by Tempe O'Kun
The mutt fires once, missing, then gets me in his pistol sights. My numb paw closes over the gun again; I shoot his foot from under the benches. He goes down howling.
The panther jumps up on a bench, both guns trained on me. I roll under another bench, hollering: “You really think Hayes is goin’ to let you out a’ here alive with the secret?”
The panther looks to his boss.
I shoot him.
Before the cat even hits the floor, Hayes unloads at me with my other gun. Scrambling under a couple benches, I come upon the wounded dog again fixing to plug me. I kick him in the head, snatching up his gun with my empty paw. Before I think about it, my paws have snatched six fresh bullets from the mutt’s belt. I load my gun and my new find to the sixth chamber. I’ve had enough of this little song and dance.
I stand. First one to see me is Hayes’ rat, the blood on his ribs not enough to quiet him. He draws. I shoot him in the head.
The sound could’ve deafened the dead. Beside the pit, Hayes’ man hits the floor.
Dead silence.
Hayes looks to the dead man, then to me. I expect him to start blabbering for his life. But that ain’t what occurs. He smiles.
I hear a great bellering come up from behind me.
I turn and see a whole mess of ragged miners come trampling down the hall, all howls and froth.
Dang.
Hayes chuckles.
They hold up, all species snarling not three feet from me. Their drool gleams in long strands to the floor, slathering from between bared teeth. They gather in a half-circle around me.
I bite my lip to keep from freezing up. My heart’s pounding like gunshots.
Hayes lifts a claw to me. “Kill her.”
The miners hiss. All around me. All at once. Sends a shiver from my tail to my ears. Twenty sets of eyeshine glowing in the lantern light, but they all growl the same.
Damn.
The folk rush me, howling like a thousand demons. I backpedal, planting lead in the chests of the first three. The rest get tripped up. An old raccoon gets wise and pounces at me, snarling. I twist out of the way of his rusty sickle. My elbow helps his head find the wall.
I run the edge of the room. Two more of the howling fools make it through the benches. I kick one into their knees, knocking them both frontwards. I back up, now at the front of the room.
Old Bennet dives in from the side. I squeeze the trigger. My father’s gun jams for the first time in all my born days. Cussing, I crack him in the skull with the pommel of it and feel the cylinder spin free. Some fat marmot grabs the old bunny and hauls him toward the light of the entrance. But I got bigger troubles.
I unload six shots wild on the kind mob following me. Two miss, but the other four bite into flesh, slowing the stampede a pace. Smoke coils ‘round my hot iron.
Hayes laughs in triumph, but I can’t see him. My boot slips. I shove against the stone table to keep from falling. Pain blazes up my cramped arms. I gasp.
A wolf with patchy fur springs ahead of the pack. Without thinking, I snatch the lone lantern off the table and clobber her with it. It breaks, spilling fire and oil down her. For an instant, the dim room is lit like midday. Those shelves circling the room go all the way to the ceiling, each one lined with white bones. Gleaming fangs snap at me from the flames, splashing my muzzle with foam. I kick the wolf back. She tumbles, howling, into the pit. The light goes with her. We are now in darkness, save for the fire on my boot and the unnatural glow of the miners’ mouths.
I run.
I only have one bullet left in my gun, and that mutt’s gun’s got two, so I jump over the last few benches, sliding along the floor beside the pit to shoot Hayes.
But he’s not there.
So much for the bravery of lions.
I make a fool’s dash for the only way the little milksop could have gone: out. It’s a straight up the ramp to the cavern entrance and I can hear him running. Sunlight, dim but real. Like hope. I reach the bottom of the ramp just in time to see him jump out the entrance, with my own gun, bellering for his cronies to shoot me when I come out. He has a dozen men out there, all armed, and all will know I’m coming.
I growl. Firing squad ahead ‘a me, the dining club behind me. Ain’t no way I’m getting out of this, but damned if I’m gonna let Hayes live.
The cavern boils with an unsavory mix of weeping, shrieking, and howled profanity. One of the miners grabs at the mutt’s gun, tumbling back when I let go. Lifting my father’s gun, I take aim at the TNT box. I’ve only got one bullet left. But, as I hear the faintest whisper of his voice, I know I only need one. “Alright, lion, let’s see who’s meat...”
I shoot.
Then comes a noise like all the world’s ending.
I’m blown clean outta my boots. Flying backward, I expect to be pulped against the back wall. Instead, I tumble. Back and back, into darkness. And as I fall, my one regret in all my life of trouble is that I didn’t ride that lawbat six ways from Sunday...
Splash! I hit water.
I sink in a fair ways, which suits me fine seeing as how a mess of big rocks follow me. One of them cracks me in the arm, hurting something powerful, but I don’t let go of Daddy’s gun. Damned if I’m losing both today. Stone cracks like lightning around me. Another stone hits me in the belly, knocking precious breath from me, and I sink down fast. The water runs glass-clear this deep in the world, so I can see all the way back up the pit as the mouth of it splits apart. There’s a sudden rumble, shocking right through the water. A part of me thinks it’s that second box of TNT going off. Then the whole world shatters and falls away and I’m getting hauled out from under this stone like a fish on a line. My head cracks against a wall. I curl into a ball, without a breath and damn near without a wit. I tear along to nowhere, smacking into rocks left and right like I’m back in the rapids of Skull Creek. At long last, I see light. I must be dying. I growl on airless water; at least I took that worthless lion out with me.
I’m not dead, contrary to my expecting. Instead, I’m tumbling and rolling through silt and water, light and dark flashing in front of me as I roll. Presently, it peters out. I am left in dark and dampness. Feels like I’m sealed in stone. Even my eyes won’t open. I feel the scratch of sand against my nose and lips. Shoot me dead if I can tell which direction is up, but my body screams for air and I ain’t in any position to deny it. With great exertion, I explode out of my curled up bunny-ball. My foot breaks free. I can feel cold against my hind paw. Whether this is cold water below me or air above me, my lungs don’t seem to be concerned. I kick my other foot that way, then my left arm. The right one is numb or gone or something. I peel myself up out of the earth and gasp.
Air. Beautiful, grand ol’ air. Never thought I would love it so. I suck it in so hard I get silt in my throat, but I don’t care. I keep breathing. After a moment, I wipe my eyes. I rely on my right paw to hold me up and it ain’t listening, wherever it is. I look down and find it still fixed to me just fine, gun still clenched in my fist. I sit up again. It hangs limp off my body, but I figure it’s staying put.
I cough for a spell and, while it burns like cinders in my lungs, I reckon air’s better than water and dirt. I wipe the silt out of my ears. They are caked with the stuff, too heavy to rise.
I stagger to my bare feet. Where in blue blazes did my boots get to? I should have worn Doc’s fancy boots, like he offered. Then his would be under a mountain and mine would be back at his place with my hat.
My hat. I’d best go fetch that. What’s the way into town? Dirt scratches my eyes when I blink, but I clear things up enough to see a ways. I’m in a shallow gulch, filled with watery mud. Town. Town has to be those buildings yonder. I stumble toward them, my hind paws catching in the mud. Almost fall, but don’t. Damn right arm keeps throwing me off, being all dangly like it is. I try putting my gun away, but can’t find the holster. Just as well, seeing as how my arm has rebelled. Seems mighty intent on gripping my iron, so I let it be.
I go quite a ways in this fashion, walking and breathing, before a shadow flashes over the world. I blink, thinking it’s more dirt, then it’s gone. I turn my head, looking for whatever made the shadow, but I do it too fast and my right ear flops over my eyes. “Tarnation!” I figure if I can’t see, I might as well shoot, so I grab my limp arm and raise my gun. “Who’s ‘ere?! Ah done just got puked out by a mountain and ah am spittin’ mad!”
“Six...”
I feel something peel my wet ear back from over my eyes, all gentle-like. I see a pair of pretty brown eyes, set in a funny foxish face.
“Jordan!” I holler, then laugh like a fool. “You’re outta yer dress!”
He grabs me and holds me close in his soft nice wings, like he hadn’t figured on seeing me nowhere never again. “Six!” I can hear him, crying as he clutches to me.
“Oh ease off, ya ol’ sapskull.” I pat him on the shoulder. “Ain’t nothin’ but a slap a mud.”
“You’re alive!” He ignores me, talking into my shoulder. Darn fool’s gonna get all muddied up too. Feels nice that he missed me though. I only get missed very occasionally, usually by bullets and chairs and such.
He pulls back and starts taking off his duster coat. His hind paw finds my gun, but doesn’t have any better luck getting it free than I did. After a moment, he sighs and does some fancy maneuvers behind me, getting it up my right arm and over my shoulders. I try shaking it off, but I’m weak as a runt kitten and he tucks my right arm into the other sleeve just as easy as you please.
“By the moon, Jordan, what are ya doin’?”
He laughs. “I can’t take you back into town just as naked as a jaybird.”
I look down and, sure enough, I am wearing nothing but mud. “How in tarnation’d that happen?!” I look up to find him pink to the ears.
He says nothing, but pulls something from his belt. Rope gets looped around my waist and under my breasts.
I squeak as he knots it under my bosom. “You’re gettin’ a mite fresh out here, bat.”
“Stand still.” He slips around behind me, then I hear him take a running start.
“What? What for?” I hear flapping and hind paws grip the ropes. The next instant, sand is plowing past my feet. I try running to catch up, but it turns out I’m lifting of the ground. Great gusts of wind sweep past me, scattering mud off my fur. The ground gets awful far below awful fast. I holler as the desert sweeps by under me. “Yeeeeeehaw!”
“Quit moving around!” His hind paws tighten on me.
I look up to see my lawbat, his brown chest fur gleaming copper in the sunlight where it fluffs out of his vest, wings beating like a steam engine as he struggles to keep me aloft. I laugh some more, then pat his foot with my good paw. “Well, if this don’t take the rag off the bush. Faster, Jordan! Reckon there’s still some mud on mah fur.”
“You’ve gotta hold still, Six, or I’m liable to drop you.”
“You will not. You’re keen on me. Don’t worry. Once I get cleaned up, I’m gonna ride you like an express pony.” I tug on his pant leg.
“Six!” He sounds right mortified.
“Oh hush, Jordan, or you’ll make me forget which a’ us is the lady.”
He flies me into town directly. I spy two foxes waiting out of some little house at the edge of town. I call out to them as we land, darn near forgetting to put my feet under me. “Charlotte! Doc! Howdy! Seems we’re droppin’ in on ya!” I laugh at this a good bit more than they do.
I shrug out of Jordan’s grasp before he is ready, and he just about crashes smack into the earth. Doc catches me before I can tip over. He looks me in the eyes, then over to the lawbat. “What happened?”
The flying fox stands up, dusting his wings off. “I think she took a blow to the head.”
The Doc looks at him all puzzled. “She?”
His wife clears her throat and points down at my bare lady bits.
“By my tail! She’s a woman!”
I shake a paw at him, splattering mud on his white coat. “You mind where you’re peepin’, Doc!”
Charlotte grabs my good arm and sets it over her shoulders. “Come on now, let’s get her inside.”
“Where’s the fire, foxies? It’s a nice day out.”
They haul me into the house and lay me out on the long kitchen table. They pull me out of Jordan’s coat and Charlotte gasps. “Good heavens! That arm’s out of place. Blake, come hold her down.”
Jordan comes over to my side and pushes me down with his wings. He leans in all close, so I move up to kiss his cute little muzzle. Just then, the foxes slam my shoulder down. A real loud, sickening pop comes from inside me. It hurts something fierce. Daddy’s gun clatters to the floor. My arm works again.
I slap Jordan hard on the ribs.
“Oww! Damnit all, Six!”
“That’s for trickin’ me. You weren’t leanin’ in to give me no kiss.”
Doc turns my face toward his. I don’t want any kisses from him, so I turn away. He snarls. “Look at me.”
Jordan’s expression is packed full of concern, so I turn.
Doc looks in both my eyes, then nods to his wife. “They’re dilated the same.”
The vixen starts feeling around my body. “Do you hurt anyplace especially?”
“My damn arm!” I growl at as the pain kicks up like wildfire. “Jordan! See to my gun!”
All reassuring, he pats my side. “I’ve got it. Just take it easy.”
The doc straightens. “I’ll get some water. Charlotte, the fire?”
She nods. “I’ve got things here. Go. Blake, hold that arm of hers down like this.”
Jordan places his wing where she shows him. The vixen slips further into the house and her husband dashes out the back again. My lawbat stands there and holds my paw with his wing thumb. I grip it back mighty hard, but he doesn’t make a fuss. Perhaps there’s some mettle to this bat after all.
I smile, naked and muddy. He leans in to kiss me, and he ain’t playing this time.
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 difficu
lty, 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.”