Dripping as the pile of trash was with lamp oil, the flames took a fierce hold much faster than Abigail would have thought. She moved swiftly to the next collection of rubbish and set that alight as well. Then, without stopping, she ran to the final heap, the one nearest to the shed in which Saddler was imprisoned and threw a lighted match on that.
Her heart pounding with a heady mixture of fear and excitement, Abigail ran round to the front of the store and rushed through the door. The owner looked up in surprise at such a precipitate entrance.
‘Whoa, there,’ he said, ‘Where’s the fire?’
‘That’s just it,’ said the girl breathlessly. ‘There is a fire. Just round the back of your store.’
‘If this is a game, young lady,’ began the man and then stopped in amazement. There was a loud explosion, as the flask of powder which Abigail had placed at the heart of one of the fires went off.
‘Oh, do hurry,’ she said, ‘I think it must be spreading.’
The man pulled off the blue-and-white striped apron that he wore when working in the store and then hesitated for a moment.
Abigail said, ‘Don’t stop to lock up and put out the lamp. I’ll wait here and mind the store for you.’
Jack Stoker nodded and then, without another word, ran outside. It was the work of a moment for the child to reach up and grab the bunch of keys, then dart back out again and open up the shed where Saddler was being held.
‘Quick!’ she cried, ‘We have to leave now.’
Saddler came out of the shed and glanced to his left. The scene that met his eyes was an apocalyptic one. The three fires that Abigail had started were blazing away merrily, but that was not all. The explosion of the powder flask had flung burning material and sparks on to the garbage that was scattered all along the space between the back of the buildings and the wooden wall of the stockade. As a consequence, flames were now licking up the backs of the stores, as well as threatening to burn down the walls of the fort.
‘God almighty, Abigail,’ exclaimed Saddler in horror, ‘what’ve you done?’
‘I had to make a distraction, so that I could get the keys,’ replied the child impatiently. ‘But it will all be for nothing if we don’t get out of here now.’
‘Where’s the horses?’
‘In the corral. I tacked them up.’
‘Good girl,’ said Saddler, in reluctant admiration at the child’s resourcefulness. ‘I guess you’re right, we have to go right now.’
Nobody bothered to cast a glance at the two figures who slipped through the shadows and out of the main gate to Fort Renown. The case was too desperate for the citizens of the town to do other than focus their whole efforts upon preventing their homes and livelihoods from being consumed by the flames. Every available receptacle was pressed into service in the attempts to save the town; the contents of buckets, bottles, pitcher and even chamberpots were flung on the fires in a desperate bid to extinguish them. One intoxicated fool even poured a bottle of brandy on to some smouldering rags and was rewarded by seeing them flare instantly into blue flames.
The horses in the corral were jittery, and if the fire got any worse Saddler could see them all getting seriously spooked. The watchman was nowhere in sight and so Saddler vaulted over the fence and led Abigail’s pony to the side. He secured his reins to a post and then went back for his own mount. Then he led both horses to the gate and threw it open. The other animals took the chance to bolt for freedom. With any luck, Marshal Devlin’s horse would be among them.
When the two of them had mounted, Abigail said, ‘Which way are we going?’
‘Up there, towards the woods. I want to get off the open country soon as can be.’
A gentle rise led to the woods. When Fort Renown had been built this area had been all over wooded, and the stumps of the trees that had once grown here were scattered thickly around.
Saddler said, ‘Mind where you’re guiding that beast Keep to the track, I don’t want either of these horse being lamed.’
When they reached the edge of the wood Saddler pulled up and turned to look back at the town. It looked to him as though the fire was under control, but it must have been a close-run thing. The more distance he and Abigail put between themselves and the inhabitants of Fort Renown the better. Little actions like this were the kind of thing that set lynching parties into action. He shook his head in disbelief and turned to the girl at his side.
‘What in the hell was you thinking of, Abigail? You might o’ killed folks back there.’
‘Aren’t you glad to be free?’
He was thankful that the darkness hid the smile that came unbidden to his lips. He contented himself with saying, ‘The sooner we get you living with respectable folks again, the better. Strikes me as associatin’ with me ain’t exactly improved your character none.’
It was dark in the forest and they proceeded at a walk. After they had been travelling for a little while, Abigail said, ‘Do you think that they will be able to track us?’
‘You mean figure out which way we went? No, I wouldn’t’ve said so. There’s so much coming and going into that town, they won’t be able to identify our hoofmarks. Still and all, the further we get before dawn the better I’ll like it.’
‘Are you cross with me for setting those fires? It was all I could think of.’
‘I ain’t cross with you, Abigail,’ said Saddler. ‘You’re a child. You did the best you could, given the circumstances. It comes of riding with a scamp like me.’
‘What would you have done, had you been in my place?’
Saddler didn’t answer for a spell and then he said, ‘Truly? I would o’ most likely done the same as you did. But that don’t make it right.’
Having been reassured that the man at her side wasn’t angry, Abigail began rather to enjoy the journey through the woods. It was dark and mysterious, but she knew that as long as Saddler was at her side, he would protect her from any danger.
Although he was, not unnaturally, pleased to be free of the shed in which that bastard Devlin had confined him, Ben Saddler was feeling a twinge of guilt that after only a few days in his company a little girl should think it a good scheme to try and burn down a town. He could attribute it only to his bad influence and he genuinely felt that he had corrupted the child. She surely would not have come up with such a wild notion, had she still been in the care of decent, God-fearing people. The sooner he could get her back to civilization the easier he would be in his mind. The last thing he wished was to be the cause of her turning out wrong.
It was a funny thing, but since hitching up with that child, Saddler’s conscience had been getting more exercise than it had done for the preceding decade. He hadn’t ever put it into words, but if he had, Ben Saddler would perhaps have described his conscience as an essentially vestigial organ, a bit like his appendix. He knew it was there and supposed that it had once served some useful purpose, but he seemed able to progress quite happily through life without making any use of it.
The pair rode on for maybe three hours. Saddler realized that they would need to stop when he saw Abigail’s pony wandering off to one side.
He called out, ‘Hey, get that horse back on the path, child.’
There was no answer and so he spoke more sharply. It was at that point that he knew that the little girl had simply fallen asleep. He rode over and halted the pony. Then he dismounted and shook Abigail gently, saying,
‘You’re asleep, sweetheart.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, lifting her head up in surprise. ‘I was having such a lovely dream. My parents were . . . were . . . still here.’
‘Let’s get off the road aways and we’ll rest up for the night.’
Saddler led the two horses into the woods for a quarter-hour. Then, when they came to a grassy stretch, he halted and lifted Abigail down from the pony.
After he had tucked the sleepy child up in her blanket and settled his own self down for the night, Saddler lay in the dark, listening. His ears were straining in particular for any sounds such as might be made by a party of angry riders, looking for a fire-raiser whom they could string up from the nearest tree. There was nothing, other than the normal forest murmurs.
Before pulling his own blanket round him for the night, he had, by the light of a lucifer, sorted through the packs. There was enough for breakfast and possibly a light meal later in the day, but that was all. He had hoped to buy a heap of provisions at Fort Renown, but that wasn’t how it had turned out at all. Well, he thought, that’s how it is sometimes. You make a lot of plans and then things conspire to set those same plans at naught.
Question was, what was to be done the next day? Didn’t scripture say something about, ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof’? Meaning, he supposed, that there wasn’t a deal of use fretting about what you would be doing tomorrow.
So thinking, he drifted into the arms of Morpheus. Saddler was catapulted into consciousness the next morning by the sharp, metallic and unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked by his ear. He did not move a muscle, knowing that in such a position sudden movements can prove fatal. Instead, he turned his eyes slowly to the direction from which the sound had come and then threw off the blanket and jumped wrathfully to his feet.
‘Jackson, you cowson,’ he said angrily. ‘What the hell are you playin’ at?’
The man squatting on the ground shrugged equably. ‘Had a wager with my brother,’ he said, quite unabashed. ‘Told him you was so fast asleep, I could get the drop on you. I guess I win.’
From behind a tree stepped another young man, almost the spit-image the fellow who had shoved his gun in Saddler’s ear. The Jackson brothers were separated in age by a little over a year. They could have been twins though, so similar were they in outward appearance. Both had lustrous, black curls and each had merry, dancing blue eyes. Tyler, the boy who had jumped Saddler, was twenty and his brother Jake was twenty-one.
Now a lot of the white men who roamed round the Indian territories trying to scrape a living were mean characters, such as you might not care to spend too much time with. Others were like Saddler; men who were basically sound, but who would do some pretty tough things when the need arose or if they were being pushed into a corner. The Jackson brothers, though, were in a class of their own. They were the most cheerful and good-natured young fellows you could hope to meet: always smiling, never out of sorts and the most engaging company you could wish for. Only problem was, neither of the boys was completely right in the head. They weren’t what you might call crazy, there was something worse than that wrong with the brothers.
Most bad men know very well that they are doing wrong. Even while they are stealing, cheating and killing they know that they shouldn’t be carrying on so. Tyler and Jake Jackson simply didn’t have any idea about such things. They took what they wanted, did just as they pleased and the devil take the hindmost. They were great ones for acting on impulse and then dealing later with any unpleasant consequences. The very words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ meant nothing to them. Saddler had known them for a couple of years and always found them agreeable fellows to spend an evening with, but had taken good care not to get mixed up with any of their adventures.
‘What brings you two scallywags to this neck of the woods?’ Saddler asked, ‘Got some robbery in mind?’
Both the brothers laughed. Then they noticed Abigail, who was just waking up. ‘Who’s your little friend, Saddler?’ asked Jake.
‘I’m taking care of her for a space,’ he replied. ‘It’s by way of being a long story.’
‘Hidy, miss,’ said Tyler, winking at Abigail. ‘How’d you fetch up with this fellow?’
‘Never mind about that,’ said Saddler hastily. ‘Which way are you boys headed?’
‘Truth is, Saddler,’ said Tyler, ‘we’s on the lam.’
‘What you done now?’ ‘Ah nothing to speak of, we had us a run-in with a real pile o’ piss. Fellow called Devlin.’
Saddler’s heart sank and he said, ‘Thaddeus Devlin would that be? US marshal?’
‘Hey, that’s right. You know him?’
‘You might say so. How’s it you two fell foul o’ him?’
‘You got anything to eat, Saddler?’ asked Tyler Jackson. ‘Me and my brother here are purely starving to death. We can all sit down an’ we’ll tell you the story.’
‘We’re not overburdened with provisions, but I guess we can share what we do have,’ Saddler said.
The three men and the child settled themselves comfortably on the mossy floor of the forest and Tyler Jackson explained how it was that Marshal Devlin was determined to catch him and his brother and see them banged up in the penitentiary. ‘It happened in this wise, Saddler, and you, little missy. Me and Jake were out and about, stopping folk at odd times and helping ’em on their way by relieving them of any heavy burdens as they might be unable to bear.’
‘He means robbing travellers,’ Saddler explained to Abigail in an aside, the girl looking puzzled at Tyler Jackson’s roundabout way of explaining his activities.
‘Anywise, the two of us was behind some trees and saw a man coming. He looked a pleasant fellow, not too young and aggressive. Big white moustache; why he looked like your favourite uncle. I popped out from the front and Jake came from behind and he knew at once that there was no point going for his gun. Jake had a sawn-off twelve-gauge aimed at his back, like to have cut him in half had he made any unfriendly move.
‘Well, it wasn’t ’til then that I noticed he was sporting a star, but it was a mite late to stop. He cussed us up hill and down dale, I can’t repeat the language he used, not in the presence of this young lady, but he spoke something’ awful. Threatening us with jail and I don’t know what all else.’
Jake interrupted his brother at this point, saying, ‘Had he not been so damned rude, we might o’ let him alone. After taking his money, that is.’
‘So you took his money,’ said Saddler. ‘What else?’
‘Well,’ said Tyler, ‘Jake here was mad at the things that Devlin was saying to us. He was calling us all the bastards under the sun. Oh, excuse me, little lady, it just slipped out.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Abigail politely. ‘I am used to strong language. Mr Saddler here uses a deal of it himself.’
The brothers guffawed with laughter at that, in which Abigail joined; although she couldn’t really see the joke. This was part of the Jackson brothers’ charm: they created a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere.
‘Where was I?’ said Tyler Jackson. ‘Oh yeah, Jake getting mad. He desired the old gentleman to get off his horse and then told him to strip buck naked. Pardon the expression, Miss Abigail. Well, Devlin, we had the draw on him and he was forced to comply. Then we set his horse running and told the fellow to walk off aways. We took his guns and everything else that was worth having among his belongings.’
‘Which is how we found out his name and profession,’ interjected Jake. ‘He had a card-case and some official documents to identify him as a US marshal.’
‘Who’s telling this tale, you or me?’ asked his brother irritably. ‘Well now, Jake here was still vexed with this here Devlin and so he did something quite disgusting.’
‘What did he do?’ asked Abigail. ‘I hardly like to say in front of a nicely brought-up young lady like yourself,’ said Tyler. ‘Fact is, Jake pi… that is to say he made water all over the marshal’s clothes, where they were lying there on the ground.’
Saddler made an exasperated noise. ‘Ah, you pair of idiots. No wonder he’s intent on tracking you down. That Devlin’s a man never forgets a grudge. I can tell you now, he’s back there a little way, in Fort Renown.’
‘He’s that close? Lord, we was thinking of popping down there for some vittles. Thanks for the tip, Saddler.’
Saddler had no particular desire to prolong his meeting with the Jackson brothers. He was not keen on Abigail spending time in their company. After her actions the previous night at Fort Renown, he felt guilty about having corrupted the child. He was pretty sure that the child would not have set out to nearly burn down an entire town had she still been with her parents or other respectable people. It must have been the effect of spending time with him that had caused her to behave in such a lawless fashion and he was worried about it. What she would end up like if she listened too long to the Jackson brothers, he shuddered to think. Lord, she’ll be taking up as a road agent before her thirteenth birthday at this rate!
Abigail had taken to Tyler and Jake, both of whom treated her with great courtesy. Although utterly lacking in conscience themselves, they sometimes recognized innocence and virtue in others, and seemed to Saddler to be treating the child with the proper degree of respect. While Jake was telling Abigail some ridiculous anecdote, which was making her smile and sometimes laugh out loud, Tyler said that he would like a few words alone with Saddler. The two of them stepped a distance, although not so far that Saddler could not keep an eye on Abigail.
‘Saddler, are you and that child wanting to get out of the territories?’
‘Yes. That’s so.’
‘Which way you heading?’
‘North. Why’d you ask?’ ‘
’Cause that’s where we heading too. Kansas.’
Saddler shook his head. ‘No, life with you boys is apt to be a little too lively for me, Tyler. I reckon me and the girl will travel by our own selves.’
‘There’s safety in numbers. You know the Chickasaw have risen?’
‘Yeah, but we ain’t aiming to go that way. We goin’ north east.’ Saddler did not feel it necessary to share his first-hand knowledge of events in the Chickasaw nation with the Jacksons.
‘I’ll lay down my cards, Saddler, and then see what you say. We need another couple o’ horses. . . .’
Tyler had hardly got the words out of his mouth, before Ben Saddler turned a cold eye upon him. ‘Don’t you try to put the bite on me, Jackson. Last person as tried that game died real soon. Remember Abraham Stock?’
‘Hey, I remember old Stock. How’s he doing these days?’
‘He’s not. I killed him a couple o’ days back. For doing much what you are fixin’ to do. Don’t do it, Jackson. The game’s not worth the candle.’
Tyler Jackson laughed. ‘You are one hasty man. Just let me set out my wares and then see what you say. All the white men like me and you who pass though the Indian nations are marked by the Indians. When a devil like that Devlin is chasing you, he offers rewards and so on, and the Indians often point out your tracks. Sometimes, they kill people and claim rewards. You know all that.’
This was all perfectly true and Saddler had already been calculating how he and Abigail would be able to move from this area without Thaddeus Devlin catching their scent. He said to Jackson, ‘Go on.’
‘Well, me and my brother found a way round that difficulty, a way to move right through the territories without anybody passing word back to that bastard Devlin.’
Saddler was all ears now. He wasn’t yet about to throw in with the Jacksons, but he surely was keen to hear of any scheme to escape Devlin’s notice.
Tyler Jackson was watching him narrowly and observed, ‘You goin’ to be as open with us as I am bein’ with you? Just what’re you and that little girl up to, hidin’ out in these here woods?’
‘All in good time. Tell us what you purpose and then we’ll see what’s to do.’
‘Are you on the run from Devlin as well?’ asked Tyler Jackson shrewdly. ‘Lord God, I can see it in your eyes. You are, aren’t you? Well I’m damned.’
Saddler made a sudden decision. ‘Listen, why don’t we all sit down over yonder with your brother and see what we are about. We needs must be open and honest, but I tell you now, my main concern is for the safety of that child.’