Chapter 12

The Western Shoot was better than well attended ... it was crowded with tipis, lean-tos, wall tents and marquee.

Marquee: Think circus tent but smaller. Baptists think revival tents.

There were more cannon firing than most Civil War battles. I spent the weekend talking to the man who brought a homemade naval style carriage with an M-3 Sherman rifled barrel cut off in front of the projectile chamber and 36 inches long. Extremely accurate. He won the cannon shoot but was immediately banned from further competition ... smooth bores only.

“I found a chunk of barrel at my neighbors and he explained his foundry in Pueblo had been commissioned to de-militarize four hundred stored obsolete National Guard Sherman tanks.

“He said they torched the barrels off the turret, used an electro-magnet to remove the turrets and sent them straight to the furnaces.

“The tracked chassis were offered to interested parties or melted down to make seamless casing for oil wells.”

“I have a machine shop in Sheridan,” I said, “I was thinking about cannon barrels out of brass.”

“You do? I’d like to see that,” he said. A girl ... she can’t be twenty ... with her own shop? Yeah ... I’d like to see it.

“When do you want to go?” I said.

The cannon match wasn’t until Sunday.

“Now?” he said. Let’s see what kind of excuses she can come up with to stay here.

“Come on ... I have to tell the girls where I’m going.” I told him. “I should change out of my shoot clothes. Jeans and a shirt would be good. It might be cold up here but it’s hot down below.”

I stopped at the lodge, changed clothes and told Hilda where I was going. The rest of the girls were shopping the traders.

“Lets go,” I stood by the Dodge, waiting.

“We going in this?”

“Yeah ... no sense taking two vehicles.”

He loaded up, I loaded up.

“Seat belts,” I said. “This thing doesn’t run without ‘em.”

The 340 fired and away we went ... quietly.

Halfway down he said, “You really have a shop?”

“Two, we’ll drive right by the one at the cabin. It’s mostly cars. The one in town is tools.”

“I need to make a stop in town,” I said. “I ordered a few Ashfords and need to check on ‘em.”

The boxes were in. I loaded ‘em in the back.

“Now I have to stop at the cabin and drop these off.”

Heading out Dayton East I turned right at Wolf Creek and headed south. We drove past Keystone.

“My place starts at that road. Couple miles and and we’re at my house.”

I drove down that awful drive, “I gotta get this graveled,” I said.

I put the Ashford kits in the bunkhouse and we bounced back up the drive. The 60 by 80 four door General Steel Garage was out by Consuelo’s.

“There’s the cars ... and my hired hand ... Hi Connie, headed to Sheridan. Need anything?”

“Cabin fever ... can I go?”

Connie rode in the back. I dropped her off at Kroger’s.