The Lost Outlaw

by Paul Fraser Collard

  He said nothing as he reined his horse in.

  ‘I reckon we need to thank you.’ Adam spoke first. He did not seem pleased to have to acknowledge the stranger who had just saved their lives. He had finished reloading and now he spun his revolver around his finger before ramming it back into its holster, the action smooth and proficient.

  ‘I reckon you do.’ Jack’s tone was ice cold. He did not relish the prospect of conversation.

  ‘Thank you, Jack.’ Jane spoke for them both.

  Jack said nothing. He slid from the saddle. He would not linger; he had no need of their thanks. But he did have one last task that could not be left unfinished.

  He turned his back on the pair, then fished out a fresh packet of six paper cartridges for his revolver. With it in hand, he turned and found a spot where he could sit and begin the slow process of refilling each of the weapon’s six chambers.

  ‘We’re sure lucky you came by.’ Jane approached Jack slowly, as if wary of the man who had killed to keep her alive.

  ‘You are.’ Jack half cocked the revolver, then spun the cylinder.

  ‘You just happened to be passing?’

  Jack grunted by way of reply. Her accent seemed thicker, somehow even more faked now than it had been before. He put it down to the stress of nearly dying.

  He concentrated on reloading, filling each chamber with a fresh cartridge that he rammed home with the ramrod that hinged out from underneath the barrel, before glancing up at her once again. Her face was streaked with powder, and strands of hair were stuck in the sweat that glistened on her face. She might have looked dishevelled, but her eyes were bright, and there were points of colour on each cheek.

  ‘You can drop the accent now, love,’ he suggested, then offered a thin smile.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He had not looked away. He noticed the frown that followed his instruction, and the way her eyes narrowed. It confirmed his suspicions. ‘You know what I mean. But suit yourself. You can talk any way you damn please.’ He returned his attention to his revolver. All six chambers had been filled, and so he reached into a pocket and fished out the small tub of grease that he would use to seal each one. Only when he was satisfied that the gun would not misfire did he carefully put a fresh percussion cap on to the nipple on each chamber and revolve the cylinder so that the gun’s hammer rested in between two of the chambers. Then he got to his feet.

  ‘Who are you, Jack?’ Jane asked. The Southern accent was gone. It had been replaced with one similar to those he had heard on the East Coast.

  ‘I have no idea.’ He gave the honest answer, then pushed his revolver back into its holster before turning to walk away. There was something left to be done, something that he would not leave to anyone else.

  The pair he had saved let him go. He heard their murmured conversation but paid it no heed. There would be time enough for talking if that was what he wanted.

  He walked through the trees, taking his time. It was easy enough to find what he was looking for.

  It took no more than a cursory glance at the man he had shot in the chest to know that he had died almost instantly. There was a moment’s pride at the accuracy of the shot before the shame arrived. It had not been a fair fight. The man had died without ever really knowing who it was that had killed him. But that was not what shamed Jack. When the decision to kill had been made, the manner of its arrival had mattered not one jot. There was no fairness in death. Yet still he felt a prick of shame, one that concerned him. For he had killed a man and felt nothing.

  He pushed on, drawing his revolver as he went. Cries and whimpers guided his footsteps. They came without pause now, the incoherent babble loud enough to hide the sound of his footfall.

  The man in the grey shirt was lying on his back when Jack found him. He stared up at the sky whilst his hands scrabbled at the bullet hole in his stomach. His fingers were covered in gore, the blood already drying and blackening. Something pulsed deep inside the hole, as if a creature hid in the torn flesh and was about to emerge to bring terror to the world.

  Jack gazed down at the wound his bullet had caused. He had seen many like it. It would kill as surely as a bullet to the head, just a lot more slowly.

  The man looked up at Jack. His cries increased in urgency for a few moments before dying away as his eyes fell to the revolver held in Jack’s right hand.

  ‘Sorry, chum.’ Jack whispered the last words the man would ever hear before he raised his revolver.

  The gunshot that followed was loud, the sound echoing off the trees.

  Jane and Adam were ready to leave by the time Jack returned to where he had left his horse. Both watched him warily.

  He said nothing. He felt drained. With the gut-shot gunman dealt with, he had moved on to check on the third man he had shot down. That man had been dead when he had found him, yet the snail-like trail of blood smeared across the ground spoke of a drawn-out end, one that Jack regretted. He would kill without hesitation, yet he did not want to be the cause of suffering. He had witnessed too much to wish to inflict it on others.

  He walked towards his mare, ignoring the silence and the stares. He carried one of the dead gunmen’s revolvers and a pouch containing all the ammunition he had found on the three men. The little money they had had was in his pocket, as was a silver watch, a small knife and a cut-throat razor. Anything else they had owned had been left on their corpses.

  ‘So are you just going to leave?’ Jane asked. She stood next to her supposed brother. For his part, Adam said nothing, but his hand hovered close to the holster on his right hip.

  ‘Yes.’ Jack’s reply was curt.

  ‘Why did you do it? Why did you help us?’

  Jack paused halfway through unbuckling one of his saddlebags. Then he sighed. Some things just could not be avoided. ‘Tell me your real names first.’ He finished unbuckling the strap, then busied himself stowing his new possessions and ammunition inside the saddlebag.

  ‘My name is Katherine, but if you call me that, I’ll shoot you.’ The girl smiled as she made the threat. ‘Everyone calls me Kat. It helps them forget I’m really a girl.’ She nodded at her companion. ‘His name really is Adam. He’s too stupid to remember another one.’

  ‘Are you truly brother and sister?’

  ‘No.’

  Jack tied off the strap then turned to face the pair. ‘I thought not. You don’t even look alike.’

  ‘When did you know?’ Kat was still smiling. Like Adam, her right hand was ready to draw her revolver.

  ‘From the start.’ Jack frowned. The pair were standing as if ready to fight.

  ‘Then why did you help us?’ Adam fired the question at him. Unlike Kat, he was not smiling.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Jack replied with total honesty. ‘So who were those men?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Adam’s right hand twitched.

  ‘I’ve no fucking idea, chum.’ Jack had spotted the slight movement. ‘Are you really going to draw on me after I just saved your necks?’

  Adam’s expression did not alter. ‘We don’t know who you are.’

  ‘I told you my name once already. I didn’t lie.’

  ‘But you were back in Natchitoches, and now you’re here. That’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think?’

  ‘You think I’m following you?’ Jack shook his head at the foolishness of the notion.

  ‘I’ve learned to be cautious. That’s why I’m still alive.’

  Jack snorted. He didn’t mean to, but Adam could not be much more than eighteen years old, which made his answer amusing, to Jack at least.

  ‘You think I’m being funny?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jack shook his head as he sensed the anger building in the boy.

  ‘That’s enough.’ Kat had watched the byplay and now chose to put an end to it. ‘Adam, stop being so goddam dumb.’ She moved her right hand away from her holster, then tucked her fingers into her belt, the action deliberate. ‘Have you heard of the Sinclair gan
g, Jack?’

  ‘No.’ Jack kept his gaze on Adam, whose own hand had stayed near his gun.

  ‘Well, you have now. And you just killed three of them. That puts you on our side, I guess.’

  ‘And what side is that?’

  ‘We work for a man called Brannigan. You heard of him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s well known around these parts. You want a job done, you send for him.’

  ‘Sounds like a stalwart fellow.’

  Kat laughed at the turn of phrase. ‘I’ve never heard him called that before.’

  Jack liked her laugh. ‘So why is your Brannigan fighting this Sinclair gang?’

  ‘We’re being paid to escort a wagon train down to Mexico. Sinclair thought he should have been given the contract. When he didn’t get it, he figured he would take it anyway.’ Kat spoke quickly, while Adam just scowled.

  ‘Must be important, this wagon train of yours. What’s on it? Gold?’

  ‘Cotton.’

  The answer surprised Jack. If men were fighting – indeed, dying – over this wagon train, then he figured it must be carrying something of high value.

  ‘Just cotton?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s worth almost as much as gold. Least it will be if we can get it down to the coast in Mexico.’

  ‘So if this Sinclair fellow and his gang want to take your wagons, why were you paying him a visit?’ Jack asked. Despite himself, he was intrigued.

  ‘To find out where his men are waiting for us.’

  ‘Did he tell you?’

  ‘Eventually.’ Kat gave a teasing smile.

  ‘And now you’ll take that information to this Brannigan fellow.’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘Seems a lot of trouble over some cotton.’ Jack snorted as he made the remark. He had seen men fight and kill for a hundred reasons. But this was a new one. He did not understand why something so innocuous would cause such trouble. Gold he could understand, or weapons, or even food. But not cotton.

  ‘So what about you, Jack?’ Kat used the pause to change the direction of the conversation. ‘You know why we’re here. Will you tell us what you’re doing?’

  ‘Minding my own business.’ There was a warning in his reply.

  ‘Then why fight?’ Kat seemed genuinely interested.

  ‘Maybe I was just bored.’ He spoke glibly. He had buried the truth deep, just as he hid away the joy he had felt when he had first spurred his horse into action.

  He gathered his strength, then hauled himself into the saddle, his mare taking a single step to the side as it bore his full weight. He was ready to ride away and put this episode, this short chapter in his life, to bed. But something held him back. He sensed it was not over. Not yet.

  ‘Bored men don’t risk their lives for strangers.’ Kat walked towards him until she stood close to his stirrup.

  ‘I was never in danger.’ Jack sat easily in the saddle. He was not bragging, just stating a fact.

  ‘So where are you headed?’ Kat looked up at him.

  ‘Somewhere that’s not here.’

  ‘Do you ever give a straight answer?’

  Jack laughed. It had been a while since he had last found something amusing. ‘I guess I’m out of practice at holding a conversation.’ He found her gaze, then offered a smile. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Better,’ Kat replied. ‘You look less frightening when you smile. So . . .’ she paused as if thinking something through, ‘are you in need of employment?’

  Jack did not answer immediately. He sensed that the moment he had been waiting for had arrived. It was time for him to choose his path.

  ‘We need more men if we’re going to get where we want to go. Brannigan will take you on when I tell him what you did. Anyone who kills Sinclair’s men will be welcome. You’ve got your own gun and your own horse. He’ll pay you well.’ Kat offered the lure.

  Jack rocked back in the saddle and looked up at the sky before closing his eyes. He had waited around for just such an offer as this. He might crave peace and solitude, but a man needed sustenance more physical than such lonely ambitions. Then there was something else, something more visceral. He knew what he was, what he wanted and what he needed. He had hibernated for nearly a year now. The short skirmish had given him a taste of what he had lost, and had stirred something buried deep in his soul into life, awakening the fear and the joy that he tried so hard to contain. It had reminded him what it was like to be truly alive.

  He held his pose for several long moments before opening his eyes and looking down at Kat. There was a time when Fate demanded he be the man he was meant to be. And when life demanded he pay a price to keep living.

  ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ The words came out flat. But they had been spoken.

  It was time to rejoin the world.

  Jack followed Adam and Kat into the small Creole cottage. It was a pretty one-and-a-half-storey building with walls made of roughened plaster that might once have been white but was now grey and mottled with age. There were separate entrance doors to both downstairs rooms and a neat porch across the front. It was set alone in a field next to the turnpike that the three had followed west in the hours since the fight with the men from Sinclair’s gang. They had reached the out-of-the-way cottage shortly before noon.

  The room they entered had little to recommend it. It was a mean affair that appeared to have been set up as some sort of saloon. There was no furniture save for a single wide plank of wood resting on trestles, and a battered dresser lined with bottles of cheap rotgut whiskey and dozens of tiny glasses. There was nowhere to sit, and the floorboards were covered with weeks of accumulated dust and debris.

  Jack thought back to the ostentatious finery of his mother’s gin palace, and wondered what she would make of such a place as this. His mother’s place had been in the back streets of the East End. Its facade had been lit by bright gas burners that had acted as beacons in the gloom of the rookeries, and it had shone like a ruby in a pile of shit. He looked at the bottles of whiskey and saw the similarity to the gin palace in the raw spirit they contained. In their way, both places were a refuge, a sanctuary that offered its customers some respite from the endless grinding misery of their lives. That was no different despite the thousands of miles that separated them.

  ‘Nice place.’ He offered the judgement as the three of them stood in front of the dresser.

  ‘No, it’s not.’ Kat answered over her shoulder as she walked to a corner of the room, where she dumped her knapsack. ‘But the boys like it. They take over a place and fill it with whiskey as soon as we stay somewhere for more than a day. Makes them feel at home.’

  ‘The boys?’ Jack leaned his repeating rifle against the trestles at one end of the temporary table. He wore his sabre on his left hip and his revolver on his right. He had come ready to fight.

  ‘Brannigan’s men.’ Kat removed her tasselled jacket before dumping it on top of her knapsack. ‘He knows what they want.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Money, whiskey and women, in that order. If he gives them those, they don’t create.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ Jack remembered his days as a British redcoat, and wondered what his first company would have made of unfettered access to a few dozen bottles of whiskey. They’d have likely drunk the place dry in less than an hour.

  ‘The boys know not to step out of line.’ Kat reached behind her head and untied the bands holding her hair in place. She let it fall, then bent forward to shake it out.

  ‘Is that what you want too? Money, whiskey and women?’ Jack watched her, transfixed. He had been alone a long time.

  ‘No.’ Kat answered without looking at him, her attention focused on teasing some of the knots from her hair.

  Jack wanted to keep watching, so he asked another question. ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘Nothing. I want to be given nothing.’

  ‘Brannigan must like that.’

  Kat laughed. ‘Maybe. Might make me the w
orst kind of person to have around too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That would be telling.’

  Jack did not understand the intriguing answer, but he did feel himself beginning to stare at her, so he turned away. Adam was still standing in the doorway. He was watching Jack closely.

  ‘I’ll go find Brannigan.’ He scowled as he spoke the words.

  Jack met his glare directly. ‘You all right, chum?’ he asked.

  Adam acknowledged the question with a slow shake of his head, then turned on his heel and walked away.

  ‘Don’t worry about Adam.’ Kat had missed nothing. ‘He doesn’t like anyone. Except Brannigan.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him.’ Kat came back into his view. Her hair was once again bound tightly behind her head. ‘Not that he’ll tell you.’

  ‘Then what’s your story, Kat?’ Jack did his best to keep his eyes on her face.

  She laughed the question away. ‘That’s not something we ask round here.’ If she was aware of the effect she was having on Jack, she let no hint of it show in her expression. ‘And we won’t ask it of you. We won’t even ask you where you got that scar of yours.’

  Jack’s hand lifted to his face of its own accord, his fingers tracing the raised ridge of flesh that ran across his left cheek and under the beard that he had allowed to grow over the course of the last few months. The scar was the legacy of a mutinous sawar’s sword, the blow that had caused it just one of the many moments when he had escaped death by no more than a fraction of an inch. He rarely thought of the bitter fight outside the walls of Delhi, the memory shackled and contained in the darkest recesses of his mind where he knew not to venture.

  He was spared finding a reply by the sound of voices. He braced himself, sure that what was to follow would set down a marker for the weeks and perhaps months to come.

  The men he had heard arrived on a wave of noise, one that got louder as they swaggered into the cottage, every man sure of his place and his right to be there. To Jack, it seemed that they were all talking at once, their voices brash and overly loud, as if they were well aware of the display they made and were proud of it.