Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 there 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.