Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny (31 page)

Daddy died the winter I turned sixteen. Broke my heart and Momma’s spirit. She loved him something fearsome, like I’ve never seen anybody love anything.

We moved back East, but I found it not to my liking. I had a good bit a’ country in my blood by then, and the city wasn’t the place for me. Worse, we lived with my Grandma Roslin, and she would not abide her fine young granddaughter gallivanting around dressed as a boy. Before Daddy was gone, when Momma wasn’t a three wheeled wagon, she’d have rained hellfire down on ol’ Grandma for gussyin’ me up against my will. But in the end it fell to me to make my druthers known.

We won’t be goin’ into the unsavory details to be found there. Suffices to say that for every ladylike word Grandma tried to impress on me, I taught her another one, less ladylike.

One year in, I was goin’ feral. I reckon that year put the fight into me, as I’ve caused no end of mischief since. I told Momma I got a job riding mail routes. I felt a pang for lying, but it was a good one. Mail service likes to employ bunnies. We’re small, we’re quick, and we don’t eat meat. That means we won’t be tempted into shooting and cleaning some damn varmint when we should be riding. Momma believed it. Grandma didn’t believe a whit. I was gone and it thereby was nothin’ of concern to me.

That great coffin of a dress brought me enough coin for a ticket back to the old Hase homestead. I stepped off the train and walked a day and a night. I suspect nothin’ there but Daddy’s iron tombstone these days. Wood’s scarce on the prairie and even then the outbuildings were gone. 

I did take one thing, though. On the door to the house, a bronze plate hung. Had little full moons runnin’ across the bottom; hare’s moons, my daddy used to call them. It declared “The Warren” to anybody who happened by. Few folk ever did, yet that plate always shone clear and shiny from the hard work and pride of my parents.

I had a few friends back in town. I was a trail hand, a handyman, a stablehand: did everything I could to be the productive type.

Now you might wonder how I kept the more astute of noses from noting my delicate aroma. Those days, as now, I took to wearing more leather than the hide of a summer calf. As to the delicate subject of woman’s time, I make it a point to be scarce near enough once a month. I don’’t mind. Something right peaceable comes to a soul, staring up at the Moon, Old Hare staring back down at you, stirring her medicine pot. Hares have always seen her up there and never mind what other species might find.

Sometimes, though, keener folk may dog me out. But the solution to that is forthright enough: I take to visiting prostitutes. Turns out they’re decent enough folk, so long as you bribe and lie to them. I even played a bit with them, but only very occasionally and only on their side of the fence. There are some things a girl best takes care of herself, when she doesn’t want the state of her britches widely known. ‘Course, these days I ain’t opposed to a little tumble with a certain fruit bat Sheriff every now and again, but that is another matter entirely.

Then there was James. James Ray Stoker. He was a friend of the family, tough ol’ badger. I worked for him out at his ranch for the better part of two years, workin’ his small herd. Probably twice my age, I’m dead certain he knew I wasn’t all buck. Never mind all that tobacco burning out his sniffer like a pan a’ bacon. He kept his peace on the matter, but gave me a look now and then like he didn’t quite know what to think on the matter of me. Got me a taste for a fine smoke now and then, so I have to thank him there.

I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I sure do now. I took to fancying on him something fierce. Even I was young and stupid once, but I’ve long since grown into my ears. Anyhow, I doubt he’d have batted an eye if I’d told him. He tolerated me fine, but I never heard tell of him bedding anybody. Could’ve been he cottoned to the menfolk, but I don’t think so. I think stayin’ out there in the quiet, lonely grasslands dulls the edge of a body’s need for that sort of tie. But ah am just some fool bunny, so what do I know?

I learned how to shoot keeping critters away from the herd. Turns out I had a knack for such endeavors. This would come to use sooner than I had reckoned.

Then came that terrible morning I woke up and he wasn’t in the cabin. Gone. I went out into the fields and the cattle were gone too. I found him on the fence line. I saw he was clutching his side. When I reached out to touch him, he was cold. I called to him, but he didn’t move. Once I got him turned over I saw the blood on his belly. I reckon he’d been dead for the better part of the morning.

James kept a my daddy’s old guns in the cabin. A herd of cattle isn’t hard to follow. Two of the cattle rustlers died cleanly and the third... The less said about him the better.

I rounded up the herd as best I could. The next day, I rode into town on one of the rustlers’ horses; James had friends there and they deserved to know he’d died. The sheriff, a pony with a scar across his right cheek, came out with his sons and helped me bury James. I didn’t help them bury the rustlers. We didn’t talk much on it. 

After the deed was done, the pony pulled me aside. He explained there’d be some manner of legal business and since I had been helpin’ James for a long while I’d be entitled. While I could never manage the herd by my lonesome, some of the proceeds were find their way down to me. When all accounts were settled, I had a bag of gold US tender, more money than I and ever seen. 

I took to drink. That helped a little, but never for long enough. In remembrance of the old badger, I smoked his brand of tobacco.  But in the end, I got restless.

Daddy’s paws were a touch bigger than mine, making the guns unbalanced. Darn things halfways knocked my paws off when when I confronted the bandits, so I had the local blacksmith do up a couple a’ new weights for ‘em. Bronze, with little moons runnin’ across the bottom. Made from an old sign that used to hang over an old farmstead. They balance true. They grip steady. And I always keep ‘em polished.

(Note: The difference between this version and the original is that her gun handles were made entirely out of bronze, rather than just weighted with it, after being damaged in this original shoot-out.)

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