Free Widowmaker Jones by Brett Cogburn

starting a pot of beans to soak and shucking some fresh ears of corn they had stolen from a field they had passed on the way to the town. The irrigated rows of corn were so heavily laden that neither of them felt too guilty about procuring a few ears for a night’s meal.
    She was still in the middle of cooking dinner when the men walked up. She had tethered both the dogs to the wagon wheels, and it was their growling that alerted her.
    When she glanced up from her cook fire she saw that it was five men of a look and bearing that immediately put her on guard as much as the dogs were. There wasn’t a single one of the men who didn’t have at least one pistol somewhere on his waist and a knife or two showing elsewhere on his person. All of them wore the large sombreros and black mustaches indigenous to the country.
    They passed a bottle among them while the cleanest cut and tallest stepped closer to her fire. He was a handsome man, in spite of the dust of the road covering him and several days’ worth of black whisker stubble on his jaws. The vest he wore caught her eye, being made of some kind of spotted cat hide—golden yellow with black spots and rosettes like that of a leopard or something.
    But it wasn’t the odd, fancy vest that left the greatest impression on her. He twirled the end of his gold watch fob in his left hand, while the other rested on the ivory butt of the nickel-plated pistol holstered on his hip. She could tell when he smiled and doffed his broad hat to her that he was a man used to women fawning over him, but for some reason, that smile made her more leery of him than enamored.
    â€œ Hola, señorita ,” he said with his voice as silky smooth as hot butter, but with more than a hint of slyness. “Buenas tardes. ¿Cómo está?”
    She tried to reply in halting Spanish, but he held up a hand and waved her off.
    â€œNo need. I speak good English,” he said.
    In truth, his English was decent, although laden with a heavy accent.
    One of the men behind him burped and snickered, and the man talking to her threw him a warning glance. The one so rude frowned back at him, but nodded an apology at her and mumbled something in Spanish.
    â€œPlease forgive Miguelito,” the tall one said. “His people are nothing but goat herders, and his manners are atrocious. That is the word, no? Atrocious?”
    Miguelito frowned at the tall one again, but didn’t say anything. She wondered why they called him Miguelito, for he was anything but small. Although shorter than the one who seemed to be their ringleader, he was as wide as any two of them, and so fat that his three chins made it look as if his head sat directly on his shoulders with no neck at all.
    â€œFine horses you have,” the tall one said. “I think it took you a long time to find such a matched set.”
    â€œIt did.”
    â€œYou are circus people, no?”
    â€œWe are.”
    â€œWill you put on a show here?”
    â€œNo, we’re only staying one night and then moving on.”
    â€œWhat do you do in this circus?”
    â€œTrick riding and a little shooting.” She looked past the men, hoping to spy Fonzo on his way back. He should have returned long since.
    â€œWho does this?”
    â€œMy brother rides and I shoot.”
    â€œYou?” The tall one turned to his friends and all of them laughed. He turned back to her. “What do you know of guns?”
    â€œI assure you, I’m a very good shot.”
    â€œIs that you?” The tall one pointed at the signage painted on the side of their living quarters wagon. “Buckshot Annie?”
    All of the men snickered at what he said, while Kizzy hid her surprise that he could read, and in English, no less. Miguelito handed the tall one the bottle, and Kizzy watched as he turned it up and took a long pull of the tequila, with his brown throat exposed and shining with sweat and the sharp knot of his