The Lone Ranger:
THE SCHOOLTEACHER
by Kirk Hastings
Based on the 1949-1957 TV series starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels
When the factories first began to send their pall of smoke over the cities, and farmlands in the East offered only the barest living, Americans turned their faces toward the West. They poured into the new territories by thousands - bringing their household goods, fording the mighty rivers and climbing the mountains, fighting Indians and outlaws - praying, toiling, dying. It was a hard land, a hostile land. Only the strong survived - a new American breed: the Pioneer.
In this forge, upon this anvil, was hammered out a man who became a legend - a man who hated thievery and oppression. His face masked, his true name unknown, he thundered across the West upon a silver white stallion, appearing out of nowhere to strike down injustice or outlawry, and then vanishing as mysteriously as he came. His sign was a silver bullet.
His name was: The Lone Ranger!
It was a bright sunny day in the Kansas Territory when The Masked Rider of the Plains and his Indian companion abruptly reined up side by side on the edge of a steep hillside.
They stared below. Careening across the plain below was a stagecoach, moving at a recklessly high speed. Not far behind it were two horsemen that had kerchiefs over their faces. They were firing their pistols at the stagecoach as they pursued it down the trail.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto looked at each other. That was all the communication they needed to exchange. They immediately pushed their mounts to lurch down the hillside. Once they had reached the trail that stretched across the plain they lit out after the shooting horsemen.
The horsemen suddenly realized that someone was chasing them, and that their pursuers were now firing at them as well. One of the horsemen waved to the other one to abandon the chase and head off the trail into some woods.
The Lone Ranger motioned for Tonto to follow them, which the Indian did, swerving his horse off the road. The Ranger holstered his gun and continued to pursue the stagecoach.
As he got closer and closer to the stagecoach it became apparent that the coach was now completely out of control, the horses spooked by all the gun shots.
The Ranger pushed his mount Silver to all the speed the horse could muster. Before long the two were able to pull up close enough to the rear of the coach so that the Ranger could leap out of Silver's saddle and cling to the rear of the coach.
The Ranger hung on for dear life as the stagecoach bucked and lurched over the rough road. Slowly he tried to work his way around the side of the coach. As he reached the side door and hung onto its window opening he noticed that the lone passenger of the coach was a young woman, who stared incredulously back at him in terror.
The Ranger grabbed the luggage railing atop the stagecoach, and laboriously hauled himself up onto the coach's roof. From there he could see that the coach's driver was slumped over into the space below the driver's seat, either wounded or dead. The Ranger carefully moved into the driver's seat.
That was when he discovered that the reins to the horses were nowhere to be seen. Apparently the driver had dropped them when he had been shot.
He also observed that, not too far ahead, the road suddenly curved to the right, to run along the edge of a sheer drop off. In their excited state, he highly doubted that the horses would successfully negotiate that sudden turn. They would probably continue right over the edge of the cliff.
The Ranger dropped down below the driver's seat to where he could stand on the coach's narrow doubletree, which held the long wooden tongue that extended out between the two sets of horses. Balancing unsteadily on the doubletree, the Ranger reached down and tried to release the pin that held the tongue to the doubletree. He found that he couldn't do it.
He pulled one of his guns from its holster and shot the pin. He shot it again. Finally the tongue slipped loose from the coach.
The horses continued stampeding, now released from the coach. The coach eventually came to a stop.
The Ranger jumped down from the coach onto the ground. He watched the horses as they headed toward the cliff. He saw them go straight over it, disappearing.
A few moments later he could hear a faint splash. Apparently there was a river below the cliff, and the horses had fallen into it.
# # #
Meanwhile, Tonto pursued the two masked riders through a patch of woods, who were firing back at him. As he pursued them he managed to shoot one, who fell off his horse into the dirt.
A short distance further, the remaining rider came out of the woods onto another plain, where he reined up his horse near a large rock. He jumped off his mount and sprinted for the rock, taking up a position behind it, his gun held at the ready. He waited for his pursuer to come riding out of the woods.
Tonto's horse soon appeared. It trotted out of the woods - but the Indian was no longer on it.
The masked rider, somewhat puzzled, came out from behind the rock and slowly walked toward the pony.
Suddenly, Tonto appeared underneath his horse. He had been using an old Indian trick of hanging alongside Scout's flank, so that he was not immediately visible to the bandit.
"You surrender!" Tonto shouted, quickly gaining his feet.
The bandit raised his gun to shoot Tonto. But Tonto fired first.
# # #
The Ranger went back to the door of the stagecoach and opened it. The young woman inside had swooned, and was draped across the seat. Just then Silver came trotting up, having followed the coach after his rider had jumped off him.
"Good boy, Silver!" the Ranger cooed, patting the horse's neck. He reached up and pulled his canteen off the animal. Then he climbed into the stagecoach.
He propped the unconscious woman back up in her seat. He untied his kerchief from around his neck and moistened it, using it to pat the woman's face.
The woman was dressed in an attractive dress and bonnet. But the Ranger could see from her face, which was exceedingly beautiful, that she was of Indian descent.
Within a moment the woman began to stir. She opened her eyes. But when she saw the Ranger and his mask, the look of terror returned to her face.
The Ranger smiled reassuringly at her. "Don't be alarmed, miss," he said. "I'm not a bandit. I'm here to help."
"But - the mask!" the woman stuttered.
"I wear this mask for my own reasons," the Ranger replied. "But I'm on the side of the law, I assure you."
This seemed to satisfy the woman, at least for the moment.
"What happened?" she asked.
"My friend and I managed to scare off the bandits, but I'm afraid we lost the coach's horses in the attempt."
"I see," the woman replied. "Who are you?"
"That's not important," the Ranger said. "The important thing is getting you to wherever you were going. Perhaps stepping outside and getting some fresh air will help you recover yourself."
She nodded. The Ranger helped her out of the coach.
Just then Tonto came riding up, leading the two bandits' horses behind him. Both were tied across their saddles. Tonto reined up beside the stagecoach and dismounted, tying the bandits' horses to the coach.
"You all right, Kemosabe?" he asked.
"Yes, Tonto," the Ranger replied. "It looks like you had to kill the bandits."
"Yes," Tonto replied. "They refused to surrender. How stagecoach driver?"
"He's dead too, I'm afraid," the Ranger told him somberly.
To help clear her head, the young woman took off her bonnet and shook her head, letting her straight, jet-black hair fall free down her back. It reached her waist.
Tonto stared at the woman.
"Miss, do you have any idea why these men attacked your coach?" the Ranger asked. "There's no gold or valuables aboard that I can see."
"Yes, I have an idea," the woman replied. "My name is Mary Livingstone. I'm a Potawatomie Indian from a reservation back in Michigan. I am trained as a schoolteacher, and I was sent for by the Indian agent in the town of Dry Gulch to start a school for the local Indian children."
The Ranger glanced at Tonto. He knew that Tonto's background was Potawatomie also. Tonto was still staring at the woman, apparently transfixed by her.
"Unfortunately," the woman continued, "some people in Dry Gulch don't believe that the Indian children should be taught anything. They are adamantly against me coming to teach them. They think such children should just be locked up on a reservation somewhere and forgotten."
The Ranger nodded his understanding. "I see," he said. "Unfortunately, the stagecoach is now useless without the horses. Dry Gulch is still more than 20 miles from here, and it will be dark soon. Getting you there will have to wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile, we'll set up a camp in those woods nearby."
"What about ... those men?" Mary asked, indicating the bandits.
"We'll bury them here, along with the stagecoach driver," the Ranger replied. "Perhaps tomorrow we can find out who they were in town."
# # #
They found a sheltered spot in the woods to make camp, and settled in for the night. After cooking a light meal over the campfire, the Ranger went to tend to the horses and get the bedrolls. Tonto sat down next to Mary.
"Tell me news about the Potawatomie," Tonto asked. "How they do on reservation?"
"Oh, they're fine," Mary replied. "But tell me about yourself, Tonto. You're Potawatomie too, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Do you and your friend have a home near here?"
Tonto shook his head. "No. We move about the West, doing what we can to stop outlaws and dishonest men from preying on innocent people, both white man and Indian."
Tonto proceeded to tell Mary about how, when he was a teenager, his tribe's village had been attacked and burned by renegade Indians from a neighboring tribe, while the men of the village were away. His mother and sisters had been killed in the raid. The young Tonto survived only because a white boy happened to come by the site of the massacre soon afterward, and bound his wounds and nursed him back to health. The masked man that he now rode with was that same boy, grown up.
"But why does he wear a mask now? What's his name?" Mary asked.
"That long story. He have personal reasons for keeping identity secret. But he suffer loss of family member at hands of outlaws too. We both know what it like to be innocent victim of bad men."
The Ranger returned with the bedrolls. He offered his to Mary, using only a blanket for himself. Soon they were all bedded down around the fire.
As she lay there, staring up at the night sky, Mary contemplated how extraordinary and unusual these two men were - a white man and an Indian, living and traveling together, and fighting for law and order in a largely lawless land, with no thought of reward or gain for themselves.
She didn't realize it, but for some time Tonto continued to stare at her from where he had bedded down nearby, until he finally fell asleep.
# # #
Soon after the sun came up the three companions ate a light breakfast of bacon and biscuits. Then they broke camp and headed off for the town of Dry Gulch. Mary sat behind Tonto on Scout.
It was mid-morning when they finally rode into Dry Gulch. They entered town by a back trail, and headed for the local sheriff's office.
The sheriff, a stocky, older man named Parker who had graying hair and a mustache, was sitting at his desk doing some paperwork when he heard a knock on the back door of his office.
"Now who could that be this time of the morning, knocking at the back door?" he mumbled to himself as he got up from his chair. He went over to the door and opened it.
An attractive young woman in a long dress was standing there.
"Yeah?" the sheriff asked her. "What can I do for you, miss?"
"My name is Mary Livingstone," his visitor replied. "I'm the schoolteacher from Michigan that was sent for by your local Indian agent to teach at the school on the Indian reservation just outside of town."
She stepped inside the room. Close behind her came a masked man and an Indian.
"What the -?" the sheriff gulped. He started to reach for his gun, but the masked stranger was quicker, and pulled his first. The sheriff put his hands up.
"We're not outlaws, sheriff," the Ranger told him. "We're friends of Miss Livingstone."
"But the mask!" the sheriff replied.
"I wear this mask for personal reasons," the Ranger said. "But it's on the side of the law, I assure you."
"It's all right," Mary interrupted. "These two men are friends of mine. My stagecoach was attacked yesterday about 20 miles outside of town by two hooligans, but these two men rescued me."
"What happened to the stagecoach?" the sheriff asked.
"The horses were lost," the Ranger explained. "The driver is dead, shot by the two outlaws."
"Old Charlie - dead?"
The Ranger nodded. "They also tried to kill my friend Tonto here, and he was forced to shoot them first." He described the spot where the three were now buried.
As the Ranger explained a light seemed to go on in the sheriff's eyes.
"Tonto?" the sheriff said. "A masked man? Say, mister, could I see one of your bullets?"
The Ranger pulled one out of his belt and handed it to Parker.
"Pure silver," the sheriff mumbled, inspecting it. He handed it back, smiling. "Now I know who you are! Mister, in the last few years you've become something of a legend in this part of the country! I'm mighty glad to meet you! Come on in!"
The Ranger holstered his gun, and the three companions came inside. The sheriff offered Mary a chair. After she sat down and the sheriff had introduced himself, Tonto described the two outlaws that had attacked the stage.
"That sounds like the Griff brothers," Parker replied. "Two no good local no-accounts who have always had it in for the Indians, and didn't want the school for the Indian kids. I can't believe they were willing to go this far, though, to kill poor Charlie the stage driver in order to stop it." He looked at Tonto. "Mister, by shooting them you probably just saved the state the time and cost of a trial and a hanging."
"Me not like to kill anyone, even outlaws," Tonto replied. "But they would not surrender."
Mary looked admiringly at him.
"Mr. Parker, I'd like to rest up before opening the school tomorrow," Mary told the sheriff. "Can you tell me where I'll be staying?"
"Yeah, sure," Parker replied. "We've got a room ready for you over at the town boarding house. It's just down the street. I'll take you there."
"Thank you."
The Ranger and Tonto turned and made as if they were going to leave. Mary grabbed Tonto by his arm.
"You're not leaving, are you?" she pleaded.
Tonto looked into Mary's eyes, and she looked into his. Their gaze held for a moment.
The Ranger noticed the look between them. "We'll be around for a while," he told her.
They went outside. After they had jumped back up into their saddles, the Ranger looked at his friend.
"You like her, don't you?" the Ranger asked.
"Yes, Kemosabe," Tonto replied, smiling. "Me like her."
# # #
For the next few days the Ranger and Tonto camped just outside of town, as Mary settled into her job at the Indian school. Tonto found frequent reasons to go into town during that time, and saw Mary whenever he could.
Early one evening, Tonto had taken Mary outside of town for a ride in a buckboard the local Indian agent had given her. The moon was bright, and Tonto stopped the buckboard near a small pond.
"Isn't it a lovely evening?" Mary said, looking up at the twinkling stars.
"Huh," Tonto grunted.
They sat for a few minutes, silently enjoying each other's company. Finally, Mary gathered the courage to ask Tonto a question that she had been wanting to ask him for days.
"Tonto, don't you and your friend ever long to settle down somewhere ... perhaps get yourself a farm or a ranch or a homestead, get married, raise a family, and live like other people do? It must be hard for the two of you to be so alone, to not have any roots anywhere, to live the life of a vagabond and wander from place to place, hardly ever sleeping indoors or on a real bed ... or eating real home cooking."
It took Tonto a minute or two to finally respond to this question, as if he was thinking about what Mary had just said.
"Yes, sometimes me feel desire to do what you say," he said slowly. "But then me find myself haunted by vision of dead mother and sisters, and burned village of my people. Then me once again feel urge inside to seek out bad men wherever they may be, to stop them from causing same kind of heartbreak and pain to others."
Once again Mary looked at Tonto with great admiration and respect. She touched his face with her hand. "I understand how you feel," she said slowly. "I've known heartbreak in my life as well. My parents died when I was very young too, killed in a skirmish with another tribe. But you can't let that kind of thing stop you from some day finding the same kind of happiness for yourself that your parents had once. Don't you agree?"
"Maybe," Tonto replied. "Maybe some day, when Kemosabe and Tonto get old, we both settle down somewhere."
"But what about now?" Mary asked him. "What if the right person for you to settle down with should come along sooner than 'some day'? Would you deliberately choose to miss that chance in order to continue to pursue evil, prejudiced men who only want to kill you?"
They looked at each other. Then Tonto took Mary in his arms and kissed her.
# # #
Later that night Tonto returned to camp, where the Ranger was relaxing on his bedroll in front of the campfire, drinking a cup of coffee.
After tying up his horse Tonto came over to the fire and sat down without saying anything. After a moment he picked up a cup and poured himself some coffee too. The Ranger immediately sensed that something was bothering the Indian.
"Tonto ... is everything all right?" the Ranger asked. "Is Mary all right?"
Tonto nodded without looking up. "Yes, Kemosabe," he replied. "Mary all right."
Eventually Tonto looked up, and the Ranger could see in the Indian's eyes that a great struggle was going on inside him.
"Tonto - what is it?" the Ranger asked.
"Kemosabe," Tonto replied, "Tonto ... in love with Mary Livingstone."
The Ranger put his coffee cup down and sat up. "I see," he said. He had seen the relationship developing between Tonto and Mary, and he had suspected that something like this might be coming.
"Kemosabe, me not know what to do," Tonto said.
"Do you want to marry the girl, Tonto?" the Ranger asked.
"Yes, Kemosabe," Tonto replied slowly. "Me do."
The Ranger put his hand on Tonto's shoulder. "Then that's what you should do, my friend," he said. "Don't pass up a chance for personal happiness because of any false responsibility you might think you owe me. You are under no obligation whatsoever to continue to ride with me if you have a chance to have a normal life like other people have. By all means, marry the girl you love. Do what you have to do."
"But - what you do, Kemosabe?" Tonto asked.
The Ranger turned to stare into the campfire. "I'll continue to follow the path I've set for myself in life and go on alone, that's all," he said. "I made a promise to my brother and his fellow Rangers over their graves at Bryant's Gap to avenge their murders, and to fight injustice and outlawry wherever I find it - and I intend to keep that promise as long as I'm physically able to. But you are not obligated in any way to continue on with me if you have found another path in life calling you. You have to be true to your own heart, Tonto. You must do what it tells you to do."
Tonto slowly put his hand on the Ranger's shoulder.
"You true blood brother to Tonto, Kemosabe," the Indian said solemnly. "No matter what happen in future, Tonto will always be your friend."
The two men grasped each other's arms tightly in the timeless Indian gesture that symbolized the unbreakable bond that existed, and would always exist, between them.
# # #
The next afternoon, the Ranger and Tonto rode out to the Indian reservation, realizing that this would probably be their last time riding together. Neither had gotten much sleep the night before. Tonto's dreams had been haunted by his sister and his mother - as well as Mary, who always seemed to be somewhere nearby, a disembodied specter floating just out of his reach.
The last Indian student had just left the reservation school when a young woman in cowboy dress came in the front door of the school.
"Yes, can I help you?" Mary asked her.
"You sure can," the woman said. "My name is Griff. Hannah Griff. I believe you knew my two brothers."
With that Hannah drew the pistol holstered at her hip and fired point blank at Mary. She crumpled to the floor.
Not far away, at the top of a nearby hill, Tonto and the Ranger reined up, hearing the shot.
"That shot come from direction of school!" Tonto shouted.
"Come on!" the Ranger replied. They both kicked their horses into action, guiding them down the hill and on toward the school.
Down below Hannah came out of the school and jumped up on her own horse. "Hyahh!" she yelled. It took off at high speed, in the opposite direction from where Tonto and the Ranger were now fast approaching.
When Scout reached the school Tonto reined him up and leaped off him. He ran inside the schoolhouse. The Ranger kept going, blowing past on Silver, headed after the escaping woman.
Hannah kicked and spurred her horse to maximum speed, but she still managed to turn around in her saddle once or twice to fire a shot at the masked man pursuing her.
The Ranger found himself in a difficult position - he had never shot a woman before. And he still wasn't sure exactly what the woman had done. So under the circumstances his pistols were virtually useless to him. His only chance was to somehow catch up to the woman, who had a commanding lead on him.
They both rode on that way for quite a distance, Silver slowly narrowing the distance between them. Finally the woman's pistol ran out of shells. This enabled the Ranger to spur Silver on to even greater speed in order to close the gap between them. By this time Hannah's horse was seriously tiring, and it was steadily slowing down. When he was close enough the Ranger grabbed his saddle rope and twirled it up over his head. With unerring aim he flung it, and it settled down over Hannah's torso. Her sweating horse came to a complete stop as he felt the tug of the rope.
Back at the schoolhouse Tonto had raced inside to find Mary lying on the floor. A reddening stain was slowly getting bigger on the front of her dress.
"No! No!" Tonto shouted. He knelt down and lifted Mary up into a sitting position, propped against his knee. By this time reservation Indians were coming into the schoolhouse to see what had happened.
"Get medicine man!" Tonto yelled. A couple of the Indians ran outside to do that. Mary looked weakly up at Tonto.
"It's no use," she said in a faint voice.
"No! You be all right!" Tonto told her. But there was desperation in his voice. He knew that Mary was right.
"Maybe it's better this way," Mary told him. "I've seen the incredible bond of friendship that exists between you and your masked friend. I've never seen such a bond between an Indian and a white man before. That bond shouldn't be broken - by anyone. Not even me. The West needs to see loyal camaraderie like that between white men and Indians. It's this country's only hope for survival. Don't grieve, Tonto. It was meant to be this way."
"No! No!" Tonto kept repeating. He held Mary's face against his own.
"I love you, Tonto," Mary whispered in his ear. "Remember me always. But always keep fighting the kind of people that are willing to do this kind of thing to the weak and innocent, together with your masked friend."
She slumped into Tonto's arms and closed her eyes.
Tonto held her quietly for a long time, rocking her back and forth on his knee.
# # #
The next day Mary was buried next to the little wooden schoolhouse that she had come West to serve in. The Indian tribe had agreed to name the little schoolhouse "The Mary Livingstone School For Indians", in order to honor her memory. All of Mary's little students stood around the simple little wooden cross that marked her final resting place, laying flowers on it.
In the rear of the crowd of Indians stood the Ranger and Tonto. The Ranger put his hand on Tonto's shoulder, his heart hurting for his friend. Tonto smiled bravely back at him.
"We go, Kemosabe," Tonto said. "We have much work to do yet, to make West a safe place for decent people to live."
The Ranger smiled back and nodded. Both men jumped up into their saddles, and waving to the Indians they rode off.
When they had ridden up to the top of the hill overlooking the reservation Tonto reined in Scout for a moment. He turned his mount around and stared down the hill at the little cross he could still see sticking up next to the little wooden schoolhouse.
"Tonto remember, Mary," he said in a low voice, waving. Then he looked up at the clouds in the sky above him and smiled.
"Tonto always remember," he repeated.
He turned and prompted Scout to catch up with Silver and his masked friend.
THE END