Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny (17 page)

I look over the usual fineries offered at the few stores in town that don’t reek of manure or rotgut. Six doesn’t seem the type for flowers, and the only jewelry I’ve ever seen her wear is her namesake pin, the pin I keep fingering in my vest pocket. I consider buying her some finer spirits, but that hardly seems proper for a gentleman to buy for a lady who’s shared his bed.

The sun is dipping swiftly toward the horizon and I consider heading back to my bunk and forgoing the whole snipe hunt. Then I see it: a compact, flip-top pouch with holders for two brushes, a cleaning rod, rags, and even a small metal flask for oil. It’s a slick little number with elaborate patterning across the front leather. Wouldn’t be out of place beside those fancy guns of hers.

“Ya like it?” Rutherford James clops up behind me. He normally confines himself to saddlery, but very occasionally dabbles in smaller items. His backwards name still gives me pause, however. He steeples his thick fingers and inspects me inspecting his wares from his considerable height. “Made the case myself.”

I run my paws over the tooled leather. “Eight dollars seems a touch steep.”

The horse grins, the hoof-like tips of his fingers clicking together. “Just to ensure a fella appreciates it.”

I buy it. It’s overpriced, but when has a man ever gotten a bargain on a gift for a woman? And though I can’t be certain I’ll have the opportunity to present it to her, she’s come back twice, and the old adage says trouble comes in threes.

I scarcely finish tapping what I thought a rather inspired inscription into the back of it when I am accosted from behind.

“Lawman.”

My ears go back and I drop from the rafter I’d held with my wing thumbs. I land on the table and turn to see who called out.

A bulky panther stands on the shop floor, his eyes almost level with mine. I swear I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I can’t put my wing on where. I pick up the cleaning kit with one hind paw and slip it onto my belt. “May I help you?”

He offers a polite sneer. “Boss wishes to know how you will find bunny…” His voice rings of the Orient and of marked contempt for me, considering I’m fairly certain we haven’t met. “…when wanted posters have wrong name.” He presses a pawful of them to the table, almost tipping it with no visible effort.

Figures Hayes’d send a Herculean feline to deliver something so light as a message. “Hayes asked for ‘Lester House,’ I had them print ‘Lester House.’”

He coos like winter wind. “Bunny’s name is Jasper Haus. Ja-sper Ha-us.”

“I can’t be blamed for your boss not writing legibly. Some things are beyond my control.”

“Many things, it seems.” He crosses his arms to display the thick muscles he isn’t using on me.

I couldn’t have met this man. I’d have remembered a giant panther, I think. Must just be déjà vu. I glide down from the table and look up at him, not letting my herbivore nerves show. “You have something else to say?”

He towers over me, and I pretend like this wall of black fur doesn’t evoke the image of night itself looming over me. The shopkeeper is nowhere to be found, a habit that has probably saved his life in the past. The barest glint of fangs show. “Boss will abide no more failures from you.”

“I don’t work for him.”

“Everyone works for Boss. Some for long time, some for very, very short.” He punctuates his sentence like a thump to my breastbone.

I stand my ground. My position grants authority only so long as I keep my claim to it. We glare at each other as ancient fear tingles through me. My right hind paw eases upward. If I need to, I can draw before he notices—

“Why Sheriff Blake, you weren’t considering skipping out on our dinner plans tonight, were you?” Doc pads in from the street, wearing his pristine white coat and babbling in a genial manner. “Charlotte made mincemeat pie, the finest of all meats agreeable to flying foxes.”

“Flying foxes?” The panther repeats it with incredulity, blinking at the silver-tongued red fox suddenly between us.

“Why yes, can’t you see the resemblance? The sheriff and I are practically cousins!” Doc laughs in a disarming, vulpine manner. He aligns his muzzle to mine, gesturing like a professor. “Note the similar facial structure, the distinctive pinnae and proboscis particular to Vulpes vulpes.”

The panther’s ears flick, as if to ward off the barrage of unfamiliar words. Again his words cut like chill. “Let us have no more mistaking, Sheriff.” He skulks out the door.

Doc and I watch him melt into the shadows of the evening. The fox lets out a sigh of relief, though that pleased smirk never leaves his graying muzzle.

“Well, I see now why you keep putting Charlotte and me off: you have much more charming folks to speak with.” He sounds a bit hurt. I know it’s a show, just like what he did with the panther, but he’s right. I’m out of excuses. So much for not picking favorites. Might not be a bad idea to have people firmly on my side, it seems. After all, I might have just gotten shot. Again.

Surrendering, I sweep a wing forward. “Lead the way, Cousin.”

* * * * *

“Does the mincemeat agree with you, Mister Blake?”

I swallow and dab my mouth with the corner of a napkin. It’s tough to hold a fork with my wing thumb, but I manage. Seems the Frontier hasn’t stripped me of all my manners. “It’s delicious, madam.”

Charlotte mouths the word “madam” excitedly to her husband, emphasizing the D, then turns back to me. “I didn’t know if you could tolerate beef suet, so I used honey.” She titters in her seat, tail ruffling. She’s been gracious to the point of doting for the entire evening. I don’t think they get many dinner guests. “That’s why it’s not as firm.”

I crack a smile, flattered that they went through all the effort. “It’s wonderful, really.” I’m not lying. It’s probably the best food I’ve had since I left the Old States.

“I told her she could have just used beeswax.” Doc crosses his arms over his full belly. “A little beeswax would keep it good and firm like suet.”

“You mind who you’re advising or you’ll find yourself eatin’ wax food.” She shakes a finger at him, though not with much austerity. The cactus flower wine has long since brought pink to her ears. “My grandmother would bite her own tail if she heard I served beeswax for dinner. Shows what the good doctor knows.”

Her husband narrows his eyes her way, but she brushes his look off with her tail. She rises and beckons for us to follow her out of the little kitchen to the den. Their house is modest by civilized standards, but civilization is in short supply this far west. Flanking these two rooms are their office and bedroom, with a deep cellar downstairs, hence the wine. Doc carries in the wine and builds up the fire before settling back into a padded chair, his tail shifting out of the way in a gentlemanly curl.

Charlotte offers me a seat on the faded divan, but I make sure to sit on a nearby chest before she can insist. She settles onto the proffered seat instead. “We’ve had Mister Harding over now and again, but he’s a private fella. Seems all the lawmen of White Rock are.”

Doc offers to top off my cup, but I decline that too. I’ve scarcely touched the stuff. Even just a few sips have made my wings start to heat up.

“This is a good one.” He taps a claw on the side of the bottle. “The last one had pollen at the bottom.” This is the first time I’ve seen him without his fine white coat. More and more doctors seem to be wearing them these days, probably to distance themselves from quackery.

“I’m glad to see that wing of yours healed up proper.” The vixen examines my wing over another sip from her clay mug. “Wings can be so finicky, you know.”

I nod, flexing the limb in question. “Yep. You folks did a quality job on it.”

“Would have been a nasty business had that gotten infected.” Doc searches his pockets for his pipe and tobacco pouch. An odd part of me feels I owe him matches. “It’s a good thing that hare came along when he did, Blake.”

Good thing indeed. I might have avoiding being shot then.

Her cup emptied, Charlotte interlaces her fingers and places her paws in her lap. “Thing I find interesting is how that Six Shooter fella returned two months later, almost to the day.” A flicker of amusement glints in her eyes. “Funny how things work like that. Regular as the moon.”

I take a breath, wondering what the vixen’s getting at. “That’s the way of some things.”

“Oh believe me, as a woman, I know.” She tapped her nose. “Regular as the moon. Your friend, though… I must have missed out when you two met on the Fifth of August.”

I cough up a gulp of cactus wine. “What?!” What did Harding tell them?

“Well, he brought you to the clinic on the Fifth of July, then appeared again when Hayes’ mine blew around the Fifth of September. Makes a lady wonder if our mystery hare made an appearance on the Fifth of August as well.”

I stare longer than is strictly polite.

Doc waves an appeasing paw. “You’ll have to excuse my darling wife. I fear the wine’s sent her up the garden path.”

“I’ve got a nose for these things. Rarely does it lead me astray.” She taps her nose again, mischief shining in her vulpine eyes. “This Six Shooter is quite the local mystery. Rescuing sheriffs, fighting outlaws, and now getting a bounty on her head.”

Her husband taps some tobacco from his pouch. “His head.”

“What?”

He lights his pipe with a twig from the fireplace, puffing once before answering. “You said ‘her head,’ darling.”

“Ah. So I did. Well, you know what I meant.” She winks at me.

Oh damn.

Every once in a while, a fella forgets how clever foxes can be— and that’s just how foxes like it. Or women for that matter. I wrack my brain for what she could be gunning for, but I needn’t worry. She clears her throat and the topic.

First Harding, now Charlotte— does everybody in this town know more than I do?

“Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes: the bounty. Hayes certainly seems to have burrs in his mane about that.”

“Yes.” I nod. “In fact, your husband was kind enough to see about rescuing me from one of Hayes’ minions before dinner.”

“Hayes is a bully and blight to the honest folk of White Rock.” Doc’s pipe stays clenched between his sharp teeth as he speaks. “He ferreted out my feelings on him, then saw to it that I wasn’t reelected mayor. Least I can do is make life harder for him and his. I’m sure you feel the same.”

I ponder for a moment then figure there’s no sense in lying. “I do, I’m afraid.” So much for the law being impartial.

“Good.” He slaps my back. “Glad you’ve joined our conspiracy.”

Don’t I know it. “I’ve seen references to another Hayes, Julius, in my uncle’s journals, a lion who ran the mine before him.”

“His uncle.” The fox gestures with his pipe stem.

“Right.” Lions. Even in my truncated time in law school, I heard of the headaches that came from sorting out lion inheritances. “From what I’ve read, he ran afoul of some hare and got plugged.”

“I’m familiar mostly with the hare part, as we treated him for a gunshot of his own, but that’s the sum of it.”

Of course he did! This would’ve been just after the Southern Rebellion, so the foxes would’ve been fresh from the Union Medical Corps.

Doc leans back in his chair, smoke puffing out the side of his muzzle with each word. “Peculiar goings-on in that mine, I’ll say that much. I’ve lived in White Rock since before it had a name, but nothing I’ve seen was ever as odd as the closing of that mine.”

I cross my wings. “How so?”

“Well, there’s how the mine closed. Normally a mine sort of trickles to a close. This one went bust in a day. One day. Of course, the owner getting shot sped things up, no doubt.”

“I imagine so.”

“And how Hayes bought up the surrounding land was suspicious. Lots of folks got sick out there, so he got it for a song.”

I’d heard only the vaguest rumors of this. “Sick as in nauseated?”

“Nah, sick like in the head.” His black ears swivel, dredging up the memory. “Some would vanish, only to show up days later with patches gone from their fur, not knowing where they’d been. Others just stood, dumbstruck, for hours or days at a stretch.”

“Didn’t they starve?”

Concern darkened his wife’s expression. “Only if no one told them to eat.”

Something in her voice sets my wing hairs on end. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Without some great trauma, neither have I.” A knuckle to his lips, Doc’s mouth forms a black line on his ivory muzzle for a moment. He notices me staring, though, and finds his way out of his thoughts. “What’s more, a number of the miners were never accounted for. Some think they just took off in a hush, but that doesn’t make sense as they never claimed their final week’s pay. Others claim they were killed in a cave-in Hayes covered up, but that doesn’t sit right either: every one of their rented rooms was emptied bare. Not just robbed, but stripped, as if they’d come back for their possessions.”

“Meaning…?”

“Ghosts.” Charlotte laughs. “Or some other such malarkey, if you believe the most of folk.”

Doc tapped out his pipe in dismissal. “A more reasonable explanation: living miners grabbed up their gear and headed somewhere, somewhere money had little use.”