Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny (16 page)

She’s prone to that sort of bunkum. I dig claws into my thigh to keep myself still and sitting. “If it’s not even tea, why’s it have to be tea?”

“Water quenches thirst. Tea lubricates well-mannered discourse.” She sets a tiny cup full of the steaming liquid before me. It has a fancy little scene of trees and farmland on it. My wife would like it. My wife could learn a thing or two from this tigress. I doubt anyone’s ever considered Mei Xiu anything but perfection.

My tail whips against the sand.

“A still tail invites a still mind.”

I seize ahold of enough restraint to keep the offending limb still. “Well, if I hadn’t hunted twenty minutes ago…”

Her body is a picture of stillness. “Twenty minutes ago, I too was on the hunt.”

My legs ache from kneeling, stabbed by every rock under them. I swear her butler gave me the thinnest blanket to kneel on. “These rocks hurt.”

“Rocks can teach you much. Determination. But also the price of being unyielding, for even simple water wears them away. I have spent the better part of my life studying them.”

I bite my tongue, taste a little blood, but I can’t help myself. “I feel like some manner a’ slave, sittin’ like this.”

“That is fitting, then.” She nods, then breathes in the vapors from her own cup of tea. After a spell of her just sitting there, eyes closed, she gives me an appraising look. “You are a slave. A slave to your own primal nature. You must learn to control it, rather than allowing it to control you.”

I grumble, lifting my own cup.

“Your tail is moving.”

I snarl: “I’m damn well trying! Men are supposed to be active, not mindin’ their every poker tell!” Anger lashes down my tail, causing it to crack to the side.

Bone china shatters with jaw-clenching rain of notes. The fancy tea set lies in shambles around my tail.

The tigress lets out an icy breath. “Man or animal; today, with you, there is no difference.” A hint of flame catches in her eyes. She rises in a hiss of silk. After two steps, she turns with all her usual grace. Her frown calls to mind a disappointed schoolteacher as she tosses a napkin at me. It hits my chest. “And clean the blood off your muzzle.”

And you don’t find it peculiar that Hayes and I are now finishing our uncles’ business, twenty years late?

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I’ve always done my best thinking upside-down.

Gets the blood rushing to my head, which in law school I certainly needed.

A mistake folks make about bats is that we all hate sunlight. On the contrary, at this moment the sun’s warming my wings in a most pleasing manner. Almost as pleasing as a having them wrapped around a certain hare…

I look down from the cliff-side I’m hanging on. Earthbound folks tend to be uneased by heights. I find them reassuring— if ever I needed to take cover or flee, I could do so in an instant, trading height for speed.

From my perch, I can just make out three glimmering cans set in a row on the desert floor. My wings stroke over my holster, making sure my gun is secure. My hind paws shift, getting a better grip on the rock face. The creak of leather, the scratch of stone, and my own breathing: these are the only sounds on this still cliff face. Morning creeps now into every dry gulch and crevasse. The heat of midday will be on me soon.

Like the scattered clouds, passages from my uncle’s journal drift to mind. I’d winged through them, hoping to glean something of use. The references I found to Jasper Haus named him a special agent of the General Land Office. Some manner of land dispute; the details run scant as to what, unusual for my uncle.

Seems whatever business he had here brought him to blows with the elder Hayes. Both wound up shot. Old Hayes died atop a waste-rock pile, an inglorious end to a glorified bully.

Jasper clutched onto life with prodigious tenacity. Despite grave injuries, he managed to ride back to White Rock and seek aid. He spent more than two weeks in the clinic before word could reach his wife. She came alone, collected her husband, and spirited him forever from the pages of history. Until now.

Still thinking, I release the rock and plummet.

Rocks streak by me, one blurring to the next.

Wind rumbles past my ears, through my fur.

Clothes and wing membranes tremble.

Earth races up.

I unfurl.

In a swooping arc, my body carries itself aloft with the speed I’ve borrowed. A singular joy wells up in me— what Icarus grasped for a moment is mine by birthright.

My wingbones creak with speed. I stretch them further, gliding to that row of tin cans.

With one hind paw, I snag the gun from my belt. Taking careful aim, I remember to breathe before squeezing off each shot.

Hit.

Miss.

Hit.

Respectable aim for a gentleman on the wing. I circle back around, landing by the line of cans. I dust the sand from my hat, left here for safekeeping. I sit down and reload, musing on just why history has chosen to repeat itself in my little town.

* * * * *

Flying back to town, I loop around in my usual patrol. As the buildings flash below me, thoughts continue to run through my head.

What in the blazes would cause Jasper to get in a shootout with the elder Hayes? General Land Office employs surveyors and lawyers; it isn’t known for dispensing justice through promiscuous display of fire arms. But my uncle’s journal makes no mention of him stopping in for help from the sheriff’s office. Reckless, even by the standards of someone with Six for progeny.

Red dust billows as I land in front of my office. I dust off, tipping my hat to those few people out in the noontime heat. Even a warmth-loving creature such as myself finds it a touch excessive. I slip into the office.

Harding sits at the desk, writing. Ever since my little encounter there, I’ve felt vaguely territorial about it. Not overly rational, but the heart seldom is.

“Afternoon, Harding.” I amble up to the desk

“Just plain ol’ noon, more like.” The deputy slides a tied bundle of papers my way.

“What’s this? Christmas here early?”

He chuckles, though his bloodhound eyes remain sad. “This mess a’ files came for you in the post.”

I slip a claw under the twine and slice it open. Country Records came through after all. After paging through the first folder, I decide to settle in. I jump, latching onto a rafter with my wing thumbs. I then swing my body around so I can grab it with my hind paws.

Harding gives me an amused look as he slips from the office.

Dangling over my desk, I begin scouring in earnest. I get through about half the file before coming across some old payrolls. I hear the bloodhound clatter back in with a kettle and some cups. “Says here Jasper Haus really was from the Land Office.”

“I coulda told you that, Sheriff.”

“How’d you come by that piece of knowledge?”

“I was here, is all.”

My ears twitch at this statement. “How old are you, Harding?”

Mischief glints in his eye. “Reckon I was younger then.”

“Reckon most folks were.” I study him a moment.

He shrugs. “I was workin’ as an outrider for stagecoaches.”

“A force for law, even then.”

“I ‘spose.” He offers another humble shrug.

“Not even a fella by the last name Hayes would be thick enough to look for a shootout with a federal agent. The lion had to know Jasper’d be missed.”

The deputy says nothing, pouring tea and letting me steep. He offers me the less dented tin cup.

I accept it with a wing thumb, drinking it upside-down with care. Burns the roof of my mouth, so I hold off imbibing further. “I’m just curious how the General Land Office even knew about the mine. Takes them years just to process prospecting claims.”

“Easy. I went and told the Office of Indian Affairs.”

My ears shoot up. “And you never saw fit to mention this?”

“Not somethin’ an old dog blabs about in this town.” He takes a sip of tea. “But his mine is on ‘yote holy land. Reckon nobody was keen on another native fight. Letters from the local chief and the sheriff’ll grab folks’ attention.”

The sheriff: my uncle. “And you don’t find it peculiar that Hayes and I are now finishing our uncles’ business, twenty years late?”

“I would, weren’t it for Jasper Haus’s child having a paw in it too.”

I stare.

He smiles.

The cup slips from my wing thumb. My wings save the records, at the cost of being burnt by tea. “Son of a bitch!”

A gruff chuckle rises from the deputy. “I ain’t contestin’ there.”

“You know about h—him?”

“Sure do. Fella smells just like his father. Caught a good whiff a’ him on the way outta your office that day.”

My ears burn with horror. I might as well be sans trousers again for how naked I feel. “I— Umm… Harding, you see about that—”

He picks my cup off the floor, gesturing with the kettle. “More tea?”

I stammer for a few seconds more, then surrender. “…Please.”

I’m out of excuses.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What does one buy a half-wild, gunslinging doe hare?