.45-Caliber Firebrand by Peter Brandvold

hold him up as some kind of primitive wild man while his daughter saw him as the essence of pure evil and Jedediah Gallantly passed him off as merely freakish and amusing, when all he’d done was play the cards he’d been dealt the best way he knew how.
    He forked food into his mouth as the burn of anger rose up from the base of his spine. He heard himself reply to the girl’s question in a flip, mocking tone. “Oh, ’bout fifty. Maybe sixty. I lost count sometime last summer, after I drilled ole Karl Oldenberg. Blew his lower jaw off, if I remember correct, on the main street of a little Wyoming town called Alfred. Or, was that Colorado Bob?” Cuno laughed. “There’s been so many, I forget . . .”
    â€œGood grief!” exclaimed Gallantly. “You blew a man’s jaw off?”
    â€œBlew an ear off a half-breed child rapist named Fuego. Pop! The man’s ear was gone, silver hoop ring and all!”
    â€œOh!” Michelle put a hand to her mouth and turned her head to one side, as though about to evacuate her delicate little belly.

8
    WHEN MICHELLE HAD recovered from nearly regurgitating what little of her meal she’d eaten so far, she turned her now-frosty, incredulous gaze back to Cuno. “You didn’t ? A man’s ear ? Why ?”
    â€œMichelle, you don’t want to know,” advised Jedediah Gallantly, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders.
    â€œ ’Cause he’d just strangled a deputy United States marshal through the bars of his jail wagon,” Cuno said, his calm, offhand manner belying how much he was enjoying himself. “I knew, then, I’d have to pull the jail wagon through the mountains myself, when I had better things to do. Galled me so bad, I wanted to kill ole Fuego, sure enough.”
    Cuno shoved a forkful of food, which he was now thoroughly enjoying, into his mouth. “Settled for shootin’ an ear off.”
    Beside him, Serenity was jerking with laughter while hiding his face behind his wineglass. Beside Serenity, Snowberger was shoveling food into his mouth as though afraid he’d soon be cut off and shaking his head darkly.
    From across the table, Henry Kuttner regarded Cuno as though he were a problematic steer caught in a bog. The pewter-haired and mustachioed foreman had both his elbows on the table, and his empty fork was sagging in his right hand. His eyes were like dark green marbles set under ridged salt-and-pepper brows.
    The rancher, Logan Trent, was chewing slowly while smiling patiently at his daughter and future son-in-law. He appeared a man who’d brought a bear onto the premises to give his loved ones a taste of the wild, to toughen them up a little, and the bear had performed even better than Trent had predicted.
    He said nothing.
    Michelle stared disgustedly at Cuno, both her delicate, white hands resting on her plate.
    â€œReally, Mr. Massey,” objected Jedediah Gallantly. “You do realize there’s very little place for that kind of behavior anymore, don’t you? The West is filling up with people. The railroad has come through, and spur lines are being laid all over. The law is here and, thus, civilization!”
    Chewing slowly, Cuno extended a fork toward the roast sitting on its platter in the middle of the table and glanced at Trent. “Do you mind . . . ?”
    â€œHelp yourself!” Trent encouraged, waving a hand at the elk. “Please feel free. Your men, as well!”
    â€œWhat I’m saying, Mr. Massey,” Gallantly continued, as Cuno loaded up the plates of Serenity and Snowberger, “is that there is no longer any place for men who insist on taking the law into their own hands and living by the gun, so to speak! That breed is dying out, and you must conform to the laws of civilized society or end up . . . end up . . . in jail ! Or be hanged !”
    Cuno dropped a thick wedge of elk onto his plate, then poked his fork at Trent,