The Messenger's Shotgun

Every frontier town had at least one man who did not want a duel. He wanted the argument over before it started. That man carried a shotgun.

The classic 'coach gun' was a double-barrel with the barrels cut back to eighteen or twenty inches — short enough to swing inside a stagecoach box or a jail doorway, and loaded with buckshot that spread wide enough to make aiming almost beside the point at close range. The express messenger who rode beside the driver, guarding the strongbox, gave us the phrase 'riding shotgun.'

Two barrels meant two shots and then a reload with your hands shaking. Which is exactly why the shotgun's greatest power was psychological. Break it open, thumb in two brass-headed shells, snap it closed — every man in the room hears that sound and does the arithmetic.

Lawmen liked them for the same reason. Serving a warrant in a crowded saloon with a revolver is a gamble on marksmanship; doing it with a coach gun leveled at a man's belt buckle is a negotiation.

It is not a romantic weapon. There is no artistry in it. But when I need a scene where the threat is absolute and nobody is going to be clever, the shotgun comes off the pegs above the office door.