Excerpt from �Elmer Keith, The Other Side Of A Western Legend�, Accurate Rifle magazine, June 2002.
Gripping the world�s most powerful factory production handgun the old man seriously concentrated on something that was a great distance away. He looked neither to the right nor left across the dusty, open desert country of middle Idaho.
After some thought, he, without a word, slowly lowered himself down to rest his back against a lone jack pine tree. On this day it would be a tree. On others he used a well worn pack horse saddle or simply stretched out on his side.
Behind him out of the line of fire a small crowd of admirers and the inevitable skeptics were milling around. The latter, some smoking or taking a quick nip from pint bottles, grinned and winked at each other. They seemed confident that this was going to be an easy money day.
This varied group of bystanders had come to witness what many considered to be an impossible feat with a pistol.
Tipping his large, gray cowboy hat down a bit for shade from the bright summer sun, Elmer Keith then rested both elbows against his knees. The legendary gunman took a deep breath.
A few of the onlookers jumped nervously when a first shot blasted off. It sent a resounding echo through canyons and draws in the nearby foothills. Shading their eyes, some with binoculars and some without, they could see dust fly about 475 yards from where the learned old shooter had taken aim.
One man�s face fell in a sign of remorse. *Possibly a sign of repentance for having bet so much that what he was seeing in front of him couldn�t be done. He was a city man who cared little for the quiet grin a cowboy in work clothes gave him.
Another loud crack firmly erupted from the Smith and Wesson revolver. It was a blue steel heavy frame affair. A Model 29. After a lifetime of handling and shooting thousands of pistols it was the old legend�s unabashed favorite. He had helped to develop this weapon and all this expectations had been met.
This second bullet was being �walked up� to the 500 yards away target which was wired onto an old long abandoned rubber automobile tire. One of many that lay scattered across remote areas of the rural west.
His third and fourth hand-loaded 250-grain slugs tore round holes in a lower portion of the paper on plywood bull-eye target that was so far away. The fifth bullet hit a bottom ring.
Emptying the pistol cylinder with a sixth, slow squeeze trigger pull, Elmer Keith surveyed his work from a position on the rough ground. His point had been proven. A near bulls-eye. Anyone who knew Keith well could almost hear him thinking��Is that good enough for you boys?�
The author goes on to tell the story of the time he and another friend took Keith with them when they traveled by car from Idaho to a prominent gun show in California. Elmer told the story of the time he shot flying fish, in the air, while on a fishing boat at the challenge of other passengers. Both the author and friend did not believe Keith for a moment and were broken hearted to find that the legend they admired apparently told some big ones.
When the reached the California gun show, one of the first people they saw was a very well know gun writer that greeted Elmer by saying, �Elmer, you old son-of-a-gun, do you remember the time you shot those flying fish when everyone said it couldn�t be done?�
I respectfully suggest there have been too many such instances of witnessed �impossible shots� to doubt what Elmer says he did.
