Howard Hopkins: The Lone Ranger: Vendetta

His face came from his hands, blue eyes moist with stinging loss and grief behind the black half-mask he’d made from his brother’s vest.

“The nightmare again, Kemosabe?” came the deep voice of a man standing beyond the fire, at the edge of the camp. The man wore buckskins and a band about his forehead, had his back to the man the West knew only as the Lone Ranger.

For a moment the Masked Man didn’t answer as his mind struggled to make sense of that day. But the answer always came back the same: it made no sense; wanton hate and murder never did. Men like Butch Cavendish made no sense; they never would.

The gentle nickering of a great white horse tethered the branch of a cottonwood at the south edge of the camp brought him from his thoughts. A second mount, a pinto, was tethered near the white stallion.

The fire crackled and popped and the smoky musk of burning branches scented the night air.

“Yes,” the Ranger said at last. “They’ve gotten worse, more frequent the closer we get to Bryant’s Gap.”

The Lone Ranger came to his feet, leaving his brace of ivory-handled Peacemaker .45s holstered in his gunbelt next to the blanket. From habit and caution, his gaze swept over his surroundings, but the danger was minimal for the time being. No one knew they were here and any threat from stray Apache was negated by the fact the band did not stalk at night, save under an Apache moon, fearing if killed their souls would forever wander in darkness on the other side. His gaze lifted briefly to the fingernail moon above, then returned to the man standing peering out into the night.

Somewhere an owl hooted, the sound mournful. A prairie wolf’s lonesome howl punctuated the sentiment. A breeze jostled the flames and blown sand made scratching sounds along the ground.

“Perhaps you should not return to Bryant’s Gap, Kemosabe,” the man said. “Perhaps the memories are too…”

“Painful?” The Lone Ranger shook his head. “It’s been years, Tonto. Butch Cavendish is gone and my brother and those men can rest in peace.”

The Lone Ranger stepped up beside the man, who didn’t turn, merely folded his arms across his buckskin-clad chest. Strands of long black hair stirred under another vapid breeze. His deep reddish-brown features remained emotionless, though something played behind his dark eyes.

“Someone knows, Kemosabe.” Tonto’s voice came as if he were utterly convinced of the fact.

The Lone Ranger nodded, a prickle of apprehension running through his nerves—the same uneasy feeling he’d experienced the day of the ambush in Bryant’s Gap. It was vague, indefinable, but it was there.

“I’m inclined to agree,” he said. “But knows what? And who knows?”

“Trace Cooper sent that telegram to young Reid.

He asked specifically for the Lone Ranger.”

The same thing troubled the Lone Ranger. That contact had been made through his nephew and had named the Masked Man… that was worrisome. It provided a link to a man the West believed dead, murdered with five other Rangers. There were those in the towns near Bryant’s Gap who had known the Reids, remembered the massacre. Had one of them put the pieces together? But how? That should have been impossible. He and Tonto had taken great pains to leave no pieces, no trail.

And yet…

“Sam Cooper’s son…” the Lone Ranger muttered with the feeling of someone walking across his grave. “He was a bit younger than I when I met him. He might recognize me if he saw me without the mask, but I haven’t been back to Coopersville since that day and we’ve not crossed trails.”

Tonto gazed at the Masked Man, a trace of a smile on his lips. “Men see through masks everyday, Kemosabe. He had reason to send that telegram to young Dan…”

“You’re right, of course.” The Lone Ranger paused. “And Trace Cooper wouldn’t have asked us to come if there weren’t a good reason.”

“Perhaps it is a trap. Perhaps he intends to expose you.”

The Lone Ranger considered it, then shook his head. “If he wanted to do that he would have done so by now. He could have sold the story to Buntline or one of his type, or even a legitimate paperman. No, there’s some other reason. His father was a fine Ranger; more than that, he was a fine human being. The few times I met Trace he seemed like an apple off the same tree.”

Tonto frowned, looked back out into the night, a trace of melancholy on his face. “I don’t like this feeling, Kemosabe. I have not felt it since the day we tracked down Cavendish.”

The Ranger remained silent, unable to dispute his friend’s notions. Because he felt the same way, and had not been able to shake the feeling since Dan handed him the telegram. Something was wrong. Dead wrong. And somehow it related to that day at Bryant’s Gap. They’d reach Coopersville sometime tomorrow. He needed rest, but knew sleep would prove elusive for the remainder of this night. Memories were too close, to acute, too painful.

He peered at his friend and Tonto seemed lost in some world within his mind again, though he wasn’t quite sure why the Indian had been that way the past few days.

“What do you see out there, Tonto? In the night…” The Ranger’s gaze swept to the sky, its silver-chip stars cold sparks on black velvet.

“I see ghosts, Kemosabe.”

“Ghosts?”

“The Ghosts of the Bodewadmi, the keepers of the fire. They ride with frozen thunder across the black sky forest, the way they once rode the trails and plains. Proud. Free. The world closed in on them and now they are nearly gone. I feel their isolation, their separation from the soil and the lands. They scream their silent pleas to Kichimanido.”

The Lone Ranger nodded, and a wave of grief washed over him. Grief and loneliness. The loss of what was, what had been and never would be again. He had lost all that meant anything to him at Bryant’s Gap; it had been torn from him by one man. He had lost his identity, to adopt one unknown, perhaps until now, and with that came the very isolation Tonto felt of his own people.

“We have what we have now, Tonto,” he said, knowing within his soul with absolute certainty their mission was true and just and necessary.

“I do not wish to lose that, Kemosabe. This time… is different.”

Tonto was right. The immediate future would either justify the lives they had chosen, to aide those who needed it, deliver justice to those who deserved it—or it would shatter them and cost their very lives.

3

Nine days ago…

#

The plan was ready, and that excited her. This morning there would be blood, and that excited her even more. She could almost smell the bitter copper in the musty interior of the general store.

It had taken little effort to break into the place. The lock was a simple matter for her; she’d learned long ago to pick all but the most complicated with a twisted length of metal she kept in the pocket of her duster.

She eased the door shut behind her. The hour was early, and few folks were out and about on the wide rutted main street of Coopersville. Those who were paid her little mind, focused on whatever business they intended. Most were headed for the cafe and the presence of one boyish-looking woman in a low-pulled hat loitering outside the general store had not warranted their attention. Later, when asked to describe anyone who had been near the building they would not be able to do so.

There was the marshal, however, and she would take care of him soon enough, but he was not an early riser. She had learned that much from the three days she’d spent watching the store, its owner and the law-dog. She was nothing if not thorough, and she’d been planning her revenge for a long spell.

Once inside, she stood stock still for a few moments, gaze scanning the rows of canned goods, sacks of flour piled on the worn floorboards, barrels of various goods and shelves stacked with colored bottles of powders, preserves and elixirs. How common. What made a man retire from a life of law for something so plebian? It puzzled her. She would never be able to live such a tedious life. She needed the constant threat of being caught, or killed. She could never be some fancy man or cowboy’s wife. It made the blood stagnant, while hers burned hot with vengeance.