Jenny wants out. (End)

“Honestly…” Jenny took in a deep sigh, the pressures of the past few months audible in the weight of her heavy tone. A heavy roar sounded beyond their hiding place and Jenny flinched as the stench of Roxxie’s latest fart reached out its foggy grip to claw at their nostrils. “I just really want to go. Like, no more games, no more…this. It’s not for me and I get that you want to help your town, I really do. But I just want to try again, somewhere else.”

“Well, that’s yer decision,” Texas said. “And it’s my duty to help you with that.”

Truth be told, it wasn’t the decision that Texas had hoped Jenny would make. Leaving the graveyard now, with everything left unresolved didn’t sit well with the sheriff. Maybe Roxxie was wasting her own time and would never find her treasure, or maybe Texas didn’t need to be the match that ignited the gunpowder keg that was the bad temper of Roxxie’s crew. Either way, Texas would never know. And that felt wrong.

But what would feel even worse would be leaving Jenny to fend for herself when all she wanted was to get away from a life she didn’t want a part of anymore. She’d made bad decisions and now had come to Texas in a moment of desperation, looking for help. Did Texas have a right to turn her away? No, she sure as hell didn’t. If someone comes for help, it’s the duty of the sheriff to give it to them.

So that’s what Texas did. She helped.

“C’mon,” Texas said, carefully rising to her feet. In the distance, a bright yellow mountain amidst the earthy colours of black and grey and brown. Roxxie was beginning to corkscrew her colossal hips left, right, left, right. Really working the lackies into the dirt, perhaps to motivate the ones outside of it. There was a loud rumble, like thunder, and Texas knew she was unloading another potent parp onto the trapped goons beneath her. She reached out a hand and lifted Jenny to her feet, all the while bracing herself for the repulsive stench that was to follow.

“We gotta move quick and quiet, ya hear? Roxxie’s so caught up in her play over there, she ain’t gonna be looking out for the exit.”

Jenny nodded, and Texas noticed that the possum was chewing on her lip. Good, it was a good sign that she was nervous. That meant that this surely wasn’t some kind of con. And it meant that the possum wasn’t stupid.

Keeping themselves hunched and low, outlaw and sheriff alike made their way through the shadows, ducking down and holding their breathe when the directed glow of a lantern shone their way. The graveyard around them was silent, only the light scuffling of the searching bandits and the occasional mocking cry of Roxxie to disturb the peace of the dead. Texas took the lead, gesturing to Jenny when they should move and when they should stay. All in all, the sheriff was more than a little proud of how she was doing. She felt like a true leader, which wasn’t a joy she always had in Gold Springs.

They made their way past a fifth questing henchwoman, and Texas waved her hand at the ground to indicate they crouch behind a tall, gnarled tree. Up above, a shadowy bird squawked out and Texas cursed under her breath. Instinctively, she reached out a hand to cover Jenny’s mouth. She couldn’t take the risk that the possum might make a nervous noise of alarm, or ask a question that she shouldn’t do.

Texas closed her eyes and counted to ten. Listening closely all the while for someone to spot them, to call out to their sisters, to call out to Roxxie. But as the sheriff passed eight and moved onto nine, she was relieved to hear nothing. Nothing at all. Only the wind and the sound of the raven leaping about in the branches above them.

Texas gave the signal that they could carry on and the two women stood to full height and starting pacing towards the iron-wrought gate that signalled the end of the graveyard. All they needed to do was get to the other side and put some distance between themselves and this cursed ground. That’s all. They could do that, surely.

Wait, did Texas just think that it was quiet?

Alarmed, the weasel span her head around and, to her horror, found an empty patch of dirt where Roxxie had been just moments before (Well, empty except for the five or six goons half-buried in the mud and steaming with green fart fumes). Roxxie had left her station and Texas hadn’t even realised. She’d gotten so used to the sound of Roxxie raising a stink and howling at her mob that she hadn’t even noticed when that noise disappeared.

Which then raised the question, where the hell was that damn kangaroo? With such a bright coat and such a bad stink, she should be easy to find in this infernal place. Yet no matter where Texas turned, Roxxie was nowhere to be found.

“Hey, uh, Texas?” Jenny asked.

“Not now.”

“T-Texas?” Jenny, a little more urgently this time.

“What?” Texas asked with more irritation than she'd meant. Roxxie Roo was gone! Did Jenny not realise how much trouble that meant? What could she possibly be trying to distract Texas with now?

“Why are our shadows getting bigger?”

“What.”

Texas had a grim feeling settle in the pit of her stomach before she even needed to look down. Sure enough, each woman had a circular shadow beneath their feet that was rapidly expanding, like a puddle of water flooding outwards. Texas looked up and almost began to wish that she hadn’t the moment she saw what was falling from the sky – or rather, who.

Both sheriff and outlaw were now both fully aware of a high-pitched whistling noise which only seemed to be getting louder and louder, in direct sequence with the shadows growing larger.

“Jenny?”

“Texas?”

“Did you ever happen to see Roxxie washing her feet?”

“No…Why…?”

“No reason...”

SPLAT!

With the **** of a speeding train and the precision of a trained gymnast, Roxxie Roo landed in the exact spot that Texas and Jenny had been occupying so previously. To an outside observer, it might have seemed as though the weasel and the possum had disappeared in a splendid vanishing act that would draw out a standing ovation from any audience in a magician’s performance. But the reality was far simpler, if far crueller. They had simply been flattened into a grim paste, their bodies squished into the muck beneath Roxxie’s feet.

Which, in all, put them in the centre of a muck sandwich and unfortunately for the two victims, they had both been looking up when the top layer collapsed on them, which left them with the worst of it all pressed onto their cringing mugs. Jenny had been telling the truth when she said she’d never seen Roxxie wash her feet, and would have been just as honest if she’d said she didn’t think Roxxie had ever washed ANY part of her.

The kangaroo’s soles were absolutely diabolically filthy, a congealed layer of all the worst dirt imaginable. Mud caked the revolting underside of Roxxie’s left foot, and the whole thing reeked to high heaven so bad that those pearly gates must have been closed forever for fear of letting in such a repulsive source. It stank of sweat, grime, soil, sour milk, rancid vinegar, and who knows what else! The squashed sheriff had a sinking feeling she even recognised something of Butterscotch in all this horror. It smelled less like a foot and more like a goddamn sewage system, and Texas had her snout primed against the direct centre of it.

It was no easier for Jenny, who had received the exact same, just on Roxxie’s right foot. Both women wailed, unable to open their mouths enough to vocalise any particular words, but with enough energy left in them to squeal and groan in protest.

“Ewwwww!” Roxxie cried out with a faux disgust. Loud enough for all of her cronies to hear, drawing in their attention to witness the spectacle that she was about to put on for them. “I think I stepped in something vile!”

The outlaw raised her left foot and found plenty of resistance as a strong, sticky tan-coloured goop stretched stubbornly between the ground and Roxxie’s revolting sole. As Roxxie tugged, one could just about make out Texas’ eyes, wide and pupils narrow, and then her teeth clenched together in despair. Both Jenny and Texas had been reduced to mere puddles of their former selves, utterly pancaked beneath Roxxie’s prodigious bulk.

“Yup, I guess I did!” Finally, the layer of Texas snapped off the soil and rubber banded up to Roxxie’s sole. Folding her arms, Roxxie tilted to one side, putting all her weight onto the squealing Jenny, before rushing herself forward in one ungodly stomp that might well have shaken the entire cemetery. She pounded Texas into the mud once, twice, thrice, each time bringing out a louder, sharper laugh of delight. Each time, Texas cried out in alarm, but still couldn’t do anything to help herself.

“You always were getting under my feet, ya damn weasel!” Roxxie cackled. “And as for you…” Roxxie lifted up her other foot, balancing on Texas to get a good look at the muck that was Jenny. “I don’t think I even know yer name! But I don’t appreciate you cozying up to the local law enforcement, ya hear? But, if you two do-gooders really wanna spend so much time together, well…I think I know what to do with y’all.”

So saying, she bent down, offering her goons a perfect view of exactly what a bad end looked like, and placed her hands either side of her feet, grabbing the edges of the two-dimensional sheriff. With a heave and a long “Nnnnffffff!”, Roxxie tugged while keeping her sole planted into the ground and stretched Texas’ remains up, up, up, around her leg and up to the top of her calf muscle. She then did the same to Jenny, until both had been pulled up and made into hollow tubes that wrapped perfectly around Roxxie’s lower legs.

“What do ya think of my new socks, gals?” Roxxie called out to her gang. She pranced about, making sure her footfalls were extra heavy as she stomped here and there, finding every particularly muddy patch and sodden patch of grass that she could find. Dirt slapped against her new footwear with wet plaps, staining the underside of the “fabric” until you couldn’t see the colours of the helpless women they had once been.

The gang gave a little half-hearted applause, more out of relief that Roxxie had found something new to take out her bad attitude on, but also out of some delight to hear that Gold Springs’ biggest nuisance had been dealt with – and so easily too!

“I don’t know what possessed you to think you could come into my operation and try to steal one of my girls from out under my nose, Sheriff, and I’m gonna make sure that you spend the rest of your life wondering exactly the same thing!” Roxxie then turned to her minions. “Girls, grab yer things. I’m in too good of a mood to spend the rest of this night in this godforsaken little cesspit, digging any more ditches.”

“But…the treasure?” asked a concerned wolf.

“Fooey to the treasure, I got everything I need right here! We’ll come back another night,” Roxxie decided. She clapped her hands together and looked down at her new footwear, who couldn’t see her but could hear the evil grin spreading over her chops like nightfall at the end of day. “I think I’m well overdue a looooong stroll around Butterscotch’s stable”

The sock that was Texas screamed all the louder, but either nobody heard or nobody cared. Texas had promised to get Jenny out of Roxxie’s gang and, in a way, Texas had succeeded. The problem was that she had done so by getting the possum demoted to footwear, and in the act, had brought that same hellish fate on herself. She would have long time to reflect on her poor decision and, as Roxxie bounded to her gargantuan and foul-smelling steed’s abode, would have even longer to regret it.