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Abigail and Josephine were tracking some blasted “great alligator”, and Midge Jackson said no sir, no part in this for me. She was sensibly away on the railway tracks, her an’ Scarlet Thunder up on stilts above the swamp. She watched her posse mates wade into that dirty water, and shook her head. For the life of her she couldn’t completely understand their naturalist ways.
They’d been traveling together for a while now, doing this and that for bounties, saving up coin until finally Midge had been able to sweettalk a collecting bag away from Madam Nazar. The three of them had been having great fun, roaming the lands and looking for trinkets. Sometimes they helped strangers get to Theives’ Landing, at other points they came upon enemy moonshiners and had to get to quick-shooting. The Rouge Rogues worked wonders together then, Jo firing off headshot after headshot, Abby screaming and throwing hatchets into the chests of men who thought them weak, Midge herself riding through the brawl atop her shiny red horse, Scarlet Thunder proving her name true and striking enemies with her hooves as Midge shot them and their horses. Oh, those Rogues knew how to fight up a storm when it came to the likes of bandits and law men!
But when a pack of wolves descended from the mountain to land nearly on top of all three, only Midge drew her repeater and only Midge shot them dead. The other two had “sleeping darts” and would rather collect a “sample” and risk death at the teeth of a wild beast than look her future in the eye, proclaim she was not yet done with life, and shoot the animal dead. Midge would rather shoot an animal than die from one, whether that animal were wolf, deer, or alligator, of which Abby was particularly fond over. (They did call her Alligator Abby for some reason, after all.)
Scarlet Thunder whickered and shifted nervously, shaking Midge from her reverie. Abby and Jo had gotten to the island; it looked like they were “sampling” from the gator all right. So what had worried her horse?
And then a snapping sound, right behind her, and to her horror Midge Jackson saw five full-grown alligators running like the Devil right at her. They’d been attracted to her horse, she realized instantly. She’d been standing on that railway bridge like a right fool, and now five gators had her cornered, and her Arabian was not liking it one whicket. With a scream (this horse was always screaming, Midge despaired) Scarlet Thunder kicked and ran, further along the railway tracks, further into the swamp. No, this would not do. Thinking quickly, Midge dug her knee behind Scarlet’s left shoulder, turning her quick round just like she used to do in the circus. They thundered towards the gators, and then Midge brought her up and they were jumping, leaping over the gators, thundering into the trainyard of Saint Denis.
Midge was out of breath, the wind whipping her face and she realized she was laughing, exultant, light-headed. What a rush! She hadn’t had that much fun since Abby threw a knife at a lawman and accidentally got them run out of town, not once, not twice, but three times right back to back. And now she had a similar, hilarious encounter with almost certain death. She couldn’t wait to tell the girls.
She turned back round, thinking the gators surely would have slipped back into the swamp, not daring to go close to humans. Why would an alligator come all the way into the city, just for a chance to bite at her horse? It was such a ridiculous sentiment that she didn’t even think to entertain the thought of it.
And so she was woefully unprepared when she turned round and saw that all five gators had followed her into the city, and were indeed at that moment snapping at pedestrians.
She gasped, started laughing again, and at that moment she saw Abby and Jo appear down the way, stepping out of the swamp, done with their task. She raced towards them, yelling, “Y’all! Oh my giddy aunt, you won’t believe! I’ve brought gators to Saint Denis!”
Abigail let out a whoop of joy and took off running before she’d even finished, but Jo was a few seconds behind. “Wait… What? Gators? There are alligators in Saint Denis?”
By this point Midge was laughing so hard she almost fell off her horse. Jo jumped on the back and together they went back to the train yard and saw Abby, lasso in hand, running around behind this fabulously enormous alligator. She was laughing too, Midge could see, and she waved at them as they came closer, calling, “Jo! Take a photo of me! Jo! Take a picture, would ya?”
Her hat had been completely knocked off her head, a fate that fell upon Midge as well, as she was still laughing too hard to take proper stock of her surroundings, and ended up dismounting on top of a gator like a fool. Luckily Jo had her head on straight, and proved herself a posse leader by being quick with the sleeping darts. She hadn’t a hat in the first place, Midge thought, so now at least the posse all looked alike.
Those gals had great fun that day, chasing the gators away from pedestrians, sneaking up behind the big ones for surprise photography. They got one good photo, where Abby and Midge were crouching next to a big sleeping sumbitch, guns drawn like the big game hunters they were - and Midge got the sun in her eyes and when the photo developed proper, all could see that Midge was looking in the complete incorrect direction. She was privately quite embarrassed by this, but looking at her friends laughing in the memory, she decided instead not to be. Aside from that it was a lovely photo, and even more it was a photo of a lovely memory. She kept it by her cot ever since then.