“You don’t have to hold me, mister,” she says, those pretty eyes of hers narrowed at me.
“Uh huh. I reckon I do, unless I’ve got you tied up.”
“Tie me up and I’ll fucking…”
“Easy,” I growl back. “I figure you’ve got a fear of being bound, but you ain’t getting away on me. We have some talkin’ to do.”
While I tend to the moody madam still trying to squirm her way out of my grip, Paris and the others are working on the bird gun. It’s a heavy piece of equipment carried in pieces by three different horses, reason being we need to get some height to the launch.
“What’s he doing?”
I decide to reward her curiosity with an answer. Maybe telling her something will get her to answer back when I have a question of my own to ask her.
“He’s bringing the birds down. That big ol’ cannon sends up a flare that gets their attention. They’re programmed to respond to heat and light.”
“So it’s a distraction,” she says, interested. I loosen my grip on her collar a fraction. Feels to me like she’s not so keen on running now that her curiosity has been engaged.
“Mhm. Big one. Draws them like flies to shit.”
She snorts and spits again. I bite back the urge to chide her. Don’t know why I would bother to tell a girl like her to act like a lady. It’s pretty clear she’s a feral little thing, no more refined than a wildcat. Why do I have the urge to teach her some manners? Might have something to do with the fact I can see good breeding in her, even though everything about her is an attempt to deny it.
“Anyhow, he’s putting that cannon together, and he’s going to load it with a flare…” I trail off as Paris and Holt do that together. One horse can carry two flares, for a while at least. We usually swap the load onto a fresh horse about halfway through a day’s ride. Bird powder is as heavy as it is incendiary.
Paris lights a match and… SCHWOMP!
That’s the sound of the flare getting air. There’s a cloud of dust that comes billowing out, tainted with a bitterness that gets right into your throat if you let it. Josie is coughing and spluttering as the BOOM hits, an earthshaking sound that under other circumstances might draw the wrong kind of attention.
Every outlaw, gunslinger, bounty hunter and no good dingbat in miles is going to see and hear that, but if they know what’s good for them, they’ll put their heads down and act like nothing happened. My posse is armed to the teeth and ready for another fight as soon as anyone cares to bring it.
“Jumpin’ Jehosophat!” Josie swears when she gets the dust out of her mouth and eyes. “You coulda warned me, mister.”
“Figured it was common sense to turn your head when you see a flare being lit, girl.”
“Coulda blinded me,” she complains. “Coulda…”
“Girl, I hear another complaint out of you and you’ll be gagged,” I growl. Can’t have her whining at me every time something startles her. There’s a lot out here that happens unexpectedly. She should know that. “Cover your eyes. Don’t look right at it, or it’ll burn those baby browns right out of yer skull.”
She curses under her breath as a light a whole lot brighter than the sun beams down over all of us, illuminating the dirt and rocks with a pristine glow. There’s a moment every time a flare explodes in which time seems to stand still and everything feels as though it has been erased. The horses stamp and paw at the ground. Some of ‘em used to rear up, but we’ve taught them to stand through this now.
“Hell!” I hear her exclaim. “That’s fucking bright.”
“Enough of the profanity,” I growl.
“Why? What the fuck does it matter?”
“Because I say.”
That’s the reason anything happens around here. Because I say. My men do what I tell them, and she will too. Mind you, I don’t usually tell them how to talk. They want to curse, they can curse, just as long as they have the sense not to curse at me. I get a feeling that Josie’s testing me, trying to work out how rough and tumble she can get before I pin her down, and…
FWOMP
There’s the second half of the flare deploying. Heat radiates across the plain and that means the birds will be zeroing in any second.
“Ready boys!?” I call out. “Anyone who brings a bird down gets himself extra rations, and a double share of the loot.”
They were going to take those birds down anyway, but I’m making extra sure they’re motivated. Best shot takes the spoils. That’s fair and it keeps all of us safe, even boys like Cockeyed Ralph, who couldn’t shoot straight if his life depended on it. He’s got other skills to make up for that.