Wild Jack (10 page)

And with that, I knew something else. I remembered the scene in the police building in London—that string of accusations from some informer who must have been present on the night of Brian's party. I had been sure it was Gary; now I was even more sure I had guessed wrong. Miranda had been there, too. It was Miranda who had told those lies.

Any lingering doubt I might have had went when she called out, “Father! Clive's out here. He's been listening at the door.”

• • •

This time I was taken upstairs under the close escort of two servants, and the door of the room was locked after me. I went to the window and looked out. The ground was more than twenty feet below, and the garden was full of servants working. There was no chance of escape.

I stared over the city at the Outlands and thought of Kelly and Sunyo and what a fool I'd been. They
were free, with Wild Jack, while I had come back to treachery and the prospect of imprisonment—the prospect also of being the means by which my father's enemies would bring him down.

I felt afraid and sick and angry. I was angry with the Sherrins but even more with my own stupidity. Having been lucky enough once to get out of a trap, I had walked right back into it. I knew what would happen. I would be taken back to the island, and they would make quite sure I had no opportunity of escaping again. They would keep me there until they were ready to put me on show in London.

A car drove through the grounds and stopped by the front door. Two policemen got out. Mr. Sherrin must have called them in, anxious to get me off his hands and in proper custody now that I knew the truth of the situation. He didn't want the risk of keeping me in his house.

I turned and saw the cage on the table. They would never let me take Rusty to the island. What do you do with an unwanted pigeon—wring its neck?

Even if I had thrown away my own freedom, I could give Rusty his. I took the cage over to the window and opened the little door in the side.

Rusty did not want to come out at first. I put my fingers inside, and he pecked them. So I lifted him out and he sat undisturbed on my hand.

“Off you go,” I said. “Back to your forest.”

With a flick of my wrist I threw him forward, and he dipped and then flew up into the sky. I saw him circle once and afterward fly in a straight line across the town and out over the wall. I watched until he was out of sight.

10

T
HE POLICE BUILDING IN SOUTHAMPTON
was smaller than the one in London but very similar in other respects. The room to which I was taken was almost identical with that in which I had been quizzed about the party. There were two policemen again, and again one did the talking while the other listened.

The questions were all about Wild Jack and the outlaws. This confirmed what I had guessed from the conversation between the Sherrins—that the men in green were taken a good deal more seriously than contemptuous remarks about savages might
indicate. It only reinforced the intention I had already formed not to tell them anything which could possibly be of value.

The interrogation was amiable to begin with but became distinctly less friendly when my answers proved unsatisfactory. No, I had no idea of the direction we had come in getting to Southampton. And no, I had no idea how many men were in Wild Jack's band. More than twenty? More than fifty? A hundred? I shrugged helplessly.

The policeman doing the talking—like the one in the gatehouse, a bit flabby, I thought—advised me to be more cooperative. In the morning I would be taken back to the island. That was no concern of theirs—it was his turn to shrug—but they were in a position where they could help me. I was due for severe punishment—the stockade for a certainty—because of the escape. It might make a considerable difference in the way I was treated if I went back with a commendation from them for doing my civic duty while in custody. An adverse report, on the other hand, was likely to make a bad situation worse.

I just went on acting dumb, and in the end they got tired. The talking policeman remarked that I
might be more sensible after a night in a cell; I would be interrogated again before being taken to the airship.

The cell was on the second floor—a small gray cube of a room with an iron bed fixed to the wall and a sanitary unit at one end. Apart from that, nothing. I sat wretchedly on the bed while the afternoon light darkened into dusk. The single window of the cell did not open and was at least thirty feet above the concrete pavement. Even if I smashed the glass and got out, I would break a leg in jumping or more probably kill myself.

From this small window, too, I could see the forest beyond the city's wall. It was gray in the evening light—gray like the walls of the cell. But the morning light would turn it green again; Kelly and Sunyo would wake up to sunlight bursting through a screen of leaves. I wondered what they would be doing tomorrow: fishing, perhaps, or riding. There was a chance, Wild Jack had said, that they might be able to go with the men on the next deer hunt.

I thought of Joan, too, and then of Miranda. Acting dumb to the policemen was really only appropriate. It was stupidity which had put me here.

Supper was brought on a tray: some kind of concentrate with a slice of tasteless bread and a synthetic drink to wash it down. I would rather have had Wild Jack's bread and water. I ate and drank, to pass the time as much as anything, and afterward lay on the bed.

Unhappy and unhopeful thoughts chased each other's tails in continual miserable chase through my mind. The cell was lit by a single light in the center of the ceiling, irritating both by its dimness and the fact that it could not be turned off. I stared at it, or at the darkening square of the window, and tried to go to sleep, but eventually I abandoned hope of that, too.

In the end, though, tiredness overcame me.

• • •

My sleep was disturbed by dreams, of which I remembered nothing except that they were the sort you would not choose to remember. I woke out of one particularly unpleasant one, hearing my name called. It must have been part of the dream, I decided, feeling sweat cold on my body. Then, properly awake, I heard it again.

The light still burned in the ceiling, but beyond the window there was moonlight. The call had come from there. It came again: “Clive. . . .”

The voice was Wild Jack's. But that was impos­sible. I jumped off the bed and ran across to look out.

Horsemen, half a dozen or more, were milling about in the street. I broke the window with my elbow and heard glass tinkle down the wall. Shoving my head through the jagged hole, I called back, “It's me, Jack! I'm here.”

Faces stared up in the moonlight, and I saw a familiar black beard. Wild Jack shouted, “Are you happy there, lad, or would you rather come with us?”

His teeth gleamed as he laughed. I felt exhilarated, but it was a long way down to the ground. I cried, “I'm locked in.”

Instead of replying, Wild Jack took a coil of rope from his saddle and tossed the free end up toward me. His throw was accurate enough, but I missed it the first time. He sent it snaking up the wall again, and I caught it.

“Make it fast,” he said.

The bed was the only piece of furniture, but at least it was fixed to the wall. I tied the end of the rope around a leg of the bed in a double clove hitch, one of the things I had learned among the outlaws. I went back to the window.

“I'm ready.”

“Down you come, then.”

I knocked the rest of the glass out of the frame and eased myself through, holding onto the rope. I slid down, burning my hands a bit by going too fast. Wild Jack hauled me onto the horse's back behind him, with one hand.

To his men he said, “Right! Back to the gate.”

The sound of hooves echoed loud in the streets. I saw a few heads looking from behind windows, but no one came out, I wondered why the police on duty at the police building had not done something. How had Wild Jack got into the town, for that matter, and how did he propose to get out?

As we got near the gate, I suddenly saw figures of uniformed men in the streets ahead of us and a moment later heard the sharp crack of guns. In reply there were other sounds: a soft swish of arrows through the air. I saw one policeman drop, collapsing onto the shaft of the arrow which went through his chest, and others scurry back into the shadows. Someone else fired from the open door of the gatehouse. Wild Jack's arrow took him, and he did not fire again. Seeing him fall, I had a good idea what
had happened to the men from the police building.

Jack rode his horse up to the open door of the gatehouse. He said to the guard at the control panel, “Open up.”

There was another arrow in his bow. The guard did not argue but pressed a button, and there was the hum of the gates sliding apart.

Jack gestured to the guard. “Now, out.”

We rode away from the city, a few futile shots fired in our rear. As we crossed the empty land outside the wall, I looked back and saw it, high and gleaming in the moonlight. It did not seem possible that the outlaws could have ridden in there and brought me out. And yet it had happened. This was not dream but reality. I heard the thud of hooves, felt the ripple of the horse's stride beneath me.

We were already close by the forest, following the line of the highway to the west. I asked Wild Jack, “What made you come for me?”

“We had a messenger.”

I was confused. “A messenger?”

“Rusty returned to his box.”

“He carried no message.”

“We believed he did. You might have let him go
because you thought him too much trouble to keep. It seemed more likely that you were the one in ­trouble.”

“And just because of that you rode into the city?”

Wild Jack laughed. “For that and our amusement! Life has been quiet lately.”

I still could not grasp it. “But they must have opened the gate for you.”

“We know more about their ways than they imagine. A police car drives in every night from the west at the same time. We rode up close to the wall beforehand. They did not see us, partly because of the dark and partly because they keep a poor watch.”

That was true. I had not been seen approaching either, and that had been in daylight.

Wild Jack went on. “When they opened up for the car, they opened up for us. We only had to follow it in.”

That covered one out of a heap of improbabilities.

I said, “How did you know where to find me?”

“We didn't know which cell—that was why we had to shout for you. But the police building was the obvious place to look if you were in trouble.”

“How did you know which was the police building?”

“I've told you—we know more about the cities than you think.”

“You were talking about watching from the outside—cars coming in and so on. It's not the same.”

“Maybe we have friends inside the walls.”

“Friends?” Despite all that had happened, that shocked me a bit. “You mean, traitors to the cities?”

“Can a slave be a traitor?”

“The servants?” Even that was a staggerer. “They send out information to you?”

He laughed again. “You are still a bit new to be told all our secrets! Perhaps you can see now why we put recruits to the test.”

We rode for a time in silence. I said at last, “I still don't see how you dared do it—with bows and arrows against guns.”

“We had surprise on our side. And they are city men.” He spoke with contempt. “They keep a poor watch, and they are not accustomed to shocks. It was night and they were asleep or half asleep, frightened by their own shadows. Yes, they have
guns, but we can shoot our arrows straighter. And at close quarters a bow is a match for any gun.”

He turned Captain in toward the forest, the rest of the troop following. He said: “They're soft. They've held power for a long time—power from their machines and power over their servants. Their lives are easy and untroubled. They know about the savages, of course, but the savages live on the other side of the wall, in the Outlands. They have no reason to be afraid of them.

“Then suddenly there is a real enemy, inside their city at night. They are surprised first, then dismayed, soon scared witless. And fearful men have lost the fight before they begin it.”

I could see it might be true: the converse, also. A brave man has half won his fight before he starts, even against heavy odds. But the heavier the odds, the braver he has got to be.

• • •

I thought of my parents as we rode through the forest trails. As the excitement of the rescue faded, I realized sharply that I was not going to see them for a very long time—perhaps not ever again. It was a miserable thought, but at least carried one consola
tion: I could not now be used as a weapon against my father. His enemies would probably still try to pull him down, but they would not find it easy. I remembered the set of his jaw, his exuberant laugh. No, not at all easy.

We reached the camp as moonlight was giving way to the light of dawn. People came out of the huts at the sound of our arrival. I saw Kelly and Sunyo, grinning in welcome, and slid down from my seat behind Wild Jack.

Joan was there, too. Wild Jack called down to her, “Here he is, daughter! I've brought him back, as I promised. With luck we'll make an outlaw of him.”

Read on for a peek at another adventure from John Christopher!