Crossroad (The Gunsmith Book 3) Read online

  CROSSROAD

  ( THE GUNSMITH SERIES BOOK II )

  C.K. CRIGGER

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  A Look at Six Shot (Gunsmith Series Book IV) by C.K. Crigger

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  About the Author

  Crossroad

  (The Gunsmith Series Book III)

  by

  C.K. Crigger

  City Lights Press

  An Imprint of Wolfpack Publishing

  P.O. Box 620427

  Las Vegas, NV 89162

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © Copyright 2017 C.K. Crigger (as revised)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-62918-782-2

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  CHAPTER 1

  If ever a man looked like trouble, this one did. Power radiated from him like ripples from a hub. He may as well have been wearing a sign that read: Beware. This man is dangerous.

  And me? Well, he scared hell out of me. But it galls me to confess that, at the same time, I was attracted—and on more than one level. Dangerous? Oh, you bet.

  But let me explain.

  I was alone in the shop on an unseasonably hot June morning, knee-deep in paperwork and with an overdue repair backlog. My brother Scott, the other half of “Iron’s Gunsmithing: Sales & Repair,” had gone off on a junket with Sonja, his fiancée. Their wedding, scheduled to take place in a couple of weeks, occupied most of his waking hours and all of his thoughts of late, which left me wholly in charge of the shop. His job is sales; mine repairs. I’m Boothenay Irons, the gunsmith.

  The telephone receiver I was holding dropped away from my ear as I glanced, strangely disturbed by the man who’d come in and stood looking around. The person on the other end of the line faded to a distant squawk before I recovered and caught up with the question he’d been asking.

  “No, sir. I’m sorry, Mr. Kivett, the new Browning Citori O/U Special Skeet hasn’t come in yet. If you’d care to drop by the shop and take a look, we have a Beretta S682 Gold Skeet in stock that’s just a little pricier.” I paused, listening as Mr. Kivett—who traded skeet guns every season, none of which made him shoot any better—rattled on.

  “Yes,” I said. “Scott has a note right here with instructions to call you as soon as the Browning arrives. Sure, sure. Will do, sir. Thank you. Good-bye.”

  If Mr. Kivett truly wanted to excel in his sport, he’d get out to the range and practice, and quit blaming his failure to win a competition on his shotgun. Of course, he was good for sales, especially since he bought a new gun from us every year. I guessed I’d better not complain.

  Meanwhile, I hadn’t stopped watching the man, a stranger whom I’d never seen in the shop before. Something about him made me uneasy and I edged nearer the cash register where, if driven to such a humbling action, I could hit the panic button that would automatically call the cops.

  To be fair, the guy seemed to be studying me with reciprocal distrust. He kept his distance, too, coming no closer than the center of the room. As though claustrophobic, his dark eyes swiveled this way and that, taking in the ambiance of the old brick building that houses Iron’s Gunsmithing on the lower floor, and where Dad and I live on the second. He reminded me of a shyster real estate agent about to try passing off an iceberg as an arctic island resort.

  To cover my nervousness, I smiled brightly at him. “Help you?”

  He jumped, as though my speaking had startled him. Guilty conscience? I wondered. I wished there were someone—anyone—else in the shop right now. I’m strong and tough-minded, but I’m also small in stature, which tends to keep me on my toes

  When he spoke, his voice sounded rusty and unused, scraping over some of the consonants. I have to say this wasn’t unpleasant. Quite the contrary.

  “Looking for a gun,” he said, quiet and low.

  “What kind? Rifle? Handgun? Shotgun?” Thinking of Mr. Kivett, I added, “Skeet?”

  His lips formed the word “skeet” as if he wondered what kind of animal that could be.

  “Pistol,” he said, with an emphasis on the last syllable, until it sounded almost a Spanish speaker’s pronunciation.

  “Single action, double action, semi-auto, fully auto? What price range are you considering? What are you going to use it for?” I rambled on. “Targets? Varmints? Home defense?”

  An inquisition isn’t the normal way for me to begin with a customer. Like I said, the guy made me nervous. So much so that I nearly missed hearing him say, “A killing gun.”

  I swallowed, thinking, well, it is the nature of the beast. “Ah, yeah.” I said aloud. “Well, suppose you come over here and see if there is anything in the showcase that interests you.”

  Hoping I wasn’t borrowing trouble, my finger hovered above the panic button. Believe you me, I’d want to be checking this dude’s credentials before I sold him as much as a cleaning kit.

  With my other hand I reached for the little Smith & Wesson Model 60LS .357 magnum under the counter, close to swearing out loud as I remembered I was in Scott’s territory. I’d left the LadySmith on my own side of the shop. Scott liked an old pump Mossberg I found awkward and slow, but at least it lay on a shelf within reach. I found myself appreciating its proximity.

  Tentatively, the guy stepped forward. The lightweight, lace-up boots he wore, with tops made of black fabric, reached to just below his knees. Dressed all in black, he almost faded into the background, until he got to where the sun shining through the shop windows cast more light on him. Then I saw his skin was tanned a shade like stained oak, a little unusual around Spokane this early in the summer. The color was in sharp contrast to his raggedly cut, white-blond hair.

  Yes, white, although he couldn’t have been more than my own age of twenty-seven. A natural coloration, I believed, although black lashes surrounded eyes as brown as my own. An odd genetic combination.

  As he neared the counter, a weird realization . . . awareness . . . something . . . started growing in me. Several somethings, actually, one of them being the notion this guy was as leery of me as I was of him. Another was of a quality in him that echoed a quality of my own. Namely, possession of the power that lets me pass from place to place through time.

  And yes. Although I avoid the words, I’m talking about magic and time-travel, to use the idiom of fantasy. My power is keyed by a few of the rare antique guns I work on, depending upon whether they have a story—a history—that needs told. In some mysterious fashion, I am able to lock on to these histories and interact within them.

  I ha
d no idea about the way his power worked, or if he even knew he had the power. Yet the way he advanced, crossing the floor with slow and cautious gliding footsteps, and by his manner as he examined his surroundings, led me to believe he did.

  When at last he stood directly across from me, with only the counter separating us, my greatest desire was for him to leave again. At once. Power emanated from him in waves, causing the very atmosphere that surrounded him to fluctuate. I didn’t need to have power of my own in order to sense his.

  Our gazes locked. I heard myself make an inarticulate sound, a moan, as if I were in pain. Where had he come from? The question pounded through my head.

  At that moment McDuff, one of the two Briard dogs Caleb Deane and I had rescued from WWI, rose up to loom beside me. He’s a big dog, and although he made no overt threat against the stranger, he did make his presence known.

  The man smiled, unafraid. An expression of delight transformed his thin, somber face.

  “A guardian dog,” he said.

  “Guard dog,” I corrected. “Yes.” McDuff is a very gentle creature, much less aggressive than Dad’s old coonhound, Gabe, yet I wasn’t about to contradict the man’s assumption.

  Nudging McDuff out of the way, I took a deep, controlling breath, and said, “What do you see that strikes your fancy? Can I show you anything in particular?”

  The guy’s attention jerked from the dog to me. “I want a Weatherby.”

  “Weatherby?” I repeated. “Weatherby makes only the one style in a pistol, you know. The CFP, although it does come in several different calibers. I don’t have a new one in stock, I’m afraid, but I can order whatever you want.” I reached for the Weatherby catalog.

  He stopped me. “How long? How much time does this ordering take?”

  “A week. Ten days, maybe.

  His face twisted with dismay and impatience

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Anyway, Washington State law requires a five-day waiting period on handguns. I can make some calls and have a Weatherby in by the time the authorities have completed your background check, even if I have to swing a reciprocal exchange with another dealer. But there’s no way any of us can get around the five-day law.” Frankly, I had no desire to try.

  “The law,” he said. “This is for all guns? Used guns also?”

  “All handguns.” Where had he come from, for him not to know? I made sure I didn’t mention, and tried not to let the concept so much as cross my mind, about the unchecked availability of private party gun sales. My own magical—if you’ll pardon the word—powers are generated by guns. He’d come here to buy a gun, and since I felt— more, could see—the power encompassing him, I simply didn’t think this was a good idea.

  “The law, is it the same with a Glock?” he asked. “Same with a Sig Sauer? Beretta?”

  “The same.”

  Anger and—was it fear?—sparked behind his eyes. “A Winchester Defender also? Must I wait?”

  “The Defender is a shotgun,” I said. “A police or military style shotgun.” I avoided answering his question.

  “I know what it is,” he snapped. He paused as though thinking.

  My finger inched toward the panic button again. This would be the time, if he was truly audacious enough, and reckless enough, that he would try to take what he wanted.

  At last he asked, “Is there a waiting period for ammunition?”

  “No.” But why would he want ammo without the gun? Weirder and weirder.

  “Then I’ll buy a box, two boxes, of ammunition for the Weatherby.”

  I sighed. Mine is not to reason why. “What caliber? 22-250, 223, 7mm, 257? 308? I could have mentioned more.

  His dark eyes narrowed, meeting mine again. “223.”

  Oh, he knew what I was thinking.

  “And give me six boxes of 9mm Para,” he said, more confidently. “And shotgun shells for the Defender.”

  “That’s a lot of target practice,” I said, unlocking the cabinets where Scott stored the ammo. He didn’t answer.

  With no choice but to put my back to the guy, I hoped McDuff was keeping his eye on things. Much to my surprise, when I turned around I found the dog submitting with perfect happiness to being petted. Possibly his attitude should have relieved me, but it didn’t.

  “Is it very difficult to find food for this dog?” The man’s hard features had softened, I observed. Given such an odd question, I had to wonder what rock he’d climbed out from under. But maybe not so odd, given what I was thinking.

  “Not hard to find,” I said. “A bit expensive maybe. After all, he’s a big dog. He eats a lot.” I didn’t tell him about the other Briard, sleeping out in the yard.

  Quickly, I rang up the charges for the ammo on the register and gave him the bad news. To be fair, he didn’t flinch. He pulled out a fat, worn-looking leather wallet and counted out bills from what appeared to be an unending supply.

  “Gunsmithing,” he said, taking his change without glancing at it and stuffing both bills and coins into his pocket. “If I brought a gun—a Weatherby—to the gunsmith, how long would the repairs take? Is there a waiting period for this as well?”

  “Depends on what’s wrong,” I said, sincere in my belief that I’d just as soon order a new gun in, rather than work on anything he’d had in hand. I wasn’t forgetting his aura. Not for a moment. “Depends on availability of parts, and on when I can get to it. I’m terribly busy right now. I have other jobs lined up, each one with a customer anxious for completion.”

  “You have jobs?”

  “I’m the gunsmith,” I said, with the little thrill of pride I always feel when I make that announcement.

  He stopped dead still, as if thinking, or making an inner communion or something. “I see,” he said slowly, leaving me wondering what it was he thought he saw.

  I put the cartridges into a bag printed with the shop name and handed it over, being extra careful not to touch him. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say. I’d learned my lesson—or so I tried to convince myself—on indiscriminate contact earlier this spring when I’d discovered old August von Fassnacht to also be inoculated with power. Slight, in his case, but still there.

  This man must have found me to be the most unenthusiastic sales person he’d ever dealt with, for I asked him no questions about the repairs he’d mentioned. I didn’t press for an order of a new gun either, or spend any time in idle chitchat, or the building of customer relations. I didn’t want to hear about these things, or to do business with him. I didn’t think I wanted to know where he’d come from, with his unique looks, his unfamiliar accent, his bizarre, uninformed questions. And with all that cash money and all that raw power.

  Instead, I thanked him and watched him leave, noticing the way he looked both left and right before he stepped outside, as though suspicious of an ambush. He headed right, passing in front of the display window on that side of the door. After a few seconds, I rushed over to the same door and went out onto the sidewalk.

  He wasn’t anywhere in sight. Running, I went to the street corner and peeked around the side of the building. No sign of him there either, or of any car or other means of transportation. Only the empty Iron’s Gunsmith bag remained, fluttering in the light breeze, snagged on the pointed top of our picket fence.

  He’d disappeared in less than a quarter of a minute. Totally disappeared.

  WAIT UNTIL I TELL CALEB, I told myself a little later. This is going to blow him away. Shoot, it almost blew me away! I’d spent nearly fifteen years of my life thinking I was the only person in the world in possession of an extra, uncanny power, yet inside the space of only a few months, I’d met three more.

  First came Caleb Deane, who’d been mighty surprised when he vanished from before my own and my brother Scott’s eyes. So had Scott and I, been surprised, I mean. Next had come August, whose power had been too slight for him to help himself. And now, there was this man.

  Of them all, this one disturbed—scared—me the most.

 
; Around noon, I locked up and walked down the block to the Rocket Bakery, then brought my lunch and latte back to the shop. Halfway through the croissant sandwich, I picked up the phone.

  “Hi, Caleb,” I said, when I got him on the line. “It’s me.”

  “Hey, sugar.” His North Carolina drawl landed softly on my ear. As always, when he called me “sugar,” I felt a frisson of delight. It sounded as though he were right here, this minute, bent on taking me in his arms and kissing me breathless. I wished that were true. It would have been true two months ago, but things had been a little constrained between us lately. Ever since he’d been lost in World War I, in fact, and had met, then been parted from a woman of that time. He felt guilty and betrayed, thinking it had taken me too long to find him and affect a rescue. I felt angry and betrayed, because he hadn’t trusted me enough to know I would never abandon him. We’re working our way through the quagmire—one day at a time.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “You don’t usually call me at the clinic.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Is this a bad time?” It had seemed natural to want to speak with him. Now I wasn’t so sure. Did he dislike me calling him at work?

  “No, no. We’re fine. I’m between patients,” he hastened to assure me, having heard the uncertainty in my words. I’d heard them, too, and detested the way I felt so hesitant of him and everyone lately. It was as if I didn’t believe in myself or my own judgment anymore.