Dan Reid got into the liquor cabinet and uncorked the bourbon. He chugged down a jigger straight, then doubled over to cough and wheeze at the fumes of fire in his throat. When he'd barely managed to catch his breath, he poured another.
"Daniel Thomas Reid," his wife barked from the doorway of the parlor. "Just what in tarnation do you think you're doing?"
Betsy Reid charged at him in a loud swish of petticoats and a twinkle of a necklace watch pinned to her blouse. She seized the bourbon out of his hands. "Drinkin' hard liquor at high noon. What's gotten into you?"
"Uncle John brought me some tragic news. A friend is dead."
"You've known people who died before." She paused meaningfully. A small silence ensued that should have been filled by a tiny girl's laughter, a sound that would never again be heard in this house. "You've never gone off on a drinking binge."
Dan couldn't answer her.
"And where has your uncle gone to? I heated up a bowl of your favorite Texas chili and a big square of corn bread just for him."
Dan crossed the parlor to avoid her, but found the very act of walking to be a little harder than it had been a few minutes before. He gripped the fireplace mantle and stared at the locked music box next to the clock. Inside, on a cushion of red velvet, lay the silver-plated lead bullet the Lone Ranger had once given him. Dan could see it in his memory as clearly as if he'd unlocked the box and held it in his fingertips. Had it tarnished over the years, he wondered. Did it need polishing like the set of English cutlery handed down from Betsy's grandmother.
"It's his way. He never sticks around long. Never settles down."
"Bah," she huffed. "All that lone cowboy nonsense?"
"Something like that."
Betsy noticed the packet of papers on the tea table. Hand on her hip, she asked, "What are those?"
"The deeds and titles to some of his properties in various spots all over the country. They're all mine, now."
She unfolded them carefully, one-by-one, and silently mouthed the words as she read what they were. "Good Lord in Heaven. Dan, I don't understand how he can give this all away. This is inheritance we're talking, here. Don't take this the wrong way, but that uncle of yours sure looked like he needed money more than we do."
"He probably does, but he wouldn't ever take a penny from me."
"How will he survive? Honestly, Dan, a man just can't live off the land anymore. There is no more frontier."
"He'll make due. What I'm worried about is, he's so alone. He never had someone like you." Dan invited her with his arm, and Betsy walked into his side. She rested her pink powdered cheek upon his shoulder.
"He never fell in love?" she asked.
"Ain't too many women out on the cattle trails and the barren plains where the coyotes howl and the buffalo once roamed free."
Betsy chuckled softly. "I haven't heard you talk cowboy in years. That uncle of yours, barely here an hour, and look what he's done to you."
"I used to ride with him when I was younger. Before I met you."
"You never told me that."
Dan fingered the empty keyhole on the locked music box. "He was a kind of lawman."
"Really?"
"Yeah…. he was a Texas Ranger with my father. We had some thrilling times together. Brought more horse thieves and murderous outlaws in to justice than you can count. Though it was only a year, maybe two, that I rode with him. Felt like the biggest and best part of my life. Until I met you."
Betsy stroked the starched points of his shirt's collar. "So, the friend who died was one of these rangers?"
"No. He was an Indian."
"Oh, a scout?" she asked. "A translator?"
"No. Not really. Oh Betsy, how could they just shoot him?"
"Who shot him?"
"Goddamned cavalry." Dan saw her cheeks blush to bright rose, and he rapidly apologized, "Sorry. Forgive me for taking the Lord's name in vain. It's just, when I was starting out as a journalist, I covered that story for the Kansas City papers. I know what happened out there at Wounded Knee Creek. I saw the photographs. Hundreds of sick, starving, exhausted old people, and women and children, gunned down in the snow for no reason. With tripod-mounted Hotchkiss guns, no less. You crank the handle, and they fire hundreds of bullets a second. How could those soldiers chew up a crowd of unarmed people, just after Christmas no less?"
"It was horrible," Betsy said.
"To think that the man I rode with… The man I trusted like a brother… The man I respected for his courage, his forbearance and his integrity… That he was among them, doing what he always did, maybe trying to help innocent people…."
Dan sagged against the fireplace mantle and wept like a child. Grief and anger had its way with him, raking his body and spirit until he had no more tears to give. The clock sang out the carol of London's Big Ben and then chimed twelve times. Dan took several quavering breaths to come back to normal.
He raised his glass to the clock. "For Tonto, may he rest in peace."
"Tonto?" she gasped.
"Uh-huh."
Betsy whirled away from him. "A Texas Ranger? A silver mine? It couldn't be. Your uncle couldn't possibly be."
"Be what, Betsy?" he asked.
She grasped the cloisonné brooch at her throat. "Your uncle was the Lone Ranger?"
Dan shook his head to deny it, but out of his mouth came the biggest secret of his life. "Yes."