The Last Ride

Mannito drummed once more with the tips of his bony fingers on the swollen loin, listening for the organs below. Time was running out, he knew. He turned his head toward Jones, concentrating, trying to visualize the critical spot.

Staring up at the old giant, Mannito knew that they were friends, even if Samuel Jones wasn’t consciously aware of it. The idea of this friendship with Jones seemed an odd thing to the little Mexican. Nevertheless, he was sure it existed. It didn’t matter that Jones had never uttered a single kind word to him. Kind words were nothing. The two of them shared, Mannito knew, far more than words, shared more than just their two long lives. They instinctively understood one another. And understanding, he had always felt, was the foundation of true friendship. The evidence was everywhere. They had both lost their wives, lost most of their children, had lived hard existences, in solitude, far away from their own kind. They were poor men, but men who possessed another kind of wealth: they believed in something far greater than themselves. That was true wealth. These things, Mannito felt, bound them as amigos.

As further proof of their friendship, Mannito recalled that since Jones’ arrival, the old giant had silently shared the barn work: tossing hay, cleaning stalls, and filling water troughs. Mannito greatly respected this about his friend. Though deathly ill, he was no loafer. He was a man of character who mindfully paid his own way. The week before, Mannito had found his burro, Peso, carefully brushed and curried, the animal’s hooves cleaned and polished, and its little weathered halter expertly spliced with fresh rawhide. He had thanked Jones. But the old man had simply ignored him. Still, they both knew. Mannito smiled to himself as he stared at Jones, pleased that he recognized these little signs that betrayed their friendship.

From that day forward, Mannito had talked to him whenever they were in the barn. Jones never answered but Mannito sensed that he listened and calculated and weighed the things he said. These one-sided conversations cut the loneliness. He wished Jones had longer to live. Wished that he would acknowledge their friendship.

‘I’m warning!’ the old man bellowed, pointing the pistol at Mannito, and struggling to stand. ‘You hurt her and I’ll splatter you all over this ranch.’

Mannito looked back at the old horse. He knew his friend Jones would not shoot him but he wasn’t certain he wouldn’t turn the little gun on himself if they lost the gray. Mannito’s hands were shaking. He had never tried to save a horse with the bloat. The long, thin metal trocar was slippery in his sweating hands.

He looked up at Jones and tried to smile, prayed silently to Jesus’ Mother, then leaned forward and plunged the huge pin into the gray’s paunch. Jones raised the little pistol; then he heard a loud shhhhhhishing and watched in amazement as the mare’s belly shrank like a punctured ball.

Even more astonishing was the effect on the old horse. She stopped panting and moaning and lay still on the grass. Minutes later, she struggled to her feet and started to graze again, as if nothing had happened. Jones pulled her away from the wet plants and looked down, stunned, at the little Mexican. Mannito just squatted and grinned up at him, then began to laugh, looking like a small wrinkle-faced monkey, enormously tickled that he had saved the old horse.

‘Damn bueno thing, right?’ the Mexican said, holding up the large pin. ‘A damn good thing.’

Chaco was dancing on his hind legs. Alice was sniffing the gray. Jones nodded, still shocked at the mare’s miraculous recovery. Mannito held out his small hand for the rope that was looped around the horse’s neck.

‘I walk. She needs to move. I watch her. Muy bueno,’ he said, running his hands over the old pony. ‘I walk,’ he said again, sticking his hand closer to Jones.

Jones looked at the man’s hand, then his face. He still looked stunned.

‘I walk,’ Mannito said once more.

Jones continued to look at him. Finally, he handed him the rope. He nodded at the little man again, but said nothing. It was enough. Mannito understood.

‘It was nothing, viejo,’ the Mexican said.

Darkness was falling hard. Baldwin and Lily hadn’t returned from checking the herd in the high pastures. Jones was growing concerned. Baldwin was smart enough. Since the night of the sandstorm, Jones had noticed that he had been wearing his pistol and sticking close to his oldest daughter. But the man wouldn’t believe that anyone but a love-struck cowboy had chased his Lily. Jones had tried to convince him otherwise. So had Mannito. But he wasn’t listening. Jones studied the rust-colored mountains surrounding the little valley, hoping the rancher’s stubbornness hadn’t got him and the girl into trouble somewhere out on the trail.

Hard-headed and hard to scare, Baldwin was like most of the men who built things out of this wilderness. That was why the People had such a hard time with them, Jones knew. They did what they had to do to survive. They weren’t bad people, just tough and self-reliant. And for the past few days, Brake Baldwin’s cows – all the future his family possessed – had been dropping calves, unattended, in this rough country. Some of these animals, the rancher knew, would need his help or they’d die. Therefore, Brake Baldwin had headed for the high pastures, no matter what, and taken his daughter with him so he could keep a protective eye on her.

Mannito had been left at the house to watch over Maggie. In the rancher’s mind, Maggie was safe. Some young cowboy had simply fallen dumbstruck over Lily. The girl certainly had the looks to rattle a man. But Jones didn’t have it figured exactly that way. There was more to it, he felt. He just didn’t know what it was for sure.

From conversations overheard in the barn, he knew that James and Dot would take the wagon and spend the night in the little railhead town. So that afternoon, after watching the gray to make certain she was truly recovering, and leaving the Mexican with Maggie, he had taken a Baldwin horse and trailed the two youngsters well out onto the desert, until he was convinced they were safe. Three times, he rode wide of the wagon’s trail by a mile on either side to see that there were no horse tracks following them. Nothing.

Satisfied, he had returned to the ranch, arriving late in the day, his body shot through with a numbing exhaustion. Chaco barked to announce their arrival from his perch on the horse’s rump. Maggie was sitting on the porch. She didn’t acknowledge him in any way. Mannito was standing hidden in the shadows of the barn, holding the reins of a fresh horse, his ancient shotgun slung across his back. Alice was braying happily.

‘Los niños?’ Mannito asked, mounting the horse he held and pointing toward town. ‘The children?’

Jones nodded.

‘I ride to Señor Brake.’ He stopped and looked hard into Jones’ face and started to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it. Jones could tell he was tense. It was a feeling they shared. Finally, Mannito just smiled and said, ‘Good night, viejo.’

Jones didn’t say anything.

Mannito watched him a moment longer, something obviously on his mind, then he turned the horse and began to kick hard for the hills that were fading in the gathering purple dusk.

Jones would have ridden with him, but he didn’t want to leave Maggie unguarded. Whatever was wrong, might involve her as well. He followed the dark speck of the little Mexican and his galloping horse for a while, trying to figure out what the man had wanted to say to him. He wasn’t sure. But he had definitely wanted to say something.

Jones turned and gazed through the deepening shadows at the darkened house. The moon was rising over the rim of the mountain. Maggie was right: he didn’t belong here. That was why he had never come before. It wasn’t fair to her. Wasn’t fair just to walk back into her life after all these years. If he hadn’t been dying, he wouldn’t have done it. But he was, and he had come to see her one last time. Now he had to move on. Any fool could have guessed how she would feel. He didn’t blame her.

Thinking on it, he figured he might return to the heart of old Chihenne country. The thought tugged at something that was hurt inside him. Yopon and he had been there years before. It was the last time they’d been together and free. He found himself retracing their wanderings in his thoughts a lot. He forced himself to stop.

He stood outside the barn, feeling physical pain like a deep boring inside his chest, and turned in a slow circle, studying the darkening trees, the barn, the pastures and the house. He wanted to remember everything here, everything about her, for as long as he could.

He took a pull on the bottle, then left it on the ground, and walked awkwardly toward her, not knowing where to place his hands. He stopped in front of the porch where she sat. Chaco trailed along behind him. Jones watched her for a moment, her eyes gazing past him, then he leaned forward and set a pure white chunk of quartz on the step beside her.

‘I found it in the hills. Thought you might like it.’

She didn’t say anything or look at the stone.

‘The Mexican went to find them,’ he said quietly. ‘They probably decided to spend the night with the herd, rather than try the hill trails in the dark.’ Jones knew that hadn’t happened. If they were spending the night, it was because something had gone wrong. He had watched them saddling up and saw nothing for making camp; no canvas, no grub sack, no skillets, nothing. He had seen Dot slip the eagle charm into Lily’s saddlebag when her sister had gone into the house. The child had a large heart. But then Lily had found it and tossed it angrily to the ground. Dot had retrieved it.

‘If they aren’t down by morning, I’ll go find them,’ he said, almost as if he was talking to himself. ‘Then I’ll ride on.’ He turned and looked at her, seeming for a moment to soak her up with his eyes. ‘I used to think about you,’ he said quietly. ‘At night mostly. Where you were, and what you were feeling.’

She didn’t say anything for a long time, just continued to gaze past him at the hills. When she finally spoke, he was unable to see her face. ‘I don’t need anything from you any more,’ she said, her voice sounding tired. ‘Just go.’

He walked slowly past her into the house, deciding to sleep near her tonight so that he could keep an eye out, but also wanting to sleep one night in her home. Chaco sat down beside her.

Maggie contemplated the falling darkness, shutting out all thoughts of the man. She had been praying to God about the cat. Nothing had come to her. She was now convinced it was dead – convinced that was her answer from God. Harriet was lost.

She stood and picked up the quartz rock, studying it for a moment, then tossed it with all her might into the darkness. Chaco scrambled off the porch after it, barking as he ran. A few minutes later, the little dog returned with the rock, dropping it at her feet. She began to cry.

Morning light came grudgingly to the valley of the ranch. Baldwin and the others had not yet ridden down. Jones had awakened early in the darkness, unable to sleep, feeling both the searing pain, and something else, something anxious in a place deep inside him. Slowly, he shook it off and crawled stiffly out of his blankets. He had been lying on the floor in the big room of the house, his rifle next to him. Maggie had slept outside on the porch in the rocker. He had listened to the grating sound most of the night. It was silent now. He looked out of the window and saw her asleep in the chair. Chaco was lying beside her. Jones sat and watched her for a long time, listening to a white-winged dove calling.

Finally, he forced himself to stop looking at her and wandered slowly through the empty dwelling, moving from room to room, examining things that he knew or guessed belonged to her, trying to visualize her in these rooms with these objects, sometimes holding them in his hands. He knew he was intruding. But he also knew that the only way he would ever be a part of her life was by this last moment of intrusion. This was his last chance to be alone with her – or at least, alone within her world. That would have to do him. He understood that. She would let him no closer.

It was sitting in the shadows on the dresser in the big bedroom. He studied it, unable to move for a while, adjusting his little glasses on his nose. It was almost a dream to him. He cupped it in his hands, committing it to what he knew was his fading memory. That scared him. He knew that when he left this room, he would never see it again. It was the only time in his life that he had felt the urge to steal. He couldn’t do it. Not from her. He had stolen enough from her life.

He let his eyes move slowly over it: a tintype. Maggie, a teenager, and her mother, Susan. He couldn’t pull his eyes off her face. She had been a good wife and mother; he felt the familiar remorse and forced his gaze and thoughts along. Why had she never remarried? She had such beauty. He shook his head sadly, knowing the answer too well. It didn’t matter. It was over. He could change nothing.

Their two images alone would have been enough to bring the sadness, but there was another person in the tintype: a small brown-haired girl of eight or nine. It was she who shattered whatever rigid structures were left inside his being, so that his emotional world sagged. A bittersweet pain coursed through him as he stood before the dresser.

He had never seen her before. He knew only that she had been born after he left, and that she was dead. Seeing her now was both a mysterious gift and a curse. He fought a moaning sound welling within him. He had heard that her name was Thelma. His throat tightened. It had been his mother’s name. He smiled wistfully: just like Susan to have honored him, even after he had dishonored himself. He kissed the photograph of this child he had never kissed in life, never known.

It was a long time before he could stop looking at her, staring so hard at the small face that her image began to blur. He relived times that he hadn’t thought of in a long while. Why had he left, when they had needed him so? He pulled himself up straighter and set the picture back in its place. He knew the answer. He knew he would do it again. He also knew with painful clarity what he had lost. And what he had found. He took his glasses off, then turned and walked out of the room.

He was riding stiffly, he and the gray picking their way carefully up a narrow trail through the pines on the western slope. Chaco was sitting on the pony’s rump. Alice ambled along behind with all Jones’ worldly possessions strapped to her back. He didn’t want to ride any more. He wanted only to lie down and sleep. He was ready to take the last long trail.

He fingered the old Sharps absently, every once in a while taking a pull on his bottle and turning to look back down at the ranch house. Earlier, he had tried to say goodbye. She hadn’t acknowledged him. It was best, he thought. It gave him a chance to look closely at her. He had placed Baldwin’s loaded shotgun across her lap. Still, she had not paid him the slightest mind. Not a glance.

He drew a shallow breath and told himself to stop. It was over. He tried to visualize Thelma’s small face, vaguely seeing her, the sadness creeping over him. Things were now so different from what he had once believed. Life had seemed so alive, so real and tangible, so easily toted up and carried from place to place. But he realized now it never had been; the things of greatest worth he had never touched.

An aspen, its bark girded by the claws of a bear, stood dying beside the trail, its yellow leaves dropping silently in the breeze. He watched the sunlight shining on the tree, making it look like a sparkling, spiritual thing, the leaves floating in random patterns down towards the earth, drifting away on their separate journeys. At one time, the tree had been a whole thing, unified in life and purpose, now it was disassembling, its different lives dying different deaths, each alone. He felt much like that.

Only superficially had he sensed life’s essence, the unseen things which held its true meaning, which throughout the years had touched him like a soft breeze to the skin. Now they were drifting away, leaving him to journey on without them. He was truly alone.