The Amoral Hero

by Logan Jacobs

  I got an idea. I pulled my shirt off, sliced one of the sleeves off with my sword, and then made the sleeve longer at the same time as I twisted and knotted it into a hasty lasso.

  Then as Theo again ran for the center of the herd and they started to scatter in all directions, I whirled the lasso above my head, threw it, and looped the nearest lawman. It tightened around his arms and torso. Then I leaned far left to counter his weight so that it wouldn’t yank me off of Theo’s back, clenched with my thighs as hard as I could, and yanked him off his horse. One of his companion’s horses immediately trampled over him before the rider could prevent it, and its hooves punched through his ribs and then smeared his head into the grass. I had lost hold of my makeshift lasso in the process, so I started turning my other sleeve into another lasso.

  But before I could utilize it, the lawman who had just inadvertently trampled over his comrade, and in his horror was probably seeking whatever redemption he could get, immediately turned away from the chase after the Elliott sisters and charged straight at me.

  I had my sword at the ready, and he had his at the ready. I swung at him, and he was competent enough to parry. Then I had to duck as he responded with his own swing, and nearly fell off due to Theo’s lack of a saddle, but I managed to cling on by grabbing his mane again.

  “I swear to God… ” my horse grumbled as we barreled past our opponent.

  We both wheeled around and charged at each other again. This time the lawman swung first, and I parried. Then as we passed each other by, although I was no longer in a good position to swing the blade at him without twisting around and falling out of my seat, I flung my sword arm backward and conked him in the back of the skull with the hilt of my blade.

  Theo quickly circled around, and as the badly dazed but still conscious man struggled to stay in his saddle, I drove my sword into his back until the tip of my sword protruded from his chest. Then I yanked it free and he collapsed onto his horse, who whinnied in panic as it sensed that something was wrong. As his blood started to pour onto its pelt, the horse reared up a couple of times until it had shaken the corpse loose. Then it stopped and nuzzled its rider’s motionless corpse as if trying to wake him up.

  The two other remaining lawmen also gave up the chase and charged straight at me. I thought I was going to have to try to take both of them at once. But then as they approached, they went wide of me to either side, not within a sword’s reach, and I realized that they were staring past me, not at me. I turned my head to see Sheriff Cavendish, who had hung back from the fray the whole time, beckoning them silently to leave.

  His glaring blue eyes met mine.

  “We’ll be back!” he yelled as he pointed his finger at me. I don’t think he even knew my name. “You’re making a fatal mistake! You’ll pay for this!”

  “See ya later, pardner,” I replied with a cheery wave.

  The three of them galloped off into the night.

  It was already dark, which made it dangerous for Theo to run, not to mention that it would be dangerous for the twins to leave them behind on their own, where I wouldn’t easily be able to find them again, so I did not pursue them.

  Besides, they had already promised that they would deliver themselves back into my hands, eventually.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Theo walked up to the twins, whose cream-colored skirts created two large pale shapes in the darkness as they huddled together.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Y-yes,” Katrina stammered.

  “You are safe now.” I dismounted, took each of their hands, and led them back toward our campfire. I saw no reason to extinguish it. The sheriff and his men weren’t trying to find us immediately, they’d have to go back and fetch reinforcements from Sunderly. By the time they returned to the same spot, we’d be long gone.

  I took a metal canteen, poured some water into it from my waterskin, and enlarged it into a trough for Theo, so he could recover from the exertion he had just had. Once he drank his fill, I enlarged my waterskin since it was starting to run low and took a few gulps myself.

  Then I settled back down next to the campfire with the twins. Their giddy and mischievous air from before the sheriff’s arrival had completely evaporated. Now they looked a bit like frightened children.

  “I didn’t realize how much Cavendish hated us,” Janina spoke up after a silence. “I thought that confrontation back in Sunderly was mostly bluster and bravado. You know, he always wants to show off what an aggressive keeper of order he is. How far he’ll go in the line of duty.”

  “But it’s starting to feel a little personal,” Katrina sighed.

  “What did you even do, to inspire this vendetta?” I asked curiously. “You never said exactly.”

  “We stole a horse,” Janina confessed.

  I sucked in air through my teeth. Horse stealing was a serious business and warranted execution on the frontier.

  “Not the sheriff’s horse,” Katrina clarified. “Just somebody’s. A rich lady who couldn’t even ride well.”

  “Such a beautiful horse,” Janina recalled, dreamily. “All silvery with white speckles.”

  “What happened to the horse?” I asked, since clearly they didn’t own it anymore.

  “Nothing happened to her, she just went back to her owner after we got caught,” Katrina answered. “So it was like they undid the crime, anyway.”

  I decided not to argue that particular interpretation of legal philosophy.

  “We never harmed anyone by it,” Janina insisted. “But they still put us on trial.”

  “I think the reason Sheriff Cavendish hates us so much is just that we got away with it,” Katrina mused. “He threw a fit. He said it was a moral outrage… something about how beauty shouldn’t grant degenerates immunity from justice.”

  “Some nonsense like that,” Janina agreed.

  “What nonsense,” I agreed. Neither twin appeared to detect my sarcasm.

  “What do we do?” Katrina asked me.

  “Well,” I said. “If he were like most sheriffs, we’d have several options. Bribery would probably be the simplest one. Eluding him long enough that he just got sick of the chase might work too. But, he seems to be an honorable man. So that leaves us with only one option.”

  “Kill him,” Janina said.

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “But not tonight. Tonight, we get a few hours of sleep. Then we start out at first light.”

  “I don’t know if I can sleep,” Katrina said. “What if they come back?”

  “How about you both drink a little sherry to help you sleep,” I suggested. I had no intention of sleeping myself. I’d have to stay up to stand watch, after that. But those hours would pass a lot more peacefully if I wasn’t required to spend them reassuring two fearful fugitives from the law.

  The twins accepted that idea. It only took half a bottle shared between them, and they were soon curled up under a blanket breathing slow and deep.

  Theo, who liked to take naps but rarely slept a whole night through anyway, came up behind me once the Elliott twins were sound asleep.

  “What if Sheriff Cavendish doesn’t find them within the next four days?” he asked. “What if he comes for them on the fifth day?”

  “Then it won’t be any of my business,” I replied.

  “They’re starting to grow dependent on you,” Theo observed.

  “A most unhealthy mistake,” I said. “That’s why you can’t feed wild creatures for too long… they get used to you. They forget how to fend for themselves. As everyone must, in the end.”

  “Is that why you refuse to renew contracts with previous clients?” Theo asked.

  “No,” I said. “It’s for the converse reason. I won’t let anyone keep me on a leash, no matter how much money it’s made of.”

  “You keep me on a leash, of sorts,” Theo said after a moment’s consideration.

  “No, I don’t,” I snorted. “You keep yourself on the leash that’s in my hand. You li
ke me too much to leave.”

  “Well, you are an asshole, but you do give me apples and treats, so I suppose we are stuck with each other.” Theo hummed thoughtfully.

  I knew he’d never leave me. Unless, perhaps, he ever found a mare of equal intelligence to himself, whom he considered a worthy partner. I don’t think the thought of that occupied his mind much, he didn’t conceive of it as a remotely likely possibility, but he did mention it occasionally as a sort of wistful daydream.

  I kept watch for the remaining hours of darkness. Creatures stirred all around me, but small ones that meant us neither well nor ill. Insects flitted by or scuttled through the grass. Rodents scurried from safe spot to safe spot. I heard the rustling of grass, the snapping of twigs, the crunching of brush, but none of these subtle disturbances were ever man-shaped.

  Then, as soon as it was light out enough for our herd of horses to be able to see where they were going and not risk breaking a leg, I hitched four of them to the carriage, and roused the twins to tell them to load up another four with their luggage. They were yawning and clearly still tired, but for once they cooperated readily and without complaint, all the while glancing around as if they expected Sheriff Cavendish to pop out of a bush.

  Meanwhile, I brewed a pot of coffee for the three of us to share, along with some biscuits from our saddlebags that we ate for breakfast. I poured a vial of potencium into my coffee mug, swirled it in with a twig, and drained the entire mixture within a few glugs. After that I felt nearly as good as if I’d had a full night’s sleep.

  “You know,” I remarked as I watched the girls tying and buckling one case or valise or satchel after the next to the begrudging horses, “my advice is to leave all the luggage here and travel light. I’d say to leave the carriage too, because that will slow us down and make it much easier to track us, except that we wouldn’t be able to transport the chest without it.”

  They looked at me with wide bluish-green and greenish-blue eyes as though I had proposed severing a limb.

  “But Hal, we’ve almost finished,” Katrina protested.

  “Well, carry on then,” I scoffed. If I took the time to argue with them, they still wouldn’t change their minds, and it would just end up delaying us further. “But leave room for yourselves on two of those horses. And arrange it so that you can easily cut the straps of all that luggage and drop the extra weight if necessary. If something happens, I want you to be able to ride away. And if you’re sitting in the carriage, you’ll be caught at once.”

  They nodded their white-bonneted heads.

  When we set off a few minutes later, the twins rode two of the unsecured horses and pranced alongside me while I drove the carriage. Theo trotted along on my other side, and his duty was to mind the two unsecured luggage horses and ensure that they were staying with us.

  It was a clear day, a mild-weathered and beautiful day even, but the robin’s egg blue of the sky, the cheerful chirping of the birds, all of that took on a distinctly ominous cast under the circumstances. Sheriff Cavendish himself wasn’t such a terrifying creature. It was more the facts that we had an enemy and we were expecting him, but didn’t know when or where to expect him, and that we didn’t know whom he would be bringing with him this time.

  Even the twins’ constantly vivacious spirits seemed dampened. I wondered if the whole incident had inspired them to reconsider their lifestyle choices at all. It wouldn’t have been difficult for girls like them to find wealthy and indulgent husbands who could provide for all their material wants, of which they seemed to have so many. I knew they dreaded the thought of being turned into domestic drudges, but I reckoned they could avoid that if their husbands were old or eccentric enough not to want any children by them. Or if they really didn’t want to marry, they could learn a trade. They could be milliners or dressmakers, perhaps. Almost any other career seemed to me to be less ill-fated than the one they had chosen. But then again, who was I to lecture anyone on their choice of career?

  When we stopped, it was only for the shortest possible breaks, just long enough to allow the horses to cool down so that we wouldn’t be endangering their health.

  “What if he follows us to Dunville?” Janina asked. “What if he figures out where we live?”

  “Given that there are several towns between Sunderly and Dunville, he won’t necessarily know to look for you there, unless he tracks you directly,” I said. “And that would require exceptional tracking skills, even considering the carriage. We just need to roll over stone where we can find it, and paths so well-traveled that our tracks will be covered before they arrive.”

  The twins were silent.

  “I have to ask,” I said, “haven’t you ever attracted enemies before?”

  “Well, yes, of course,” Katrina replied cheerfully. “But they’ve always been the people we’ve robbed.”

  “People who aren’t directly affected don’t usually blame us much,” Janina said.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Sometimes, even when the people that we did rob catch us in the act, they don’t get all that angry,” Katrina added.

  “They tell us we can repay them in kisses, or that they’ll give us presents and we don’t have to steal them, or ask if we’re really in such desperate need… ” Janina twirled an ash blonde ringlet around her finger as she reflected on these past encounters, I supposed with their pickpocketing victims.

  “And even if they do fly into a rage at first, oftentimes they’ll change their minds if we start to cry and beg them not to call the authorities,” Katrina giggled.

  “I don’t think most people really mind thieves all that much,” Janina concluded.

  “You mean they don’t mind thieves who look like you, so long as you only choose males of a certain temperament as your victims,” I corrected her.

  “Of a certain temperament?” Katrina echoed. Her tone turned slightly flirtatious. “You mean you wouldn’t let us get away with robbing you, Mr. Hale?”

  “Not a chance,” I replied flatly.

  “Even if we asked very nicely?” Janina chimed in.

  “If you ask someone’s permission to steal from them, it’s not stealing, it’s begging,” I said. “And I do not do charity.”

  “Why not?” Katrina questioned. “You have lots of money.”

  “So do you,” I replied.

  “Well, yes, but you see the trouble is, we always seem to spend it,” Katrina sighed tragically.

  “To feed another creature food it hasn’t earned is to weaken it, to make it depend on you,” I said as I recalled my conversation with Theo on that subject the night before. “And besides, I don’t like to owe anybody anything, and I don’t like anybody to owe me anything.”

  “We owe you our gratitude, for having saved our lives several times already,” Katrina told me earnestly.

  “No, you don’t,” I said. “Maybe you would, if I were some stranger who happened to pass by, and intervened on your behalf. But you purchased my protection of your lives. So I was doing no more than the job I was hired for, and you owe me nothing more than the payment that you already pledged me.”

  “That’s such a cold, peculiar way to look at things,” Katrina huffed.

  “It’s a clean way to look at things,” I responded.

  “Don’t you ever help someone just because you care about them?” Janina asked.

  “Sure I do-- ” I began.

  “Besides Theo,” Janina interrupted.

  “… Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. There was only one thing that stopped me from saying no outright. A certain half-Savajun sorceress who always seemed to haunt my deepest thoughts, no matter how many times I threw her out of my mind. I guess I’d helped her more than a few times, even when there was nothing in it for me. Well, nothing besides the continued potential for the delights and frustrations of her company… the pleasures of her body… the challenge of her intellect… the dangers of her lunatic scheming… the thrill and bittersweet longing of knowing
that she existed in the world, even if I never saw her again.

  Luckily, the twins seemed oblivious to the direction of my thoughts.

  “Of course you don’t,” Janina sighed.

  “But you know, if the only thing that motivates you is greed, we have lots more money now than ever before,” Katrina said as she pointed at the carriage that contained Mathilda Hodgson’s chest of gold. “We could afford to extend your contract quite a long while.”

  “That’s not how I operate,” I replied shortly.

  “What do you mean it isn’t how you operate?” Katrina pouted. “Isn’t money the only thing you care about?”

  “Freedom is the only thing I care about,” I said. “Money is a means to that end.”

  “But that doesn’t make-- ” Katrina began.

  “Hush!” I held up my hand to silence her.

  She was silent for a minute, while I listened intently to our surroundings, but then she quickly started back in again.

  “That wasn’t very polite,” she informed me indignantly. “Just because you don’t agree with something I say doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to say it.”

  “Of course not,” I agreed. “My hushing you had nothing to do with any kind of argument. I thought I heard something. But perhaps I was mistaken.”

  “Perhaps you weren’t,” Janina said nervously as she looked around at the golden plains that surrounded us. Seemingly peaceful for the moment, but so eerily lonesome, and full of potential treachery.

  “Well, do you hear or see anything?” I asked her.

  “No, but the fact that you think you did makes me certain there must be someone near,” she replied.

  “My instincts aren’t infallible,” I said. “No one’s are.”

  “Well, I trust your instincts,” Janina said.

  “Right now, they’re saying that we should keep going, and that there’s probably nothing the matter, but that you should be prepared to cut the luggage loose and break into a gallop if I say so,” I told her.