Tom watched as Billy inspected the Black Donnovan pistol.
“What a piece of shit.” Tommy sighed.
“Tellin me about it. Size of a damn cannon, shoots a little pissy 25 caliber Palmer bullet. Awfully damn big for a palmer, how big are these designers palms? So you can hog out the cylinder and put some tusk inserts in it, make it a real gun?” he asked.
“To some degree. The biggest problem is this whole gun is made cheap and the weakest point will fail first. If I put inserts in and make it too powerful, I have to drill and insert eh barrel too or it will explode. If I do that, the connection where the gun breaks down for reloading will break open. I don’t have rifled inserts for a barrel. Making that from scratch would take time and tusk, not Polymer.
“Between us, I can’t see for shit. Rifling don’t help me none, shorter the barrel the better. Pocket shotgun would be ideal. Palm pistol I can conceal would do me best instead of a pea-shooter pretendin to be a ten inch colt 45.”
“Unfortunately I don’t have a rack of free guns to give to every guest.”
“What’s that rack of guns there?” Tom asked.
“Prototypes of mine that didn’t work. Parts.”
“What’s wrong with the big bastard?” he asked pointing to a large ornate gun with 2 hammers and a brown color.
“That was my attempt to make a 4 barreled break action shotgun. The idea was 2 high power slugs and 2 barrels of buckshot at the touch of a trigger, for whatever you encountered. The barrels split halfway down due to a defect in the tusk liner.”
“Can’t you just cut it down smaller and make rounds a little less powerful?”
“I can and intend to, but that ruins the accuracy of a slug gun. The hammers are a problem as well. It has a left and right hammer for one trigger, and by moving the little pin on the hammer you can select top or bottom barrel. Unfortunately when you set it to the bottom, the hammer moving forward sometimes sticks in the middle and fires both top and bottom. I cannot seem to fix it.”
“So just let it. Hell, glue them both in the middle. Just becomes a side by side shotgun, except you fire 2 barrels on the same side every time. Doesn’t really do much good for huntin options, if the goal is to have different kinda shot and slugs. Does a lot of good for a blind guy lookin for a sawed off that throws a lot of lead…or bullet”
“The recoil will be unpleasant, and you will be using special ammunition.”
“At least I’ll be doing somethin useful.” Tom sighed. “It aint gotta be palm sized but if I’m gonna lug around a ten inch gun it better bring a world of hurt and spread it around.”
“Give me some time. I can cut it down and pin the hammers.” Billy nodded.
Tom sat beside a very shaken up looking Jen, sitting alone in the back room.
“Look Jen, I’m real sorry for what happened with the…what I guess they call wolves here.” Tom sighed,
“Wolves my ass, more like hellhounds on supermeth. I guess it makes sense, most people here haven’t seen a real wolf, the first people here probably didn’t know what to call them. Predatory pack animals with fur and claws that hunt in the full moon. Wolves are as close as they could probably describe. Makes you miss normal wolves.” Jen sighed.
“I feel like I let you down. I ran ahead and left you back there and you almost died.”
“You grabbed my friend and saved her life, if I hadn’t tripped on some ice we would have all been fine, you couldn’t carry us both and run. We’d all be dead. What you did was heroic, you risked your life to help someone you thought was the most likely to get killed. She probably was, actually. I don’t know why I’m alive. She probably would have been as lucky. God waiting around and doing nothing is horrible. I’m used to a phone and a social media following, constant friends and entertainment, people telling me I’m pretty, liking my pictures.”
“I liked your pictures.” He said quietly.
“Well not…different kind of thing. Just feels lonely without all my followers. I had a lot of friends on a lot of platforms. Carol was the only real friend I’ve had for a while. Stupid boyfriend was a joke.”
“Sounds like one dumb son of a bitch if you asked me. Leavin a gal like you. Ain’t never met a gal tough as you before.”
Thanks, but it’s just an act. I pretend to be a bad bitch, I’m really not. I just hide it well. My list of character strengths are pretending to not be terrified when I am, and looking pretty. Whooptie-fucking-shit. I just wish I had one luxury item from home, Just one thing. I guess everything I would want runs on electricity anyway so that just makes it pointless. If you could have one thing from home, what would it be?”
“Shit, I’d be tickled to death for a descent Palmer, something discreet nobody could see.” He sighed.
“The hell is a Palmer…like a handjob? You can’t do that yourself?” Jen scoffed.
“That what you call em in far forward land? I keep hearing about all the Palmers in timber, but I can’t seem to get one. Right now I can’t do nothing with what I got, feel like anyone here could do better. Wasted potential. Here I am luggin around some hog-leg all day but it’s all intimidation if I can’t use it for nothing but waving around and pointin. Man’s got a reputation to keep up. At the end of the day…or night, or second night, whetever they got here in timber. At the end of it all, if it can’t get any action or participate I’m just standin there. Sure it’s intimidatin, but what good is that? May as well be a damn tree limb.” Tom huffed.
“Look, I get your frustration, but you don’t need to brag about it. That’s really the one thing you want? Just a little handy? You gotta set your sights higher my guy, especially if you got…did you say hog-leg?” she doubled back.
“Don’t matter what I got and where I set my sights, if I can’t hit anything. I miss every time I try.”
“Hey, it happens to everyone. And talking is good. Where I’m from it’s considered trendy for guys to communicate their feelings and I know we’re from very different times so I don’t really know what is considered…blunt or rude, or acceptable to even suggest. You’re not alone on this general feeling, I’ve been setting my sights high and missing my whole life and when I thought I got something good, they always turn out to be another failure. I don’t know your expectations here, I don’t intend to commit to anything or jump the gun over a misunderstanding of what you want to get long term.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“What long term? We could die tomorrow, I just wanna prove I can still be useful today, and…maybe impress you a little. The hell I got to lose at this point? I feel like I got more to contribute than pulling a supply sled like a damn mule, and bein big. I’m a young man with potential, stuck in a place I don’t fit in, feelin like nobody takes me seriously and I let you down with the wolves. I should have done somethin. Didn’t do a damn thing in the alley when we was getting robbed. I feel like a failure as a man. Got no job, no money, no woman, can’t protect one of I did, old timer bossin me around like his employee, don’t even get paid for that. Now I’m a fugitive on the run with 3 people I can barely even trust with my name. Ain’t got shit left. Everyone else has their talents they left home with and the one thing I was good at don’t mean nothing here. Just luggin the supplies and a big damn uncomfortable tree branch tucked away under my belt, not even a good holster to keep it from beatin around when I run.”
“Wow. Really not trying to humble brag about it, but I sort of get your point. Oh God Damnit, you’re right we could die tomorrow. We’re never going home, we’re stuck together. Can you be cool about this?” she asked, looking skeptical. “Like if I get you what you want are you gonna brag to your frie…we don’t have any friends anymore. Fuck. Who are you going to tell and who would even give a shit. Just don’t tell Carol or Hudson, okay?” she said discreetly.
“Tell em what…You got something I don’t know about you plan to share?”
“I guess. Just let me do things my way and trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
The back room door flew open as Jen walked out, looking embarrassed and mad at herself.
“Jen, it ain’t nothing to be…I don’t think less of you for it.” Tom yelled.
“Please can we just not ever mention that again. I feel like an idiot.” Jen groaned.
“Mistakes happen, I don’t know where we got our words crossed but I’m not mad. Pretty flattered actually.” He smirked.
“Oh my fucking God, keep your voice down, this is what I meant by discretion.” She barked quietly.
“That discretion makes a lot more sense now that I understand the situation better. Jen it’s not like I’m married, it was bold but…I ain’t offended.” He shrugged awkwardly as she turned slightly red.
“Oh my god, it’s POLY-MER. Not Palmer. It’s plastic, not the kind of gun that fits in your palm, or even a handjo…” she cut herself off, as Carol passed her with a concerned look and turned to inquire.
“Jen, everything okay?” she asked.
“Just a misunderstanding, I need to go…be alone for a while.” She said heading to the gunsmithing barn to loiter.
“Well, that leads back to the workshop where the gunsmith is work-you don’t care. Not really alone if there’s someone in there. Tom, what just happened?” Carol asked tossing her hands up.
“I don’t believe I am supposed to answer that. I probably shouldn’t suggest you ask her either, so if you have to, I did not advise it. I am not breakin my word.” He said, nodding politely and closing the door.
Billy peered over his shoulder as Jen silently watched him work. Tom knocked on the door and cautiously crept in. She got up and threw her hands in the air, making a wide arc around him and shooting a look of threatening fierceness.
“I’m just checkin my gun.” He apologized in advance.
“I would like to thank you for driving her away. Whatever you did seemed helpful to learn.”
“You don’t want to learn it. I don’t want you to learn it. So what’s the situation on my PALM PISTOL.” He said very slowly with annunciation as Billy gave him the strangest of looks.
“It’s still 11 inches but it’s at least devastating to get hit by and you cant miss from close range with 2 60 caliber barrels. It’s over-chambered for 3 inch shells, both barrels combined will fire 24 pellets about the same size as the other gun shooting one at a time. You will feel this the next morning. I have ammunition, and the papers you will need to get more custom made. Remember every time you pull the hammer that’s 2 shots, so if you pull them both back and fire all 4, the gun may explode.”
“All I gotta know confidently, will it kill a man?”
“A man less than 30 feet away, not wearing any protective armor, yes, absolutely. At 60 feet you will most likely not hit a man at all.” Billy informed.
“With my eyes, that’s better then any gun, and that’s as pocket sized as it gets. Much appreciated. Hey… not to be offensive, buy you are Indian, so you believe in spirits and stuff?” Tom asked discreetly.
“Short answer, yes.” He nodded.
“Jen was in here a while. You get any…weird magic stuff from that little brunette? She got any spirits around her or anything.”
“Spirits guide us all, nothing about her seemed different. Maybe she only seems special to you?” he smiled.
“I meant…the other day before we got here, we got surrounded by wolves. We barely made it to the wagon shelter in time, but she didn’t.”
“What do you mean she didn’t, she seemed fine.” Billy squinted.
“Exactly. She spent half an hour alone in the dark with a pack of those things, dropped her gun, one of them drug her by the foot and they just…left her. Only found her gun on the way back. Never fired a shot. They just, let her be.”
“I think you may have been mistaken or confused. If she was grabbed by a wolf and taken away, even for a minute, she would now be one of the spirits guiding someone. I assure you that woman is just flesh and blood. How she has flesh and blood left is a mystery to me.”
“Will this modified gun take down a wolf at close range if I get it right between the eyes?” Tom asked.
“You must not have wolves where you come from. You never shoot a wolf in the head. Nothing gets through that thick skull bone, especially scattershot. You shoot the neck right behind the jaw, and they bleed out. They can still kill you and a dozen people before they do. Once they turn and face you, you don’t take one down. You just pray, and then you become Prey.”
A figure in the dark of night lifted his pistol to the forehead of a wounded wolf on the ground, he fired 3 shots and it went silent. The dark shadow drew a hatchet and began hacking the neck silently to remove the head and take it with him. The still smoldering embers of the fire Hudson had lit in the shelter house flickered a bit, as fresh wood was tossed on the pile and a bald white man with goggles sat beside it, placing the “wolf” head on a stump to butcher it. his long, braided gray beard raked over a necklace of wooden beads as he adjusted his heavy coat, stiff like it was dunked in water and frozen solid.
He violently hacked the neck meat and began ripping parts of the wolf’s head apart as if looking for something special. The heavy stone axe thumped it’s way through neck bones as he accumulated a pile of oddly purple meat, still carving and searching with a psychopathic serenity to his emotionless face, periodically placing a bite of meat in his mouth and placing something into a wooden bowl with a plinking sound. He repeated it for some time, finally leaving the head alone and pouring out 6 blunted out brass bullets, adding it to the bag on his side, as the coat crunched and moved stiffly.
He walked to the straw mat beds and sniffed the air, hunching down and running his gloved-hand under the matting, the clank of strange grey gauntlet plates, dark and dull but borderline metallic looking. He pulled out a single strand of shoulder length dark brown hair, sniffing it and looking back at the wolf skull with a silent ponder. He plopped nonchalantly down on the mat and kicked his feet up for a nap, staring at the hair and placing it in his pocket with almost the slightest hint of a smile.
