The Lost Outlaw

by Paul Fraser Collard

‘It’s not the first time. People have been killing each other around me for as long as I’ve been alive. Men killed my parents for their land, and then the Yankees killed my brother.’

  ‘Doesn’t excuse this.’

  ‘You think I’d be better off if I’d been standing over there?’ Kat’s reply was immediate and cutting. ‘You’d rather I was lying dead on the ground? You don’t know a goddam thing. Why, you’re nothing but a goddam babe.’

  ‘And you know better? That’s why you can stand by and watch that man kill?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll stand by and watch him kill. I’ll stand here and watch him put a bullet right between your goddam eyes if it suits me.’

  Jack shook his head, controlling his rage. It was all he could do not to throttle her with his bare hands.

  ‘I’ll tell you something else, Jack, I know exactly what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. So now I suggest you shut that big mouth of yours. Otherwise I reckon Brannigan will shoot you down right where you stand.’

  Jack heard the jangle of spurs. He moved his head far enough to see Brannigan returning from his bloody task.

  ‘You look shocked, Jack.’ The wagon master spoke as he came close. ‘You don’t like what you see?’

  ‘You’re a murdering bastard, Brannigan.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment coming from an Englishman, you fellas being the experts and all. Now you stand nice and easy. You ain’t going to die. Least not if you’re sensible. I told you. I owe you. Now I’m repaying my debt.’

  The arrival of a group of Ángeles prevented Brannigan from saying more. They were half carrying, half dragging Adam and the man who had run with him. Of the pair, only Adam was conscious. His face was a mask of blood, whilst the other man – Jack thought his name was Brown, but he could not be sure – had been even more badly beaten. Blood flowed freely from his scalp and ran in a thick river down the side of his head, soaking into his shirt. There was enough blood for Jack not to be sure if he was even still alive.

  ‘Good to see you, Adam.’ Brannigan greeted the young man with a leer. He looked down at his revolver, then broke the weapon open to peer at the chambers. ‘Looks like this gun of mine is empty, so that means you get to live a while longer.’ He turned to the Ángeles. ‘Take these two away. Him too.’ He nodded in Jack’s direction.

  The Ángeles said nothing as they moved to obey. Jack was pulled forward to have his hands bound behind him with rough hemp rope that burned against his skin.

  ‘You’re safe for the moment. Just don’t do anything stupid or it will be a whole lot worse for you. These boys won’t stand for any of your nonsense.’ Brannigan walked to Kat’s side as he gave the advice.

  Jack did not look at him once. He concentrated his gaze on the dirt between his boots. Nothing he could say would change what had just happened. Nothing he could do would alter his situation. He was a prisoner of Santiago and his bandoleros, and his life was in the hands of men who killed without a qualm.

  Jack rested his head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. The pain in his back and shoulders was fierce, and his wrists burned from the hemp rope that still bound them tight behind him. He did his best to ignore the pain, just as he had ignored the shame of being stripped naked by his captors before being dumped into a small shed pressed hard into the flank of a large hacienda. The shed was filthy and half full of rotting straw. The brickwork was cracked, and in one corner a whole section of the upper wall had fallen in. The roof was made of beams and thatch. In two places there were gaping holes through which he could see the dark night sky. The single door was shut, and from the sounds coming from the far side, at least two men were stationed outside.

  Jack had done his best to observe where he was being taken, his interest in his surroundings earning him a bloody nose from one of his captors as he had been dragged towards the hacienda. The building was sited on the side of a wide track. It was a two-storey affair, its walls made of stone that might once have been whitened with lime, but which now looked grey and forlorn, under a raggedy red-tile roof. There was a single doorway facing the track and no windows in the second storey save for four small square openings. To the rear was a yard of compacted earth, with an open-fronted barn to one side and three sheds down one flank. From what he had seen, the hacienda was in a poor state of repair. A sizeable section of the roof had caved in, and large patches of stone had fallen away from the walls. It had clearly been abandoned for a long time, and it looked as lonely and bereft as the three prisoners who had been dragged towards it.

  ‘I’m going to kill him.’

  Jack did not bother to open his eyes as Adam made the bold claim. It was not the first time the younger man had said something similar. The threats had come one after the other, some simple, others embellishing the ways in which Brannigan was to be put to death. Adam was sitting to Jack’s left, his head hanging down so that it almost rested on his knees. The third prisoner, Brown, was still unconscious. He had been dumped without ceremony and lay where he had been left.

  ‘I’m going to cut his belly wide open. He’ll scream when I do it. He’ll scream and scream, but I won’t stop, not even when his guts are hanging out and he’s begging me to kill him.’ Adam broke off with a sob.

  Jack tried to hold his tongue. He knew what the lad was doing. Conjuring images of Brannigan’s death was a good way of passing the time. Yet the repetition was grating on nerves that were already stretched thin.

  ‘I’m going to kill him real slow—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Jack snapped. ‘I don’t want to bloody hear it.’

  Adam recoiled from the venom in his voice. ‘How can you just sit there?’ His face lifted and he looked at Jack, his bloodshot eyes filled with anguish.

  ‘Because that’s all there is to do.’ Jack sucked down a breath, stilling his temper.

  ‘I can’t bear it.’

  ‘You have to.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can and you will.’ Jack’s voice was hard. ‘Sometimes there is nothing to do but suck it down. Crying and whimpering won’t make it any better.’

  ‘Nothing will.’

  ‘No. So make a choice. Let it break you, or deal with it.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Tears rolled down Adam’s cheeks now. ‘They’re going to kill us.’

  ‘Maybe. But we don’t have any say in the matter.’ Jack was not moved. ‘All you can do is decide how you’re going to face it.’ He gave the fatalistic advice in a voice wrapped in iron. He had fought the battle with his own fear. After the first day’s fighting at Shiloh, that fear had been like a beast living deep in his gut. It had lurked there, always present, always haunting him. At times it had reared up, swarming through his body like a plague of hornets. It had come close to winning the battle for his soul, but from somewhere – he did not know where – he had found the strength to take back control, and to master that fear. It had not disappeared, not completely, but like a bear whipped into obedience by a cruel master, it could be contained and corralled despite its power.

  Adam drew in a deep breath. ‘You’re so goddam calm.’

  ‘I pretend to be.’ Jack sighed. He did not want this conversation. Yet he saw the need in the younger man, so he tried to build a bridge, one that would lead Adam to some sort of peace of mind.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No one would ever know. You’re the surest man I ever met. Save for Brannigan, goddam him.’

  Jack grunted. ‘It’s an act. All of it.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I don’t give a fig if you do or if you don’t. But it’s the truth. Half the time I don’t know what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it.’ Jack offered a short, bitter laugh. ‘Look at me. Here I am, as naked as a newborn babe, locked up God alone knows where for a reason I can’t even remember.’

  ‘You did it for money. Same as all of us.’

  ‘Not you.’ Jack glanced across at Adam. The tears had stopped.
The distraction was working. ‘You did it for Brannigan.’

  ‘And now I hate him.’ Adam delivered the line with passion. ‘And I’ll kill him.’

  ‘That’s good. Hold on to that thought. Use it.’

  ‘I hated you too. I wanted to kill you.’

  ‘I don’t blame you.’ Jack snorted as the boy revealed something he had already known. ‘I’m a miserable bastard. You can tell me why you hated me if you like.’

  ‘I hated you because you were in the way. Every time I turned around, there you were with Brannigan. Then you got nice and cosy with Kat.’

  ‘Not that cosy.’ Jack shook his head as he considered that particular folly. The first time he had seen Kat with Adam, she had been playing a role. He had seen through it in an instant. Yet despite that, he had not seen that she had been toying with him the whole time since. He had been an impostor for years, yet he had taken her bait, hook, line and sinker.

  ‘I was wrong about you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, chum. You’re not the first. Looks like you might be the last, though.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ Jack sighed. The conversation was awakening the fear in his own belly. Thankfully he was spared any more as a long-drawn-out groan announced that Brown was finally coming to.

  The moaning stopped and Brown lifted his head as best he could. He was laying face down, his arms tied together behind his back just like Jack and Adam. ‘Where am I?’ His voice cracked as he spoke, the words grating and hoarse.

  ‘In hell,’ Adam answered.

  Brown said nothing more. He tried to move, but failed to do anything more than writhe. He went still.

  ‘Are we gonna die?’ He finally spoke after a pause of several minutes.

  ‘Maybe.’ Jack took his turn to answer.

  ‘Brannigan.’ Brown spat out the word. Again he went quiet for several moments before he spoke again. ‘Is there any water?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then they’re going to kill us for sure. You don’t give water to a dying man. Not out here.’ Brown fell silent after he had made the dire prophecy.

  None of the three men said anything more. Jack closed his eyes, trying to husband his strength. He made a final vow that he would not go quietly. At the end, he would fight, just as he always had done. However Brannigan intended to kill them, he would find a way to fight back. It might be futile, and it might earn him nothing but more pain on his way to hell, but he would not submit meekly to his fate.

  A quiet mumbling interrupted his thoughts. It took him a while to realise that Brown was praying.

  He listened to the barely audible words. For a moment, he wished he had faith. It would be a comfort to have something to turn to at the last. Yet his faith had always been in himself and the weapons he carried. He would rather trust a six-shot Navy Colt revolver to keep him safe than some faceless deity. Now, though, he felt that a part of him was missing. He did not know if some god could fill that space, but he did know that he had never felt more alone than he did at that moment.

  Brown fell silent. There were no sounds other than the chirps and clicks of the thousand of insects that had come alive now that the sun was setting.

  Jack screwed his eyes shut and did his best to empty his mind. There was no benefit in idle thought. Not now.

  There was nothing left to do save endure.

  And wait for the end of his days.

  Jack woke with a start. It was colder in the shed now, the cool air that had arrived with the dawn billowing through the gaps in the walls and roof. He had not meant to sleep. He had tried to stay awake, unwilling to miss a moment of his last night on earth. He had still been awake when the sky had begun to turn slowly from black to grey. Sleep had come only as the dawn breathed new life into another day.

  He took a moment to look around him. Neither of his companions appeared to be awake, but there was no way of knowing for sure, and he had no intention of trying to find out. Outside, the chirrups of the insects were being replaced by the squawks and screeches of the thousands of green parrots that had come awake with the dawn.

  A gunshot crashed out. It came from a fair distance away, but it still had the power to make him flinch. He could only presume that one of the bandoleros had taken a shot at the raucous birds. The cheer that had followed told him that the man’s aim had likely been true.

  He let his head rest back against the wall and closed his eyes, which were gritty and sore. His mouth and throat were parched, but he refused to dwell on his thirst. It was the least of his problems. He had just resolved to attempt to sleep once more, if only to avoid thinking, when there were footsteps outside his prison. A moment later, the bar that had locked the door tight was withdrawn, the sound of wood grating on wood echoing around the shed before the door was pulled back to send a wave of cold air surging into the confined space.

  ‘Get yourselves on up, fellas.’ Brannigan loomed large in the doorway. ‘We’re going for a little walk.’

  The two men sharing the small space with Jack stirred at once. Neither had been asleep.

  Jack looked at the man who had condemned them to this fate. Brannigan appeared well rested. Clearly the previous day’s massacre had not prevented him from sleeping.

  It was only then that Jack noticed that the wagon master had come to the shed carrying his sabre.

  ‘I still don’t get it, Jack.’ Brannigan saw that the sword had caught Jack’s attention. He made a play of looking at its hilt. ‘I mean, it was made at the Nashville Plow Works, for Christ’s sake. That’s all this is. A farmer’s weapon. It’s not for men like us.’

  Jack did not bother to reply.

  Brannigan held the sword higher, sighting down the blade. He held the pose, then lowered the weapon. ‘You sure this thing can kill a man?’

  ‘Hand it over and I’ll show you what I can do with it.’ Jack’s glib reply earned him a tight-lipped smile.

  ‘I think you’d like that.’ Brannigan laughed at the impossible idea. ‘Try anything and my friends here have been told to shoot you down.’ He paused, as if he expected an answer. He made a face when none of his three prisoners said anything. ‘Come on, then. Stir yourselves, goddammit.’ He snapped the words, good humour evaporating.

  ‘You’ll have to help me up,’ Brown hissed. He was still lying face down. The words came out dry and hoarse.

  Jack himself moved slowly. His head was pounding, and he had been sitting in the same position for so long that every muscle in his body protested as he carefully pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘That’s the way.’ Brannigan greeted his obedience with a loud commendation. ‘Boys, pick that there fella up.’ He used Jack’s sword to gesture towards Brown.

  Jack had to lean back against the wall as two of Brannigan’s Tejanos entered the small space. They spared no ceremony as they bent low and dragged Brown to his feet, one holding him tightly under each arm.

  Brannigan stood easy in the doorway, a wide smile on his face. ‘I hope you boys had a fine rest.’

  ‘The devil will take you, Brannigan.’ It was Adam who spoke first. ‘We’ve done nothing save what you told us to do.’ The passion burned in his words, but a barely controlled terror had sucked all the colour from the lad’s face so that his skin was the colour of week-old milk.

  ‘You have.’ Brannigan stood foursquare in front of him. ‘You’ve been loyal to me, and I sure appreciate it. But I have no choice. Not this time. Not if I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with bounty hunters or Pinkerton’s boys chasing my tail. You know what I’ve done and why I’ve done it. That makes you all dangerous to me.’ He looked around the room at the three men, who stared back at him.

  ‘You’ll burn in hell.’ The words spewed out of Adam and his face contorted, fear etched into every pore.

  ‘Well, I ain’t there yet. Maybe Jack will put in a good word for me when he moseys down there in a bit.’ Brannigan looked away, as if bored by the conversation.

&nb
sp; ‘You should let Adam go.’ Jack was proud of the way his voice came out flat and level. His own fear was squirming in his bowels, but he had it whipped, for the moment at least.

  ‘Now why would I do that?’

  ‘You were his hero. He worshipped you. And he’s right. He did every bloody thing you told him to. Why kill him now?’

  ‘Because I have to.’ Brannigan gave the answer in the same dry, lifeless tone.

  ‘You don’t,’ Jack pressed on. ‘You can let him live.’

  ‘No.’ The answer was given immediately. ‘Like I told you, you don’t keep a horse that’s gone lame, no matter how good it’s been to you. You shoot it right between the eyes. And you do that because it’s no goddam use to you any more.’

  ‘Adam’s not a fucking horse. He’s just a boy.’

  Brannigan gave a wry smile. ‘Now why are you defending Adam all of a sudden? He’s hated your guts ever since the moment I took you on. Wanted you left by the roadside buried up to your goddam neck. Let me guess. Did you fellas become friends last night?’

  ‘Just let him go. How can he hurt you?’ Jack had to force the words out, his mouth as dry as the sands. Talking hurt.

  ‘He can hurt me plenty. Hatred does funny things to a man. Last thing I need is to have to watch my back waiting for this boy to make his move. It’s best this way.’

  ‘Goddam you, Brannigan.’ Adam had fallen silent, but now he spluttered the words, spit and tears flung from his lips. He was weeping openly, the tears carving channels in the grime that was crusted to his skin.

  ‘First the devil, now God. Why, I sure got myself some pretty stern judges looking over me, haven’t I just?’

  ‘What about Kat?’ Jack tried another tack. ‘She knows what you did. Why aren’t you killing her?’

  ‘She knows plenty.’ Brannigan’s expression changed. ‘But don’t you worry yourself about her.’

  ‘Why? Why trust her and not him?’ Jack gestured towards Adam with his chin.

  ‘She’s a good girl. Knows her place and does what I says, when I say it. And a girl like that, she ain’t no threat, not to me.’ Brannigan pulled a wry face, as if that thought amused him.