Free Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny by Tempe O'Kun Page B

my neck.
    He touches the pin I keep on my vest, an old Army pin that says ‘VI.’ He looks up to me. “This why they call you ‘Six Shooter’?”
    I nod. “Somebody very dear to me gave me that pin.”
    The flying fox smiles. “I hope, someday, I get to hear that story.”
    I meet his eyes, a little dreamy. “Hope, someday, I get to tell it.”
    He pulls me in closer.
    I blush at the close quarters, my body stiffening even as my brain softens with a case of the lovey-doveies. “Jordan?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I don’t ask this too often, but I figure tonight’s got plenty of firsts; what’s one more?”
    “Okay.” Sounding uncertain, he tightens his grip on me just a little. I can feel his breath on my neck.
    I pause and mull for a bit. I run my fingers through the fur of his chest. “I think I need your help.” 
    We lie like that for a while, soaking up each other’s warmth. I want it to last forever, but the reason I came here is building up inside me. Once I can’t take any more, I sigh to clear my mind. He makes a little noise of curiosity. Just like Daddy taught, I sort out my thoughts, then talk. “It happened three days ago. I had done some considering on what you said.”
    Blake pulls me in with his wing just a bit. “About me keeping you safe?”
    “About me keepin’ me safe!” I tap a paw against his chest. “I figure, sooner or later, Hayes is going to get word from his beefers we put in the clink. He’s gonna hear that some tall, scrawny bunny fella made off with his loot. Granted, there’s a mess a’ bunnies out here, but most of ‘em don’t know a pistol from a pine cone.”
    “Fair to say you do.”
    “Dang right it’s fair. Now hush. I decided the best way to make sure Hayes ain’t wise to me is to get wise to him. More especially, his crooked dealings. That way, if he sees fit to send trouble my way, I can send it right back.”
    “Blackmail?”
    “Blackmailing Hayes would buy me a bullet in the back. That lion’s yella clear through. I’m talkin’ giving him difficulties bigger than some bunny with his cash. The manner of difficulties that turn deadly if you don’t see to them directly.”
    “Ah.”
    “Got a tingle in my ears and started pokin’ around at the mine he bought up north of town.”
    “I heard about that place.” Blake nods. “Ran dry a dozen years ago. Most folks are glad about him opening it, think it’ll bring money into the town.”
    “Well, if he’s pulled a fleck of gold outta the ground, I couldn’t find it.”
    He stops stroking my ears for a moment. “I’m sure you looked.”
    “A bunny’s gotta live. Besides, if Hayes had his druthers, you’d be feedin’ the wildlife back where they dry-gulched us.” I adjust my ears so I’m not laying on ‘em, and just so happens that this means he can pet them better. “He’s been in there alright. Thing is, he brings in cattle with him.”
    “Cattle?”
    “As in calves.”
    “What’s he need cows in a mine for?”
    “Just what I thought. And not just one or two. He’s brought at least a dozen of ‘em down since I’ve been watchin’. Whatever he does, they don’t come back out. Just bones picked clean... Don’t you think that’s a touch odd?”
    The lawbat shrugs his wings. “Lions are meat-eaters. They’re given to odd behavior sometimes.”
    “Hasn’t taken in any equipment for cooking or mining either. Just a string of little calves.” “And now I start hearing rumors ‘bout folk gone missing.”
    “Rumors?” His eyes question me.
    “You seen that old raccoon with the sickle lately?”
    “Harland Myers? No, come to think of it.”
    “Neither has anybody else. Not for near on a week.”
    He nods, scratching his chin with a wing thumb. “He’s always seemed a trifle odd, though; caught him staring into nothing the other day. But that doesn’t implicate Hayes at all.”
    I glare on him a moment before continuing. “Or that mutt who got in a tussle with Hayes’ goons