Lisa's Way

Chapter 14

Lisa asked her friends to quiet down. She wasn’t in a joking mood. The job ahead was serious and dangerous. She wanted to convey those facts to her friends, both with words and with attitude.

“We’ve made a difference everywhere we’ve been,” she began. “Up to now we haven’t had to fight anyone to do what we’re trying to do. Now we have to risk our lives. We almost certainly will have to fight.”

She’d thought long and hard about what she was going to say. She considered an address that would slowly lead her friends to uncomfortable truth. The composition bogged down. She tried another approach, only to realize that softening the facts would cover them. It would be far better to be direct, to state the truth harshly. To make it plain, and therefore unavoidable.

“We’re going to move our camp up to Richmond today. Tomorrow some of us with make the run up to Southport. The folks there are hurting. They need our help.

“But the trip won’t be easy. There’s a group of outlaws robbing everyone on the road. These bandits aren’t like Ned and his friends, a group of guys trying to get along anyway they can. They’re vicious. They don’t give any warning, they just attack. And they kill.”

Lisa saw her friends flinch in their own ways to that statement. Ned’s was most telling: he shook his head in disgust. She’d learned that even when he was “collecting tolls” he had a code. He never stole from people worse off. He never took more than he and his comrades needed. They never wounded anyone, much less killed. They’d talk first; if a fight looked imminent, they simply ran. In fact, none of the outlaws on White Rocks behaved much differently. There seemed to be an unspoken acceptance of the fact that violence only led to more violence. Murder was bad for business. They might be headed that way eventually, but until Lisa entered the picture that was still in the distance.

Wayne and his friends knew a slightly different history. Robbers on Lone Star had on occasion resorted to violence. Even those outlaws had some sort of prohibition against outright killing. They might shoot first, but only to wound. They also didn’t attack any traveler on the road, but only those with something of value. Lisa suspected that it was because bandits were hindering trade that the Rangers arose. There had been exceptions, of course; Allie’s parents were killed in a bandit raid when she was a small child. Everything Lisa had heard suggested that Lone Star hadn’t witnessed the kind of nastiness that now confronted her.

“What’s the plan?” Ray asked. “Do we go after them?”

“We don’t know the terrain,” Lisa answered, “except that it’s wooded and hilly. There could be dozens of hiding places.”

Ned raised a hand. “Couldn’t we get guides?”

Lisa shook her head. “The only folks to leave Southport either flee back or run on to Richmond. No one in Richmond has tried to head out after these robbers. There just doesn’t seem to be anyone who knows the area well enough.

“Instead of that, we’re going to give them something to attack. We’ll take three wagons of goods up to Southport. We have to do that anyway. We’ll have plenty of guards. The driver and the side-man will be armed, and there will be two guards in back of each wagon. The side-man and the guards in back will carry their bows loaded and at the ready. The driver will keep his loaded and in his lap. No one talks. There’s a chance we’ll hear an attack seconds before the first arrow flies.”

“Why would they bother to attack a heavily-armed group?” Donna asked.

“If they’re robbing anyone they see,” Ned replied, “they’re desperate. If we got enough food with us, they might risk a fight.”

“That’s exactly what I’m counting on,” Lisa said. “We let them come to us. Unlike the people they usually attack, we will fight back. I don’t think we’ll get all of them. Maybe the fact that someone is fighting back with scare them off. Maybe they’ll try again on the way back, and that convinces them. Or maybe wagons will just have to go up there protected for a time. No matter what, the folks in Southport need help, and help has to get through.”