The Man and The Outlaw

Chapter Fifteen

Five or six miles outside of Driscoll, they came to an old barn. It was half falling apart but the sun was starting to go down and it would provide protection from the elements better than sleeping beneath the sparse tree cover that served as their other option. Ten miles back they'd passed a sign that read:
DRISCOLL 16 MI.
SILVERTONGUES NOT WELCOME
VIOLATORS WILL FACE SEVERE PUNISHMENT
There were lumpy, gray things nailed to the sign and, upon closer inspection, both Walker and Clara could see that they were severed tongues, most likely of other Silvertongues caught in the area. Clara had made no comment on the grotesque ornaments, but there was a definite tension as they rode on, and she continually scanned the land before them for any approaching parties with growing anxiety. Walker's hand never drifted far from the gun at his hip.
She was still thinking on the tongues when they found the barn and decided to camp for the night. They tied their horses and laid out their bedrolls. Walker decided that the barn provided enough cover to keep their fire from being seen from too far away and busied himself gathering wood to feed it. Clara kept glancing at him as she fed and watered the horses, half expecting him to pass out again. He'd been relatively quiet since the fall, and she knew he wasn't being honest about how he felt. She'd catch him smothering coughs every now and then.
"You sure this place is safe?" he asked, looking around at the dying building above them as she sat near him around the fire.
"Scared of ghosts?" she asked mischievously as the building creaked with a gust of wind outside.
Walker scoffed, "More scared of waking up with a rotted beam on my head."
Clara surveyed the darkened roof above them. "I think we'll be alright. It's stood here for years without caving in yet. You think it cares that a couple of wanderers stop in for the night? You think it'll come down on us out of pure spite?"
"Might just be our lucky day," he shrugged.
They settled into a fireside dinner of sausage links and leftover cornbread that Loren had given them to take. Walker ate fervently and Clara was glad to see that. If he still had an appetite, he couldn't be that sick. At least, she hoped not. She was becoming more worried about him than she cared to admit. She'd spent the whole ride that day thinking about where she might take him if he went out again for longer, or if something worse happened to him that she could not handle with her little med kit. She was thinking of all this instead of considering their predicament in Driscoll and how to deal with it.
"What do you think we should do about that town tomorrow?" she asked, posing the question as casually as she could.
Walker, having finished with his dinner, had stretched out on his bedroll, his boots discarded in the dirt beside him. He pushed himself up onto one elbow and considered her face in the firelight.
"Don't reckon there's any easy way to do it," he said. "I'd also bet that that special voice of yours will be just about useless, don't you?"
Clara nodded. This was one thing she had considered and convinced herself of on the ride. "Anybody that goes through the trouble of cutting out tongues isn't going to be walking around unprotected. We're going in without any extra support."
"We could stick to the very edges, keep our heads down, but I don't know if we'll get through without being seen. A place like Driscoll will have people on patrol. We could give the place a wide berth, Clara. It's the safest option. We turn around, go through Webster and Hanksville, and we—"
"I'm not taking any scenic route," she grunted.
"You like your tongue, don't you? Like talking?" Walker snapped, sitting up heatedly. "I just don't understand, Clara. It's dangerous, don't you know that? You trying to get killed?"
"I'm trying to do what's right by my dad," she snarled. "He should never have been killed, Walker. He didn't deserve to die."
"People die every day, Clara!"
His eyes reflected the fire, and his fists were clenched at his sides. He stared hard at her as his nostrils flared and relaxed, flared and relaxed. She met his gaze with her own but there was more than fury in them. The comment had hurt her, had minimized the pain she felt, the anger and resentment, the sense of purpose she held. It hurt all the worse because it had come from Walker.
He realized, too late, that he'd let his temper get the better of him. Clara got to her feet and Walker mimicked her.
"Clara, I only meant—"
She whirled on him, drawing her gun as he reached out to take hold of her hand and pointing it at his chest.
"Stay away from me!" she screamed. "I don't need you!"
He put his hands up, surprised at her, but his face betrayed the notion that he felt he deserved it. He welcomed the pistol's dangerous mouth like an old friend.
"I don't want to see you get hurt," he told her.
"Just leave me alone, Walker."
She left him standing there, his shadow cast upon the wall of the barn as she disappeared into a far darkened corner. She would soon regret leaving her bedrolls near the warmth of the burning fire Walker had built but her pride refused to let her wander back to collect them, risking another altercation in the process. She fell asleep, shivering from the cool of the night around her, and woke sometime later to the barking of a dog.
She forced her eyes open as the barking grew louder and then stopped altogether. The barn was dark, the fire long dead and smoldering and the sky outside not yet light enough to see by. With the barking gone, she could hear a low snuffing sound somewhere near her. The dog was smelling her out. Carefully, she reached for her gun, trying not to make any noise and alert the animal to her presence. The snuffing sound stopped, and she froze with her hand on the butt of her pistol.
There was a low growl and then the world lit up with a light that hit her square in the face, temporarily blinding her so that she saw nothing but white.
"Don't move or I'll shoot," a voice commanded from behind the light. It was a deep, gruff voice, one she didn't recognize. It definitely wasn't Walker and she wondered where he was, if he was hiding somewhere in the darkness around her.
The light moved, lowering itself so that she could see it was coming from a flashlight and a dark figure stood behind it. Beside the figure, closer to the ground, another growl emitted. Clara remained frozen in the glow, waiting for something else to happen.
"Take off the scarf," commanded a second voice, a female voice. It came from somewhere further in the darkness, somewhere where Clara couldn't see even the hint of a shadow.
"Do it now," the voice added when Clara remained frozen. This was accompanied by the clicking of a gun being loaded.
Clara raised her hands slowly and untied the scarf around her neck. The cool air made her shiver and the light shone on the grayish marks that covered her throat. The dog behind the light barked twice and Clara, unable to stop herself, flinched at the noise. The first figure snickered.
"I told you I seen a fire glow from between the slat boards in here," the deep voiced figure said, turning his head to look towards where Clara assumed the second voice's owner stood.
"Shut up Ray," the second voice growled.
The inside of the barn was lightening then, and she could finally make out both people, the smaller of the two standing a few yards further back than the other.
The man was tall with shaggy brown hair and a long leather coat. He carried a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and was putting the flashlight into one of his coat pockets with the other. The dog standing at his side was black with brown markings around its feet and face, its head and shoulders almost as wide as Clara's. Its eyes were black and watching her every move, its lip curled back to reveal its sharp, white teeth.
The woman stepped closer to the man, a shiny revolver gripped in each hand, leather holsters slung on both hips. She had a mousy face and bad complexion. Her hair, brown just like the man's, was pulled back but pieces had gotten free and floated around her face. Her eyes, unlike the man's slightly dull ones, revealed a sharp mind behind them. There was no doubt to Clara that she was the brains of the partnership. They both had similar face shapes and Clara would not have been surprised to learn that they were siblings or cousins.
"How much you reckon we'll get for her?" The man, Ray, asked through the side of his mouth, not wanting to turn his head away from Clara for even a second. There was a kind of eager glee in his tone.
"We'll have to take her back to Pa first and see what he thinks. He'll know what price to accept from the mayor better'n me or you," the woman replied. Clara still had not learned her name, but she now knew that they must be brother and sister.
"Please," Clara muttered, and they both jumped so hard that she worried they would shoot her right then. She braced for the bullets, but they'd held their nerve.
"Keep your mouth shut!" The woman snapped; revolvers aimed at Clara's head. "Gag her Ray, 'fore she puts a spell on us."
Ray lowered his weapon hesitantly and pulled a rag and duct tape from the coat pocket opposite of the one that the flashlight had disappeared into. He approached Clara like she was a venomous snake poised to strike if he got too close. She saw him swallow hard and clench his jaw.
"Got a bead on her right?" he murmured over his shoulder to his sister.
"She so much as licks her lips and I'll put a bullet in her brain. Don't you worry Ray," came the woman's confident reply which visibly soothed Ray.
Clara had no choice but to allow Ray to stuff the rag in her mouth and duct tape it shut. She believed it when the woman said she would end her life there and then if she put up any fight. Ray, in a moment of pure brilliance for his standards, Clara was sure, procured a length of rope and bound Clara's wrists behind her back for good measure. He turned his back on her, the perceived threat eliminated, and beamed proudly at his sister.
"You didn't even think of that, did you Suze? Now, she'll be hard pressed to try escapin' with no free hands. Heck, Bruin would chase her down anyway but now she'll think twice—no three times!—'fore she tries anything funny," he said, patting the dog's head at his knee with great affection.
Suze did not look impressed at all but awarded him a "Good thinkin' Ray" for his efforts. She was studying Clara, particularly the marks on her neck, with great interest. There was greed in her eyes and something else, something more human but also darker, like she was looking at a hard-earned prize that she'd just won but that she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep just yet.
"Let's get her back to Pa then," Suze finally said, and Ray made a move to grab Clara before something occurred to him and he stopped.
"What about her friend?"
From what Clara could see of the barn, now mostly revealed by the sunlight cutting through the slats in the boards and the patchy roof, Walker's horse and all his things were gone. It would still have been easy enough to surmise from their footsteps and the marks that their bedrolls made in the dirt that there had been two people in the barn for most of the night. A sharp pain struck her heart, and Clara remembered their fight only five or six hours earlier. She hadn't meant for him to really leave her alone, but it seemed that he had had enough of her stubbornness and her hopeless quest. He had vanished.
"If she had a friend, they're long gone by now. No need to waste too much time looking around when we've got our payday right here in front of us," Suze told Ray matter-of-factly. Then, quietly, she added, "Let's not mention the one that got away to Pa, you hear?"
Ray nodded vigorously like it was the last thing he ever would have thought of doing and Suze slapped him on the back and turned towards the half open barn door where they had first entered. Clara could see an old rusty truck through it and Ray dragged her towards it. The paint was red but faded almost to pink and it had an extended bed and two doors, the handle hanging slightly askew on the driver's side that she could see. It was too old for anything so fancy as a computer chip and Clara figured the two of them worried little about anyone tracking their whereabouts. She also wondered how the truck was even still running after so long off the assembly line. Some things were just made to last she supposed and for some reason her thoughts drifted back to Walker again. She pushed him out of her mind with great effort. It would do her no good to dwell on his leaving when she was obviously in a very dangerous situation. She needed to figure a way out of this and fast. She did not think her presence would be well received by "Pa."
On this count, she was wrong.
Ray forced her into the back of the truck and whistled sharply. The big dog, Bruin, as Ray had called him, jumped up beside her and sat down with his eyes on her. He was still growling in the back of his throat and Clara stiffened with each breath the animal took. With no hands to defend herself, he had free reign to tear her apart if there came a will to do so. She felt extremely vulnerable and very afraid. Ray had confiscated her gun as he was putting her in the truck, and she wished with great longing that she could still feel its comforting presence on her hip. Tears pricked at her eyes as hopelessness filled her, but she swallowed them back and forbid herself to cry. It would help nothing and only accomplish making her feel worse and clouding her thoughts.
They did not have far to go, and Clara saw that they kept to the very edge of Driscoll, skirting any place that looked like they would draw attention. She wondered if this was because there were others like them, Silvertongue hunters as she was beginning to think of them, who might confront them and try to steal her away to secure the "payday" for themselves. She hoped they wouldn't be spotted. One pair of their kind was enough. She didn't think her odds would get better if their numbers increased.
The began to slow on the western side of Driscoll, pulling into a mostly deserted RV Park called "The Oasis" according to the faded and lopsided sign that hung on rusty chains across the entry road. Clara thought again of how some names just didn't make any kind of sense at all. The place looked nothing like an oasis to her.
They passed several empty concrete slabs, some littered with trash and a few with picnic tables. A blatantly permanent fixture loomed before them, a dirty doublewide trailer with a wooden porch built around it with an older man sitting in a lawn chair beneath the porch's awning. Clara had seen plenty of nice and neat trailer homes in her life, but this one did not make the list. There was a broken window covered with billowing black plastic and duct tape on one side of the front door which was little more than a screen hanging on rusted out hinges. The man was smoking the stub of a cigar and a haze of smoke hung around his head as they pulled up and his children got out. He got to his feet with a grunt as Ray went around to the back of the truck and, Bruin jumping out as the tailgate fell, pulled Clara out and grabbed her roughly around the bicep to lead her around.
As she got closer to the porch and the trailer, forced along by Ray's strong arms, she could see the man was smiling around his cigar. He had a scraggly salt and pepper beard, wiry eyebrows knit together as he watched her, and he wore dirty blue jeans and a gray shirt with small holes in one arm sleeve. His forearms were large, strong looking and covered with black tattoos of skulls and horned bulls. His eyes shared the same sharp intelligence of his daughter's and Clara's sense of danger and panic heightened. If he'd had Ray's eyes, she would've been more confident of a chance for escape presenting itself, but cruel and smart were a dangerous combination and now there were two of them to contend with.
"Followed a hunch and came up with this one, Pa," Suze called to the man as Ray forced Clara up next to her at the foot of the porch steps.
"My hunch," he added quickly with a sideways glare at his sister.
Their father descended from the porch and stood in front of Clara, his eyes searching over her. He was the same height as Clara, and he shifted in front of her as he searched every inch of her neck. Then, he reached up with both hands and Clara jerked her head away instinctively. There was suddenly the muzzle of a revolver in her side, courtesy of Suze, and she held rigidly still. Pa put one hand on each side of her neck, feeling the skin where her markings were, rubbing them with his thumbs as though checking to see if they were merely painted on.
Like anybody would risk pretending to be like me, Clara thought morosely.
"She have any ID on her when you picked her up?" He asked. His voice was softer than Clara had expected. His eyes never left hers as he talked.
"She didn't have anything on her, but she might've had something in them saddlebags we..." Ray's voice trailed off. Beside Clara, Suze had gone similarly rigid as though she'd just felt a stranger's gun in her own side. Pa jerked his head to look at his son.
"You what?" he asked, a slight edge finding its way into his tone.
Ray dropped his gaze to his boots and shuffled his feet. Pa reared back and slapped him across the face.
"You what?" he asked again.
Ray took the slap like someone who'd been receiving them his whole life, and Clara didn't doubt that he had. He didn't look at his father, but he did at last answer him.
"We...we left it in that barn, Pa. We didn't think it would be worth nothin'. We was too excited to get her back here 'fore anybody else came up on us," Ray mumbled.
Pa looked like he could slap him again, but he turned his attention to Suze instead.
"You'll go back right now and get it, you hear me?" he said. Suze held his gaze with her own, almost daring him to slap her like he'd done Ray, and nodded her head sharply.
"Go back? But Pa, how much could that stuff really be worth?" Ray whined. Suze, sliding behind Clara who was grateful to feel the absence of the gun in her side, grabbed Ray and pulled him towards the truck before he could take another beating from Pa who had already raised his arm.
"Boy takes after his momma, bless her soul," Pa muttered, crossing himself and glancing up at the sky as he did so. Clara couldn't imagine this man was a religious one, but she figured even immoral people had to hold to something.
He grabbed her around the arm, much gentler than Ray had, and led her up the porch steps and into the trailer home. Inside, the house looked even worse for wear than it did from the outside.
The furniture, consisting of a ratty couch missing two of the three cushions, a kitchen table with a shim under one leg that was made of wood that was discolored with age, mismatched kitchen stools around the table, and a leather armchair with the faux fabric worn through on the arms, gave the home a weathered and almost abandoned look. It was almost sad enough to make Clara feel sympathetic for the family but then the gag in her mouth choked her and any lingering feelings like that disappeared with the closing of the front door behind her.
The man called "Pa" led her over to the couch and gestured to it with one hand, allowing her to sit under her own power without forcing her into the seat. He left her bound and gagged and sat down in the armchair across from her with a grunt. Clara could smell the cigar on him. He rubbed at his stubble covered face absently and watched her. Clara tried not to squirm beneath his gaze.
"You people have always been innerestin' to me," he commented after the silence and his watchful stare had gotten heavy.
Clara wasn't sure if he expected her to give some kind of answer. With her mouth gagged, she could do no more than nod or shake her head, offer him a shrug. He kept on talking though and she decided that he didn't want a conversation, but a captive audience.
"You've got so much power in that throat of yours, more than any normal man or woman, more influence than any slick politician of our time."
He got to his feet and disappeared down a side hall. Clara considered trying to run for it, but he hadn't been gone too long when she heard a car door slam outside, and she knew the kids must've made it back. It wasn't that far of a trip. She wouldn't make it past all of them, not without her voice or her gun and neither were currently at her disposal.
Pa reappeared as she heard heavy footsteps on the porch and the sight of him made her blood run cold. He was holding an armful of pieces of cloth, scarves made of wool or satin, bandannas tied in loops, collars cut off jackets. She knew what this was before he had to tell her. These were trophies. These all belonged to people like her, people he had turned in, people who had been punished because of the gift they'd been given at birth without asking for it. There had to be eight or ten of them hanging over his forearms and her eyes widened as he threw them on the couch beside her. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest.
"You know what these are, don'tcha?" He sat back down in his chair eyeing the scarf that hung open around her neck, but Clara's eyes remained firmly on the pile of cloth. "'Course you do. This ain't my first rodeo with your kind, as you can see. This time though, I plan on gettin' a real paycheck with you, Clara."
At the sound of her name leaving his mouth, she jerked her eyes up at him as the front door opened and Ray and Suze entered the home emptyhanded.
"Where's her belongings?" Pa asked sharply, his attention suddenly daggered at his children. Clara still sat reeling, unable to voice any of her questions and try to understand how he might possibly know who she was. It didn't make any sense. She had never set foot near Driscoll and, before her recent escapades, she'd never been much further from her family farm than her trips to Carsonville with cattle.
Ray averted his eyes, staring instead at a place on the wall across the room and Bruin, as if mimicking his master's feelings, whined at his feet. Suze took the question in stride, seeming to have been prepping for the confrontation once they'd returned and there was no hiding the lack of saddlebags and gear that they'd failed to bring with them.
"Gone," she said flatly. "Somebody must've been watching the place like we were, and we just got to her first. When we got the lead out, they swooped in, and picked up the rest as a consolation."
If she was expecting him to be angry, and her tensed shoulders suggested to Clara that she was, then she was pleasantly surprised. Pa was shaking his head, obviously a little disappointed but otherwise unaffected.
Clara's heart sank further at the thought of her gear and her horse disappearing. There must've been numerous groups like this family around the area and, if she made it out of this alive, she doubted she'd ever see any of that stuff again. It was just stuff at the end of the day, but every little piece was connected to her father in some way, whether he helped her pick it out or he advised her on carrying it. The horse, of course, had been his in the first place and that hurt the worst.
"Doesn't matter anyway," Pa said. His two children visibly relaxed and Ray bent down to pat Bruin's head happily.
"Don't you think we ought to get movin' towards the mayor's house? He'll be gettin' on towards lunch if we wait too long and he won't take kindly to us interrupting him," Suze pointed out. Her father shook his head again.
"We ain't takin' her to the mayor," he said.
"What do you mean, Pa?" Suze's eyes had turned suspicious.
He got to his feet and disappeared again without answering her question. She watched him go, and then her gaze drifted to where Clara still sat on the couch, trying not to touch the pile of Silvertongue belongings that sat beside her. Suze glared and bared her teeth.
"What's he talking about? Are you sure you gagged her well enough Ray?" She stalked over and began checking the tape over Clara's mouth forcefully. Ray who had wandered into the kitchen for a snack, returned with several slices of white bread, one piece hanging from his mouth.
"You can't mess up a gag, Suze," he retorted indignantly but took a keen interest in watching her fiddle with it anyway.
When Suze was satisfied, she backed away from Clara and stared off after her father again. He returned with a few pieces of paper and a phone in his hands. Suze got even more suspicious.
"What are you doing, Pa? I thought we were taking her to the mayor. We've got the Chesterton family breathing down our necks about paying off that back lot and we don't have the financials to take care of it without the money the mayor's offering. We've done this plenty before and you never changed it up. What's—"
Pa's hand came out of nowhere and grabbed Suze by the hair. He jerked her to the floor and Clara jumped as she hit and groaned. He knelt beside her and leaned over her face. Her lip quivered but she did not cry.
"You think I'm stupid?" he snarled. When Suze did not answer, he slapped her hard and kept his fist raised above her. "Do you?"
"N..No," she muttered.
"Do you think I can't provide for this family? Do you think I don't know what we need around here?"
He hit her again without giving her the chance to answer. Tears leaked from the corners of Suze's eyes and Clara couldn't help feeling sorry for her. A trickle of blood ran down her lip from her nose.
"I don't think that Pa," she told him, fighting hard to keep her voice steady.
"Good," he got up, but Suze stayed where she was for a count. Clara could tell that she was afraid if she moved too soon, he would put her back down.
Strangely, Pa offered a hand to her, and she took it. He helped her to her feet, brushed her off, licked his thumb and wiped the blood away from her nose. It was such a paternal gesture, coupled with such a violent act that Clara's head spun for a minute trying to comprehend what she'd just seen. This family dynamic was not something she had ever witnessed before.
"I've got a better deal for this one than the others before," he said once Suze was back on her feet. "A deal that'll get us out of this hole and into greener pastures."
Suze had collected herself and, though her nose had sprouted fresh blood on her lip, she nodded at what her father said and even seemed to get excited about it. She smiled at him.
"When's this deal go down?" she asked.
"After I make this call, I reckon it'll take a few hours for him to get to us."
Him.
Clara began to shake her head violently. She struggled to make her voice heard behind the gag, choking as the rag in her mouth slipped down her throat, making her eyes water.
No, no, no. Please, no. Not him. Don't let it be him.
She got to her feet without thinking and immediately three guns had been drawn and were trailed on her. She felt like she couldn't breathe, like she'd suffocate if they didn't remove the gag from her mouth at once. Her jaw hurt from fighting the tape.
"Deal requires her to be alive I'm guessing," Suze muttered, her finger twitching on the trigger of her revolver.
"You'd guess right," Pa replied, tossing the papers in his hand onto the table where Clara could finally see what was on them.
There were a few photographs that looked as though they were snapshots taken from a security camera. She could see herself getting out of the driver's door of her father's truck alone in one of them. The other showed her getting out of the passenger side, her father getting out of the driver's side across the vehicle from her. Her heart ached to see him there, a moment frozen in time where he remained alive and well, forever stuck in the past. She had never noticed security cameras around the place at which, she knew from the scene, that the pictures had been taken. Her stomach lurched and she worried that she would vomit and choke to death on it. Compared to what was coming, she considered it almost a better alternative.
The other piece of paper was smaller with black handwriting scrawled on it in a script that Clara did not recognize but the subject of which she knew all too well. It read:
her name's Clara Thompson
call Todd Pryor if found
405-378-0092
BIG CASH!!
She guessed it was Pa who had taken the note. She watched Suze bend over to read it, a deep hopelessness building in her chest. If Todd came, he would kill her. She knew it like she knew the sun would rise tomorrow in the east. It would not be a slow death. It would be miserable and grueling, and he would do awful things to her before he allowed her the peace of the end to come.
As she watched, Pa dialed the number on the phone still clutched in his hand. He went out onto the front porch with it held up to his ear and the conversation between the two men was muffled beyond understanding. Suze waited patiently, standing at attention with her gun still drawn on Clara who had slouched back onto the couch in agonizing defeat. She shook her head slowly, disbelieving that this was how it all came to an end.
Suze watched her with a passive expression, almost unreadable. It reminded Clara a little of Walker. Another pang struck her heart. She had lost him too, had pushed him away. He would probably never learn of what happened to her and she thought it better that way. Let him believe she met her end at the hand of The Outlaw Valdez or, better, that she completed her mission and retired back home to live quietly by herself. May he never find out that she was caught and defeated by the man who'd bested her once before, the man who'd taken something inherently special from her and who, now, would claim the only sacred thing she had left, her soul.