A stab of plummet, then a crash. My hat slips free of my ears, twisting on the wind.
The back wheels spin on empty air. I scramble for purchase. The belly of the stage grinds against the cliff edge, pitching backward. As the front end pitches skyward, I glimpse Blake's wing beating over the heads of the banditos, a desperate glint in his gold-flecked eyes.
My hat settles on the cliffside, all peaceable.
I tumble through air, falling with the wagon. The rifle floats up past me. Shame the last thing I'll ever see'll be that rusted Winchester. Always figured if I died looking at a gun, a fella'd be holding it, though.
My gut and the horizon do flips. Ground's coming at me in a hurry. I close my eyes and breathe: "Jordan, I love you."
A painful grip crushes on my boot.
I'm jerked upward.
"What in all hell?!" I open tear-stung eyes to see my leg dangling in the lawbat's hind paws. "Jordan, you sonovabitch!"
"You're welcome." He flaps like a poster in a cyclone. The stagecoach crashes against the cliff face.
My guts jockey for position. My ears dangle into the nothing. "Ahh!" I curl upward, grabbing at his ankles. "Don't go droppin' me!"
"I won't." The fruit bat's steel grasp tightens. He eases into a glide, sailing us around the corner of the mesa. "You're madder than the March hare, you know that?"
"That's a trifle unfair, lawbat." Chasing my breath, I cough half a desert's worth of dust. "It bein' June an' all." I glance back at the cliff, catching little glimmers down its side. My tail twitches. "So that reward's for them pretty gold bars, right?"
