Читать книгу Gun Digest 2011 онлайн

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A 44-caliber Starr six-shooter was decorated by James himself with a copper dagger and an inverted letter “J” inletted into the grip. Driven into the grip was a number of small nails, each of which was believed to have represented a man fallen dead to the Starr. Included in this count were four law officers who tried to arrest Jesse in 1876 at the Miller Ranch, five miles out of Joplin. Legend has it that after the revolver was emptied, James threw it on a table and made his getaway. A servant woman present immediately dropped the gun into a jar of warm lard that was on the hearth. She later buried the jar together with the concealed gun, and it was preserved in this fashion until it was recovered at a later date. Ultimately, it wandered into the collection of C. Burton Saunders.

Joaquin Murrietta was a conscienceless Mexican bandit and gringo-hater who specialized in brutally plundering California mining camps. He lived by the sword, and at age 23, died the same way. He was decapitated, and his pickled head was kept on display at the Gordon Museum in San Francisco. During the 1906 earthquake/fire, the gruesome thing was lost and never found. Taken from his headless corpse in 1853 was his Colt Dragoon, which also found its way into the Saunders collection. Killed with Murrietta was a hopeless criminal known as Three Finger jack. Saunders got his gun too.