Chupar

Quatro

Tipping the canteen back against her parched lips, Catalina gulped down the cool water, letting it wash over her burning throat. Relief came almost immediately. Although she knew she had to ration the precious liquid, a part of her wanted to continue drinking until her mouth was filled with its sweetness. It took all of her willpower just to detach her lips from the metal rim and screw it shut.

"How much further?" She licked the corners of her lips, trying to savor each drop.

The Viper glanced over his shoulder at her. "Dunno."

"What do you mean 'don't know?" Catalina furrowed her bushy eyebrows. "Did you get us lost?!"

"No, I didn't get us lost." The man let out an irritated sigh. "I just lost the tracks, is all."

A flash of panic shot across her eyes as she sputtered out an incoherent noise. "You- You lost the tracks?!"

"Look, I'm sure I can find them again. But I can't concentrate with you yelling like that!" He glared at her. "Good luck finding a husband. No man wants a nag for a wife."

With a tug of her hands on his mane, Cortez trotted over beside Arizona, the name of the Viper's mare. "Finding a husband is the last thing on my mind right now," Catalina hissed. "I have more important things to worry about than what some man thinks of me."

The Viper turned to her, raising an eyebrow before suddenly bursting into a fit of laughter.

"What's so funny?" She demanded. An uncomfortable warmness had started to creep its way up her neck and onto her face, but she chalked it up to the scorching sun beating down on them.

"It's just I can't take you seriously," he said in-between laughs. "You try to be all tough, but face it, Darlin'. You're as dangerous as a kangaroo rat. The Viper and The Kangaroo Rat." A wistful grin crossed his face. "Now that's a duo."

Catalina's ponytail swayed from side-to-side as she shook her head. "No. You'd sooner catch me dead before I would ever go by the 'Kangaroo Rat.'"

"So what would you go by then?" The Viper shifted his body towards her and looked down at her with an amused gleam in his eye.

"Hmm." She tapped her chin with her finger. "What about the Scorpion?"

"Not bad," he admitted. "Still like the Kangaroo Rat though."

"Yeah? If you like it so much, why don't you change your name to that?" The frown on Catalina's face had cracked into a smirk. "What is your name by the way? Your real name?"

"Who's to say the Viper isn't my real name?" He held out his hands and shrugged.

"Yeah, right." She rolled her eyes playfully. "No one names their kid 'the Viper.'"

"You're right." His straight, brown hair bounced as he nodded his head. "My real name is... the Rattlesnake."

Catalina doubled over with laughter, clutching her stomach until her bout passed. "You had me there for a second," she said breathlessly, wiping a stray tear from her eye.

But the Viper was no longer looking at her and was instead staring off into something in the distance. "Over there." He pointed at a line of buildings looming in the middle of the vast desert. Catalina turned her head and saw the jagged, weathered rooftops his finger was fixed on.

"I didn't know there was a town out here," she muttered.

"There's not." The Viper narrowed his eyes. "Not anymore."

Before she could ask him what he meant by this, Catalina caught sight of the main road winding into the town. 

It was completely empty. No horses trotted down the road. No wagons drove through. No people strolled in and out of buildings. Nothing.

"It's a ghost town?" She looked to the Viper for confirmation. 

He gave a short nod. "Seems like a good enough place to rest for a while."

Catalina glanced back to the deserted town, trying to listen for the slightest hint of civilization. "Are you sure? I mean, there's a reason it might be abandoned."

"Ghost towns are common around these parts." He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "Water dries up. People move away. It happens all the time." The man stretched his arms out into the air and groaned. "Anyway, we're stopping. My back's killing me and I'm sweating buckets over here."

The low grumble from her stomach seemed to agree with him.

**

As they rode into the town, a strange feeling washed over Catalina- one that only grew with each slanted, wooden building they passed. 

It was a lonely feeling, knowing that people once lived here and were now gone. With it, came the expectation that she and the Viper were trespassers of a time gone by. That they were grave robbers coming to violate the belongings of those long gone.

An unsettling quietness had come over them immediately once they had entered the town, almost as if it had swallowed them into a still and soundless world. No gust of wind blew across the sand or seemingly through the town. No vultures or hawks swarmed the skies overhead in search of prey. Not even a tumbleweed rolled through the lonesome dirt road.

It was like they were the last two souls on Earth.

"Here's a nice, shady spot." The Viper dismounted before climbing the old, rickety steps of what looked to be a saloon. The white paint on the sign was faded beyond recognition to be certain, but the structure was large- the largest out of any of the other buildings. It had to have been either a saloon or a hotel back in its heyday. 

After brushing the dirt off the porch with his boot, he plopped down and took out his canteen. "What did your mother pack us?" He asked, taking a swig out of the bottle.

"Tortillas, goat meat, and some beans." She sat down beside him, shrugging off her bag. "I know it's not much-"

"It's fine," he interrupted with a smile. But this smile was not like usual, smug grins. This one was lopsided; it was genuine. "I'm not complaining." 

"So are we going to look around afterward?" Catalina unwrapped the tortillas and handed him one. 

"Sure. But I doubt there'll be much to find." He started sprinkling the bits of meat over the tortilla before folding it. 

"Yeah, what you really need to find are the tracks," she reminded as she sunk her teeth into the wrapped tortilla.

"I'll find them," the Viper assured. "If you'd quit telling me every two sec-"

"What was that?" Catalina perked up and turned to the building behind them.

"What was what?" The man shifted his gaze to the dark void that was the window. "I didn't hear anything."

"I thought- I thought I heard something walk across the floor." She gaped at him, her tortilla trembling in her hands.

"We are out in the middle of nowhere." He gestured to the town around them. "Probably just a mouse or something."

"Right." Catalina nodded her head, letting out a nervous chuckle. "There's no one here." Her spoken words didn't sound nearly as convincing as they had in her head.

"Oh shit." The Viper's eyes suddenly went wide as he stared at something behind the porch railing. He rose up so quickly he nearly dropped the food in his hand. 

"What?!" She shot up from the porch, her hand already reaching for the machete attached to her hip.

"The tracks." He pointed as he climbed down the steps. "I told you I'd find them." That damn grin of his returned across his face.

Catalina followed after him to the side of the building- towards the opposite end of the porch-and saw they were indeed the same tracks. Two pawprints beside each other with three nail marks each.

"Well, Viper." She glanced up at him. "I admit, you're worth your salt."

He tipped his hat back at her, taking a bite out of his tortilla. "I think I'm worth much more than that, Darlin.'"