Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. I don't own The Lone Ranger or Frank or anything else. Well, I own anybody who's NOT explicitly in The Lone Ranger, and the fan theory that since you didn't see Frank die, he might have gotten away. And if you flame me, I'll eat your butt. Like, both buttocks.
One in Every Family
Prologue – Blown Away
The terrified man in the bonnet tore along the back tunnel of the mine, hearing the screaming and the shooting and the crashing. Frank wasn't the brightest voice in the choir, but damned if he was joining the angels today, he thought. Dirty hands clutched at his trousers as they tried to fall off his skinny hips, continuing to pelt forward. He had seen the Injun and the Ranger in the cave, but managed to pelt away before either of them laid hands on him. Swallowing hard and trying to keep breathing as he ran, hoping there wouldn't be gas, he started to pray. Never been a religious man in his whole rotten life, but he promised God above that if he got out of this rock maze alive, he would change. Didn't much care what it took – whatever the Lord above might as, that's what Frank would do, and proudly. He heard the explosion behind him.
The Hell only knew how he actually made it out of that cursed hole in the Earth! Frank just remembered getting shot out the mountain, sort of like a bullet out of a gun. Something in the cave had caught sparks and ignited. When he came to after a seriously hard landing, he ran his hand over his head, to make sure it was all still in one piece. The acrid "burning hair" smell in his nose told him he'd actually gotten off pretty easy from that. Drawing himself up proudly, Frank felt almost like he'd just pulled a stunt like that Ranger fella! Looking around, though, that pride fell right out his butt. He couldn't see anything but desert, sun, desert, and more desert. No landmarks, no nothing – the bonnet-topped bad-man let out a heavy sigh. Never having that great a sense of direction, he determined that where he was mostly was lost.
Well, only one way to go from here, he reckoned. After another quick inventory of all his pieces and parts, Frank struggled to get up on his pins. The first couple times, he face-planted right straight into the warm sand… Maybe he should just stay there until the vultures came and got him, he groaned internally. Nah, not worth waiting for the buzzards just yet – he shoved himself up out of the sand and shook himself off. Cracking his neck to the right and then the left returned the majority of his equilibrium to him. He turned in a complete circle and decided on a direction. "That way" seemed as good as anything else.
"Feels kinda good," he muttered to himself.
And it did, he realized. Maybe this was how that Ranger guy felt – he'd been dead once, after all, so the story said. Butch and everybody had to "know for a fact" he'd just died in that explosion. It was pretty freeing, thought Frank. Nobody knew he'd survived. For a moment, he felt sad. Bastards as they'd been, that gang of outlaws had been the only family he'd had for quite some time. Eh, screw them, his brain told him as he continued to wander off in a "that way" direction. With any luck, he'd find a new town and… do something else, maybe.
That was three days and three nights ago.
Frank had done about the stupidest thing he could have possibly done, wandering off into the desert without a bearing or even a hint of an idea what he was doing. He had just continued plodding this-side-of-blindly forward. The sun beat down on him like the wrong end of a lawman's bullwhip. At night, desert winds blew in gale forces, grinding all that itty-bitty glass into his eyes. For some reason, though, he couldn't stop moving. His legs almost plodded outside of his control. High noon on the second day and he had started to see things.
Fantastic things they were, too! He saw white clouds and blue skies and rock forms and plains and buffalo. That's where the "normal" stopped. Long stretches of black flatness cut across the plains. Metal boxes on four wheels flew down the black strips – boxes with people in them! Big boards had bright colors splashed across them, along with words Frank couldn't read. Big metal poles stuck up out of the ground with lit-up things on their ends. The buffalo were held back with fences. A tornado formed upon the horizon and Frank flung himself down on the ground, shielding his head. The funnel cloud raced along the ground and its narrow end set right atop him!
Sucked into the cyclone, Frank screamed and flailed, begging to be set down, pleading with the Lord to save him again! He whirled around and around and around, wondering when he was going to be sick or get flung over the horizon. Everything had gone gray and cloudy, frightening and dark – he couldn't tell where he was or even if he was still alive! When the hell was this dust-bag of terror going to spit him out? He tried to reach for something – anything – to hang onto, something to get him out of here, to hopefully land him back on solid ground. Dying in the desert was at least less terrifying than being sucked up into a whirlpool made of dirt and cloud instead of water!
It felt like getting hit with a railroad hammer, the way that tornado banged him down face-first on the ground. Snoot-full of sand, wind knocked out of him, and every muscle in Frank's body protested like a suffragette temperance lady on a Sunday! For a moment, he just flopped on the desert sand like a landed fish, trying to regain the ability to direct his movement. Funny, that didn't seem to work all that well – the messages saying "do this" and "move that" got lost between brain and limb. Somehow, he did manage to turn on his back before he suffocated himself in the sand. Was it just him or was the sun actively trying to tear his face off a little bit at a time, starting right between his eyes? The order to "shield eyes" just resulted in his arm flapping ineffectually.
Next moment, Frank could swear he saw the Angel of the Lord.
A small figure had appeared upon the horizon. Long hair and flowing clothes… he couldn't see the figure's face. Beside it traipsed a thing with four legs that stood to the human-shaped figure's waist. Frank started to try and right himself – at least sit up! Still, directed movement had become a thing of the very recent past to him. Besides, it probably wasn't even really there, he tried to tell himself. Everybody in the desert knew what a mirage was! Sometimes you saw an oasis, sometimes it was a pretty girl – either way, you had to know it wasn't real so it would go away! There was nothing there, he repeated sternly to himself. There was no hand on his shoulder - hand? When he opened his eyes, he saw two great big spots of brown in a face the color of dark sandstone.
The voice that came out of the little face's owner didn't speak English. It didn't speak Spanish either. It kept talking – the voice belonged to a girl, obviously very young. She seemed to speak one of the Injun languages. Well, he reckoned they might still be in Comanche territory. And besides, she wasn't there anyway, and neither was that giant mutt she had with her, so why worry? Frank tried to wave, his right arm sort of barely turning over on the sand.
"Well, hello there, little ma'am!" he tried to say – at least, that's what it sounded like in his head. Frank had always liked children. However, given that the little face tilted to one side and she looked at him in confusion, it had probably come out as gibberish. Next moment, a little skinny hand moved from his shoulder to tug on his hand. Blinking some more sand out of his eyes, Frank let the little girl pull him up to a sitting position. Hell, she was strong for such a little thing! The dog beside her blinked big honey-colored eyes and drooled at him. A big, pink, wet tongue slurped up the side of his face – Frank would have been pissed if he weren't so grateful.
"Damn dog!" he grumbled, trying very hard to wipe the slobber off his face and instead just sort of flailing. The little face split into a wide grin – she had a gap in her two front teeth – and a buckskin sleeve aided in the removal of any and all dog-spit. Frank tried to smile at the kid and hope it didn't just make him look like ol' Butch. Since the child didn't draw back, he figured he'd succeeded. The next moment, the little girl had a surprisingly powerful grip on his hand again. A pull of one, two, three, and he was up! Her tilted head and raised eyebrows seemed to expect something of him.
"Huh?" he grunted – this time very sure of what sound he had made.
Not releasing his hand, the little girl pointed off into the distance. Well, if she had made it out this far, she must know her way back, Frank reasoned. The dog wagged his scrubby tail and trotted in front of the girl. They certainly made one odd-looking little posse, thought the outlaw – an Injun girl, a wolf-dog, and him. He couldn't help but follow her. The way he figured, he could only go forward.