Free Betrayal: Society Lost, Volume Two by Steven Bird

Were you looking for someone? Someone... like me?” Jessie asked.
    “Who are you? I... I don’t know what you...”
    “Stop the babbling and get to it!” Jessie shouted. “You wouldn’t have just been out for a stroll, enjoying the night sky with your patrol rifle, sidearm, a vest, and all of your gear. What were you looking for?”
    “Look, if you’re with Márquez, I didn’t have anything to do with that. We loaded what the chief told us to load. I was just doing what I was instructed to do,” the man insisted. “Several of us told him it was a bad idea. He didn’t want to hear it. But I... I didn’t have any control over that.”
    Pausing for a moment to contemplate the man’s sudden confession, Jessie said, “Yeah, well, you’re guilty of participating in whatever you go along with. No man can force you to do anything but die. A man can take your life. He can cut your throat while you’re hogtied to a chair and laugh as you bleed out. A man can have that kind of control over you very easily,” Jessie said as he reflected a glint of light from the windows with the blade of his knife. “But anything you do with your own hand, whether ordered to do so or of your own accord... you own that. Cowardice toward the man who pretends to wield power over you is not an excuse. You make the choice. You can stand up for what is right, even if it costs you your life, or you can choose to be a willing participant. Which, as you can clearly see right now at this moment, can also cost you your life. That’s your call. No one can make you be a part of his wrongs without your consent.”
    “That’s why I’m out!” the man insisted. “I’m done. That’s why I was out there in the dark. I was leaving. It’s not me you want. It’s them... or him, rather.”
    After a few moments of silence, contemplating his next move, Jessie said, “If you were leaving, where were you going?”
    “I have... or had, family in northern Oklahoma,” the man stated in a defeated tone as he gazed at the floor.
    “Where in northern Oklahoma?” Jessie asked.
    Looking Jessie in the eye, the man replied, “I’d be a fool to tell you that. I’d never lead you and your men back home. I’d rather you just go ahead and kill me now. It’s bad enough that I didn’t go back home to help defend the farm when this all started. It’s bad enough that I stayed here as long as I have, getting deeper and deeper into the mess that I’m in, instead of being with my parents and my brothers and sisters during all of this. I’ll be damned if I mess up again and tell you any more than I already have. Just do it,” he said, hanging his head low and closing his eyes. “Just get it over with. I’m not going to tell you anything else.”
    Pacing across the room and gazing out of the crack in the curtains, Jessie said, “Fair enough. I won’t ask you any more about where you were heading, but if you tell me about what you’re running from, and what you’ve been a part of... and if I can verify that you’re telling me the truth, I’ll let you live. I’ll let you continue your journey north to live out your days being eaten alive by guilt.”
    “You’re not with Márquez, are you?” the man said, looking at Jessie with an inquisitive look on his face.
    Turning back toward the man while pulling the curtains fully closed, Jessie said, “Like you, if what you say is true, I’m just a man trying to get to his family.”
    “Then why were you standing watch over Fort Sumner? Why didn’t you just steer clear of the place? Or... or did you hear the radio transmissions?”
    “Radio transmissions?” Jessie queried.
    Breaking eye contact with Jessie, staring blankly across the room, the man explained, “The chief...”
    “Chief?” Jessie interrupted.
    “Yes, the chief of police, Chief Peronne. Anyway, the chief commandeered a local man’s HAM radio setup to broadcast occasional messages that announced that Fort Sumner was a safe haven with