The Last Ride. Thomas Eidson

ease the old man’s embarrassment at not taking a shot. Mannito nodded. Chaco barked pridefully. The old Mexican laughed at him.

      ‘You wouldn’t be so jo-fired brave if that wolf stopped running,’ Dot called to the little dog. She hadn’t cared much for him since he’d grabbed her pants leg.

      Baldwin was walking toward the trembling foal and the bay, when the Sharps exploded in the blackness, flashing like lightning, the heavy concussion catching the rancher by surprise and causing him to step sideways.

      ‘Lord Almighty – Jones! What are you doing shooting into total dark—’

      The single yelp in the far distance caused him to stop talking and turn and face the old man. At that moment, he looked at him differently – would always look at him differently. First the book, then this shot in the dark. He was a strange one, not to be dismissed. Not easily understood. Maybe the shot was pure luck, but something in the way the old man slowly stood and pulled the long, hot cartridge from the breech, slipping it carefully into his belt to be reloaded, said it wasn’t. The old giant could handle himself. In fact, at that instant Baldwin wondered whether, even near death, he could kill Jones if he had to. The thought seemed crazy and he wondered why it had come to his mind. But he knew one thing for certain, Jones was dangerous.

      ‘Madre de Dios!’ was all Mannito could manage. ‘Mother of God.’ He said it over and over.

      ‘Son-of-a-bitch,’ Dot muttered.

      ‘Dot,’ Baldwin said sternly.

      ‘Sorry.’

      ‘I thought you wore glasses,’ the rancher said to Jones, as the old man turned and started back toward the barn.

      ‘Close up. I see fair at a distance.’

      ‘I’d say.’

      The door to the ranch house opened and Maggie stepped out on the porch carrying a shotgun. ‘Brake,’ she called, peering into the darkness.

      ‘Everything’s fine, Maggie. Mr Jones just shot a wolf.’

      Maggie didn’t reply for a moment. Then she said, ‘He’s good at killing things,’ and went back inside.

      Baldwin watched the side of the man’s face, but his expression didn’t change. Dot looked confused by her mother’s comment, and Baldwin put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly.

      Carrying lanterns on horseback, Mannito and Baldwin found and finished the hip-shot wolf on the south slope. Twenty more yards and he would have made the tree line and safety. They calculated the shot at a thousand feet. In cracking blackness. Twenty yards to the trees. Studying on it, the rancher knew it hadn’t been a luck shot. The old man had waited until the wolf hit the slope and started the climb – knowing he would be winded and moving slower, and at some point would stop and look back at the danger. They always did. When they figured they were safe, they always stopped and looked back. That was the moment an experienced hunter waited for; and Jones had done just that. But at night – how had he seen him?

      ‘That old bastard doesn’t need a lot of room to dance,’ he said to Mannito.

      ‘Madre de Dios!’ was still all the Mexican could manage to say about the amazing shot.

       TWO

      The two days that Baldwin had said Jones could stay on the place had stretched to four. The rancher wasn’t certain why, unless it was that he felt sorry for the old man. He guessed he did. It was early morning on the fourth day, the air cold, mist rising off the watering tanks. Baldwin was leaning on a shovel in the pasture watching Maggie as she walked slowly from the house toward the western slope. He wondered anew who this old man was, and how he fit in her life. Or didn’t fit.

      Samuel Jones appeared as good at doctoring as he was at shooting – the two Mexican kids were now darting over the yard as though they had never been sick. Their mother was still bedridden, but improved. Regardless, the old giant’s success hadn’t softened Maggie. Baldwin had never seen her behave the way she did to Samuel Jones. She was against him from the moment she saw him. It was crazy.

      He could see the little picketed enclosure out of the corner of his eye. Maggie’s sister, Thelma, and Julia, Mannito’s wife, were buried there. And Maggie visited their graves whenever something was bothering her.

      Baldwin tightened his grip on the shovel. The old man had walked out of the barn, moving in his careful strides in Maggie’s direction, the mule and the little dog trailing along behind. He was barechested and wearing a battered black cowboy hat, a Sioux hair pipe breastplate, breechcloth and deerskin boots – a crazy mix. His Indian tales and dress were a hodgepodge of tribes: Pawnee, Apache, Sioux, Navajo. Stiffly old-fashioned and out of touch, Jones might also be losing it a little in the head. And Baldwin knew he drank too much.

      Maggie was standing by the picket fence, her head bowed, her Bible held in both hands. If she knew the old man was beside her, she didn’t let on. Jones took his hat off and looked down in the same manner. She didn’t acknowledge him for a long while. They just stood there, shoulder to shoulder, like a couple about to be hitched, the mule nibbling at the old man’s boots. Chaco sat beside Maggie, as if he might be giving her away at the make-believe wedding. The two Mexican kids lined up behind them, the boy with his toy bow and the little girl with the Tihus doll, seemingly sensing that this was a solemn event. Baldwin jumped the creek.

      Maggie was talking to the old man now. Moments later, as if they were actors in some strange kind of play, she whirled and slapped his face, then the two of them were turning and marching away; Maggie to the house, the old man back to the barn.

      That was it. Baldwin could accept a lot of things, but when Maggie took to slapping strangers who drank too much, who carried heavy hardware and shot the way the old man did, it was high time to end it.

      Baldwin let his eyes adjust to the barn’s weak light. Mannito had ridden out with James and Dot to check the calving, turning the stock out before he left. The barn was quiet, shafts of sunlight slanting into the shadows from the open windows, a few flies buzzing lazily in the air. Baldwin glanced around for the man. Nowhere.

      ‘Jones?’

      No response. He turned and walked a few paces down the row of stalls. The old man had been sleeping in the last one on fresh straw Mannito had pitched for him. The Mexican had a heart. Interestingly, the two ancient warriors seemed, Baldwin thought, to have struck some sort of truce. Not friends, but willing to co-exist in the barn. Baldwin stopped and listened. Chaco was whining.

      The old man was sprawled face first in the stall, the dog lying on top of him and licking the back of his head. Chaco bared his teeth as Baldwin knelt beside the man.

      ‘I’m not going to hurt him, boy.’

      The little dog growled but didn’t move when he felt for Jones’ heart. He rolled him over, and Chaco hopped out of the way, continuing to growl beside them. Blood trickled out of the side of Jones’ mouth. He still had a fair heartbeat and was breathing. Baldwin propped him against a bale of hay, spreading a blue Indian blanket over him, and waited. The little dog sat looking mournful by the old man’s side. Baldwin got the feeling that Chaco had witnessed this scene before, and didn’t like it.

      Jones tossed and turned and mumbled for a while. Twice, Baldwin heard him call out, ‘Yopon.’ Lost in his own shadow world, Samuel Jones was struggling desperately against something Baldwin couldn’t see but sensed.

      He was an odd character, Baldwin thought, as he glanced around. Beneath his brutal features there was a certain sensitivity and style. He had dressed the box stall into a home of sorts. There were sacred pahos – colorfully painted prayer sticks, decorated with feathers and kachina-like figures – hanging on the walls. Three southwest tribes made them: Pueblos, Apaches and Navajos, so he couldn’t be sure where these were from. A clutch of dried maize tied with red and blue beads hung next to