How Old Do You Want to Be, Still living Like This?

Chapter 9 of The Ballad of Abigail Lambert

Apr 18, 2025

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The rain poured down heavy upon them. Abigail lay on her knees in the mud. She looked up at Sid who loomed above her, clad in black save for the red bandana, with his hand extended toward her. His chiseled features gave the impression that he might’ve been far older than he actually was, but the truth is he couldn’t have been a day older than 17. Her grip on the pistol could only ease the longer she stared up at him. She would’ve been right to question the happenstance of her meeting with a strange man in the middle of the woods, but Sid had an unmistakably welcoming quality about him. With nowhere to go, everything she’d ever known now up in smoke, she took his hand.

“Let’s get you somewhere dry, darling.” He told her. She took to her feet. They walked together out of the woods toward a horse drawn covered cart awaiting them on the dirt road. “How’d you end up out here all by your lonesome?” He helped her onto the back of the cart.

“I should ask you the same thing,” she replied.

“I ain’t alone! I’ve got Tony!” He ran his hand down the horse’s mane. “Say hi, Tony.” The horse spit, and Abigail giggled. Sid helped her onto and under the cover of the cart. He took his seat at the front, took the reins in hand and whipped Tony to carry them off. She looked around the empty wooden cart.

“You like to travel light?” she asked.

“Just needed to pop into town real quick. Mundane, really. What about you? What’s your story?” He asked.

“My family’s farm was raided by injuns. Barely made it out of there alive.”

“You the only one that make it out?”

Abigail nodded.

“Damn savages.”

“And you?” She asked.

“No disrespect, little lady, but I’d pulled the cart over to relieve myself.”

“I suppose God does have a sense of humor about him.”

“I ain’t so sure about that.”

“You think God is humorless?”

“I’d say my need to stop had more to do with the whiskey I had back in town more than anything else.”

“Are you a nonbeliever?”

“There’s plenty I believe in. Loyalty, family, respect.”

“But not God?”

“It’s hard to believe there’s someone out there that would sit idly by while a young girl was ripped away from her family. And if there is, that don’t sound like someone worthy of worship to me.”

Abigail didn’t know what to say. Her family instilled faith in her from birth and despite a desire to stay curled up in the warmth of her bed when awoken in the early hours of a given Sunday morning; she rode into town every week with her family for church service. For all the hardship her family endured over the years, whether it was countless seasons where the harvest hardly turned a crop or at age 7 when her home burned down with her grandfather trapped inside it; she’d never been compelled to question, let alone consider, why God refused to intervene.

The rain had finally let up as Sid turned off the main road and followed a trail deep into the woods. Before long, they arrived at a small clearing atop a cliff overlooking miles of countryside. Four tents surrounded a fire pit in the middle of camp, with seven or so of Sid’s men scattered about. Abigail was the only woman for miles. As they arrived, she got an impression of the gang from first looks: young or old, all of them were dirty, mean and rugged. Not the kind of men a girl her age would typically surround herself with. Not willfully, anyway.

“Boys, we have a guest!” Sid brought the cart to a stop and stood up on the bench. “This here’s Abigail. She’s going to be staying with us for a little while.”

Abigail raised a hand, but kept it close to her chest, with a wave hello.

“Da hell is this, Sid?” One of them asked.

“She’s one of us now.” Sid explained.

“We hardly got enough to feed ourselves,” another toothless crony cried. “Let alone now with you dragging your cooze back to camp!”

“Hey!” He shouted. “Were we not all without a place we could call home at one time or another?”

The gang stood silent. Sid stepped off the cart and began to walk amongst his gang.

“We stick together because the only thing we can count on in this world, is each other. The same here applies to Abigail.” He turned to face her. “She’s one of us now.”

She spent the remainder of the night getting acquainted with everyone at the camp. As the night progressed, it became clear to Abigail that the colorful band of rogues she found herself now a part of was betrayed by the exterior she’d been greeted with when she rolled into camp earlier. Each of them shared incredible stories of lost loves, daring escapes and narrow brushes with death that captivated her until the early morning light. What she came to admire about the men was that despite all of them treading their own paths of hardship, they all managed to find one other, and were stronger because of it.

One among them kept to himself. The whole night while Abigail played audience to the gang’s raucous recounting of their various adventures, he sat by himself over by the cliff edge. She’d glance over at him occasionally to see him silhouetted by the pale moon light, his profile illuminated occasionally by the dim orange glow of his cigarillo. As everyone headed off to their tents for some shuteye, she figured to at least introduce herself before heading off to bed.

“Hello there.” She might as well have not even been there. “My name’s Abigail. What’s yours?” He blew a puff of smoke. Sid approached her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Let’s get you to bed,” he said. They turned away from the smoker.

“Did I say something to offend him?”

“Who, Bill? Nah, he’s just kind of a grouch. Slow to grow on ya, but he’s good people.” Abigail looked over her shoulder back at him. Was this all he did? Isolate himself and smoke cigarillos? For what did they keep him around for?

“Normally, this would be my tent, but seeing as we’ve got a lady staying with us now, I figure it ought to be yours,” Sid told her.

“That’s awfully kind of you.”

“Wouldn’t want you to feel discomfort. This here’s your new home, for as long as you’d like it to be.”

“Thank you, Sid.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good night.”

“Good night.” Sid smiled.

Abigail retired into the tent. Inside she found a chest, some bottles of alcohol and a thin pad that passed for a bed. She laid down and tried to fall asleep, but the sounds of windows shattering, bullets flying and her brother shouting echoed through her head. How could she have left him? He was the only family she had left, and she chose to run. Now gone, she was the last of the Lamberts, or so she thought. And perhaps Sid and his gang would do for family. For now.

The next morning, Abigail changed out of the tattered, bloodstained dress she’d left home in and traded it for a set of Sid’s clothes she found in the chest. Luckily for her, Sid was the scrawny type—his clothes didn’t hang off her frame too severely. She tucked a black button up into black trousers, a new look more befitting of the company she now kept. She emerged from the tent to a laugh from Sid.

“Just help yourself, why don’t ya?” He said.

“I wanted out of those rags.”

“I don’t blame ya.” He held her hand. “Come with me.” They walked together to the far end of the camp.

“What are we doing?”

“I wanna teach you how to shoot.”

“I know how to shoot a gun!” Had he forgotten how they met?

“Good! Then I won’t have much to teach you.” They arrived at for what passed for a shooting range: a few empty bottles of whiskey resting atop a fallen log about ten yards from where she stood. Sid took his gun and handed it to her.

“I’ve got a gun.” She pulled out her revolver. Sid holstered his weapon. She took aim.

“Don’t be afraid of it.”

“I ain’t!”

“You have to think of the gun as a part of you.” She looked at him, befuddled.

“What kinda nonsense is that?”

“The kind that’ll help your aim.”

It was certainly one of the more ridiculous things she’d ever heard before, but she took the suggestion in earnest. As she lined up her shot, she focused less on the gun in her hand and more on the power in her arm. She took a deep breath through her nostrils and fired. The bottle shattered! She laughed.

“See what I told you!” He said.

She twirled around, even for a beginner, it was quite the shot. Abigail locked eyes with him and the distance between them closed, they were mere inches apart now. She could still feel the rush of the blast as it coursed through her body. She might very well allow him to kiss her—if only Bill hadn’t stepped in and interrupted their moment.

“Sid!” He shouted. “We’re burning daylight.”

“Be there in a minute!”

Bill retreated back to the covered wagon at the mouth of the camp.

“He talks.” Abigail said.

“You should hear him liquored up. Liable to break out into song.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“We’ve got some work to do today.” He walked over to the wagon. Abigail followed.

“What kinda work?” She asked.

“It’s a good opportunity for the family. It’ll keep us going for a good long while.”

“Why are you being so cagey?”

He turned to face her. “Cagey?”

“You’re not giving me any straight answers.”

Sid mulled it over for a moment. “Come with us.” He said.

“Sid,” Bill butted in, “no.”

“Was I talking to you?”

Bill spit.

“I’d love to,” she said. Sid laughed and gently touched her chin with his fist.

“You’re great, you know that?” Now Abigail smiled. “But listen here—it’s vital you do whatever I say when we get there. There won’t be no time for questioning.” Abigail nodded. He smiled. Bill brushed the hair of the horse pulling the cart. Sid took his seat at the front of the wagon.

“You sure this is how you wanna play this?” Bill asked him.

“We gotta see what she can do, right?”

“Not if it’s the last thing we do,” he said to the horse.

“Just drive,” Sid said. Bill grumbled as he took his seat with the reins in hand. They rode for some time until they arrived in Blackwater; the very same Abigail had ridden into several times with her mother for supplies not too long ago. They pulled up the dirt road toward the bank and parked the wagon just outside it. Abigail hopped off the back and circled around to Sid’s side.

“You’re gonna wanna put that on.” He handed her a red bandana. She wrapped it around her hair and Sid laughed. “Oh, you sweet thing.” He stepped down from the cart and undid the bandana, tying it around her neck and lifting it over her nose to conceal her face with it.

“What are we doing, Sid?” She asked him.

“What did I say?” He lifted his own bandana over his nose. “No more questions.”

Bill stepped off the cart and lumbered over to them, his face already under the cover of his bandana. They readied their guns, and Sid kicked down the door. It fell onto the last man in the line of patrons snaking from the door to the lone teller behind the counter.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” he shouted as they stepped over the door. “Surrender your valuables, nobody get any bright ideas and we can all come out of this with our heads in tact!” Sid looked down at the poor guy lying motionless underneath the door he’d just freed from its hinges. “Well, maybe except him.”

Bill waved his gun toward the patrons in line, getting them to throw whatever they were in the bank to deposit down into his bag.

“Let’s go!” Sid shouted at the teller. He directed him with his gun. “To the vault!”

“Now sir, I—“ the teller protested.

“Don’t be a hero, old man!” Abigail shouted. “Just open the door!”

Bill craned his head to look at her with wide eyes. The teller crossed over from behind the desk and opened the door to let them in. He led them over to the vault, reluctantly opened it, and Sid pushed him out of the way. Abigail kept her gun on the teller as Sid pilfered the tiny vault of every last dollar he could carry. He crossed over to Bill and stuffed the money in his sack. Bill’s ear perked up.

“I hear the law,” he said.

“Much obliged everybody!” Sid yelled as he took a bow before everyone they’d just robbed. They ran out of the bank, hopped into the wagon and sped away, but not before they attracted a pair of lawmen that tailed them on horseback. Bullets flew past their heads as Abigail and Bill returned fire from the back of the cart, Sid whipping the horses to ride as fast as their shoes would carry them. Bill fired and hit one of their horses. It tripped up and the lawman atop went flying. Abigail fired, again and again until she managed to hit the other lawman in the chest. He fell back onto the ground, and she gasped as she watched his body fold when he hit the dirt at high speed.

Abigail remained quiet for the ride back to camp, replaying the sight of the fallen officer over and over again in her head. They pulled into camp and Sid threw down the bag of cash on the ground at his family’s feet. They tore into the bag like a pack of hungry dogs with fresh meat, all taking part in the triumphant revelry that came with a new score. Abigail found it difficult not to smile as she watched the joy radiate amongst the entire camp.

“Somebody open a bottle of the good shit!” Sid proclaimed. “Tonight, we celebrate!”

“Do we even have good shit to open?” Bill asked.

“If we don’t,” Sid said as he grabbed a wad of bills out of the sack, “it ain’t like we can’t afford it!” He laughed.

One of them cracked open a crate of whiskey and they all had a merry time regaling each other around the campfire. The energy was positively infectious, and as Sid looked around to soak in the rare moment of jubilation, he noticed that everyone in camp was taking part in the celebration, even Bill was enjoying his drink enough to start getting musical. But one among them was missing, sitting by her lonesome inside of her tent. Sid pulled back the tarp to find her sitting on the floor as she quietly cried to herself.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” He asked her. She was quick to wipe the tears from her face and hushed herself upon the realization that she was no longer alone.

“How do you live with it?” she asked.

“Live with what?”

“The suffering.”

“Life is suffering, Abigail. We can choose to be weighed down by that, or we can act in spite of it. Everything I do for this family is in that spirit.”

“That man,” she whispered.

“What man?”

“The man I shot. I killed a man today, Sid.”

“Well, we don’t know that. Maybe you just clipped him.” He took a knee beside her.

“That man probably had a wife. Children. And I took him away from them.”

“Hey now.” He reached over and gently turned her head so she would meet his gaze. “That man was trying to take you away from me. But it was either him or you. This life we lead, it’s full of tough choices. But I know without a shadow of a doubt, I definitely wouldn’t want to find myself in a world without you in it.”

“You mean that?” She sniffled.

“As long as we’re looking out for each other, nothing will stop us darling.” She smiled and leaned toward him. Her lip quivered as the distance between them shrank, and when their lips finally touched, she melted into his arms. She pined for nothing more than to be locked in the comforting safety of this moment for eternity. As she took off her clothes, she knew they would ride together to the ends of the Earth. What she couldn’t know then was what awaited her on the road to that end, but for now it wouldn’t matter. She was Sid’s and Sid was hers, and that was the only thing in this world that mattered.

So much so, no amount of robbing and killing could sway Abigail’s determination to her newfound clan. Once an area would get too hot for them to hang around in, the family would ride out to a new spot untainted by their crimes and start the process all over again: rob the nearest town, kill anyone that crossed them, spend every cent of the spoils on hedonistic pleasures, ride out to the next town and repeat. As Abigail sunk deeper into her newly acquired taste for violent thrills, she found herself not only in Sid’s arms, but in the arms of anyone in camp that would have her. She lived free, and she treated her body with the same amount of carnal liberty.

At least with those whom he considered family, Sid was not the jealous type, and they all shared in the spoils he brought to them, including now Abigail. The only one who refused her advances was Bill. She’d matured at an incredible pace in the four or so years that Abigail rode with the gang, such was the case for anyone choosing to live outside the law in the manner in which she did. However, he found it would likely be impossible for him to ever see her as anything other than the dirty and scared little girl that Sid had dragged into camp. What she chose to do with herself was beyond his control, but he wouldn’t willfully participate in such degradation. She was doing a fine enough job of that on her own.

While she may have deluded herself enough in the beginning under the guise of living free, the only option to numb herself from the depths of her own corruption would force her to pick up the pace on the hedonic treadmill. Any thought contrary to her chosen path could be swiftly deafened by a deluge of sex, drink or violence. She went to bed drunk most nights just to quiet the voices. The further she sank—the more she drank. Drunk off her own decadence, she could’ve lived this way forever until she was smacked out of her depraved daze by reality, as it always does. And there she would be presented a choice: sink further or climb out of this hole she’d been digging for the last four years. Most nights, she fell in line with the grooves of habit and chose the former. Until one night, Sid forced her hand.

Though the body count they left in their wake may have said otherwise, Abigail’s taste for violence was no match for Sid’s, who grew more ruthless and wicked as the years went on. Drastic actions taken for the ‘good of the family’ in the early days became the norm, and the level at which violence was doled out only continued to rise as they pushed themselves further into the fringes of society. For the longest time, she could only see Sid as the welcoming boy with an open heart that she’d met in the forest all those years ago, and even if he had strayed from the path—she felt that he could be redeemed. Even if she was the only one who could do it, or would even consider the attempt and it was one such evening Abigail was compelled by circumstance to try.

Sid, Abigail and a couple other members of the family rode down a dirt road in the middle of the night when they spotted something curious up ahead.

“What is that?” One of them said. Sid pulled out a pair of binoculars and took a look. The sight of it alone made him laugh with its potential.

“What?” Abigail asked him, but he had no reply. His imagination ran wild with the possibility of what could be awaiting them. Sid ignored her completely, trailed close behind by the rest of the posse.

“What have we got here?” Sid asked as he rode up to the stagecoach.

“We don’t want any trouble,” the driver said. Sid whistled and twirled his fist around in the air. His two goons picked up speed and passed the coach, blocking the road up ahead with their horses. Everyone came to a halt. Abigail watched from atop her horse as Sid dismounted his own, and approached the man.

“There won’t be any trouble if you keep those ears open and don’t get any bright ideas.” She’d heard him say it a thousand times at this point, and it was almost a thousand times over that trouble seemed to find them.

“We don’t have much,” he pleaded. “Honest.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Search ‘em.” The goons blocking the road dismounted their horses and approached the back of the stage. They hopped on board and kicked the man’s wife and two children out of the coach as they rifled around for any valuables. Abigail could hardly bear the sight of it, they had plenty of food back at the camp, and she could tell Sid was motivated purely by the sport of it all. She rode up beside him.

“What are we doing here, Sid?” She asked him.

“Just seeing what we can find.” He spotted the wife and children trying to keep their distance from the cart and he aimed his gun at them. “All of y’all! Against the coach!” The husband stepped down from the bench at the front and joined his family in the lineup. “What have we got, boys?”

“Some cans of beans. Couple blankets.” One of them replied.

“Anything worth a damn?” Sid asked.

“Nothin’!”

“I told you sir, we ain’t got much.” He met Sid’s intense gaze.

“Now that there’s a problem.” He smacked the man across the face with the butt of his revolver.

“Stop it!” Abigail shouted.

“Don’t be instructing me, girl!” He shouted back. With Sid’s attention turned to Abigail, the husband quickly picked up a nearby rock. His wife shook her head, praying he’d have the good sense to drop the rock and just let the gang do whatever they planned to do—with the hope compliance would be their best chance to escape. Alas, answered her prayers were not and he charged at Sid to smack him upside the head with the stone. Sid turned on a dime and shot the man dead just before he could make contact. His wife cried out, fell to her knees and crawled in the dirt toward her husband who was bleeding out on the floor. The children stood frozen as they witnessed the scene unfold.

“You monster!” The woman shouted at Sid, who towered above her.

“Oh, shut up.” He shot the woman in the head. Abigail could hardly believe it herself.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She dismounted her horse. The kids were beginning to cry and Sid lumbered toward them. Abigail tried to hold him back.

“Spare them, please!” She begged.

“What for? This is mercy.” Sid brought up his revolver and shot the boy in the head, painting the stagecoach behind him with his blood. Abigail planted her feet in the ground between Sid and the girl.

“Let her go!”

“Get out of my way.” Sid said. Abigail aimed her gun at him. “Think very carefully about what you’re doing,” he warned her.

“The girl leaves.” Her grip on the gun was unwavering.

“Fine.” Sid lowered his weapon. The girl looked at Sid, then up at Abigail. She lowered her gun and turned to her. Abigail nodded.

“Go.” She assured her. She nodded and began to run away from the devastation down the dirt road. It wasn’t but a moment before Sid brought his gun back up and shot the girl in the back.

“You bastard!” Abigail shouted as she beat on Sid’s back with her fists. He turned and smacked her across the face, cracking her nose. She fell to the ground as the blood poured out of her nostrils in torrents. Sid leaned down and looked her square in the eye.

“If you cross me in front of someone that ain’t the family ever again, you’re gonna end up like her. Understand?”

“You’re an animal.” She said.

“We’re all animals, Abigail. We just like to tell ourselves we’re different from the others.”

That night she burst into the tent she shared with Sid as soon as they returned to the camp. She crossed right over to her chest and took it in hand.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” He asked her.

“I’m leaving.”

“Yeah?” He scoffed. “Where?”

“Anywhere but here.” She tried to stomp out of there but Sid blocked her exit. “Move,” she demanded.

“Where are you going?” He asked again.

“That ain’t none of your damn business.”

“You don’t go anywhere unless I let you, you hear?”

“You ain’t my Daddy!”

“No, I ain’t. But it is my family. And what I say—goes.”

“This ain’t no family, it’s a pack of animals. If a gang of killers that gun down innocent people is what you call family, that ain’t no family I wanna be a part of.”

He continued to block the exit, and Abigail dropped her chest on his toes. He groaned and his expression shifted from indignant to furious. Before she could pick up the chest and slip away, he grabbed her by the shirt, punched her in the face and she fell to the ground.

“Don’t moralize and pretend you ain’t gotta taste for violence, girl.” He undid his belt and slid off his pants. Abigail started to crawl backward, away from him, but he lurched over her and held her down by the wrists. “Family sticks together.” He had his way with her. She cried for him to stop, but he covered her mouth with his hand. “Quiet,” he whispered as she continued to squeak out muffled cries through his fingers. As she lay there, victim to whatever pleasure Sid would extract from her body, she floated above the assault—as if looking down upon the scene which she’d found herself in. How could this happen? Why was this happening? And, most important of all, how could she make sure it would never happen again?

When he was through having his way with her, she turned to her side and sobbed quietly, her face covered in cuts and bruises from Sid’s grip down her arms and chest. He stood above her as he got dressed, not a word spoken between them, when one of his goons entered the tent.

“Sid, what—“ He spotted Abigail on the floor. “Oh.”

“Whaddaya want?” Sid asked.

“We gotta talk about the grave in Reedy Creek.”

“Right this moment?”

“I could give you about ten thousand reasons why we ought to.”

Sid looked over his shoulder, down at Abigail.

“Get out of here, girl,” he commanded. She dressed herself in the tattered rags that were left of her clothes and did as she was told. She exited the tent, and crossed the camp over to Bill’s tent. She found him sitting legs crossed, hunched over as he cleaned out his six shooter. A disheveled Abigail poked her head into the tent, and Bill looked up at her.

“You get in a fight with a rose bush?” As she stepped further into the tent, he could see how bruised she really was, and his smile faded.

“Good lord, girl. What happened to you?”

“Sid.” She said.

“You let him do that to you?”

“What choice do I have?”

“You’re still young girl. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“It ain’t got nothin’ with what I expect from you. This life’s about you, in just the same way this life’s about me. The longer you wait for someone to tell you what to do with your life, the more bruises you’ll incur.”

“I’m gonna get bruised no matter what I do.” She rubbed her arms.

“Fair enough. But you’ve gotta ask yourself if you’re gonna be the one to pick your bruises. Cause you’re gonna get ‘em either way, and if you don’t pick ‘em, somebody else will.”

“Thank you, Bill,” she said. He nodded. She drifted out of his tent and mulled over what he had to say. She sat by the firepit at the heart of the camp and stared into the flames. She bore deep into its flickering rage, and saw the dark shades of what life further down this road had to offer her. As she imagined how much more terror she could possibly sink further into, she overheard Sid’s conversation back in the tent.

“The longer we leave it sitting there, the more we’re just asking for someone to come and scoop it up.” She heard his goon say.

“Who’s grave is it?” Sid asked.

“Manco.”

“Macno what?”

“That’s it.”

“Just Manco?”

“I didn’t name the fucker. I just know what he’s buried with.”

“We’ll ride out with a couple of the boys at dawn,” Sid said.

“I don’t think we can afford to wait that long,” she heard, but by this point, Abigail had heard enough.

Later that night, long after Abigail and Sid crawled into bed together and the camp drifted off to sleep, she stayed awake. As Sid slumbered beside her, she slipped out of bed and crept out of the tent, successfully leaving Sid’s sleep undisturbed. She entered into Bill’s tent to wake him up, but just as her hand hovered above him to shake him awake, he was quick on the draw and she stumbled backward onto the floor.

“Good lord!” Bill said. “You know better than to come creepin’ inna man’s tent in the dead of night, don’t ya?”

“I want out, Bill.” She dusted herself off.

“Out where?”