The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne

by Jonathan Stroud

  Scarlett leaned close to Albert, spoke softly so no one else could hear. “This is your fault. You know how you read his mind back at the inn? How you saw his need for money, his desire for passengers, and all the rest of it? How come you didn’t notice the bit where he had a crummy raft?”

  “I don’t see everything,” Albert whispered. “It doesn’t work that way. I saw that he loved his vessel and thought highly of her capabilities, which is surely the main thing. He may be a bit gruff, but I think he is a competent river pilot. And he’s all we’ve got. So please don’t beat him up or shoot him, or whatever else it is you’re tempted to do.”

  There was a brief silence. He noticed Scarlett staring at him with narrowed eyes. “OK,” she breathed. “And while we’re at it, while we’re setting the ground rules, make sure you don’t brutally kill him either, like you did those three slavers in town, or blow him up, like you did that wharf.”

  Albert shrank under the quality of her inspection. It was what he had always dreaded. She had found him out. She knew him for what he was—a disgusting and wicked thing. He shifted miserably. “I—I won’t. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I haven’t got it in me today.”

  It was true. Albert’s whole body ached. He had expended too much effort at the docks. He hadn’t maxed out, but it had been close, and the Fear had sapped his strength. It would take days for him to recover.

  He realized she was studying him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry for what? The slavers? Albert, they imprison children! The wharf? Who cares? We needed to get away. No…don’t worry about any of that. But I do want to find out how you did it.” There was a quality in her voice that he hadn’t previously heard. It sounded almost admiring. “The petrol drums,” she went on. “The way you just set them off…I’ve never known anything like it before.”

  “It’s not something I plan,” he said. “It just happens. I don’t want to do it, you know.”

  “Maybe not. But it was an amazing thing to see.”

  “It’s an awful feeling. I lose control, and this terror builds up inside me, and…”

  He stopped. She wasn’t listening to him; she was talking as if to herself. “No wonder they want to kill you,” she said. “Or lock you up again. I’m beginning to understand it now…. You’re going to have to tell me more about this Stonemoor place, Albert. And about Dr. Calloway, too.”

  In many ways, Albert considered that his true life had begun six days before, in a whirl of tumbling metal, as the bus rolled off the forest road. As ever when he considered the time before that, he felt the old dread rise round him like river fog. Memories came rushing back, as if carried by ghosts across the mists and water. The intensity of Scarlett’s interest was disturbing. He regarded her miserably and said nothing.

  There was a cough behind them. The old man stood there. Mercifully, he now wore a pair of trousers; also a plaid cotton shirt, a sleeveless denim jacket, and a pair of grubby blue deck shoes. The little girl was in a dirty cotton smock and went barefoot. She was sitting at one of the plastic boxes at the front of the raft, tucking into a shriveled apple with apparent relish. The blankets and pillows under the tent had been cleared away and the two rickety deck chairs erected in their place. The wind had also blown some of the charcoal into the river, so the raft was not quite as decrepit-looking as before.

  All this was good news. Less good was the large black bulbous-ended shotgun in the old man’s hands, which he was pointing directly at them.

  Albert blinked at him. “What’s this?”

  “A blunderbuss. It can blow holes in both of you at once, so don’t try anything.” The old man gave them a baleful glare. “Where is the money for this voyage?”

  Scarlett indicated her bag. “We have it here. What happened to the part about us being valued customers?”

  The old man’s eyes bulged; his bristly chin jutted fiercely as he spoke. “All in good time, missy. This is my insurance policy against hijack. When we made our agreement, I thought you to be an honest young woman and a naïve young man, newlyweds perhaps, planning an eccentric cruise. Now, in the clear light of day, what do I see? A simpering oaf and a ragged she-bandit with bad hair, who left Lechlade under disreputable circumstances and now make rude comments about my raft. The stench of desperation hangs about you both, and it sounds from your discussion as if you expect pursuit. Frankly, you are not ideal passengers. Is it any wonder I take precautions?”

  Albert could sense Scarlett losing patience. He made a placatory gesture. “Sir, let me set your mind at rest. We of course intend to pay your money, and will do so now. There will be an extra sum for the inconvenience of our hasty departure. Secondly, we apologize for insulting this noble vessel. But we have not properly been introduced. My name is Albert, and this—” He hesitated, whispered loudly aside. “Scarlett—do you wish to be known as Scarlett McCain or Alice Cardew today?”

  She looked at him. “Given what you just said, I think Scarlett will do fine.”

  “Right! And this is Scarlett. Sir, it is a pleasure to meet someone of such gnarled antiquity; I am sure you are a repository of great wisdom, and we look forward to learning much from you while you are still with us. Perhaps you could also tell us your name?”

  He smiled his broadest smile. It was a precarious moment. The old man’s thoughts were a swirl of indignation, but Albert could see his resistance lessening. The mention of extra money had certainly helped matters: Albert glimpsed hazy images of an older version of the pudgy granddaughter, beautiful and tall and dressed in unlikely finery.

  “Your child is very pretty,” he added. “I believe you mentioned she is called Ettie? She will grow up to become a fine woman.”

  The old man held his gaze a moment, then sniffed and lowered the gun. “Maybe. Right now, she is a pest who eats me out of house and home. Very well, let us proceed with our arrangement. I am called Joe. And now perhaps you could see your way to giving me my money.”

  “Certainly, Joe! Right away! Oh, just one thing. Could we possibly go a little faster? The way Clara is drifting purposelessly is delightful, but there are people behind who might”—Albert hesitated—“inconvenience us all if they draw level.”

  The old man grunted. “Not to mention hang you both from the nearest tree. Very well, I will start the engine.”

  He shambled to the wooden box below the tiller, unhooked its lid, and lifted it up to reveal a metal motor and a mess of rusty wires. He prodded at a button, pulled on a throttle. There was a smell of petrol, a sudden flume and spray. The raft didn’t exactly buck like a mule and charge madly onward, but there was a marked increase in speed. The old man adjusted the tiller and went to attend to his granddaughter. Albert and Scarlett were left alone.

  “That was well done,” Scarlett whispered. “You disarmed the old fool nicely. Much better than slapping him, which is what I was going to do.” She opened her bag and took out a wad of money, which she counted through with practiced speed. “For our captain. He can have twenty percent now, the rest when we get to London. There’s plenty to go around, anyway.”

  “I am sorry that your meeting with your fellow criminals went wrong,” Albert said. “I didn’t have time to mention it before. I’m shocked by their dishonesty.”

  Scarlett snorted. “The Brothers? Don’t worry about that! They’re the ones who reneged on our deal. It’s tough luck on them. I’m left with the money, and it’s their men who ended up dead.” She grinned at him. She seemed suddenly in a very good mood.

  “But they’ll put a price on your head, won’t they?” Albert began. “Won’t it be dangerous for you to—” A thought occurred to him. “Wait. Did you just say ‘when we get to London’?”

  Scarlett lifted her arms and stretched slowly, luxuriously, like a dog in sunshine. “Well, I can’t hang around this part of Wessex now, can I? The Brothers are after
me, not to mention the people of Lechlade, Cheltenham, and the rest. Plus your Doc Calloway and Shilling. Maybe it’s time I took a trip out east after all. Disappear for a while. See the sights of the wild frontier….”

  She flashed him another grin and went to give the old man his money. Albert watched her go. He hadn’t had time to sieve her properly, but he was aware that she wasn’t thinking about the lands out east particularly, or even the pursuit behind them. She was mainly thinking about him.

  Albert was tired. He sat on the raft, staring along the river. To the east, the sun showed as a pale lemon disc behind the mists. The banks on either side were broad expanses of purplish mud, fringed by low-lying woodland. There was no sign of human habitation. A single black deer, taller than a man, stood at the shore, drinking from the water. It raised its head as the raft went by, its ebony antlers glittering, then turned on spring heels and with two bounds was gone into the brush.

  Somewhere ahead were the Free Isles, places of refuge at the edge of England…. They were still so far away, but with Scarlett at his side, perhaps it was possible to reach them. To Albert, the specters of the night before seemed suddenly less menacing. For the first time since Lechlade, he felt a splinter of hope inside him. The tension in his body lessened. He allowed himself a private smile….

  “Hey, boy!” It was the old man calling. “If you’ve finished lolling about, there’s danger up ahead. In a few minutes, we pass a ruin occupied by a colony of large, toothed spear-birds. It is their breeding season, which makes them savage. If we don’t take steps, they will attack us, carry Ettie away, and rip the rest of us into bloody cubes of flesh. Or do you just want to go on sitting there?”

  Albert sighed. All things considered, he thought he probably didn’t.

  On the edge of the low-lying Oxford Sours, the great Cataclysm of the past had sent up a spur of land—a ridge of breccia, shocked quartz, and fused black glass, steep and curved and sharp as a quill. Through this ridge the persistent Thames had eventually cut its way; and here, high on a headland above the gorge, a concrete gun tower had been built in the period of the Frontier Wars, to watch over the river and exact tolls from passing boats. This bastion, in turn, had fallen into ruin. Gray-black walls angled out above the churning waters, and twisting strands of metal rose stark against the sky.

  In recent years, a colony of flesh-eating spear-birds had made their home in the tower. Their ragged nests protruded from every crack and window, so the upper portions of the ruin were blurred as if by a surrounding haze of smoke.

  Scarlett kept a sharp watch on these nests as the raft drew near the gorge.

  Right now, the sky above was empty, but it was as well to be prepared. She stood at the front of the raft, her coat and hair flapping behind her, checking her revolver with practiced speed. Loading it, spinning the cylinder, snapping it shut…There was a box of cartridges on a crate close by. The raft leaped and bucked on the uneven waters, but Scarlett remained quite steady, boots apart, straight-backed and resolute, chewing calmly on a piece of gum.

  In fact, she felt more at ease than at any time since breaking into the Lechlade bank. This was what she liked—a clear, straightforward objective, a simple danger to be faced down. But more than that, she had a sense that things were going her way. She had a bulging sack of banknotes, a head start on her enemies, a gun in hand, and the wilderness up ahead. Life was good again, and the sun was shining too. And—not far away, in thrall to her, in debt to her, and dependent on her for his very survival—she had the remarkable Albert Browne.

  Glancing back along the raft, she saw that everyone was in position. The old man, Joe, stood at the tiller, head lowered, his mane of gray hair haloed outward in the wind. In one hand, he held a burning ammonia plug on the end of an iron chain, its bitter smoke curling and twisting out above the Thames. He had taken off his denim jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He was giving little jerks of the hand, keeping the raft clear of the rocks on either side—displaying surprising skill. Surprising to her, at least. Not to Albert. Joe was a deft river pilot, Albert had said. And he was right. Because Albert knew these things.

  The child, Ettie, sat inside the tent, playing contentedly with her battered set of wooden blocks. Four sheets of black plastic netting had been unfurled from the top of the tent awning and clipped to the deck, creating a sealed cube with Ettie safe within. It was the best place for her, in more ways than one. Scarlett had no time for little kids. They were annoying and distracting and only got in the way. Predictably, Albert had been smiling and simpering at the child in the most fatuous manner as they got the tent ready. Scarlett had to admit, though, his performance was having a mollifying effect on the grumpy old man.

  Albert himself was wedged between two crates, stumbling and swaying with every roll of the raft. His hair hung over his face and he looked fairly green. Joe had given him a knife and a bitter-smelling sulfur stick to help keep the birds away, but he was holding them limply, staring at them as if he wasn’t sure which way up they went. She pursed her lips. Really, he should have been locked in the tent with Ettie for all the good he was going to do in the gorge. In practical situations, he was completely useless. And yet…

  Scarlett chewed on her gum, thinking back to the wharf. To Albert, just standing there above her. To the petrol drums igniting…

  She couldn’t get over what she’d seen.

  The raft entered the gorge in the middle of the river. The shadow of the cliffs closed over them. The waters became still more turbid, choked with tumbled slabs of concrete. And now, high up amongst the tangled nests, Scarlett spied movement—great broken-backed shapes unfurling themselves, long necks untwisting, bullet heads turning to survey the Thames below.

  “Eyes upward!” she called.

  She readied the revolver in both hands. Six sulfur sticks burned in metal sconces along the edge of the tent, sparking and spitting in the cold air of the gorge. With luck, the sulfur and the ammonia would ward off all but the most aggressive birds. Her gun would deal with the rest.

  Albert…The woman had terrified him, of course, there was no doubt about it. Much of his story was evidently true. Just the sight of her had so unmanned him, he’d gone practically catatonic back there at the wharf. For a couple of minutes, he’d not been functioning at all. But then he’d woken up—and his power had come out.

  His power.

  What you could do with that, if you knew how to control it…

  Scarlett chewed her gum methodically, thinking.

  The raft spun on the rushing waters. The rocks ahead were floured with fragments of bleached bone. High over the tower, a stream of shapes rose, black and twirling, like twists of paper spat upward by a bonfire. They went straight up, reached an invisible ceiling, spread out slowly, side to side, following the line of the gorge. Wings cracked like sailcloth, long necks flexed. Sunlight sparked on beak and claw.

  “Here they come!” the old man cried.

  Scarlett glanced aside at Albert, checking he was ready—and caught him looking at her. She could not read the expression on his face. It was bland, thoughtful, appraising, and something about it made her flush. She pushed the hair out of her face, gave him a stern look. “Concentrate!” she called. “Keep looking up!” It would be such a waste to have him eaten now.

  Several of the black shapes descended, angled inward on the raft. Scarlett saw red eyes, leathery necks. The birds reached the edge of the sulfur cloud and veered suddenly aside.

  Scarlett rotated slowly, gun half raised. So far, so good.

  “Five minutes!” the old man shouted. “In five minutes, we’ll be through!”

  Air moved. A shadow appeared over Scarlett’s head. It spread rapidly out across the deck. She looked up and for a second had a glimpse of a descending cloak of wings; two outflung legs, ribbed and white and muscular; a gaping, serrated beak…Long claws sliced toward her face. She
fired the gun. The claws twisted past; the bird sheered off above the deck, collided with a crate, and spun away across the gorge.

  Scarlett looked around her. At the tiller, the old man steered with one hand; with the other, he swung his ammonia plug on the end of the chain, looping it high and low to create a sphere of acrid smoke, about which two black forms ducked and wheeled. Albert was waving his stick frantically at another bird, which hovered above him, beak snapping, neck darting like an eel. Scarlett spun where she stood, hair out, coat out, firing as she went. The three birds died in midair, became feathered stones that tumbled into the water and disappeared.

  “All right, Albert?” she said. He was staring at the end of his stick, which had a gouge clawed out of it. The sulfur grease was dripping like wax onto the deck.

  “Yes!” He flashed her a big smile. “Aren’t these spear-birds interesting? Do you see how long their beaks are? I wonder if the spurred serrations have evolved for them to catch fish in the river…. I don’t think humans are their usual food.”

  Only the fact that the next bird lunged at him head-on saved him from dying in the middle of his observation. He ducked at the last moment, and the beak snagged in his hair. Scarlett’s gun roared; the bird pitched onto the deck and skidded on toward her, leaving a bloody trail. Its rope neck thrashed, its beak clashed feebly. Scarlett kicked it over the edge of the raft.

  “Albert, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Sorry. I was just thinking about the structure of their beaks.”

  “I know. And one of those beaks nearly had your face off.”

  “You’re right, of course! I listen and obey! From now on, I shall concentrate with utmost vigilance!”

  In fact, Albert’s vigilance was no longer required. They were past the tower. On either side, the cliffs were receding sharply, the river’s spate was lessening, and ahead of them a shaft of golden sunlight lay aslant the valley like a curtain between the hills. They emerged suddenly into its warmth and brightness. A small spear-bird that had been hovering at the tent, trying to bite its way through the netting to get to Ettie, gave a harsh croak of frustration, beat its wings once, and ascended. The raft drifted on. The other birds wheeled and cawed and began climbing the thermals back to their nestlings in the gorge.