Catpokes

Robbery of the Wagon

Ali was tossed around the inside of the empty wagon as it journeyed forward. The journey had been a long sequence of bumps and crashes with occasional periods of smooth running. Ali grumbled. It was not one of those occasional periods.

As he bounced around on his wooden bench, he would always stop himself from launching through the sheet-thin cloth that covered the wagon. It was difficult when he kept having to keep one hand to stop his cowboy hat from flying off. Every town the wagon had passed, the light of the torches bled through the covering, but it was at that moment pitch black. And then it halted.

Ali scanned around. Through the sheet he could barely make out the sillhouette of bushland, with the rough dirt road they were travelling being hugged on either side by stringy, crooked trees and spiky bushes. Clouds blanketed the sky, but the merest slivers of moonlight fought to escape.

It was quiet, save for a touch of breeze and the rustling of the bush. Ali crept to the front of the wagon, the view blocked entirely by a carriage. He knocked twice in a careful rhythm, but there was no response.

He tentatively, shaking slightly, reached to his holster and slid out his gun.

BLAM, BLAM. The wagon lit up in flashes of orange light as Ali fell down behind the wooden bench, gun wavering beside him. The horses at the carriage whinnied and jostled the wagon around. He heard more determined rustling come out from the right side bushland, a dim light following.

Ali sighed, letting the breath as best it can flow through his adrenaline-surged body, and carefully pulled out a knife from inside his boot. He brushed the blade against the thin cotton, creating a thin slit. He poked a green eye out of the hole, focusing on the dim source of light.

It was being held by a still-sillhouetted man, approaching the driver’s side of the wagon. He extended an arm to the driver’s seat, investigating something.

“Maybe next time tell me what I need to know,” He muttered, a thump coming from the driver’s seat when he was done.

Ali raised a shaking gun to the slit, replacing his eye and pointing it directly where he had been looking. The barrel stuck an inch out of the slit. Ali pulled the trigger.

A BANG ripped through the air and a flash of orange, this time far brighter than before, flashed into the wagon. A yelp sounded from the other end of the barrel and a thud to the ground. The return fire began.

In a flash, Ali splayed himself flat on the floor. Bullets flashed and ripped the cloth covering like paper. Ali shook with sheer terror.

“God DARN it boys, stop firing for one damn second and get me out of here.”

“But, boss,” A voice from the bush shouted, “The fella—”

“Stop wasting your bullets, I need patching up. He’s probably swiss cheese by now anyway.”

The firefight ceased and boots stomped up to the side of the wagon. A set of footsteps brushed past the back entrance of the wagon, before stopping. Ali kept an iron grip on his revolver and kept his head down. The figure then ducked around to where “Boss” was, meeting another figure, and they dragged him back in a hail of grumbling and cursing. And none more so than Boss himself.

The noise disappeared in the distance, but Ali stayed put. His muscles seized up, and he dared not even look out the back of the wagon. He simply stayed, face down, for all intents and purposes a corpse.

Time passed.

Ali didn’t know how long it had been; it felt like an eternity. But blue light filled the wagon, giving Ali a clear view of the wooden floor up against his face. The wind had died down, and there was not even the sound of rustling leaves to permeate the soundscape. The hoot of an owl jolted Ali’s head up. He, clutching the gun tightly in hand, scanned the back exit.

There was nothing. He stood up, beams of moonlight projecting onto him like bullet trails. The entire cloth covering for the wagon had been ripped to shreds, with fist-sized holes dotting the entire sheet. He stumbled outside, bathed in moonlight, and his tail flicked side to side as he cleared the wagon.

He stood, green eyes, whiskers, pointy ears sticking out of the holes cut into his cowboy hat, and a black coat of fur with a splotch of white running down his front into his button-up shirt. He walked, pointy boots stomping into the ground, up to the driver’s carriage. The driver, also a cat, seemed to be about the same consistency as the wagon itself.

“Ah, Crick. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?” he said.

He stared for a moment longer before the whinny of the horses to his right snapped him out of his mind. They were still knocking about and seemed not at all to be harmed, though certainly both were mightily thrashing around in their reins.

“Easy, uh, horse,” he said, holding a hand out reassuringly. The horse recoiled at this gesture and continued to thrash around with its partner. Ali sighed and fiddled with the yoke attatching them to the wagon. He pulled a lever and, with a click, the horses simultaneously bolted off. Both went in two different directions, disappearing into the bush.

The moon above was once again shaded by the deep cloud cover. Ali looked ahead and saw a faint orange glimmer in the distance. Looking behind him was more dark trail and on either side dense bush. He shook his head and pressed forward, holstering his weapon and not giving the dead driver a second look.

Meeting Presto

Ali continued

• The town of Hogwash, Pop. 10
• Presto is a big cat who still seems to disappear into his pants

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“Did the fella have all white fur and blue eyes?” “I don’t know. I couldn’t see that well.”

• (Returning to the wagon) (One of the sherriffs, Tinky or Winky) “See, the horses are missing. I think this was a horse theft gone wrong”