Fastest Gun Alive

By: Harry Watts

Chapter I

The Boy and the Gun

The boy was alone when Abe Jackson found him. He sat by a wagon track half a day out of Santa Fe, dust covering his face, clothes torn ragged. His family—whatever had been left of them—were gone. Whether by fever or bandits, nobody could say. The boy didn’t much speak of it, and Abe didn’t ask.

“What’s your name, son?” Abe asked, reining his horse to a stop.

The boy blinked up, wary as a stray dog. “Will.”

Abe studied him for a long moment. Thin, hungry, but there was a stubborn glint in the eyes—something unbroken. Abe had seen enough boys lost to the desert to know when one was worth saving.

“Well, Will,” he said at last, extending a calloused hand. “You ride with me now.”

And so the boy became Will Smith—an orphan carried into manhood beneath the shadow of the fastest gun alive.

Chapter II

Abe’s Secret

Abe Jackson had no kin, no woman waiting in some far-off town. What he had was his horse, his iron, and a reputation that kept most men at a distance. He took Will in like a stray pup, but trained him with the discipline of a soldier.

“Steady hands, clear eyes,” Abe would say, setting tin cans on fence rails for target practice. “Don’t draw fast—draw right. And once you draw, don’t miss.”

But there was more to Abe’s teaching than steady hands. There was a secret.

One evening, as the sun sank red over the mesa, Abe sat by the fire with his Colt across his lap. Its handle was worn smooth, polished by years of use, its blued steel catching the dying light.

“You’ve seen me shoot, Will,” Abe said. “Seen how no man alive can match me. You ever wonder why?”

Will hesitated. He had wondered, of course. Men whispered about Abe in every town, said he could beat the devil himself to the draw.

“Yes, sir,” Will said softly.

Abe thumbed the gun open, then closed it again with a click. His gaze was steady, but his voice was low, almost confessional.

“This ain’t just iron, boy. I won it years back from a gambler in Deadwood who swore it was smelted from a fallen star. Maybe it was. Maybe it was hell’s forge. All I know is, the moment my hand touched the grip, the world slowed. Didn’t even have to clear the holster. Just skin to wood, and time bent to me.”

Will stared, wide-eyed.

“Not a gift,” Abe said grimly. “A curse. Remember that.”

Chapter III

The Gun’s History

Abe hadn’t always carried the Colt.

In his younger years, before his name spread across the frontier, he was nothing more than a hard rider with a quick temper. He drove cattle north from Texas, rode shotgun on stagecoaches, played cards in smoky saloons where the whiskey burned and the lamps smoked. He was good with a pistol, better than most, but not yet the kind of man whose shadow made others step aside.

That changed in Deadwood.

The camp was swollen with miners and gamblers, tents and shacks thrown up in chaos, and the smell of sweat and powder clung to everything. Abe was twenty-five, broke from a losing streak, when he sat at a poker table across from a man named Jeremiah Cole.

Cole was slick as a snake, with silver hair combed flat and a smile that could sell poison. He dressed like a banker, spoke like a preacher, and lied like both put together. And that night, his voice carried loud above the din as he laid a strange bet on the table.

The weapon at his hip.

“Colt Paterson,” he announced proudly, his hand resting on the walnut grip. “One of a kind. Won it off a soldier who swore it was smelted from a star that fell from the sky. Maybe from heaven, maybe from hell. Either way, it ain’t just steel. It’s power.”

The table leaned in, muttering. The pistol had a strange gleam, even in the dull lamplight. Something about it seemed… alive.

Abe called the bet.

Cole lost.

When the final card fell, Abe reached across and claimed the pistol. Cole leaned back in his chair and laughed, though there was no humor in it.

“Keep it, Jackson,” he said, voice slick as oil. “It’ll make you famous or damn you. Maybe both. But it won’t ever leave you.”

The first time Abe laid his palm on the grip in anger was weeks later, on the Santa Fe trail. Two bushwhackers came out of the rocks, pistols drawn, murder in their eyes. Abe’s hand dropped to the Colt—and the world changed.

It slowed. The men’s movements crawled, their mouths open in shouts that never reached him, their pistols rising like anchors through water. Abe hadn’t even drawn the Colt yet. Just skin to wood, and the world bent to him.

He could have stepped aside, walked away, even spared them. But the power pulled at him. He drew and fired twice. By the time the smoke cleared, both men lay dead in the dust.

From then on, he never lost. Men came to test him, and they fell. Outlaws cursed his name, sheriffs respected it, and drifters told stories of Abe Jackson, the man faster than lightning.

But the faces of the dead stayed with him. Their eyes, frozen in terror. Their lips, parted in screams slowed to silence.

Jeremiah Cole didn’t disappear after losing the Colt. For a year he trailed Abe from camp to camp, drunk on fury and superstition. He told every saloon ear that the gun was rightfully his. Once, in Dodge, he tried to ambush Abe.

The instant Abe’s hand brushed the grip, time slowed. Cole froze mid-draw, terror in his gambler’s eyes. Abe lowered his pistol. “Don’t do it, Cole. This gun ain’t yours. You think you want it, but it’ll hollow you same as it’s hollowing me.”

Cole spat dust. “Then we’ll rot together.”

Before Abe could walk away, a half-drunk miner fired from the shadows, killing Cole outright. Abe stared down at the body. Years later, he still wondered if Cole had been cursed from the moment he lost it.

He tried once to bury the Colt in the desert. Dug deep, covered it with stone. But when dawn came, his hands bled from clawing it back up. The Colt had already claimed him.

Chapter IV

The Passing of the Mantle

By his mid-forties, Abe’s hands began to tremble. His frame bent under sickness that gnawed at him from within. The doctor in Santa Fe called it a “cancer of the gut.” Abe just spat blood and whiskey into the dust.

Will was seventeen when he watched the strongest man he knew waste to nothing.

Nights, Abe would moan by the fire, clutching his belly. Will cooked what food Abe could stomach, washed his sweat-soaked shirts, steadied him when he stumbled. The boy became caretaker to the man who had once been unshakable.

One night, Abe called him close. His face was gray, his eyes sharp.

“It’s eatin’ me alive, boy. And I ain’t got much time left.” He coughed, a rattle in his chest. Then he pressed the Colt into Will’s hands.

“It’s yours now. But listen—” He gripped Will’s wrist with surprising strength. “That gun’s faster than lightning, but it’ll damn your soul if you let it. Don’t let the steel decide who you are. A man is more than his draw.”

Will’s eyes blurred with tears. “I don’t want it.”

Abe managed a bitter smile. “Neither did I.”

By dawn, Abe Jackson, the fastest gun alive, was dead. By noon, the legend had passed to his adopted son.

Chapter V

The Drifter’s Shadow

At first, Will tried honest work.

He wrangled cattle outside Abilene, drove freight wagons in Dodge, and for a month worked the stage line south of Denver. He carried the Colt on his hip, though he avoided touching it. But trouble followed wherever he went.

The Stagecoach Job:

One ride, bandits ambushed from the rocks. Will’s hand brushed the Colt and time slowed. He picked them off easy, two shots ringing sharp in the canyon.

The passengers stared afterward, pale and silent. One woman clutched her child as if Will were as dangerous as the bandits. He holstered the pistol and looked away.

The Honest Sheriff:

In Abilene, a weary sheriff shook his head after Will killed a drunk challenger. “You can be faster than the devil,” the lawman said, “but it won’t buy you a home. A man can’t live with every door closing in his face.”

A Taste of Love:

On a ranch near Amarillo, Will worked quiet months and courted Clara, the rancher’s daughter. She laughed easy and taught him to dance to fiddlers in the barn. For the first time, Will believed he could lay the Colt aside.

But one night, cowhands recognized him. By morning, three men came spoiling for a fight.

Will resisted until one spat “coward.” His hand twitched to the grip, and the world slowed. He fired three shots, hats flying from their heads. They fled, pale and cursing.

When he turned, Clara’s face wasn’t thankful. It was fearful.

That night, he left without goodbye.

Everywhere he went, the pattern repeated. Folks hailed him savior, legend, or curse. And every time he touched the grip, a piece of him felt carved away.

Chapter VI

Perdido

Perdido wasn’t much, but it was stubborn. Marta kept her saloon open, Sheriff Clay Dorsey still walked the boardwalk with brittle knees, and the church bell still rang on Sundays.

Then Morgan Hollis rode in.

A mountain of a man with a scar down his cheek, two long-barreled Colts at his hips. They said he’d killed a man in every state west of the Mississippi.

He swaggered into the Silver Spur. Marta was behind the bar, steady but cold inside.

The preacher spoke up and Hollis shot him dead. A widow screamed, and Hollis killed her too. Marta shoved two children behind the bar, her hands trembling as she whispered, “Don’t you move.”

By sundown, Perdido was a town under siege. Some argued to flee. Others muttered of fighting. Marta snapped at them: “And leave your homes? Your dead?”

Sheriff Dorsey stared into the dust. “We can’t stop him.”

His deputy leaned close. “Maybe one man can. Will Smith. Abe Jackson’s boy.”

Chapter VII

The Long Night

Will rode into Perdido two days later. Dust clung to his coat, the Colt heavy on his hip.

That evening, Sheriff Dorsey found him at the hitching post. “I sent for you,” he said. “Didn’t know what else to do. But it don’t sit right—sendin’ one killer to stop another.”

“I came because he needs stoppin’,” Will said flatly. “But don’t call me a savior.”

Later, at the edge of town, a barefoot boy stopped him. His voice cracked: “He killed my mama. Right in the street. Kill him for her. Please.”

Will knelt. “I can stop him. But revenge will eat you worse than Hollis.”

The boy’s lip trembled. “If I had a gun, I’d do it myself.” Then he slipped into the shadows.

That night, in the boarding house, Will laid Abe’s Colt on the table. He didn’t touch it, but he could feel it thrum, like a heart in the wood. It ain’t the speed that makes a man. It’s the choice.

A knock came. Marta stepped in.

“I knew Abe once,” she said. “He looked at that gun like it whispered to him. Don’t let it whisper to you.”

Will nodded. “Tomorrow, I’ll face Hollis as a man.”

“Then bury it,” Marta said, voice sharp. “Bury it when it’s done.”

Chapter VIII

The Duel

Dawn broke harsh. The townsfolk lined the street like mourners at a hanging.

Hollis stood broad as a barn door, scar twisted in a grin. “They say you’re faster than lightning. Well, lightning don’t scare me.”

Will’s hand hovered. He knew the moment he touched the grip; Hollis would freeze. Victory would be certain.

But Abe’s voice thundered: It don’t belong to you. Don’t let it own you.

The wind stilled. A tumbleweed skittered by.

Two guns flared in the same heartbeat. Thunder cracked.

When the smoke lifted, Hollis lay sprawled, blood blooming dark.

Will stood alive, coat scorched from a grazing bullet. He had not touched the grip. He had won as a man.

Chapter IX

Epilogue

By nightfall, Perdido breathed again. Lamps lit, voices rose. The preacher was buried, the widow mourned. Hollis rotted in the jail’s dust heap.

But Will was gone.

He rode into the desert, dismounted, dug deep. Lowered Abe’s Colt into the earth. Whispered: “Not yours. Not mine. No man’s.” Then covered it with stone and sand.

He mounted and rode toward the horizon—not as legend, not as curse, but as a man who had chosen mercy over power.

But Will was not alone.

The barefoot boy had followed. From a ridge he watched Will bury the gun, watched him vanish into the distance.

He crept down, crouched over the mound. Pressed his palm flat. The soil was still warm.

For a heartbeat, he felt it—a faint thrum, like a pulse waiting.

His jaw set. His breath quickened.

He did not dig—

Not yet.

But as the desert wind howled across the night, he whispered:

“Someday.”

The End

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