by Tempe O'Kun
She gasps as I jump and roll to the side. I get a hind paw under myself, clutching a gun in the other. I train it on her.
The hare yawns and stretches against the boulder. “Wondered when you’d do that.” A wink.
I steady the gun. “Sorry, Six. I’ve gotta take you in.”
She doesn’t move, just grins up at me. That little fluff of a tail bobs.
We stare at each other for a long moment. The cuffs, the river, the freezing night: it all runs through my mind. The pistol lowers. “Aw heck, I can’t prove a darn thing anyhow.” While I could charge her under my own testimony, I don’t see the good it would do. Besides, maybe now she’ll untie me. I toss the pistol back to her.
Catching it with one paw, she laughs. “That’s just as well. I never had any dry rounds in the first place.” She spins the gun into her grip and levels it. “Watch.”
A deafening bang.
The bullet ricochets off a rock beside me, scattering chips of stone against my tender wings. I scowl at her, at myself, at the ropes my wing thumbs can’t untie.
The bunny just stands there, ears back from the noise. “Dang. Who’d a’ thought they’d still work?”
She snags the matching gun, holsters both, and undoes the knot. I flap, helping blood flow back into my wings with a tingle and prickle. My ears ring. Our eyes meet. “Grand. Now what’s the plan?”
“The plan...” A whetstone voice echoes from behind the rocks. “...is to show us where in the hell the cash went.” A lynx steps out. His ears are pinned back and his rifle is cocked.
Six’s paws flash to her iron, but I soon see we’re surrounded. If her shot hadn’t halfway deafened us, we might have heard them coming.
A loud clang. The empty strongbox crashes against a boulder beside us. The lock dangles in pieces, smashed apart. Three more outlaws surround us.
I look over to my thief, wondering how we’re going to deal with this new fix.
Her tail twitches.
She levels her iron at me, and next thing I know the world is exploding in a great crash of pain and noise. Flat on my back, it comes to me after a moment.
The bunny shot me!
Possession ain’t nothin’ to a bunny in mah line a’ work.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Morning sun lights a curl of smoke from Six’s gun.
The outlaws stand, shocked as all hell. Two of them, cats, tense and look to their leader. The boar bandit’s face is like stone. He doesn’t move an inch.
The lynx laughs, rasping like a knife on stone. “You just did half our job for us, bunny.” He levels his rifle at her. “Now, drop that iron ‘fore you get any clever ideas.”
Ears high and alert, the hare tosses her pistol at the feet of the fella she just shot.
The lynx jabs her with the barrel of his rifle. “Both guns, rabbit, unless you can’t count that far.”
Snickering rises from the pair of cats. The boar edges over, his own rifle trained on her too. Eyes on the bunny, he bends down to pick up her gun.
A whisper of leather.
Click.
He has just enough time to register that I snagged the gun from his holster.
Bang.
He squeals and clutches at the thigh I just put a bullet through, dropping to the dirt.
Pain blazes through my wing. It chases through my whole body. She only hit my wing membrane, but, even if I don’t bleed out, that’s a serious wound to a bat. I make myself breathe. I’ll still fly.
The lynx looks at what he thought was a dead bat. “What in tarnat—aahhh?!”
Six knocks the barrel of his rifle away and cracks him in the skull with a gun I didn’t see her draw. Quick little thing. I’d admire her more if she hadn’t just shot me.
The lynx snarls, but her arms are already around his neck. The hare’s gun is level on his brainpan. She cocks back the hammer and smiles to the cats. “You boys fixin’ to see how high I can count?”
With my other hind paw I grab the gun she shot me with, training both weapons on the cats, still flat on my back. Most folk never expect me to use guns like this. Most folk are fools. What am I supposed to use? My wings? Damn it all, my wing hurts. Blood has trailed down the edge of my wing, collecting on my vest and gunbelt. My whole wing feels shattered and torn. Hot gouts of blood soak through my fur. I don’t dare look at it.
The first tingle of dizziness finds me, but I shake it off. “You fellas are all under arrest. Drop your guns.”
The cats look to each other.
Six shoots them both clean in the shoulder. Frantic yowls fill the night. They go down, clutching their wounds.
I try to call out, but these guns are getting mighty heavy and I’m winded as a frothing horse.
The hare turns and trains her gun on me.
She’s going to shoot me. Again. I utter something that would make a weasel blush.
Bang.
I wince. The boar falls on top of me, clutching his rifle. He smells like blood and cheap whiskey.
My thief just grins.
* * * * *
It hurts.
The morning is gray and still. I feel like someone has jammed a hot iron poker through my wing and let it sit. It burns me something fierce, but the bleeding has stopped. I’ll still fly, I keep telling myself. Over and over in time with the mount I’m propped up on. The hoof-beats clack along the packed earth of the trail.
The hare rides beside me. She looks me up and down. Grins like she’s having a hog-killing time, regardless of putting a bullet in the boar. And me. I’ll still fly.
I toe my pistol, ready to draw, fury igniting in my guts. “You shot me.” My chest feels cold. My toes and wingtips are numb. I’ll still fly.
“Don’t be such an old croaker, lawbat.” She hooks a thumb back at the outlaws, trussed up in a row on their ponies, moaning against their gags. “You got your men. What have you got to be sour on?”
“Being shot, for one.” I’ll still fly.
“Had to make it look real! Weren’t for me, you’d be half planted in the bone orchard by now. ‘Sides, you stood the gaff fine…” She lowers her hat. “…’cept when I had to whiskey your wound. Way you holler, folk’d think yer a girl!”
I show all the teeth in my long muzzle. “At least I come as advertised.”
She eyes me a moment, then laughs hard. “Rich, lawbat! You are a gentleman a’ the first water.”
After a tick, I have a chuckle too, then move my wing and about die. Damn this bunny.
* * * * *
Nobody says much as Six helps carry me into Doc Richards’ office, not that I can make out anyway. I am in a rough way by this point. That numbness has run from my wings to my legs. Things get a mite sketchy. Somebody shoving a rawhide bit in my mouth so I can’t bite my tongue. Paws holding me down as I get stitched back up. And, through it all, Six looking down on me. I start to get worried because, for once, she isn’t smiling.
When they’re done, they lay me down on a cot so Doc can see to the outlaws. Six is sitting across the room. I’m suspecting that gag was doped with something, since it didn’t make me want to vomit like rawhide typically does. Time uncouples from action. She takes hours to roll a cigarette then about a day to smoke it.
She doesn’t say anything, just rolls the box of matches over her fingers. I look her over. I’d like to say that I can see now how she’s a lady, but the plain truth is that hares all look a fair ways womanly to me. They’re sleek, lean, delicate. This one’s not quite so delicate, save for her ears. They dangle down low over the brim of her hat, giving the impression of ease, but from my cot I see her paws never leave her iron. No hint of her scent, just smoke.
Feels like a week passes, but finally I muster the will to speak. “The hell…are you doing here?”
She smiles. That cigarette is all but gone. She crushes the stub of it between her fingers. “Easy, lawbat. That doc stitched ya up. Assured me it’d heal proper.”
I take a breath. I hate to admit it, but I had been terrified t
here was going to be a hole. I’d seen a Secession War scout once whose wings had been shredded by rebel scatterfire. That living tatter still visits me in my less peaceful dreams.
Motivated by instinct, I turn to examine the wound and am rewarded by a fresh plume of pain. I yelp.
“Whoa there.” Her paw settles on my shoulder, all light and careful. Her ears sway.
I get lightheaded and hit the pillow smiling. “Heh. You got fancy ears.”
She lifts one of them, as if she didn’t hear me right. “What?”
A fire blazes in my cheeks, burning away the fog in my brain. “Nothing. Those outlaws…”
“Are bein’ seen to by that hound of yours and the doc.” Her paw’s got more strength than my entire body. I recognize the inside of Doc’s office and I hear at least one person groaning. She’s telling the truth, least as far as that goes. She pulls a blanket over me, careful of my wound. “Easy, Sheriff. You’re goin’ to be fine.”
“Thank you, ma’— mister.” We meet eyes for a minute. Her blue ones widen just a touch. I cough up a laugh. “You’re decent for a fella who shot me.”
“Aw shucks.” She winks, her smile coming back. “Ah am just a fool bunny.” Her eyes dart to the window. It’s painfully bright out; must be close to noon. The sun shines through the row of elixir bottles on display, lighting her face in the browns and greens of a forest canopy, her eyes glinting crisp blue like water in a mountain creek. Not much color out here in the Frontier, not compared with life back in the East.
I hear a commotion outside. Her ears rise too.
The hare’s paws stroke the handles of her guns. “Gotta run, lawbat. Take care now. Don’t let nobody else shoot ya.”
She tucks the matchbox in her pocket and walks out the back door, casual as you please.
The next moment, Hayes roars into the office: “I demand to see them! Blake, the outlaws, and anybody else I have a mind to. I am within my rights to talk to anybody I please!”
Doc’s wife, Charlotte, accosts him with a yap and a whap. “Get outta my clinic, Mister Hayes, or so help me I’ll find you a way out!”
Hayes towers over the vixen, almost twice her height. His claws extend for an instant, then slip back into his thick paws. “Doctor Richards.” His voice is cordially chilled. “See to your wife.”
Charlotte fumes, her rust-red tail lashing against the back of her old army nurse’s smock.
Doc steps out from the other room, his paws bloody. “My wife isn’t the one who’s out of line.” From my cot, I see his tail brush down hers. “You’d best leave, Hayes.” His teeth bare a little on that last, as if it’s a cuss word. “I have patients to attend to.”
“Every moment we wait, my money could be getting further away!”
“And every moment you delay me, you put my patients at risk.”
Haye’s mane bristles. “They’re outlaws!”
“They’re patients.” Doc snarls, pulling a needle and thread from his apron as he storms back to the triage room, calling to Harding: “Deputy, this lion needs a breath of fresh air. See that he finds it.”
The old bloodhound nods and leads him out, but not before the lion gets a good look around the room I’m in. I lay still, so as not to tip my hand. He’s in a foul temper for a man whose robbers just got bound by law, and gained a few ounces of lead in the process. Unless those robbers were his to begin with. Come to think of it, he took it for granted there were several robbers, though he insisted on only one at the time of the robbery. That bunny might have been telling the truth.
Wait, does that even make sense? Maybe I should hold off on the thinking until I’m less perforated.
After the fuss dies down, Doc Richards comes in and pulls off his bloodied smock, washing his paws in a basin. He checks my bandages with deft paws and smiles a tired vulpine smile. “You’re going to be right as rain, Blake. Good thing that friend of yours got you here when he did.” He looks around, his black ears cupped forward. “Where’d he get to?”
I shrug, then wince. “Had business, I suppose.”
“Well, isn’t that the way of it these days? Isn’t slow like back when I was a kit. Makes a fellow want a smoke.” He pats down the pockets of his vest and trousers. “Say, have you seen my matchbox?”
* * * * *
Just about four weeks, and I’m well enough to sit at my desk, not to mention too stir-crazy to spend one more minute in bed. While I was too busy having been shot, I left the outlaws there under the watchful eyes of a few trusted men and the vigilant nose of Deputy Harding. Doc is good; even the boar lived. Good. They have a long stretch in the lockup to look forward too. Left on the train last week, under armed guard. Doc switched me over to a looser splint— he joked it was mostly to keep me from flying after stray hares. I just grinned and bore it so he’d let me out of bed. My wing looks and feels just fine, aside from itching like a week making hay.
One of the grander things about being out in the middle of nowhere rather than back in law school is the near absence of paperwork. Near. People still file complaints and reports come in the post every few months. I’m sorting through it. Harding is out and about. The office is cool and quiet.
My thief walks in.
“Six?” The pen slips from my hind paw, splattering lakes and rivers of ink across the complaint I was cataloging.
“Sheriff.” She touches the brim of her hat. “Nice to see scuttlebutt’s true. Yer lookin’ right as a trivet, if a touch less steady.”
I swallow. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
A slight twinkle lights her expression. “You regret it happening?”
“N-no.”
One ear lifts as her eyebrows arch up. “That mean you aren’t fixin’ to arrest me?”
“Have a seat.” I gesture to a chair. “We’ll talk.”
I hear a soft click as she locks the office door. Spurs ringing on the floor, she ambles up and sits, not cross-legged like a lady, but predatory and sly; in control. Right on my desk, close enough that I swear I can make out the curve of her figure though her rough clothes. She leans in and those ears droop. An amused little smile crosses her muzzle as she breathes down a single word to me: “Talk.”
My heart chugs along like a steam engine. Her voice almost sounds like a girl’s. I freeze.
She blushes, gets abashed for a second, then her face goes unreadable as iron. Once again I could believe I’m looking at a fella, if a tall, scrawny one. She leans back, shifting atop my papers. One of her holsters trails through the wet ink, carving channels through my neat little streams.
“No need to be offish.” I find myself leaning forward just a bit. “I’ve just got some questions, is all.”
“Then shoot, lawbat, or give up the gun.” She laughs roughly. “We both got ears.”
“That we do.” My eyes flash to her ears before I can stop the darn things. I blink, then meet her gaze level and steady. “First off, what do you know about Hayes’ unlawful ties? You can’t expect me to swallow this insurance scam tripe. That’s small potatoes to him. Seems to me he wanted to get that money off the books, more likely.”
She gives me a smirk. “You reckon I care to cross him any more than I already have?”
“I don’t think that’s possible unless you stole his wife.” I settle my wings against the back of my chair, the sling chaffing. “Or his money again.”
“Well, his wife ain’t the breed I’m lookin’ to buy. And I hear tell he’s ponied up the cash for a better safe.” Her eyes dare me to call her on that, then she fiddles with a claw. “I only caught wind of that theft business a day beforehand, most likely fixing to pay some folk off. Isn’t quite simon-pure about how he runs that mining outfit either— Is your wing alright?”
My mind flounders for a second, then catches the trail again. “Near as can be, considering. What’s this have to do with Hayes?”
“Nothing. Ah just thought it fair I get to ask a question too.”
“I see.” I decide no
t to press her too hard on any one front. “Second, where did you come by such fancy iron?”
“What’s this got to do with the lion Hayes?”
“Nothing.”
The bunny leans in a hair. Her muzzle is not four inches from mine, her paws not an inch from her iron. Her voice is steady, steady as her aim was when dealing with the outlaws. “You lookin’ to return them to their rightful owner?”
“Never said it wasn’t you.”
She breathes. Her scent teases my nose. “They were my daddy’s. The only thing of his I still got.”
I nod. Something about her eyes makes me believe her.
“Can I…” She clears her throat, sounding like a woman for just an instant. “…see your wing?”
“You plan to keep holstered this time?”
Her paws rise. Her voice resumes being low and husky, though still disarming. “Just checkin’ my handiwork.”
I slip the sling off. She gets real close to look. Even on her knees, she’s as tall as I am sitting. I can feel her breathing against the thin fur of my wing. It washes down over my wing like waves, slow and regular.
One paw comes up and she reaches for the pink scar, which is now almost flush against the surface. I wince. She freezes, paw curling back. I breathe and let my wing down in front of her, spreading it the rest of the way. It feels tight and stiff, but that’s to be expected. I know it can carry me.
The wound is close enough to the top of my wing that she is right up against me. Those floppy ears brush the side of my muzzle. Gentle and slow, her paw traces up my wing bones to that scar. Her touch is like a safe air current, smooth and steady. She smooths my fur under her fingertips, feeling along the change in texture. The scar has no fur, naked as her twitching pink nose. “This doesn’t hurt ya?”
“Not a bit.” Her scent is full and close now, heavy and warm like a thick blanket. The bunny turns my way, her blue eyes showing just a hint of regret. She says “sorry” so soft she starts to sound like a girl again.
Our muzzles bump, softly jostling.
