Read Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny for Free Online Page B

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 away, 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