Jenny wants to rally the troops

“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 want that crook to get what’s coming to her. She’s been pushing these outlaws around for way too long and I can tell that nobody’s happy. Maybe she needs a little reminder that she wouldn’t be able to do half the things that she does without us!”

“Atta girl!” Texas beamed, clapping Jenny on the shoulder. She saw in Jenny the same steely resolve that she herself felt. This wasn’t the final showdown with Roxxie that Texas had been expecting, but it was surely a good way to set the foundations. If nothing else, taking away Roxxie’s lackies was all the petty victory that Texas needed, whatever might come of it.

“So, what do we do?” asked Jenny, leaning in close.

“You’re the gal on the inside,” replied Texas. “If I step out like this, Roxxie’ll fill me with more holes than a train car without glass in its windows. You gotta recruit some of these here cronies, send them over to me. If’n you can figure out who you trust most, I’ll give ‘em a little shot of confidence and they can go out to do some of their own recruitin’.”

“You sure?”

“Darn tootin’.”

“I…I don’t know if I can.” The steel in Jenny’s eyes was starting to quiver and the grip Texas had on her shoulder tightened in response.

“You listen to me, Jenny. If you couldn’t, then you wouldn’t have come over to me in the first place! You wouldn’t have asked for my help, would you? Would you?”

“I… I guess not…”

“No, more than guess. You wouldn’t have. Now, I gotta put my trust in you to make the right choice here. We can turn this whole thing on Roxxie, but that’s on you. And I’m leavin’ it to you because I’m sure you can do it right. You don’t become sheriff of a town like Gold Springs by making bad choices alone, y’know?”

“No…No, you’re right.” Jenny nodded, and swallowed, hopefully taking her fears with her. She rose to her full height, looking down at Texas and did what she could to put what she might have thought looked like a reassuring grin on her face – in truth it looked a bit like she was constipated. “I’ll do it. You sit tight, now, sheriff. I’ll start finding what we need.”

Texas nodded and watched as Jenny slipped away into the darkness. She sat down on her keister and rested her head against the small tree she was using for cover. Up above, a raven squawked. The weasel hoped it wasn’t enough to draw curious eyes her way. To keep herself ready, she pulled her six-shooter out of her holster and waited, keeping herself primed for the first girl Jenny sent across.

“There you are!” Pauline hissed when Jenny approached. Pauline was a short, squat rat, barely reaching five foot in height and the only thing sharper than her teeth was her tongue. She fiddled with her waistcoat and marched over to meet Jenny. “I was looking all over you. Thought you’d gone and fallen in one of these here graves!”

“No, no, not quite. I was just, uh…I was just…”

“Daydreaming? Or would it be nightdreaming, given where we’re at. Well, either way you damn well better not have been. You can tell the boss is getting irate and she’s a rat’s whisker away from putting another one of us in that damn hole under her fat ass.”

“She is?” Jenny asked, a slight quiver returning to her voice. She looked up to see the great galumphing goliath that was Roxxie sat square on her ass, barking orders at the nearest mook that dared to stand in her vision. Underneath, the dirt was crawling with prone bodies, half-squashed beneath their boss’s bulk and their faces bright green with revulsion at the horrors they’d been made to breathe in.

“I…” Jenny knew that she had an in, but she struggled to find the words. “I don’t think that’s fair at all!”

Pauline said nothing, did nothing in response. That alone was a reaction. She simply watched, waiting for Jenny to justify herself. Nobody questioned the boss, unless they’d woken up that morning with a burning curiosity for what the inside of Roxxie’s asshole tasted like.

“Look, she has us out here, driving us like cattle, while she sits there and picks at us for not doing good enough when we don’t even know what good enough is supposed to look like!”

Pauline continued to say nothing but watch Jenny carefully, patiently. She wasn’t raising any immediate objections which was a good enough sign. This was it. This was Jenny’s chance to change the tide, win or lose. She had to lay her cards down on the table and hope that Pauline was playing the same game.

“If you ask me, I think she doesn’t quite realise what we bring to her operation. I don’t think she knows what she’d do without us!”

Finally, Pauline responded. She raised an eyebrow and regarded the possum with a half-cocked smirk. “Are you really suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“That…That depends. What do you think I’m suggesting?”