Two Rivers Isle i'm like a shot of adrenaline [m]ixed with some ritalin

!!!!

it had been a juvenile bear, and that was colt briggs' only luck in runnin' it off some fawn that was little better than carrion. still, the cowboy toted the stinking meat back to the isle, for it was what they had. them kids were too little to hunt, let alone be of use even as lookouts, and not for the first time was colt grateful no brats had been born to the gang this time around.
last time it had happened, well, milk fever and a group of stupid men, you could figure out for yerself how that went for mother an' child.
the gang'd buried them on a flowered ridge and crossed the mountains with no more mention. colt couldn't recall her name now.
that sad memory accompanied him with the rotten fawn slung over his withers, and he tried to think of how best to ford the river back, maybe calling for @Sadey, when loud voices and splashing caught his tattered ears.
it was familiarity in those notes.
colt took a breath, red eyes narrowing to slits. he snorted, spat, dumped the fawn to the ground as his auds flicked toward the voices.
gun's barrel-chested bellow. and that harsher one, the —
colt found himself trotting, refusing to break into a run; he circled the edge of the lake, passed through heavy brush, scared two herons, and emerged onto the bank just in time to be half-drenched by gun's leap. "yew all about as silent as a four-footed horse in a marsh," colt hooted, shaking out his filthy fur and grinning yellowishly toward them, scarcely registering iseul. 
gun. gun and,
"red."