Rosso released the brakes and set the throttle open. The train complied and heaved forward.
The air was already turning cool. The night would be closing in soon.
The next few hours would be spent trying to outrun it.
* * *
Slurping from a bottle as the sun slowly sank on the horizon, Pappy watched the train depart. The sight comforted him. A lasting smile indented itself, curling his jowls and emanating warmth. He had done well, he told himself, and the boy would do him proud. The cigarette breathed its last wisp of smoke into the crisp evening air. It met its final fate, crushed beneath the sole of a work boot.
‘Ah. So beautiful,’ Pappy declared.
And the train made its way off and over the horizon.
* * *
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Ketan confessed, not knowing too well where to put his attention.
‘Yeah, well, me too.’ Franco gave consideration once again to the rapping on the stone outside. ‘It wasn’t the nicest of times. It’s also a good reminder that you should appreciate your father being around while he still is, despite being a pain in your backside. He’s trying to do you good. You know that, don’t you?’’
‘You would have to be a fool not to, obviously.’
‘Then stop this. All you’re doing is rushing your way to the bone pile. Move somewhere away from the trouble and be better.’
Ketan sighed, seemingly giving this consideration.
Someone rapped on the jail door, catching their attention. The jailer heaved himself up with old bones, grumbling at the inconvenience and the lateness of the hour. While out of sight, Franco picked up fragments of the conversation, a female voice, wet with promises of a good time. Payment from his colleagues. All things that caused the front door to slam shut. Silence descended as he indulged in male sensibilities and shirked responsibilities.
Ketan snorted. ‘Do you hear that? It’s all right for some, isn’t it.’
Franco picked himself up and patted himself down, brushing away deposits of dust from his jacket. ‘Anyway, let’s say, hypothetically, you had an out. Would you take it?’
‘You’re dealing with the impossible now.’
‘Answer the question. If you had a chance to go legitimate. Honest work. Would you make a go of it?’
Ketan groaned wearily. It was, admittedly, something that had passed his mind but the more he contemplated, the more hopeless the situation seemed. ‘Guys like me don’t have those kinds of breaks, Franco. We use all our chances quickly; it’s why we die so quick.’
‘That’s just crazy talk.’
‘Is it? If you don’t get out then you get put down. Six feet down if you get my meaning. We are born in the gutter and die in it just the same. We both know it’s true.’
They did. It was.
‘When it happens,’ Ketan continued. ‘Who will cry for me, anyways? Who gets to mourn? We ain’t got nothing of worth in this life but family, Franco, and back then I considered you mine.’
‘You still have your father.’
‘Just don’t, all right …’
Franco nodded in understanding, moving the conversation on to a new subject. ‘How’s the leg?’
‘Like it’s been shot,’ he delivered with a glaze of fading patronization. ‘But better. Thanks.’
Franco leant back in his cell. He heard the murmurs and chatter outside, then the continuation of a code relayed by the tapping of iron guttering. ‘Think it can stand walking a fair distance?’
‘It has been so far for what good it’s done us.’
‘What about some running?’
Ketan tilted his head in question.
The outer wall erupted in debris, exploding inward and peppering the pair with rubble. Dust plumes dragged across the floor, causing Ketan to splutter and his eyes to weep. From the hole, waving the dust aside, Kitty rested a leg on shattered brickwork, proud of her handiwork. Behind, Corinne and two other showgirls in tow pulled the rubble aside for the getaway.
Kitty saluted her boss, nodding quite happily to herself. ‘Hey, clear something for me,’ she called. ‘We sprung the old man from this here cell, dangers and all, with no regard for our very own lives. What would that be making us?’
‘The hands of providence I’m guessing,’ Corinne stated, shooing the last dust haze with a hand.
‘Mmm,’ Kitty purred. ‘Ain’t that just the truth.’
Franco strode out to his freedom, kicking debris away as he found it. Alarms were yet to sound. They all had time yet to organize their getaway.
‘Where are the others?’
‘Jacques and Wyld are tying up loose ends. Gone to fetch Misu while they’re at it.’ Corinne handed Franco a revolver, of which he checked the spin of the cylinder and the accuracy of the sight before slipping it on his hip in endorsement.
‘Does that meet your approval?’ Kitty queried, watching her boss’s unmoved reaction.
Franco finally smiled, and cracked his fingers. ‘Absolutely. I’m starting to find Windberg a mite unsettling for fine, honest folks such as ourselves.’
‘That is pleasant to hear.’ Corinne produced a blunderbuss pistol, holstering the bag back onto her shoulder, the pack teeming with ammo. Franco assessed the situation. They were fugitives, and the lives of the showgirls would be unliveable as soon as the alarms sounded. They had risked their futures, their lives, all for him. If they were caught, they faced jail time at best, the noose at worst.
‘I’m sorry,’ Franco apologized, far meeker than any had seen him before. ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did. You’re right, we are a family of sorts and –’
Kitty interrupted. She felt the weight of a revolver far too unsightly and unbalanced in her small hands, instead resorting to a crossbow pistol that she had used to kill predators back on the farm.
‘Can we save your sappy speech until after we’ve escaped? I can’t help feeling it would be for the best.’
‘And you accused me of hiring you just because of your prettiness. Perish the thought,’ Franco agreed, but before they moved, Corinne spied past the debris to the figure emerging from the dust plumes.
‘What about him?’
* * *
Indeed, what about Ketan? He staggered to the makeshift exit, eyeing up the girls in turn, who clearly watched with caution. With a limp he stepped over the first line of shattered bricks, securing his footing, looking at what Franco had made for himself. These individuals were willing to risk so much to rescue him, a family who would rather suffer together than let one of their own rot away to bones. Who would do that for him? Wilheim’s men would give him up in seconds if it would line their pockets. Only his father would do something so selfless, the doting fool. A doting fool his father may be, but very much his doting fool despite their regular disagreements.
‘Come with us,’ Franco said in unfathomable generosity. He owed this man nothing, but for all his faults, redemption seemed to be a possibility. Besides, promises were made. ‘Consider this to be your out. I can find you a job on the Den until you want to go your own way. No strings attached. It’ll keep you out of trouble, in a sense. Honest work, decent pay. I can set you up for a spell and when you’ve had enough of the legitimate life, you can go on your merry way. What do you say?’
‘I say –’ Ketan clambered over the debris ‘– that the noise your girls here have made will have the sheriff’s