Julie returned with a dust-covered, wooden case. "Found it." She sat it on the tarped-over table and opened the metal clasps. "Now you are going to appreciate this, Mr. Gun Nut." She opened the box with a flourish. Inside the molded case were two pistols. One was big, and the other small, a matched pair, down to the finishes. "Go ahead. Check them out."

The guns were custom. STI frames, the full-size had an extended, threaded barrel, and was complete with a rail for a mounted light. The smaller one was a custom chopped version, cut down in every possible dimension for concealment. For a competition nut like myself, these pistols were the kind of thing that I dreamed about. Normal men had pornography. I had gun magazines. They were beautiful.

"Twenty-eleven frame, fourteen rounds of.45 in the big one, twenty with the extended mags. Ten in the little one, but it can take the full-size mags, they just hang out a bit. I worked them over so they're reliable with our silver bullets. Match barrels, these are scary accurate. But clearances are loose enough that these should be able to get really gunked up and still work fine," she told me proudly. I pulled back the slide to check the chamber, and it glided as smoothly as silk. I checked the trigger. The hammer fell with a snap. It was possibly the nicest trigger I had ever felt on any weapon, ever.

"These were made for somebody with mutant hands, notice even the long trigger. Extended safeties for shooting high thumb; beaver tail, small mag release so big-handed shooters don't release them by accident; you guys don't need to shift your grip to change mags anyway."

"Sweet. Did you do these yourself?"

"They were an old project."

I gently put the guns back in the box. "They're beautiful. Much nicer than my old one. I've gone through quite a few guns this week."

She closed the box, snapped the clasps closed, and shoved it over toward me. I looked at it in confusion for a moment.

"You'd better be more careful with these then. Lose them and I'll kill you."

"But, but… you're just giving these to me?" I asked. "Why?"

"I have these lying around the house. They don't fit me at all. Some Hunter with ham fists needs to put them to good use, and you currently don't have a pistol at all. My little brother won't use them. He's a Glock nut. The poor deluded bastard. Plus the way these things shoot, they need to be in the hands of a real pistolero. You'll have to do." She smiled. "Consider it my way of saying thank you for saving my life."

"Thanks," I said. It was the nicest gift that anyone had ever given me.

"Look, I've got to go," she said, sounding almost sheepish. "I need to take care of some things."

"Thanks," was all that I could think of to say.