Free Grudging by Michelle Hauck

she’d assumed. She held tight to her shoulder. Her eyes showed fright atop pain, which she struggled manfully to conceal. “Here,” she hissed, nodding down at her chest, unable to move her other arm. “Something stepped on me.” Did Ramiro imagine her cringing away from the blood on his hands?
    â€œCollarbone,” Salvador said gruffly. “Likely broken. It’ll have to be bound in a sling.”
    Ramiro settled back on his heels to await instructions as Alvito rummaged in packs for cloth. Alvito came over bearing one of Gomez’s extra shirts. Instead of offering the shirt to Salvador, he froze. “You’re hurt, Capitán.”
    A spreading stain of red darkened Salvador’s surcoat below his breastplate, and Ramiro felt like he’d been stabbed himself.

 
    CHAPTER 8
    S alvador’s wound proved neither dangerous nor deep. A sword thrust had slipped below his armor, cutting skin and muscle near the top of his thigh. The gash stopped bleeding almost before Alvito finished sewing it back together. The cut along Ramiro’s ribs bled less but required one more stitch than his brother’s, leading Alvito to declare Ramiro the bigger idiot.
    Teresa sat on a dried saguaro skeleton and watched the scene, her left arm in a sling to immobilize her collarbone. It didn’t seem to be a clean break, but it might be deeply bruised or the muscles damaged. Nearby, Salvador nursed a teakettle and lifted roasted sausages off the same small fire of dead cacti that had been used to boil the needle and other supplies.
    â€œFine lot we are, by the saints,” Alvito grumbled. “Caught unaware. Three injuries in the first hours. One lost horse. A sad, sorry lot.” He tied off the fine catgut of Ramiro’s last suture and broke off the thread with his teeth, then gave Ramiro a push. “The only redeeming light—­our mascot has earned his beard! That is, if he can manage to grow one instead of peach fuzz.”
    Gomez held up a razor with one hand and stroked the fierce beard that ran from his face to his chest with the other. “You won’t be needing this anymore. A real man lets everything grow as it will.”
    â€œWell,” Alvito hedged, “I don’t recommend losing it altogether.” He kicked over the pot of cooling water onto the fire and slipped the needle back into his pack, careful not to disturb his plumed hat, set there to be out of the dirt. “A nicely trimmed sculpt lets you look sweet to the ladies, unlike a hairy bear. I’d rather be a man than a beast.” He touched the crisp lines of his straight-­angled beard.
    Gomez growled and waved his hands like claws. “Jackass, you mean. A bear has many virtues over a jackass.”
    â€œJackass? Nay, I think you mean cat. A cat I will allow.” Alvito directed a smile toward Teresa. “We must appeal to the woman among us. Would your sex prefer a hairy bear or a sleek cat?”
    â€œOh,” Teresa said, her grin bursting forth despite her injury. “How can one possibly choose? I say yes to variety. One isn’t enough, eh?”
    Ramiro smiled at their banter and glanced up as Salvador’s hand settled on his shoulder. “Nicely earned, brother.” Before he could answer, Salvador moved off, and Ramiro wondered again what his brother concealed that kept him so quiet.
    Ramiro stirred on the rock he’d chosen for a seat, spreading his hands before him. Clean now, they’d been covered with blood only a few minutes ago. His left hand trembled, the motion barely apparent, and he quickly formed it into a fist. If not for Sancha, it would have been his body dragged off the road and into the rocks. Salvador would be mourning him instead of praising.
    The giant Northerner had not gone into their meeting expecting to die. In fact, his eyes had expressed utter confidence, right up until the moment they’d filled with horror and shock.