Somewhere east of San Antonio, in a little but lively cattletown, two bounty hunters, unbeknownst to each other, met at "The Split-Tail" saloon, sometime around midnight, on the chance that The Four Figueroa Brothers had passed through.

The Yankee ambled in first, stroking his narrow beard and his ego. He stood for a moment at the threshold and clocked every firearm he could see, every patron drinking and dancing to the piano man in the corner of the room. The whole saloon was packed, the main floor and above, on the balcony where painted ladies smooth-talked men out of their purses. He was thirsty, and he didn't drink the cheap shit, so he sat at the nearest table with his back to the wall and waited.

The Grayback walked in shortly after with a Peacemaker dangling from his right hip. If the Figueroa Brothers were here, none of the patrons matched their descriptions. As he headed to the counter to grab himself a shot of whiskey, the Yankee he had spotted immediately upon entering, with a Confederate-issued LeMat sticking out of his frock coat, said: "Lookin' for someone?" He tipped his bowler hat.

"Lookin' for trouble?" The rebel retorted, stepping past the man, not a few years older than him.

"Could be we're lookin' for the same trouble. 'Bout ye high, three hermanos, tall as this table, maybe a big boy too," he hovered his hand over the wood grain.

"You're gonna have to be more descriptive than that."

"The Four Figueroa Brothers."

"I thought you said there were three?"

"You don't know?" The Yankee said, as if it were common knowledge.

"Know what now? The Grayback was getting impatient.

"The fourth ain't related. Just some feller," he said, glancing around the room for the brothers.

"Well, the handbill I got says otherwise."

"Since when you ever known a handbill to be accurate?" The Yankee asked, the bulk of his revolver showing when he leaned back in his chair.

"Never," the Grayback was blunt, and the more the seconds passed, he just wanted a drink.

"Damn right. Now sit," he gestured to the southerner.

"Not so fast, friend . . . "

"Why you slowin' up on me?" The Yankee wasted no time.

"Are we going to split the money? That it?" The Grayback pushed back. He wouldn't take anything less than fifty-fifty, and more often than not, preferred to work by his lonesome. And never with a Yank.

"Unless you plan on shootin' me first," the Union man said.

"We just met." The Grayback was matter-of-fact, and he had never shot a stranger. Wanted men weren't strangers, and all was fair in war-if you asked him.

"That settles it then, don't it?" The Yankee said.

"I suppose it does."

The Grayback pulled out a chair and sat across from the other bounty hunter. The saloon owner yelled something to them, but they ignored him. "How'd you figure I was a bountyman?" He said. The Yankee had sized him up the moment he stepped into the saloon, and likewise, the Grayback did the same.

"Just a lucky guess," the Yankee didn't admit to his perception. And although they had never met each other before in this life, perhaps, in a not-so-distant one, they had met face to face and fired their weapons.

"Where did you serve?" The Grayback asked before checking his surroundings for gunmen, on the balconies, and in the dimly lit corners of the room. One could never be certain.

"And how do you know I served?" The Yankee said to him, stroking his beard again.

"That LeMat pokin' out of your coat," the Grayback played along, and pulled a smoke from his own, "rare piece of metal-that thing. Only know a few folks ever got those."

"Yeah?" The Yankee said, peering around the place and out the front-facing windows.

"Officers. Mostly," the Grayback lit his cigarette.

"Not anymore, it seems . . . " Like the stale tobacco smoke, the Yankee's words hung in the air for some time. He had won fair and square. By gunshot.

"Well, I hope it doesn't misfire."

"Me too," the Yankee said.

As the Grayback was about to stand and ask some of the locals if they'd seen the brothers around, two men in dusters stepped through the doorway. The two bandits drew every eye in the place, and for a slow second, every one in the room went silent.

"Carry on!" The short one said as he took his hat off and bowed to the crowd. But they didn't recognize him, and they returned to their song and dance by the time the bandits finished their entrance.

"I told you so!" The Yankee shouted in amusement.

Lo and behold, one of the banditos was white. And despite the tall hat, slouching atop his head, the Figueroa Brother still towered over him like some mute giant.

"Well I'll be damned," The Grayback was in disbelief, "that's one big son of a bitch."

"Handbill didn't say nothin' about that," the Yankee joked, leaning forward in his chair. The big one locked eyes with the Grayback and spat on the ground beside himself.

"He won't stop staring at me," the Grayback said.

"Cuz you look suspicious."

When the Mexican Goliath broke eye contact, he lumbered alongside his friend to the counter where the saloon owner stood, wiping down a glass. The bounty hunters couldn't tell what they were talking about, but it didn't appear to be a friendly conversation, and a disturbance was mounting outside the saloon. Horses whinnied, spurs jingled on the boardwalks.

"So what's the plan?"

"I thought you had the plan, seeing as you approached me," The Grayback admitted.

"Let's get to it then," The Yankee announced to the room and shot up from his chair.

"Hold on now," the Grayback stepped in front of him, "you're just gonna walk right up there and gun 'em down in broad day?"

"It's midnight, partner."

As the Yankee turned and headed for the bandits arguing at the counter, two Mexicans in identical dusters entered through the second story. The youngest, Omar Figueroa, recognizable by the scar under his left eye, walked like something was stuck up his ass.

Before the Grayback could warn his newfound partner about the men up top, the runt on the bottom floor drew his pistol. The saloon owner reached for something.

"Heads up!" The Grayback yelled, his hand on his revolver.

The shot was deafening. People ran left. Right. They dropped to the floor, they flew out the doors. The saloon owner fell first, his shotgun after, and before the runt of a bandit could turn around and fire again, the Grayback's Peacemaker went off in succession. A brother screamed. Another fell from the balcony and clipped his head on a table before shaking violently.

"Damn you! The biggest of the brothers grabbed the Yankee by the neck and lifted him from the floor. He wasn't surprised by the brute's strength, but instead, the body odor that made him want to cry.

His partner couldn't get a clean shot, and just as he was to take one, the bandits on the balcony pulled their weapons from their coats. The goliath squeezed harder, but before he could snap his neck, gentle as bird bones, the Yankee unbuttoned his shoulder holster, flipped the shotgun switch, and sent the giant slumbering over the count with a gaping wound in his chest.

In the span of a few seconds, the saloon had cleared of patrons, and the last gunman stood at the top of the stairs. As he was about to pull the trigger on his sawed-off and send the Grayback packing, the piano man sat up from his instrument and shot the bandit in the leg with a bootgun. Midfall to the floor, the bandit's sawed-off jerked into the air, discharging through the roof. Dust and splinters coated him, he writhed on the wet wood.

"Fine shot," the Grayback nodded to the piano man and loped up the stairs. A woman screamed outside.

Just as the bandit was to reach for his shotgun on the ground and fire the last round, the Grayback blew the man's hand from his wrist and into jagged pieces. When the smoke cleared and the Grayback snuffed his cigarette on the sopping corpse, the piano man wiped the blood from his forehead and peered out the window.

"Oh, Lord . . . " The piano man muttered under his breath.

"What is it?"

"There's more of 'em . . . "

"Get away from the window!" The Grayback yelled from the balcony. But before the piano man could take cover, the glass shattered in his face, and his neck spurted a narrow stream of blood all over the keys.

"More of them?!" The Yankee jumped behind the counter where the dead saloon owner lay.

"I'm coming in!" The bandit outside made his presence known, along with the gaggle of gunmen outside, who may or may not have been related. "We're coming in!"

"Who's we?" The Yankee yelled out to them, peeking his head over the bar. Bandits yipped in circles, torches and all.

"The fifth Figueroa!"

"The fifth Figuroa?" The Yankee gave a confused look at the Grayback.

"About that handbill . . . " The Grayback said as they readied their revolvers.