Horses saddled, and a quick farewell said to the waking household. Connie's would-be paramour is, apparently, awake and sluicing off a hangover at the ranch's pump as the two leave, treating both to a glower.

The horses are lead down the more awkward part of the trail, till it levels out, a somewhat bleak area of land dotted with a few small rocky outcrops and clumps of scrub and trees. Connie pats the mare. "Ok. C'mon then. Time for a ride."

"Lead on," Juliet, a decent hand at the horse by now but no means more than a few months work with them would bestow.

Connie swings into the saddle. perhaps a little rustier than Juliet, and steadies the mare while waiting for Juliet to mount.

Juliet mounts up. Again, nothing horrifically off but certainly not a horsewoman of a life time here. She eyes the mare from her perch, "Behave this time."

A soft chuckle. "Maybe if you threatened less." Connie pats Peanut's neck. "C'mon, you." The two riders set off...

...and get about fifty yards before Juliet's saddle girth, apparently spontaneously, breaks.

If the horse had been at a walk and Juliet had kept her head? There would have been no reason for an issue. The saddle girth has broken. Nothing is holding the bit of leather to the horse. A slow stop. Easy. However? With a trot? The very next bounce guarantees that the saddle will move under the influence of Juliet's form. And move it does, off to the right. A horses back has more than enough curve to keep it moving right off. If there is a right way to deal with this? Juliet doesn't know it. She senses the movement and automatically tries to shift to compensate, reaching for the horses neck and potentially scaring it.

Connie's, fortunately, riding side by side, but not so fortunately, not really watching just yet. "We in a hurry?"

The horse isn't happy being grabbed at. It rears back and whinnies in annoyed protest. Slick as butter, Juliet slides right off the back, saddle joining her and a sharp cry spoken.

"What the...?" Connie reins in, grabbing for the other mount's reins and just missing. It kicks up its heels, snorts and hits the trail at a canter. Connie's opinion of it is expressed in best dockside Chinese and she turns the mare to check on Juliet, sliding out of the saddle. "You ok?"

Juliet sucked in breath in the moments before the horse decided to high tail it and not stamp around uncertainly. Stamping would have been bad. She rolls a shoulder back and moves to gingerly stand up, "A bruise on my ass the size of a soup bowl by evening but... I'm fine. The saddle went all loose."

Connie crouches to examine it. Frowns. "Girth broke." She fiddles with it, then frowns even deeper. "This was cut." Green eyes harden a little. "It's a clean edge bar the last little bit of the thickness." Juliet's mount's hooves disappear into the distance, but... several sets are audible from the direction she and Connie originally came.

Juliet's eyes narrow. "Check yours. Everything about her tack." She's taking a few steps to the side and seeing if anything can be seen of their observers. Its very likely a futile thing, but it must be at least tried.

Connie nods, and stands to give Peanut's tack the quick once-over. "Seems OK." From off to one side, Juliet can make out their approaching company - Connie's wannabe-boyfriend, and two more youths of a similar age, mounted and clearly looking pleased with themselves, some three to four hundred yards away.

"Incoming. Three. About 3 or 4 hundred yards away." Juliet notes the information for Connie.

Connie eases the Colt in its holster, moves so she can see. "Oh. Lovely." Drily. "Two guesses what *they* want."

"What an exceptionally unusual way to go about ones life." Juliet says flatly. "I'm surprised he's lived this long."

Green eyes dart around the terrain, noting places to hide. Scant, but not non-existent. "Care to give me the one sentence run-down on the legal niceties of putting a bullet in them?"

"Right now we've no proof they sabotaged the horse. We have to treat them innocent until they do something illegal in front of us or until we got proof they aren't." Juliet says. A pause, "I would say get on your horse and get going. Perhaps we both should. Riding over to us is one act of courage. Riding to people riding away might be another."

"Not leaving you." It's not even a protest, just a quiet statement. This is a different Connie to the one Juliet may be used to - brisk, businesslike, assessing. She ducks down behind the mare, who's unconcernedly cropping the straggly grass. The riders are about 200 yards away now, an unconcerned, almost smug trot. Green eyes glance at Juliet. "Find some cover, or stall 'em. Your choice." A whoop suggests that some part of the group's seen one of the two women or Peanut.

"Cover. Two different angles but not direct across. The last thing we need is a cross fire. Should get the horse out of the open too? Do you think there is time?" Juliet is already scouting for good locations.

Connie shakes her head, and simply slaps the mare's rear. "Rocks, behind you, twenty yards." She's already moving to a patch of scrub.

Juliet turns and heads for the rocks. The scrub gets a hard look. Its concealing, but won't stop a bullet. Still, she doesn't wave Connie off of it. The other woman already knows.

Peanut snorts, kicks up her heels, and sets off at a startled skitter that lasts all of twenty yards before she finds a patch of grass to crop again. Crisis? What crisis? Connie ducks low behind the bush, one hand doing her best to tidy stray wisps of red.

Meanwhile our intrepid young Romeo's trot closer. A hundred yards, enough for voices to carry. "Well, that there's that stupid chestnut the red was ridin'. Cain't be far away."

Juliet remains still for a moment, edging to to try and get a look but not reveal herself.

The Colt's eased from its holster. Connie can't crouch much lower, and indeed if Juliet didn't know where she was, she'd be pretty much invisible.

"Aw, durn." They rein to a halt. "Lookit this. Seems like someone's saddle girth broke."

"C'aint *figger* how that happened." Laughter.

"Shuddup and start looking." Wounded pride talking, by the sound of it, and maybe a shot or two of Dutch courage.

Juliet slips her 9mm auto from its holster. She also reaches for her comm and sees if a murmur will reach the right place, "...warning shot?" Given her previous statements about her own abilities? Its likely a request. At least at first.

The three dismount, one unshipping a shotgun from his saddle, another a 9mm, and Connie's would-be paramour a Colt. Peanut looks up, unconcernedly, starts to meander, as she crops the sparse grass, towards Juliet. Shotgun-boy scratches his head, "C'ain't just disappear." He starts to walk towards the horse.

"Course not, jackass." The Colt's spun, sloppily, and our Romeo keeps on walking a little.

Connie uses the cover of the chatter to murmur a soft 'no' in reply. "Not yet." Juliet may see a flash of red hair for a brief instant as she peeks out, back.

Juliet frowns. This is clearly not in lines with what she'd've planned. However, she holds her piece, comm earbud pressed a bit closer to the ear.

"Luke..." 9mm-kid follows after Colt. "I want the dark haired one, OK?"

"Ain't getting either if you don' quit yammerin' an' start lookin'." Luke glances round, glares at him. "Quit followin' me an' do somethin' useful."

Another brief flash of red, Connie's glance confirming that the shotgun and its owner are within about 15 feet of Juliet. "Wait on my cue..." she breathes into the comm, and there's then some rustling sounds.

Fifteen feet is fairly close and Juliet shifts back slightly. The question which casts wryness across her face may very well be 'and then do what'? A pity she's not taking the chance to voice across the comm.

Fifteen feet's now dropped to being the width of the rough, angled outcrop Juliet's crouched behind. He'd be a great target, if ... he wasn't looking that way. Luke and 9mm are off to one side, the former glowering. "Goin' t'kill that bitch when I find her."

"Hey, boys."

And she has *everyone's* attention. Hands demurely behind bare back... yup. Jack and Darling will be mourning what they missed. Three heads swivel. Three pairs of eyes *bug*.

Juliet stands up quietly enough. Likely unnoticed by men so thoroughly distracted. The 9mm points for Luke. The Colt? The shot gun fellow. Hammers fall back, "Do anything but drop your weapons in the next two seconds, and you die first, Luke..." The Deputy says smoothly, almost quietly. It is very likely that she's not fudging about the time frame she's working with either.

Shotgun falls from nerveless hands. It's not *entirely* clear whether it's at Juliet's prompting, or that his brain's stuck on a 'redhead with boobies' loop. Luke's Colt starts to lift, but blue eyes meet Juliet's dark ones, and he reads, all too well, the intent in them, and it drops to the dirt. The Nine-mil Kid is spoilt for choice where to look, but Connie makes his mind up for him, hands coming out from behind her back with a Colt braced in them. "You too, blue shirt." She smiles, altogether too cheerfully. "OK. You've had your free show. Drop your pants." The Colt never wavers.

"Everything. If you please." Juliet adds softly. "Every stitch. Otherwise we enter the reality that its entirely too hard to bring you three back to be bound by law. And dead bodies cause no trouble."

There's protest. But Connie's not smiling now, and that Colt's still not moving. The protests subside to a collection of obscene, impractical and general angry suggestions as to where Connie might want to stick the Colt, and clothes are reluctantly shed. Connie waits till they're sufficiently entangled in the process to retrieve her top and jacket, thrown over one arm, the Colt still held in the other hand. "We'll be borrowing a horse." It's not a question.

"Why stop with one?" Juliet asks, eyes remaining focused. Bad cop vs. Worse cop. Stacked cop vs...? Perhaps best left alone. "I think we'll take the horses and the clothing. As a precaution against your worser judgements, of course. I understand why you all might be wracked with guilt and feel the need to follow us to apologize, but I think that can wait until you've headed home and had time to think. You can retrieve horses and clothing both down at the Sheriff's Office in cross town."

And that, pretty much, is that. The three are neatly arranged sat on a handy flat rock, glowering and, inevitably, trying to apportion blame. Connie restores herself to a level of decency, and by the time the pair are ready to leave, it's not at all clear whether they'll come to blows before Juliet and Connie get to town.

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"We," observes Connie some half a mile later, riding Peanut and leading another, "Don't make a bad team."

"No," Juliet agrees easily, "Not bad at all. Though, I do believe that Luke may disagree." Her lips twitch upwards and she faces the trail again with the slightest air of smug satisfaction about her expression.