Chapter 1

1

There is something about the reuniting of a group of men, once inseparable, that now seldom see each other that most people will never have the fortune to experience. Unwritten rules that have faded from memory during the daily rituals of regular lives return without so much as a thought. Language, forgotten and lost in the directness and need for resolution that the modern tongue seems so concerned with, becomes fluent again and conversation weaves its way to no particular destination. Stories that would not sit at ease during a meal with kin and as a consequence collected heavy coatings of dust from their archiving are revisited with such enthusiasm that regardless of age and familiarity they gleam as if they were fashioned from the finest polished gold. Few will have the chance to have these moments in their lives, for few have chance to tie the bonds needed. But those that do never break them and will always hear the call to return to each other.

Such a group were those that rode with Arthur MacKay. Arthur was a man who had some repute amongst even the most unworldly of people of the towns that dotted the land between the Rockies and the Pacific. He’d even found some fame in the East, where a wildly exaggerated account of his early years had been something of a success in a journal of somewhat questionable quality but unquestionable readership. What was certain was that for fifteen years Arthur had been the scourge or saviour, the view point on which seemed to depend entirely on the individual recounting his actions, of a vast tract of land. His gang would be considered outlaws in one town and heroes the next. As with most men who are reported as both hero and villain the actuality was that Arthur spent most of his younger days riding the line somewhere in-between but one thing that was always noted whatever view a person took of Arthur and his men and that was, in their day, the MacKay Gang were not the sort people that you got on the wrong side of and walked away. By the end of the fifteen years they spent together on the trail each member had become a handsomely wealthy individual. Eventually there came a long and hotly disputed discussion that spread itself over many a bar and bottle on whether it was time to end their current lifestyle before something ended it for them. Arthur considered himself fortunate to be breathing as long as he had been, the fact that all his companions were doing the same was more than fortunate, it was nothing short of miraculous. Eventually Arthur had made it understood that his mind had been made and would not sway. Even the gang members that were most resolutely set in continuing in their ways quickly realised that without Arthur their chances of a career lasting much past a month or two was unlikely. So it came to be that the Mackay’s went their own ways and most did what they could to settle into a quite life of peace and anonymity.

Arthur, despite having been the biggest exponent of ending of the gang and the life that was so intricately entwined and melded to it soon found himself restless in his new life. He had purchased a huge ranch legitimately with barely a fraction of his almost entirely illegitimate wealth. His canny mind and ambition had allowed him to established himself as quite the business man and his livestock brought him the kind of dollars he could invest in a bank. He soon deposited so much he laid claim to ownership of the bank, which allowed for the less than legal funds he possessed to be stored. It also meant that it was not long until Arthur owned most of the town that surrounded the bank by way a cancelled debt here and an overseen bill there transformed by silver tongue to shared ownership of whatever could be owned by deed. But for a man who’d been free of the ties and formalities of society for so long it was hard to adjust to this new life which seemed to be so tightly held together by such different taboos and etiquettes than he was used to. One morning, in a fit of desperation, he rode off towards the emptiest part of the horizon he could see, hoping to find what he’d given up so easily yet struggled so hard with the loss. What he found was the bottom of a bottle in a saloon that took no mind or concern to the state of the patrons it let line the bar and tables of its dilapidated surroundings. Fortune was a good friend to MacKay, it had watched over him during many of his less than dazzling moments and, at a time when whatever lustre MacKay usually possessed was at its dullest, it did so again. Harlan Enfield, one of his old gang, happened by the bar that same evening to find his old boss and friend slumped over a table drifting somewhere between passing out and dead.

Dragging Arthur back to his hotel room he did what he could to get the man through the night without passing over by combining plunging cold baths with tepid, thick coffee and ended up working even harder the next day to get him through the pain that cheap whiskey causes to permeate and explode through even the hardiest of spirit hounds. Once Arthur had regained some of his composure or at least enough to talk with his saviour, he recounted his malady and how he’d tried running away to rediscover the freedom he’d lost. Harlan listened intently, doing what he could to still concentrate on the momentary reversions nonsensical slurring that MacKay slipped into. When the time came that Arthur’s talking stopped the distant stare out of the open window took hold Harlan told his old boss how he’d had the same fit of malaise only twelve months before. Arthur asked how he’d found himself safely on the other side of such an overwhelming feeling and Harlan recounted how he’d sought out Tom Richards, another of the gang he knew had settle down on a small holding close by, and tried to get him to ride with him again. He spoke of how Tom had not wanted to leave his new wife and baby but seeing his friend’s desperation offered to ride with him for a day or two until he found someone else drifting who’d be more than willing to take up the reigns and travel with him. The first night they camped they reminisced of the years they’d spent together and laughed for hours at the fortuitous luck that brought meagre fortune and let them live as long as they had. The laughs faded to smiles and the smiles to sorrow when the talk turned to friends and acquaintances they had lost and of the darkest parts of men they’d seen emblazoned in the deaths of others. They drifted along on the words and memories until the sun broke free of the eastern horizon. Awash in the light of the new day and the fresh, cool air Harlan awoke to the thought that just the idea of thinking about those old times again, the need to relive them in memory, was stronger than the actual desire he had to go back to the life itself.

Harlan told Arthur how twelve months of almost permanently sleeping in a decent bed had removed all his memories of just how much discomfort there was sleeping outdoors and how he had needed to be reminded that death and misery that had been as common a thing as the happiness and rewards. That morning after just one night away he and Tom rode back to Tom’s home and when he saw the loving welcome Tom received he knew that this was the better life, even if it didn’t always feel like it. Arthur knew that what Harlan had told him not only reflected his own feelings but also what he knew deep down would have been the resultant outcome if he had gone out to the wilderness rather than diving headfirst into a bottle. He propositioned Harlan to a reunion of sorts open to all who’d been in the gang that wanted to, giving all a chance to speak freely again of the lives they’d had that were unlikely to ever happen again. Harlan suggested they make it a once-a-year ritual, a night in each other’s company might be enough to quieten the wanderlust and probably not so long as to encourage misbehaviour that might lead to misfortune. Between them they decided who would get word to whom and set up the first reunion as soon as Arthur had recovered enough to go home and apologise to his potentially furious wife.

Two months later they all came together at one of their old camps in the country, as far from any settlement as they could. There was much to drink and enough humble campfire food to feed several times more than there had ever been in the gang. There was talk, there were arguments and bickering, there was horseplay and quiet moments where everything stopped save for the sounds of the night and the company of their thoughts. All of them vowed that this was just what they had needed to keep them happy with their memories but glad of the homes they would return to. Plans were made to keep the arrangements of the meeting each year and every year they returned to the same spot and reaffirmed friendships, counted their blessings and drank until the last drop was in the belly and not the bottle.