Longarm thanked the boys and headed back to see what that wooden Indian could tell him.
The boys picked up their marbles and followed him at a respectful distance. For he seemed more exiting than anything else going on on a warm afternoon on a work day.
He identified himself to the cigar store man, bought a dozen of his three-for-a-nickel brand, and asked permission to dig that spent bullet out of the already somewhat battered chief.
The older man said to go ahead and watched with interest, along with the boys, as Longarm skillfully used his pocket knife to extract the evidence without too much damage to either pine or softer lead.
Once he had, he thanked the older man, gave the kids three pennies to go buy some jaw breakers and found his way to the one and only gunsmith in the junction.
The gunsmith was a wrinkled-up old timer with bushy black hair and eyebrows. He and his small, cluttered but neatly-kept shop smelled of cleaning spirits and gun oil. He didn’t get sore when Longarm flashed his badge and said he wanted a favor instead of repair work or fresh cartridges.
Longarm placed the deformed slug he’d dug out of white pine on the glass counter top between them and explained how he’d come by it.
The gunsmith picked up the slug meant for Longarm’s spine and measured its base with his steel calipers as he muttered, “Forty-one if it’s American. Closer to .40 if it’s metric and … Yep, one of them fancy French .40 calibers. Can’t even guess at the powder charge, though. You say it sounded like a pistol shot, Deputy Long?”
Longarm nodded and said, “Works even better if we could be talking about a Le Mat six-gun, sir.”
The gunsmith said, “The Le Mat loads nine in the wheel to go with that shotgun charge they revolve around. But this could have come out of a Le Mat. Old Doc Le Mat is such a contrary cuss, he chambers his freak revolvers every way but sensible.”
“Still?” asked Longarm. “I heard tell Le Mat had died or gone out of business.”
The gunsmith shook his bushy head and replied, “Semi-retired, but still puttering with medicine and machine tools in New Orleans. Doc Le Mat—Jean Francois Le Mat, if it matters to you—was born in France but came over here to practice medicine and design weapons just before the war. The percusson cap was invented by a minister named Forsyth, speaking of strange hobbies.”
“We were talking about Doc Le Mat,” Longarm murmured politely.
The gunsmith shrugged. “The reason Le Mat’s ten-shooter never caught on like a Colt or Remington was Doc’s tinkering. His basic design was reliable. But he had them made up at a factory in Paris, France, adding shipping and import costs to his product.”
Setting the spent slug back on the glass, the gunsmith continued. “After that he kept fooling with the calibers, favoring .42, .40, or .36 instead of the more popular .45, .44, or .38 and having his damned guns chambered under the infernal French metric system to make for an even less certain fit with cheaper American ammunition.”
Longarm said he’d already heard about how tough it could be to get fresh cartridges for a Le Mat.
The gunsmith said, “The first ones were cap and ball, so it was easier when he got his first patent in ‘56. But the War Department wasn’t interested in firing buckshot at anybody from a pistol. He had better luck with the Confederacy because he was pals with General Pierre Beauregard. J. E. B. Stuart and Patton Anderson packed Le Mats for the South as well. So by the end of the war that French factory was running in some ten-shooters that loaded brass cartridges as well.”
“You said they still do?” Longarm reminded the digressing older man.
The gunsmith nodded and said, “On special order. They make more popular six-guns for their European market nowadays. But some older gunslicks with mean tempers still favor a reliable ten-shooter.”
Longarm said, “That reserve shotgun blast is a pisser, speaking from experience. Do you stock any .40-shorts or those 20-gauge shells?”
The gunsmith thought before he said, “Twenty-gauge for certain. It’s a popular load for women and children, less of a jolt when you fire from the shoulder. I might have some .40-shorts or even rifle rounds buried somewhere amid the debris. We don’t get much call for that load.”
Longarm said that unless he’d sold some to somebody else in recent memory, it hardly mattered.
So the gunsmith said he’d keep an eye peeled for such an unusual customer, and they shook on it.
He met up with Undersheriff Pat Brennan out front. She was wearing a fresh riding habit and a worried expression as she gasped, “I’ve been looking all over for you, Custis! Somebody told me you’d been in another gunfight and …”
“Never got to fight back,” he said, tersely bringing her up to date about a sudden move saving his ass and explaining what he’d been up to with the gunsmith.
She said, “Somebody really has it in for you, dear. That’s twice in one day!”
He shrugged and said, “Lousy shooting. No guts either. Pegged one wild shot this morning with a serious rifle, and another just now with what’s commencing to stack up as that famous Le Mat.”
She protested, “You said Medusa Le Mat was a woman. But those boys saw a man run past.”
Longarm smiled thinly and replied, “They saw somebody dressed like a man, and Medusa Le Mat is a mistress of disguise. A strange gal in these parts, passing herself off a far less unusual cowboy, could be the answer to many a simple question. Let’s go eat. It’s past dinner time and that Chinese place ain’t half bad.”
She was willing, and the only Orientals for miles around were honored to serve chop suey to such distinguished trade.
As they ate at a corner table near the back, Pat filled Longarm in on that “Uncle Chester” she’d sworn out a warrant against after some more gal-to-gal talk with the slow but pretty Maureen Cassidy.
Pat told him, “I’ve staked out the old Nesbit place in hopes the man will come by to play doctor some more. It’s a godsend you got to that poor little thing first, Custis! We wired Florence, and wherever Rose Cassidy went after leaving Maureen alone out there, Florence wasn’t it. I’ve put out a search on her, along with a want on Uncle
