Aaron Howard’s Oscar

No men in blue, cops or cavalry, will or can, follow the bandits to their camp. Firstly, crossing water loses the backtrail. Secondly, they won’t find em.

Camp, it’s most easily called. There’s a good fire burning between the several tents as the riders arrive. The tents aren’t in a circle or a row. They are erected in a pattern that indicates the inhabitants have lived together long enough or lived in tents long enough to know that every tent doesn’t need to be right next to another one.

There are no bands of marauders hereabouts so camp needn’t be constructed especially for defensive purposes. This is no fort.

They tend to the horses and congratulate them on their ability to walk. They strip the horses of their garb. The horses are fed oats and left to graze in the fresh grass.

The loot occupies a tent of its own. There is another tent for saddles, tack and other supplies beside the loot. The dynamite has a tent well out of a stone’s throw. Just in case.

At first, the loot is kept in a strongbox of steamer trunk dimensions lifted from the US Cavalry. That receptacle fills quickly. They add more strongboxes. Still with all the stacked boxes, the overflow forces the interior of this particular tent to resemble the treasure trove of a Bedouin prince or the cache in a dragon’s lair. The kinds of places where they sleep on gold.

A beautiful girl in buckskin with long black braids, green eyes, a headband and a single feather hanging at a funny angle tends to the fire.

Anna has prepared a venison stew for the returning party. She killed the deer herself this morning. It was a young buck, still tender and mild. Also she has coffee brewing in a sooty blue enameled coffeepot. A deep pan of beans bubbles away on one side of the fire. The beans and stew are seasoned with local, naturally occurring plants and herbs. The cooking rotates among the bandits. Anna is the best cook.

Anna: How did it go?
Oscar: According to plan.

They take their places on the various logs, stools and buckets around the campfire. Esa plays his Jew’s harp. Luc whittles the figure of a naked woman in a bent sassafras root with his Bowie knife. The Injun and the Lieutenant sit next to each other on a log. Oscar pours himself a tin cup of coffee. Anna informs everyone that supper is pipin hot and just waiting for them to stomp through it like a herd of ravenous wild dogs.

Luc likes his beans mixed into his stew. After prison, Esa will not eat beans. He has Indian cornbread instead.

They eat. They use the diversion of the meal to collect their thoughts before their dessert discussion of the night’s successful raid.

They have a systematic and focused approach to grand theft. It is not an easy job and they do it well.

Lieutenant: Folks is funny. But ain’t it just great when they’re easygoing?
Oscar: So, what do we know?
Luc: We know we are getting good at this, yes.
Esa: And we didn’t have to kill anybody.
Lieutenant: We know most people don’t want to be heroes.
Injun: They should not be heroes for the iron horse.
Esa: We know the game is more interesting.
Oscar: The Baron was on that train.
Lieutenant: You don’t say?
Injun: A challenge.
Luc: Who is this Baron?
Esa: He owns the railroad and many other things.
Luc: A good kind of man to rob.
Oscar: Maybe the worst.
Lieutenant: He is very dedicated.
Oscar: I had dinner with him and Audrey last night.

There is a pause. Anna makes her presence evident. Esa has heard this news. Everyone else is dumbstruck.

Anna: I even came up with dessert.
Oscar: Way out here on the frontier?

She uncovers the Dutch oven buried in the coals of the fire with a shovel.

Anna: Apple cobbler. There are trees nearby.
Lieutenant: You worked harder than we did.

They delay the palaver in favor of cobbler since Anna went to the trouble to pick and peel and prepare this fruitful dessert. After dessert Oscar relates the previous night’s dinner date with Audrey, the Baron and Asa Brick. Anna and the Injun saunter off to the teepee. The others sit around the fire and drink into the night.

Luc, as it happens, plays the banjo. He and Esa often play together for long hours. The life of a bandit is not lived to fit into the confines of a tight schedule. They most enjoy playing when Anna emerges from the teepee with her small bone flute carved from the antler of an elk.

The flute is called a flageolet. Young braves wooing a beautiful maiden of their fancy most often use this type of flute. Codes are worked out and the brave is able to convey subtle messages and tones of love. A brave will use pre-approved signs to tell his maiden to meet him at the usual spot right about moonrise. It is uncommon that a woman toots such an instrument.

Oscar and the Lieutenant discuss the logistics of their further actions with the newly added character of the Baron playing his part. He owns the railroad. Crossing him greatly increases the dangers the bandits face in any further actions. He adds a challenge. A hopefully formidable enemy. What’s the use of a fight if the enemy isn’t real? The Baron is a more solid foe than any company or railroad he owns. The bandits’ resources may not match his but their resourcefulness will outdo him.

Esa and Luc play on. They tease each other with comic notes. Finally, she does come out from her teepee, flute in hand, and fingers a cheery air across their twangs and boings.

Lieutenant: Hello, Anna.
Anna: I’m glad you boys had a good day at the office.
Oscar: In our business every day at the office has to be as good as it gets.
Esa: Else you are dead.
Anna: Like the circus.
Lieutenant: Or sailing.
Oscar: It’s good the Baron was on that train.
Anna: It’s better that Audrey met him.
Lieutenant: Our return to business was too easy. We were getting dangerously close to carelessness.
Oscar: Now we have to be even better.
Anna: You were just waiting for a challenge. The whole bunch of you want the game to be harder.
Lieutenant: We were waiting for the next job.

Anna sits between Oscar and the Lieutenant. As she sits she carelessly runs her hand down the Lieutenant’s back.

This is their due relaxation after a productive day at their trade.

Luc and Esa play more music. Oscar stokes the fire and rolls a smoke in one hand while he sips coffee from the other and looks off at the wilderness. The Lieutenant watches Anna play her flute and fills his pipe to smoke. The Injun is in the teepee chanting.

A conversation

Oscar: Well, I had to meet him sometime.
Lieutenant: Do you really think he needs to know who you are?
Oscar: He’ll only know what I tell him.
Lieutenant: You aren’t going for some kind of double-agent intrigue are you?
Oscar: I’m only an agent for myself.
Lieutenant: Know you’re enemy, right?
Oscar: Of course.
Lieutenant: But, on what pretense?
Oscar: I’ve always wanted to deal in firearms.
Lieutenant: You’re going to sell the Baron guns he’ll use to fight us?
Oscar: Can there be a better source?
Lieutenant: You can’t do that you silly bastard. Besides he must already have an impressive armory.
Oscar: I don’t know what I’ll do yet. He thinks I’m a speculator.
Lieutenant: And you want to have a sadistic control over the situation.
Oscar: Arms dealing could produce an ideal opportunity for a crushing ambush.
Lieutenant: By the Baron.
Oscar: We’ll have to beat him to it.
Lieutenant: Who you think he’ll hire?
Oscar: Well, the Valkyr boys are usually his railroad muscle and we’re working in their stomping grounds.
Lieutenant: He’ll end up wiring out of town for thugs. This place isn’t messy enough to breed the right kind.
Oscar: First thing in the morning. He’ll send word before the fighting starts. Of course we can count on his word drawing a lot of unwanted trade through town. That’ll make the town rougher than usual. That’s in our favor.
Lieutenant: We’ll have to hit him before they get here.
Oscar: Yes.
Lieutenant: When?
Oscar: Something serious and soon. Out of pride, the Baron will keep the Army away from here and that keeps it fair all around. Without him we’ll never make these heists.
Lieutenant: The train tomorrow night?
Oscar: Too soon. We need to know what’s going to happen.
Lieutenant: By the next night the Baron’s likely to have more thugs in his employ.
Oscar: Then luck will be on his side. We’ll have to arrange a distraction. Esa and I will go to town tomorrow, separately, by tomorrow night we̱ll have a plan.
Lieutenant: I guess he thought enough of those other heists to come investigate himself. We practically gave him an invitation to war by robbing the very train he was riding.
Oscar: Esa took his watch.
Lieutenant: That Finn is a miracleworker.
Oscar: Good thing he’s on our side.
Lieutenant: And you ate dinner with him.