The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne

by Jonathan Stroud

  “All right, we rest here,” she said. “At daybreak, we move on.”

  She waited; Albert did not answer. After a few moments, with her own thoughts drifting, she realized he was asleep.

  * * *

  —

  They woke in the gray dawn. Mist wound like a solid thing through the arches of the knotweed. The forest was silent.

  “I’m mighty hungry this morning,” the boy said. “My tum’s shrunk as small as a walnut. Think we could go foraging? Maybe we could actually find some walnuts. Or mushrooms. Mushrooms grow in forests, don’t they? I’ve never seen a mushroom. I’d like to experience that.” He rubbed his midriff sadly. “Mainly I just want food.”

  Scarlett was trying her best not to listen to him. She had taken her compass from her belt and was considering the ruins and the surrounding knotweed, trying to recall the layout of the eastern Wolds. From what she could recall, it was mainly forests and rivers. North by northeast for Stow was what they wanted, but in the heat of the pursuit the night before, she’d lost precisely where they were. And the militias were not far away. She scratched the back of her neck. It was hard to concentrate because the boy was still prattling on about how famished he was. Scarlett had forgotten so many words existed. To shut him up, she rooted in her rucksack and found the greaseproof package she had taken from the dead outlaw by the lake the morning before.

  “Oh, Scarlett—sandwiches for me? You are generous! What kind are they?”

  “Cheese and pickle. Ignore the red stains on the wrapping.”

  “Lovely! Are you sure you don’t want a bite? No? I’ll just tuck in, then.”

  Which he did. Scarlett had never seen a mouth so large. It was like those giant man-eating frogs you got in Anglia, the ones that came up at you from under your boat. Those frogs would be proud to have a mouth that wide. Without waiting for him to finish, she wrestled her rucksack onto her shoulders and set off briskly to the north. It was high time they were on their way.

  They zigzagged through the knotweed, through the mists and the strange half-light, moving gradually downhill. Minutes passed, an unknowable tract of time. They skirted other stone walls, swathed in moss. Everything was muffled—their steps, the brush of their coats against the weed stems, their ragged breathing.

  “Why are there so many ruins here?” the boy said. “They seem so old and sad.”

  Scarlett grunted. “Well, they’re certainly old. Probably abandoned during the days of the Great Dying. Or maybe during the Frontier Wars. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “It isn’t, really,” Albert said. “I don’t know about any of that.”

  He didn’t seem to know about anything. Scarlett glanced aside at him. He was stumbling as he walked and had dark rings below his eyes.

  “Bet you wish you’d stayed by the bus,” she said. “You could’ve hitched a lift by now.”

  He flashed her his bright-eyed smile. “Oh, no, Scarlett. I much prefer being here with you. Tell me—I wanted to ask yesterday, but I hardly knew you then, and now we’ve been through so much together, I feel we’re on a firmer footing—tell me, what is your profession? Why are you out here in this wild place, all alone?”

  Scarlett shrugged evasively. “I am a traveler, a pilgrim. I go where my prayers take me.”

  “And where is that?” The boy was watching her with his big dark eyes. “Where do you go?”

  “I sell sacred relics among the Surviving Towns of Wessex,” Scarlett said. “I carry a number of such objects in this bag, as it happens. Also, I do good works, perform random acts of charity…that sort of thing. It keeps me occupied. Your bus, for instance. I saw that yesterday and climbed inside to help.”

  The ground steepened abruptly. The knotweed was suddenly sparse around them, and there were rocks and pine needles at their feet. Straight ahead they saw a slope of pine trees angling sharply down. Beyond their tops was a gulf of air. Scarlett consulted her compass again.

  “Ah, the bus,” Albert said. “You were kind enough to come on board to rescue me.”

  “Yes….”

  “And also rob it. If I am not much mistaken, the briefcase on your back was carried by one of my fellow passengers.”

  Scarlett had forgotten the little metal briefcase, still dangling from her rucksack. She scowled at him. “Not rob. Retrieve. I hope to return it to that victim’s heirs or relatives.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. You must be a very holy person.”

  The shape of one of the nearby pine trees changed. Scarlett’s head jerked up; she saw a man with a tweed jacket and a gray bowler hat step out from the shadows of its trunk. He raised a gun toward them. She reached under her coat, pulled out her revolver, and fired. The man spun on his heels and fell on his back without a sound.

  “Not exactly holy,” Scarlett said. “I wouldn’t claim that. Come on—we need to run.”

  She plunged away down the slope, and the boy followed. At the edge of her vision, she glimpsed other figures coming through the trees. Dogs barked. Shots were fired. The noise was dull and deadened, as if in a locked room.

  It was a precipitous descent. The lower branches of the pines were dead and bare; the gray trunks rose out of an undulating duff of dropped needles, frozen in waves and stretching into the distance. This carpet was years deep, and Scarlett found her boots skidding and slipping, plowing a V-shaped shower of needles with every step. Beside her, Albert Browne went with a jerking, stumbling rhythm that suggested imminent collapse. As Scarlett already knew, he had no meat on him, no oomph in the legs to withstand the downward impacts. She could have gone at twice the speed, but he was already struggling.

  A rush of spraying pine needles; glancing back, Scarlett saw several men from the pursuit party careering down the slope. A bullet whizzed between her and the boy. The trees were growing sparser. Sunlight shimmered far ahead; they were scree-running between the trunks toward a line of green and blue.

  A river. One of the rivers was there.

  Scarlett cursed; she could easily accelerate. Get to the water and away. But the boy would be shot in the back. She stopped running. “Albert.”

  “What is it, Scarlett?” He caught up, the sleeves of his jumper flapping around his skinny arms. His breath squeaked like a rusty bellows, but his face was calm.

  “You go on ahead,” Scarlett said. “Follow the slope down to the river. When you get there, jump in. Let it carry you downstream. Can you swim?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you can’t. Why did I even ask? Well, find a branch or log or something; hang on to it. Try not to drown.” She looked at him. “But drowning’s probably better than being caught by these guys, so don’t mess about—jump in.”

  He blinked at her. “What about you?”

  “I’ll follow. I’m going to delay them.”

  A rapturous smile formed on his face. “Thank you, Scarlett.”

  “For what? I need you out of my way. It’s a good vantage point, is all.”

  “You’re such a noble, thoughtful person.”

  “Oh, I’m really not.” She glared at him. “Now get going. Go! Now would be nice.”

  Figures came into view amongst the pines. Even then, Albert Browne looked tempted to continue the conversation, like some half-wit townsman gossiping on a high street. In a few seconds, they’d have him in shooting distance. Scarlett fired a dissuading bullet uphill, making the pursuers dive for cover. The action seemed to ignite something in the boy. All at once, he was hurrying away from her down the slope, stumbling and skidding.

  An old pine tree stood nearby, its broad foot thick with shadow. Scarlett took cover there, pressed her back against it. She opened her revolver, checked the cylinder, closed it again. Four cartridges left. Enough to be going on with.

  The trunk smelled of sap and dust, and there were spiders’ webs in the curls o
f the bark. She stuck her head out from behind the tree, looked up the slope. A storm of gunfire. Small geysers of pine needles erupted near her feet. She ducked back again, the positions of three men fixed in her mind’s eye. Two were well concealed, one behind a tree stump and one at a patch of broken wall; the third less favorably, crouched in the shadow of a mossy concrete horse trough.

  She rubbed her face, chose, held the gun ready, made a feint with one arm so it briefly showed around the tree.

  Another round of shots. Needles leaped and danced. A piece of pine trunk exploded, sending fragrant splinters against Scarlett’s face. She waited till the gunfire subsided. Then she stepped out from behind the tree, raised the revolver, and shot the man crouched behind the concrete trough. Before he began his slump sideways, before he even realized he was dead, she had stepped back into the cover of the tree.

  The next volley of bullets was lighter and more ragged, as was to be expected from two barrels instead of three. She waited for it to finish, watching the outline of the boy far down the slope. Now he had reached the sunlight…. Now he was out of sight. He would be in the water in a moment. She’d done what she could for him; there was no need to delay any longer in case reinforcements came.

  Stepping out the second time, she chose the tracker hidden behind the broken wall. Either he’d moved slightly or her memory was off: the first shot struck the lip of the stonework, sparking in the dimness, an inch to the right of the peeping bowler hat. She adjusted her aim, fired again, had the satisfaction of seeing the hat flip up and backward, though whether she’d hit its owner she couldn’t tell. And no time to find out; she was already diving downslope, surfing the pine needles on enormous vaulting strides. Bullets whined about her—she felt one strike the rucksack—and then she was dodging around trees, ducking under branches, bounding crazily from one foot to another, down, ever down…. And now there was silence behind, and the band of sunlight growing stronger up ahead.

  Scarlett shot out over a raised bank in a shower of needles and landed in long grass. The day’s brightness stung her eyes. She was out of the pines. Straight in front of her, the slope continued steeply to an abrupt and unexpected edge. The river showed far below, patches sparkling, parts in deep blue shadow. It had cut a shallow gorge here on the edge of the Wolds and was deep and fast-flowing. To left and right it bent away, was lost among the folds of the hill. Scarlett took this all in as she ran forward.

  Most of all, though, she noticed the boy.

  He was still there. Standing feebly at the edge of the drop. It was as if the words “limp” and “ineffectual” had taken on human form. He was bending out, looking at the river, his black hair and big jumper fluttering in the breeze that ran along the gorge.

  Scarlett gave a gasp of fury. She approached at speed. “You idiot! I told you to jump in.”

  “I thought it would be a gentle little bank! Maybe some reeds and pebbles and that! You didn’t tell me it’d be a cliff!”

  “What cliff? It’s only about twenty feet up. Maybe thirty.”

  “I can’t do it. It’s too far. I’ll break my back in the fall.”

  “There’s only a small chance of that. A real low percentage.” She turned her back on him, watching the dark wall of pines. Already there was movement. One…no, two men coming. They’d stay under cover, shoot from there. It’d be too easy for them. “Albert, you need to jump in now.”

  “Can’t. I’m frightened.”

  “Are you more frightened of certain death or possible death? Which is worse?”

  “Neither really tickles my fancy.”

  “Well, something had better start tickling it fast,” Scarlett said. “I’ll give you five seconds; then I’m jumping in without you.” She raised the gun and fired at one of the advancing figures under the trees. With a groan, the man pitched violently forward onto the pine needles. He lay facedown, slipping slowly downslope on a final journey of a few inches more. He came to a stop right at the forest’s edge, stretched out on the ground, one arm extending into the light.

  It was Scarlett’s final bullet; as if sensing this, her other pursuer took advantage. A bearded man came running out onto the grass. He wore a brown checked jacket, red trousers; he had a gray bowler hat perched on his head. There was a long, thin knife in his hand.

  Scarlett put her revolver back into her belt and drew out her hunting knife. She glanced back at the boy, then at the churning waters below. Yep, it was doable. Not too many rocks. Some big tree branches, wedged against the side of the cliff wall. You’d need to avoid hitting those. But it could be done. She could do it, anyway.

  “Albert.”

  “What?”

  “Are you going to jump?”

  “No.”

  “You are the worst.” She looked back at the approaching man. All at once, he was very close. He smiled at her, his teeth glinting white behind his beard. He was younger than she’d thought, moving fluidly with a dancer’s gait. He looked fast and competent, not quite like a normal militiaman. Sunlight shimmered on the metal blade.

  “Got no bullets left,” the man said. “But the knife’ll do.”

  “Yeah,” Scarlett said. “That’s about my thinking too.” She brushed a strand of hair out of her face, raised her knife in readiness. She knew he would move quickly, guessed he’d seek to distract her by talking or by making some meaningless gesture with his free hand so her attention was diverted. Sure enough, the hand fluttered sideways like a wounded bird. She waited till he’d committed himself, had put the weight on the balls of his feet for the attack—then she rolled sideways and with a snakelike movement of her arm thrust upward. As it was, he was lucky. Her balance wasn’t quite right; he managed to lean aside so the blade whistled past, slicing the front of his jacket. She tried again; this time out he parried, meeting her knife with the edge of his, jarring her arm so she almost dropped the knife. No, he was not a normal militiaman. She moved away from him, scowling.

  They faced each other, moving slowly.

  “You’re good, sweetie,” the young man said with a smile. “But there’re others coming. They’ll have more guns.”

  Scarlett looked at Albert Browne, standing at the edge of the cliff. With a dizzying sense of unreality, she saw he had his hands clasped casually behind his back. He was peering over the edge, blank-faced, as if lost in thought, more like a shortsighted schoolmaster out hunting beetles than a boy trying to escape someone with a big knife.

  She turned back to the bearded man.

  “You know he had nothing to do with it?” she said. “He’s just an idiot who tagged along. You can tell that, right? Whatever happens, you can let him go.”

  Shadows moved in the trees beyond. It distracted her; when she looked back at the man, he had an expression of bafflement on his face, which quickly broadened into amusement and disbelief. The white teeth parted. He laughed. It was the same laugh she’d heard at the cottage the night before.

  Scarlett glared at him. “And what’s that cackling in aid of?”

  “It’s just you’re so funny,” the man said. “It’s only—” He laughed again. “What makes you think we’re after you?”

  It took a moment for her to digest the words, to adjust to the implications.

  And everything shifted.

  Her bank job at Cheltenham fell from the forefront of her mind. She saw instead the upturned bus at the bottom of the embankment, with the hole torn in its side. She saw a close-up of that hole, the ragged metal peeling up and outward, blown by violent force from within. She saw Albert Browne as she’d first seen him on the bus, the sole survivor, almost unscathed, and all the other passengers dead and gone….

  Realization struck her.

  What makes you think we’re after you?

  And as she hesitated, the bearded man moved. It was just too fast—Scarlett couldn’t dodge or deflect the blow. Neve
rtheless, her left arm went up in a protective gesture, guarding her heart—and the knife blade went straight through the palm of her hand. It protruded three inches on the other side. Scarlett McCain felt an explosion of pain. She stabbed at the man’s arm, so that he let go of his knife hilt. She dropped her weapon, held her wrist tight, cursing.

  Still smiling, the man backed away. He signaled to the forest behind him. A shot rang out amongst the trees.

  Scarlett bared her teeth. With her free hand, she pulled the knife out of her palm and flung it aside. She flexed her fingers tentatively.

  Albert Browne gave a soft cry of dismay. “Scarlett! Your hand—it’s bleeding!”

  “Yes—isn’t it? But don’t worry. I can still do this.” Scarlett stepped close and shoved him viciously out into the gorge. With a squeal, he disappeared.

  The people in the pines were firing repeatedly now. Scarlett didn’t hang around. She gave them a last gesture to remember her by, then walked backward over the edge.

  “Good morning, Albert,” Dr. Calloway said. Albert could imagine her on the other side of the partition, the neat black clothes, the blond hair scraped up above the velvet headband. The pen held ready. The fingers on the dial. The slashes of red lipstick on the smooth pale face. He could always visualize her perfectly. The trouble was he could never do anything about it. The iron partition saw to that.

  “Can you hear me?” Dr. Calloway asked.

  “I can hear you.”

  “Good. And can you move your hands or feet?”

  He knew the questions before they were asked, the order and exact phrasing; he could have answered them all, rat-a-tat-tat, like so much gunfire, and gone straight on to the test. But she liked him to respond fully, as if it was his first time. No cutting corners, no shortcuts. Only the necessary punishment. This was the scientific method.