The Old Deringer, Part One

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Fan Fiction (Bonanza)
Rating: PG


~Spring, 1880 ~

I stared into the cramped, narrow alley. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t be sure that it was the right one. It’d been more than fifteen years since I lived in San Francisco. I knew the streets by the Barbary Coast like the back of my hand in those days—but they were alien to me now.

Nonetheless, I still wasn’t afraid in this part of town. No one harassed me or took me for a mark—which meant, I suppose, that something of that eleven-year-old street rat was still evident in me.

I still had the old Deringer tucked into my waistcoat. It was purely sentimental, of course—such an outdated single-shot weapon served no practical purpose. It wasn’t even primed or loaded.

I sighed and shook my head. I was thinking back to the faded afternoon when I had last pointed that Deringer at someone. It had been primed and loaded then.

I walked into the alley and looked around, but it was no use. It was impossible to see it through an eleven-year-old’s eyes again. I would never be sure that this was the place.

But I don’t suppose it mattered anymore.

LINK TO PART TWO