Twister
Mirror and Image
The first thing the Ranger did was open his eyes.
Then he groaned when his body promptly informed him that it was in agony.
What... What happened?
He remembered going into the sheriff's office with the three convicts, the thunderstorms outside were getting right violent but he had a duty to return the prisoners... Tonto was upset because of it, he had wanted to take care of the convicts out in the field, and the Ranger had overruled him; he had left as soon as they entered town in the pouring rain... there was the sound of an approaching train... he remembered thinking that was odd because the rails didn't reach this far north... and then...
He groaned, his memory utterly blank, and tried to shift his weight.
That was when he realized he was under something. Confused, he twitched his hips and felt a rush of relief on his back even as he heard an uncertain shifting of weight above him.
Mercy, what had happened?
His legs were free, wherever he was, and he scissored them a few times, wiggling and wedging his hips free, and then eventually the rest of him. The Ranger was nearly out of breath when it was finished, and for a moment he just lay prostrate on the floor. His head was pounding, but it was slowly fading (he thought). Now that he wasn't trapped under – he risked twisting his neck up to see what had temporarily trapped him – the gun rack, most of the aches were relieved. His shoulder still hurt, he could feel bruises forming, but the biggest source of pain was unquestionably his foot. The Ranger could feel it swelling in his boot, and he dreaded the moment he had to put weight on it.
"Sheriff?" he tried to ask, but the word came out as a dry, dusty coughing fit that left his lungs exhausted from the effort. It was several minutes before he could try again. "Sheriff? You see the train that hit us?"
He turned around slowly, away from the gun rack, and the Ranger's eyes doubled in size as he saw the destruction that stretched before him. The desk had been swept across the office to the far corner, the ring of keys were embedded in the wall, as were several splinters of wood. One of the windows was blown in like it had suffered a TNT explosion, dust and rocks and dirt littered the room, and the only thing that was completely intact was the heavy iron of the prison bars. Beyond the bars, the wall was completely missing.
… So were the convicts.
Of all the...! All that work and they were...!
"Sheriff!"
He lunged to his feet and his ankle exploded in pain, making him stumble forward. He banged his chin on the floorboards, but with the new line of sight he saw the body beyond the desk, and his priorities completely shifted. "Sheriff...!"
Hoisting himself up to his knees, he crawled to the overturned desk, bracing his feet against the wall and bracing himself against the pain as he pushed the desk away. The sheriff was crunched into a ball, his arm bent in two places instead of one, and all the shrapnel in the wall above were in his back as well. Blood was everywhere.
The Ranger stared, shocked and still confused over what had happened. What on earth could have caused this much destruction? The keys were in the wall! Shock filled his head completely, but his body at least worked on automatic. He turned the sheriff over and straightened the man out as he could, tugging at the worst of the splinters and pulling at the drawers to see if he could find a bandana or rags or anything to wrap that horrifying arm.
The Ranger wasn't a doctor by any stretch of the imagination. He'd been back East to study law, not medicine, but he'd still grown up in the west. And anyone on the frontier had at least some basics of knowledge for setting bones, sewing up wounds, and if one was lucky, some of the herbs necessary to treat illness. "Sorry, Sheriff, this is going to hurt," he muttered, grabbing the arm and quickly pulling it, straightening the bones into place. The sheriff gave a low groan, but did not regain consciousness. The scraps of timber, blown apart by whatever had torn the jail up, were quickly used as splints, and, having not found any bandanas or rags, the sheriff's own short sleeves were pulled off to hold the splint in place.
The wall they were next to groaned ominously, and the Ranger decided it was time to get out. "Come on, Sheriff. Stay with me!" Thunder rumbled overhead as he put the sheriff's good arm around his shoulders and hauled him up. His foot protested loudly, but it wouldn't be good to stay in here any longer. The door to the Sheriff's office had been blown open, and the framing was cracked and bowed. The door swayed, but couldn't shut, which was fine for the Ranger as he had his arms full of lawman.
He took one moment to adjust his hat, which had somehow stayed with him when half the building collapsed. He had no idea what he'd see outside, and his mask always took a long explanation. Even bringing in the now escaped outlaws, he'd chosen evening and coming in the back door so that there wouldn't be any questions and suspicions of him until he'd talked to the sheriff. He was about to go out into the street he'd avoided, so a low hat would be his only protection for now.
Stumbling over the wrecked office and debris, thunder sounded overhead again, a loud rumble that seemed to shake everything.
"Sheriff!" a voice called outside. "Sheriff!"
"Stay outside!" the Ranger called. "It's not safe in here!"
"Sheriff?"
"He's unconscious! We'll be out in a minute." Every step was agony, but they needed to be out of there as the wall groaned once more. "Help me with him! Careful of his arm!"
The man at the door was the bowlegged kind who lived in the saddle. Cowboy then. "Get his legs," the Ranger said, grunting as he got to the door.
The cowboy complied and with the help it was so much easier to get the sheriff out and onto the bare street. Overhead, the black clouds still hung thickly, and off to the west, one could see the end of the storm, with the sun barely sinking below the low clouds.
"Is there a doctor in town?" the Ranger asked.
The cowboy shook his head. "No," he replied, eyes flicking down to the Texas Ranger badge that the Ranger wore proudly on his chest, inherited from his father to his brother, and finally to himself. "Doc's place is three miles out of town, Ranger."
The Ranger nodded, looking around. "What hit us?" he asked, as he finally took in the destruction of the town.
"Twister."
Oh.
… Oh.
The Ranger dipped his head and rubbed his face. Twisters didn't hit his part of Texas, but he'd heard plenty about them. They came with thunderstorms so strong as to shake your very bones and so violent that it could spark a fire. Twisters could suck up cattle, horses, men, anything it touched and drop it miles away in pieces. It was... pure destruction.
"Do we have anywhere to gather the wounded?" he asked. Because there would be wounded. In a growing town like this? With a path a half-mile wide at least of pure chaos cutting through the very center of it? There would be wounded and dead. By the scores.
"I don't know; I was coming to see what the Sheriff wanted done," the cowboy said. "Didn't know who else to ask."
The Ranger rubbed his face again. That meant he was going to have to organize things. The Sheriff was unconscious, which was likely for the best given his arm.
John Reid wasn't a leader. As a child, his big brother Dan was the one who gave the orders in their games, and after their father died, it was big brother Dan who kept the family together and became a Texas Ranger. It was big brother Dan who became the leader of his band of Texas Rangers, and had years of experience under his belt in so many things. John Reid had followed his brother, went East to be a student, and had returned to be a district attorney, his first chance at leadership. A chance stolen from him in a hot, sandy canyon, along with his life and the life of his big brother Dan.
John Reid wasn't a leader, he'd never had the chance to be.
But that didn't stop the Lone Ranger from trying to think like his big brother had.
"You know the town better than me," he said. "Is there someplace where the wounded can be brought?" The air was thick with moisture, and another rumble of thunder rolled over the sky. The Ranger risked looking up to see the clouds were significantly lighter, the rain faded from a downpour to a light drizzle.
"Doc's place has been destroyed, the whole side of the street...!"
"Focus, cowboy," the Ranger said forcefully, stepping on his foot wrong and nearly losing his balance. The sheriff was heavy. "Even the doctor's office wouldn't be big enough, we're likely to have many injuries for this. What's a big place with a lot of room to lay people up?"
"Uh... the saloon I guess. It's just up the street a way."
The Ranger nodded. "Take us there. Then find a horse and ride out to the doc's house. If we're lucky he already saw the twister rip through town and is already on his way."
"Right... this way, Ranger."
And the cowboy started tugging in the opposite direction, the shift in deadweight sending agony up his foot before he could catch himself. Another rumble of thunder sounded somewhere to the south, and a gust of wind threatened to rip his hat off which was the last thing he needed. The two of them carried the unconscious lawman up the street and through the double swing doors of the saloon. Several men were there, standing or sitting, listless. They laid out the body on the floor, and the Ranger cast a quick glance over to the bar. "We need alcohol," he said quickly, stretching out the broken arm and looking at the patchwork of blood in the poor man's back. A shaky hand with a bottle of wine appeared, and the Ranger quickly popped the cap and poured it over the various splinters and the arm, uncertain if he was right, per se, to do that, but having dim memories of that when his father had been shot when he was a boy.
He looked over to the cowboy that had helped him. "Get the doctor," he said.
"Right."
Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself up to his feet, the Ranger wincing at his foot again, and stepping out of the saloon to better assess the damage the twister had done.
He was horrified.
The town's main street ran east to west, and the entire south side of the street was one long line of destruction. The jailhouse was the only building even pretending to stand, all the others had blown out walls or crumpled hitching posts or were just piles of wood and stone. A horse was screaming somewhere, several people walking out in shock and confusion, a child was crying out in the middle of the street, and another low rush of thunder made everyone jump. One building was on fire, and nobody had even started handling that, and the Ranger realized that soon the whole street would be a fiery blaze that would consume everything.
He turned one hundred-eighty degrees and limped back into the saloon. "We need a bucket brigade!" he shouted. He pointed a gloved hand to the bartender. "You, clear the floor of tables and chairs to make room for the rest when they come, the rest of you come with me!"
Not waiting to see if his orders were followed, he instead limped back out into the light rain and going up the street, looking for a water pump somewhere. Finding one partly covered by rubble, he moved to it and shoved the boards off, gripping the pump and working it for several seconds before water started to spit out into the intact water trough. The trough itself was half empty, likely from the twister. He turned back to the saloon. "Buckets! I need buckets!"
Eventually a string of men and women arrived with buckets, and it wasn't long before a bucket brigade proper was formed, throwing water onto the fire. Listening as he pumped he learned the building was the blacksmith's, the forge always lit and likely why the blaze had started. He looked around again as he worked, trying to get a better assessment of what the destruction was, even as one thought started to niggle in the back of his mind.
He didn't see Silver anywhere, or a certain painted horse. One he was slowly learning to expect when he least expected it, but not knowing where the other was pressed at a deeper worry. His scattered memories of before the twister reminded him that they had split apart after they had entered town. Tonto had been furious that the Ranger had insisted on bringing the prisoners to the law instead of "bringing justice" when they were alone in the desert, saying that it would serve no purpose, that the men would escape, and the Ranger was once again kemosabe, the Wrong Brother. The Ranger had yet to convince the Comanche that justice didn't come in such a form, that alone in the desert was – could only be – the last resort when all other options had been exhausted. The two had fallen into a mighty argument over it as they rode in the driving rain to town. Now that he thought about it, he didn't know where his partner was, and he didn't know where he was now that the twister had leveled literally half the town. The Ranger didn't know the town well enough to know which buildings were destroyed and which were intact, and he didn't know his partner well enough to know where the Comanche would go to blow off steam.
Where...
Where was Tonto?
"Ranger! Ranger you can stop pumping now..."
Blinking, he numbly turned around to see the fire had died down, the drizzle and buckets reducing it significantly. He had to pull his arm from the pump, the muscles stiff and locked into place. Massaging his grip, he straightened and felt so much pain in his leg his vision darkened before he got control of himself. Daylight was nearly gone, and the rain was heavier now, the thunder louder. His body was soaked in humid sweat and water spray and rain, water dripping from his hat. All the men were bunched together, looking at him or around the town, milling and uncertain.
… Right.
"Okay," he muttered to himself, drawing up to his full height and physically forcing himself to put his worry for his partner aside. The half-crazy Comanche could certainly take care of himself, he would have to put his faith in the other man.
He refused to think about the consequences if he was wrong.
"Okay," he said in a stronger voice, grimacing at the tightness in his boot and the pain it brought him. "Who here are cowboys?" he asked, eyes taking in the men with spurs and bandanas. "You get whatever horses you can find and start rounding them up; they've probably run halfway over the territory after the twister, and if we need to move people to better hospitals we'll need the horsepower. Who are the ranchers? Split off into teams of three and start looking through the buildings to find survivors. Injured go to the saloon, I've already sent for the doctor, corpses go behind it for identification, and everyone else goes..." he faltered, uncertain. "The church intact?"
"Yes."
"Then everyone else goes there. Let's go."
And the Ranger limped into the first destroyed building he found.
"Anyone in here? Tonto?"
For the record, Tonto was pissed.
Stupid Ranger, stupid kemosabe.
… Stupid spirit horse!
It was all their fault that he was sitting out in the plains drenched from the downpour and watching the imbalance of nature push and shove at the clouds, the thunder shouting its indignation and the lightning twisting the clouds into tighter and tighter coils, until at last his anger was represented in a twister that slowly spun to the ground and ripped through the earth. Tonto watched from a distance, soaked through as the twister jerked left and right before building strength and moving from west to east. The late afternoon sun cast it in dim silhouette, the shape a darker grey against a lighter grey of the thunderhead. Wisps of gold hinted at the end of the thunderstorms far, far off to the west, but for now the grays of imbalance would surround them for several hours yet. The twister became stark against a lightning strike, and for a brief moment Tonto thought he saw other shapes in the force of nature, and for a split second he wondered if the monstrosity had hit the town.
He was pissed off enough that he hoped it did, and that Stupid Kemosabe got sucked in and spat out for his troubles.
Why, oh, why did that idiot insist on bringing those brigands to the nearest town to turn over to the sheriff? They had the trio dead to rights! The precious Law that Stupid Kemosabe held on such a high pedestal would have hung them anyway, what was the difference then? But nooooo, Stupid Kemosabe insisted, and insisted, and insisted, and generally made himself so annoying that Tonto was forced to relent. The Comanche had even pled to the spirit horse, Silver, and the white stallion and just whuffled and shook his head.
He was surrounded by idiots.
He couldn't stand to stay in the speck of a town longer than he actually had to, and rode off as soon as he could. Now he was sitting in the rain waiting for the Spirit Walker and his horse to return to...
Why was he waiting?
He could just leave the idiots alone together. What did they need him for? What did he need them for?
He was just finished saddling Scout when he saw another horse running, full gallop, straight at him. Tonto had enough time to mount when a flash of lightning illuminated the silhouette. Alvarez, one of the prisoners. What was he doing free?
Sighing deeply that he was left to do all the work, he angled his horse and kicked him into a gallop, riding right towards the escapee and ramming Scout into the terrified mount. Alvarez fell, cursing in Spanish before Tonto drew a gun and leveled it at the man for the second time. Dead to rights, the Mexican kept his hands up, still spouting in a language the Comanche would never understand.
"What are you doing?" he asked in English, the only uncultivated white man language he bothered to know.
"Running!" Alvarez shouted, his voice high and terrified. "Running before the Madre de Dios kills the rest of us! Santa Maria! I have never seen a storm like that! It was the Hand of God!"
Tonto hummed deep in his throat, unimpressed that the Mexican was so terrified of a simple twister. It hadn't even been that big. "You bring imbalance," he said simply, reaching up to feed his bird, "You should not be surprised."
"Please, please, por favor, don't bring me back! I'll do anything!"
Tonto's head cocked to the side slightly, before a dark grin pressed against his painted face. Making the convict quake in terror... that would surely bring balance.
John Reid hated to be alone. Growing up, as a child, there had never been a problem of being alone because he'd always had his mother, his father, big brother Dan, the townsfolk, Rebecca, the list went on and on. Either his father was teaching him (Dan always did it better) how to shoot or Collins, the half-breed, was taking him and Dan out to learn how to track (Dan always did it better), or he'd talk with Rebecca (Dan always did it better), or someone from town was showing him something. He'd never been alone.
But then his father had died.
It was sharp and painful, and even though there were still people around, John Reid had suddenly understood that sometimes you could be alone, even surrounded by people. His mother had lingered on a few more years, but ultimately died of grief shortly after her husband. And loneliness was hammered into him once more. Dan was no longer around, working as a deputy to make sure there was food on the table, the townsfolk looked at the two of them with pity and sadness, and he just went off to the fields to stare up at the night sky and try and remember what it was like to not be lonely.
It was an unspoken rule of the West. Everyone sacrificed for the youngest. That way someone had a good chance of surviving. One year after becoming an orphan, big brother Dan informed him that their parents had left some money behind, and the townsfolk had raised some as well, to send him back east for schooling.
He hadn't wanted to go. That was his home and he didn't want to leave it. Because then he'd truly be alone. But John Reid understood sacrifice. He understood it all too well. Sacrifice was to ensure some sort of greater good. And how could he deny that?
So John Reid went east for schooling. He had to work doubly hard to prove himself to those who looked down their noses at this country bumpkin who couldn't even talk properly. He dropped his plain speak and idioms, wore down his Texan drawl to faint lilt, and he hit the books with fervor. If his family and town had sacrificed to send him here, he was going to do that sacrifice honor and learn. He studied all aspects of the law, from how it was made locally all the way up to nationally, how it was enforced, criminal and civil law, the philosophies behind the making of laws and even the country.
Criminal law had come easiest. Something was either Right or Wrong. From there one made sure to carry out Justice. The politicking of the law was the hardest, because John Reid believed in Right and Wrong and Justice, but laws were often made through dealings and compromises and shades.
Through it all, he learned, and at night he would look up hoping to see the stars, the only thing left that he clung to in order to not be lonely.
While at school, John Reid learned that Dan had married Rebecca, and soon another wire came in that they were expecting a child.
And John Reid understood that even when he got home, he was still going to be lonely.
But at least that would be familiar.
His homecoming hadn't gone the way he'd wanted. There were the expected moments of awkward silence, where he didn't yet have his equilibrium of being back with all the knowledge and study he'd learned, but that didn't matter because soon John Reid was alone again.
Alone in a searing hot canyon, surrounded by corpses, slowly dying.
By the time the Ranger had realized he'd been reborn, he realized he'd also have a lot of work to do in the west. And he'd have to leave home yet again.
But he wasn't alone this time. He had Tonto. Someone who had been with him every step of the way through his rebirth. Who understood him on a level the Ranger himself didn't quite understand, despite their bickering and vastly different views. So the Ranger clung to Tonto, his half-crazy friend, because otherwise he'd be riding the trails alone.
The Ranger had had enough of being alone.
"Tonto! Is anyone alive in here?"
A quiet "help" echoed under a massive pile of debris from a collapsed wall, a woman's voice.
Still no Tonto.
The Ranger held back a sigh and stepped back to the street.
"We have another live one!" he called. "A woman!"
"That'd be Mrs. Sloan," replied Mitch, the tanner. Mitch had been the first person to realize that the Ranger was acting as leader, organizing people into teams, and Mitch quickly started acting as the Ranger's aide, knowing who was who, and providing a buffer for anyone who asked why the hell a Texas Ranger was giving the orders in Oklahoma.
"Help us!" came another cry as a woman came running down the street with a small bundle in her arms. A child.
Mitch rushed forward and the Ranger limped up behind, checking to make sure his hat was down and covering his mask. The woman laid the child out on the ground and the Ranger quickly knelt down.
Back east, doctors were easy to find. Out west, that wasn't the case. Anyone on a ranch had the basics of some medicine. The Ranger himself had such knowledge, but he hadn't used it in the nine years he was back east, and his crash course reintroduction was given to him by a half-crazy Comanche. Mercy, he needed Tonto right now. "Mitch, see if the doctor is here yet," he said, sending the tanner off running while he unwrapped the bundle. The baby was utterly still, devoid of motion and, yanking off a glove, he couldn't feel the child breathing. Desperate to curse but too well trained to do so, he leaned back and ran his ungloved hand over his face, trying to think back. The doctor in Colby... talked about still births... read an article... choking? Turning the baby over, terrified that he was doing more damage than good, pressed the tiny chest against the flat of his hand and took a deep breath. "I hope I remember this right," he muttered, before slapping the back of the baby once, twice, three times before the mother grabbed his hand.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
The Ranger broke the grip and turned the baby over again, feeling for air. Nothing. He got exactly two more slaps in before the irate mother was shrieking at him, cursing and trying to pry her precious baby away when they both heard a tiny cough, a deep breath, and an ear piercing wail.
The Ranger took a deep breath. Crisis averted.
"Take him to the doctor at the saloon," he said softly, handing the baby back. He gave her a toothy, reassuring grin, meeting her eye and nodding. Her eyes tripled in size and she clutched her baby close, losing color as she backed away in fright. What...?
The mask.
He'd looked her in the eye instead of keeping his hat down. Now he really wanted to curse.
Pulling the white brim down as far as he could stand, he took a breath and high tailed it back to the building. Last thing he wanted to hear was the sound of a mob wondering why there was a masked Texas Ranger in Oklahoma, and who he was tryin' to rob.
"Help..." came from under the rubble.
"I'm coming, ma'am," the Ranger called, limping to the collapsed wall. "Are you hurt?"
There was a soft cough. "Don't think so..."
"I understand your name is Mrs. Sloan?"
"Yes," was the soft reply. "Was cooking dinner when this damnation arrived..."
The Ranger couldn't quite help smiling, because his stomach was also very empty. "Well let's get you out of here. I don't think anyone's started cooking for all the teams digging people out and you can help out with that. Get some water boiling for bandages and needles and thread."
"That sounds like a plan, Mister," she replied.
The Ranger lit a match to get a better look at the rubble and see what needed moving. "Can you describe where you are?" he asked, eyes roving the debris to try and determine what could be moved safely.
"It's pitch black, son. I can't see a thing," Mrs. Sloan retorted.
"Really?" the Ranger replied lightly as he lit another match. "My mother could walk the house in the middle of the night without a candle or lantern and know if something was out of place just by feel. You mean you can't do that?"
There was a cough and a small chuckle. "Good point, Mister," she said. There were the sounds of some shuffling and she started to describe what was around her. A sofa, tilted somehow, against a wall and the floor beneath her was covered in broken china. "It was my grandmother's..." A picture started to form in the Rangers mind, a small, triangular hallow of space like a prism. She was lucky she wasn't hurt. It would make getting her out easier.
"Ranger, thought we'd need a lantern," Mitch returned bringing with him light, which the Ranger was grateful for as he didn't have enough matches to keep this up.
"Thanks."
"That baby you saved," Mitch continued, lifting the light to see the debris pile in this home, "the mama is shouting from on high that an outlaw saved her child."
The Ranger, sitting on the floor and clearing a small path of debris so that the woman could be dragged out, paused, his shoulders tense.
He understood why his mask would never come off. He needed to be unrecognizable, and a big black domino mask did a great job of hiding and drawing the eye away from any of his distinguishable features. His mask protected Rebecca and little Danny, and the town of Colby. But the mask, necessary as it was, made introductions very hard. He always entered through back doors and didn't enter towns until night so that he wasn't noticed. It made talking with lawmen very difficult, but it was the price he was willing to pay to do what needed to be done.
That didn't stop it from being awkward and tiring every time he had to explain it.
"I suppose she didn't see my star?" the Ranger replied.
Mitch gave a short bark of a laugh. "Of course not. That mama is Emma Hancock. She ain't exactly the most observant person in town."
"Mitch Dawson! What an awful thing to say!" Mrs. Sloan called out from under the rubble. "She needs spectacles, we all know that, but there just aren't any this far out from the cities!"
The tanner ignored her. "Still, quite a few people are wondering why a Texas Ranger is this deep into Oklahoma."
"Passing through," the Ranger replied. "Stumbled on a small gang that were robbing a ranch, oh, ten miles or so from here. We'd caught them and this was the nearest town to bring them in. The sheriff and I were talking about evidence for the trial and if I needed to stick around to testify when the twister hit."
And he had been hoping he wouldn't need to testify. A masked man on the stand, that would go over quite well with the jury. It didn't matter now.
"We?" Mitch asked.
"My friend Tonto and I."
"Tonto... The name you've been calling for in every house we've been searching?"
"Yes," the Ranger replied, pulling out a chair and stopping for a small breather. "A Comanche friend of mine. We separated when we came into town. I don't know where he is or if he's alright."
The worry surged forward and he worked to set it aside. Panic never did anyone any good and it wouldn't help unbury Mrs. Sloan now, or get him to the next building to find Tonto.
"Don't worry, Ranger," Mitch said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "The townsfolk will keep an eye out."
And the Lone Ranger turned to offer a grateful smile, and to show that he was indeed, masked.
"I'll be damned," Mitch muttered, his eyes widening.
"Every lawman pays a price to enforce the law," the Ranger said. "My price is a might steeper than most." The tanner just sort of stared, and the Ranger turned back to the rubble. "We've almost got you, Mrs. Sloan. Just a few more feet."
Once Mrs. Sloan was free, the Ranger and Mitch helped her to the street and set her off to the saloon so she could start cooking. The doctor had finally arrived and was inventorying all the wounded. It would likely be a while before he could set up a proper triage, but he'd have plenty of help as people kept arriving and getting organized with whatever jobs the Ranger suggested when he sent them there.
The Ranger was hiding behind his hat again when a boy barely into his growth spurt came running up.
"The boarding house! The boarding house just collapsed!"
Tonto finished tying the terrified Alvarez to the iron bars of the half-destroyed jail. The convict was somewhere between shrieking and praying and cursing – all of it high pitched and loud, but Tonto dutifully ignored him, instead savoring his terror and looking up to the clouds, seeing them dissipate as balance began to return. Satisfied, he turned to go before he heard a soft whinny, and turned to see Silver inside the jailhouse, one hoof pawing at an overturned gun rack.
The Comanche remembered he was pissed off at the spirit horse for picking such an annoying spirit walker, and turned to leave. Scout however, was blocking the entrance with his large body, and Tonto watched the horse exchange a gaze with Silver, the white stallion nodding in approval. Of course the horses would gang up against him. He glared at his mount, frowning in contempt, before admitting defeat and turning back to Silver.
The white stallion backed up, turning his large head and nosing the gun rack, the pile of rifles and hand guns. Tonto looked at the weaponry skeptically. Silver sighed and pawed his hoof through the pile, and Tonto blinked when he saw a familiar grip. Kneeling down in the dying light, he reached to the pile and got his hand around an otherwise nondescript six-shooter. With practiced ease he disassembled the barrel, and saw the telltale silver bullets loaded inside.
Why had kemosabe left his gun here...?
Probably another bad trade. The Ranger was, by far, the worst trader Tonto had ever seen (and yes, that was including his most disastrous of trades that had cost him everything). Every Indian on the plains understood how to trade and, to Tonto's knowledge every white man in existence knew how to cheat. The Ranger, however, defied everything he knew, because the man didn't trade – he gave things away.
His time, his expertise, his assistance, his advice, he gave all of it away whenever it was asked of him – and even when it wasn't asked of him. He was always the first to try and settle disputes when he saw them, regardless of the fact that his mask – more often than not – made everything worse. The Ranger always believed the best in everybody and just assumed that everyone would do the right thing. He even had the nerve to be disappointed when, inevitably, he was proven wrong. Tonto had never seen such a bad trader, and he was slowly coming to the conclusion that the Ranger wasn't the Spirit Walker. He was just an idiot.
Still... Tonto could not conceive of a reason for the Ranger to just give away his gun. Well, the gun perhaps but certainly not the bullets. The silver bullets had been the Ranger's idea to start, a way to cure the cursed silver mine and bring balance to nature. They were precious to both of them, and not to be just doled out to whoever fancied them.
Unless kemosabe really was that stupid.
The Comanche looked up at Silver, eyes narrow. The horse turned his head and looked out to the street, both ears intent on whatever was out there.
Pocketing the gun, Tonto stepped out into the late evening light.
The dust from the collapse was massive in spite of all the rain that had fallen in the last three hours. It coated the Ranger and his default assistant Mitch, leaving them coughing and their soaked clothes muddy and gritty. The Ranger could see at a glance that getting in through the ground floor would be difficult at best, impossible at worst. He turned to the tanner.
"We need more men," he said. "Grab all the teams you can and get them here."
The shorter man darted off in agreement, and the Ranger limped his way around the perimeter of the building. The main door frame was bowed, he yanked at the door and couldn't get it to budge. Rubble was all he could see at the windows and, limping through a narrow and precarious alley, saw similar problems all along the perimeter of the building. That meant the only way to go in was to go up.
The Ranger looked down at his injured foot. He'd lost track of the squishing sounds inside his boot as it slowly filled with blood. His calf was bulging over the tip of his boot from the swelling, purplish and ugly. Pursing his lips, he closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, taking a deep, gritty breath. His leg throbbed with his heartbeat, and he drew himself up, thinking about the people trapped inside, the dangers they faced, and knew he couldn't let it go.
Less than thrilled, he put his weight on his bad leg (and sending pain coursing through his body) to lift his good one up to the cracked frame of a window and pushed himself up, his arms flailing up before finding a grip in the siding. It took perhaps twenty minutes to climb his way up to the third story, navigating shattered windows, exposed beams, loose siding, and falling bricks before he found a window he could crawl through and collapsed onto what must have been the landing of the stairs. He lay there, panting in exertion, and took several moments to collect himself enough to realize he could hear voices below.
"Hello?" he called out. "Tonto? Anybody down there?"
"Hello?" came the reply, a frightened young voice. "Who's up there?"
Not wanting to try and answer that question ("Hi there, I'm a masked Texas Ranger in Oklahoma looking for my Comanche partner who wears a stuffed bird on his head." The Ranger wasn't an idiot.) he instead called down, "How many are down there?"
"There's me, an' Lily, an' Sarah, and Ma, an' Mr. Lincoln who runs the General Store, an' this weird guy who came in after the twister an' scared all the adults."
Three kids, their mother, a man, and... who? The Ranger fumbled through what was left of his matches lighting it and seeing a lantern near him. Reaching out, he lit it and slowly made his way across the landing. He saw another open window to the main street, and by it was an open door he tentatively leaned through. He was grateful he didn't step through, a massive black chasm opened out beyond his feet and the clearing sky yawned out above him. "Whoa..."
"Hey, I can see you Mister!"
The Ranger gave a wan smile, letting his eyes adjust to the light as he held the lantern high over his head. Shadows stretched everywhere, and all he could make out at first was a pitch black mess of angles and jagged lines and foreign shapes. He couldn't imagine the debris below him ever assembling into a boarding house.
"You want to wave your hands or something?" he called out and, in the dim light, he saw a tiny pair of hands connected to a dust covered little girl as she climbed the pile of rubble. Her two sisters joined her, but none of the adults did. Mindful of scaring the children, he asked, "Are the others... stuck or something?"
The tallest shook her head, a dirty braid swinging back and forth. "Ma's sleeping under one of the beams, and Mr. Lincoln is sitting on the scary guy."
"And what's the scary guy look like?"
The girls all frowned, the Ranger could practically hear it, when the spokes-girl spoke up. "He had an awful scar on his neck. He musta cut himself shaving an awful lot."
Belleieu, one of the convicts. He pressed his lips into a thin line, remembering the empty jailhouse. Where were the other two? Frowning, he edged along the edge of the massive hole, trying to get a better look. "You said Mr. Lincoln is sitting on him?" he asked slowly.
The smallest nodded smartly. "Sittin' on his shoul'ers!"
The tallest added, "Who are you, Mister?"
"I'm a Texas Ranger, miss," he called out, "and I'd be much obliged if you just sat tight for a second."
"You can't be a Texas Ranger, you don't talk like a Texan!"
Curse those Boston colleges!
He didn't even deem the accusation worthy of a response, backing out to the slightly more secure landing and to the main street window. Sticking his head out he saw Mitch with a swarm of men milling about the boarding house, uncertain what to do. "Hey!" he called down.
Everyone startled.
"How in tarnation did you get all the way up there?" Mitch demanded.
The Ranger ignored that. "We got a half dozen people in here," he said. "I'm going to need a rope to get down there. One of them is a convict I brought in, someone'll need to be on guard when he gets out. Also, the mother sounds like she's injured. I'll know more when I get down there. Now where's that rope?"
The men below scrambled, and a rope was eventually tossed up.
Properly armed, the Ranger limped back across the landing and through the door to the giant hole. Moving the lamp around slowly, he couldn't find anything secure the rope to, and was forced to back up and tie off to the rails of the landing. Once that was done, he limped back to the edge and lifted the oil lamp up. Mindful of the children, he reached back to a decade ago, before he had sacrificed his essence to fit in to the East. "Well, now," he said in his old drawl. "Would you fine young ladies mind catching this rope I'm 'bout to throw down?"
The girls giggled, and the Ranger threw the rope out into the dark chasm; they cheered when they caught the rope and the Ranger secured the oil lamp as best he could, hoping it didn't slide on the sloped floors, and began climbing down. The floors were jagged, sharp splinters of wood, dangerous to navigate, and every shift of the rope terrified him for fear of something dislodging. He saw a dry sink barely staying put on the second floor, and he dread the thought of it falling into the hole he was lowering himself into. Still, the descent was quick and problem free, and the girls clapped happily when he at last hit the pile of debris. "Ladies," he greeted, putting one a smile in the dark shadows.
"Pin," the youngest, perhaps four, said.
"That's right," he said, nodding and tugging at his lapel to show off his father's pin. "See? Only Texas Rangers get to wear these. I went to school back east, though, so I don't sound like most rangers." The girls squealed in delight. "Now, can you show me where your ma is? And Mr. Lincoln? Don't tell me he's that guy who was President?"
The girls giggled again, and gleefully slid down the pile of debris, seeing the mass of destruction as a game instead of a dangerous maze. The Ranger followed at a more sedate pace, ducking under a massive floor beam and deep into the shadows. His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. A few feet beyond the beam the shell of a room took shape, and that was where the adults were. The four year old moved immediately to the mother, trapped under a floor beam and unconscious. Belleieu sat in a corner by another gas lamp, a bloody rag wrapped around his head and holding his arm close to his chest. A man, obviously Lincoln, watched the convict with a gun at the man; a gas lamp at his feet. The Ranger pulled his hat down low again and put on a smile.
"Mr. Lincoln, I assume," he said in a light voice. "It's good to see that Mr. Booth seemed to have missed."
"If only that were true," the general store owner said. His eyes flicked over and immediately saw the pin. "But it's good to see you, Ranger. You can take this piece of scum off our hands before he scares the girls any more."
Belleieu looked up and paled. "You!" he moaned, leaning away from the Ranger. "Don't tell me that Injun's off in the shadows again, I don't reckon I could survive another fright like 'at."
"Sorry, just me this evening," the Ranger said, his insides twisting with the lack of knowledge of Tonto's whereabouts.
"Mister, you work with an Injun?" the oldest asked in wide-eyed wonder. "And he ain't scalped you yet?"
"Common misconception," the Ranger said, rankling at the insult of his partner. "White men spread rumors like that to scare good people like you all into chasing the Indians off their lands. I've found the Comanche very reasonable, patient... and accepting of the inevitable fate the white man has planned." Memories of the slaughter at the silver mine filled his mind, and Tonto's silent pain, and burying all the bodies. He would defend the natives whenever the opportunity arose. He had to. He turned to the convict. "Belleieu, it looks like I'm taking you in. Again."
"Just don't scare the horseshit outta me again," Belleieu pleaded. "I ain't gonna survive another fright like that."
The Ranger said nothing, nodding to Lincoln and the store owner nodded back, getting up and covering him as the Ranger moved in closer to the convict. "Sounds like you were doing the scaring this evening," he said, hauling the wounded criminal to his feet.
"Twister broke m'arm," Belleieu said. "But you an' the sheriff were out cold. Had ta get away while I could. Thought I could hide out here..."
"And scare innocent little girls in the process."
"Didn' mean t' scare 'em. They snuck up on me. I had to shut 'em up after that."
Not wanting to reply to that, they took the second gas lamp and maneuvered through the darkness to the debris pile. "Can you climb with that arm?"
"... No. It's broke."
Great.
Grabbing the rope, he wrapped it around the convict's torso, under the armpits, before taking a length of the rope and securing his hands. Belleieu moaned as his hands were secured behind him, making the Ranger offer a polite, "Sorry," before testing the rope and hopping up. The climb, of course, took much longer than the descent. Reaching the top, the Ranger began the tedious process of hauling two hundred pounds of effectively dead weight up three stories of treachery. It wouldn't have been much of a problem, save the fact that he had to brace both feet against the buckled doorframe to do it, and the first time he realized how much pressure he was putting on his bad foot he nearly blacked out. As it was, he grit his teeth and hoped Tonto wasn't nearly as injured as he seemed to be. Or trapped. Or dead...
He shook his head.
Belleieu was silent for the ascent, mostly, and had a rather glassy look to his face when he was at last pulled up. The Ranger braced his foot again to haul the semi-conscious man to his feet, grimacing as he limped to the window. "I've got the convict!" he called out.
"Great, Mister!"
The Ranger looked around. "What, you couldn't get a rope or a pulley set up?"
"Been trying, Ranger," Mitch said, "But it's too unstable. We all reckon it'll just pull the whole wall down, an' we can't risk it."
"And it didn't occur to anybody to get a hay cart?" he asked.
"What for?"
"To fall in to?"
Everyone looked sheepish.
Tonto followed Silver out to the street and then down to the saloon. There, he paused in the shadows and allowed himself a moment of wonder as people scurried about. From inside the saloon and spilling out on the streets, the citizens of the small town were all organized and buzzing about. Women had several cook fires going, boiling towels and bandages and needles and thread that others were using on those who needed stitches who were in lines in front of each seamstress. Those with broken bones were all gathered together, organized by arm or leg that was busted, with a harried doctor and a pair of nurses, checking over each one as boys were bringing over broken planks of wood to use as splints. Behind the saloon, men were dragging the dead, laying them out peacefully to await identification once the morning came and the carpenter had time to start building pine boxes.
The sun had set and torches were all set up and there was a quiet organization. People were still coming down the street, men dragging the injured as they went from house to house searching for anyone else injured.
Tonto had to admit, to himself and never aloud, that he was impressed. The white man had a thick strain of greed and selfishness within him, and it was strange to see a community come together to help one another the same way an Indian tribe would. He stayed in the shadows, observing the hustle and bustle, content to wait and watch for kemosabe to appear, then quietly pull him aside and get away from this destroyed town.
Silver, however, would not let him. The spirit horse's massive head shoved him roughly in the back and Tonto tripped forward into the torchlight. He turned to glare, but the horse was already gone. He tried to head back to the shadows, but it wasn't to be as a woman had spotted him and bustled over.
"Are you alright?" she asked, guiding him back to the makeshift hospital. "I don't see any blood or bruising... Are you hurt in any way?"
"... No," Tonto replied.
"Well then you can help us. You're a native, so you probably know the herbs around here better than we do," the woman kept pulling him along. "You can tell us what's good for the aches and pains that everyone's going to have in the morning."
Tonto grunted in response.
"Annabelle!" A teenage boy ran forward. "Is that an Injun?"
"Matty Hillerton!" the woman said in a scolding voice. "That's no way to talk to anyone!"
"But he has a bird on his head!" the boy retorted, crossing his arms.
"That's no reason to point it out!"
"But he must be Tonto!"
All at once silence seemed to descend around them, as many people looked up and started to stare. Tonto, normally the dispenser of silences that made others awkward, didn't much care for the reversal where several people were giving out silence to make him awkward.
"Sir," the Annabelle woman turned, "are you Tonto?"
"... Yes..."
"Oh thank goodness!" she let out a sigh of relief. "That Ranger has been worried sick about you. He's been searching every building calling out for your name to make sure you're alright."
Tonto kept his stoic silence, and completely and utterly ignored that tiny, miniscule, infinitesimal twinge of guilt that the Ranger was so concerned about him.
"Matty, where is that lone Ranger now?"
"He's helping bring people out of the boarding house!"
"Well, go tell him that his friend is here and fine!"
Tonto's hand whipped out and grabbed the boy's shoulder, stopping him. "You do more here," he said softly. "Help injured."
And he headed down the street to go find a boarding house. It seemed that kemosabe, for all his infuriating difference of opinion with Tonto, would need help excavating people from the collapsed buildings.
The Ranger took a moment to breathe down in the bowels of the collapsed building. He had to admit a moment of guilty pleasure in throwing Belleieu over the balcony down into the hay cart below, and all the children had been thrilled in jumping down to the softness below. But for now, the Ranger was down with Lincoln, looking at the girls' mother.
"Ranger, you've been a gift from God, mask or no mask," Lincoln said softly. "I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't shown up."
"Don't thank me yet," the Ranger replied. "We still need to get her out." He took off his hat and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. His foot was still throbbing and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep moving on it without doing permanent damage.
The thought was brief, however, when he and Lincoln did a quick and dirty job of bracing and wrapping the mother's broken ribs and leg, wiping matted blood from her face as they unburied her from the ruins of the boarding house. He had no right to complain in light of her pain, and so he ignored his foot and finished wrapping her thigh. Lincoln worked on securing her as best they could without risking more injury to her, and at last the pair was as done as they could be, and were climbing their way up the rope.
Lincoln braced himself against one side of the landing doorframe, the Ranger against the other, and they slowly started pulling the injured mother up. She never made a sound, and the Ranger was glad that the effort went off without a hitch. The walls were starting to creak around them, and he knew they didn't have long.
Mitch and the others were waiting below. They had repositioned the hay cart yet again – after a hoodlum and three girls, the tanner said they were at last at the right spot for an injured woman.
"You ready?"
"Sure thing, Ranger!"
He looked to Lincoln. The store owner nodded. Holding their collective breathes, they hung the woman as low as they could; Lincoln was praying and they let go. She landed perfectly., Mitch and the others quick to collect her and whisk her away to the doctor at the saloon. Lincoln followed soon after, and then the Ranger took a deep breath and jumped himself. The hay was soft, and he landed on his back to prevent more damage to his legs.
The Ranger was just climbing out when he made out the dissonant sound of galloping hooves. Looking east, he saw a veritable confluence of horses, sheep, and pigs as they either cantered or trotted or ran through the main street. The cowboys had finally gathered up the herd.
"Hey Ranger! The fencing for the horses is busted; what you want us to do with 'em?"
In this, at least, the Ranger had experience. "Put them in the corral anyway. The familiar ground will settle them some, and they can be tied to the fences that are left. Feed the sheep and pigs to keep them in place, then see about fixing the fence, unless you want to hunt strays all night."
"Sure thing, Ranger."
The cowboy rode off, yipping at a half dozen horses back down the street. Mitch the tanner came up to ask a question or make a report. The Ranger limped over to him, navigating the horse droppings now fresh on the street, the occasional rider moving past. The Ranger was about to ask what was up when he saw Mitch's force pale and take a terrified step back.
"All right, Ranger. Turn around slow-like."
The Ranger froze, slightly surprised to hear Carter, one of the convicts' voice. Doing as told, he saw Carter on a horse, gun in hand, glaring down at him. The Ranger pressed his lips together, angry at himself. He should have known the other two would still be around. The convicts should have been a priority, not the town. Except he couldn't walk away from people in need. Tonto got after him all the time for it, but the Ranger was simply incapable of not giving a helping hand if he was able. It was why he'd become a lawyer, why he'd moved to DC, and why he ultimately moved back home to Texas. He wanted to help.
And now he was paying for it.
"Carter," he said, deadly serious. He moved his hand slowly, gesturing for Mitch to move away.
"Where are my partners, Ranger?" the killer asked in a calm voice.
"Belleieu is injured, probably with the doctor in the saloon. I don't know about Alvarez."
The convict snorted. "Too bad."
"I'm going to take you in, Carter," the Ranger said, standing straight.
The former prisoner snorted. "I'd sure like to see you try. Busted foot, tired from all the civic duty horseshit, no horse, and no crazy redskin to back you up."
"Half-crazy," the Ranger corrected.
Carter cocked his gun, the noise menacing in the silence, staring down at the Ranger.
"You won't get away with this," the Ranger said.
"Killin' you? Wouldn't be the first."
The Ranger smiled coldly. "I already died once," he said. "Likes of you can't kill me."
"We'll see about that."
The Ranger jolted for his gun, faster than the eye could see, faster than Carter could pull the trigger, and realized too late that he didn't have his gun. His eyes widened in surprise and he had enough time for his mouth to form an "oh". Then the bullet impacted in his shoulder, high and to the left, above an older, deadlier gunshot wound. The Ranger gasped and twisted with the hit, spinning around on his bad foot that at last decided it couldn't handle his weight and his entire body buckled to the ground.
Everything happened very quickly after that.
Tonto quickly moved to the board walks as the horses and livestock were herded through the street, cowboys and herders whooping and maneuvering the animals to a corral at the end of the main street. Once the mass had thinned, Tonto looked down to the street to see the distinctive white hat of the Ranger, limping along severely with a foot that the Comanche could tell even at this distance was swollen and probably broken.
He also saw Carter, the ring leader of the three bandits they had captured, on a horse with a gun.
Tonto froze.
It was not often that the Great Spirits took over his body, but when they did it was a sign that things were about to happen. He stilled, every inch of him desperate to move in and get in the way, but his body would not move, and so he watched Carter make his demands. He watched the Ranger, standing tall even with his busted foot, offer little more than bravado. The Ranger's gun burned in Tonto's hand, but still he could not move. People gathered around him, edging along the sidewalks and watching the exchange, whispering to themselves.
"You won't get away with this," the Ranger said.
"Killin' you? Wouldn't be the first."
"I already died once. Likes of you can't kill me."
"We'll see about that."
And then the killer fired, and Tonto watched his... he wasn't sure what to call the man, but he watched him fall heavily to the ground.
And then he watched the entire town react.
"He shot the Ranger!"
"He shot the Ranger!"
"Get him!"
"Lincoln, where's your gun?"
"Grab his horse!"
"Get a rope; is the sheriff awake?"
"Where's the doc?"
"Pull him down off the horse, tie him up."
"Where do we put him?"
"Hang him!"
"After all the effort that lone Ranger put in catchin' him? Naw, put him in the jail!"
"We'll tie him to the rails if we have to."
Everyone was moving, shouting, shoving, a sea of humanity surging to the killer on the horse, pulling him down and grabbing him and yanking him; Carter never had a chance, and soon the mob – no, not a mob – yanked him down the street, seven or eight people holding him down and dragging him to the ruined jailhouse while women corralled their children and a few tentatively went to the fallen Ranger. Tonto moved as if the world were in slow motion; his eyes took in all of it with detached, clinical confusion, uncertain when the white man had become so... he wasn't sure what the English word for it was. Wholesome, perhaps? Honored? And yet as he moved as the Spirits dictated he sensed what he was really seeing was a trade. A trade for what?
He looked down, to find himself crouched above the Ranger.
Ah. That made a kind of sense.
The Ranger looked up, his eyes glassy with pain, before focusing on the Comanche.
"Tonto...?"
He nodded.
And the toothy, white grin he gave inspired the native – against all logic - to return the smile.
"What took you?" he asked, his voice cracked and slightly giddy.
"I watched you trade," he said simply. "You drive hard bargain."
The Ranger grinned through the pain, looking at the Comanche in blank incomprehension, but smiled just the same; and Tonto realized that, while the Ranger did not understand him just yet, in time he would. And Tonto... He looked forward to it, because it also meant he would come to understand this infuriating Spirit Walker. Even now, in control of his own body, he reached down and in a rare show of affection touched the wounded man's shoulder.
Tonto had learned just how the Ranger traded. The man paid first, going out and helping people and leaving positive impressions in his wake, getting side-tracked with all sort of misadventures and always leaving with a tip of the hat and a polite, "Adios." He was paying his price in advance, and in return the people he helped would do... something like this. They would save his life. They would do his job for him. They would help him the way he had helped them. It was not like any trade Tonto had ever seen before, and he considered himself the best of traders.
Perhaps... perhaps he could learn from the Spirit Walker, just as he was learning from the Comanche. Perhaps that was why the Great Spirits had attached him to this man. Infuriating, irritating, idealistically stupid as the Ranger could be, perhaps kemosabe was not so wrong a brother. Perhaps Silver really was right in choosing him.
Tonto saw the horse across the way, hidden in a narrow alley, and the animal nodded his head.
And the Comanche smiled again.
Author's Notes: Though I understand why critics said what they did about the LR movie, the two of us found it enormously entertaining. When we were kids our da got us hooked on old black and white serials, and by far our favorite was the Lone Ranger. We still have a handful of episodes on VHS even though we don't have VHS players anymore. We knew the first three episodes backwards and forwards, and the things the movie kept in contrast to things the movie changed were great. They made a modern movie while still echoing the 50s morality, and we loved watching it.
This is actually not the first fic we wrote, there were two other short stories that were supposed to go up before this, but alas our harddrive crashed and we lost them both. We may one day rewrite them from scratch, but not for now. This is a shot at an epic scope that falls way short, but in the end we found the story we were looking for: how Tonto might realize that the Ranger's idealism and high-horse morality doesn't make him naive or stupid, but rather just playing a very different game.
This story is kind of like a certain chapter in our AC1 novelization, just on a much smaller (?) scale. Gosh, we didn't even think of that while writing it... cool.