Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny (7 page)

Rabbits don’t concern me.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The clock ticks. I groom my claws with a small file. “So the money...is where precisely?”

“We don’t know just now.” Morris tugs his shirt down over his fuzzy belly, then nibbling a claw. “That bloodhound deputy never did let us slip word to or from the bandits before they were shipped to the county jail.”

My office feels close as a coffin. The money itself was nothing, just enough to hush the right people. What bares my claws is the challenge to my territory— I’m not used to deals going south. Father would say a little competition sharpens your teeth, but if I’d liked the idea of competing I would have stayed back in the East. “Do I have any contacts there?”

“No. I’ve sent some men and some money. We’ll see what we can loosen up.”

I breathe, smoothing out a snarl. “So it’ll be weeks, at best, until we know if they talked on where the money was bound for.”

“Reckon so.” The marmot licks his paw and straightens his fur. “And that’s assuming they actually found the money and didn’t just get stupid and try to shoot Blake. The bunny must have gotten the drop on them in turn, since he took them all out.”

“So he’s sharper than we suspected. Best to get out of his way again; let him think this was an isolated happening.” I sit back in my chair and have another sip of brandy. “Idiots! I go through all the trouble of letting them steal the money and someone steals it first! You’re sure this wasn’t some trick on their part?”

“They ain’t stupid. We ain’t either. We both picked those four because we knew they wouldn’t get greedy.”

“Either way, I now have to get cash into the right paws the old-fashioned way. I’ll get the wife to plan some gala. If that’s all, Morris...” I wave him away. All this yammering on about money gone on the wind fouls my mood something terrible. I ought to take a little trip up to Chance Canyon, visit the nice little bordello there. Locals call it the “cathouse” and a man with dinero can make some fine memories there. I know, I’ve made a few...

“There is one other thing.” Morris is still here. “Folks saw some bunny riding in with Sheriff Blake.”

“Rabbits don’t concern me.”

He responds with a chittering mutter.

“Now leave— I have a headache.”

“Of course, bossman.” The marmot gets one of his thoughtful looks and leaves to do whatever he does when he’s not a flea in my mane, meeting up with some old rabbit at the door. The rabbit’s face sticks in my mind a moment, like I know him. But then, all meat looks the same.

Steal one fella’s trousers, while I’m in heat no less, and all of a sudden I start figuring my plans around him?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just me, the moon, and Blake’s pony.

I stare into my little campfire. Always helps me think, having a fire. Something about the way it never dances quite the same way twice, the smoke, the hiss and crackle, the heat in my fur.

My first notion is getting the hell out of Dodge. Of course, that’d mean leaving Blake too. Plus, Hayes is liable to catch me. My second notion is to shoot him. That lion though— he’s more of a power than I’m accustomed to. No, regular ways of dealing with folk are liable to fetch me a bullet.

Damn me. Steal one fella’s trousers, while I’m in heat no less, and all of a sudden I start figuring my plans around him? If that don’t sound like a heap of trouble, I’m an Angoran Long-Hair.

Fishing my little pot from my satchel, I rig it up over the fire. Half a canteen’s worth of water, plenty of beans, and a few choice roots I dug up along the trail— I’m on my way to decent chow. The smell reminds me of home. Never cared the twitch of a nose for cooking, it being too womanly for me, but long nights along in the desert make a bunny miss strange things.

After dinner, I tap out tobacco and roll a cigarette, lighting it with a twig from the fire. Smoke it clear to the end. I singe my paw fur then flick it into the fire outta spite at my own woolgathering. Sucking my fingers, I lie back on my bedroll and stare at the moon. I get lost tracing the shapes and shadows there, calling to mind old tales I heard as a wide-eared fluffball.

Dreams go drifting over me like clouds across the moon, traced on the edges by velvet wings.

* * * * *

Though the haze of a dream I see my paws, but they ain’t mine. I’m perched up on a ledge, overlooking some manner of mine entrance.

Arriving like a gust of wind, a whole mess of ‘yotes appear around me. Colorful beads clatter in their fur, bright against the brown of their stern muzzles.

A tilt of the world later, the mine rushes up past us. We fly into its depths. Picks, shovels, carts: at first it’s all you’d expect. But then there’s a shining that ain’t the shine of gold and pictures all around that jumble into bunkum then into nothing.

A voice from the nothing speaks a word I never expected to hear again: “Clarabelle.” It’s my father’s voice.

All the world goes grey, and I get buried into the depths of sleep like a thick blanket.

* * * * *

Morning tills up wakefulness in me and, not long after, a plan. Foolish, I reckon, but I’d better have a look-see into Hayes’ affairs, to know how far his paws reach. Fella like that has power, connections; can’t hurt to have a little blackmail on him if I can. And if in so doing I see more of Blake, well that’s just silver on gold.

I break camp and saddle up. The guns pull me south, away from any of the lion’s shady dealings up in Scoria Grove and White Rock. Seems I recall something about him running a mine, though I’m not sure from where...

I think patience is the way of it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Folk say we bats don’t notice the dark, but I daresay I’ve started to since Six left. I’m sure there’s some manner of metaphor in there about her being my sun, but I’ll leave it to the Homers and Emersons of the world.

I have no business feeling this way over a woman, mind you. I’m a professional, a lawman, not some heartsick pup. The people of White Rock deserve better than having me mope around. I shocked my family enough by coming out here in the first place, it might kill them outright to hear of my failing at it. I run a wing over the worn cover of one of my uncle’s journals, wishing I felt even a tinge of encouragement seep from it. I don’t.

I splash some water on my face, dress, and step out of my room. Harding is already here, of course.

Steady as a stone, that old hound. He never says too much and folks generally think him a simpleton to one degree or another. Wisdom glints in his eyes, though, and he’s proven time and again to be a more than capable deputy. What’s more, he’s yet to mention to a soul having to let me out of the jail cell half-naked and wholly indisposed, a kindness for which I am very grateful.

Damn that bunny.

If it were up to my mind, I’d stop thinking about her. She’s probably gone for good anyhow— the most of folk don’t come back to a town where they’ve locked up the sheriff. Unfortunately, and to my ever-growing indignation, other parts of me are involved.

I realize I’ve been staring at the deputy for nearly a minute. He looks back at me with cool, calm eyes and perhaps a touch of amusement.

“Morning, Harding.”

“Blake.” He pours me a cup of tea. The man never drinks coffee, just various concoctions of dried plants.

I eye the contents of the cup. Like every morning, I ask: “What is this stuff?”

“Mountain jointfir and green juniper berries.”

I take a sip and manage not to make a face. “Either you’re making better tea or I’m just getting used to how terrible it is.”

He gives that rumbling chuckle canines favor. “I reckon it’s both.”

We finish our drinks in amiable silence then I head out to make the rounds. Being bare-pawed, I avoid the dark wet spots. Who knows what evil lurks in the puddles I can’t identify?

I follow the scent of fresh timber and sawdust to find Morgan repairing his roof. The squirrel’s a farrier and had some initial friction with the long-standing solitary blacksmith when he arrived a year ago. That’s over now, I’m proud to say, having had my part. I am, however, beginning to think the jitteriness that I attributed to the war of nerves is actually just part and parcel of being a squirrel. He jumps when I say hello, nearly skittering off the edge of his roof before greeting me in return.