The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne

by Jonathan Stroud

  He gazed around him in the silence.

  No, she was gone. Devoured or crushed by the bear. A mild regret stirred inside the boy, an emotion he wanted to acknowledge aloud.

  “Unknown girl or woman,” he said softly, “I thank you for your companionship, brief though it was, and wish you well in whatever afterlife you find yourself. I shall remember you always—your hair, your scowl, the roll of your green eyes. I am only sorry I never learned your name.”

  A voice came from the bear, a muffled growl as from a pit in the earth. “Will you stop that warbling and help me?” it cried. “I’m not dead!”

  The boy had stepped back in shock; now he stared at the hairy shape in sober doubt. “Sir Bear, I believe you tried to kill me. You have certainly killed the only person who was ever kind to me, and thus I owe you nothing. I wish you no harm, of course—but I fear you must fend for yourself.”

  A flurry of swearwords emerged from somewhere beneath the bear. “Are you kidding me?” the voice roared. “I’m down here! Get me out!”

  The boy bent close and with some difficulty moved the hot, damp foreleg aside, revealing a glimpse of the girl’s face, somewhat compressed and sweaty, and surrounded by a tangle of long gray armpit fur. A hand protruded and made a series of vigorous gestures, some of which were practical, others merely expressive. Terse verbal instructions followed. By such means the boy understood what was required. He pattered back down to the trees and returned with a long stick; using it as a lever, he was able to lift a portion of the bear’s shoulder and give the girl space to wriggle free.

  She emerged stiffly and in some disorder, hair matted, eyes blazing. To the boy’s horror, she was also stained red from neck to waistline. Her front was soused and dripping.

  “You’re covered in blood,” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” the girl said, holding up a knife. “Because I killed the bear, see? Killed it as it leaped on me. In return, I was almost flattened beneath it. An idiot would have understood the situation. A baby would have grasped it in a glance. Not you. I had to lie trapped under a bear’s arse while you gave a little speech.”

  She was angry again; it seemed her default mode. The buzz of her thoughts beset him. But the boy, who had been in the power of people who were never angry, yet who did terrible things to him, was undaunted and even reassured. He gave her a beaming smile. “For a second there,” he said, “I did think it was the bear talking. You’ve got to admit appearances were deceptive. But I’m overjoyed to see that I was wrong, and that you are alive! And that you saved my life again! But are you all right? I think you’re bleeding.”

  She inspected some lacerations on her shoulder, places where the cloth of her jacket hung down in ribbons. The flesh below was pulpy and torn. “I’ve got a few scratches, yeah—and I’m also slightly thinner than I was before.” She glared meaningfully at him.

  “Yes.” The boy gave a somber nod. “Well, it puts my stiff bum in perspective. I won’t be mentioning that again. Now, there is something very important to be done. I realized it when I thought you were dead. We do not know one another’s names. We have not been introduced, and I won’t go a moment longer without remedying this omission.” He waited, smiling at her.

  She had crouched down and was wiping the blade of her knife on a tussock. Now she glanced up at him, shielding her eyes with her hand. “Our names? Does it matter?”

  “Why, certainly it does. I shall offer mine first, for I am in your debt. My name is Albert Browne.”

  She scowled. “I’m Scarlett McCain, for all the good that’ll do you. So, we are acquainted. And now we must say farewell.”

  The boy gave a small twitch, his face suddenly slack. It was as if she had pricked him in the heart with the point of her knife. “Say farewell?” he asked. “Why?”

  “Because you’re going up to the road, where you can wait for another bus to come by. I’m cleaning myself up, then heading into the forest.” She had taken the bag off her back and was inspecting it sourly, prodding and plumping and feeling for damage. She paid particular attention to a long tube, Albert noticed, checking its seal, wiping off flecks of bear blood. A pair of shattered binoculars was brought out and discarded with a curse. She didn’t look at him.

  “Can’t I come with you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve got to wait out here?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “There may be more bears around.”

  She shrugged, didn’t answer.

  “And the things that ate the bodies in the bus,” he added. “They’ll be back for sure. You said so.”

  She tightened a strap. “Someone will drive past first. It’s a working road.”

  “When will they come, though? Before dark?”

  “Before dark, yeah.”

  Her hesitation had been minute, but he’d spotted it. He read the evasiveness in her mind. “What if they don’t? I’ll be eaten.”

  “You’ll be fine.” She straightened, hefted the bag. “Anyway, you can’t come with me.”

  “Why not? I won’t be any trouble.”

  “You just can’t, that’s all.”

  “But they’ll tear me apart. Pull my legs off. You’ll hear me screaming.”

  “I won’t,” the girl said. “I’ll be much too far away. And anyway,” she added, “I’m sure you won’t be eaten. It’s not likely at all. They’ll eat this bear first, and there’s lots of meat on him. He’ll keep them going half the night.”

  “It’s what happens in the other half that worries me.” Albert’s expression was forlorn. “You’ll hear my arms being pulled off, you know. There’ll be this distant popping noise. Pop, pop, pop, gone. That’ll be me.”

  “No, it won’t. And how many arms have you got? Three? No, I’m just as likely to get eaten as you,” the girl said. “I’m heading for the deep forest. That’s much worse than here. It’s where the Tainted live….”

  “If it’s so bad, two of us would be better than one.” He smiled brightly at her. “I could look after you.”

  Albert’s first clue that this comment was a mistake came when a bloodied hand reached out and grappled him round the throat. It drew him bodily forward, trainers scratching on the ground; drew him close to the white face, curtained by twisted coils of damp red hair. The girl’s lips were tight; the green eyes stared at him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What did you say?”

  The quality of her anger had shifted; her voice was quieter, more dangerous. Albert Browne, who knew a thing or two about the imminent onset of violence, spoke rapidly: “I’m sorry if I offended you, Scarlett. It is Scarlett, isn’t it? It’s just I’m a bit light-headed and I haven’t had anything to eat for three days. The thought kind of came out wrong. What I meant was, obviously I wouldn’t ‘look after’ you—that’s a stupid idea. But I could help out, maybe. Keep watch for things. Make myself useful….”

  Albert paused. He sensed his words dropping lifeless to the earth. The girl just looked at him.

  “I got you out from under the bear, didn’t I?” he added.

  She let out an oath, flung him away. “Yes!” she said. “But only after I’d bloody saved you from being swallowed whole! And I wouldn’t have been in that predicament if it wasn’t for you!”

  Albert stopped himself from falling over only with difficulty. “Ah,” he said, “but you only turned round and saw the bear because I was talking. Without me, it would have crept up and got us both. So there you are—an example of our perfect teamwork! We both helped out each other.”

  The girl ran her hand back through her mess of hair and gazed at him. “Gods almighty,” she said. She shook her head disgustedly, though whether at herself or him he couldn’t tell. Then she rummaged in her coat, took out a coin, and inserted it in the dirty leather box hanging from her neck. After reflection, she added several more
. “I’m running out of room in here,” she growled. “Thanks to you, I’ve been swearing blue murder all afternoon….”

  She folded her arms, staring off into nothing, then back at him.

  “I’ll say three things,” she said. “One. I’m not slowing my pace for you. If you drag behind, or get your backside caught on a thornbush—well, tough luck, baby: I’ll leave you without a goodbye glance. Two. You do what I say, no argument and no discussion. Three. We cross the Wilds, get to a town—finito, that’s when we part ways. That’s the deal. OK?”

  “Well—”

  “No argument and no discussion, I said! My rules start now!” She settled her pack comfortably in the small of her back and jerked a serene thumb in the direction of the hill. “If you don’t like it, fine. The road’s up there.”

  With that, she turned and began walking down toward the stream.

  Albert Browne did not follow her immediately. He sensed his new companion required a bit of space. But neither did he dally too long. He was weak and he was hungry, and if he was going to reach his objective alive, he needed all the help he could get. For the present, that meant he had to stick with Scarlett McCain. But it was good. Everything was going his way. The sun was shining, the trees were green, and he was free to walk the world. Putting his hands in the pockets of his prison trousers, and whistling huskily between his teeth, he set off after the girl.

  * * *

  —

  They left the road behind, moved steadily east and north. At times they could hear running water below them, but the thickets of bramble and holly were too dense for streams to be seen. The route they took was not a path, at least not one made by human feet. Rather it was a trail, a high road for the beasts of the Wessex woods as they wove their way between the tree boles and buried ruins, following the hidden contours of the valleys. The soft earth of the trail was dotted with punctuation marks that had been made by running claws.

  They were crossing a spur of the Wolds, where low, rounded hills broke clear of the woods like shoals of fat, bald swimmers coming up for air. Once, this had been a populated country. Stumps of ancient concrete bridges rose among the trees. Across the centuries, the rivers had moved and the ground had risen, swallowing the bridges, the towns, the roads that served them. In places, sections of buried roofs were visible, their tiles lying like scattered jigsaw pieces amid carpets of yellow flowers.

  Evening was approaching. It would not do, Scarlett knew, to be caught in the deep forest after dark. A safe place would have to be found. And that meant a cave, a ruin, a high tree that might be defended. She kept a lookout as they went and did her best to ignore the youth scuttling behind her on his skinny legs, his trainers scuffing in the dust and leaves.

  Exactly why she had let him come with her she did not attempt to fathom. It was certainly not that she wanted company! Perhaps it had something to do with the tug of the prayer mat in its tube upon her shoulder; the knowledge of the guilt she might have felt had she left him on the road to die. But such introspection irritated her; worse, it slowed her down. She was more concerned with reaching Stow and settling up with the Brothers before playing the tables in the Bull with any profit that remained. The fairs might be on too, with entertainments to be had: steam wheels, shotgun alleys, seers, and sweetmeats—and also their markets where healthy youths were bought and sold. This last detail lingered in her brain. In silence, she eyed the boy as he negotiated the way beside her.

  The trail had been climbing for some time. At last it broke free of the trees, and they found themselves on the top of a broad hill, with chalk underfoot and a soft land of woods and water stretching away to blue horizons. Far away, a cluster of pale electric lights marked the location of a settlement where the generator had already been switched on for evening. The rest of the country was quiet and cold. Scarlett felt a great wave of loneliness wash up from the landscape, crest the slopes of the hill, and break against her. It always hit her in such places: the emptiness of England.

  At her side the boy shivered, though the afternoon’s late sunlight still shone on the waving grasses and stretched their shadows long before them.

  “What are those dark shapes?” he asked. He meant the black towers and spires that here and there across the depths of the view broke above the line of trees.

  “Deserted villages. Towns, maybe.” She glanced askance at him. “The usual.”

  “I have read about such things.”

  It was an odd comment, and Scarlett realized vaguely that she had not asked the boy anything about himself…. Well, tough. She wasn’t going to start now.

  He was gazing east, his black hair shining in the sun. If someone fed him properly, Scarlett thought, if he’d stop being so wide-eyed and drippy all the time, he’d be really quite saleable. It was easier to see that out here than in the green gloom of the trees. True, he was awkward, skinny, and widemouthed, like a frightened skeleton, but he was nice enough looking in a way. There were no missing limbs, no obvious deformities…. His skin was healthy too, which was a bonus. The traders at Stow would appreciate that. She could point it out to them.

  “It is a very lovely view…,” he said.

  Scarlett stared at him. She had never considered the Wilds beautiful, nor heard anyone else say so. They were empty and dangerous. People were easily lost there. She’d seen the bones.

  “Not really,” she said. “Your eyesight is askew. You also thought the gully with the bus was nice, and that had bits of viscera hanging from the trees.”

  “I suppose. Which kingdom are we in?”

  “Wessex. How do you not know that? We are near the frontier with Mercia. Over there to the east is the Vale of Oxford. There was a great town in it long ago, though you can’t see the ruins from here. They are another four days’ march, and much of the plain is flooded.”

  He nodded slowly. “I should like to visit those ruins.”

  “You wouldn’t. They are surrounded by black marshland, where nothing grows and the air makes you sick. Also in the borderlands are the Tainted, who will peel away your flesh and eat it while you watch. I’d say Stow town, where we are headed, is a rather better bet.”

  “It sounds safer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to sell me at the fairs?”

  She frowned at him. The sharp jab she experienced inside her was mostly one of annoyance. “Of course not. Why would you say that? I will leave you at Stow as agreed. If we don’t meet any more bears, we will be there tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That long?” The boy seemed taken aback. “We must spend a night out here?”

  Scarlett shrugged. “We are not yet halfway across the forest. Look behind us. You can trace where we have come.” She turned and pointed west, almost directly into the light of the sun. “You see that patch of bare hill across the valley? That’s just above where I found you. We were there an hour ago….”

  Her voice trailed off. She reached for her binoculars, but they were gone; instead, she cupped her hand across her brow, frowning. The sun made it difficult to make out details, but surely…She glanced aside at the youth. What was his name, now? Albert…

  “Albert,” she said, “do you see the place I’m talking about? Where the trees draw back?”

  “Certainly, Scarlett. I see it.”

  “Take a look for me. Are there people moving there?”

  He looked. His tone was bland, uninterested. “Yes….”

  Yes. Like black ants, moving in a line. Six of them at least, dark-clothed, advancing at a steady pace. Dogs with them. As she watched, they halted; one figure bent to the earth, studying the ground. They came on again. Even so far away she could sense their pace and purpose. In seconds, both dogs and men had disappeared into the trees.

  The boy was watching her. “Why are you frightened of those people?”

  “I’m not frighte
ned.”

  “Perhaps they are hunters—or farmers, maybe.”

  “They are neither. We need to speed up. We need to speed up now.” She was walking as she spoke, beelining the crest of the hill. It wasn’t enough. Anxiety spiked her, goaded her on. Within seconds, her walk became a jog and the jog became a run.

  Dusk began to fall soon after. They had dropped back down toward the level of the forest, out of daylight and into the evening shadow of the hill. Presently they came to a place of uneven ground, pocked by holes and lines of tumbled brick. A settlement had once stood there. Triangular fragments of concrete wall, blackened by fire, thin and sharp as shark fins, rose above them in the half-dark. Everything was smothered with giant knotweed, high and pale and tangled like the chest hair of an ogre.

  Scarlett led the way onward, with many glances over her shoulder at the hill above. Once she saw movement up near the ridge, and her heart clenched tight, but it was only a bird riding the air currents. Faintly they heard its croaking on the wind.

  Her discovery of the bus had driven the Cheltenham bank raid from her mind. She had almost forgotten the search parties; certainly it had never occurred to her they would pursue her so far, so deep into the forest. But they had. Now, with unpleasant clarity, she recalled the bank manager’s vivid threats; also the iron punishment posts with their glinting chains, standing in sunshine at the edge of the fields. Pushing through the knotweed, fast as she could, she felt a sharp, dense weight growing in the pit of her belly.

  They were close, less than an hour behind.

  Her only ally was the oncoming night.

  In the center of the ruins, they came upon a tumbledown farmhouse from a later age, gray and stooped and soft with brambles. Here the knotweed had grown undisturbed for years, gaining, in places, the thickness of a child’s waist. It curled through the eye sockets of the buildings, over their redbrick bones, pushing against the doors till the panels burst and were carried up and out toward the sky. They hung there now, higher than Scarlett’s head. There were birds, too, fluttering among the milky flowers, and the scent of the air was vegetative and sporous. It made Albert Browne sneeze, and even Scarlett’s skin began to itch.