Smoke from the locomotive whipped by the rain-streaked window. The wheels had settled into a steady rattle. A rhythmic, repetitive sound. The Pullman car swayed gently as the train took a curve, soft green hills seeming to swell up on either side as the tracks cut through a wide embankment.
Staring up at the boy Jason Brand flicked a hand in the direction of the seat facing him. He watched the boy sit down, aware of a familiarity in the young face, and realized with a shock he was looking at himself. Or how he had looked eighteen years ago.
‘Eighteen-seventy,’ the boy said. ‘The Comanch’ took you captive after they killed your family. They took you to a camp on the Llano. Quanah Parker was there. The Comanche who led the raid had already taken your sister there. His name was Three Finger. He…he murdered your sister before you could get her away. But you escaped with a girl you met in the camp. Another captive. Lisa Hoyle…’
The years slipped away, layers of his mind peeling back, letting the memories of that time return. Brand had no difficulty in recalling the events, the places, the people…
…the girl had brought him food, kneeling before him in the dust of Three Finger’s camp. She was young, his own age, and she was naked, her lithe, long limbed body firmly developed. Her cropped hair was fair under the matted dirt, her eyes a startling shade of blue…
‘I don’t even know your name,’ she had said later.
‘Jason Brand.’
‘I’m Lisa Hoyle.’
She had been with him when he had made his break from the camp. Too late to save his sister, Liz, from the Comanche called Three Finger. Yet they had survived. Fighting the land and the relentless pursuit of the savage Three Finger, their desperate situation drawing them close. Brand had killed the Comanche…but more violence had reared its head when they had reached the refuge of a dirty border town and a trio of local hard case had tried to take Lisa from Brand. He had been pushed into using the violent skills that were to become almost a curse throughout his life.
In that little town without a name, in a small room, the closeness that had grown during their long flight from captivity spilled over into a physical need. They had made love with the urgent passion of the young, tasting new sensations, seeking more of the same until there had been no more to give, nothing more to be taken. Yet even that time had ended in bitterness, a rift growing between them because of Brand’s burning desire for vengeance against the men who had deserted his family in their time of need, and Lisa’s reluctance to accept his violent ways.
‘Surely you can go to the law? Or the Army? Can’t you?’ she asked.
‘And what would they do? Stick up a few posters. Hell, Lisa, I could get to be an old man waiting for something to happen.’
‘You could get to be a very dead young man the way you’re acting.’
‘My folks are dead. If those three bastards had stuck with us I might still have family. I don’t figure to forget that. I won’t forget even when those three are dead and buried.’
‘I think you’re wrong, Jason, terribly wrong. All you’re doing is living on bitterness. On hatred. It’s no way to exist.’
‘I don’t reckon I have to listen to you. Ain’t nobody’s business but mine what I do with my life. You should of left it alone, Lisa. Now it’s between us.’
And it had remained between them up until the time Brand left Lisa with relatives in El Paso. Brand had exorcised her from his life, moving on, and as the years passed she had become little more than a memory.
‘And she wouldn’t let anyone in the family tell you about me,’ the boy was saying.
Brand dragged himself back to the present, aware of the boy, Adam’s, intense stare.
‘Did she still hate me that much?’ he asked.
Adam shook his dark head. ‘I don’t think she ever hated you at all. It was what she saw in you that scared her. All she ever wanted was peace and quiet. She used to say you were so full of revenge and violence. She’d seen too much of that herself.’
Brand didn’t need to question that. He recalled how Lisa had made her feelings known on the matter.
‘Where is she now?’ he asked.
The boy was silent for a moment, staring out at the green countryside blurring past the window.
‘She died eight months back. She’d been ill for a couple of years on and off. Some kind of lung disease the doctor said. They did what they could but…’
‘I wish she’d got in touch,’ Brand said. ‘I would have come to see you both.’ The moment he uttered the words Brand felt like a fraud. He realized how false they sounded. ‘Hell, boy, you got to give me a chance to take it in. Isn’t every day a man comes face to face with a son he never knew he had. Especially when he’s near enough full grown as well.’
‘I was going to write,’ Adam said. ‘Then I figured there was a better way.’ He paused, adding, ‘Anyhow I wanted to meet you.’
‘What about Lisa’s kin?’
‘Aunt Laura died five years back. Uncle Ben still has the store. He had to take on a feller to run it when I said I didn’t want to work behind a counter.’
‘Didn’t he want you to stay?’
‘He knew I was restless. I told him how I felt about looking for you and he said it was time I did something about it.’ Adam gave an embarrassed smile. ‘So here I am.’
‘How long you been looking?’
‘Close on four months. You move around a lot. And you keep vanishing.’
It was Brand’s turn to smile. ‘It’s something my job makes me do.’
‘That’s what Colonel Mundy told me.’
‘Alex Mundy?’
Adam nodded. ‘I met him a few weeks back. When I told him who I was he said he’d help. He told me the work you do means you have stay in the shadows, and he made me promise not to say anything about what he told me.’
‘Seems I owe Alex a favor.’
‘He told me you’d say that too. Said to tell you to forget it.’
An awkwardness fell between them. The silence stretched as they both sought the right words. The strain was broken by the appearance of a Negro attendant from the dining car.
‘We serve lunch at noon, sir,’ he told Brand. ‘Would you like to reserve a table?’
Brand nodded. ‘For two. Will you ask the Conductor to come forward?’
The Negro nodded and left them.
‘You got any luggage?’ Brand asked.
Adam said, ‘Back down the train.’
‘Go and fetch it.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Adam said and stood up.
Brand watched him go, letting out a relieved sigh.
Judas Priest, he thought, I’m getting too old for surprises like this.
The Conductor appeared. ‘Mr. Brand?’
‘Can you make out a ticket for the boy? He’s going to join me up here.’
‘All the way to Santa Fe?’
Brand took his wallet out again. ‘Yeah, all the way.’ Brand grinned suddenly. ‘We’ve a lot of talking to do. Looks like we’ll need every minute of this damn trip to do it.’
The Conductor glanced up from writing out the ticket, frowning at the grinning man. He made no comment. It wasn’t his job to try and figure out what the passengers were talking about. And he had been in the job too long to be surprised at anything they said, or did.
Adam returned carrying a pair of saddlebags over one shoulder and a bedroll under his arm. He had a Winchester rifle in one hand. Brand helped him stow his stuff away.
‘That loaded?’ Brand asked.
Adam held up the rifle. ‘Yes, sir, but the breech is empty.’
Brand held out a hand and took the weapon, examining it. ‘Can you use it?’
‘I hit what I aim at,’ Adam said with the confidence of youth. Then he quickly added, ‘Mind I’ve only ever shot at targets or game.’
Brand put the rifle down. ‘Well don’t sound so glum about it. Ain’t a rule you have to go shoot at a man just so’s you can say you done it.’
Adam flushed with anger. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said sharply.
‘I wasn’t saying you did, boy. Hell, don’t mind me. I’m just taking a little longer than usual getting used to being a father.’
A laugh rose in Adam’s throat.
‘I say something funny?’
‘No. Just something I’m trying to figure out.’
‘What?’
‘Do I call you father? Or pa? Or what?’
‘Looks like we got problems already. Why don’t we leave it open? You decide what feels right.’
‘Alright,’ Adam said. He leaned back in his seat. ‘This is nice. Lot better than back there. They always let you travel like this?’
‘No. It’s just that sometimes they like to coat the pill with sugar so you don’t think you have it so bad when the hard times come.’
‘Where you heading now?’
‘Santa Fe first. Then up into the San Juan Mountains.’
‘You after somebody?’
‘Looking for somebody. Two men in fact. Seems they got themselves lost up in the mountains.’
‘Can I ride with you?’ Adam asked, eagerness shining in his eyes.
‘No. But you can wait for me in Santa Fe.’
Adam’s shoulders sagged. ‘What am I going to do there? I don’t see why I can’t come with you.’
‘I’m not about to argue over this, boy. No way of knowing what I’ll find when I take to those mountains. I won’t have time to look out for you.’
‘I’m not a kid,’ Adam retorted. ‘I can look after myself.’
‘Listen to me, Adam, and remember. Most of the time the job I do is dirty and downright unhealthy. A lot of the people I get mixed up with are the kind who would rather kill you than talk. I have a gun in my hand a lot of the time because it’s the only sure way to stay alive. I’ve had to kill a lot of men, and it isn’t something I’m proud off. But it’s the life I lead. Give yourself a few more years and you’ll see there are some mean folk walking around. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that just ’cause you’ve blown holes in a few tin cans it makes you eligible for my kind of business. It doesn’t, boy.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Adam said. ‘I got no right to push myself on you. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do.’
‘You can quit that talk,’ Brand said. ‘Look, we’re going to be stuck on this train for a few days. Plenty of time to talk things out. No need to rush.’
Adam nodded. ‘I guess so.’ He began to relax, gazing out the window again. Abruptly he looked back at Brand. ‘Is it true you were a US Marshal. Tell me about it.’
Brand realized something there and then. This train ride certainly wasn’t going to be boring. He wasn’t going to be allowed to get bored. In fact it looked as if he was going to be filling every minute. Just as he had said to the Conductor. He had all those lost years to make up for and the way it was shaping up, he wasn’t going to be allowed to miss out a single day.