by Tempe O'Kun
“Ya really ought to arrest me.” Her breath brushes hot against my ear, causing a carnal stir within my trousers.
I do my darnest to ignore it. “Why’s that?”
“I shot you.” Her paw touches my wing, ever so gently.
“And saved me from being shot.”
“Ah am not keen on giving the money back.”
“Six…” I took her by the shoulders. She feels so light in my wings, like she was air. “Bring it back and testify. I can protect you.”
“Those fools weren’t Hayes’ only muscle. Ya can’t keep me safe from every hard case he puts on the dime.”
“I could if you were a deputy.”
She backs up to look me in the eyes. “Deafness don’t run in mah family, Blake, but I think my ears are startin’ to go. Sounded like ya just said I should become a deputy.”
I trace her ear carefully with one wing thumb. “That’s good, because I did.”
“The heck would ah agree to that for? Hayes doesn’t know a blasted thing about me and—” Her ears slip back around the brim of her hat, her face darkening. “—and neither do you. Besides, I’ve got the money. Bully for me. And ya want me to swap it all for the chance to break up tussles between lowlifes? What makes that a square trade?” She has a scoundrel’s smile and an angel’s eyes.
“Because I…” I stammer. I can feel my ears getting hot. I think about her lips, how nice it would feel to…
She kisses me. Just takes me by the ears and plants one on my lips. I ought to have been shocked at such forward action by a lady. But, from the taste of her cigarettes to the way she presses in against me, Six isn’t like any lady I ever knew. I find my wings curling around her.
After a moment, she eases back, leaving me leaning forward just a bit. Her hat is gone, knocked off by the force of the kiss. Her muzzle dips, and she starts blushing again. “Sorry. Ah didn’t mean tah…”
“I-I liked it.” I run a wing thumb under her chin, bringing her eyes level with mine. “Don’t you go bein’ sorry”
The hare narrows her blue eyes, saying silently she didn’t quite believe me. “Ya look a touch pained.”
I grimace, giving a nervous chuckle. “Your gunbelt is digging into my side.”
“Oh.” And just like that, she straddles my hips. The warmth of her crotch presses against mine. The bunny looks up at me like this is nothing compared to kissing me. “That better?”
“Umm…” I squirm.
Six glances around, skittish like I’ve never seen her. Tensing, her body pulls back against my wings. Her ears dangle free now; they brush against my chest, low as they can get.
I lean against her, nuzzling in close. We touch noses; she gasps. Her muzzle’s shorter than mine, and her fur feels soft as cotton as I brush along her cheek. I want to touch those floppy ears, but if they’re anything like mine they’re delicate and ticklish something fierce. I wrap my wings tight against her back. She gives a quiet squeak. Though the thin fur of her cheeks, she’s blushing. We bump noses again. My lips touch hers. I kiss her.
A sort of shudder runs through her. She hauls me to my feet and suddenly we’re kissing against the wall of my office. Soft quick kisses, long lingering ones; she can’t seem to make up her mind. I play with that little fluff of a tail, feeling the bowie knife she keeps beside it.
Part of me, perhaps the wiser part, demands to know what I’m doing kissing a lady outlaw, one who dresses like a man no less. But the rest of me soon hogties that voice and from there on it’s all kisses and touches and her hips against mine. Our gun handles clatter together as she starts to grind up against me in a most immodest fashion. I shiver, poking out of my sheath a little, rubbing against the inside of my undergarments. She’s so hot against me. Her paws brush across my chest, pinning me against the wall. The rough wood tickles the backs of my ears. I kiss back at her, licking her lips, but she doesn’t open her mouth. Seems nobody ever taught her just what that means. She can’t be much past twenty— hardly an age for a virtuous young lady to be out in the world unescorted.
The kisses fall upon my lips like Arizona rain: rare, precious and sweeping away like a flood all thoughts that came before. The leather of her vest runs smooth against my wings. I breathe harder, pausing in my attentions to recollect myself.
My thief is not to be dissuaded. Her lips find my cheek, my neck, my chest. She starts unbuttoning my vest. Her own breath is hot and fragrant, sweet as cider under the ghost of all that tobacco. That peculiar scent serving to rile a fella, no matter the species. “You— you’re in heat?”
She answers by pulling me toward the cell, out of sight of the small, barred window. I bump against the bars, then she pushes me back against the cot. One bunny paw reaches back around to touch my ears, while the other starts working along the front of my britches. That quick paw digs under my gunbelt, uncinching my regular belt.
I struggle to regain my breath, forcing a cool breeze of sanity into my lungs. “Hold off, Six. That office door doesn’t lock— Those are my trousers!”
“Possession ain’t nothin’ to a bunny in mah line a’ work.”
Her paws slip against the tip of my member. It’s been years since a woman touched me there and even in wilder days they never took to it with such enthusiasm. She grips me like the pommel of a saddle, except I’m the one holding on for the ride. There’s power to her movements, muscle to her frame. Not some delicate debutante then, a farmhand perhaps?
Desire burns in me. She pours kisses onto my lips, feeding the fire. I’m stiff as a railroad spike. Her paw is clumsily squeezing on my fully exposed shaft. I wonder if she’s ever done this before, wonder just how long she’s been playing the part of a man. Meanwhile, I’m squeaking like a prairie dog with each grope and, while I’m not quite jealous of her having paws, it does feel nicer even than rubbing it against my wings— all fuzzy and warm. Her lips plant little panting kisses all over my muzzle, leaving tiny traces of wetness in my thin fur. I’m working up the gumption to call this shindig off when she freezes. Her powerful thighs crush in against me and, were it not for the cot, I believe she could have given me a hell of a bruise.
I brush her with my wing, one hind paw ready to go for my gun. “Six, what—?”
And then she’s gone, springing off me and shutting the cell door behind her. It dawns on me after a heartbeat. She’s got my damn britches in her paw! Before I can get to the bars, she’s tried two keys on my belt and the third one clacks into place. She pulls it from the lock and glances at me, all manner of skittish.
My wings can’t fit through the bars in any meaningful way, so I reach with a hind paw. The chill of iron against my manly bits makes me yelp. “Yikes! What in all hell’re you doing, Six?”
The cell door rattles under my weight, but stays locked. She backpedals. “I’m real sorry, Blake. I-I’m just a mite skittish on these matters.” She adjusts her clothes, snatching her hat from the floor. “I’ll understand if you don’t want nothing to do with—”
“Jordan.”
“What?”
“Call me Jordan.”
“Oh.” She smiles. Her paws wring the leg of my confiscated garment.
I take a steadying breath. “Look, bunny. I’m not fixing to make you do a thing you don’t care to.”
Her eyes slip down. To my horror, I find my erect penis is sticking lewdly through the bars… My ears go down, realizing I’m dreadfully indecent. I cover up with my wings. “Just toss those britches back my way and we’ll sort out the what’s-what here.”
“Honest? You ain’t mad?”
“I am too damn naked to be mad!” It dawns on me that makes no kind of sense, so I add: “Please!”
She presses her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh. Damn this bunny. I give her another desperate look and she balls up the trousers, pulls back to throw them, and—
Footsteps. My office door swings open.
Our gazes meet. The britches drop to the floor. They’re only a few feet awa
y, but they might as well be in a Chinaman’s closet for all the good they do me. Six shoves her way out of the office, galloping down the hall and out the front door. I see her flash by the barred window, hat already on, muzzle grinning under its shadow.
I cuss. Then I look into the somewhat sad, very confused eyes of Deputy Harding.
Rabbits don’t concern me.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The clock ticks. I groom my claws with a small file. “So the money...is where precisely?”
“We don’t know just now.” Morris tugs his shirt down over his fuzzy belly, then nibbling a claw. “That bloodhound deputy never did let us slip word to or from the bandits before they were shipped to the county jail.”
My office feels close as a coffin. The money itself was nothing, just enough to hush the right people. What bares my claws is the challenge to my territory— I’m not used to deals going south. Father would say a little competition sharpens your teeth, but if I’d liked the idea of competing I would have stayed back in the East. “Do I have any contacts there?”
“No. I’ve sent some men and some money. We’ll see what we can loosen up.”
I breathe, smoothing out a snarl. “So it’ll be weeks, at best, until we know if they talked on where the money was bound for.”
“Reckon so.” The marmot licks his paw and straightens his fur. “And that’s assuming they actually found the money and didn’t just get stupid and try to shoot Blake. The bunny must have gotten the drop on them in turn, since he took them all out.”
“So he’s sharper than we suspected. Best to get out of his way again; let him think this was an isolated happening.” I sit back in my chair and have another sip of brandy. “Idiots! I go through all the trouble of letting them steal the money and someone steals it first! You’re sure this wasn’t some trick on their part?”
“They ain’t stupid. We ain’t either. We both picked those four because we knew they wouldn’t get greedy.”
“Either way, I now have to get cash into the right paws the old-fashioned way. I’ll get the wife to plan some gala. If that’s all, Morris...” I wave him away. All this yammering on about money gone on the wind fouls my mood something terrible. I ought to take a little trip up to Chance Canyon, visit the nice little bordello there. Locals call it the “cathouse” and a man with dinero can make some fine memories there. I know, I’ve made a few...
“There is one other thing.” Morris is still here. “Folks saw some bunny riding in with Sheriff Blake.”
“Rabbits don’t concern me.”
He responds with a chittering mutter.
“Now leave— I have a headache.”
“Of course, bossman.” The marmot gets one of his thoughtful looks and leaves to do whatever he does when he’s not a flea in my mane, meeting up with some old rabbit at the door. The rabbit’s face sticks in my mind a moment, like I know him. But then, all meat looks the same.
Steal one fella’s trousers, while I’m in heat no less, and all of a sudden I start figuring my plans around him?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Just me, the moon, and Blake’s pony.
I stare into my little campfire. Always helps me think, having a fire. Something about the way it never dances quite the same way twice, the smoke, the hiss and crackle, the heat in my fur.
My first notion is getting the hell out of Dodge. Of course, that’d mean leaving Blake too. Plus, Hayes is liable to catch me. My second notion is to shoot him. That lion though— he’s more of a power than I’m accustomed to. No, regular ways of dealing with folk are liable to fetch me a bullet.
Damn me. Steal one fella’s trousers, while I’m in heat no less, and all of a sudden I start figuring my plans around him? If that don’t sound like a heap of trouble, I’m an Angoran Long-Hair.
Fishing my little pot from my satchel, I rig it up over the fire. Half a canteen’s worth of water, plenty of beans, and a few choice roots I dug up along the trail— I’m on my way to decent chow. The smell reminds me of home. Never cared the twitch of a nose for cooking, it being too womanly for me, but long nights along in the desert make a bunny miss strange things.
After dinner, I tap out tobacco and roll a cigarette, lighting it with a twig from the fire. Smoke it clear to the end. I singe my paw fur then flick it into the fire outta spite at my own woolgathering. Sucking my fingers, I lie back on my bedroll and stare at the moon. I get lost tracing the shapes and shadows there, calling to mind old tales I heard as a wide-eared fluffball.
Dreams go drifting over me like clouds across the moon, traced on the edges by velvet wings.
* * * * *
Though the haze of a dream I see my paws, but they ain’t mine. I’m perched up on a ledge, overlooking some manner of mine entrance.
Arriving like a gust of wind, a whole mess of ‘yotes appear around me. Colorful beads clatter in their fur, bright against the brown of their stern muzzles.
A tilt of the world later, the mine rushes up past us. We fly into its depths. Picks, shovels, carts: at first it’s all you’d expect. But then there’s a shining that ain’t the shine of gold and pictures all around that jumble into bunkum then into nothing.
A voice from the nothing speaks a word I never expected to hear again: “Clarabelle.” It’s my father’s voice.
All the world goes grey, and I get buried into the depths of sleep like a thick blanket.
* * * * *
Morning tills up wakefulness in me and, not long after, a plan. Foolish, I reckon, but I’d better have a look-see into Hayes’ affairs, to know how far his paws reach. Fella like that has power, connections; can’t hurt to have a little blackmail on him if I can. And if in so doing I see more of Blake, well that’s just silver on gold.
I break camp and saddle up. The guns pull me south, away from any of the lion’s shady dealings up in Scoria Grove and White Rock. Seems I recall something about him running a mine, though I’m not sure from where...
I think patience is the way of it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Folk say we bats don’t notice the dark, but I daresay I’ve started to since Six left. I’m sure there’s some manner of metaphor in there about her being my sun, but I’ll leave it to the Homers and Emersons of the world.
I have no business feeling this way over a woman, mind you. I’m a professional, a lawman, not some heartsick pup. The people of White Rock deserve better than having me mope around. I shocked my family enough by coming out here in the first place, it might kill them outright to hear of my failing at it. I run a wing over the worn cover of one of my uncle’s journals, wishing I felt even a tinge of encouragement seep from it. I don’t.
I splash some water on my face, dress, and step out of my room. Harding is already here, of course.
Steady as a stone, that old hound. He never says too much and folks generally think him a simpleton to one degree or another. Wisdom glints in his eyes, though, and he’s proven time and again to be a more than capable deputy. What’s more, he’s yet to mention to a soul having to let me out of the jail cell half-naked and wholly indisposed, a kindness for which I am very grateful.
Damn that bunny.
If it were up to my mind, I’d stop thinking about her. She’s probably gone for good anyhow— the most of folk don’t come back to a town where they’ve locked up the sheriff. Unfortunately, and to my ever-growing indignation, other parts of me are involved.
I realize I’ve been staring at the deputy for nearly a minute. He looks back at me with cool, calm eyes and perhaps a touch of amusement.
“Morning, Harding.”
“Blake.” He pours me a cup of tea. The man never drinks coffee, just various concoctions of dried plants.
I eye the contents of the cup. Like every morning, I ask: “What is this stuff?”
“Mountain jointfir and green juniper berries.”
I take a sip and manage not to make a face. “Either you’re making better tea or I’m just getting used to how terrible it is.”
&nbs
p; He gives that rumbling chuckle canines favor. “I reckon it’s both.”
We finish our drinks in amiable silence then I head out to make the rounds. Being bare-pawed, I avoid the dark wet spots. Who knows what evil lurks in the puddles I can’t identify?
I follow the scent of fresh timber and sawdust to find Morgan repairing his roof. The squirrel’s a farrier and had some initial friction with the long-standing solitary blacksmith when he arrived a year ago. That’s over now, I’m proud to say, having had my part. I am, however, beginning to think the jitteriness that I attributed to the war of nerves is actually just part and parcel of being a squirrel. He jumps when I say hello, nearly skittering off the edge of his roof before greeting me in return.
The few folks in the street this early stop what they’re doing and glance my way like wary wildlife. As day wears to night, more and more of those looks will include bared fangs, perhaps the open fondling of a gun. I sometimes find myself wishing I were more like Collins, my predecessor, whom folk actually liked. Then I remember how he ate a bullet. Guess he wasn’t liked quite enough.
Years ago, another Blake was sheriff here—my uncle. His diary drew me here. Some of the old timers like Doc and Charlotte remember him. They sometimes rib me that I’d best start my own journal, just in case I ever have a nephew.
Stepping out of the way of a train of Hayes’ mining wagons, I see old Harland Myers sitting on his porch with his rusty sickle. He refuses to take a whetstone to it, fearing he’ll wear the echo right off. That’s not to say it’s any less sharp— I saw him bury it halfway through a table once to make a point about minding the rules in poker. He’s never started trouble, though, so I’ve had no cause to be anything less than cordial to him. I’m glad.
I call out a greeting, raising a wing.
The old raccoon stares into the aether. A distance wells up in eyes. Thin trails of tobacco drip down the sides of his muzzle. No movement to him at all, save for a gentle stroking of the sickle’s handle. I study him closer, maintaining a polite, out-of-reaping distance, so as to not upset the coon when he notices me. A scattering of glittering rock dust lies in front of his rocking chair and dusts his pant legs, catching the light.
