"Shady Lady"

Time to come back over HERE for a bit. It's starting to get crazy again, over there on "Blog Boulevard."

This little story comes to mind as I look out the window, watching the wind blow, depriving me of another "sight-in day" out there at the pits.

Coffee in hand, I was just going over the "inventory" and whenever I come to ONE of them, I always sit back and wonder.

I have in my collection an old Colt Police Positive revolver. Its 5-digit serial number dates it back to 1913, and when I was looking it over at the gunshop, I couldn't help but notice the THREE NOTCHES cut into the left grip!

Naturally curious, I asked our dealer about it, and all he could tell me, was the name of the retired cop here in town who had owned it. The cop had just gotten divorced and for financial reasons, had to sell a few things, and this old revolver was one of them.

I HAD to have the gun, and bought it right there on the spot.

Now.......it so happened I KNEW this cop, and the next time I saw him was IN that gunshop, so I asked him about this Colt with the 3-notches.

Well, in his earlier law enforcement years, he'd been a county deputy in Missouri. They rode TWO to a car back then. One day, he and his partner were riding along and pulled a station wagon over (I don't recall what they pulled it over for).

When they ran the plates, they discovered the lady who OWNED it had a warrant out for her arrest! SHE was driving the car, with a younger girl riding into town WITH her. The two cops got out. MY friend walked up on the passenger side where the YOUNG girl was, and his partner walked up to the driver's door, and the OLDER lady.

When she told him her name, he knew immediately that SHE was the one with the warrant, and ordered her out of the car. But instead, she reached into her purse and pulled the pistol! My friend saw it, yelled out..."GUN!!", then DOVE in through the passenger side window, (across the lap of the younger girl!), GRABBED the gun and held onto it while his partner got the driver's door open and wrestled the older lady out of the car.

They put her on the ground and cuffed her. The younger girl offered no resistance, and she was later released when it was found she was just a neighbor of the older lady and was "hitching" a ride into town. She wasn't wanted for ANYTHING.

But the old lady WAS. When they got her in the squad car, my friend held that pistol up in front of her and asked about the 3-notches..........."YOU JERKS FIGURE IT OUT" (the old lady didn't say "jerk", but it'll suffice for blog purposes). She was apparently VERY nasty-dispositioned.

They took them both in, booked the OLD lady and turned the YOUNG one loose.

Somewhere along the way, the old gal had friends who bailed her out, and she was given a court date to appear.

But before she could, she was killed on that same highway when she was riding in the back of a pickup truck, drunk as a skunk with some other friends, and she fell OUT of the back! But before she could get up from the pavement, she was run OVER by a another car!

Well.......her court case was closed. My cop friend wanted that Colt, so he petitioned for it, and got it.....but with the old lady DEAD now, there was NO WAY he'd ever be able to find out who was shot with it! (or maybe killed-----or maybe THREE people!)

People in modern times do not carve "notches" in their pistol grips like the old-day desperados did. But this gun dates BACK to 1913. It COULD have been used by the lady's dad or uncle......or maybe HERSELF in HER younger days.

Nobody will ever know, and everytime I get it out to wipe it down, I always wonder about it. Even after 98 years, it still SHOOTS good. I loaded up a cylinder of 38 Specials, right after I got it, then went out and put 6 holes in a "Diet Dew" can with it. It shoots just fine.

I have several World War II guns, that have various small battle scars and nicks on them, and you always wonder about them too...............but the difference is that you EXPECT WAR GUNS to have killed people.

But here is a "civilian" Colt...........1913 vintage......later than Jesse James and just a few years before World War I.

"Prohibition?"........"boot-legging?".........some "family feud down there in Missouri?"...............

Who knows. I often wonder where it's been, but that secret died on a Missouri highway, with the "shady lady."