Garden City, Kansas, 2014:
Abby Sciuto woke up that morning feeling a little strange or stranger than usual, she couldn't put her finger on quite what it was but she knew something was going to happen. They'd just concluded a case and were waiting for Gibbs so they could start back to Norfolk Naval Base.
"The way home will take us past Dodge City. Abby, did you ever watch Gunsmoke?" D'Nozzo asked. Abby nodded. "Who do you think Gibbs would play in the series?"
"That's easy, Matt Dillon!"
"What about, McGee?"
"Festus Haggens."
"Why would I play Festus Haggens?" McGee asked.
"Because Festus was hill-billy and he was difficult to understand. Just as Gibbs has difficulty understanding you when you speak computer code."
"Me?" D'Nozzo asked.
"You, Newly O'Brien, as far as I know there were no Italian people in Dodge City at that time, Newly was a bit of a womanizer."
"Okay, Ziva?"
"Easy if Ziva had red hair she'd be Kitty Russell."
"Ducky of course he'd be Doc Adams."
"Thank you for that, Tony, but what about Jimmy?
"Chester Goode, because he's tall, thin and totally gormless."
"That's not fair, I might be tall and thin but I'm not gormless," Jimmy said. "What about Abby who would she be?"
"Sam Mctavish, she was a doctor. That's as close to being a forensic scientist as you get."
"What about the Director?"
"He'd have to play the head of the Marshals Service Department, back then the Department of Justice had only just been formed," Gibbs arrived soon after they got in the various vehicles, Abby travelled with Ducky. They were travelling in the direction of the Norfolk Naval Base, a gas tanker was following behind but that was just general traffic.
Dodge City, Kansas, 1878
They were nearing the outskirts of Dodge City when the tarmac just disappeared and dirt replaced it, they pulled up the tanker just behind them.
"What the hell just happened?" D'Nozzo asked.
"No idea," Gibbs said, they set off again through Dodge slowly, the people stared at them, people dressed in nineteenth century garb, guns on the hip of every man. The door to the marshal's office opened and the largest man Ziva had ever seen came out, on his chest a marshal's badge.
"Not bad looking," Ziva said, Gibbs stopped.
"Don't get sentimental or goo goo-eyed on me, Ziva," the three vehicles were drawing a crowd of people curious because they were not using horses. Matt Dillon was as curious as the next man he watched as Gibbs and his team got out of their vehicles as did the trucker. Matt walked over to them.
"My name's Matt Dillon, I'm the marshal for Dodge."
"This is going to seem odd, Marshal, but what year is this?" Gibbs asked.
"Your right it is odd, but it's eighteen seventy-eight," D'Nozzo looked a little shocked. A cowboy reached out and touched Ziva on the chest.
"Remove your hand or lose it," Ziva said, the cowboy was a little too slow on the uptake, because she backed that up by twisting the cowboy's hand up behind his back with one hand grabbing his belt with the other and upending him into a horse trough, the man came up spluttering.
"Ziva," Gibbs called a little too late to save the cowboy from a soaking. "Did you have to humiliate him?"
"Better humiliated than being minus one hand," the rest of the men were laughing at the cowboy, "I did tell him to remove his hand." The cowboy went for his gun only to find himself staring at the business end of Ziva's Sig Sauer.
"What the hell is that," the cowboy asked. Ziva turned it away from him and shot a branch on the nearby tree. "Jeez, lady, give a man some warning."
"Why?" Ziva said, Matt laughed.
"Tom, no gunman ever gives warning, even in a fair fight. That could have been your head. What kind of a gun is that?" Ziva pressed a button on the grip removing the cartridge, she handed the gun to Matt.
"It's a self-loading, semi-automatic pistol. You have it as automatic or single shot. Right now it's unloaded but if I put this in..." She left the answer open. Matt handed the gun back to her, she replaced the cartridge.
"What kind of bullets does it take?"
"In the cartridge, nine forty-five calibre rounds."
"Nine, we only use six shooters around here," Gibbs was studying the layout on Front Street, he walked over to the trucker.
"How much gas have you got in there?"
"Man, she is full up to the gunnells."
"Which service?"
"Same as you as you well know. I might look kind of scraggy now, but Semper Fi."
"Oohrah!" Gibbs said. "What would happen if a drunk cowboy put a bullet in that trailer unit?"
"If that happens, you could say goodbye to Dodge City in one big fireball. I'm going to move my truck to just where the buildings end and prairie begins, should be safer there. What rank were you?"
"Gunnery Sergeant. Now I'm NCIS"
"Oh, better stay out of trouble then."
"It won't be me arresting you, it'll be Marshal Dillon. This is 1878 and NCIS won't exist until 1992," the trucker climbed into his tractor unit and started the engine and pulled the tanker round the NCIS vehicles.
"Where's he going?" Matt asked.
"That tanker contains highly flamable gasolene. One stray bullet from a drunk cowboy and Dodge City would disappear in flames," Gibbs said. The trucker drove straight ahead out of Dodge parked up and walked back. Ducky, Jimmy and Abby came to stand near to Gibbs, the cowboys stared open mouthed at Abby. They couldn't understand a knee length black skirt, black bodice, purple arm length gloves, a purple parasol and big thick boots, Matt's eyebrows rose.
"This is Abby Sciuto, she's complicated," Gibbs said "I don't suppose you know what a forensic scientist is?" Matt shook his head. "Do you know what finger prints are?" Matt nodded.
"I've heard of them."
"Abby can take fingerprints and match any found at a crime scene and if a suspect is found either prove or disprove by matching their fingerprints with those found at the scene."
"How many doctors do you have in Dodge City?"
"One, that'd be me," Doc Adams said.
"At this point with us included you now have two doctors," Gibbs indicated Ducky. "This is Doctor Donald Mallard, but we call him Ducky, he specializes in finding out how someone died. Jimmy Palmer there assists Ducky, he's still learning. Magee, his speciality too difficult to understand," Magee was examining his cell.
"There doesn't seem to be signal, Boss."
"There wouldn't be, Magee, cell phones don't exist at this time. Tony D'Nozzo, every woman below the age of sixty-five and above the age of consent are fair game as far as he is concerned but he's a good investigator. Ziva Davide, she's originally from Israel and as you saw she can handle herself."
The trucker came back he whispered something to Gibbs. "Marshal Dillon, I think you'd better come with us. Tony," Tony was busy trying his seduction techniques out on a young lady, Gibbs cuffed him on the back of his head.
"Ah! Boss?"
"Gear up," Magee, Ziva and Tony fetched their bags from the van. Ducky went to his van and retrieved what he would need while Jimmy got a gurney out and a body bag. The trucker led them to where he found the body, Matt followed them out of curiosity, but when he saw the body he crouched down near it.
"That's Ed Duncan, he'd won a sizable amount in a poker game last night."
"D'Nozzo, Magee, Ziva, sketch and shoot."
"Sketch and shoot?" Matt asked puzzled.
"Okay, Boss," they produced their cameras and started taking photographs of everything in the alley, then sketch pads and tape measures. Doc had followed to, his instinct was to go to the body but Ducky had already ascertained that the man was dead. Ducky got his liver probe out and thrust it into the man's stomach.
"What's that for?" Both Matt and Doc asked.
"It's a liver probe, the internal temperature is always higher. This gives me the liver temperature, and then calculates the difference and that tells me the time of death. Gibbs, he died around about eleven hours ago. There's signs of a blow to the head, then someone shot him once in the heart. I'll need to do an autopsy to dig the bullet out of there. Can we use your office, Doctor Adams?"
"Yes, of course."
"Jimmy, the gurney."
"Right away," Jimmy pulled the gurney the body bag already in place. They lifted in the body up onto the gurney and into the body bag, Jimmy zipped the bag shut. They wheeled the gurney to the bottom of the steps up to Doc's office, Jimmy collapsed the gurney to the ground and they carried the gurney from there up to Doc's office. Jimmy raised the gurney again and Ducky opened the body bag. "Jimmy, I'll need my equipment from the van," Jimmy nodded and disappeared down the step to the van, bringing back Ducky's travelling autopsy kit.
Doc and Matt watched as Ducky and Jimmy stripped the body, completely, covering the groin with a cloth, Matt examined the clothing, the wallet was there but no money. Ducky made the Y-cut peeling back the flesh to reveal the ribcage. Ducky picked up the rib cutter and started cutting the ribcage, Matt blanched and left.
"Don't like autopsies?" Gibbs asked.
"Not as a rule, but Doc has never removed the ribcage."
"S.O.P. where we come from."
"What is S.O.P.?"
"Standard Operating Procedure," Matt nodded.
"I checked his wallet it was empty," Matt said.
"Robbery and murder. Possibly one of those who lost money," Gibbs said, Matt nodded.
Up in Doc's office, Ducky removed the ribcage, Doc watched as Ducky used his forceps to probe for the bullet, Jimmy provided a jar, Ducky dropped the bullet into it, Jimmy screwed the top closed. Ducky replaced the ribcage and stitched the man closed. "Now, we take the bullet to Abby," Doc followed Ducky and Jimmy out and across the street to where Abby had her equipment set up in an empty store a small petrol generator powering all of it, Matt and Gibbs followed Ducky and Doc into the store. "Here's the bullet, Abby," Abby put the bullet under the microscope, focussing it on the bullet to reveal the lans and grooves, she pressed a couple of keys on her computer and the bullet appeared on the screen.
"No two guns will ever leave the same pattern on a bullet, it's all to do with how the barrels are rifled, during the manufacturing process. Find a suspect, I'll test fire his gun and compare the bullets."
"Well, we can test the guns of all those involved in the poker game, Marshal," Gibbs said.
"What is all this stuff?" Doc asked, Abby was now in her element, as she explained how each piece of equipment functioned and what they were used for.
"This is for cross-matching the different blood types," Abby explained about how rare some types were. "Ducky is AB negative that's the rarest blood type," she explained the importance of using the correct blood for transfusions.
"Matt that would sure come in useful when you get yourself shot," Doc said, the only reply he got was a grunt. As the poker players handed over their pistols, Abby labelled them with each man's name. They watched as one by one she fire each gun and then scanned each bullet at the same time, she pressed the keys on her computer and the computer compared each scan with the one of the bullet that Ducky had taken out of Ed Duncan, it matched up with the gun belonging to Les Peters.
"Les Peters, he lost the most money in that game," Matt said, he left the store, he looked around Les Peters wasn't among the poker players waiting for their guns to be returned. "Where's Les Peters?"
"Don't know, Marshal, didn't see him go."
"I did, he went south."
"Then I'll have to go after him," Matt said.
"You take of yourself, Matt," Doc said, "and for Heaven's sake try not to get shot."
"Mind if I come with you?" Gibbs asked.
"Nope, I figure two of us should be enough. Festus, Newly you keep the peace here."
"Gibbs," Ducky said. "What Doc Adams just said goes double for you."
"Ah! Ducky you old worry wort," Gibbs said, grinning anyway, he followed Matt to the stables, they saddled up leaving at the canter. They rode for sometime silently scanning the trail towards evening Gibbs smelt woodsmoke. "Someone's camped nearby, I can smell it," Matt nodded, they dismounted and crept silently through the forest every inch of Gibbs Marine Corps training coming into play.
Les Peters sat at the campfire, he poured a coffee and put the pot down. An antelope raced through the camp, he drew and fired, Gibbs gripped his right shoulder. "Damn it to hell," Matt charged in.
"Hold it right there!" Matt called out, Les Peters whirled and fired catching Matt in his left shoulder, both Gibbs and Matt fired at the same time, Les Peters collapsed blood pumping from his stomach, Gibbs put two fingers on the man's neck feeling the pulse stop. "We better get back to town," they lifted Les Peters's body between them and draped it over his horse, then mounted and set out back to Dodge having roughly patched each other up, they arrived around eight o'clock.
"Didn't expect you back so early, Matthew," Festus said.
"Get the body to Percy Crump," Matt said, Festus nodded.
"Yeah, I better get ol Doc fer you."
"Better get both Doc Adams and Ducky," Gibbs said. Festus went into the Long Branch.
"Miss Kitty, Matt's back. Doc, he needs you."
"I'll go with you, Doctor Adams, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," both Ducky and Doc left heading for Doc's office. Matt and Gibbs were already in the office.
"I might have known, Gibbs, it's like you two were twins separated only by an ocean of time," Ducky and Doc treated them. Then they went to the Long Branch to see Miss Kitty and have what Matt said was a well-earned drink.