A jailbreak’s only half about the guns and the thunderstorm… it’s about who you trust when the law’s against you and the past won’t let go. In The Good, the Bad, and the Barely Legal, Sadie gambles on Clem’s wildest plan yet, Tilly reclaims more than her pistol, and the storm outside matches the storm inside. This chapter asks: when everything’s illegal, what does loyalty look like?
Content Advisory: Jailbreak and threats of execution, Flirtation and consensual sexual distraction as a tactic, Corruption and abuse of power, Queer intimacy and affection in tense circumstances, Moral ambiguity, lawbreaking, and survival choices
Previously in Part 5 - Sabotage at Thornbottom Ravine
While escorting Tilly to Fort Crookedjaw, Sadie, Clem, and Tilly uncover sabotage on the railway line near Thornbottom Ravine—proof that “someone” is willing to wreck trains and ruin lives to muscle out the Sweetwater Express.
With Tilly back in custody, Sadie and Clem deliver her to Fort Crookedjaw… but not before she tells her tale of how she came to pistol-whip Judge Bart Greaves and reveals she used to be a reporter—Samuel Caine—before Blackspur tried to bury both her and the truth.
The trio part ways on uneasy terms, but when Sadie and Clem spot a new bounty poster for Jeremiah “Fox-Eyed” Finch, they realize something bigger is brewing.
Back in Fort Crookedjaw, Tilly faces the gallows. And Sadie must decide: stick to the law—or break it to save the woman who just might bring Blackspur down.
The Good, the Bad, and the Barely Legal
By Glory Fink
After exchanging Tilly for my bounty with Sheriff Ruben Murdock, I surveyed Fort Crookedjaw. A few clapboard buildings leaned westward like they’d given up the ghost. The train depot sat empty, a tin whistle of wind blowing through a stack of rusted rails. Someone had scrawled “God Bless the Union” in chalk on the side of the saloon and half-erased it with a bootprint.
I tied up my horse outside the post office and stretched, my back sore from the journey. Clem dropped down beside me, jaw working something over… either a piece of jerky or a lingering opinion.
We didn’t speak until we spotted the board nailed to the porch.
The bounty posters were faded from dust and sun, curling at the corners like they were trying to slip away. One had fresh ink.
WANTED – ALIVE
Jeremiah “Fox-Eyed” Finch
Reward: $350
For fraud, arson, attempted murder, and desertion of contract.
My mouth went dry.
The sketch wasn’t perfect… too sharp in the jaw, too tame in the eyes but it was him. Same lean build. Same signature crooked smile. Like he knew the artist and found the whole thing funny.
Clem leaned in, squinting. “Friend of yours?”
“Something like that,” I muttered.
He gave me a sidelong look. “Something like once rode with him, or something like once kissed him in a church basement and then shot his hat off when he tried to steal your horse?”
I didn’t answer.
“Damn,” he said. “Definitely both.”
I pulled the poster down and folded it into my coat pocket. My hands were shaking.
“You alright?” Clem asked, his voice softer now.
“No,” I said. “But I know what we have to do.”
He nodded slowly. “Get Tilly out?”
“Get Tilly out,” I echoed. “And then we find Finch. Before the wrong people do.”
We’d found a room above the dry goods store, paid for in cash and under names that didn’t belong to either of us. The windows rattled with every gust, and the bed was missing one leg, propped up on an old whisky crate. It suited our purposes.
Clem laid out the map on the floor, smoothing it with one callused palm. He’d stripped down to his shirtsleeves, suspenders hanging loose, eyes scanning routes in and out of Fort Crookedjaw like he was memorizing a lover’s body.
I sat on the bed, boots off, hat in my lap, staring at the key line: Jailhouse. Center of town.
“Alright,” I said. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We ride in just before dusk, blend in with the wagons, stash the horses on the south ridge. I’ll distract the clerk at the livery while you lift a second copy of the jail key from Murdock’s office—he keeps one in that top drawer by the bottle. We wait for the change in shifts. Around midnight, I’ll draw the guards off with a staged fire out back—smoke, not flames—and once they’re out the door, you get in, get Tilly, meet me back at the stables and we ride—”
“Tex.”
I stopped mid-sentence.
Clem was leaning back on one arm now, looking at me with that half-lazy, half-serious look that always meant trouble. “Or,” he said slowly, “we could try something wild.”
“Wild?” I asked, suspicious.
He grinned. “Simple.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Go on.”
“You ever meet Silas Goodwin? Jail guard. Tall, dumb as fencepost, sweet on me for years.”
“No.”
“Lucky you. Point is, I know his type. All I gotta do is show up around supper, lean in close, act like I missed him. Maybe kiss him a little. Maybe a lot. Next thing you know, he’s handing me the key and asking if I wanna see the storeroom.”
I stared at him.
Clem shrugged. “While he’s distracted… and maybe tied to a bedpost I leave the front door unlocked, you waltz in quiet-like, grab Tilly and her gear, and we’re off into the night. No fire, no stunt, no need to draw guns unless it all goes sideways.”
“You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
“That’s your whole plan?”
“It’s a good plan.”
“You’re gonna seduce the guard.”
“I’m gonna make out with the guard. Different department. Less paperwork.”
I rubbed my temples. “This is either brilliant or the dumbest idea I’ve ever agreed to.”
“Why not both?”
There was a long pause. I folded the map, stood up, and crossed to him.
“If this goes bad,” I said, “I’m not leaving you behind.”
He looked up at me, and the grin softened. “I know.”
Another beat passed. We both knew what we were really talking about wasn’t just the jailbreak.
—----------------
The Fort Crookedjaw jail was built like a shoe box and smelled like an outhouse. Whitewashed wood, crooked warped floorboards, and a barred window so small even a cat would hesitate.
From my post in the alley, I could see the lamplight flicker behind the shuttered windows. Laughter. Muffled conversation. Then the soft, unmistakable creak of floorboards under shifting weight.
The front door creaked.
“Evenin’,” came a voice as thick as molasses.
Tilly leaned forward in her cell.
Clem stepped inside wearing his best smirk and a button-down shirt half-unbuttoned, like he'd been caught mid-romance. His curls were finger-combed into just-slept-in disarray, and he carried a paper-wrapped parcel in one hand, a bottle in the other.
“Well I'll be,” said Silas Goodwin, the jailer, blinking like a man trying to remember his dreams. “Clem Johnson?"
“In the flesh.” Clem tilted his head and smiled like he’d missed him something awful. “Didn’t expect to find you still behind a desk, Silas. Thought maybe you’d run off to join the cavalry. Or the clergy.”
Silas chuckled, red creeping up his neck. “Still here. Still keepin’ the peace.”
“You always were good with handcuffs,” Clem said, low and sly.
Tilly blinked slowly. Oh for God’s sake, she thought.
“I brought somethin’,” Clem continued, lifting the parcel. “Bottle of blue corn whiskey, just like you liked. Figured I owed you a little… social call.”
Silas cleared his throat and stood up so fast his chair fell over. “Y-Yeah, sure, reckon we could, uh… sit a spell.”
“Somewhere private?” Clem asked, eyes darting briefly to the keys hanging on a nail beside the stove.
Silas hesitated. “I guess... maybe the storeroom.”
Clem sidled up close, brushing his fingers along the edge of Silas’ sleeve. “You guess? Or you want to?”
Tilly turned her head and muttered, “If he doesn’t kiss him soon, I swear I’m gonna scream.”
—--------------
I didn’t ask what exactly Clem had to promise to get that key, and he didn’t offer it when he emerged shirt half-untucked, curls slightly mussed, keyring swinging from one finger like it weighed nothing at all.
He handed it to me with a wink. “Told you I’m useful.”
I slipped through the back door, quiet as a rat snake while Clem went back to the storeroom, and I padded down the corridor to the holding cells. Only one was occupied.
Tilly was pacing her cell. The front door creaked again and this time, I was the one stepping through like chaos in boots.
I moved quick and quiet, head on a swivel. When I saw Tilly, I lifted my finger to my lips, crossed the room, and found the ring of keys hanging by the stove. A different one. Clem must’ve snagged the first set and left this one as backup.
I turned the lock with practiced fingers.
“Took you long enough,” she said.
“Clem had to seduce half the county before he had a chance to open the door for me.”
“That tracks.”
The lock clicked as I unlocked Tilly’s cell. Tilly walked past me and opened the adjacent cabinet with the same key.
“What are you—?”
She pulled out her silver-handled pistol with a reverent sort of care, spun the cylinder once, and holstered it beneath her coat.
“Didn’t come all this way to leave her behind,” she said.
Then she grabbed a folded envelope from a lower drawer and slid it into her waistband.
I raised an eyebrow.
Tilly smirked. “Evidence I stole from a Blackspur executive’s desk before all this went sideways. Land maps, bribes, a witness list. Thought maybe if I lived long enough, I’d do something with it.”
“You’re not just living,” I said. “You’re coming with us.”
She paused. “That mean you forgive me?”
I didn’t answer. I just reached for her hand.
Footsteps thudded overhead. A muffled sound — a moan? A thump?
I arched an eyebrow. “Clem’s putting on a show.”
Tilly holstered her gun. “Hope he’s charging admission.”
I cracked a grin. “Let’s move.”
We slipped out the door, boots silent against the hard-packed dirt. Outside, three horses waited, saddled and ready. I swung up first, scanning the street. No sign of pursuit. Clem joined us once Silas was napping from all the… exertion from “counting inventory” with Clem.
The first crack of thunder rolled overhead just as we crossed the wooden bridge out of Fort Crookedjaw, hooves clattering like judgment day.
The rain followed fast… thick, cold sheets that turned the road to soup and the hills to mist. The darkness swallowed us and made the town vanish behind a curtain of water and wind.
Clem took the lead, his hat pulled low and his coat already soaked through. I rode close behind, jaw clenched, one hand on the reins and the other on the revolver under my duster. Tilly brought up the rear.
“Still think we should’ve taken the main road,” Tilly shouted over the storm.
“Too visible,” I shouted back.
“I meant visible to us! You know, so we don’t die!”
“Relax!” Clem called over his shoulder. “We’re headed to a cozy little cave I know. Dry as a preacher’s humor and twice as holy.”
“You ever been to church?” Tilly asked.
“I’ve dated several nuns,” Clem replied, grinning into the downpour.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t encourage him.”
“Too late.”
Lightning split the sky in ragged white. The horses balked, then pressed on, hooves slipping in the mud, tails lashing. The trail was nothing more than memory now — a bend through the mesquite, a rise past the broken fence, then a turn at the lightning-split sycamore. Clem seemed to know the way by instinct.
By the time we reached the mouth of the cave, dawn was beginning to tug at the eastern horizon, pale and gold through the storm.
We stumbled in like ghosts, dripping and shivering.
The cave wasn’t much… a fairly large hollow in the sandstone, wide enough for a few people and our horses if we all behaved. A ring of blackened stones showed where Clem had built fires before. A tin kettle sat rusting in the corner.
“Welcome to Casa de Johnson,” Clem said, brushing rain from his sleeves. “Spent three days here once with a runaway circus horse and a nun who’d taken a vow of silence. Best poker game I ever lost.”
I lit a fire while Tilly peeled off her wet coat. Clem produced a packet of coffee grounds from a saddlebag and poured water into the dented kettle.
We sat close, warming hands and feet by the flickering flame, the worst of the storm now fading to mist.
Tilly leaned her head back against the stone wall and exhaled.
“Well,” she said, “that was reckless, immoral, and entirely illegal.”
I was drying my pistol with a rag, and didn’t look up. “You’re welcome.”
Clem passed around tin cups. “Coffee, anyone?”
Coming soon in Part 7 - A Love That Endures
Disguise. Danger. Desire. Sadie rides into Badaass as “Miss Sadie,” carrying secrets, stolen papers, and a pistol tucked beneath her skirts. One wrong move could blow her cover… and put everyone she loves in the crosshairs.
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