Brave New World

Beau sat bound in the camp, burlap sack scratching his face. There was a commotion outside, people shouting. Dull sounds of pitched battle heated up. There was a light whipping sound. The tent flap perhaps?
“Captain.” A familiar voice called in from the ruckus going on outside.
Beau jerked his head to the tent’s entrance flap eyes wide under the burlap sack. “Zed, what’re you doing here lad?”
“We’ve come to rescue you, captain,” Zed responded as he yanked the sack off of Beau’s head and raced to sever the rope binding Beau’s wrists together.
“No. You have to stand down Zed. If we kill any of these lawmen they’ll hunt us. They’ll kill us all Zed. You have to stand down…” Beau tried to reason. They didn’t want to put a target on their backs after all.
“They’ll kill us if we do,” Zed interrupted. “Besides, damage is done.” Zed finished severing the rope Which fell to the ground, slack.
“Alright lad,” Beau said while thinking that if these lawmen meant to kill him then he’d be dead already. Beau began briefly rubbing his chafed wrists. Beau had flexed his muscles while the rope was tied so that it wouldn’t be tight enough for him to lose feeling in his hands.. “Don’t be a fool. Sound the retreat and let's get out of here.”
The duo stepped from the tent into the clearing. Where the chaos of battle abound. Clearly these lawmen had been set upon suddenly and had not been prepared for the encounter. Beau took a moment to take in the scene. Aggressive a tad reckless, he thought, overall pretty well done lad.
“We’re leaving! We got the captain!” Zed shouted. A brief cheer arose over the clanging of steel, and dull thumping of the battle. The band began dispersing into the nearby forested area.
Beau and Zed ran for the nearby tree line in a bid to flee.
~~~~
“C’mon captain rendezvous is this way.” They had been traveling through the forest and brush for the better part of the last hour.
“Wait. Those lawmen spoke to me lad, they’ve shown me. I want to become better,” Beau stopped walking. “Is this really what you want to do with your life?”
“Captain?” Zed turned confused by the unprompted subject and question.
“Do you think what we do is good lad?”
“Well from our perspective yes. We live free, not beholden...”
“No lad,” said Beau slightly aghast. He’d heard this rhetoric before, hell he’d spewed it. We all follow our own creed. “It’s not. We steal from people, take what’s not ours.” Beau removed his tricorn hat and pondered the second hand garment. “I don’t want this to be all I do with my life lad.”
“I… uhh…,“ Zed stuttered. Unsettled by the tone the conversation took. “I… captain.”
“We’re bad people lad. We’re brigands. Brigands lad,” Beau began fidgeting his hat. “I don’t want to die doing this lad.” Beau continued staring at his hat in what became a long silence. As he did he pondered both its history and his own. “It’s important you understand lad,” Beau looked up from the hat. “I think of this as a beginning. I want to do something else. It can’t just be this for me. Don’t you want to do something else with your life lad?”
“But captain,” Zed choked. “You recruited me, I’ve only ever done this. I wouldn’t know how to do anything else.”
“Neither do I, lad. You can learn, I’ll have to. You’re a smart lad. You always know the goings on. You read those books, and if all else fails you get on great with people. I’m sure you could find someone to teach you something worthwhile. So what do you say lad do you want to face this new world together?”
“Captain,” Zed failed to make eye contact. “My life is here. These people, they’ll need me, especially with you gone. I can’t.”
Beau nodded in glum understanding. “That’s alright lad; I understand. Maybe I’ll try being a brigand again later, or who knows maybe I’ll actually manage to reform. Now wouldn’t that be something lad?”
“Yeah, that’d be something captain,” Zed muttered.
The lad was loyal and group-oriented, of course he would stay. Beau had hoped that his regard for him would have been enough to convince him otherwise. Ultimately Beau walked away from the rendezvous, leaving Zed alone with his thoughts.