30 Day Image Prompt Competition - August

Day 9 Prompt 1 - The Gun

“So, how did it go, today?”

Jenna smiled and leant back against the pillows, the phone held against her ear as she smoothed the black nightdress over her thighs and made herself comfortable on the bed. Despite the lateness of the hour she had known that her friend would call her, as she always did.

“It was a good day. Quite a few good pieces for a change.” She fiddled with the cord of the phone, wondering whether or not to tell her everything. “Brian was there.”

“What? You’re joking? Seriously? I’d have thought he would have had more sense than to go today.” Her outrage could clearly be heard down the telephone line and Jenna bit back a smile as she pictured her petite, redheaded friend sitting upright, anger and disbelief flooding from her. “I hope you got all the best pieces just to spite him.”

“I think I got the pick of the crop. He didn’t go away happy.” A smile tugged at Jenna’s lips as she remembered Brian’s frustrated scowl when the sale had closed. She had a feeling that his frustration was not just to do with her acquiring the best of the purchases.

“What did you get?”

“A beautiful lace shawl that I think dates back to the late 19th century. Some silver tableware that I’m going to get Matthew to date for me tomorrow. A beautiful chest with animals carved on it. Looks to be from the 1700s.” Excitement hummed down the telephone to her friend. This was what Jenna loved when she went to antique fares. Finding those treasures that had survived the passage of time for her to display in her little curiosities shop.

“Sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to see the chest.”

“You’ll love it but it’s not the best find.” Jenna gripped the phone tightly as she stared down the bed to her final purchase. “I bought a gun and gun belt.”

“You bought what? I thought you didn’t like guns.”

“I don’t but there was something about this one.” She reached down the bed and pulled the gun belt towards her. “The leather of the belt looks new but also old. It’s soft and supple and the stitching on it is superb. There’s very little fraying at all on it. In fact, I’d be tempted to say it was new but the technique gone into making it is definitely from the 1900s.”

“Sounds interesting. What about the gun?”

Jenna drew the gun from its holster, marvelling at the smooth glide of the metal over the leather. “It’s a Colt 45. It’s been used.”

“Jenna!!! Don’t tell me you’ve gone and picked up a murder weapon? You’ve got to hand that into the police straight away!”

Jenna smiled at her friend’s outburst. “Relax, Emma. It’s been used but not recently. You can smell the gunpowder but the oil is different to modern day.”

“You think some collector has been firing it off?” Emma asked feeling a little appeased but still not satisfied that her friend had a strange gun in her possession.

“No, do you remember that box we found when we visited that abandoned town a couple of years ago? It was in what looked like a gunsmith’s shop.”

There was silence as Emma thought back to their trip to the old western town. “Yes, now I do. You got all excited over the tool chest.”

Jenna grinned at the memory, her green eyes dancing with amusement as she remembered how she had danced around holding the contents of the chest. “Yes, that’s true. Well, this gun smells as though it had come out of that chest. But in immaculate condition.”

“How can that be? I mean, I know collectors really look after their treasure, almost obsessively some of them, but can they recreate something to an almost authentic historical state?”

“I don’t know.” Jenna cocked the hammer of the gun, marvelling at its smooth action as the bullet chamber turned. In her hands it felt perfectly balanced and she knew that its bullets would fly straight and true to their target. She almost regretted having removed the bullets when she had brought it home for she would have loved to try the gun out. “It’s weird, Emma, but having this gun, it’s like having gotten hold of something straight out of a Louis L’Amour book.”

“Louis L’Amour wrote in the late 20th Century, Jenna, not the 19th,” Emma pointed out, wishing that she was there to see just what her friend had found.

“I know, but as a child I always based my view of the American West on his stories. They were like the bible of the world of cowboys and Indians. Having this gun, it’s like having some gift from the gods.”

“Well, I should be home tomorrow night so I can do some tests on it to see if its authentic.”

“And if it is?” Jenna almost didn’t to voice what it could mean.

“I don’t know, Jenna. We’ve never had anything like this before.”

Jenna could almost see her friend and business partner frowning down the telephone at her. No, they had never had anything like this before. Oh, they had had authentic finds, bargains found in car boot sales and antique fairs, but they had never had something that looked and smelt authentic but appeared to be just a few years old.

“I guess we’ll just see what tomorrow brings.”

After a few more minutes of friendly chatter, Jenna ended the call and looked down at the gun in her lap. How she wished the object could talk to her and tell her its secrets. She knew it would never do that, though. It would be down to her and Emma to tease and tempt it to reveal its story. A story she was looking forward to hearing.

Later that evening she lay in the four poster bed looking up at the wooden ceiling of her bedroom. The American West had been her favourite period of history ever since her grandfather and sat her down with him to watch McClintock on the television when she had been four years old. That had sealed it for her and ever since then she had sought out relics from that period to sell in her shop. Even her home came from that era. A three bedroomed log cabin complete with pine four poster bed and traditional quilt that kept the chill of winter away.

The gun was a mystery, she thought to herself, but one she would solve. Tomorrow, she decided as she drifted into a sleep filled with a tall, sexy cowboy who wanted his gun back.

Jenna stretched beneath the warmth of the comforter, her head turning into the rough, calloused hand gently stroking her cheek. Faint frissons of excitement were pulsing along her nerves, down through her body. She breathed deeply, inhaling the masculine scent of sandalwood and of horses. A part of her wondered why she was smelling such odours but she was still too deep within the grasp of Orpheus to question further. Besides, it was quite a pleasurable sensation to wake up to.

“Come on, lady, wakey, wakey. Open those pretty eyes for me, now.”

The voice had a rough gravelly texture that was not unpleasant to listen to, she thought to herself, a tone fitting for a cowboy.

“Come on, I know you’re waking. Open up and tell me why you’ve got my gun on the bed next to you.”

She smiled, enjoying listening to his sexy voice. Wait, sexy voice? Cowboy? Gun? Her eyes drifted upon revealing emerald eyes cloudy with sleep. As they came into focus, they widened in alarm as they met the puzzled but amused grey eyes of the cowboy looming over her. A cowboy who looked remarkably like the cowboy of her dreams.

She bolted upright in bed before clutching the comforter around her as she remembered that all she was wearing was a black nightdress and he was fully clothed as he loomed over her. Fully clothed in a blue shirt, black trousers and a black bandanna tied about his tanned neck. He looked like he had just stepped off the set of a western movie.

Her arm reached out to switch on the bedside lamp but found nothing other than a small oil lamp. In fact, there was nothing else on the table, no radio, no phone, no iPod just the oil lamp. Confused she looked around the room and saw that all electrical items had disappeared and had been replaced by objects straight from a western.

If this was a joke, it was a very authentic joke and she knew of no one would could pull it off, not even Emma. Which meant …

“I bought your gun yesterday, at a collector’s market, but I don’t know how it got there,” she replied, her voice steady despite the panic she was feeling.

“Lady, my gun was stolen from me yesterday morning and I want to know how it ended up in your possession?”

“I’m afraid that’s all I know, sir. However, you may be able to assist me if you tell me what year this is?”

“It’s 1884,” the cowboy replied, confused.

“1884?” she gasped before, for the first time in her life, she fainted dead away leaving the cowboy as confused as she was.