So by the time we crossed the Brooklyn bridge, two dozen septuagenarians and me in a tour bus stinking of diesel fumes and stale AC, I thought Grandpa and the gun guy, McGee, would have exhausted everything there was to say about firearms.
But no.
As soon as McGee got back from the john, Grandpa pointed out a scruffy looking guy driving past in a rusty VW. The guy’s long hair inspired a dialogue on sniper rifles that carried us all the way to midtown.
We’d left Omaha two days before, and all through the cornfields of Iowa and Illinois the clean-cut old timers talked Colt, Walther, and Smith & Wesson.
Along the Ohio River it was a history of long guns from Kentucky Rifles to German hunting muskets.
When they got to the 1873 Winchester, they switched back to pistols and spent most of Pennsylvania on a bloody trek through the Old West. Talking Mare’s Legs, Pepperboxes, and Peacemakers, some of the old ladies riding along thought the two men had finally changed topics completely.
Trapped in the window seat beside Grandpa while he chattered across the aisle with McGee, thoroughly riddled with their rapid fire conversation, I knew better.
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This story was free during the first full week of July, 2018.
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“Gun Guys” is one of several short stories in Season of Ice, a collection.
Each month this year, I will post a free crime story on the first Tuesday of the month, and a free western story two weeks later on the third Tuesday. The stories will stay up for seven days, and each will feature a “behind the story” post.
