The Last Ride. Thomas Eidson

and looked up into his face. ‘Please. Don’t ever tell me that anything related to that old man is silly.’

      Jones and Mannito had guns out when Baldwin walked back into the barn. This was becoming a bad habit and Baldwin didn’t like it. The Mexican was crouched near the stranger’s saddlebags, his ancient scattergun pointed up at the man at an angle guaranteed to separate the top of the body from the bottom; Jones stood with a small silver-plated parlor gun in his huge fist, a brutal scowl on his face. Baldwin was surprised to see the old man carrying a ‘hideout’ gun. He was full of tricks – and though aged and sick, Baldwin sensed he would be tough to take down.

      ‘The Mexican was in my bags,’ the old man said in a deathly quiet voice. Then he began hacking hard.

      ‘Bandito,’ Mannito remarked.

      ‘None of your funeral,’ Jones said, trying to catch his breath.

      ‘Put those damn guns down,’ Baldwin snapped.

      Baldwin watched to see where the old man carried the little pistol, but Jones turned away and slipped it into hiding without Baldwin ever spotting where. He was slick. ‘Mannito – leave us alone.’

      ‘Mucho mierda,’ the Mexican called back over his shoulder.

      ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘I don’t give a damn what it means.’ Baldwin paused. ‘Who are you to my wife?’

      The old man ignored him, squatting and repacking the belongings Mannito had pulled from the saddlepack, his backbone and shoulder blades sticking painfully through his shirt, his neck thin and leatherlike. There was a raw dignity to him, and Baldwin felt sorry for him. He didn’t know why. He knew he wasn’t going to tell him anything about Maggie. And for some reason, Baldwin liked that about him.

      ‘You can stay a day or two – just keep away from my family.’

      Somewhere in the darkness outside, a horse whinnied. Baldwin cut the lantern flame and stepped into the night, wondering at his own sense of misgiving. Something he couldn’t describe was triggering a nagging thing in his brain. He heard a hammer cock behind him. Jones had slipped out of the barn, staying back in the deeper shadows of the doorway where he couldn’t be seen. Nobody’s fool, Baldwin thought. The battered Sharps was resting in the crook of the man’s arm, natural like.

      Mannito came next, shotgun at the ready, stepping close beside the towering old giant, sharing the shadow. Whatever was bothering him, was nibbling at these two as well, he figured. They looked crazy side by side: ill-matched and ancient warriors – pointedly ignoring one another. The old giant’s countenance was as fierce looking as any Baldwin had ever seen. Standing there watching him, Baldwin wondered again if he was just show. He turned back to the darkened pasture.

      The big bay had her ears cocked forward, staring out intently toward the night. Her foal was looking in the same direction. Baldwin couldn’t see anything, but he was fairly certain there was a strange horse out there somewhere.

      ‘Hello?’ he called into the darkness.

      Silence.

      ‘Come in and have a hot meal,’ Baldwin hollered into the night. No reply. But he sensed something out beyond his vision. Maybe a rider, he figured, or maybe just a wild horse.

      ‘They’re out there,’ the old man said, the words sounding ominous.

      Mannito nodded.

      ‘Something, anyway,’ Baldwin said.

      The front door to the house opened and Maggie came out carrying her medicine bag. She looked tired and that bothered him, because she rarely got sick or worn out. She seemed to hesitate in the light that spilled from the house windows, then stepped off the porch and walked slowly through the shadows toward the one-room adobe sitting some fifty yards behind the big house. To folks in these parts the little building was known as Baldwin’s sickroom. Old man Jones turned where he stood and followed her with his eyes. Baldwin couldn’t figure him. Or Maggie.

      Mannito moved off in the direction of the adobe, and Baldwin knew the little man would wait until Maggie was safely back in the house before he turned in. Jones drifted after him. Baldwin got his rifle, and went for a walk through the darkness. He found nothing.

      Maggie had spent the night in the sickroom and she was kneeling beside the bed of the Mexican woman, trying to get her to take some broth, the woman refusing and turning her head weakly away on the pillow. The morning sun flooded through the door and windows of the adobe, making the room bright and clean looking, and reflecting off the rows of medicine bottles on the table.

      Maggie mopped the woman’s brow, stroking her long damp hair for a moment, then moved to the children’s beds. A boy and girl, six or seven years old. They were thin and haggard, burning hot, their ragged clothes drenched with perspiration. She wiped each small face with a damp cloth. None of the three was conscious. That frightened her. She had no idea what to do. They wouldn’t last long this way, burning with fever. She had seen small children go quickly in this condition.

      She fought the panic rising in her breast. She had tried to sweat the illness out of them, starting the small stove in the adobe and closing the windows, but the fever hadn’t broken, and their temperatures soared. She had administered laudanum and acetate of lead and bismuth, because, with the diarrhoea and the dehydration, the illness had the symptoms of cholera. But there was no relief. And rarely did cholera victims linger, usually dying in a day or two at most. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face, and felt helpless.

      Maggie took her Bible and knelt beside the children’s bed and read the Twenty-third Psalm out loud, then recited the Lord’s Prayer. Exhausted from three days of hard nursing, she slumped into the rocker in the center of the room and fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming of her mother and sister. Drifting until she felt something wrong.

      She woke with a start. The clutch of wild desert lilies was standing in a coffee can on the medicine table. Maggie’s eyes darted to the bed where the little Mexican boy lay. There was a toy bow decorated with feathers and beads and three small arrows leaning against it. She could tell from the whittle marks on the wood that it was freshly cut. Maggie tensed, sensing someone else in the room with her, and turned toward the little girl’s bed. Samuel Jones was bending over the child.

      ‘What are you doing?’

      He straightened and held up a little wooden doll for her to see. It was painted in reds and greens and blues. He smiled at her and bent once more over the child. ‘Hopi Tihus,’ he said, placing the small wooden figure in the child’s hands.

      ‘You don’t have any right being in here,’ Maggie said.

      Jones walked over and arranged the lilies in the tin can. He looked almost comical trying to position the delicate stems with his massive hands. Finished, he turned and glanced around the infirmary. ‘It’s nice.’

      ‘Please leave.’

      Dressed in his Indian clout and wearing his blue medicine shirt and strings of beads, he looked wild. He nodded and held his hand out toward her. Mannito was standing behind him in the doorway.

      ‘Boil and give the liquid to them, Ama.’ He was holding a small leather poke.

      She tensed at the sound of the name. ‘Please don’t call me that.’ She waited a moment. ‘And I don’t trust things from you.’

      He turned and handed the bag to Mannito and left. The little Mexican stepped inside, looking at the contents of the small poke.

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘Cannot tell,’ he said, pouring some into the palm of his hand. ‘Dried plants.’ He squinched his face. ‘Insecto things.’

      Mannito looked at the children. ‘Pobre hijos,’ he said sadly, handing her the small bag. ‘Poor children.’

      ‘You don’t think I should give this to them?’

      ‘No harm,