Lovely take on the Western showdown. To nitpick, seems conflicting to have sunlight glinting dully if the barrel is gleaming. Other than that little bit of over doing it, I thought it was a beautifully described scene.

Good eye, didn’t spot that. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

Well done, I like the constant referal to the hands. I also like the idea of the staining. Very good.

I feel like that like paragraph is just a tad awkward. It might actually read better to just combine those two sentences into one and remove the dramatic pause created by the full stop. Otherwise, it’s a really nice piece that begs for more backstory on these characters. :)

Point taken, edited. Thanks for the feedback!

Oh, I was actually thinking something more like this:

“I’ve done much with these hands, but there are some things that stain even the beauty of hands forever.”

I like poetry of that first phrase. :)

I considered it, but thought the sentence was getting slightly too long for the intended effect.