Bandidas Cula (Patreon)

The spicy wooden scent of coffee wafted through the desert at dawn like an early morning mist. Metal clanged together and bacon fried, sizzling and sputtering in the pan as it cooked. Not yet awake, still bleary from an uneasy sleep, Carter Howell watched his breakfast cook, his campfire outshining the sun this early in the morning.

“Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play…”

He poured a dark stream of coffee into his cup. Sipped it, gave a wince at its fiery heat, then sipped some more. He needed the wakefulness more than he didn’t need the pain. His free hand scratched at the stubble on his chin and he wondered if he should go to the bother of shaving. It’d been two days since he’d last known a razor, but he rued shaving with cold water and didn’t want to go to the hassle of boiling some water just to pretty up his face. Even if he didn’t relish the thought of looking like some old fur trapper, beard down to his waist, and this was probably how that started.

It was then that he heard a stirring in the brush, jolting him from the peculiar morning reverie of a man alone. He plucked a flaming branch from the campfire and tossed it out in the direction of the noise, shedding some illumination on the gray twilight world beyond the reach of the firelight.

“Who goes there?” he called, setting down his coffee and taking his Buntline Special from the holster on his belt. He didn’t feel abashed to draw it or to shout into the dark. Either it was a coyote or rabbit, in which case he’d have his embarrassment all to himself, or there was someone out there, in which case he was happy to let the Buntline do the talking. “Speak if you don’t want me making assumptions of your nature.”

“Don’t shoot!” a voice came back—female voice—with a senorita accent. He saw a caramel-colored hand reach into the light of the fagot and pick up the safe end of the branch, then holding it up as torch to show off herself and her companion. “We’re no trouble, mister. I’m Sara and this is Maria.”

They were both beauties—even accounting for all the time Howell had spent on the plains. He could’ve lived a year in a whorehouse and he still would’ve been struck by their beauty. Sara was shorter, more voluptuous, with ponderously sized breasts and stronger features. A prominent nose, a broad jaw, dark eyes and plump lips. She was dressed almost like a rancher, leather chaps and denim jeans, with a corset on over a white blouse. Curly raven hair ran down to her shoulders.

Maria was taller, more slender, though she was plenty curvaceous in her own angelic way. Her features were more delicate, piquant, almost innocent. A graceful face, svelte chest, long straight brown hair. And she wore a dress of unbroken white except for the gunbelt around her waist. Her boots were equally practical—frayed leather like the ones poking out from under Sara’s hems. She carried a saddlebag over one shoulder.

“Hola,” Maria said, plunking herself down tiredly on the log opposite Howell’s place at the fire. He hadn’t made this campsite, he’d found it, and so by rekindling its flame, it was like he’d set a place at Sunday dinner for the two women.

“Howdy,” Howell returned, tipping his hat to the two of them. “I don’t have much, but you’re welcome to whatever you can eat or drink.” He picked up his canteen and held it out to them.

Maria snatched it up—“Gracias,” she barely enunciated—and took a long swig from the mouth.

Sara seemed somewhat aghast at her manners. She sat down next to Howell and picked up his coffee cup; was polite enough to speak to him in English—and it’d never sounded so good as it did in her accent. “Thank you.”

“No problema,” Howell replied.

Sara’s eyebrows raised. “Your Spanish is not so bad for a gringo.”

He shrugged. “Spanish-American War.”

“You’re a military man?”

“I used to be.”

Her eyes followed the arc of his Buntline as he returned it to its holster. “Then Maria and I are in luck.” Sara lowered her voice. “She was worried about Injuns.”

“Was not,” Maria said, her mouth full, water running down her chin and dripping onto the chest of her dress. It was already low-cut and droplets of water shimmered on her exposed cleavage.

Howell tried not to stare, but it had been a while since he’d last seen a woman—and he’d never seen a woman like this, or that for that matter—and he hadn’t spent a year living in a whorehouse before he set off.

To be polite, he focused his attention instead on the frying pan. The bacon was turning a rich shade of red. Howell reached into his satchel for a small carton wrapped in a blanket. Inside were six eggs, each wrapped in grass to cushion them.

“I was saving this for a special occasion, but I don’t think there’s much more of a special occasion out here then seeing a friendly face or two. Howell Carter, by the way.”

Maria’s eyes glimmered with aroused interest. She licked her lips, seeming hypnotized, or like she was about to eat those eggs whole.

“Maria,” Sara chided, “the water, por favor.”

Maria handed the canteen to her. “Then you give me the coffee.”

“Pour some yourself,” Sara retorted. “I am not your slave.”

“I only have the one cup anyway,” Howell said. “So you might as well give it to her.”

“Fine,” Sara simmered, holding out the coffee cup, but a pathetically short distance—Maria would have to stretch herself to get it.

Howell interrupted the power play, taking the cup from her hand and handing it over to Maria. “You girls been out here flattening out the sand for a while, huh?”

“Far too long,” Maria said, taking the coffee. She toasted Howell with it, while her eyes went to Sara. “You see, Sara? Yanquis aren’t so bad—so long as you find a gentleman.”

Howell wheezed with a laugh. “I’m not much of a gentleman. I just don’t have energy to be much of anything else. I had a long ride yesterday and I’ve got another one up ahead of me today.”

“Where are you headed?” Sara asked politely.

Howell spoke as he very carefully cracked each egg, ringing them all with jagged fractures around the middle. “Klondike. Seems like all the gold my pappy missed in California was shipped up there. Thought I’d try my luck. A fella’s got to go somewhere, don’t he? Might as well go somewhere he can make something of himself.”

Delicately, he pried each egg into the two halves, letting the contents fall whole and unmolested into the bacon grease.

“I hate broken yolks,” he commented. “Couldn’t bear it if my only decent breakfast in a month had broken yolks.”

Maria looked at him curiously. “What if you scrambled them?”

Howell fixed her with a stare. “I ain’t scrambling nothing. But you’re welcome to scramble yours if I mess up one of these.”

“Chinga tu madre,” Marie said. “I don’t want a broken yolk if you’re not having a broken yolk.”

“Maria, language!” Sara tutted. She smiled at Howell. “I’m sorry about her. She was raised in a barn.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t catch it anyway.”

“Only so much Espanol you can pick up when people are shooting at you between lessons,” Sara commiserated.

“Speaking of foreign languages, pardon my French, but how in Sam Hill did two pretty ladies like you find yourselves all the way out here? I wasn’t expecting to lay eyes on anything two legged for another week at least.”

“We got lost,” Maria said quickly.

“’We got lost,’” Sara mimicked. “Maria, what kind of story is that, that clearly does not suffice?”

“What do you want to tell him then?”

“There was an accident.”

“Oh, there was an accident,” Maria repeated dubiously. “That’s so much better.”

“We had our horses, we were riding, but the horses died,” Sara said. “We’ve been stranded out here for the last two days.”

“That doesn’t explain what we were doing out here in the first place,” Maria needled.

Howell tried to play peacemaker. “It’s none of my business. Really. I know a gal can get into circumstances she don’t care to recollect.”

“Thank you,” Sara said sincerely, touching his bicep through his tattered sleeve. “That’s very gallant of you.”

“Does he think we are fuckers?” Maria asked.

“Maria!”

“Fine. Prostitutes. That’s the right word, yes?” She narrowed her eyes at Howell. “Do you think we are prostitutes?”

Howell held up his hands. “I never said that!”

“We are not prostitutes.” Maria jabbed a finger at Sara. “This is why you should not be in charge. You will lead us all over the place and everyone will think we are prostitutes.”

“He does not think we are prostitutes!” Sara keened in aggravation. “Howell is a gentleman, you said it yourself, he would never say that we do that kind of thing.”

“He will if you tell him we are prostitutes!”

“I didn’t say we are prostitutes!”

“You implied it!”

“I didn’t even said anything! He just said we were in trouble, which we are!”

“Because of you!”

“Ay cabron!” Sara muttered. “You are impossible!”

“At least no one thinks I’m a prostitute!”

“So now people think I’ma prostitute?”

“Since you’re so keen to let them!”

“I don’t know how you can borrow my hat all the time when you have such a fat head!”

“Your hat? That’s my hat! You borrowed it from me!”

Howell could see there was not much point in doing anything but letting them have it out. He tended to the eggs instead. They were just about ready, the sultry smell coming up with the burning smoke from the bacon. Taking three plates from his satchel, he ladled eggs and bacon out onto each one.

“Lucky I got spares in case one broke,” he muttered. “I only have the one fork, though, so maybe we can take turns—“

Maria snatched the plate from him and hastily ate with her hands. Sara took her plate more graciously. With some awkwardness—an endearingly embarrassed glance at him—she held the plate up to her face and ate by biting the food off the sides.

Howell tried to hurry up with his use of the fork. It was easy, seeing that he was about as hungry as they were. All he’d had for dinner last night was one measly gopher, him wanting to stretch his supplies out as best he could. Howell considered it a personal failing to roll into a town on an empty stomach.

He finished quickly, then handed the fork to Maria, who took it gratefully. She even kissed him on his cheek before she started eating again. Howell rubbed at the side of his face, now wishing he’d shaved. Couldn’t feel good for a girl to stick her lips into a briar patch like he had.

He stood up and cracked his spine, stretching and exhaling deeply. His breath formed a small cloud before disappearing into the rays of the rising sun. He winced, then exhaled in satisfaction as he popped a kink out of his neck. “Jehoshaphat, I should’ve made a living selling beds. I don’t care if I do sound like a tenderfoot, man was not made to sleep on the ground.”

He rubbed the small of his back, Sara and Maria regarding him with varying degrees of sympathy. He kept going: “Well, whatever your troubles, you’re welcome to hitch a ride with me. I might not make it any further than the next town, but once you’re there, I’m sure you’ll have fellas lining up to help you out.”

“It all depends on what they expect in return,” Maria said pointedly.

“I’ll settle for some company. The only conversations I’ve had for the last score of days is with this old wagon and my oxen. And they have not been polite exchanges.”

“We’ll try to be better company,” Sara said. “Although I can’t make any promises for Maria.”

Howell let out a laugh. He tended to get depressed in the lone of night, but now that had well and truly given way to the young day. Just as soon as his joints finished hurting, he’d be ready to hit the road.

Normally, he’d greet the day with a mighty bellow, for no other reason than trying to take some pleasure in being all alone, but he wouldn’t dream of doing that with the two senoritas around. And he much preferred the slight loss of freedom to hearing that sound bounce around the landscape, coming back in diminishing echoes until the silence was back like it’d never left.

“Here,” Howell said, reaching for Maria’s saddlebag—clearly, something scavenged from whatever had befallen their horses. “Let me load that up for you.”

“No!” Maria cried in sudden protest, twisting away and pulling at the saddlebag which he’d already taken in his hand. Between the two of them, the saddlebag flew away from them both, landing against a rock and spilling open.

Howell saw banknotes inside. Lots of them. Way too much for any two women to have, no matter how pretty they were.

He turned around, more confused than anything else, and saw that Sara had a derringer on him. “Maria, get his gun.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Maria muttered as she took his Buntline from its holster.

She stepped back so that she was out of range of his fists. Howell raised his hands, now with two guns on him. The only thing he could do at this point was commit suicide.

“I really wish you hadn’t seen that,” Sara said, holding her gun unerringly on his heart. “You were being so nice… we really did just want a ride to town.”

“I can still give you one,” Howell said, keeping his voice low. He was somewhere between not wanting to spook the two and not wanting to embarrass himself if these were his last words. “Bank robbing, right? That’s no business of mine. We can go to the next town and part company—it’ll be like we never seen each other at all.”

“Like I said, you seem nice,” Sara replied. “But a little reward money can make people very not nice.”

“So what’re ya gonna do then? Shoot me in cold blood?” He heard Maria flanking him, his own gun now at his back. “In the back?”

“No, I am a lady, and even Maria is—civil. We’ll just leave you here.”

“Leaving me here’s as good as killing me,” Howell protested. “You might as well do it yourself and at least be honest.”

“He’s right,” Maria said. “And all he’s done is feed us and share his water.”

“Whose side are you on?” Sara demanded of her. “Okay, okay, lemme think—I’ve got it. We’ll tie him up, ride with him, drop him off a day’s walk from town. By the time he makes it the rest of the way, we’ll be long gone. You can even get your wagon back, Senor Howell.”

“I could’ve come up with that,” Maria sneered.

“But you didn’t,” Sara snapped at her.