Before that it had been used by his father.
There were a number of notches filed in the bulge of the ivory handle.
This gun was the one his father had fired twice after being shot through the heart, and his hand had stiffened so tightly upon it in the death-grip that his fingers had to be pried open.

It had never been drawn upon any man since it had come into Duane's possession.

But the cold, bright polish of the weapon showed how it had been used.

Duane could draw it with inconceivable rapidity, and at twenty feet he could split a card pointing edgewise toward him.
Duane wished to avoid meeting his mother.

Fortunately, as he thought, she was away from home.