Billy's Revolver - Short Story by Clark Zlotchew

Billy’s Revolver

By Clark Zlotchew

Can the tail actually wag the dog?  I would not have believed it a month ago.  But sometimes it doesn’t pay to be too sophisticated, to believe that everything happens according to the laws of physics. My condescending attitude toward what I called “superstition,” my smugness in not believing in curses, is what led to my misfortune.  Let me explain.

I am a fanatical collector of rare and/or historic weapons.  At home, hanging on the wall of my den, I have a samurai sword that once belonged to a colonel in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.  My grandfather had appropriated it in the Philippines. And, in a glass display case, with other items, I have a German Luger from the same war, captured from a German officer.  I have a total of twenty-six items and am always on the lookout for more.

 My friend Rell, who lives in the wilds, as I call it, of Chautauqua County, on Lake Erie, called to inform me that a gun shop in Westfield, NY, had a revolver that had once belonged to Billy the Kid.  He also warned me the proprietor would not sell the gun.  No matter, I thought, I’m a wealthy man and I have never seen any deal that could not be closed with sufficient financial emoluments.  Like they say, “Money talks.”  And since money was no object for me, Billy the Kid’s six-shooter would be a great addition to my collection, and I determined to have it.  I, Rodney J. Darling III, always get what I want.  Sometimes, more than I want.

 I flew from La Guardia Airport to Buffalo that same day, rented a Ford Mustang and raced down the Thruway the sixty-five miles to Westfield, an attractive little town that probably looked the same as it had when President Lincoln visited it.  Or, as I discovered, much to my sorrow, when Billy the Kid stopped there.   I parked the Mustang on Main Street, which looked like the typical thoroughfare of any small town in the country.  Hungry as I was, and despite the many restaurants in town, I skipped lunch, marched down the street and immediately found the shop with the name Mallory’s Firearms painted on the plate glass display window.  There was a hand-written sign in the window that read:  See Billy-the-Kid’s sick-shooter.  Whoever wrote that sign apparently never won any spelling bees.  Not that I cared; I was too excited to fuss about spelling.  The man had something I wished to acquire, and acquire it I would. 

I entered the gun shop and heard the tinkle of the little bell at the top of the door.  Inside, there were display cases containing firearms of all descriptions and applications: rifles, shotguns, revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, assault weapons…   I was surprised not to see a bazooka, a flame-thrower or a surface-to-air missile launcher. One item, a revolver that looked like it could have been used toward the end of the 19^th-Century, drew my attention. It certainly was old but obviously well-cared for.  Within its own glass-enclosed case it glowed warmly, invitingly. I could imagine the comfortable feel of the weapon in my hand.  I drew closer and saw a gleaming brass plaque on the polished cherrywood bottom of the case. On the brass plate was inscribed: This revolver belonged to Billy the Kid.  The gun looked authentic, and I know my weapons.

            The proprietor, a tall, thin gentleman, aged about sixty-five, shuffled toward me.  I asked him the price.  He said, “Billy’s revolver?  Oh.  So, you mean you want to buy it?”

            Oh, this man was on the ball.  “That is why I asked the price.” I mentally added, Why else would I ask the price? And this is a gun store, is it not?  But I stifled the urge, and merely glanced at the age-darkened pine floor, the ornamental tin ceiling with its fan, the white moisture-stained walls, waiting for his next remark.

            “So, you must have noticed there’s no price on it, even though everything else in the store has its price listed.”  He smiled and arched his eyebrows, looking as though he were waiting impatiently for me to express great interest.

            The man started his sentences with the word So. That annoyed me no end. I said, “Well, now that you mention it… How come?”

            He peered at me over his gold-rimmed spectacles and said, “So, it’s not for sale, you see.” He glanced at my face and understood I wanted an explanation. He sighed and scratched his bald head. “So, I don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s death.”

            “What on earth are you talking about, man?”

            “Look. So, Billy the Kid was just some dumb kid from Brooklyn who went out west for adventure. Or maybe to make his fortune. He didn’t know a thing about guns, yet he bought one –this one right here—when he passed through Westfield.  After all, if you’re going to the Wild West, you need a gun, right? Right.  So, he bought it in this very store which, at the time was owned by Isaac Bailey.  So, next thing you know, the kid’s out in New Mexico killing men right and left. For no good reason.”

            I, of course, knew all about the Kid’s history.  I nodded and said, “So?” I purposely used his favorite word, hoping to irritate him. It had no effect.

            He slowly shook his head, and said, “So, Billy’s killing rampage made no sense. I mean, he said things like, ‘I didn’t like the way he looked at me,’ or ‘I just couldn’t stand looking at his ugly face,’ as a reason for killing people. Now, he might have been unbalanced, of course. A dangerous psychopath.”

            “He must have been that,” I said.  Or maybe the people he killed began too many sentences with the word “so.”

            “Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why everyone who owned the gun after Billy’s demise --there were five of them-- killed a lot of folks for no apparent reason, too, except the same kind of crazy explanations that Billy had offered.”

             “So, what are you saying?” Damn it, now he had me using his favorite word.

             “It’s that gun.”

            “What about the gun?”

            “So, don’t you see? The gun made them do it.”

            It took a moment for me to understand what the man was suggesting. “You believe the gun has a will of its own?  Plus, it can use human beings to do its will?”

            “Of course.”  He said this in such a condescending tone, with a superior smirk on his face, that it angered me.  He pressed on: “So, the last person to own it before it came back home to this shop inherited it from his father, Jeff Flowers, a veterinarian and… a serial killer. “

            “A serial killer?”

Yeah, well, you see, Jeff was a good man before he came into possession of this pistol, but after he bought it, he carried it around on his person, loaded. And, well, he did what he did: killed people. He had excuses, of course: So, the milkman was poisoning the milk, the security guard at the bank looked at him funny, and on and on. They finally realized he was loony toons, definitely rubber-room material. So, at his trial down in Mayville he was found not guilty “by reason of insanity.” So, he landed in the looney bin up in North Collins.

            “So,” he continued, “his son wouldn’t carry the gun on his person but brought it to me in a plastic bag. So, he practically begged me to take it. Didn’t want any money, but I gave him fifty bucks anyway.  So,…”

            I got the urge to give this storekeeper a hard time.  “Maybe it wasn’t the will of the gun,” I suggested, just to see his reaction.

“So, what else could it be?”

“Maybe it was the spirit of that psychopath, Billy the Kid, who died before he could kill as many people as he wanted to.  You know, and his evil spirit stayed with the gun which then transferred Billy’s will to the next owner.”  I didn’t believe in this bizarre theory; I just wanted to pull his chain, see his reaction.

The storekeeper cocked his head like a puzzled cocker spaniel, considering my theory.  “So…  You know,” he decided, “so, you may have a good point.”

I had been sarcastic, trying to suggest a possibility as hare-brained as his original theory, just to mock the man.  But he took it seriously.  Now, I’m normally a very calm person, some would say phlegmatic. It takes a lot to make me angry, or happy, for that matter, and I never have violent impulses.  When you’re as wealthy as I am, you can take just about anything, no matter how stupid or even insulting, and just brush it off, secure in your comfortable world.  But at this point, I was so fed up hearing his constant use, or abuse, of the word so, that I felt like grabbing the case containing the famous six-shooter and smashing it over his head. Thinking back, I don’t understand why I felt this burning rage simply because the fellow kept senselessly beginning sentences with that idiotic word, so.

             “Okay,” I said, “Let’s get back to the gun.”

The storekeeper looked somewhat confused. Finally, he said, “Oh, right. You said something about buying Billy’s gun.”  Then he just looked at me with a blank expression.

I said, “Yes, the gun. How much?

“Sorry. Not for sale.”

I felt like striking the man.  “Not for sale? This is a gun shop, is it not?”  That was the second time I had to use that sentence.  I was in a rut.

            “Sure is, pal, but that gun ain’t for sale. It’s just on exhibition. So, it brings people to the shop from all over…  Like Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Toronto, the Rez up in Irving and from as far away as New York City   Sometimes even from Chicago and Los Angeles. Once, a well-known writer of Wild West novels, Donald Something-0r-Other, came here all the way from Bakersfield, California. So, that guy paid me fifty bucks just for the privilege of holding it in his hand for a couple of minutes. So, once they’re here to see it, and hear its history, some of them end up making a purchase.  Of a different firearm, I mean.  So,…”

             I was offended that this superstitious fool had referred to me as “pal,” as though I had anything in common with an ignorant shopkeeper like him.  And I was bored with this man’s long-winded anecdotes and increasingly irritated with his use of the word so, and now, heaping injury on insult, his stalling on the sale of this wonderful gun was driving me mad.  So –Oh God, that word, again— I rather rudely broke into his idiotic soliloquy, “I’ll give you five hundred dollars, cash, for it.”

            He stared at me.  He looked as though he were trying to solve a thorny problem in physics. Finally, “I’ll let you have it for nine hundred ninety-five dollars.” He hesitated, then, “But I won’t sleep nights if I don’t remind you it’s cursed.”

I felt like telling him to add five dollars to that price and just call it an even thousand.  Why mess around with an idiotic price like that.  Did he think nine-ninety-five would seem a more reasonable price than a thousand?  I said, “You told me a fascinating story, but I’m not superstitious. I’ll give you five hundred fifty dollars for it.”  I added fifty dollars to my original bid.

Money was no obstacle, but I bargained with him just on principle.  In the end, after three minutes of lively haggling, I paid seven hundred fifty-eight dollars and forty-five cents for it -with a box of its corresponding ammunition tossed in.  Looking back, that price should have amused me; instead, the ridiculous forty-five cents really galled me.  I took the pistol, and right there and then, flipped out the cylinder, inserted each of six bullets into it, snapped it shut, and shoved it into the holster that was included in the deal.  It fit snugly on my belt and felt warm and comforting against my hip.  And, it gave me a feeling of great power. 

As I sauntered toward the door, I sensed a vibration in the gun; it seemed to be giving me a stimulating massage.  I felt it needed me to fit my hand around the butt.  When I did so, it felt good, felt right.  The vibration increased; it wanted to be free of the holster.  I slid it out of the holster and placed my finger on the trigger.  Just before I opened the door to leave, I heard the storekeeper call out, in that grating, high-pitched voice, “So, mister, tell your friends about this place.”

I gritted my teeth and thought, If that annoying SOB uses the word so just one more time, I just won’t be responsible…  The revolver seemed to want, to need, me to squeeze that smooth, shapely trigger.  I resisted the urge.

Then the damn fool yelled, in the most ridiculously cheerful tone, as if he were my lifelong friend, “So, enjoy Billy’s gun!”

So, I wheeled around and did just that.  I joyfully pumped all six bullets into the man.  I stood there, holding the pistol and staring at the idiot on the floor, his eyes fixed on the tin ceiling, and I saw the light of life departing from them.  My elation quickly turned cold as I gazed at the corpse, which had a strange, questioning look fixed on its face, his face, the face of a fellow human being, one with whom I had just been talking.  I looked at the revolver; it no longer glistened.  Instead, it appeared soiled, greasy.  I hated this instrument of death.  I flung it across the room with all my strength and watched it bounce off a wall, sending a shower of plaster crumbling to the floor.  My ears were ringing from the six shots fired. 

I looked down at the poor man I had senselessly murdered.  And why?  Because I didn’t like his overuse of the word so?  I felt I was losing my mind.  A tremendous burden of guilt fell on me as though I had five hundred pounds of concrete on my back and shoulders, and, gazing at the dead man, I felt a surge of sorrow and pity.  I dropped to my knees next to the man and, as I remember, I kept saying, “I’m sorry, my God, I’m so sorry,” over and over, sobbing uncontrollably.  I heard the tinkle of a little bell as the street door opened.  I looked at it and saw a pair of uniformed policemen hurry toward me, guns in their fists.

www.clarkzlotchew.com

Clark Zlotchew is the author of 18 published books, only four of which consist of his fiction:  a new short-story collection (2021) plus two espionage/thriller novels and an award-winning collection of his short stories, Once Upon a Decade: Tales of the Fifties (2010).   Newer work of his has appeared in Crossways Literary Magazine, Baily’s Beads, Scrutiny, The Fictional Café and many other literary journals in the U.S., Australia, U.K., Germany, South Africa, Sweden, India, and Ireland from 2016 through 2021.  Earlier fiction of his has appeared in his Spanish versions in Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico and the state of Colorado.  Dr. Zlotchew is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Spanish. Emeritus at SUNY Fredonia.