Monitor 30.06 rifle allegedly used by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer to gun down Clyde Barrow and BonnieParker, as well as his .44 Triple Lock Smith and a single-action Colt .45 he called “Old Lucky.” Clyde Barrow’s hat sat next to his Colt .45 and a warped and stained box of shells pulled from the car he was killed in.
A revolver belonging to outlaw Sam Bass, who robbed the Union Pacific gold train from San Francisco and was ambushed and shot by Texas Rangers and later found dying from his wounds in a pasture by a railroad worker.
Sheriff G. Cooper Wright’s .44 caliber revolver.
Bat Masterson’s .45.
Texas Ranger J. M. Brittain’s Bulldog revolver, and Bill Doolin’s derringer.
Last, and probably most expensive, a Model 1847 Colt Whitneyville-Walker revolver, once owned by Texas Ranger Sam Wilson. Only a thousand or so of these guns were produced, and for a while it was the most powerful handgun in the world. Its massive size and weight made Sam Colt himself say it’d take a Texan to shoot it.
• • •
The Whitneyville-Walker hung on a crimson backdrop in a special glass case right behind the sheriff’s desk, over his right shoulder. Hidden light fell on it, and it was hard to sit where Chris was now and not have his eyes drawn to it, pulled as if it were a lodestone. Chris had once thought if you could get it out from under its glass, you might still smell the original oiled steel, the faint lingering odor of powder and smoke. Chris waited, staring at all the memorabilia, as the sheriff fingered the thin paperwork he’d written on the body he’d discovered at Indian Bluffs.
“You want to send it to Austin?” Sheriff Ross asked, still not looking up from the paper.
“Yes sir. Doc Hanson is afraid he can’t work the ID. But we can send it out, let the DPS forensic lab have a try.” Hanson was the county’s sometime medical examiner, full-time pediatrician, and emergency veterinarian. What Chris didn’t say was that the identification of skeletal remains was far beyond Hanson’s capability. Chris knew from the call he’d already made to the Department of Public Safety lab that their techs might be able to pry secrets from the scarred and damaged remains he’d carefully wrapped in plastic and put in a cardboard box.
The sheriff continued to read Chris’s report, or pretended to, out of courtesy, but there wasn’t a helluva lot there.
• • •
The body had been stripped prior to being buried.
Dry desert conditions can slow the change in hair color after death, but the strands clinging to the skull were already red pheomelanin, a gaudy scarlet. Groundwater had seeped in from winter rains, worrying away the flesh and the hair, or at least whatever the coyote hadn’t. Even Doc Hanson had been able to distinguish what looked like tooth marks against the dirty bone.
The skull concealed two silver amalgam fillings on the back molars, like coins in a treasure chest, although the rest of the skeleton’s teeth were good. Chris knew forensic dental identification was possible, but he’d need comparisons—actual dental records—since no central dental database existed. Murfee’s current dentist, John Snowden, was willing to search for a match against his patients, including most of the current population in the town and a few outliers in Presidio and Valentine, but wasn’t thrilled about the prospect. He’d picked up almost all of Chris’s dad’s patients, and the elder Cherry had worked in Murfee for more than two decades.
That was his dad’s legacy—dozens of boxes of hand-scrawled records and old file folders and X-rays, already turning brown at the edges from chemical burn, still housed in a U-Store-It off Highway 45. Chris had moved them there himself. Snowden used digital radiography and hadn’t wanted any of Tom Cherry’s rusting films.
It’d take time, a lot of time, but if the body found out at Bulger’s place had lived in or near Murfee and had had
A revolver belonging to outlaw Sam Bass, who robbed the Union Pacific gold train from San Francisco and was ambushed and shot by Texas Rangers and later found dying from his wounds in a pasture by a railroad worker.
Sheriff G. Cooper Wright’s .44 caliber revolver.
Bat Masterson’s .45.
Texas Ranger J. M. Brittain’s Bulldog revolver, and Bill Doolin’s derringer.
Last, and probably most expensive, a Model 1847 Colt Whitneyville-Walker revolver, once owned by Texas Ranger Sam Wilson. Only a thousand or so of these guns were produced, and for a while it was the most powerful handgun in the world. Its massive size and weight made Sam Colt himself say it’d take a Texan to shoot it.
• • •
The Whitneyville-Walker hung on a crimson backdrop in a special glass case right behind the sheriff’s desk, over his right shoulder. Hidden light fell on it, and it was hard to sit where Chris was now and not have his eyes drawn to it, pulled as if it were a lodestone. Chris had once thought if you could get it out from under its glass, you might still smell the original oiled steel, the faint lingering odor of powder and smoke. Chris waited, staring at all the memorabilia, as the sheriff fingered the thin paperwork he’d written on the body he’d discovered at Indian Bluffs.
“You want to send it to Austin?” Sheriff Ross asked, still not looking up from the paper.
“Yes sir. Doc Hanson is afraid he can’t work the ID. But we can send it out, let the DPS forensic lab have a try.” Hanson was the county’s sometime medical examiner, full-time pediatrician, and emergency veterinarian. What Chris didn’t say was that the identification of skeletal remains was far beyond Hanson’s capability. Chris knew from the call he’d already made to the Department of Public Safety lab that their techs might be able to pry secrets from the scarred and damaged remains he’d carefully wrapped in plastic and put in a cardboard box.
The sheriff continued to read Chris’s report, or pretended to, out of courtesy, but there wasn’t a helluva lot there.
• • •
The body had been stripped prior to being buried.
Dry desert conditions can slow the change in hair color after death, but the strands clinging to the skull were already red pheomelanin, a gaudy scarlet. Groundwater had seeped in from winter rains, worrying away the flesh and the hair, or at least whatever the coyote hadn’t. Even Doc Hanson had been able to distinguish what looked like tooth marks against the dirty bone.
The skull concealed two silver amalgam fillings on the back molars, like coins in a treasure chest, although the rest of the skeleton’s teeth were good. Chris knew forensic dental identification was possible, but he’d need comparisons—actual dental records—since no central dental database existed. Murfee’s current dentist, John Snowden, was willing to search for a match against his patients, including most of the current population in the town and a few outliers in Presidio and Valentine, but wasn’t thrilled about the prospect. He’d picked up almost all of Chris’s dad’s patients, and the elder Cherry had worked in Murfee for more than two decades.
That was his dad’s legacy—dozens of boxes of hand-scrawled records and old file folders and X-rays, already turning brown at the edges from chemical burn, still housed in a U-Store-It off Highway 45. Chris had moved them there himself. Snowden used digital radiography and hadn’t wanted any of Tom Cherry’s rusting films.
It’d take time, a lot of time, but if the body found out at Bulger’s place had lived in or near Murfee and had had
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