The Gunsmith of Gunnison Gorge

Nothing much was happening in the town of Gunnison Gorge and hadn't for the last two weeks, so Marshal Thompson was sitting in a chair on the porch of the marshal's office that June afternoon. The snow had melted in the passes and the gold miners had all come down, stocked up, and headed back to their mines. Gunnison Gorge was again the sleepy little Colorado town Bartholomew Thompson had liked when he got there and now loved.

He looked down the street and smiled. The new boardwalk that ran in front of the general store, doctor's office, barbershop, hotel, and the marshal's office had been a good change for the town. Women didn't have to hold up their skirts now in order to walk the muddy street. They were able to stroll casually down the boardwalk between those businesses while talking to each other instead of keeping a wary eye out for mud puddles or piles of horse manure.

This summer, the men of the town would build another boardwalk on the other side of the street to provide a clean walk between the undertaker's, the claims office, the saloon, and the empty storefront between the undertaker's and the claims office. Walking on the dirt street would still be required to reach the blacksmith's and the livery stable, but only men usually went there and they didn't have skirts to lift.

Bart, as he preferred to be called, waved his hand as Maddie Wilson drove her buckboard up the street. She saw him and waved, then reined the two horses to a stop in front of him. Her low alto voice was soft and smooth.

"Good morning, Bart. How are you doing."

"Morning, Maddie. I'm doing fine. What brings you to town today?"

Maddie smiled.

"Oh, I needed a few things. Maria says we're about out of corn meal and flour, and the last time I was in the general store, Wallace said he'd ordered a few of those new Winchester rifles. I thought I'd see if they came in yet."

"I happen to know they did because the town bought two for the marshal's office."

"Well, I'd better go have a look then. You take care, Bart. I'll be seeing you."

As Maddie drove off toward the general store, Bart chuckled. He thought Maddie had her eyes on him as a prospective husband because she was friendlier to him than she was to most other men. Maddie had been married once, but was now a widow. She had a lot to offer a man, but he wasn't really interested.

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Maddie's full name was Madison Eleanor Jameson Wilson, and she was the daughter of one of the original ranchers in the valley. Her husband, Thaddeus Wilson, had thought it his duty to enlist in the Union Army when the Civil War broke out, and had been assigned to the 1st Colorado Infantry Regiment. His military career was a short one. Thaddeus was killed during the Battle of Glorietta Pass in New Mexico. It was a year after Maddie became a widow that her mother had passed on. Her father followed his wife six months later. Maddie had inherited the ranch and now ran it by herself. The man who married her would also marry that ranch and the income it provided.

Bart thought it was a shame she wasn't married already, but he understood the probable reasons. It wasn't that Maddie was a plain-looking woman. The long, blonde hair she kept up in braids under her hat framed a pretty face with a small nose, eyes as blue as the Colorado sky on a clear summer day, and a wide, sensuous mouth. Maddie was just not a very feminine woman as women went.

The dress Maddie wore that day accented her figure, but Bart knew she only wore dresses when she came to town for something. Every other day she wore the same trousers and shirt most men wore, and she ran the thousand-acre cattle ranch her father had started in the valley. She also wore a Remington New Model Army revolver strapped on her right thigh when she was at the ranch, and was known to be a good shot. There were rumors among the women in town that maybe Maddie was a woman who wished she was a man.

The cowhands who worked for Maddie said she was a stern boss who didn't put up with many of the things most cowboys thought was only normal. Maddie demanded a hard day's work for a day's pay, and any cowhand caught loafing on the job was paid off and sent on his way the very same day. Maddie didn't mind her cowhands drinking when they weren't working, but they dare not show up drunk or they'd suffer the same fate.

Maddie also had one other rule about her cowhands. Maddie's husband had been killed by a Confederate and she hated the former Confederacy and anyone who had been associated with it. She would not hire any man who had worn a gray uniform. That rule wasn't difficult to implement in Gunnison Gorge, for most people in Colorado Territory had sided with the Union. She always asked any man applying for work where he'd been born. If it was in any of the states that had seceded, she'd tell him get off her property before she shot him.

Bart liked Maddie, but he figured Maddie would be just as tough on any man she married so he was polite, but careful not to give her any idea he thought of her as anything more than he did any other woman.

After the clerk from the General Store had loaded Maddie's buckboard with her purchases, she climbed into the seat and drove back past the marshal's office on her way out of town. Bart waved as she went past, and wondered if she'd ever get over the war and losing her husband. The war had ended two years before, it looked as if Colorado Territory would probably become a state of the Union, and most people had put the war behind them. Maddie couldn't seem to do that.

Bart was still thinking about Maddie and how she treated him when a one-horse wagon with a canvas covered top stopped in front of him. The man on the wagon seat touched the rim of his bowler hat.

"Mornin' Marshal Sir."

Bart figured the man was just another prospector on his way to the gold fields, but it was his job to protect the people in Gunnison Gorge. He did this by knowing who lived in town or the ranches in the valley, who was in the mines outside of town, and who was just passing through. He stood up and touched his hat.

"Morning. I don't recollect seeing you in Gunnison Gorge before. Where you headed?"

The man grinned.

"Right here if there's work to be done."

"I don't know if anybody in town needs any help. What can you do?"

The man grinned again.

"Oh, I'm not lookin' to work for anybody. I work for myself. I'm part blacksmith, part cabinetmaker, and part tinker. I'm a gunsmith, and I need a place for a shop. I sort of liked what I heard about Gunnison Gorge in Denver City and I hoped I could stay and set up my business. I figured with all the mines and ranches around here, folks would need a place to get their rifles, shotguns, and revolvers repaired. Do you already have a gunsmith?"

Bart smiled, but he didn't believe everything he was hearing. His gut said he should find out more about this man.

"No, we don't. I don't know as we really need one though. Denver City's only a day away by stage and they have three gunsmiths there. You know, it seems like you can do a lot of things for a man so young. You say you can, anyway."

"Oh I can do what I say I can. My daddy was a gunsmith and back home a gunsmith made his own parts, so he had to be part blacksmith to make the iron parts and part cabinet maker to do the stock work. Tinkerin's not much different than blacksmithin', just the metal is softer. Our little town wasn't big enough to have a tinker, so Daddy did that work too."

"Where was back home?"

The man paused and looked at Bart.

"Why does that matter?"

Bart shrugged.

"Gunnison Gorge is a quiet little town most of the time and we like it that way. I just don't want anything from the past to change that."

"You mean the war?"

Bart nodded

"Yes, I mean the war."

The man smiled.

"I'm from Trenton, Kentucky and I didn't fight for either side. I figured they'd sort it all out and after they did, I'd just keep livin' like I had been before. Besides, when I was sixteen, I broke my leg. It healed, but it didn't heal right. One leg's shorter'n the other and I have a limp. Couldn't have enlisted because they wouldn't have taken me."

"What brings you all the way to Colorado Territory?"

"Well, like I said, Trenton is a little town and Daddy was still doin' business there. There wasn't enough work for two gunsmiths. I heard about the gold strikes in Colorado Territory and figured the miner's got to have guns. Guns always break or their parts wear out, and I can fix guns. I thought it would be easier getting' my gold by fixin' guns than by diggin' in a mine."

Bart relaxed a little. If the man was up to no good, he'd have shown it somehow, but he smiled and he didn't try to dodge the questions Bart had asked. Gunnison Gorge probably didn't need a gunsmith, but it would be good to have a tinker. Bart walked to the side of the wagon and stuck out his hand.

"I'm Marshal Bart Thompson. I don't know if you can make a living in Gunnison Gorge, but there is an empty store available. The town owns it. Used to be the jail before we built this new one. I'm sure Mayor Williams would rent it to you. He owns the general store just down the street."

The man grinned as he shook Bart's hand.

"Jacob Cunningham's the name. Would the Mayor be in the general store now?"

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Maddie urged her team to a trot as soon as she left the edge of town and then let the reins go slack. Jim and Jack, the two bay geldings would take her to her ranch without any guiding. She was free to think, and thinking was something she did a lot of.

Most of Maddie's life since her father had passed had been consumed with running the ranch. Her cowhands had already moved the herd of six hundred cows and twenty bulls to the holding pens near the ranch house in preparation for the spring work. The brood cows had started dropping their calves and while they were still small, the calves needed to be branded with the "J" inside the diamond that was the brand of the Jameson Ranch. The bull calves also had to be castrated.

Last year's steers and the heifers she didn't need to keep would be ready for market, so they'd have to be cut out and driven to the rail yards in Denver City. Once that was done, her cowhands would break the herd of brood cows and their calves into several groups and move them to the pastures in the foothills of the mountains. A bull would go with each group to make sure each cow was bred again and would produce a calf the next year.

Today, as Jim and Jack pulled the buckboard down the rutted road, she was thinking about her future.

Maddie was twenty-six, and wanted a husband to help with the ranch and to give her children. She could manage the ranch by herself, but having a man would make that easier. She couldn't have children by herself, and she'd promised her father he'd have grandchildren to keep his ranch alive and prosperous.

Maddie had thought she'd found that man in Thaddeus. Her father liked him and her mother had said Thaddeus was a good man who would care for her. When he'd asked her to marry him, Maddie hadn't thought about it. She just said yes.

They'd been married just a month when the Confederacy fired on Ft. Sumpter, a month of getting used to being a wife and a month of wondering if she'd made the right decision. Maddie liked Thaddeus but she hadn't found the bond she saw between her mother and father. It was like she and Thaddeus were very good friends rather than man and wife.

They shared a bed in the small house her father had built for them on the ranch, but she didn't feel toward Thaddeus as her mother said she felt toward her father. When she told her mother that, her mother just patted her hand and said that feeling would come after a while.

She'd understood when Thaddeus enlisted at the start of the war. One of the things she'd liked about Thaddeus was his sense of what was right and what was wrong. She'd also liked his confidence. Thaddeus had told her the Confederacy in Texas was just a rabble of men who weren't really an Army and didn't know how to fight. He'd spend his year with the Union, stamp the Confederacy into the ground, and then come back home to the ranch.

She'd liked many other things about Thaddeus as well. She'd liked him as a man, liked him as a partner, and liked him as a confidant. A month after he left to join up, she realized that while she liked Thaddeus a lot, there was no love between them. When she received word that he'd been killed, Maddie thought she should have been as stricken with grief as Rachael Meyers. Rachael's husband had been killed in the same battle.

Rachael had worn black for six months afterward, and it was only last fall, a little over five years after the Battle of Glorieta Pass, that Rachael had started seeing another man. What Maddie felt was more relief and looking forward to starting over than anything else.

Maddie still had emotions about Thaddeus' death even if she didn't grieve for him. They were the emotion of hatred for anything having to do with the Confederacy that had killed Thaddeus and the emotion of outrage that his killers had gone unpunished. I didn't make sense to her that all Confederate soldiers had been paroled after the war. They should have been put in prison for committing treason...either that, or shot dead.

Maddie knew the town folk thought poorly of her because she wore the black dress and veil of a widow for only a month. She found it a little hypocritical that they whispered she wasn't seeing another man now because she wasn't like other women.

Those rumors were wrong. Maddie was just as much a woman as any other, and she had the same hopes and fears. She dressed as she did on the ranch because it would have been impossible to work in a dress. She carried the Remington revolver as protection against snakes, both the kind that slithered over the prairie and the kind that rode horses and said nice words to her but only wanted her ranch. There had been more of the latter than the former.

As Jim and Jack made the turn from the road to the lane to Jameson Ranch, Maddie smiled. On this trip to town, Bart had seemed a little friendlier. Maybe he was thinking about her right now. Maddie liked Bart and she knew he wasn't looking to take over her ranch. He'd told her he was no farmer and wouldn't know what to do. Maddie didn't know if she felt as much for him as she hoped he felt for her, but like her mother had said, maybe it would come in time.

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Jacob's talk with Horace Williams, the Mayor of Gunnison Gorge and the owner of the general store, was more than he'd hoped. Horace welcomed the addition of a gunsmith to Gunnison Gorge because if someone broke a lock spring, he couldn't help them other than to sell them a new rifle. He did sell percussion cap nipples for rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, but if the customer had no way to install them, he couldn't make the sale.

Since he'd gotten in his order of Winchester rifles, many men had asked about making a trade in hopes of lowering the price. Horace understood this and was willing to do so, but he had no way of making sure the older rifle was in good shape or any way to repair it if it wasn't.

Horace offered to rent the empty storefront to Jacob for ten dollars a month on the condition he wouldn't sell new guns and that he'd buy any parts Horace could order from the general store. Jacob was happy with that arrangement, paid Horace with ten, one-dollar gold pieces, and took the key.

The next two weeks, Jacob made a few changes to the old marshal's office. He hadn't brought much with him from Kentucky because his wagon was just a small farm wagon he'd rigged with bows and a canvas top. The largest items were his workbench and tool rack, a small forge, a small anvil with a hickory stump for a base, his bed, and one chair. Besides those items, he had a wood crate that held his small tools, another wood crate for his spare clothing, and a longer crate with his personal firearms.

In back, where the two jail cells had been, Jacob set up his living area. The bars were gone and the room was large enough for his bed and the crate with his clothes. Under the bed he put his personal firearms. It wasn't likely he'd need them, but they would be easy to get if he did for some reason.

In the front of the building, Jacob set up his workbench and tool rack. Once the tool crate was empty, it became a chair with no back and sat beside the potbellied stove in the front corner of the building.

In the back of the building was a small lean-to where the marshal had kept his horse. Under this lean-to Jacob put his forge, anvil, and the small sack of forge coal he'd brought from Kentucky. Jacob then retrieved the sign from his wagon and hung it over the front door. "Jacob Cunningham, Gunsmith and Tinker" was now in business.

Business wasn't long in coming. On the second day he was open, the Mayor brought him a Springfield trap-door rifle with a broken hammer.

"I took this old rifle in trade on a new Winchester. I only took off five dollars from the price of the Winchester because this rifle would only be worth about ten if it was working. If you can fix it, I'll sell it for that."

Jacob dug into his box of small steel pieces and over the course of a day, made a new hammer for the Springfield. He then drove his wagon out a ways from town and fired three balls through the rifle. It seemed to work fine except the trigger was a little jerky. Back at his shop, Jacob took out the lock and saw the reason. A few strokes with a small stone removed the burr on the sear lever and the rifle worked like new.

When Jacob explained what he'd done, the Mayor smiled.

"I said I'd ask ten dollars for this rifle, but now, I'm going to ask fifteen. That's still less than half the price of a Winchester. Good job, Jacob. How much do I owe you?"

Jacob said two dollars and the Mayor grinned.

"Good work at a fair price. I'll be recommending you to my customers from now on."

The Mayor was good to his word, and Jacob began seeing a steady, if somewhat small, trickle of firearms into his shop for repairs. Most people didn't know how to take their rifle or shotgun lock out of the stock, so several only needed cleaning and oiling. Jacob charged half a dollar for this work, and after the first few, had several a month.

"Just clean 'er up and give 'er a good oilin'", would say the customer. Once Jacob had done that, the customer would work the hammer and trigger and smile.

"Just like she was when she was new. Much obliged, Jacob."

There were actual broken guns as well. Flat springs tended to fail after a time, and Jacob made and installed several in rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. He bored out and cut new rifling in three shot out barrels of rifles that had been used during the war and then later made their way to the gold fields. Their owners liked the larger ball and were impressed at the accuracy the re-bored barrel could achieve. He also repaired a few rifle stocks.

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Jacob was a little surprised the day Maddie walked into his shop. Maddie was the first woman customer he'd had and Jacob hadn't expected to have any women asking for gunsmithing work. Women didn't carry or use firearms, so they had no reason to bring one to his shop.

Jacob smiled when Maddie asked if he was the gunsmith.

"Morinin' Ma'am. I'm Jacob Cunningham and I am a gunsmith. What can I do for you today?"

Maddie laid a cloth wrapped bundle on Jacob's bench and then unwrapped it. Inside was a Remington New Model Army revolver that showed signs of holster wear. Maddie looked at Jacob and frowned.

"I heard the gunsmiths in Denver City can make a Remington shoot the same cartridges as the new Winchesters, but they charge almost as much as for a new revolver. I was wondering how much it would cost for you to do it."

Jacob picked up the revolver, checked to make sure the cylinder was empty of powder and balls, and then worked the action a few times. While the blueing was worn on the outside, the action was still tight and the cylinder locked up just as the hammer reached the full-cock position. He knew of the conversion and also knew it only worked if the revolver action was in good shape. He looked up at Maddie.