There had been no time to change saddles, and his horse had been lying on her side and he hadn’t the strength in his weakening body to move her. He had grabbed his bag, his water, his remaining money and the telescope, and he had taken one of the dead men’s horses, a fine looking black. The wound in his leg throbbed with every heartbeat, and with every step the horse took a fresh stab of pain shot up his body.
But the doll was gone and that meant Rosalie and Leon had made it this far. Now he had made it this far.
He allowed himself a smile.
Rosalie hated what she was hearing – all this talk of whippings and beatings and of breaking a man so deeply that he cried at the mere mention of the bat. It was so desperately hard to hear and she wondered if she would ever see Jim Jackson in the same way again, without pity, without shame for what her fellow human beings were capable of. But Ellington was loud. He revelled in the stories so much that his voice got louder and his laughter boomed out and all Rosalie could do was to pray that Jim Jackson heard. So whenever Ellington’s tales faltered she prompted him for more.
Then suddenly he went quiet. He stopped mid-flow and put a finger across his lips. He rose from the chair he’d been relaxing in and stood up against the far wall of the cabin, facing the door, the shotgun pointing at Rosalie over to his right, who was still sitting on the hard bench in front of the table.
Outside the horses snorted. Rosalie felt faint. The cabin was dusty and the late afternoon air was warm and dry in her throat. She coughed and Ellington glared at her. The room smelled of body heat. At some point – and she had no idea when it had happened – hers and Leon’s fingers had become entwined. She squeezed his hand now and she looked at him. He was tired and exhausted. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. Earlier the action, excitement, and energy that the bid for freedom had created had kept him going, but this last hour, he had become pale and quiet, shuddering despite the heat, eyes closed against some of Ellington’s more vicious stories.
A shadow passed by the dirty window.
‘You made it,’ Jim Jackson said from just outside the door. ‘We all made it.’
Jim Jackson opened the door to the cabin and stepped inside.
You couldn’t out-draw a man who already had a gun in his hand.
It wasn’t creed or code; it was simple truth, a truth borne out of logic and mechanics as much as anything. If the other fellow only had to squeeze the trigger and you had to reach for a gun, raise that gun, and pull the trigger, then he was going to kill you.
So Jim Jackson came through the door with his gun in his hand and his finger on the trigger. He had told himself he wouldn’t hesitate. That all he had was a split second of grace and in that time he had to kill Ellington. He had to become what he had always feared he would become – a cold-hearted killer.
He couldn’t do it.
He paused.
He hesitated.
And in that moment Ellington laughed, spit spraying from the man’s mouth, a sneer on his mocking lips.
It was the gun pointing at Rosalie. If the gun had been pointing towards the door, towards him, then he’d have killed Ellington and taken his chances with the man’s dying reflexes. But the shotgun, and all those thousands of shards of lead, each one a tiny white-hot knife, would have peppered her, ruined her, blinded her.
So he paused and Ellington laughed.
‘Jim,’ Rosalie said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Jim Jackson,’ Webster Ellington said. ‘After all this time we meet again.’
Leon said, ‘Jim.’
Jim stood in the doorway, his finger applying pressure to the Colt’s trigger. His leg hurt. The world seemed slightly off-kilter as if there was a slight mist and a slight tilt to everything. He could hear his own breathing. It was harsh and fast and his lungs burned.
‘Put the gun down, Jackson,’ Ellington said.
‘No.’
If Ellington moved his shotgun, started to swing it towards Jackson, then Jim would shoot. That’s what he told himself. But would he? Could he?
Sunlight came in through the window. It was low and golden and the dust in the air and the way the sunlight landed on Rosalie’s hair took him back to the moment in the railway carriage when he had first seen her.
She and Leon were sat on a bench against a table by the window. Ellington was standing at the end of the bench facing the door, still with the gun pointing towards Rosalie.
‘You can’t kill me without me killing the girl,’ Ellington said.
‘Maybe,’ Jim said. ‘Maybe not.’
Ellington smiled. ‘We just going to stand here then?’
Leon could see it happening – could imagine it. This face off, the two of them staring at one another, and Jim having no idea that at any time the other one was sneaking up quietly ready to smash him on the side of the head and knock him out cold.
Leon couldn’t bear it. The thought of going back to the camp. All those things that Ellington had just been saying, all the tortures and humiliations. He – Ellington – had been enjoying making Rosalie squirm with his disgusting and vile descriptions and promises. Ellington had seemingly loved the way her breath had become short and tears had sprung from her eyes. The way she had had to hide her mouth with her hand at the worst of the descriptions. But they were all true. None of it was exaggeration. It was what had happened. It was what would happen again. He couldn’t go back there. Not after today. Not after the hope and the fresh air and the moments of freedom, of seeing Rosalie for the first time like an angel in the trees, of those first minutes in this cabin, of cutting the bread and eating and believing it had all worked. That somehow, despite all the odds, Jim Jackson had made it work.
Cutting the bread.
Look at Jim now. He was swaying. One leg was dark with blood. He’d bandaged it roughly but the bandage was all soaked through. There was blood on his face, too, and all down his shirt and jacket front. Lots of blood. But it didn’t hide how pale and how weary Jim looked. His eyes were dark, sunken into the shadows beneath his hat, but Leon could see the tiredness there. Jim was breathing fast, too, as if his body was building up to one final moment of effort.
Leon let go of Rosalie’s hand. She tried to hold on to his fingers but he pulled his hand away, trying to make the movement surreptitious.
‘The gun, Jackson,’ Ellington said. ‘Best you put it down before you drop it. You’re looking might tired and if I ain’t mistaken you’re losing a lot of blood.’
He was playing for time, Leon knew. Any second now Whit would appear and with one blow – and it looked like it wouldn’t have to be much of a blow – he would lay Jim out.
‘I should just shoot you,’ Jim said.
‘Mmm,’ Ellington said, and raised the shotgun towards Rosalie’s face. ‘You just try it.’
Something moved outside.
It may have been a branch scratching on the cabin roof, Leon thought later. But right then he pictured Whit sliding up behind Jim with his gun reversed in his hand, ready to knock Jim out.
Leon reached behind and on the table he felt a plate. He touched an onion and then an old clay cup he had been drinking water from. His fingers found bread.
His hand grasped the bread knife.
He took a deep breath.
He lunged for Webster T. Ellington.
Leon’s move caught them all by surprise.
Ellington sensed the movement and he turned as Leon rose from the bench and thrust the knife forwards. Ellington leaned backwards, the movement becoming a step, and he started to lower the shotgun, the barrel aim moving from Rosalie to Leon.
‘No!’ Jim cried.
Then Leon was beneath the shotgun barrel, his shoulder knocking the gun upwards as Ellington pulled the trigger. Suddenly he was upon the prison guard, driving the knife deep into the man’s gut, hearing the man scream and the roar of the shotgun blast deafening him. He smelt gunpowder and felt smoke in his eyes and warm blood on his hands. Then there were two more shots,
shots felt rather than heard because his ears were already dulled, and he felt Ellington’s body lifted momentarily away from him, the knife still embedded in the man’s belly, and then Ellington was sliding down the cabin wall. He could hear a woman screaming far away, and he turned; Jim’s gun was smoking. Leon said, ‘Jim, there’s another one. He’s going to sneak up behind you’ and then his vision wavered as if all that energy that he had used in the last few seconds was all that he’d had left inside, and he succumbed to the darkness, too.
Chapter Nineteen
Jim Jackson said, ‘I’d made a promise to the boy – Alfie. I said if he gave you the note then I’d give him the telescope.’
‘He kept his half of the bargain,’ Leon said.
‘I was watching when he gave you the note. Once I set the log piles burning and . . . After the trouble down in the canyon it seemed like the most stupid thing in the world for me to ride back up close to the camp. I should have just headed up here. But I’d made a promise.’
Leon nodded as if he understood, either about the promise itself or about how Jim felt about the promise.
Rosalie was quiet. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders but couldn’t stop shivering.
‘So I rode back up through the trees and worked my way to the place where I’d met Alfie yesterday.’
‘And he was there?’
‘Yes, he was. He was there watching the fire and watching the guard running about but most of all he was waiting for me.’
Rosalie said, ‘He knew you’d keep your word.’
‘Yes. So I gave him the telescope and he was so excited and he said to me, “I gave Leon the note like you said.” I told him that I knew he would. He said, “Leon escaped. Was that what was in the note?” I told him that it might have been but that he must never ever tell anyone, that it was a secret he had to keep forever. I asked him if he could do that and he said, “Sure. I’m good at secrets.” Then he said, “Webster was waiting though. Him and that new man. They watched Leon crawl all the way up the creek and they was waiting for him at the top”.’
‘They were watching me?’ Leon said.
‘Alfie said, “Are you all right?” And I had to pretend that my heart hadn’t just exploded in my chest. “They were waiting?” I asked, and Alfie said, “Yes. I was watching them watching Leon. They didn’t grab ’em, though. Leon and a pretty woman. They followed. That’s all I saw so I came down here and waited for you”.’
‘So you knew?’ Rosalie said.
‘I know something. I knew not to come rushing in.’
Leon looked over at Jim. ‘And the other fellow? Whit?’
Rosalie said, ‘He was going to sneak in behind you and knock you out.’
‘What happened to him?’ Leon said.
Jim Jackson shook his head.
Chapter Twenty
They hid out for two weeks.
Jim Jackson had stockpiled food for them and the horses. They supplemented this with wild onions and potatoes that were still growing in the old fields, and with rabbit and squirrel that Leon trapped with wire snares they found in the stables. The creek water was clean, cold and refreshing.
Leon grew stronger every day. Jim’s leg wound healed. They re-bandaged and re-splinted Rosalie’s fingers.
Each night Leon took a watch outside in the woods and after several hours Jim took over. Only once, during the day, did they see riders approaching. But the riders were several fields away and passed by without realizing that there was a cabin hidden in the woods.
At the times when Leon was on watch Jim Jackson and Rosalie talked, but there was awkwardness to their conversation that hadn’t been there before. They could both sense that everything else was still there, but the awkwardness sat on top of it all, preventing either of them getting to anything else.
‘You’re an outlaw now,’ Jim said one night. ‘I mean, really. Look at us – holed up in a hideaway waiting for bullet wounds to heal. We’re wanted right across the state. If they ever catch me now, I’ll hang. Leon, too. I’m sorry. I never meant for it to be like this.’
He could see the sheen of tears in her eyes reflecting the faint moonlight that made it through the dirty window.
‘I wouldn’t have changed a thing,’ she said.
They were lying together, underneath a blanket on the hard floor.
‘It’s just. . . .’
‘It’s just what?’ he said.
‘Something has changed.’
‘If it’s me—’
‘No, it’s not you. Well, maybe you’ve changed a little. But it’s not that.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s knowledge.’
‘Knowledge?’
‘Before you came in . . . Before . . . That man had spent an hour telling us – telling me, because Leon already knew – what he had done to you. I mean, exactly what he had done to you. And what he was going to do. It was . . . awful. Jim . . . I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘How can people be like that? I just never realized what you had been through.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘It’s not. And now we’re separated by this awfulness, this experience that you’ve had and that I will never – thankfully – know.’
‘Please, forget it. It’s done. I’m never going back.’
‘I would have killed him straight away. You paused. Despite everything you still paused because it wouldn’t have given him a fair chance. Jim, I just think. . . . You’re too good.’ She had laughed and cried, and they had kissed, and that had been the start of it being good again.
They buried Webster T. Ellington, and one night Jim buried the young man whose name was Whit. He had wrapped Whit’s body in canvas that he had found at the back of the cabin. As he was shovelling soil into the grave Jim sensed someone watching.
‘Leon,’ he said, pausing, resting.
‘I still haven’t thanked you.’
‘Yes you have. A hundred times. Every day.’
‘You never said what happened.’ Leon nodded at the grave.
Jim shook his head again.
Leon said, ‘I know that it’s eating you up, Jim. I can see it in your eyes. Hear it in your voice.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘Sometimes self-defence doesn’t always look like self-defence.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that if I had known what you had known – that Rosalie and I had been followed up here – and if I had been carefully sneaking towards the cabin because I didn’t know what I was going to find and I had come across someone watching out for me; if I had had to crawl up behind that man and maybe cut his throat because I needed to be quiet and there was no other way for it to be done; if I had had to do that, I wouldn’t be torturing myself over it being murder in cold blood or anything. I’d sleep well because it was self-defence.’
Jim looked at Leon. The moonlight illuminated his face. Leon was looking stronger now.
‘Thanks Leon.’
‘I saw all the blood,’ Leon said, ‘on your shirt and jacket. I didn’t realize at first what it meant.’
‘It doesn’t sit easy. Maybe it never will. It feels like something has changed. Like I’ve crossed a line that’s wider than the Missouri.’
‘Like I said, sometime self-defence isn’t as obvious as we would like it to be.’
Jim Jackson looked up at the night sky, at the stars, at whatever infinity lay behind. Then he turned back to earth and shovelled a load of dirt on to the grave of the young man whose throat he had cut.
‘Tomorrow we should move out, Leon. We’ve a man to hunt.’
‘And Rosalie?’
‘She’s with us. We’re outlaws now. All of us. For good or bad.’
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