MISTRESS JIM WEYER PHOTOGRAPHY
He went to his portmanteau at the foot of the bed and opened it. From it he lifted out a knife in a sheath, and brought it to his brother. "A pistol's all right," he said, "but a knife never misfires. And you can get it into action a lot quicker than reloading a gun."
Rezin persisted.
Bowie examined the weapon. The sheath was rawhide and home-stitched. He drew the blade. An ordinary butcher knife, whetted very keen, but with a cross hilt of hammered brass.
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mustn't get caught off guard again,"
"That brass guard's a good idea," he said. "I had Manuel, our blacksmith at Sedalia, put it on. Keeps your hand from slipping when you use the knife to bleed or flay game."
Bowie saw an even better use for the hilt. He weighed the knife in his hand. The hilt gave it an awkward balance, the weight up against the handle. No good for throwing. Still, the beginnings of an idea were in him: an idea that had been lying unformed for years. When he was a long-legged youth, he had played at throwing knives with the Cajun boys and achieved a fair skill at it. A knife, to be a good weapon, must be throwable. All at once
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