I walked over to the handgun case and looked at the selection. One of the guns caught my eye. I’d never seen anything quite like it before. It looked like the standard Western movie six-shooter, but with a much longer barrel and a funny-looking tapered mechanism underneath. I noticed that the long barrel was octagonal rather than round and that parts of the frame were made of brass. It was ancient, but seemed to be begging to be fired again.
“What is that?” I asked when the man returned. He looked where I was pointing and smiled.
“Beauty, ain’t it? That there’s a Colt 1851 Navy model. This one was made in 1853. Wild Bill Hickock carried two of ‘em, although some folks say he had 1860 Army models instead. But then some folks don’t like whiskey either.”
“Well, I ain’t some folks,” I said. I pulled a flask filled with bourbon out of my coat and offered it to him. He took it.