Chapter 1: Daydreaming

Seventeen year old JJ, short for Joe Staples Jr., lay in the thick grass along the banks of Warm Spring Creek daydreaming about life. There were a million things he would dream about, such as being a rancher, a miner, a cowpoke, or what he usually dreamed about, being a detective.

For right now though, he was dreaming about that fast draw contest coming up tomorrow in Fort Benton, Montana. Boy, it just wasn't fair. You had to be eighteen to enter. JJ could out-shoot any man in the whole state. Well, that was the way he felt. He was even very fast on the draw. Just ask Jim and John Williams, JJ's two friends.

JJ had tried and tried, but he could not get them in church. Jim and John were twins. Their mother owned Millie's Cafe, a favorite eating place in town. They knew not to cuss or do other ungodly things around JJ, as JJ loved God and had high standards.

There was a reason JJ was such a good shot. When he was fourteen, a man walked into his daddy's store and acted as though he was interested in buying a pistol. When his daddy was not expecting it, he shot him. JJ and his mom witnessed the shooting. Then he went on to rob the store, taking several guns, including two 1867 British Tranter Army .450 cal pistols and money from the cash box.

JJ saw the man ride away, and he swore to track him down one day. His mom made him promise to wait until he reached eighteen. Her hope was that he would forget, but there was no such thing as "forget" to JJ.

When he was fifteen, JJ had started to mature rapidly. You could see he was taking after his daddy. He was already six feet tall and weighed one hundred forty pounds. A willow sapling was thicker than he was.

His daddy had been a gunsmith. There was not a gun that he could not fix. JJ's daddy was really proud of him for his interest in the business and thought that one day he and JJ might be partners. At the age of six, when JJ started school, he would spend every afternoon with his daddy in the gun shop helping him work on guns. By the time he was fourteen, he could repair any gun just as well as his daddy.

So, when his daddy was killed, JJ was able to repair guns around town in order to help his mom run the house and, of course, to pay for shells so he could practice his shooting. Over the years, his daddy had collected quite a few guns. Among them was a Winchester Model 1873 Rifle, a .44wcf Smith and Wesson, 1st. Model Russian .44, a Smith and Wesson American .45, and two more 1867 British Tranter Army .450 cal.

These were Joe's favorite guns because the cylinder didn't rotate when the hammer was cocked, only when the trigger was pulled. JJ thought this might prove valuable in trying to sneak up on someone. He would cock the pistol when it was still in the holster by thumbing back on the hammer before drawing, making him dangerously fast. He spent hours and hours every afternoon practicing every possible combination of personal gun tricks in the gully where he and his daddy had practiced.

He could lay the rifle on the ground, throw an egg up in the air, pick up the rifle, and shoot the egg before it hit the ground. With his left hand he could throw up a can, draw with his left hand, and shoot the can before it started down. This was quite a feat since he was right-handed. What he could do with his right hand was incredible.

Not only was he incredibly fast but he could shoot a bottle at thirty feet through the hole in a washer at an incredibly fast speed without nicking the washer.

Now that he was seventeen, he was six feet five inches tall and weighed two hundred fifty pounds. His hands were the kind that average men's hands were dwarfed when put up besides his. His biceps were bigger than the calf of most men's legs.

Suddenly, a sharp pain in his big toe brought him back to reality. He had wrapped the line around his toe in case he got a bite, he wouldn't miss it.

"OOH!" screamed JJ as the line cut deep into his toe.

He unraveled the line from his toe and grabbed his pole. As he pulled back on the pole, it bent so much that JJ thought it was going to break. As he pulled the catfish from the water, he couldn't believe his eyes!

"It must weigh at least twenty pounds!" he thought. There was at least six inches between the fish's eyes! With that catch, JJ decided it was time to go home. JJ never caught more than he and his mom could eat.

He had about a two-mile ride back to town where they lived on the outskirts of Fort Benton, Montana. He stopped at the smokehouse and hung the catfish on the spike that he used to skin and clean the fish. In a few short minutes, JJ had the catfish skinned and dressed. He walked into the house with a big smile on his face. He knew his mom would like this catch!

His mom was a very smart lady of thirty-six. She never did anything but clean house. Then, when her husband was killed, she sold the gun shop to Terry Hornsby who turned it into a general store. She used the money to get the schooling she needed to become a beautician. After that, she opened a beauty parlor in the room her husband had built on the side of the house to do some of his gun repairs.