A Broken Outlaw

by Caylen McQueen

  “I think I'm okay,” Gwen croaked. “How about you, Josiah?”

  “Never better,” he lied. In truth, it felt like someone delivered a direct punch to his coccyx.

  “Well, on the bright side, we landed pretty close to town,” Carol said, pointing at the large Welcome to Gravestone sign ahead of them. “Not to mention, we're still alive, and that's always a plus.”

  “Always the optimist,” Josiah observed as he lit a cigarette. After Carol's crash landing, he desperately needed to calm his nerves. “So... what do we do now?”

  Gwen, who had been thinking about her next move while they were in flight, was the first to speak. “I need to talk to my father. I need to show him I'm alright, tell him you didn't kidnap me, and see if I can get him to change his mind about hanging Patrick Amberley.”

  “Sounds good to me. And what do Carol and I do in the meantime?”

  “Across from the sheriff's office, there's a saloon. Wait there,” Gwen suggested. “As soon as I figure out what's happening, I'll come find you guys.”

  Carol agreed to follow Gwen's plan, and since Josiah didn't seem to have an opinion, they headed in the direction of Gravestone's favorite saloon. When they entered, Josiah immediately spotted two saloon girls who seemed intrigued by his mechanical arm. Carol must have noticed them too, because she made a ridiculous claim. “They're just staring at your arm because they're jealous.”

  “I highly doubt that.” Before he caught anyone else gawking at him, Josiah claimed a table in a distant corner of the room. In his own private nook, he could hide from the scrutiny of others. “If anything, they're wondering what the hell happened to Josiah Cole's arm. I'm still famous around these parts, you know.”

  “I know. I have, like, four Josiah Cole wanted posters to prove it!” Carol exclaimed. “I'm proud of my little collection.”

  “When word spreads that I've lost an arm, everyone's going to have such a laugh.”

  “If anyone laughs about that... fuck' em.” Carol's response made Josiah's eyes widen. “Besides, they won't be laughing after you blow them to bits with your amazing new gun arm!”

  “You really think I should blow someone to bits for laughing?” Josiah ordered a whiskey from one of the saloon girls, and with a chuckle, he added, “Carol... you really are one of the craziest people I've ever met.”

  “Yeah,” Carol agreed with an overenthusiastic nod. “I probably am.”

  While they waited for Gwen to return, Josiah sucked down shot after shot of whiskey, and Carol tinkered with Gogobot. The tiny robot kept waving at Josiah. He was desperate for the outlaw's attention, but Josiah didn't notice. Dejected by the Cole brother's disinterest in him, Gogobot sauntered back to Carol's bag.

  “Gogobot really likes you, you know,” Carol said. “I thought he liked me, but he really likes you. Don't ask me why, but I think he wants your approval.”

  Josiah raised a blonde eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. And I have no idea why he's so interested in you, because I didn't program that as part of his personality. It's weird. So weird. Maybe it's a man thing. Gogo clearly identifies as male. Maybe he just wants a buddy.” While Josiah's attention was focused on an attractive saloon girl, Carol stole a swig of his whiskey. The girl was so pretty, Carol's thievery was never noticed. Deep down, she was inexplicably jealous of the brunette beauty who captured and held his interest, so she teased him, “God... stop drooling on the table, Jojo! I get that she's pretty and everything, but you're embarrassing me.”

  Josiah's brow was marred by a scowl. “I ain't drooling!”

  “Yeah... you kind of were. You were slathering at the mouth for that girl! You were drooling so bad, I was thinking about running across the street to the general store to buy a bib for you.”

  “I wasn't drooling!” insisted an incensed Josiah. “But even if I was interested in her, which I'm not, she wouldn't give me the time of day. Not anymore.”

  A lock of hair had escaped from Carol's left pigtail, so she idly twirled it between her fingers. “Why do you say that?”

  “Uh...” Josiah raised his mechanical arm. “Did you forget about this?”

  “And why would a mechanical arm stop a girl from liking you, you big ding-a-ling?” Carol's tongue tutted in frustration. “You still have those big blue eyes, that adorable smile, and those cute little freckles all over your face. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't the biggest Josiah Cole fangirl by any means, but I know handsome when I see it.”

  “Sure, Carol.” So she wouldn't accuse him of ogling any females, Josiah stared at his whiskey bottle and only his whiskey bottle. “Sure.”

  When it was twenty minutes until noon—the hour of Patrick Amberley's execution—they were reunited with Gwen, whose glum countenance suggested more bad news.

  “My dad wouldn't listen,” she told them. “I tried to tell him I left on my own, that you had nothing to do with it, but he didn't believe me. No matter what I said, he wouldn't listen. He's... he's taking Pat to the gallows right now.”

  “What?” Carol was on her feet in an instant. “Josiah, we have to go!”

  An unreadable smirk hovered on Josiah's lips as he took a drag from his cigarette. After a brief silence, he finally said, “I'm not going.”

  “What? Why? After everything you've been through, you're just going to let your friend die?” Carol gasped at the thought. “I didn't think you were the type of guy who'd just abandon his friends!”

  “I wasn't,” Josiah shrugged. “Now I think I might be.”

  “Ugh! You're so infuriating!” Carol stomped her foot—not once, but three times. “The next time you're watching my back, I'm going to feel so safe!”

  Josiah didn't say anything, he just glared at the girls, and the girls were glaring at him.

  “Well then... I'm going to rescue Patrick on my own!” Carol declared, taking a few tiny steps in the direction of the door. She kept hoping Josiah would change his mind and go with her, but he didn't. He never budged from his chair. “I'll just... I'll save the day allll on my own. It's probably dangerous and I might get killed in the process, but, uh... it's nothing I can't do without you!”

  Her attempts to persuade him were a failure. He simply replied, very coolly, “Good luck.” When he finally glanced in Carol's direction, she was standing in the doorway, disapprovingly shaking her head at him.

  “Josiah!” Gwen sank into the chair across from him. “Are you really going to let Carol do this all on her own? You're going to abandon Patrick?”

  “I don't know what you girls expect me to do.” Josiah leaned back in his chair and poured another shot. He lost track of how many he had, but his head felt pleasantly light. “Without an arm, I ain't shit.”

  “This is exactly why I can't stand to be around you now!” Gwen wailed. “The Josiah I knew wouldn't act like this. The Josiah I knew would be running after Carol! You're like a different person now, and it breaks my heart!”

  “Maybe I am a different person now,” Josiah quietly agreed as he snuffed his cigarette on the side of the table. “Maybe I am.”

  “You're so disappointing,” Gwen hissed. Like Carol, she marched to the saloon's double doors with an exasperated shake of her head.

  When both women were gone, Josiah leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  To no one in particular, he solemnly whispered the words, “I'm sorry...”

  * * *

  “Josiah Cole, are you out there somewhere?” Sheriff Anton Montgomery yelled his question to the small crowd that had gathered for Patrick Amberley's execution. “No? Damn... and here I thought you were an honorable sort of fellow. You're really going to let your friend swing today? Shit... I didn't expect that!”

  Carol, who was standing near the front of the crowd, could feel her nose wrinkle as she listened to the sheriff's speech. Her heart prickled with tingling fear as she cradled Gogobot in her arm and waited for the appropriate moment.

  “I'll give you one more chance, boy!” Anton
hollered as he slipped a noose around the neck of a heavily bearded Patrick Amberley, whose months of imprisonment made him look much older than his thirty years. Nicky Gunn's brother had no hope in his eyes. “If you step up right now, I'll let your friend live. What I really want right now is my daughter's kidnapper. As a gentleman, I'm sure you can understand that, right?”

  “He didn't kidnap Gwen,” murmured Carol, who felt her fists clenching at her sides. “What an idiot.”

  “I'll give you to the count of ten, Josiah!” the sheriff screamed to the crowd. “If you don't step forward by the time I get to ten, I'm kicking this barrel out from Amberley's legs, and everyone gets to watch him swing. You hear me?” Before he started counting, the crowd was dead silent. Several seconds later, Anton shouted, “One!”

  Carol's hands trembled as she subtly slipped the gas mask over her nose. She held Gogobot to her lips and whispered, “Gogobot on.”

  “Two!”

  As Gogo buzzed to life, she caught the attention of a nearby guard, so she had to act quickly. Lowering Gogobot to the ground, she hissed, “Gogobot gas.”

  When Anton got to five, Gogo's mouth opened up, releasing sleep-inducing fog. One by one, the onlookers dropped to their knees and slumped to the ground. Because she had a mask, Carol was the only one who stayed on her feet.

  “What the hell...?” Anton stopped counting and studied the falling crowd with a wrinkled brow. “Hey, what the hell's going on?”

  Carol's heart pumped wildly and her chest tightened uncomfortably as she raced up the steps to the gallows. Before Anton could reach for his revolver, she raised her tranq gun and shot him in the chest. With his last ounce of strength, he managed to pull out his gun, but he didn't fire. When the sheriff was face-down on the podium, Carol ran to Patrick Amberley, jumped on a step stool, and tried to cut the rope around his neck.

  “Who the hell are you?” Patrick barked at her.

  “Carol Cassady. I'm a friend of Josiah.”

  “Josiah?” Patrick sputtered the name. “So the bastard didn't abandon me after all?”

  “Well... he kinda did and he kinda didn't,” Carol corrected him. “I'll explain later.”

  Either the rope was thicker than she thought, or her knife was duller than she thought, because it took a considerable amount of sawing to cut him free. As soon as Patrick was loose, shots were fired from one of the nearby buildings. When Carol felt a bullet enter her shoulder, she shrieked.

  “What happened, Miss Cassady?” Patrick asked.

  “I'm... shot.” Another round of shots were fired at them, so Carol grabbed Patrick's arm and yanked him down the stairs, away from the gallows. When another bullet whizzed by her head, Carol screamed loudly. She shoved Patrick behind an abandoned wagon and leapt into cover beside him.

  “I guess the sheriff has snipers on the rooftops,” Patrick noted.

  “Oh yeah... ya think?” Carol looked down at her bleeding shoulder and whimpered. “Holy crap, I can't believe I got shot again!”

  “It doesn't look that bad, actually.”

  Patrick was trying to reassure her, but Carol responded by wagging a fist in his face. “It sure as heck feels bad!” she cried. “What are we going to do, Patrick?”

  “I don't know.” As soon as he tried to peek around the side of the wagon, all three snipers fired at once. “Goddamn it!”

  Carol gasped. “What happened?”

  “I almost got shot three times, that's what happened.” Patrick held out a hand and flicked his fingers. “Give me a gun, Miss Cassady.”

  “What? No! Why?”

  “Just give me a damn gun!” Patrick demanded. “I'll get us out of this mess. Believe me, I've been dying to get some revenge.”

  “Whoa! Hold your horses, Patty Cakes! I just saved you. Do you think I'm going to let you run off and get yourself killed? Just... just let me think for a second!” Like Patrick, Carol tried to peer around the side of the wagon. As soon as her head emerged, the three riflemen reacted immediately, and a rain of bullets pounded the ground. “Holy smokes, they're fast!”

  “They've got their guns trained on us. They're watching us.”

  “No shit, Mr. Obvious!” She peeled her shirt away from her shoulder and checked her bullet wound. The sight of her own blood surrounding a hole in her flesh brought Carol close to tears. Whimpering pitifully, she opened her bag and rummaged through its contents, hoping to find a solution to their problem, but the pain was clouding her head.

  Their time was limited. In a matter of minutes, the sheriff would wake up, as well as the rest of the crowd, and Carol's rescue would be a failure. In desperation, she turned to the one invention she knew she could rely on. “Gogobot... come!” she yelled.

  Gogobot, who was standing in the middle of the slumbering crowd, sprang to action and stumbled toward Carol. It took him a long time on his tiny legs, but he finally joined Carol and Patrick behind the wagon.

  “What the hell is that thing?” asked Patrick, sneering at Carol's creation.

  “Gogobot.”

  “What the hell is a gogobot?”

  “He's my multipurpose friend and companion.”

  “Whatever.” Patrick's brown eyes rolled toward the heavens. “I still think you should just give me a damn gun.”

  Ignoring Patrick's griping, Carol slipped on a pair of goggles and said, “Gogobot... vision!” Because her bearded companion looked thoroughly confused, she explained, “Gogobot's going to be my eyes. He'll give us a chance to properly assess the situation with the snipers.”

  “What good is that?”

  “He'll let us know what we're up against,” Carol explained as she leaned over Gogobot, getting him ready for his next mission.

  “I can tell you what we're up against: three assholes who want to fill us with holes.” Patrick caught himself staring at Carol's round bottom as she bent over. Even though they were the middle of a shitstorm, he couldn't help himself. It had been far too long since he'd been in the arms of a woman.

  “Gogobot, check the situation!” Carol cried, then she gave her robot a light push in the direction of the snipers. As he toddled around the wagon, she held her breath. She wasn't sure his metal body could withstand a bullet, but she soon found out. All three snipers fired on Gogo, but he stood his ground. “Gogobot, look at the buildings!” As Gogobot scanned the surroundings, an image appeared in Carol's goggles. If he spotted a sniper on the rooftop, Carol could see them too.

  “Well, what do you see?” Patrick asked. “Anything? Nothing?”

  “Not much so far.” Carol could barely get a visual on one of the shooters perched on a building's edge, so she yelled, “Gogobot, zoom!” As Gogobot zoomed and focused, at that exact moment, Josiah Cole appeared behind the sniper. Carol gasped when she saw him, and she gasped again when Josiah's knife zipped across the sniper's throat.

  “Oh my god... Josiah...” The goggles' image was blurred by the tears in Carol's eyes. “He came! Patrick! He didn't abandon us after all!”

  “Good. Now he needs to get his ass moving so we can get our asses moving!” said a significantly less grateful Patrick Amberley.

  On the roof of the general store, Josiah ripped the rifle from the dying man's fingers and turned his attention to the second sniper. Using his mechanical arm to keep the weapon balanced, he raised the rifle and fired. It was a perfect kill shot, straight through the head, but he knew it would attract the attention of the third sniper, so he had no time to rest. Josiah spun around, aimed, and fired again. Before the third sniper had him in his sights—or even spotted him—Josiah eliminated him.

  Within thirty seconds, all shooters were down, and the way was clear. Josiah stood at the edge of the roof and waited. As soon as he saw Carol Cassady peeking at him from behind the wagon, he motioned for her to get moving. Josiah chased them from the rooftops, leaping between buildings, keeping an eye on Carol and Patrick as he guarded them from above. When Carol glanced up at him, she surprised herself with a dreamy sigh. With hi
s golden hair bathed in sunlight, she thought he looked like a guardian angel. In Carol's eyes, Josiah Cole was a figure suited for a fable. He was their watchful protector. He was her reluctant hero.

  As they made their way to the train station, Josiah's protection was necessary again. Carol heard the unmistakeable roar of a motocarriage chasing after them, so she dragged Patrick behind the nearest cover—a dilapidated barn—and waited for Josiah to take care of it.

  Josiah took out the motocarriage's front wheels, but that didn't stop the driver, who leapt from his seat and fired at Carol's barn. Before he reached Carol and Patrick, Josiah had no choice but take him out. He shot him first in the shoulder, and again in the neck. When the driver was down, Josiah hollered “Go!” at his two friends below him. He had no idea if they could hear him, but they must have, because they popped out of cover and resumed their run.

  Carol and Patrick were nearly at the train station, where he assumed they meant to steal a train and escape. Josiah didn't want to be left behind, so he climbed down from the rooftop and hurried in the direction of the station.

  “You better not leave without me, Carol Cassady,” Josiah whispered under his breath as he charged forward at top speed. “Don't you dare leave without me!”

  Ten

  “We're gonna have to steal a train, Miss Cassady!” Patrick exclaimed as they raced between tracks. He was so desperate to get away, he nearly tripped over a rusted railroad spike. “We need to get the hell out of Gravestone as quick as we can. Are you coming or not?”

  “Yeah, I'm coming... but we have to wait for Josiah! He's the one person I could never leave without!” Carol suddenly stopped running, halting on the tracks. “I could leave without Gwen, Flynn, Nicky, Jun, Gogobot, Tobias, Kieran, my dog Bingles, my aunt Sue... heck, I could probably leave without my own dad, but I'm not leaving town without Josiah!”

  “Shit... alright.” Patrick scratched his shaggy brown hair as he turned in Carol's direction. “But we shouldn't wait long. If I hear gunfire again, I'm taking off!”