The Last Ride

‘Mother?’

Maggie looked up at Lily, but didn’t respond. She and Brake had never interfered with one another in the handling of the children. And, upset as she was, Maggie wasn’t about to start now.

Brake respectfully gave his wife time to reply, then when he was certain she wasn’t going to do so, he looked back at Lily. ‘You don’t need to ask your mother how to behave toward your grandfather. None of you children do.’

It was near dark when Dot approached Samuel Jones at the far edge of the cornfield. The full moon was rising, shining over the tall plants and splashing light onto the old man. He looked mysterious in its pallid glow, sitting bare-legged on the ground in a worn yellow buckskin medicine shirt that was covered with green beads and white porcupine quills, a bright red blanket wrapped around his waist. He wore Apache boots with their curled-up toes, his hat gone and his long gray hair done up in thick braids covered in soft-looking deerskin; his ears held great brass wire rings. He was shaking a small Navajo rattle in one hand and chanting quietly. Chaco sat beside him. They both seemed to be looking at something in the shadows of the valley. She could smell alcohol on him.

Dot wanted to talk to him, but she felt a little nervous. The old man still had the meanest face she had ever seen. But she was getting used to him. She cleared her throat. Neither he nor his little dog moved. Then suddenly she was feeling strange – as though she was being watched. She looked nervously at the expanse of shadows around her, unable to shake the strange sensation. Nothing. But still the unsettling feeling wouldn’t leave her. Somewhere off in the darkness something disturbed a flock of tree sparrows and the little birds set up a racket with their constant chirping in the night. Slowly they settled down. She wondered what had spooked them.

Dot listened for a while, then she shrugged off the feeling of unease and turned back to the old man. He was looking over his shoulder at her. Chaco was showing his teeth, as if he was smiling or maybe eating sour grapes.

Dot stepped closer. ‘Are you really my grandfather?’

‘Is that what your mother says?’

‘That’s what my pa says.’

He nodded. ‘I guess I am.’

Dot crossed her arms and scrutinized the side of the old man’s face, then turned and studied the young corn plants for a while, cogitating on things in her head. She looked back at him and asked, ‘What should I call you?’

He didn’t answer.

‘What do others call you?’

‘Jones.’

She shook her head. ‘My pa would make me say Mr Jones or Grandpa Jones. And that doesn’t seem right, us being closely related.’

He didn’t respond.

‘Pa said you once lived with the Sioux.’

He nodded.

‘What did they call you?’

‘Gut eater.’

‘That’s not going to work,’ she said quickly. She couldn’t imagine herself sitting at the dinner table next to Lily and saying, ‘Gut eater, please pass the gravy.’ She scratched at an itch and puzzled on the problem for a moment.

‘Maybe just Grandpa.’ She paused. ‘Is that okay?’

He nodded and Dot nodded in return, and grinned. She suddenly enjoyed the thought of calling this wild-looking old man, Grandpa. Something about him, a thing that seemed dangerous and different, made her like being around him and being blood kin. She didn’t care what Lily thought.

‘Where you from?’

‘The mountains.’

‘Which?’

‘Madres of Mexico.’

Dot squinted her eyes at him. ‘You funning me?’ She knew Mexico’s Madres mountains were a good six hundred miles south. Six hundred miles of dry waste. She marveled that the old gray pony had gone the distance carrying the huge silver-covered saddle and her grandfather.

He reached out a big hand and stroked the little dog’s back, the hand gnarled and badly busted up.

‘You came all this way just to see ma?’ Dot asked, her eyes on the old hand with its liver spots.

‘My daughter,’ he said, as if the words explained everything.

Dot thought for a while, then said, ‘How come you never came before?’

The old man didn’t answer.

They both went to listening to the long-eared owl in the cottonwood near the creek. She hunted the pasture almost every night. Lily had named her Veronica. Crickets were loud in the cool air. Dot tipped her head back and looked up at the stars that seemed close enough to touch, and wiggled her toes in the sand. She loved the ranch.

‘If you’re Indian, then I’m Indian. Right?’

‘I’m Indian – but not blood Indian.’

‘How can that be?’

He pointed at his chest.

‘That’s nothing.’

The old man didn’t reply.

Dot felt that she had won the point. And a moment later, she started in again, feeling more at ease with his brutal features. ‘Ma says you aren’t a Christian.’

He stared at the night.

‘That true?’

‘Once.’

Dot studied his face, waiting for him to explain. When he didn’t, she said, ‘I’ve never known a heathen.’

He nodded.

‘Why are you sitting out here in the dark?’

The old man took a long time to answer, as though deciding whether or not to dismiss her. Finally he said, ‘I’m talking to the spirit powers.’

‘Who’s that?’ She scrunched up her face and looked as if she thought he might be crazy.

He watched her for a few moments. ‘If you can’t learn about things, then go and leave me be.’ His voice was firm and deeply serious.