Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny (25 page)

You sure I won’t break what’s left of you?

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I wake to find my arm in a sling and my body in enough states of hurt to make a Union.

The foxes are gone. Turns out I am really at Deputy Harding’s house, not Charlotte and Doc’s. They live further into town, but the good sheriff reckoned I’d be less conspicuous here. From the little I’ve seen of the bloodhound, he seems a fella you can tie to, so I don’t fuss. Besides, the hound is scarce. He’s been hiding out in his garden since before I woke, but I’m not in a mood to be overly social.

I have some of the cold coffee and biscuits left on the nightstand for me. Must have been the dog who went and left it, since he left bacon there too. I dump it into the empty coffee kettle so I don’t have to smell it all day. Leaves me a trifle queasy, but a nice gesture, given how the most of dogs hold their bacon dear as gold.

Not even the twinkle of a bedpost later, the dog himself walks in. He leans against the doorway, all ease and wags. “How’re ya makin’ out?”

“Sore as a stampeded cactus.”

He smiles around those drooping jowls. “Alive though.”

“Reckon so.” I stretch my paws. “You got s…omething to say?”

“I got things aplenty.”

I cross my arms, then am battered by a wince. “Cut across the lots, bloodhound. I ain’t long on patience.”

“You’ve always heard echoes. I suspect from the ore shards in that gun.”

My eyes flick to the Peacemaker sharing the bed. When I look back, he’s waiting patient-like on his patient.

The deputy brushes dirt from the garden from his fur. “’Spose I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You’re assumin’ a lot there, friend.”

“Not terribly. See, you smell an awful lot like your father.” He taps his nose. “He saw fit to come to town an’ help the natives with a difficulty, but I reckon ya know all that by now.”

I don’t know just how to take that. Still not accustomed to folk mentioning Daddy offhand.

“I can tell ya, you’ll come to hear less from him as time passes on. His business is settled.”

“Bosh.”

“Truth.”

“How’d you come by all this useful truth?”

“Bought an unbroken pony. Got bucked off and broke my leg in the middle a’ nowhere. Woulda died were it not for the ‘yotes.” He taps a boot heel forward, doing a slight jig. “They patched my hurt an’ kept me alive until I could walk back.”

“And they just spilled the beans to you?”

“Not at first, no. Over time, though, they came to see me as tie to the settlers here.” He gestures out the window. “Local tribes and I have a workable relation. It’s on their account I know I’m a Listener.”

“That so? Sure do blabber on for one.”

He chuckles deep in his throat. “I hold my peace, oftentimes, ‘cept when I have somethin’ worth saying. Right now, that somethin’ is that you’re a Listener too.”

“I hear echoes.”

“Yes.”

“Hoo-ee, hound dog!” I slap my thigh, managing to find a place that doesn’t hurt. “Anything else come off the morning telegraph? ‘Cause I was privy to that one a while back.”

“I oughta warn ya too that you’ll be hearin’ more echoes, havin’ more visions, seeing as how you got lingered in that mine a while. Visions’ll be more powerful now, more particular.”

“Thought I’d be hearing less of my father— now you’re sayin’ more?”

“Didn’t say it’d be him.”

A brambly reply withers on my tongue. A question brews in my mind. I ask, quiet-like. “During the visions, how’d I come to know where I was, what I was there for?”

“That’s part a’ the process. Got no idea just how or why, it just is.”

I ponder on this a while.

“Well, I’ve said my piece. I’ll leave you to yer rest.” He touches the brim of his hat. The “ma’am” he doesn’t say rings clear as a shot kettle. “I’m due for makin’ my rounds.”

For a long while, I try to sort out my feelings on all this. That fails. I grumble and set to cleaning my gun. Just as well I got half a mountain’s worth of dirt in it; got nothing better to do than clean it with my little kit. The doctoring foxes gave Harding and Blake orders to keep watch and keep me in bed. Charlotte scrubbed my fur to the skin, which I didn’t mind much, save for it being mildly humiliating. What I did mind was her dressing me in a lady’s slip and dressing gown. I’m too maimed to get out of it and, much as it shames me to say it, I’m starting to take a shine to how soft it feels against me.

I’d feel a complete namby-pamby if Blake hadn’t bought me this new gunbelt and a box of bullets. Fancy ones from back East, not the shoddy backwoods reloads I sometimes resort to. They look watertight enough to fire from the bottom of Skull Creek. I fill out the loops of the gunbelt, throw five in my now-clean gun, and even have a few left over. Makes a bunny wish she had another gun to put them in…

Day turns to evening, turning the brasses and browns of Harding’s spare room to fires and ambers. Blake comes in, relieving Harding of his watch over me. The bloodhound slips through the house just long enough to give me a tip of the hat and is gone. I figure he’s got duty.

I lift my ears to the fruit bat. “What’s the scuttlebutt, lawbat? Not often mines explode twice in the space of a month.”

Closing the door, he pauses. “I don’t suppose you need to hear such things in your condition.”

“I do suppose. Tell me.”

“You’ve got to promise me you won’t do something foolish.”

“Fine.”

“Hayes is alive and has your other gun.”

I snatch my gunbelt off the nightstand and struggle up.

Blake stops me with the tip of one wing. “You doing something foolish?”

I lose my balance and flop back against the pillow, but fight my way back up. “No.”

He stops me with his wingtip again. “You fixing to go someplace?”

I stay sitting, but am more than a touch precarious. I growl at my own weakness. “Hayes’ place. I reckon to visit all manner a’ unpleasantness on him and his.”

He looks at me steady. “Six, you need to lie low. Right now, Hayes thinks you’re dead. That gives you an advantage. You go in shooting up the place and that’s going to change.”

“The lion has my gun, Blake. That needs seein’ to.”

“I’m not saying it doesn’t. But if you go in half-cocked, you’re going to get killed.”

I try crossing arms, but it only halfway takes. “I’d beef Hayes.”

“You might at that. You’re fast. But you’re not up to snuff at the moment, and Hayes has shown he’s inclined to run if things turn south on him.”

“Yellower ‘an a marmot, that’s for sure.”

“You figure you can deal with his men in the middle of my town?”

“Reckon ah might.” I bite my lip a little.

“Seeing as I’m the one who’d have to clean it all up after, I’d take it as a kindness if you didn’t.” His muzzle stays steady, but his voice gets real soft.

“Alright, but only as a kindness to you.” I pat his wing. “And only ‘cause you admitted to those fools ah was your man, sugar bat.”

He stews at this.

“Oh, iron out yer muzzle, batty. I was only joshin’ ya. Does bring up a pressing point, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, lawbat…” I droop my ears, fiddling with the tip of one in what I hope’s an alluring fashion. “You figure ya got a little time to be
my
man?”

“Hmm… maybe.” He picks up my ear and leans in, but stops just before he kisses it. He flashes me a smile with that funny foxy muzzle. “You sure I won’t break what’s left of you?”

My strength goes and I tip forward, burying my muzzle in his chest fur to keep from falling down. “I’m of sterner stuff presently than you’ll ever be, lawbat.”

Taking me in his wings, he kisses me soft on each flopped ear and lays me back against the bed like I’m something real fragile. Makes a bunny warm under the fur to be handled like that, even if it is wholly unnecessary. He sits back on the bed and I watch, fascinated, as he undresses. First he slips out of his vest, then he sits, legs crossed ‘yote style, undoing his belt and gunbelt with those fancy hind paws of his. Here I am laid up, missing the chance to see just how he gets his pants off without a hare’s help. I find I can’t even sit back up at this particular moment, so I wait for my moment. Once he’s got his fly unbuttoned, I snake my hind paw out from under the sheets and into the front of his trousers.

He squeaks in surprise, wings sweeping against my leg. “Six! What are you doing?”

“Oh, quit yer belly-achin’. I’m just checkin’ to see everything’s where I left it, is all.” I wiggle my toes down his fuzzy belly to his sheath and sac before wiggling back up and starting over again. My toes bump along the head of his penis, just poking out of its sheath, then play briefly with his sac, but he squeaks the loudest of all when I get up higher and wiggle my claws against the tender flesh of his belly.

“Stop that!” His wings stroke along my calf, ruffling the fur. “Six, it’s tickling me something dreadful!”

“Well, you’d best get those britches off or I’ll do it more.” I slip down again and grip my toes on his sheath to show I’m serious.

“Ah! Just give me a second, Six.” He hooks his wing thumbs into the waist of his trousers and pulls them off. “There.”

“Good.” I smile at the pink tip I see peeking up from between his legs. “Come on up here, lawbat, and be mindful of my arm.”

Climbing up the bed, he eases around my sling, straddling over my chest. His balls rest between my breasts and his half-ways sprung erection bumps me in the nose.

“Oops.” His ears drop. “Sorry.”

I laugh. “Blake, I got all manner a’ plans for this thing, but that wasn’t one of ‘em.” Nonetheless, I nuzzle in against his tip with great vigor. It’s real warm and slightly damp. He squeaks.

All the way out of his sheath now, his member bumps against my cheek. I wrap my good paw around it, then start caressing it all gentle. He stiffens up in a hurry, even with me only halfways knowing what I’m doing. My ears drop at how distracted and darling he looks. I want to do something nice for him, like how he always kisses my ears. Then I get a naughty idea…

Without giving him a word of warning, I grab one of my ears and curl it around his shaft. Boy, does that get the ol’ boy’s attention. Poor thing is just staring down at me with those wide brown eyes as I start to rub. I work my floppy ear over the hard, hot surface, every ridge and bump translating through to my fingers. Feels right funny, and more than a little scandalous. The good sheriff shivers and swoons like he’s getting the vapors. 

Now that I’m sure the both of us are enjoying this, I get a touch more vigorous. I work the pink of my ear harder against his stiff penis, slipping from head to base, picking up heat as I go. I rub it over the tip as well, slicking myself up with his juices, though it ain’t the only place I’m feeling a tad moist presently. I work it like a polishing cloth, pressing his length down against my chest. I even dare give the head a couple kisses when it pokes through. He seems to cotton to this, if his moaning is to be believed and he even squirms a little extra against my bottom lip.

On instinct, I lick the clear droplet off my lip before it can run under my chin and to my fur. It’s salty and a touch musky, though mostly it just tastes like Blake.