Makings of a Storm

Mabel’s eyes shot open. She gasped for air and sat up as if she’d just been holding her breath underwater for too long. She turned her head and let her eyes dart around the darkened room. She sat under the covers in a bed, still wearing her clothes. As her eyes adjusted, she made out the shapes of a side table to her left next to the bed; there was a small, unlit oil lamp on the table and three drawers on the front.

The wall was a few feet past the table. Looking down the foot of the bed, Mabel saw a large closed trunk against the opposing wall. Near the middle of that same wall was the door under which light from an assumed hallway shone. Next to the door was a coat rack and on the right was a dresser with a number of larger drawers and a mirror and a flower vase situated on top. She couldn’t make out the type of flower in the vase. Looking at the wall to the right of her bed, Mabel could just barely see a desk with books and writing utensils on it with accompanying chair, thick drapes most likely covering a window, and a larger potted plant in the corner.

Immediately to the right of her bed was another dresser and next to that sat what must have been, from what she could barely see, a vibrantly colored sofa. The center of the floor was decorated with a large fuzzy rug resembling some sort of animal fur, but she couldn’t make out what in the darkness. She could barely make out her hat on the coat rack and her boots on the floor next to it. As she looked at her belongings in that strange, unfamiliar room, she noticed a soft shadow pass briefly by the door followed by voices.

Mabel ducked back under the covers and rolled to her side to pretend to be asleep when the door opened and in popped a head. The light from the hall lit up the covers over her back and she could see the shadow of whoever was looking in on the wall closest to her. She heard a quiet voice—a woman’s—say something, then the man looking in answered.

“Looks like she’s still sleepin’,” the man said.

“Let ‘er sleep,” the feminine voice replied. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite remember who it belonged to. “We don’t need ‘er just yet.”

Then, the door shut slowly. She waited a few minutes after the voices disappeared before she moved again, spending that time trying to think of what happened before she awoke there. She tried to recognize the voices. The male voice had to belong to one of her captors she was sure, but she couldn’t put a face to it yet. She remembered the fight with Curtis and Sly against the other three Rangers who had been waiting for them at Tangate and she remembered the largest of the three tossing her over his shoulder like a parent would to their naughty toddler.

Mabel remembered kicking and screaming as the tower-of-a-man brought her to his equally as buff horse, but then he lifted her off of his shoulder. She remembered his polite speech, always saying “Please” before making demands, then the next thing she knew she awoke slumped over the back of the huge horse’s saddle in the middle of the night and in the open desert. She sat up a bit and was noticed by the Ranger called Slasher. He spoke at a regular volume, but still held command in his voice.

“You’re finally awake, huh?” he said. Mabel thought for a bit. She could have jumped off the horse and started running, following the tracks to make it back to Tangate, but then she came to her senses. It wasn’t like before when she had been caught by police in Coyote Run; she was in the middle of nothing—a vast ocean of sand that gave no real sense of direction. She couldn’t spring from her captivity and hide amongst crowds of people or squeeze through tight spaces between buildings to confuse her pursuers.

She had nowhere to go and would have been drastically out sped by the horses. Even if her captors had let her go, there’s no telling how far she really was from civilization. She very well may have starved or suffered from heat stroke once the sun rose.

“Don’t bother runnin’,” Slasher said as if to agree with her thoughts. “We’re takin’ you to Yellowtusk where we’ll wait fer yer friends.”

“You’ll also get to meet a celebrity,” Feather chimed in. “The famous Lady Love will be meetin’ us there. Armani Anderson herself!”

“I don’t know who that is,” Mabel said, trying to undermine the Ranger’s enthusiasm over kidnapping.

“You don’t?” Feather said with genuine confusion and a bit of frustration. “How couldn’t you?”

“She’s just a kid,” Slasher said.

“I’m fourteen,” Mabel interjected.

“Yeah, a kid,” Slasher reiterated. “Anyway, just sit still until we get there in the morning, then we’ll talk more.”

“For now, just be quiet,” Feather growled. Mabel obeyed. She saw no point in resisting by then and decided it would just be best to sleep; despite being unconscious for what had obviously been hours, she didn’t feel the slightest bit rested and her neck ached immensely from the Wall’s blow earlier that day. When she awoke again, it was in that room. Feather: that’s who was looking into her room a few minutes ago. Since he had mentioned Armani Anderson, she assumed he, and probably the other two with him, was part of the Band of Lovers. She remembered, then, the female voice; it had to be Payton Serrano.

Mabel sat up in bed again. She lifted the heavy covers from atop herself as she turned and let her feet drop to the wooden floor. She took light steps, avoiding any parts of the floor that she noticed would creek under the slightest pressure, and pressed her ear against the door. She heard nothing outside and reached for the door knob to find the door unlocked, much to her surprise. Slowly, she twisted the knob and opened the door a crack, then peaked through. As she suspected, her door led to a hallway which was decorated with paintings on the walls and a long rug running down the center of the floor.

Small chandeliers hung from the ceiling to bath the hall in bright light and potted plants were sprinkled in beside sitting benches periodically in the hall. Mabel opened the door more and cautiously stuck her head out of her room. She looked up and down the hall and saw no sign of people guarding the way, or even just wandering the building. She noticed a number of other doors similar to the one to her room, but wasn’t interested in where they led. She took a step into the hallway and walked on the carpet to muffle her footsteps.

Turning left from her room, she followed the hall to a staircase leading down; the carpet transitioned seamlessly onto the stairs as one continuous piece. As she got closer to the stairs, Mabel picked up the savory smells of breakfast foods that she was all too familiar with, but hadn’t had much since becoming homeless. Mabel tried her best to be as quiet as possible, but released a startled gasp when she heard laughter and conversation downstairs. There, at the bottom of the stairs, Mabel saw another door, one that seemed to lead outside. The small window in the upper half of it let her see that it was daytime and she could see a wooden porch on the other side.

Mabel’s eyes locked onto the door’s handle as she took her first step down the stairs. She was careful to test each step before committing to make sure they wouldn’t creak under her weight, and just like that, she was at the bottom. Mabel looked around before stepping onto the ground floor and, while she could still hear people a couple of rooms over, didn’t see anyone or think they knew she was there yet. She rested her hand on the door handle and began to slowly and quietly turn it, but as she did, she heard a distinct phrase in the conversation from the other room.

“…then surely Dawn will be put the death.” A man said it; Feather, Mabel recognized.

“Sh! We mustn’t discuss these things here,” a woman’s voice replied, but not Payton’s. “There are too many ears in this house.” Mabel couldn’t resist the urge. She released the door handle and wandered along the wall through the dining room on her right and to the entrance of the next room and listened. “But this, I will say,” the same woman said in a half-whisper like one speaking to a lover. “The Government, I’m sure, has plans for Curtis Conrad. As for Nathan Bowman, we’ll just have to see what sentence he’s given. I doubt my superiors will be so light on him again.”

Standing just around the corner to the room that housed several members of the Band of Lovers, the smell of sausage, eggs, and toast consumed Mabel’s senses. She’d eaten stiff bacon and watery eggs at the inn in Proudkeep when she’d stayed there a couple of nights before, but the aromas wafting through the air from that room told her that the food being prepared there was of much higher quality, and she realized that she was very hungry. She clutched her stomach and hoped that the occupants of the next room over hadn’t heard it growl.

Luckily, the voices continued on with plain conversation as before and didn’t react to her body’s rumbling. Mabel stood for a moment longer, then decided to make her way back to the front door. She turned and took a step onto the rug underneath the dining table, but didn’t notice the fluffy tail sticking out from underneath a chair. The gray cat to which the tail belonged howled and knocked its body against chair legs as it scurried away and out of the room. The conversation in the next room stopped.

“Barnabas?” Mabel heard Slasher call.

Mabel backed away slowly from the table and tried to quietly hurry to the front door, but stopped when she saw Feather’s muscular form step into the dining room. He looked down at Mabel with a furrowed brow. “Well, look who we have here,” he said.

***

The sun bleached the sky as it rose to its peak. It was another especially hot day like a week before when Curtis entered Sunnyville. Curtis and Sly rode in silence through the open desert. Not even the inside of the carriage provided much relief from the scorching heat due to the hood being almost completely torn open from abuse. Curtis drove the cart with his horse in the lead as Sly followed beside on Firefly.

“I don’t want t’just sit and do nothin’,” Curtis had said earlier when Sly prepared to steer the carriage with Firefly strapped to the side.

“Okay,’ Sly replied. “I think I’ll ride Firefly, then. He hasn’t been getting much exercise these past couple of days.”

Around lunch time, the pair stopped to eat and make a plan. They had only been traveling for a couple of hours and still had most of the day to go before reaching Yellowtusk where they assumed the Band of Lovers was waiting.

“So, how do we get into Yellowtusk without bein’ noticed?” Curtis asked while chewing a mouthful of rations.

“Yellowtusk is a pretty large city,” Sly said. “It’s quite wealthy, though not as wealthy as its neighbor Rich River or the Big City. However, it still has wide open residential areas with individual plots for homes unlike Coyote Run and Onyxlanding which, while also larger, are more compact. Each of the Doyens tends to stay in their own designated branch of the Ranger HQ in the Big City, each branch being a separate building in the north, south, east, west, and center sections and serve as home base for them and their groups, but some of them also have major stations elsewhere in the Valley Strip.

“One such station is in Yellowtusk and belongs to Armani Anderson and the Band of Lovers. That’s probably where they’re keeping Mabel. Yellowtusk is, more or less, just a normal city with its own specialties and attractions and shouldn’t be too tough to sneak around in assuming the Band of Lovers don’t have the residents watching out for us.”

“Well, Sly, the thing about being wanted is that just about everyone is keepin’ an eye out for ya. I’ve been lucky that no one has much recognized me so far except the occasional officer or bar tender, but in a city that hosts a base for a Doyen’s gang, the civilians must be more familiar with Outlaws.”

“You’re right, but the Rangers still wouldn’t be encouraging regular people to get involved with any Outlaws they happen to spot in town. They way I see it, the worst-case scenario is that the residents recognize us and tell the police who, most likely, then tell the Band of Lovers, but the Band of Lovers will already be expecting us so what’s the difference?”

Curtis pondered the thought quietly for a moment before Sly spoke again.

“Listen. Mabel’s going to be fine. It’s us they want, not her. They’re just using her as bait and they know it’s going to work. I know first hand how cruel the Government and its dogs can be, but she has nothing the Band of Lovers wants, so they’ll leave her be. The worst they’ll do is keep her locked up in a room somewhere without anything to do, and unless she’s allergic to boredom—which I’m not sure that child can even get bored—she’ll be okay.”

Curtis nodded. “So, what do you know about Yellowtusk that can help us out?”

“There are a few different entrances into town which gives us at least a hint of the element of surprise, plus we can always go in through a back street. The roads are usually pretty crowded à la Coyote Run, so as long as nobody’s taken notes about how we’re exactly dressed, we should be able to blend in pretty easily. And despite what I’ve said, the Band of Lovers’ station isn’t an impenetrable fortress; it’s not like we’ll be trying to break into an old war bunker or anything.

“The station is surrounded by a high fence, but definitely still scalable. The building itself has a few Rangers stationed at the entrances and exits in the evening, though there might be more or even some in the day if they’re expecting us to try to break in. I don’t know the exact layout having never been inside myself, but I do know that it’s three stories above ground and has a basement. I’m guessing they’ll hold Mabel on either the top of bottom floor, both of which will be difficult—if not impossible—to access from the outside.

“There are some assumptions I think we should make going into this, as well. The first is that most of the Band of Lovers will be present. The last I remember, there were ten active members including Lady Love; we’ve met only four.” Curtis chuckled a bit at that, knowing just how much trouble those four have given them. “I doubt all ten would be brought in for this, but let’s say maybe six or seven. We should also assume that Armani herself will be among the present members and we can’t fall victim to her Spell. That would most likely be the end of it.

“It’d be nice to know what ‘er Spell is,” Curtis stated.

Sly agreed with a nod. “Unfortunately,” the ex-Ranger said, “we’ll be pretty blind when we face her. I do, however, know at least a little about most of the members of her group. I can give you a run down on our way there.”

“I don’t suppose you have a specific plan, do you? I mean for when we get there and bullets start flyin’ through the air. How do we find Mabel and get out with our lives?”

Sly leaned back with his hands behind him in the sand. “I don’t exactly have experience infiltrating bases full of highly trained and experienced gunmen. Do you?”

Curtis shook his head.

“On the bright side,” Sly said., “we might have it a little easier if Armani wants the most bang for her buck. She’s performed extremely well in her short time as a Ranger, but she’s very humble and even self-conscious about her contributions. She’s always feeling pressure to live up to the Ranger she replaced.”

“Silver Tongue.”

“The one and only. My point is that Armani will probably want to claim our bounties for herself. That’s how it usually goes when a Doyen’s group arrests a high-profile Outlaw. The Doyen will get most of the credit, but the reward will trickle down the ladder to every member of the gang. Of course, to get the most recognition and earn the most money for her crew, she’ll encourage the Band the capture us alive, but I don’t think we should rule out the possibility of deadly force as a last resort should we prove too troublesome to arrest.”

The pair were quiet for a minute, then Sly spoke again and said, “This isn’t going to be easy, Curtis.”

Curtis chuckled. “No, not easy at all. But then again, my life hasn’t been very easy at all for the past year-and-a-half. This week alone has almost been as bad as my 18 months in the Southern Slick. At least there, I wasn’t getting into trouble every day.”

“Maybe after we get Mabel back, we can find a little spot to hide and relax for a few days. You deserve it.”

Curtis nodded again. If we get Mabel back, he thought.

***

Feather towered over Mabel, taking a few steps closer as the girl stumbled back. The Ranger backed Mabel into the corner of the dining room before stopping his advance.

“It’s rude to snoop around someone else’s home,” Feather said.

Mabel’s eyes were glued to the tall Ranger’s own and she swallowed. She felt so small in that moment and couldn’t help but be brought back to the times when her family cowered in the presence of their Ranger oppressors. She didn’t remember any specific Ranger from that time years ago, but she could feel in the presence of Feather that he would have fit nicely with Lester Langley’s forces.

“Feather,” the enticing woman’s voice called from the other room. “If it’s our guest you’re speaking to, why don’t you bring her in here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Feather said and obediently dragged Mabel into what appeared to be the kitchen of the house. Feather held Mabel’s upper arm and pushed her through the entrance, then stood behind to block the dining room.

Mabel glanced around the room. It looked like a fairly normal household kitchen, only much bigger than what she was used to. Cabinets lined the walls low and high with countertops above the lower ones. There were two sinks and two ovens and stoves. Plenty of counter space was efficiently used with a cutting station, storage for hanging pots and pans and utensils, storage baskets with fresh fruits and vegetables, and a rack dedicated entirely to fancy-looking knives.

A dish rack sat on either side of the refrigerator which was nestled cozily in with the cabinets and a hole at the end of one countertop suggested a waste bin in the cabinet underneath. A table was situated on the far side of the kitchen at which three people sat; the far side of the kitchen had a nook with windows that bled plenty of natural lighting into the kitchen, so only one lamp was turned on near the transition from the dining room. A closed door was to the right of the table. The Wall stood by one stove wearing an apron and attending to the food that Mabel had smelled from upstairs. The smells, too, reminded her too of when she lived with her family, but more so of the happier moments.

At the table was Slasher who she recognized, but the other two were unfamiliar to her. Another man was there with a heavy coat despite the weather being far from cold and Mabel noticed that his hands shined like metal, but weren’t smooth like Curtis’s horse. They resembled the rougher design of Bad Mouth’s enhancement. The other person sitting must have been the woman she heard speaking. Nothing about her particularly stood out except for the copious amount of jewelry she wore.

Bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and rings adorned her already beautiful appearance, the shiny metals glowing in the sunlight and contrasting well with the tanned skin of a Valley Strip native. Everyone except the Wall stared a Mabel. Slasher wore a neutral expression, but one that Mabel found unexpectedly friendly. The other man at the table had a slight frown and looked at Mabel with a side-eye rather than facing her. The woman smiled lovingly.

“No need to be so rough,” she said to Feather. Mabel noticed, then, that the woman had a similar accent to Sly rather than the twang of other locals of the Valley Strip. Feather released Mabel’s arm, but nudged the girl forward before walking into the kitchen himself and leaning against the counter to the right. “Please, Mabel, come sit,” the woman said.

Mabel moved forward slowly, passing behind the Wall, then heard a high-pitched chirp from atop one of the high cabinets. Mabel jumped slightly and turned to the source of the sound; she recognized the blue rock thrush that jumped about the cabinetry as Feather’s pet. Fipo, she remembered hearing Feather call it.

“Don’t worry,” the woman said. “There’s no need to be shy. You’re just in time for breakfast.” She gestured to the empty chair across from herself. “I hope you slept well last night. I know the journey here wasn’t particularly comfortable.”

Mabel stood behind the empty chair and rested her hand on top of it, but didn’t pull it out. She stayed quiet and looked on the table at the unfamiliar man’s mechanical hands. The man scowled a bit and crossed his arms on the table as if trying to hide his hands from her. Mabel looked up again at the woman.

“Where are my manners,” she said. “My name is Armani Anderson. This is August Cobb,”—she gestured to Slasher on her right—“and this is Eddie Ewing; we call him ‘Orator.’ Over there, of course, you’ve also met Milton Cummings,”—the Wall looked over his shoulder and waved gently—“and Raymond Webb.” Feather nodded with his arms crossed.

Mabel looked at Orator and said, “So, do you do public speaking? I figured given your name—.”

“He doesn’t really speak at all,” Slasher interrupted. Feather huffed from across the room. “That’s the ironic part about his name.”

Mabel nodded slightly and turned back to Armani who held her same warm smile. Armani rested her head in one hand and winked at Mabel.

“I’m sure you have many questions, Mabel,” she said. “I want you to feel free to ask us anything you’d like.”

Mabel hesitated, then took a breath and spoke. “Where are we?”

“We’re in Yellowtusk,” Armani said. “Just south of Rich River, but I’m sure you know your geography, the smart girl that you are. Specifically, this is the Cummings residence. The Wall comes from old money, you see, and he grew up here with his grandparents. When they sadly passed just a few years back, the house went to him, servant staff and all. So, now he welcomes us here anytime as a home away from home. It’s a nicer place to hang around than our official government-sanctioned outpost in the city.”

Mrow…

The sound came from under Mabel’s chair and she felt something soft brush between her legs. When she looked down, she saw a fluffy gray tail disappear beneath her chair, then the full cat wandered out from the other side and looked up at her. The cat hopped up into Mabel’s lap and rubbed its face against her stomach. Armani giggled.

“That’s Barnabas,” she said. “Slasher’s furry friend.”

“The Wall lets me keep ‘im ‘ere,” Slasher said. “I don’t think he’d do well bein’ cooped up in my room at the Ranger station.”

“I’m sorry,” Mabel whispered to the cat as she stroked its neck and back. “I accidentally stepped on ‘is tail before.”

“When you were snoopin’, you mean,” Feather chimed in.

Armani glanced Feather with a frustrated expression, then said, “Hush, Feather. How could one be snooping if they’re welcome anywhere in the house.” She looked back at Mabel and smiled again. “I’m sure another question you have is about why on Earth we’d leave your room unlocked when it would appear that you’re supposed to be our prisoner. After all, I did have these three kidnap you.” Armani gestured to Feather, Slasher, and the Wall. “And, yes, I will use that term because it was what we did, but I assure you, it was for your own good.”

“I knew you wouldn’t come willingly because of the trust those criminals have convinced you to put in them, but I want to make it clear, Mabel, that you are not our captive. You are simply bait for the Outlaws that adopted you and were turning you against the law. You’re free to wander the house as you please and even go outside if you so choose. When your former allies do come, though, I will need to ask you to remain indoors. For your safety, of course.”

“Former allies?” Mabel repeated quietly. “But, they’re still my friends. I hope you don’t expect me to sit by completely idly and let you take ‘em to jail.”

“I understand how you feel. I know the three of you have been through a lot together in the short time you’ve known each other, but I assure you that those men are not to be trusted. They are Outlaws after all. They’ve both done unspeakable things to accrue the bounties on their heads. Trust me on this: you will be better off away from those two.”

Mabel threw her hands down and frightened Barnabas who promptly leapt from her lap and scurried back into the dining room. “Trust you?” Mabel said. Slasher watched Barnabas worryingly and Orator scowled at the girl again, but Armani spread her hands on the table in a gesture to calm their nerves. “I can’t trust you. You said yerself, you kidnapped me. For my whole life, Rangers’ve done nothin’ but bad to me an’ the people around me.”

“I’m well aware of how your family suffered years ago at the hands of Rangers led by Lester Langley,” Armani said, her smile barely holding on.

Mabel froze and looked at Armani. The name alone sent shivers down her spine and caused a cold sweat to break out on her forehead.

“The Greenes were a good family,” Armani said. “It is unfortunate that they were the victims of such a terrible man.”

“How do you…” Mabel whimpered. “I’ve never told…”

“I know much about you, Mabel. You may think that a girl like you would go completely unnoticed by government officials, but this you can trust me on: nobody goes unnoticed in the Valley Strip. Not even the urchins of society or the masses displaced and mistreated while Lester Langley was in power. I know what he was capable of. I grew up in the Ridge, where he first began his political campaigning.”

Armani looked deep into Mabel’s eyes, her smile completely faded then, but it wasn’t an attack on Mabel. It felt to Mabel more like an embrace; somehow, she sensed that Armani felt what she felt at the mention of that name even though Armani was over two decades older. After a tense minute, Armani’s gaze seemed to retract from Mabel’s soul and the smile returned to her face.

“You have a strong desire in your, Mabel. I can feel it; it’s a desire for justice and I can’t but to feel that, under the right guidance, you, one day, would make a fine Ranger.”

“What…?” Mabel said almost silently.

“Much has changed over the last several years. Rangers truly are symbols and keepers of justice now, despite what their power was used or in the past. It was terrible what your family and others like them endured under the clutches of oppression. You were used and abused by the very power sworn to protect you, but that was years ago. Rangers operate under a new status quo. Plus, the Academy could finally provide you with the education that you’ve always wanted to have since being kept from school by Lest—.”

“Stop,” Mabel interrupted. “Don’t say his name again.” She stood from her chair and turned to exit the kitchen through the way she came.

Feather moved away from the wall he had been leaning against, saying, “Where d’ya think you’re goin’,” but before he stopped Mabel, Armani called his name and gave him a look of disapproval. Mabel moved past the Ranger without resistance from anyone in the room. Armani stood and wandered to the dining room, too, to see Mabel opening the front door.

“Don’t stray too far,” Armani said before Mabel walked outside, shutting the door behind her. Slasher stood behind Armani, also looking at the front door.

“You sure it’s best to let ‘er wander so much?”

“I meant it when I said she’s smart,” Armani answered. “She’ll know what’s best for herself.”

Outside, Mabel took in her surroundings. Green grass filled the plot of land that the Cummings residence sat on. The yard was big with the neighbors’ houses sitting about 20 yards to the left and right and a long gravel path leading from the front of the estate to the main road. A white fence surrounded the yard. The area looked peaceful like any high-end suburban neighborhood. For a moment, Mabel thought about sprinting down the gravel path and bursting through the white gate to run from the Rangers, but the hot air was sobering and she quickly came to her senses.

What good would running do her? When she was inevitably caught, it would only encourage Armani and the Band of Lovers to lock her up in her room and she’d lose any bit of freedom they were granting her in an attempt to win her over. She decided it best to behave herself for the time being and use her privileges to plan an escape when Curtis and Sly come for her. She looked down the wooden porch’s stairs to a carriage parked on the gravel path. She took a step down the soft wooden stairs; the finish on the wood guaranteed her safety against splinters.

The gravel was initially sharp on the bottoms of her bare feet, but the slight pain quickly faded. She examined the carriage; it was white and had a proper cabin as opposed to the simple hood on the cart she was used to riding in. Two horses drew the carriage, but at the moment were standing obediently and awaiting their owners to return. One more horse was tied to the bottom of one of the staircase’s banisters. She recognized its bulky form as the one belonging to the Wall.

Mabel walked around the side of the house—the soft grass feeling much nicer on her feet than the rough gravel—and found an open barn on the backside of the house serving as a stable. Three more horses were fenced in inside the building and she spotted an attendant inside, as well. At first, she stayed hidden, but then decided that it didn’t matter whether these people saw her or not. She was told that she was welcome to explore the house and she assumed that to mean the outside, too.

As she watched the attendant tend to the horses inside the barn, she noticed another servant walk out of a small tool shed in the back corner of the yard holding a pitchfork. The servant glanced at Mabel, but didn’t greet her in way manner before walking into the barn to help the other attendant. Mabel finished her revolution of the house and took note of just how large the house really was. It was only two stories high, but each floor was very long and wide. Not to mention that the porch stretched along the entire front of the ground floor and even wrapped part way around one side.

Mabel decided that she could escape through a window on the second floor and use the roof over the porch to safely descend to the ground, but she also wasn’t sure whether any Ranger would be left to guard her when the time came. The window from her room didn’t lead over the porch, so she would have to access one of the other rooms first, none of which she’d explored yet.

It was a peculiar place to keep a hostage; unsuspecting, sure, but a regular house surrounded by neighbors seemed far too risky of a place to lure gun-wielding Outlaws. Perhaps Armani knew that Curtis and Sly wouldn’t want to wreak too much havoc on a quiet suburban neighborhood, so they’d be easier to capture. Whatever the case, Mabel needed to explore inside and familiarize herself with her prison while she had the chance.

***

The sun was half way below the horizon by the time Curtis and Sly saw the silhouette of Yellowtusk in the distance. Curtis stopped the carriage and Sly guided Firefly close to the bench to speak with Curtis.

“I think the cart will draw too much attention to us with the state it’s in,” Sly said. Curtis agreed and hopped down from the bench to untie his metallic steed. Meanwhile, Sly gathered supplies from the carriage. Once the two were ready to head into town, they saddled up and trotted leisurely the rest of the way.

“Let’s hope the cart’s still there when we get back,” Sly joked. “Don’t you think a horse wrapped entirely in cloth will also draw wandering eyes?”

“Not as much as a horse made of smooth steel,” Curtis replied.

“Fair enough,” Sly said with a side nod.

Once near the edges of the city, Curtis and Sly dismounted their horses and took hold of their reins to walk alongside them and reduce the distance from which they could be seen through the crowds of street goers. The streets were bustling with civilians enjoying a cool evening after a hot day. As the middle night of the weekend, the hard workers of Yellowtusk took advantage of having no work in the morning, and therefore stayed out late and partook in weekend festivities. Unbeknownst to the masses, however, thunder cracked in the distance as a storm brewed by their homes.

To be continued…

Map on imgur: /a/nRU8l3M