Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny (21 page)

I open the door of the squat little safe. First thing I notice is gold. Whole inside is lined with gold, half an inch thick. Then I see a few cubes of exceptionally shiny metal…

My ears perk up. Whispers. Can’t make out quite what they’re saying, but they’re getting louder. Closer. Familiar…

Wind from no place stirs my fur. Leaves rustle. Birds call. That easy calm steals over me…

A wing slams the safe closed.

In an instant, the world snaps back to drear and dust, life’s tensions curling back up my muscles. This ain’t the time or place for echoes and visions. Hayes ain’t the sort to be stopped by either.

I find myself pitching forward, spilling half the contents of the desk in an effort to right myself. Woulda kept my appointment with the floorboards, had the collar of my shirt not decided to haul me back up. I look back, seeing Blake with his teeth clamped on my shirt, his wings full of papers. I blink and Blake is there. He’s dressed like a lady.

I laugh.

“Hush up!” He clamps a hind paw around my muzzle, hopping on the other to keep from tipping over. “Dangit, Six! You had to go straight for the stash of idiot-ore.” 

Course, this only makes me laugh harder.

A few more things spill off the table. An inkpot shatters. A blotter rolls under the safe. An old brown folder splits open against the floor, maps fan out of it.

“Why, hello…” Blake scoops up the pile. His gold-flecked eyes flicker to a ledger, then to me. “These look pertinent to you?”

I straighten, Blake releasing my shirt from his muzzle. Shaking off a touch of woozies, I snicker and prop up against the desk. “Nope.”

“Hayes has been shipping great wagonloads of something out of the mine. According to these dates, he’s still shipping things out!”

I paw at the maps, unsure what the lawbat’s yammering about. “Ain’t none a’ that gonna help me shoot Hayes.”

He bops me on the snout with the sheaf of papers. “These are records of all the money he’s sent out and where it’s going. Now we just need to slip back out through the party— we’ve got him, Six!”

He’s trespassing without a warrant. We’ll have the boys shoot him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Morris follows me up the stairs, stumbling under his own weight. The house is thick with sound and odor. I close my eyes, trying not to think about all the prey I smell in my own house. I was damn ready to rip that squirrel apart like cured beef if he took any longer staring at the money. In my day, you’d leave a man in a room with his bribe on the table and he takes it; all you do is pretend it was never there.

Morris checks another name off his list, nibbling at a claw. The way we’re burning through my funds at this event, that list better be getting claw slender. I would have preferred just having the cash show up at their respective offices, but that bunny has decided to make himself a thorn in my paw. Jasper Haus…

“You find anything on that bunny yet?”

“Jasper ‘Six Shooter’ Haus? No, bossman. I’ve sent word to our man down at County Records, but he ain’t got back to me. These things take time.” Morris is lying— he knows things too fast. He knew about me before I arrived and about trouble at the mine before it blew. Either he’s got contacts I can’t account for, or he’s holding an ace. “Haus coulda led a quiet life, or even assumed a false name. There ain’t no guarantee we’ll find anything on the man.”

I snort. Sometimes I wonder if Morris holds out on me, tries to play me. But that’s the way of life: we all play each other for fiddles— the key is to get good enough that nobody hears your sour notes. “And the bribes?”

“Everybody’s taken theirs so far, though the sheriff of Chance Canyon declined our invitation again.” He straightens his vest. “Seems we ain’t high enough company for him.”

“Well, I’ve got half his deputies on payroll, so he doesn’t matter terribly.” I turn down the hallway, walking past the sitting rooms and guest rooms. All this space I never use, but I could if wanted. It’s less for me than it is for passersby. What kind of respect would a lion get if he lived in a shack? A lion needs territory, possessions, enough money that he can throw it around as needed. I pick a little gristle out of my teeth, wiping my claw on my handkerchief. “How is the ore coming?”

“We’ll have enough soon to take over three towns, assumin’ they’re small and our men stick to the plan. After that, we ought to have the manpower to mine all the gold we like.” The marmot cleans one claw with another. He’s always a bundle of nerves. Makes me suspicious. “A-And Blake did send word to County Records, same as us, looking for things on the mine.”

Sure feels like that marmot is playing me somehow. Best to let him think the gold is all I care about, let him think I’m too stupid to see the ore’s real potential. “Good. Let him fly in circles. We’ll have enough ore to enslave his whole town in a few weeks.”

“Yes, sir. And as far as the other plans go—”

I stare at his unexpected pause, wondering if his little rodent brain has snapped like a wagon axle.

His ears twitch. I look where he’s looking: my office. He gnaws a claw, glancing to me. “Somebody’s in there.”

I listen. He’s right. I can hear knocking around, the shuffling of papers, male voices… My body slips into a prowl and I creep to the door, silent as the night. The door’s open a crack and though it I see the candle-lit form of a shapely fruit bat lady, standing over a passed-out hare. Then the fruit bat talks.

“These are records of all the money he’s sent out and where it’s going. Now we just need to slip back out through the party— we’ve got him, Six!”

Six. Six Shooter.

I slink back to Morris, who has taken cover in one of the doorways. His belly sticks out so far it’d be hard for a bullet to miss it. My heart pounding at the hunt, I growl a whisper. “Haus is in there right now with some fruit bat lady.”

He jumps, clutching his papers.

I clear my throat, letting it rumble into a soft roar.

Inside my office, the voices stop.

His ears flick down. “What’re we gonna do?” He scampers back.

I grab him by the scruff, listening to the frantic movement beyond the door. The clatter of boots on the floor, of paws on paper. I lift his fat little body up until his ear presses to my muzzle. “That’s easy. He’s trespassing without a warrant. We’ll have the boys shoot him.” I snarl a laugh. “Morris, honestly, you have no instincts for this kind of thing…”

You try running in a dress!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Up to my nose in dizzy, my body goes slumping against the wall. I glance out the window, down at all the pretty little carnivores. Still in a haze from that ore, it crosses my mind that some of that get-up doesn’t look all bad. Wonder if the lawbat would like me better dressed in finer ladies’ wear. Not that I ever would...

“Six?” Blake turns me toward him. The papers are tucked in his pocket.

“Hmm?” I lift an ear. He always seems mighty interested about anything I do with ‘em.

The frilly fruit bat waggles a wing thumb before my eyes. “Are you hearing me? We’re going! And leave that damn ring you’re stealing!”

“Whatever ya say, ma’am.” I make a show of flicking the ring out the window instead of back in the desk. I don’t get riled none. Matter of fact, I’m a little proud of him for catching me. Granted, I’m prouder still that he didn’t catch me stealing all Hayes’ fancy gold pens...

He scowls, hurrying me. “We’ve got to--” All of a sudden, he looks back at the study door. Ears up, face serious.

Seem like that ore kicks me harder every time I run across it. My head’s still full of cotton, but it sounds an awful lot like a door swinging open.

“Get down!” Blake hauls me down behind the heavy desk. The candle gutters.

Bullets rip the air.

Splinters and glass rain down.

Occurs to me this deal’s gone sour, but I have difficulty taking it serious, what with Blake reaching around inside his skirt like that. I reach on in too, grabbing a pawful of his rump.

He squawks, but pulls a gun out of the dress. Seems that’s what he was after. Trifle disappointing. I roll over to see what’s happening.

A whole acre of folk are in the doorway, shooting at us.

Lawbat kicks a leg up higher than a lady should, firing that little Smith & Wesson over the top of the desk. He clips a panther in the ear. The big kitty goes down yowling. Rest of the shots go wild, but the shooting drives the panther’s cronies back into the hall for a spell.

Blake’s gun clicks to empty. He gives me a desperate look.

A shock of cold hits me.

Gunpowder works wonders for clearing the mind. I roll to my paws, drawing. I drive a shot against a rifle barrel poking through the doorway. Someone cusses. I smile.

“Six!” The lawbat grunts with effort. “The window!”

I spin to my feet, helping Blake lift the window open. I fold the lawbat’s wings against him and shove him, squeaking, though. I scramble through after.

We clamor onto the overhang, causing important persons to look up in dismay. Bullets whistle past us.

Taking advantage of the confusion, I hop down, dragging the lawbat with me. Most folk don’t realize that bunnies can land as well as we can jump. Leastwise better than Blake, whose dress flies up in his face, giving me an indecent view of his petticoat. A pawful of Hayes’ cronies gawk at the sight. I straighten this bat-shaped mess of ruffles and go bounding over the porch rail and into Hayes’ party. The lawbat follows me as we shove past a mess of startled carnivores at the door. They make themselves real useful, standing there watching as we turn down a hallway.