hard to steer clear of. It was close to noon on a typical day around the ranch and Becky was in the house making some lunch for Jess to take out to his pa. Jess had finished throwing some hay in the stables to feed the cattle and he was walking up to the house to see if his mom had the food ready when Samantha came out of the stables with her hands full of hay. She was jumping up and down, each time letting a little hay drop here and there. Jess knew she was just egging him on.

  “One of these days I’m going to thump you good, Samantha,” he warned her, giving her a look of dissatisfaction.

  “I don’t think so, ‘cause you know pa will switch your behind real good,” she replied giggling. Jess gave her the evil eye for a moment and turned around and headed for the house. Just as he walked in his mother was wrapping John’s lunch in a cloth.

  “I’ll bet your pa is mighty hungry by now Jess,” said Becky. “You get this out to him right away, you hear?”

  “I’ll get it straight out to him, I promise,” he replied.

  “Make sure you do.”

  “Can I ride the paint today?”

  “Didn’t your father already tell you that you cou
ld?”

  “Yeah, but I was just checking.”

  “Then I’m sure it’s okay,” said Becky. Jess took the lunch from his ma and headed for the stables to saddle up the paint.

  Jess had the paint saddled up and out of the stable in less than five minutes. Out of the six horses they owned, Jess had always liked the paint the best. He was a gentle horse and Jess gave him a few apples or carrots every day. Jess always loved riding out on the ranch. Sometimes he would imagine he was on his own and roaming around the country going from one town to another. He was always wondering about what he would do when he grew up. Would he stay and work the ranch or go off and do something different? Maybe he’d be a sheriff like his pa had been, or maybe he’d own his own business in town. Of course; like most young boys, Jess would imagine himself as a gunfighter; and of course, the fastest gunfighter alive. Whenever Jess got some free time from his chores, he would find himself down by the creek drawing his hand-carved wooden pistol that his pa made for him. He asked his pa a while back to teach him how to shoot a real pistol, but John said he was too young for that yet. It only took fifteen minutes before Jess found his pa. He was looking over a new calf that seemed to be lost and not doing very well.

  “About time you got here Jess,” said John. “My stomach’s been growling like a bear that just came out from a long winter nap.”

  “Sorry pa,” replied Jess nervously. “I got here as soon as I could…honest. I never stopped or anything, I rode straight out here. The biscuits ma made you are still warm and she put some honey in a jar to go with them.” John looked at Jess and gave him a big smile.

  “Don’t get you’re britches all up in a bunch,” laughed John. “Get down off that horse and let’s have a biscuit or two.” Jess always liked it when his pa let him have lunch with him out on the range.

  “Jess, don’t forget to stack up some more hay in the barn and stable tonight before supper,” said John, as he finished up with his lunch.