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The Only Rules That Matter: Legacy (Corsair and Madam Mim)

Jackie gasped under Sam's ministrations, sliding her dark hands over Sam's pale ones as they squeezed her breasts. She'd been a quick learner and now, maybe, she could be considered "up to speed." Jackie crossed her ankles behind Sam's neck and squeezed her thighs more firmly on either side of her head as her back arched off the mattress almost entirely and she let herself wail over the edge screaming Sam's name. Her hips still pulsed against Sam's mouth as she came down again and finally her body was back on the bed. Panting, she ran her hands through Sam's hair and grinned.

"God I love you."

For a bare instant Jackie's entire body stiffened before she was able to pass it off as though she'd never said anything. Love?? It had only been four or five months, she couldn't love her could she? It had just slipped out. She didn't want anything more with Sam than just the sex. Well...maybe she did, but so soon? Love complicated things and she liked how simple things were now with her freedom to walk away any time she liked. Not that she wanted to.

"Damn girl," she said with a forced chuckle after a long pause, trying to smooth things over and pretend she hadn't said anything. "You're gettin' good."
 
"God I love you."

Sam's eyes went wide at the statement, shocked to the core. Love? Did Jackie mean it? And... did she? This was just all fun and games, right? Wasn't it? They were just... friends. Weren't they?

"Damn, girl," Jackie laughed, awkwardly. "You're gettin' good."

"Reckon' Ah am," Sam agreed, equally awkwardly. "Done got me a good teacher, though." Damn it, that wasn't what she'd wanted to say! But... but what did she want to say? No, no, that wasn't right. She knew what she wanted to say, but the very thought of trying to say them made her palms sweat and her mouth dey. What if Jackie hadn't...

She swallowed. "Ah..." It felt hard to talk, and she forced the words out in a rush as her cheeks burned. "Ahloveyoutoo."
 
Fuck.

This happened every time and that was why she'd stopped getting attached. Jackie would find a nice girl, find herself falling heels-over-head, the l-word would start getting tossed about, then it was all downhill from there. From here it always ended in screaming and tears and, in one case, all of her clothes getting set on fire. That was why it was so much simpler to just enjoy the variety that nature had to offer without getting tied down, without really caring. The problem was that more and more she had found herself caring about Sam, caring for her, and in a moment of weakness she'd let it slip and there was no taking it back especially not now that Sam had said it back. Where did they go from here? She really liked this girl and she didn't want it to end badly...so how did they avoid that?

All of this occupied Jackie's thoughts but she didn't say it aloud. She wasn't one for gushing over her feelings or anything, after all. Finally she just wrapped her arms around Sam and snuggled close. "Y'done wore me out," she said through a yawn. "Oughtta get some shut-eye after such a long day, doncha think?" Maybe, hopefully, things would be clearer in the morning.
 
"Uhm... yeah," Sam agreed hesitantly, unsure how to take Jackie's response. Had she said the wrong thing? But... Jackie had said it first. Had Jackie been kidding? Or... "Yeah, Ah am a mite tired." And awkward feeling. Damnit! They'd slept together - actually slept, not just fucked - for weeks. But now, after what they'd said, it felt off. She was acutely aware of Jackie's presence next to her, and every time one of them moved, she wondered if somehow the movement would be taken wrong.

Love, she huffed to herself. Everythin' was a world easier when Ah weren't innerested..

Easier. But lonlier.



Light streaming through the window woke her. Throough the glass she saw a blue sky, with a single cloud that caught the sun so that it shone a brilliant glowing white. Closer to home, it seemed that the narrow bed had led the two of them to snuggle up in their sleep. Which would have been just fine, because the feeling of Jackie's bare back against her chest was nice. But the awkwardness from last night was flooding back with consciousness.

Also, her arm was pins and needles numb thanks to Jackie's neck. Gritting her teeth, Sam flexed her fingers and tried to get the circulation mooving.
 
When Sam flexed her fingers the tendons in her arm moved just enough to make Jackie roll over. She pulled the blankets up to her chin and snuggled closer, tucking her head under Sam's chin as she often did. Slowly she awoke, and just as slowly the events of the previous night came filtering back. Eventually she opened her eyes and stretched, playing it off as though nothing were wrong.

"Mornin'," she yawned, sitting up and scratching her head sleepily. She blinked owlishly in the morning light and looked around, finding various articles of clothing scattered across the room. Carefully she maneuvered out of bed and began pulling on clothes. "So...gonna look into that train today?"

This wasn't working. It was awkward and stilted and she hated it. Finally Jackie sighed and turned to Sam, deciding that the best way to face it was probably head on. "Look babe, about last night..." she began. "It...it ain't that I didn't mean it. It's just...well as soon as anyone says anything like that everything just falls apart and the next thing you know you're forty and miserable and hate the person you've nailed yourself down to for the last twenty years even though it started out fun. And I don't want that to happen to us." She frowned and passed a hand over her eyes, not knowing whether she was fucking this up completely or only a little bit. "I just wanna take things slow. And I said it first and that's my fault but I wanna keep having fun with you. Saying things like that...well, everything goes downhill soon after and then it's not fun anymore. Y'know?"
 
"Yeah," Sam agreed guardedly, watching Jackie get dressed. "Ah guess we should." Keeping her own expression neutral, she glanced around the room and tried to work out where her shirt had gone. Damn, but this wasn't right. A couple of sentences, and now everything seemed awkward and forced and...

Jackie was obviously feeling it too. She turned and tried to explain herself with fumbling words. Sam wanted to shout at her, but the longer she listened the more that her... friend? Lover? Whatever. The more sense Jackie made. Finally, she sighed and deflated a little. "Yeah, Ah... Ah reckon yer right." She forced a grin. "An', well, it ain't like Ah got much experience wit'... wit' what we was sayin' last night. Mah pappy raised me on his own, an' Ah don't rightly recollect ever seein' him wit' anyone else. An'... well..." It wasn't like her one previous infatuation had worked out well, was it?

Suddenly, she laughed. Laughed, and climbed out of bed to go stand before the other woman. "Jackie," she said, putting her hands on her friend's bare shoulders. "Yer mah friend. An', an' Ah like spendin' time wit' yeh." Her head jerked back towards the bed. "Not jes' there, neither. Yeh make me laugh, an' yeh make me think, an'... well... Ah don' wanna mess that up neither." Her grin turned impish. "Even if'n y'all hog th' bed an' th' blankets."

Suddenly she pulled Jackie into a deep, enthusiastic kiss, pressing her lean bare body into the curvier body of her friend. Her hands roamed Jackie's body, slipping beneath the half-buttoned shirt and down into her britches as her tongue explored Jackie's mouth. Then, with a laugh, she slapped Jackie on the butt. "Now, y'all best be helpin' me find mah shirt. Or we ain't gonna get much done."
 
Well...it looked like actually talking about it head-on was the most productive thing they could do. Sam admitted that she was right, that involving "love" complicated things and they didn't want to mess that up. Jackie breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, putting her hands on Sam's hips. So they were friends. Friends who fucked, but still...friends. She was okay with that.

"Hey you knew what--" Jackie was cut off when Sam pulled her into a kiss, which was gladly returned. Then her friend slapped her on the ass before requesting help finding her shirt. "Oh I dunno...I think watchin' you go 'round shirtless would be a hoot. Wouldn't be no one callin' you 'sir' after that, anyway."

But eventually the shirt was found. Boots were pulled on and after a quick breakfast downstairs they headed out to the train station. Except it wasn't really a train station so much as a booth with a man who sold tickets and operated the telegraph machine. It looked like he may have written the tiny town's newspaper as well, by the looks of the copies of the Night Vale Daily Journal laying out on the counter. A nametag read Cecil Palmer, and he didn't seem very interested in them, instead ticking away at his telegraph machine.

"Hey there Cecil," Jackie said with false cheerfulness. "We ah...my friend and I here, we were hoping you could tell us a bit about the train that passes through."
 
The man behind the desk looked up at them, a bored expression on his face behind his round spectacles. "Just one train, most of the time," he said. "Arrives here from Red Mesa at 12:37, then travels on to Abeline by way of Desert Bluffs and Hockley." He shrugged. "We get more traffic in the fall, of course, when the cattle drives come in."

Sam glanced at the clock, which showed 10:33. "Sounds like what we need, then. Do you sell tickets, and can they transport horses as well?"

"That I do, ma'am," Cecil replied. "And there's usually some room for horses, but it's best to cable ahead and check. You know, make sure they will have space?"

"That's fair," Sam agreed. "Kin y'all send a telegram an' check, then?"

Fifteen minutes and a couple of dollars later, Sam leaned against the ticket booth and tucked two tickets into the shoulder bags she carried slung over one shoulder. "Looks like we're killin' one more day here," she sighed, pushing her hat up to wipe sweat from her forehead and glancing up at the blazing sun overhead. It seemed to smile back, a huge toothy hungry grin that made her wish she didn't quite have the imagination she did. Instead, she jerked her thumb at the man who ran the booth. "Cecil there said they've got themselves a music hall in town. Wanna go see if'n they've got a show, or..."

"Well, well, well," a voice declared. "What 'ave we here, boys. Ah think we've found mah little snitch, an' her injun whore."

Sam glanced casually at the men who'd rounded the corner, then did a double-take. There were three of them, big men in dusty clothes with ground-in dirt from hard living and hard work. But the speaker? He was big, stocky and greasy with dark stubble and unkempt black hair under a battered wide-brimmed hat, and he grinned at her with yellowed teeth as she stared at him in shock. "You..." she hissed, eyes going wide.

"Ah could say the same," the dark-haired man said as his friends started to move to surround them. "Y'all come along peacebly, an' it won't e'en hurt. Too much. Mister Beckett wants a word wit' ya''."

Sam looked around, recognizing the predatory expressions the three were giving them - Jackie in particular, although she still remembered the big man's tastes from the previous day. "Well," she said slowly, then stepped forward and kicked him hard in the balls. "Y'all kin jes go to hell. Jackie! Let's git!"
 
Jackie walked with Sam back toward the little town, a bit surprised that they had anything in the way of formal entertainment venues. But as they rounded the corner a shadow fell over them and Jackie's eyes widened when she recognized the farmhand from yesterday. Her stomach turned when he showed his yellow-toothed grin. There were a few exits that she could see but they weren't easy to take, especially as the three surrounded them. The looks they were giving her made her want to tear them to shreds but they were outnumbered and outgunned.

Sam however, resourceful as ever, chose the simplest solution by kicking the leader in the balls. Jackie took off, pulling Sam by the shirt up to get ahead of her and made sure she was up on Silver before starting to get up into the saddle. Before she could swing her leg over she felt a hand on her ankle, pulling her down with a brief yelp. She twisted and managed to get a shot off, landing it in her captor's throat, but it didn't do any good. A scream tore from her throat when he pulled harder and her ankle, caught in the stirrup, gave way with a sickening crack. Her foot fell out of the stirrup and flopped uselessly as the thug pulled her against his body.

"Git off the horse," he growled, "er yer squaw here gets it."

Jackie felt the cold chill of gun metal against her jaw and held very still. Even if she could hurt him it wouldn't be worth it; she'd be dead before she could raise her arm to shoot or hit or stab. "Don't do it," she warned. "Go Sam, ride! Get outta here!"
 
Sam's hand twitched towards her gun, and the thug pressed the muzzle of his iwn pistol harder into Jackie's cheek. "Do it," he mocked. "Cain't hurt us wit' lead nor steel nohow."

The words made her blood freeze. "You," she hissed, "yer one o' them haints, ain't you?"

"Toss the iron, pardner," the thug repeated.

There wasn't any choice, not really. Grimly, Sam pulled the Peacemaker from its scabbard with two fingers and let it drop to the ground. The thug nodded. "Longarm, too." With no other choice Sam complied, tossing the Winchester to Silver's feet.

Silver. The thought nagged at her memory.

"Dismount," the thug ordered. "An' git over here."

She swung off Silver's back, thinking frantically as a... well, it wasn't really a plan. Just a mad idea tha might work. "Hang on," she saud, flipping open her saddlebag. "Got me a spare shooter here." It didn't take any acting to sound scared. "Jes'... jes' don' hurt Jackie none."

The thug grunted with satisfactiin as the second Peacemaker hit the ground. "Smart," he grunted, gripping Jackie tighter. "Niw git iver here. An' tell yer squaw ta relax, 'fore Ah hafta hurt her."

Sam walked slowly towards the man, closed hands held over her head. "It'll be all right, Jackie," she said, trying to sound confident. "It'll be all right."

"Long as y'all cooperate," the thug agreed. "Mr. Beckett jes' wanna talk, is all."

Sam watched his hand relax a little, pistol no longer pushing hard against Jackie's head, then crouched and sprang with a single movement. Her tackle sent Jackue sprawling to the ground, knocking the thug's gun arm up and away as she drove his back into the earth. He tried to rise and Sam smashed her fist into his face iver and over, striking him with something that glittered dully in the sunlight. "Y'all... don't... never… threaten... her!" she snarled, vouce coming in vicious grunts timed to the crunch if stine in bone and the splatter if blood.

Finally, gasping, she steeled herself. The thug lay beneath her, unmoving. "Jackie!" she cried, still clutching the bloody rock as she scrambled to help her lover up. "Are y'all allright? Kin you ride? Cause we gotta git!"
 
"What're you doing? Just go!" Jackie found herself more irritated than anything when Sam disarmed herself. She struggled but the thug's grip tightened on her arm and he pressed the gun harder against her cheek each time she tried. Her ankle throbbed and the gun pressed the inside of her cheek against her teeth painfully, and when Sam voluntarily gave up her spare and begged them not to hurt her Jackie set her jaw angrily. "Fuck you it'll be alright," she snarled.

Frantically her mind worked to form a plan, any plan. Any plan that had a chance in hell of working, anyway. All she could seem to focus on was a nearby pully which if by some long shot she could shoot with her gun which was on the ground and knock it into the thug to her left...

She squawked in surprise, then in pain as Sam tackled her captor and sent her sprawling to the ground. Jackie grabbed up a gun, not her gun but someone's, before firing wildly at the men still standing. By pure luck she managed to land each shot, though obviously she didn't manage to kill or wound any of them but merely distract them for a moment to allow her time to crawl towards Paint. They moved closer, but drawing the knife from her boot she managed to hamstring one and put a hole through the other's foot. Sam beat her captor's face in savagely with a rock until he lay still before coming to help her up.

"No shit," Jackie grunted, hopping on one foot over to the horses as fast as she could. There was no time to hop around to the other side of Paint; the thugs were starting to get up, even the one with the caved-in face. Sticking the gun precariously into the waist of her pants and shoving the knife at Sam, Jackie used her lover's shoulder to lean her weight on while she put her good foot up into the saddle and swung herself up. Sitting backwards on the horse she slapped Paint's flank. "Hya!"

After making Sam was right behind her Jackie was forced to ride backwards for some half mile before clinging ridiculously to the horse himself in order to gingerly swing her bad leg over to the correct side. "How did they find us?" she called over to Sam once she was righted, not slowing down. "We' ain't exactly close to Beckett Ranch."
 
"Ain't many towns near th' ranch," Sam pointed out. "Night Vale's the closest, if'n Red Mesa an' Desert Bluffs're far enough that they ran a rail line betwixt 'em." She peered back, searching for signs of pursuit. "Ah reckon this Mr. Beckett o' theirs simply told 'em ta check th' closest town. An' then, it weren't no stroke o' genius ta be lookin' round th' rail station. Fastest way outta here, after all. But we ain't gettin' out, now. Not till we get a look at yer leg, at least. Kin y'all move yer ankle?"

With that she fell silent, staring out into the distance as she brooded. "Silver," she finally said. Her left hand, which still clutched the bloody lump of stone she held, twitched at the word. "Mah pappy always said that silver would do fer haints an' witches an' th' like." She lifted the stone, which glinted silver where the clotted blood didn't cling to it. "He weren't quite right, but it put that fellah down longer than th' two you stabbed. Gonna need more of it, Ah reckon."

Anticipating Jackie's reply, she held up a hand. "Ah know Ah promised Ah wouldn't get involved, but... what kin we do? Ride away, an' pretend we ain't seen what we seen? Let a witch man an' his haints do whatever it is they's doin'?" She sighed. "We cain't fetch the law in on this, Jackie. The law don't hearken ta tales o' witchcraft an' black magic an' th' like, an' they ain't gonna believe no stories 'bout no haints that can't be killed. An' they'll probably blame the dead Rangers on yer folk, 'cause Beckett kin probably produce a dozen witnesses a-sayin' it was Apaches what done it." She shook her head. "We're the only one what kin do somethin', Jackie."

Shaking her head, she forced a sigh. "Course, we ain't doin' anythin' until after we get yer ankle looked at. Seen anythin' promisin' fer shelter, round about?"
 
Jackie tried to move her ankle but winced and bit back a cry of pain. "Nope," she said in a choked voice. "Reckon it's probably broke. Heard it snap."

She was more than happy to leave Sam to her brooding. The pain from moving her ankle had tightened her throat and she was busy trying to breathe through it until it settled down again. She tried to keep her ankle stiff, but the motion of the horse ensured it bounced against his side and created a painful throbbing. When Sam mentioned silver Jackie looked over to the stone in her hand. She started to mention the ashes of the killed Rangers, but Sam cut her off to make a grand speech about how the law wasn't much use for a case like this and that they'd have to take it into their own hands.

"Maybe if you'd quit blabberin' about what you think I'd say," she groused. "All I was gonna do was point out that we're still haulin' the ashes of dead men. You did want justice for them, didn't you Dahteste?" She gave her a pointed look, deliberately using the Indian name Sam had chosen as a means of reproach. "Why don't we start with bringing their ashes to the Rangers so's their widows can have a bit of closure, huh?"

Looking around, she shook her head at the blank, dry desert. The most shelter she could see was the occasional cactus. Maybe if they started catching tumbleweeds and stringing them together...
 
Sam looked offended as Jackie finished, opening her mouth to speak and then closing it and looking away. She did this twice more, looking at Jackie and starting to say something, then looking away again. Finally, though, she made a sort of low sighing sound and chuvkled a little. "Ah... reckon Ah had fergotten, Jackie. An'... yer right. Ah'm sorry."

The next few minutes passed quietly as she surveyed the landscape. "Ain't nuthin' out here, is there? We could, uhm," she glanced back at Jackie. "This'll sound a mite crazy, but here me out. We double back ta Night Vale, somethin' Ah reckon they won't be expectin,'. Probably got a doctor there ta look at yer ankle."

Absently, she shoved the lump of silver ore into the pocket of her long coaf. "Then we get some sleep, an' use these here tickets ta get ta Abeline an' get th' Rangers ta their families. How's that sound?"
 
Sam opened her mouth to retort, eliciting a recalcitrant look from Jackie, before closing her mouth and looking away. Jackie's expression didn't fade and her eyebrows only rose pointedly each time Sam appeared about to say something to her. Finally she apologized and admitted that she was right.

"'Course I'm right," Jackie said by way of accepting her apology. "I'm an Indian. Indians are always right. You don't count less you're talkin' to other white folks. Blood Indians first." She smiled archly before helping Sam search for something, anything to take shelter under. At the suggestion that they double back she pursed her lips, thinking. It was crazy, that was for certain...but they also weren't likely to be expecting it.

"Double back in a wide circle," she suggested after mulling over it for a while. "If we just turn around and head back the way we came we're likely to run into 'em all the same. Better'n sleeping out in the open and just blindly hoping my ankle don't go sour in the night." With a flick of the reigns she began to guide paint to the right to begin their long, wide circle back into the mouth of danger.
 
"Blood Indians first?" Sam questioned. "So, that means yer ma must be even righter'n you are, right? On account o' yer pa bein' a white man'n all?" She twitched Silver's reins, slowly bringing him around towards the town once more. " There's a whole hierarchy, ain't there? Yer ma, then you, then me, an' then folks what ain't been adopted."

The ride back took several hours as they circled around, pausing from time to time to scan the horizon for riders. Finally, though, they made their into town along the railroad tracks, Sam's nerves increasingly on edge as they traveled. She was hesitant when she dismounted at the station, and kept a wary eye on Jackie as she went in to talk with the telegraph clerk. "Whelp," she announced as she emerged, "they got themselves a doctor all right."

Spurs jangled musically as she pulled herself up into the saddle. "Fella by the name of Tulley. He's the local barber as well, an' th' dentist." Snapping the reins, she set Silver walking up the street. "Cecil there didn't think much of him. Said he's terrible at his job, but he's th' only one they got. So, yeah. Ah'm full o' confidence."

Tulley's office proved to be a nondescript two-story house, with a small garden in front and whitewashed walls and a red and white striped pole next to the door. Sam dismounted and tied off both horses, then caught Jackie and picked her up as she tried to climb down off her steed.

"Don't you fuss none," Sam said, cradling her in her arms as she mounted both the house's low porch. "Ah kin carry y'all, an' mah leg ain't busted." Hands occupied, she tapped one foot against the door. "'Sides," she added with a grin, "Ah kinda like y'like this."
 
"MOTHERFUCKING FUCKSHITFUCKINGCUNT!!!"

"This is a public business young lady. You watch your language."

"Fuck you!" Tulley was none too gentle with setting Jackie's ankle and she was none too shy with making this known. She had, indeed, fussed when Sam insisted on carrying her inside, pointedly ignoring being carried bridal style across the threshold of a little house. But now she squeezed her hand as the barber-doctor-dentist manipulated her foot and wrapped it in a plaster cast. She squirmed, breathing heavily through her nose and clamping down on her tongue to keep from shouting again.

"Hold still please."

Jackie clenched her jaw in a Herculean effort not to berate the pot bellied little man and blinked the tears from her eyes as they watered. At long last the cast was set and she was given a crutch. Taking it, she gave Tulley a disdainful look. "I can walk on my own, thanks," she said, sliding off of the table and attempting to take a step, but not getting very far with the clunky cast. With a sigh she slid the crutch under her arm and managed better movement.

"You'll be laid up for a while," Tulley warned, "but if you really gotta walk, at least stay off that leg for the next two or three days to let the plaster settle."
 
"Is it broken?" Sam asked, nails digging into her palms as the cictir examined Jackie's ankle.

"Dislocated," replied the portly Doctor Tulley. He twisted and tugged at Jackie's foot, remonstrating with her about her language. "It's possib,e there's been a fracture as well, or tearing of ligaments. Either way, your..." He glanced at Sam critically, then continued disapprovingky. "Your friend needs to keep her weight off of it."

Sam rolled her eyes as Jackie tried to reject the crutch, only to discover she really neededit. Then she settled up with Tulley before hustling through the little house to pull open the door and hold it. "You heard what th' doc said," Sam reminded her. "An' Ah reckon y'all gonna be a stubbirn, terrible patient, ain't ya?"

Ignoring Jackie's protests, she picked the woman up and hefted her up into her saddle. "Quit yer fussin', woman. You cain't tell me that weren't faster'n tryin' ta climb up wit' a bum leg." She glared back at the house. "Way he said 'friend', though... Ah gots more'n half a mind ta go back in there an' kick his ass, him implyin' tgere's somethin' wrong wit' ya."

With a grunt, she mounted Silver. "Back ta R.B.'s, then?"
 
"Nonsense, I'm a wonderful patient," Jackie protested as she hobbled out toward Paint. "It's the pain that's terrible. Oi! Hey! Y'all--!" She squirmed as Sam picked her up and put her into the saddle, folding her arms sullenly across her chest as Sam told her to quit fussing and groused about Tulley. "Yeah back to R.B.'s," she agreed, pulling one leg over the saddle. "Go back and kick his ass if you want, I ain't gonna stop you. Dickweed kept jerkin' 'round my ankle like a kid with a ragdoll."

At R.B.'s they were given the room they had been given last night. Sam helped Jackie up the stairs, and the entire time a group of three shadowy figures with dark sarapes and sombreros wide enough to hide their faces watched them silently. Jackie looked over her shoulder to give them a queer look before redoubling her efforts to get away from the mysterious hatted figures. They made her feel weird. Finally she sat with a grunt on the bed and looked around.

"Welp...what now?" she asked. "Doc said I should stay off my leg, but I don't think it'll take those fellas that long to figure out we doubled back on 'em. So what, we just take the train in the morning?"
 
"Takin' th' train inna mornin' is a good idea," Sam agreed, wedging a chair under the door handle. "Get us as far from them haints as possible, y'know? Least until we're ready ta face 'em." Carefully perching next to Jackie, she dumped her saddlebags on the bed and began rummaging through them. "I reckon we ain't gotta worry about them too much, not tonight. Seems like they wanna keep things quiet, an' bustin' in here an' tryin' ta drag us out at gunpoint ain't exactly quiet. Still, Ah don' wanna trust too much in common sense from them fellahs. That's why Ah got this."

This was a sawed-off, double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun. She cracked it open and extracted the shells, then tossed it on the bed. "See, way Ah reckon it, it'll knock one o' them down harder than mah pistols."

As she spoke she opened up one shell after the other tipping out the shot until she had six empty cartridges laying on the bed next. Then, digging out the nugget of silver, she began chipping at it with her knife. "Better yet, that one son o' a bitch didn't much like getting beat stupid wit' this thing, right? Ah mean, sure. He got back up. But it took him a bit. So..." Several gravel sized chunks of silver went in the first cartridge, the excess space refilled with the lead shot. Grinning, she resealed the cartridge and inserted it into the breech. "This, Ah bet, will mess one o' 'em right up. Long enough even fer you an' yer bum leg ta hobble away."

She made a second shell and inserted it, then clicked the breech closed. "It'll rip all kinda hell outa mah sweeper, though. So here's hopin' we ain't gotta use it."
 
"Jesus H!" Jackie yelped in alarm, pushing herself straighter on the bed as Sam pulled out her shotgun. "Got anything else I don't know about? Christ!" She shook her head, but narrowed her eyes a little in thought as Sam explained her plan. "Think that might work, actually. Gimme." Leaning forward she grabbed up a couple more shells and chipped off bits of silver while Sam loaded the shotgun with the ones she'd already made.

"Think there's anywhere around here we might be able to get some silver bullets for a revolver?" She motioned to her own Colt in its holster on the gunbelt hanging on the bed post. "And you got your pistols, 'course. I don't like the idea of some buckshot being our only real line of defense. Well...that and you going berserk on 'em again." She smiled wryly, sealing up the last of the cartridges and tossing them onto the bedspread before pulling Sam to her by the hips. "Thanks for that, by the way," she added. "I'd probably be dead if you hadn't."
 
"If'n we had time," Sam replied, still focused on her work, "Ah could cast 'em mahself." She sealed another cartridge, then looked up with a sheepish expression. "Well, time an' tools an' more silver an' such like. But Ah ain't never heard o' anywhere y'kin buy 'em."

Jackie pulled her close with an insistent, gentle pressure. "Thanks for that, by the way," she added. "I'd probably be dead if you hadn't."

Sam's response was a sort of shy, affectionate smile as she stared into Jackie's eyes. "T'weren't..." she murmured softly, stroking Jackie's cheek, "t'weren't nuthin', really. Ah mean, Ah couldn't let them hurt y'all, right? Ah..." She hesitated. "Yer mah best friend, y'know?"

Beest friend. That was true, far as it went. She wanted to say more, but Jackie's words from last night still echoed in her ears, and Sam knew she wasn't confident enough to try and push the matter. Not in this area, anyway. So she kissed Jackie gently, then drew back. "An' Ah ain't never gonna let nuthin' happen ta you, y'hear?"
 
There was hesitation before Sam declared her her best friend. Jackie had the suspicion that she'd been about to confess her love again, but was grateful when she didn't. She didn't want to have to deal with that on top of a broken ankle. Or sprained. Whatever the hell it was.

"I won't let anything happen to you neither," Jackie assured her, patting her hip reassuringly. "Well, we got that big chunk you've got," she suggested. "We could have 'em melt it down and cast it into bullets. Or find a pawn shop, buy some jewelry on the cheap and get that melted down instead. I just hate sitting here feeling helpless. Even more now." She gestured down to her foot, then carefully scooted over so Sam could sit.

"So apart from maybe a smith to melt down metal, whaddya think they got for fun around here for a sexually ambiguous cowboy and a Indian gimp?"
 
"Ain't nothin' ambiguous 'bout mah sexuality," Sam replied, looking at Jackie over her shoulder. "Done proved Ah'm all in favor of it, more'n once, ain't Ah?" Her attempt at a flirty little pout trembled, and then shook, and then dissolved into laughter. "Ah'm... that is, Ah ain't rightly sure Ah know what ambiguous means. That another word fer ininiikaazo Ah ain't heard yet?"

Kicking her feet up on the bed, she leaned back against the headboard and stared at the door. "Still, fun? Don't seem like Night Vale's got much inna way o' fun. There's drinkin', Ah suppose. An' there's that Desert Flower place, looked ta be a casino. If y'like that sorta thing." She shrugged. "Ah ain't never had enough money ta think throwin' it away's much fun, tell th' truth." She thought for a moment. "Looked like they mighta had a school house, or mebbe a library, once. Looked boarded up, though."

Pursing her lips in thought, she dug into the saddle bag once more. "As far as silver goes, though," she mumbled, pulling something out, "we done got us a map ta a mine, ain't we? A mine that there nugget came from. Seems ta me we could borrow it fer a bit, kit ourselves out. Then, once we're done, we kin always hand it over ta th' next o' kin. Assumin' Dan had hisself any next o' kin, that is."
 
Jackie snickered. "Sorta," she said with a shrug. "Ambiguous means there ain't really a proper meaning or explanation. Could go one way or t'other. So yeah, I guess sexually ambiguous means sommin' like ininiikaazo. How come you know my language better'n your own?"

They went over their options and Jackie wrinkled her nose as the options came down to a casino and a library. "And I'm sure you ain't got much interest in a library nohow, eh kemosabe?" she teased, nudging Sam and smirking. Sam dug out the map and Jackie looked at it thoughtfully. "I know I'd sure feel better if we had some more surefire way of protectin' ourselves. So we bring back the ashes, then head to a mine and start castin' bullets?"

She leaned her head on Sam's shoulder to look over the map. "Don't look too far from the Ranger's station anyway. All we gotta do is stay safe til then, then 'oh lookit what we found, forgot to give you this...'"
 
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