Adam, scowl firmly in place, turned away as Jack concentrated his attention on what was ahead. He understood at once why Brannigan had stopped. The trail snaked downhill, following a meandering path down the side of a shallow valley. At the bottom, a wide river cut a gentle course through the landscape. The water looked to be shallow, no more than a few feet deep. It would barely reach the saddle skirt of a horse as it crossed, yet it was deep enough to make hauling wagons impossible, especially as both banks were smothered with thick undergrowth. Dozens of trees, both young and old, grew so closely together that in places they formed a natural wall, an obstacle no wagon could hope to push through.
Fortunately, a bridge spanned the river. It was narrow, but wide enough for a single wagon to pass over at a time, and from what Jack could see, it looked sturdy enough. It offered a way across, but it also represented danger, for the river crossing was the perfect place for an ambush.
He lowered his field glasses then looked across at Brannigan, who had just done the same.
‘It’s too quiet.’ Brannigan made the remark to himself, then put his glasses back to his eyes to scan the crossing for a second time.
Jack had to agree. The trail they followed was a busy one, with wagon trains heading in both directions, those going south carrying cotton, the ones coming back in the other direction loaded with Mexican goods, guns, ammunition and a hundred other items that the wagons’ owners believed they could sell on at a profit. Yet at this moment, there was no sign of another train for miles. The crossing was devoid of all life. It looked tranquil, picturesque even. It also looked dangerous.
Brannigan lowered his glasses, then looked at Jack for a long moment before he began to speak. ‘That there is McGehee Crossing. It’s the only bridge across the San Marcos River for miles. We have no choice but to take it.’
‘You think someone is waiting down there to ambush us?’ Jack understood immediately.
‘Maybe.’ Brannigan gave the single-word reply, then turned to Adam. ‘It would be a good place for Sinclair to try to take us.’
‘It’s not what he said.’ Adam’s voice cracked a little as he spoke. ‘We’re still too far north. He told Kat that he would hit us later, and save himself the effort of hauling the wagons south.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘I do.’ Adam cleared his throat to remove the squeak of adolescence from his voice.
‘You care to bet your life on it?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The boy’s face had turned a good few shades paler during the conversation.
‘Take Weston, Smith and Taylor. Ride down there and check it out.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Adam did not need to be told twice. He rode off quickly.
Jack heard him call out to the men Brannigan had named. Once rounded up, they galloped away, passing the wagons that rumbled along regardless of the sudden activity.
‘Do you trust the boy?’ he asked.
‘Yep.’ Brannigan sat easily in the saddle. He did not encourage conversation.
Jack took time to put his field glasses away before he spoke again. He approved of the decision to scout the way ahead. Brannigan was acting with caution, and sending away outriders showed sound judgement. It was what he would have done himself, were he in charge of safeguarding the wagon train.
‘That lad worships you.’
Brannigan grunted at the remark. ‘He’s a good kid.’
‘Has he been with you long?’ Jack probed. It would be some time before Adam returned, and he wanted to know more.
‘A while.’
‘But he’s young. If he’s been with you a while, then he must’ve been little more than a child when he started to work for you.’
‘Uh huh.’ Brannigan grunted the short reply.
‘Is he yours?’
‘Hell, no. His father worked for me. Got himself killed in a brawl in Brownsville. The boy had no one else.’
‘His mother?’
‘She was long dead.’
‘So you looked after him.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘No wonder he idolises you.’
‘He’s a hard worker. He’s good with a gun too.’
‘But not as good as you.’ Jack probed deeper.
‘Maybe.’ Brannigan gave a lopsided smile as he answered Jack’s question. ‘Man only gets one chance to find out.’
Jack laughed at the uncompromising answer. ‘I’ll make a note not to try.’
‘You don’t have to worry. You draw on me, and you’ll be dead before that fancy Colt of yours is even out of its goddam holster.’
‘Maybe.’ Jack took Brannigan’s earlier response for his own. It earned him another smile. Brannigan was a man of few words, but he faced the world with humour, based on the sure knowledge that he could kill any man who crossed him. It gave him an air of unshakeable confidence.
‘No maybe about it.’ Brannigan made a play of looking down at the sabre on Jack’s left hip. ‘Why are you still carrying that thing around with you?’
Jack patted the sword, which hung on longer slings now that he was mounted. ‘You don’t think I’ll have to fight?’
‘Hell, no. I ain’t saying that. You’ll have to fight all right. But I don’t think you’ll need that. You killed men with it before?’
‘Not so many with this one. But it’s not the first sword I’ve owned.’
Brannigan considered the answer before he replied. ‘That was in battle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Figures.’ There was something disparaging in the remark.
‘Have you fought in battle, Brannigan?’ Jack held the man’s gaze. There was something unsettling in it. It was as if Brannigan was always looking at something else, even when he was looking directly at you.
‘Nope. Never wanted to. I’ve killed my fair share of men, though.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ Jack was trying to read the man opposite him, but failing. There was something inscrutable about him. To say he played his cards close to his chest was an understatement.
‘What’s it like?’
For the first time, Jack heard genuine interest in one of Brannigan’s questions. He was no longer just marking time.
‘Most of the time it’s as dull as hell. Nothing happens for hours.’ Jack made sure he held Brannigan’s gaze as he began to talk. ‘Then it’s like nothing else on this earth.’
‘Go on.’
Jack turned away as he tried to find the right words. He wanted to choose them carefully. He did not want to boast, or try to show Brannigan that he was the better man for having experienced battle. Somehow he wanted to convey something more than that.
‘At first it’s nothing but confusion. It’s the noise, you see. It comes from all over the fucking place, and it’s like nothing you ever heard. Then you go into action. That’s when you feel the fear for the first time, the real fear, not the thing you had before. This consumes you, and it’s all you can do just to stand there. Then the enemy come at you. First it’s the volleys, shooting as fast as you can, not thinking of anything save the next round. Men are screaming all around you as they’re hit. That’s a terrible sound, worse than anything. If you’re lucky, you stand like that until the enemy break. If you’re not, then you have to charge. That’s when it gets really bad.’
He paused, and sucked down a deep breath before continuing. ‘That’s the worst fighting. Nothing prepares you for the violence. There’s no sense to it; it’s just chaos. When it’s hand-to-hand, when you can see the man you’re fighting – see him properly, I mean: look into his eyes and see his fear; even smell it – you fight like an animal then. Nothing else matters save for killing. You hack at the other poor bastard until you tear him apart. Then you find someone else to kill. You keep going like that until they run or you’re dead. Or until you run yourself.’
He fell silent. He was breathing quicker now, so he concentrated on slowing it down. Brannigan was staring straight ahead, but Jack was sure he was listening.
‘How many times have you done all that?’ He asked the question without turning his head.
‘I don’t know. More times than I can remember.’
‘Why do you go back?’
‘Because I have to.’
‘Why?’
Jack opened his mouth to answer. He had been about to say ‘duty’, but the word had stuck in his throat. He called himself a soldier, but it had been a long time since he had been ordered to fight. At first, he had fought for himself; to give his life purpose and then to become the man, and the leader, he had wanted to be. Then he had sought battle because he had believed he had nothing else save a talent for war. Yet that was all done now. Now he knew what he was. He knew what it was to fear for his life, just as he knew that there was something else that battle gave him, something he needed. And he wanted to go there again. He did not fully understand why that was. But the desire was there; the need was there.
‘I can’t explain it.’ He gave the honest answer.
Brannigan glanced at him, then nodded in respect at hearing the truth. ‘You kept going back knowing you could die.’
‘You don’t at first.’ Jack watched Brannigan closely. He could feel his words having an effect. They might have led very different lives, yet they were both fighters. Both had killed and knew what it was to come close to death themselves. ‘The first time you fight, it’s so damn chaotic that you don’t have a clue what’s going on. You’re too confused to be properly frightened. Then you believe that it simply cannot be you, that it will always be some other poor bugger that’ll get hit. That thought doesn’t last long. So then you think you’ll live, but only if you fight harder than the other bastards. If you’re quicker, faster, braver, if you’re more vicious or a better bloody shot, then you’ll live and others will die.’
He paused. There was a chill on the back of his neck. ‘You become better at it too. Soon you start to believe that you’re better than the other poor bastards out there. It almost becomes easy; too easy, perhaps. You begin to believe that you’re alive because you’re the fucking best.’ Again he paused. ‘Then you realise that one day it is going to be you, and there’s bugger all you can do about it. You only stay alive if you’re lucky. Or unlucky.’ He spoke the last sentence so softly he was not sure if Brannigan had even heard him. Then he fell silent.
‘Fighting looks different down here.’ Brannigan eventually broke the silence. ‘Now that repeating rifle of yours, that thing is a beauty. If we all had one of those, no one would dare come close to us, and we could mosey our way down to Mexico without anyone trying to stop us. But we haven’t, and they will.’ He turned to stare at Jack. ‘Then you’ll see it’s not so different to what you’re used to.’
Jack would be given no time to reply. Adam and the men he had taken with him were coming back. They arrived in a rush, the quiet broken by the sound of jangling harness and hard-breathing animals.
‘There’s no one there.’ Adam shouted the news as he pulled his horse to a noisy halt. He spoke fast, excited by the ride, hauling hard on the reins as his horse tossed its head. ‘What do you want to do?’
Brannigan looked at Jack. ‘What do we do, Jack?’
Jack glanced once at Adam, then replied with a shrug. ‘We have no choice. We need to cross.’
‘Might be dangerous.’ Brannigan’s reply was sharp.
‘Then turn around and go home.’ Jack could see Adam glowering in his direction as Brannigan quizzed him. ‘If it was me, I’d move the wagons down, but have at least two groups patrolling the surrounding area. There’s so much dead ground down there, there’s no telling what’s waiting for you.’
‘There’s no one there,’ Adam snapped. ‘I went down there while you were sitting up here on your damn backside.’
‘There’s no way you can know that for sure. Just look at the ground.’ Jack gestured towards the crossing. He had searched the areas up- and downstream with his field glasses. The heavy undergrowth and tightly packed groupings of trees created a hundred places where men could be waiting in ambush.
‘There’s no one there.’ Adam repeated his assertion with all the confidence of youth.
‘That’s enough.’ Brannigan put an end to the discussion. ‘Jack’s right. We need to cross, so we have no choice but to go down there.’ He eased himself around in the saddle. ‘Tell the boys to make sure they’re loaded and ready to go. Adam, take four men; you’re the advance guard. Tell Weston to take another four and follow you down, but to stay back.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Are you a betting man, Jack?’
‘At times.’
‘I bet you fifty dollars that Adam’s right and there’s no one down there.’
Jack kept his expression neutral. He didn’t have much more than fifty cents to his name, let alone fifty dollars, but he recognised why the wager had been placed. It was to show Adam that Brannigan had confidence in him.
‘Make it a hundred,’ he answered, his words like iron. If he lost, he had just forfeited nearly half the amount he would be paid for risking his life to escort the cotton.
‘Done.’ Brannigan’s reply was immediate. He spat on his hand and offered it to Jack.
The wager was made. And they would cross the river.
Jack rode with his Henry repeater held in his right hand. He had loaded the gun, the first time he had done so for many months. With sixteen rounds in the magazine under the barrel, it would be a fearsome weapon in any fight. If there was one.
Brannigan might have backed Adam’s opinion that no one was waiting to ambush the wagon train, but that did not mean he was not cautious. The two patrols he had ordered rode off, whilst more riders carrying drawn revolvers or percussion-cap muzzle-loading carbines flanked the wagons. Another group of four men protected the rear. Jack was impressed.
The wagon train came off the higher ground and moved cautiously down the slope, picking its way towards the crossing. Jack rode near the head of the long line of wagons. The position gave him a good line of sight all the way to the river crossing. If anything, the ground was worse than he had seen through his field glasses. The river twisted this way and that, its shallow banks thickly covered with undergrowth. It made a mockery of Adam’s assertion that no one was waiting to ambush the wagon train. From what Jack could see, a whole battalion could be hidden there.
It started to rain, the first drops pattering softly on to the top of his pork pie hat. He pulled his long coat tighter around his chest, protecting his body from the worst of the rain, but made sure to sweep it back so that it did not cover either the holster on his right hip or the handle of the sabre on his left.
The gentle shower lasted no more than a minute. Then the heavens opened.
Jack had never known rain like it. It came down in great sheets, the water vomiting from the sky with a roar like a locomotive rushing up the line. The sky darkened, so that it went from daylight to dusk in a matter of minutes. The deluge cut visibility down to just a few yards. In the gloom, he immediately lost sight of the patrols Brannigan had sent out ahead.
The first flash of lightning crashed out with enough violence to make him flinch. Thunder followed hard on its heels, the sound so loud that it sounded like the very sky was being split apart.
The sudden storm was stunning in its violence. To his ears, it sounded uncomfortably like the start of a great battle; the thunder the roar of the artillery’s opening barrage, whilst the cracks of lightning were the crash of rifles and muskets spitting out their massed volleys.
He rode on. The rain continued without pause. It drummed into the top of his hat, and soaked into his coat so that it hung cold and heavy around his body. The storm had barely lasted a matter of minutes, but already the ground was becoming treacherous, and the wagons were slowing. He could hear the shouts and curses of the drivers as they abused their teams of mules, whipping the beasts mercilessly as they made every effort to keep the heavily laden wagons moving.
Another great blast of lightning ripped across the sky. It seared
through the blackened clouds to cast an eerie white light over the land for no more than a moment, before it disappeared, condemning the world to darkness once more. A great clap of thunder followed. The sound drew out, the deep, ominous rumble growing and reverberating until it lost its power and faded away. The rain pounded down.
Jack rode through the fury of the storm, his free hand working hard to keep his horse in check. He clutched his rifle to his chest, doing his best to cover it with his coat and keep the rain out of the long groove in the underside magazine. As he rode, he tried to peer through the sheets of rain, but he could see little more than what was directly ahead of him.
Again lightning scored through the grey, the dazzling explosion tearing away the darkness for a split second before his world was plunged back into shadow. Thunder followed, the rumble echoing across the valley. It was replaced by a different sound, one that Jack could barely hear over the drumming of the rain, but which was unmistakable to a man who had stood on a dozen battlefields.
He had just won his wager.
For he heard gunfire.
It was Weston’s patrol that had sprung the ambush. All five men had drawn revolvers, yet not one had managed to fire a single shot before they were gunned down.
For a moment, Jack was unsure of what to do. This was not his kind of fight, and he did not know if he should stay and guard the wagons or ride ahead to return fire.
Lightning blasted across the sky once more, giving him a glimpse of the men who had lain in wait for the wagon train to arrive. They rode out of their hiding places on the far bank of the river, their shouts and whoops barely audible over the constant roar of the rain. Still he hesitated.
The Lost Outlaw Page 10