Author's Note:

-Special thanks to dragonrider347 and casey95 for being the first two to favor the story.

-Special thanks to Elaine R. Silver for the first review.

Teddy emerged from the church chapel followed by the men of Las Mudas. Taking out a revolver, he checked the ammunition level and reloaded the chamber with three more bullets. Teddy has spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the mess the two Confederados had made and formulating the defense of Las Mudas for the eventual retaliation.

Apparently the men and women of the village told Teddy and Dolores that those two specific Confederados were frequent visitors of Las Mudas. They usually took what they wanted without paying, had their way with the women, and abused the little children. Those two scumbags were a solid reflection of a group of Confederate soldiers who had become outlaws after the Civil War. They were specifically cruel towards the Latino population, which consisted over 98% percent of the permanent residents of Las Mudas. The Confederados had a reputation for being racist towards anyone not of Caucasian ethnicity.

After he and Dolores had put down those two men, Teddy had examined the crime scene where the two Confederados had been right before being shot. Apparently they had ransacked the home of two elderly villagers and destroyed public property. Teddy had spent time rebuilding furniture and repainting the walls of the elderly couple throughout the better part of the day. He enjoyed the hard labor. The blue-collar work. He had always enjoyed working with his hands when he could much more than putting down any living being with a slug from a rifle.

The town pastor who also served as the mayor of Las Mudas patted Teddy on the shoulder and thanked him again. "Gracias Senor. The two of them had been causing us trouble for over a week."

"You mentioned there might be a few more?" Teddy asked.

"Si. Their leader is man named Major Craddock," The pastor responded.

Craddock? It was a name he had heard before during his time spent fighting with the Union. Craddock had a reputation for being a zealot who usually pillaged and burned local communities after conquering them much like General Sherman had done during the raid of Atlanta. Craddock was also a good shot with the rifle, you had to be to reach the rank of Major in the Confederate army.

"Ah'll talk to Dolores, see what we can come up with Pastor."

"Gracias again." The pastor smiled and went back inside to church.

Teddy made his way toward the village square where the artistically designed water well was situated. The well was one of the centerpieces of Las Mudas, along with the corner tavern, and Spanish style church chapel. Four to five children had gathered around the well and were engaging in some type of game, which was encouraging for Teddy to see.

The smell of fresh food filled the air, making Teddy realize how hungry he was. Teddy peeked inside of the tavern and saw Dolores working with the bartender and some women from Las Mudas to fix dinner for the town. They were using Mexican style cheese, flour tortillas, sour cream, fresh cut steak, Spanish rice, and guacamole to create some type of steak quesadilla.

Dolores turned toward Teddy and smiled at him. The rancher's daughter put down what she was doing and walked out onto the street to meet him.

"How did everything go?" Dolores asked just before giving Teddy a kiss on the cheek.

"As well as it could. The men have a little better idea of what is coming. The mayor and I setup three different shifts to keep watch during the night. I'll be helping with the third shift up until dawn. How did everything go with you today?" Teddy asked after giving her a brief synopsis of the meeting with the men of the village.

"Good," Dolores responded, "I was afraid the women would be scared of me after I shot down that man. A lot of them ended up thanking me. They were also telling me how those gringos took advantage of most of them. Some of the women even asked me to teach them how to shoot a gun," Dolores ended with a little laugh.

Teddy grinned while caressing her right hand, "I guess these were made for firing a gun after all."

"You ain't seen nothing yet mister trying to look all chivalrous," Dolores said, looking Teddy directly in the eye with a smile. "C'mon I made some supper for us, family recipe. Why don't we go find some place to watch the sunset together?"

"I'd like that very much Ms. Abernathy."

Dolores took his hand as the two of them headed towards their horses. While walking, she couldn't help but think to herself.

I still wonder if this is what we've been programmed to do? Do I really love Teddy? We'll see. There is still so much for me to show and tell him. So much that he doesn't know of. All of those times he was murdered. All of those times he was shot right before my eyes..

"Something on your mind Dolores?" Teddy asked, noticing that she was in thought.

Dolores looked up at him, "Oh nothing Teddy. Nothing for you to worry about. Let's go enjoy that sunset."

OooOOoooooOOOooo

Major Craddock was getting impatient. "'Where da hell are dem two? Dem varmints were supposed to be back hours ago!"

Standing only 5 feet 6 inches, Craddock was considered short for Westworld. Depending on who you were, height could mean the world or it could mean diddley squat. For Craddock, it resulted in suffering from a Napoleon Complex.

"Ah' sent dem to grab some whiskey and food from dem damn Mexicans. If Ah' knew dey would take their sweet time waltzing back to us, Ah' would have went myself. Probably find myself a nice brown woman to enjoy." Craddock finished his talking with a spit to the ground. "One of ye lazy bastards get me some damn tobacco!"

Laying around the camp fire with Craddock were ten of his 'best' men. Most of them were drunk as told by the empty alcohol bottles littering the ground. Most of the Confederados stunk to high heavens too. They smelled of old socks that had been dragged through the sewage for most of the day.

"We can't Major! We're hungry and haven't had any alcohol to drink in the past hour," one of the Confederados shot back at Craddock.

Craddock was a finely dressed man with a short mustache he liked to keep neat. When finished shaving, Craddock's mustache greatly resembled Charlie Chaplin or Hitler in an almost comical way. The Major fixed a white rose that had been dangling from his red vest. Suddenly he whipped out his gun from a holster and proceeded to use the butt of the weapon to violently beat the Confederado who had spoken up to him.

The other nine men just chuckled and laughed at the all to common scene. After Craddock was finished, he pointed the revolver in the air and fired a shot.

"Ah' think that those two are probably dead by now. Fetch yer horses fellas, we're going to Las Mudas."

Next Chapter: Craddock vs Teddy round 1. Will Wyatt emerge?