Free .45-Caliber Firebrand by Peter Brandvold Page B

paper in Cuno’s hand. “You’re fy-muss!”
    â€œWhere’d this come from?” Cuno muttered, frowning down at the yellowed paper.
    He’d never heard of the writer, Hiram A. Crutchfield. Whoever the scribbler was, he hadn’t been with Cuno in that remote range along the Bozeman Trail when Cuno had turned Anderson and Spoon toe down before they could sell rifles to the rampaging plains tribes. The only other person there at the time was the half-breed girl Cuno would later marry, July Summer.
    Crutchfield was probably just a Ute newshound who’d heard a few rumors from folks who’d been part of the same wagon train as Cuno that summer, and he’d scribbled out a lascivious tale full of gun smoke and blood, to raise his circulation.
    Cuno tossed the paper down with a caustic chuff, took up his knife, and cut into his slab of elk meat. “A Dead-Eye Dick faker,” he said. “Nothin’ against Mr. Dick. Used to read his books myself . . . back before I found out what life behind the gun was really like. I’d pay no attention, Mr. Trent. There’s no way the man could have got it right.”
    â€œDo tell, Cuno,” Trent urged, chewing a mouthful of meat and potatoes. “I admire nothing more than a young man standing up for himself and his murdered family! For taking his own fledgling gun against those of seasoned killers, and the devil take the hindmost!”
    â€œNo,” Cuno said, feeling uncomfortable. He hadn’t set his hat to become a gunslick—he’d been forced into it by the killings of his father and stepmother—and he wanted nothing more than to put that bloody past behind him. “Not the time or the place, Mr. Trent.”
    â€œTell me, Master Cuno,” said Jedediah Gallantly, swabbing up chokecherry sauce with a chunk of elk meat, “how many notches do you have on your gun . . . if you don’t mind the question?”
    â€œJedediah, please,” said his betrothed. “You’re sounding like Father.”
    â€œNo, I’d like to know.” Gallantly smiled mockingly at Cuno across the table, his pasty cheeks glistening waxlike in the candle- and firelight. “Call it a prurient interest.”
    â€œI value my forty-five too highly to carve notches in the handle, Mr. Gallantly.”
    â€œCuno Massey here killed Franklin Evans,” Trent said to Kuttner. “And the notorious bounty hunter Ruben Pacheca at the same time!”
    The foreman nodded gravely and raised his eyes from his plate, which he’d already nearly cleaned. “Much obliged, son.” His eyes slitted with a devilish grin. “I’ve got a few enemies need killin’, too, if you’re interested. Can only pay in hardtack and jerky, of course, but . . .”
    â€œObliged, Mr. Kuttner. I’ll stick with mule skinnin’ for now.”
    â€œHow boring!” said Logan Trent.
    â€œDepends on who you’re workin’ for,” quipped Serenity.
    Dallas Snowberger, who’d been eating in customary silence, laughed.
    â€œDo tell me, Mr. Massey.” Michelle cleared her throat and frowned down at her still-full plate, as though the words were coming hard for her. “How many men have you killed?” She looked up then suddenly, staring at Cuno as though he were a riddle she was having trouble unraveling. “How many lives have you taken?”
    Logan Trent chuckled. Jedediah Gallantly looked down at his lovely wife-to-be in bemused surprise.
    Her fair cheeks flushing slightly, she hiked a shoulder and rolled a potato around on her plate with a fork.
    Cuno felt like a freak at a carnival sideshow. It was his own damn fault, allowing himself to be lured up here by his lust for a wet blonde in a buffalo robe.
    Now he wished he were back in his wagon, huddled in his blankets beneath the stars. Or, better yet, on the trail back to Crow Feather. Anywhere but here, where Trent seemed to