I was dressed and ready to go by eight. Into my bag went a tape recorder, pen and notepad, and the copies of the Winchester 1873 Xerox from Agnes Trimble. I bought a muffin and slammed down a cup of coffee in the small motel dining room. My worry about standing out was assuaged, seems jeans and a T-shirt are common just about everywhere. The manager, a short, cherry-cheeked woman named Marjorie, inquired as to the purpose of my visit.
"I'm a history buff," I said.
"Ooh!" she squealed, nearly spilling the pot of coffee.
"Then you've definitely come to the right place. Are you going to the Museum of Outlaws and Lawmen?"
"That's actually my first stop."
"Oh goodness, if you love history, you won't be able to get enough of that place. My husband and I make a trip once a month, and as soon as the kids are old enough we're buying family passes. Jesse James, Annie Oakley, Pat Garrett, John
Tunstall, Billy the Kid, gosh, it's just enough to get a person excited." She gave me a mischievous grin and leaned closer.
"Just don't be stealin' nothin'."
I eyed her, confused. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, let's just say things have a way of disappearing around this town. Collectors and vagabonds are absolutely shameless. It's a real pity, how little respect some folks have.
If you take a look at John Chisum's military sword in the museum," she said, leaning closer, "it ain't the real thing. Real sword was stolen ten ought years ago. They just tell people it's the real thing to keep up appearances, save money on insurance."
I took out the brochure, looked at the dozens of guns, swords and artifacts in the pictures. "Is that so," I said, not so much a question.
"Places like that keep this town going," she added. "Heck, there wouldn't be any need for this hotel without them.
Anyway, enjoy your trip, don't worry 'bout what I said.
There's enough real history in that place to send you home happier'n a pig in slop."
I thanked Marjorie, grabbed my recorder and notebook and headed out. The museum was on East Sumner Avenue, less than half a mile from the motel. It was just past eight-thirty.
All the houses and shops looked like they'd been pulled from old Western movies. Low-hanging awnings, typeface with old-style lettering, bright yellows and reds slapped on warped wooden signs. It was like the town was bending over backward to retain its precious nostalgia.
The Museum of Outlaws and Lawmen was a one-story building that occupied most of one block. Sitting outside were two pitch-black cannons aimed at each other across the entryway, as though daring visitors to step past. Beside them stood a carriage-style wheel, painted bright yellow. The signage showed an image of a man leaning on a rifle. A rifle which, upon closer inspection, looked pretty darn like a Winchester 1873.
There were no lights on and the windows were barricaded.
Not boarded, but barricaded as though the museum was defending itself from an impending attack. And if Marjorie was telling the truth, maybe it needed that line of defense.
I wiggled the front door, which was locked, but nothing that would have prevented anyone with amateur lock-picking skills and ten free minutes from circumventing. I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited.
At ten to nine, a thirty-something man with shoulderlength sandy blond hair, tattered jeans and cowboy boots, walked past the cannons. He nodded at me, took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door.
He turned to me and said, "You here for the museum?"
"Yessir," I said.
"You a college boy?"
I smiled. "No, sir, a few years out. Just came to visit." He nodded, as though that was a suitable answer.
"Just give me ten minutes to open up." He went inside and I waited.
Twelve minutes later he propped the front door open and waved me inside.
The museum was astonishing. It only consisted of four or five large rooms, but each room was packed to the gills with antique guns, bullets, cannons, actual carriages, bows and arrows, belts, rifles and every and any other weapon that looked like it might have been used by, or against, John
Wayne. The walls were covered with glassed-in documents that were remarkably well-preserved, along with photos of the writers and/or recipients of the correspondence. The air had a musty smell, the floor speckled with sawdust.
The manager took a seat behind a counter, put his feet up and opened a newspaper.
"You need anything," he said to me, "just holler."
Behind the counter hung several replica guns that were available for purchase. Several boxes of dead ammunition lined the shelves. A small sign read 10 Shells For $5.
I paid the ten-dollar entrance fee. A few other visitors ambled in after me, also happy to pay and gaze at the history of violence.
I took a slow lap around, surveying the dozens of guns, even running my fingers along the cannons that guarded the entryway into each new room. One room was decorated to resemble an Old West blacksmith's shop, complete with anvil and tools, bent metals and horseshoes. Along the walls were rifle parts in various stages of development, like a before-andafter of gun manufacturing.
After sating my curiosity, I made my way around the museum until I found the exhibit featuring the military cavalry sword of John Chisum which Marjorie claimed was a fake.
The sword was mounted in a glass case nearly four feet long. The blade was slightly curved. I examined the security glass, wondered if the sword had actually been stolen. And if so, why it had never been reported.
Behind the sword was a black-and-white photograph featuring a caravan of horses, and a portrait of a man who was presumably John Chisum. A black placard above the sword explained that Chisum was a cattle driver, and one of the first to send a herd into New Mexico. Chisum was a tangential part of the infamous Lincoln County Wars, a feud between businessmen Alexander McSween and John
Tunstall and their rivals Lawrence Murphy and James
Dolan. During these wars, Chisum had been accosted by a band of outlaws known as the Regulators. The Regulators
were notorious cattle thieves, who pilfered from Chisum and other herders, but were deputized after Tunstall's murder. They hunted down the men who killed Tunstall, killing four including a corrupt sheriff named William Brady.
According to a placard on the wall, the Regulators consisted of men named Dick Brewer, Jim French, Frank McNab, John
Middleton, Fred Waite, Henry Brown and Henry McCarty.
Next to the name of Henry McCarty, it read: aka William
H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid.
In the very last room of the museum I found what I'd come across the country for: an exhibit featuring the Winchester
Behind a crystal-clear glass case was mounted a pristine Winchester, along with various posters and propaganda leaflets.
I took out the Winchester Xeroxes, compared them. The weapon in front of me looked identical to the one on the page.
Inside the case on a poster, written in big bold letters beneath two opposing firing pistols, were the words: Winches ter 1873 edition: The Gun That Won the West.
There were several bullets mounted to the display below the weapon. A placard identified them as authentic. 44-40 magnum ammunition, the very kind used by that edition Winchester.
I compared the gun and the Xerox until I was reasonably certain they were one and the same. Then I waited until the museum had quieted and the manager was free of troublesome tourists. He was reading a copy of the Albuquerque
Journal, looked bored to death, but he set it on the counter when he saw me approach.
"Help you?" he said.
I pointed at the relics lining the walls.
"This is some pretty amazing stuff," I said, opening a window for him.
"Man, you don't have to tell me that. I get a buzz just sitting behind this desk." The Albuquerque Journal was still splayed open on the counter.
"No doubt," I said absently. I nodded at the display containing Chisum's military sword. "How'd you come upon that beauty?"
"John Chisum," he said without thinking. "One of the most influential cattle drivers in U.S. history. Blazed the Chisum trail from Paris, Texas, all the way to the Pecos Valley. You know John Wayne himself played John Chisum in a movie?"
"No messing? Which one?"
"Was called Chisum. "
"Guess that makes sense."
"Anyway, when Mr. Chisum passed on, died in Eureka
Springs, his great granddaughter endowed this museum with the sword. D'you know Chisum's only children were born to him by a slave girl he owned?"
"I didn't know that."
"'At's a true fact."
"Sword like that," I said, "probably worth, what, few grand?" I saw the man's eyes twitch, and he looked down for a split second.
"Try a few hundred grand. The country's swarming with collectors of old Western antiques. 'Course most of 'em call it memorabilia, like a freaking baseball card. Most of 'em wouldn't know a Winchester from Worcestershire sauce, and
I never heard of a baseball card used in a gunfight."
"Speaking of antiques," I said. "Is that a real Winchester
'73 on the wall?"
The man's chest puffed out with pride.
"You're darn right it is. Gun that won the West, gun that made this country what it is today. Winchester made over seven hundred thousand of those darlin's back in the day.
Nowadays, a '73 in working condition goes for upward of six figures on the open market."
"Bet it goes for even more on the closed market," I said.
The man winked at me, smirked.
"You'd probably be right there."
"Can't imagine the security you must have in place to keep valuables like that. I mean, there must be a few million dollars' worth of memorabilia here." The man bristled.
"We take the proper precautions," he said.
"Have you ever had a break-in? A robbery?"
The man took a split second too long to say, "Never."
"That Winchester," I said. "How long have you kept that particular rifle in this museum?"
He took several seconds to say, "I reckon upward of ten years."
"And you've never been robbed."
Finally he took a step back, eyed me suspiciously. "Mind if I ask what you're asking all these questions fer?"
"I'm sorry," I said. I reached into my bag, pulled out the tape recorder and notepad first, and then my press identification. "Henry Parker. Pleasure to meet you. I'm a reporter with the New York Gazette. And I don't think that Winchester in your case is authentic. In fact, I'm willing to bet the gun that's supposed to be in that case is the same one used in three recent murders in New York this past week."
The blood drained from the man's face, and his jaw dropped just a bit. "Murders, you're sayin'? I read something in the papers, that pretty blond girl…"
"Athena Paradis," I said.
"She was killed by a-" he nodded his head toward the
Winchester case "-model '73?"
I said nothing, turned on the tape recorder. "That's a replica
Winchester in your case, isn't it? Where's the original?"
"I'd like you to leave right now."
"If your Winchester was stolen, I need to know now. We need to alert the authorities in New York. More lives are in danger. Someone is using your gun and-"
"I don't know anything about that," he said, and picked up the phone. I had seconds before he called the cops and I was done. I looked at the nameplate. It read Rex Sheehan.
"Rex," I said. His eyes met mine. "Even if you call the cops, at the very least they'll want to run tests on the gun. If you tell me now, at least we can try to keep some people alive." Rex put down the phone. He bowed his head and crossed himself.
"I wanted to tell someone," he said solemnly. "But we don't have the money for security. We're not a governmentfunded museum like that fancy one down at New Mexico
State. We get by on donations. And if you look around, I don't need to tell you we're not exactly the Met here."
"So somebody broke in and stole the gun," I said. "Did they steal anything else?"
He shook his head. His lip trembled. I felt sorry for him.
"Please don't tell anyone this," he said. "If people find out we're displaying a fake they'll just stop coming altogether.
Besides, it doesn't really matter, does it? If people think it's real, who gets hurt?"
"There are three dead people in New York who can answer that better than me."
Rex bowed his head.
"But it still doesn't add up," I said. "1873 Winchesters are a rare model, but not extinct, right?"
"No, there's a few still out there. Collectors, mostly."
"So why come all the way out to Fort Sumner, New
Mexico? Why would someone rob a museum when there had to be easier ways?"
Again Rex said nothing.
"Tell me about the gun," I said. "It's not just a model 1873, is it? There's something else." The man nodded.
"The gun that was stolen," he sobbed, "the one you're saying was used in those murders, well it belonged to William
H. Bonney. Most people know him as Billy the Kid."