.45-Caliber Desperado by Peter Brandvold

out of the cabin, thumbing suspenders up his shoulders clad in a faded, red plaid work shirt. The suspenders were attached to threadbare canvas trousers.
    He turned his head to one side as two more people came out of the shack behind him—one an older woman with the same Indian features as the man, and a young redheaded pale-skinned woman in a work shirt and pleated gray skirt.
    There was a buckboard wagon hitched to a mule standing out front of the shack, and the man and the two women climbed aboard and began moving at a brisk trot toward the outlaws who’d all gotten busy unsaddling their horses near the fire. Cuno glanced at Camilla, who did not meet his gaze but only stared toward the approaching wagon and then at two men, wounded in the dustup at the Arkansas, who were being helped down from their horses by other members of the bunch.
    â€œWhat do we have there?” Mateo asked one of the wounded—a small Mexican who wore his hair in a tight braid down his back. “How are you doing, Ignacio?”
    â€œI’m all right,” said Ignacio in Spanish, holding his bloody right arm tight against his body and crawling awkwardly down from his saddle while another man held his horse for him. He spoke again in Spanish, which Cuno mentally translated: “I just need a drink of water, and I’ll be fine.”
    â€œLet me see.” Mateo rose up on the balls of his feet to inspect the wound in the Mexican’s right arm about halfway between his elbow and shoulder. The outlaw leader pulled the arm away from the man’s body, and Ignacio sucked a sharp breath through the gap of his missing front teeth.
    â€œSure, sure,” Mateo said in English, for the benefit of the Americans, which made a good half of his pack. “You’ll be fine.” He glanced meaningfully toward the burly, yellow-bearded Wayne Brouschard and canted his head toward Ignacio who stood leaning against his horse. “Brouschard will take you over to the creek, mi amigo. Get you some water, help you clean the wound, make it all better.”
    â€œWater,” Ignacio said, lifting his chin and glancing eagerly toward the stream. “ Si, si —I could really use some water, Mateo.”
    As Brouschard came over and began turning Ignacio by one arm, Mateo looked at the other man who’d just ridden in and who had dismounted his palomino gelding to stand beside the horse, eyes closed, using one hand to support himself against the saddle.
    A tall half-breed with roached brown hair and one pale eye and one cobalt blue one, he swooned a little, as though drunk. He wore a ragged frock coat over crisscrossed bandoliers and three big pistols bristled on his hips and from a cross-draw holster half hidden by the coat. He wore salmon-colored checked pants, both knees patched with green ducking.
    â€œWhite-Eye—how you doin’ over there?” Mateo walked around Ignacio’s horse, heading toward the half-breed. “You don’t look so good.”
    White-Eye looked at Mateo, his milky eye dull and lifeless, the blue one sharp and anxious. “What’s that, Brother? I’m all right.”
    â€œYou took a bullet back at the river, no?”
    â€œOh, it’s just a scratch.” The half-breed chuckled, stepping away from his horse and lowering his arms to his sides as if to prove how well he was despite the blood glistening on the low left side of his dust-powdered black frock. “Shit, I’ve been hurt worse tussling with whores. Them fingernails can get mighty sharp across a man’s back when you pleasure ’em just right!”
    He laughed woodenly, the blue eye crinkling at the corner as he watched Mateo approach him.
    The outlaw grinned broadly at the half-breed. “That’s so, Brother!” He looked down at the man’s waist. “Where you hit, huh? Don’t tell me they gutted you, Brother. Huh? They gut you?”
    Quickly, he reached out and