Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny (15 page)

“Blake don’t take to other fellas riding off on his pony.”

I look back. “You tellin’ me not to?”

“I said other fellas.” He winks. “She’s saddled up.”

Crafty old mutt. “Much obliged.”

Ticks of the clock later, I dig my spurs into her flanks and we’re gone. I find the reins and ride hard for anywhere but here. Streets are still pretty clear and I’m gone in a hurry, gone before I can freeze up.

Hooves thunder under me, biting deep into the dirt. I race off into the black without a thought to where I’m going or when I might be back.

That troubles me some. But then, a heart’s a troublesome thing.

Lo and behold, I come out here to find that he’s not only honest, he’s dead.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I growl and stroke my mane as the last of my men stop fawning over me and leave me in peace. The useful ones have already headed out to find that damn bunny.

My wife, seated on the divan, watches me enter. She’s wearing a modest dress and her fur is pristine. Her continence the same as it always is: bored. The Frontier holds few diversions for a lady of her class, aside from her being a shameless gossipmonger.

“Welcome home, husband.” She turns a page in her dime novel, feigning interest. “I had Edith make beefsteaks.”

I growl. The help goes home at sunset. Those steaks’ll be cold as a bog rat’s teat by now.

Mary Elizabeth’s not a bad wife, after a fashion: of good breeding and knows to keep her nose out of the affairs of men. Too bad she’s barren as a husk— it’d be a pity for my line to end over something as insignificant as that. We have little reason to associate, aside from living together in blessed matrimony. I’d say she never forgave me for dragging her out here, but that would imply she took a shine to me in the first place.

I pour a glass of bourbon and sit down in one of the other padded chairs.

Tonight went perfectly. I was in town by the time the mine blew, with plenty of impartial witnesses. Everyone applauded my little announcement at the town hall. I hate to throw away money, but I only have to pay if they bring this Jasper idiot in. Once he’s here, well… I made sure to spread plenty of rumors that the reward would double if I got the bunny instead of the sheriff getting him.

The sheriff will be easy to control. All it takes is the right words here and there on the city council and he’s gone, just another clodhopper with a gun. Half my men are better than he is. What’s worse, he’s predictable. Not like me. Ask anybody who’s muscled in on my territory, or who’s tried to hold out on my cut of the banditry. The ones who are still alive still have nightmares about just what a lion might take from them next. Money, mates, body parts: sometimes I’ve decided on the flip of a coin. I start to think about what parts I should take from that little bat first, showing up at my mine uninvited like he did…

My claws come out. Mary Elizabeth winces as I carve grooves into the varnished wood of the armrest. I ignore her. I could crush the little bat with one paw. Not that I’m likely to get the chance again. Too dangerous, especially if he tries to accuse me. I’ll probably have one of the boys do it. Quietly, next time a new fool rides into town alone. I’ll get some men to testify against whoever it is and the matter will be over as fast as they can raise a scaffold.

I breathe, cooling my blood. Odds are, the sheriff can be managed. I personally apologized to the man, told him how my idiot workers acted without consulting me. He accepted. The sheriff is, by all accounts, a man of honor, and I’d certainly like to avoid going against the law if I can. Leastwise until my plans for the ore are in place.

I finish my bourbon and undress, getting into bed. The rabbit is more troublesome. In order to kill him, I have to… find him. I’m not eager to just sit waiting until he shows up again to finish me off. At least now I have the whole town out looking for him.

Damn it all. I need to get control, both of myself and the situation. I sent word to Mei Xiu, but it’ll be days before she responds. Damnation, do I need to blow off some steam…

Done combing her fur, Mary Elizabeth lays down next to me with a civil, if cold, look. Her scent tingles in my nose and my sheath, but the thought of bedding her disgusts me. Eleven years since she was sent out to me, and she still hasn’t produced a cub. Just a waste of seed. I ought to just find another wife, or at least a sweet little mistress, but the odds of that out here are close to nil. Not enough lionesses, and the few who are here are old and worn out by homesteading. I’ve developed a fondness for visiting a spicy little lioness at the brothel in Chance Canyon; the family back east says I should continue the Hayes line with her, but no heir of mine is going to be the son of a whore. Not that I’m opposed to a dalliance when I’m passing through. I am only a man, after all, but I take precautions.

I’ve never believed in the superstitious hogwash like Uncle Julius did. Hell, he’d have let the ‘yotes paint him up and dance around him if they’d been so inclined. I, on the other paw, have no need for sorcery or savages, trusting more in the power of good sharp claws.

The family had sent him out here to this little patch of desolation because this mine was small and out of the way. We heard strange things about what he was doing up here. Things about secret meetings and ancient writings. Once the mine ran dry, I didn’t really care when he never came back. But Father would have none of that. He was convinced that Uncle Julius was still producing, just holding out. Lo and behold, I come out here to find that he’s not only honest, he’s dead.

Some bunny had stumbled upon my dear Uncle’s dealings and found a means to murder him. How the old fool let that happen, I still can’t reckon. Uncle Julius’s workers hit the hills, gutless cowards, only to come crawling back once they heard his nephew was in town. They’re not very smart, but they have their uses. There are just some things a man won’t do for money alone. And now they claimed the very same bunny was back to kill me too.

Uppity little lago. There was a time, not too long ago, when folk like me ate folk like him. And he thinks he can just get away with killing one of us?!

The fabric rips and tears. Mary Elizabeth jumps. I realize that I have been crushing the edge of the mattress with my paw. Deep furrows spew forth down feathers. Damn it all. It didn’t make any sense. I heard tell of that bunny— he was twenty, thirty at most. Uncle Julius got killed twenty-some odd years ago. That puts the lago in question at close to fifty. I saw that bunny. He was exactly how they described him, right down to those fancy guns and that little sneer. Nobody looks like that at fifty, with not even a hint of grey around the muzzle.

I’ve never put much stock in Julius’s beliefs, but what if there was something to them? Even delusions have an element of truth. What if, buried under all this other nonsense his workers paraded before me, there was something real? And this bunny had found it. I curse myself for indulging in such drivel, but my thoughts are like a mountain, and no matter what road I take, this is the only peak I come to.

What if it keeps you young?

What if that little lago has figured it out? It would just be a matter of getting my claws on him, squeezing out a little blackmail…

A mad idea enters my head. Who needs an heir if you’re going to live forever? I snarl a laugh. A load of mystical ‘yote nonsense. Still it’s an entertaining notion. I shall have to hunt down the truth to this.

I take Mary Elizabeth in my paws. Before the night is over, I sow my seed in her until she’s caterwauling and overflowing. And it doesn’t feel like a waste.

“If it’s not even tea, why’s it have to be tea?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

With my blood still racing from the hunt, sitting and watching Mei Xiu make tea is a mane-rending torture. It’s all I can do to pace rather than run amok. “Why can’t we just make some damn—” I snarl over my coarse words. That’s no way to speak around a true lady. “—some coffee? It’d surely be faster.”

The tigress doesn’t look up, focused on measuring scoops of dead plants into some manner of special kettle with graceful paws. A fine china tea set sits beside us. Flames from a small campfire dance beside her, mingling with her silk-clad pelt. Looking upon her now, you’d never know she was covered in gore not twenty minutes ago.

I look up from my brooding and pacing to meet her gaze.

The tips of white fangs glint from behind her supple lips. “Sit down, little kitten.”

I bristle, then sit, a growl deep in my chest.

She ignores me and pours water from a larger kettle into the smaller kettle then into tiny, fragile cups. I crushed one the first time she insisted on this bizarre oriental ritual. No anger found its way to her face in that moment, she simply poured me another cup and dared me with her eyes to break it.

The desert spills out in all directions. Somewhere out in the wastes, her butler has disposed of our bloodied rags. Presently, the black-suited Siamese kneels at ease beside her, turning a teacup idly in his paws, stopping now and again to polish away some imagined smudge.

“What’s the point in having a butler if he’s not gonna make the tea?”

Her butler’s glance makes it clear as my wife’s fine crystal that he reckons this is a waste of everybody’s time. Were he anyone but her servant, that look’d fetch him claws to the face. Not that I disagree, strictly.

“You misunderstand. This is not tea. This is a process.” Her voice rings like glass, smooth, but with an edge. “This is our coming back from that wild place within ourselves to regain the trappings of the civilized.”