Last One Standing

by Derek Rutherford

  Nobody was there. We were alone.

  That didn’t mean they weren’t coming, but we had ridden fast and hard. Whether they were out there or not, we had to rest. The horses couldn’t go on.

  ‘Did we kill him?’ Jia asked.

  It was the first thing she had said since almost falling unconscious in the flames. At some point during the ride, early on, I assumed, she had pulled herself upright on her horse.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’

  I looked over at One Leg. He’d lost his hat, the blue felt hat I’d first seen him wearing at the cock fight and had recognized when he had flung open the door of Schmidt’s house. His head was lowered as if it was too heavy for his neck muscles. His dark hair hung down over his cheeks.

  ‘One Leg?’ I said.

  Slowly he turned towards me. His face looked yellow in the moonlight.

  ‘I think I might have shot him,’ he said. His mouth stayed open after he’d spoken as if closing it would take too much effort.

  ‘How. . . ?’ Jia said. I don’t think she was asking how he’d shot Moose, but how had he found us.

  One Leg closed his eyes. I saw his chest was heaving.

  ‘One Leg?’ I said.

  ‘Help me off the horse,’ he said. ‘I need to lie down.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I think I shot him,’ he said, and before I could dismount and get to him, he slid sideways off his horse and slammed into the ground.

  One Leg was still breathing when I got to him. I raised his head gently, just enough to get my hand under the back of his skull, to lift it from the hard ground, to hold him.

  ‘One Leg,’ I said. ‘It’s OK. Lie still.’ Not that he was able to move.

  His eyes were closed. The lids flickered briefly but behind them were just the whites of his eyes. He convulsed, but it was the slightest of convulsions as if his body didn’t even have the strength for that.

  I held him a moment longer then lowered his head, and not knowing what else to do I looked over my shoulder. Jia was off her horse and coming towards us.

  ‘Water,’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘Water might not be the best thing.’

  I saw how wet One Leg’s coat was. My hands came away slick and dark and when I opened his jacket there was so much blood that his shirt was pasted to him as if he’d been caught in a thunderstorm.

  He shuddered again. The tiniest of shudders.

  The bullet had hit him square in the chest. It was as close to being a heart shot as I could imagine.

  ‘It’s going to be OK,’ I said. But I looked up at Jia and I shook my head.

  When I looked back at One Leg I realized he was too still, the slight moving of his breathing had stopped. There was no flicker behind his eyelids, no shudders, no convulsions.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’

  He had saved our lives. He couldn’t leave us. Not now. Not after everything.

  I felt Jia’s hand on my shoulder. She knew.

  ‘One Leg,’ I said, the words obscured by something caught in my throat. ‘One Leg.’

  I leant my face close to his. I prayed that I would feel breath on my cheek. I turned my head, praying to hear that breath.

  But there was no breath felt or heard.

  One Leg was gone.

  Later, the more I thought on it, the more I realized it had been an instant-killing shot. One Leg Hawk should have died there and then outside that burning house. The bullet wound was huge and devastating. No one could take a shot like that and even stand up. Yet he had pushed Jia onto her horse, had helped me up, and then had ridden with us at full pace for however long it had been.

  It was impossible.

  But he had done it.

  And when we were safe, only then had he allowed himself to die.

  Jia and I held each other and we let tears come. For a while it felt like the tears wouldn’t stop. But the very fact of One Leg’s death, the smell of smoke on our clothes, and the burns and pains we had ourselves suffered reminded us that Mustang, and the people there, were only a few miles away.

  We couldn’t stay here, not in the open, not in a gully like this.

  So, somehow, we managed to wrap One Leg in his blanket and tie him onto his horse. I reloaded our guns and we remounted and we rode slowly and in silence, out of the gully, and toward some dark tree-lined hills in the distance.

  Again, time seemed to have no substance, and when eventually we reached the trees and stopped deep inside the cover, I had no concept of how much of the night remained.

  We laid One Leg’s body on the ground and we drank water from our skins and I filled my singed hat with water and let the horses drink. I tethered them loosely where the grass was good and then I came back to where Jia was sitting on a blanket.

  ‘You’re limping,’ she said. Her voice sounded quiet and tired and flat in the darkness.

  ‘I’m OK.’ I had forgotten about the bullet that had cut through my leg back at the house.

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  But now that she’d mentioned it, I did feel the pain in my leg. A pain sharper than everything else I felt in the rest of my exhausted body.

  I sat down beside Jia. She reached out for me.

  ‘Your trousers are soaked in blood.’

  ‘I can’t believe he’s dead,’ I said.

  There was a moment’s silence and then Jia said, ‘He said he thought he’d shot Schmidt.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We need to know.’

  ‘We need to take One Leg home. We will soon hear if Schmidt is dead.’

  ‘And if he’s not, then we will kill him.’ It wasn’t a question.

  I nodded in the darkness. One Leg Hawk was another on a growing list of people we needed to avenge.

  ‘Your boot is full of blood,’ Jia said. ‘We need to take it off.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  But she was already pulling at my boot and although my foot itself wasn’t hurt, the leg above the boot screamed when she did that.

  Once the boot was off she put it to one side and then removed the other.

  ‘You need to take your trousers off. Either that or I need to cut them. And aside from all that blood and a couple of bullet holes they look pretty good to me.’

  I tried to come up with something funny in response but my mind was blank. So I undid my gun belt and I placed the gun in easy reach, and then I undid my trouser belt and the buttons and I started to work the trousers down. Where my blood had clotted it had glued the frayed material into my wounded flesh and now, as I tore the trousers free, it felt like a dozen white-hot knife blades had all been inserted into my right calf. I inhaled sharply and held the air inside in my lungs. I squeezed my eyes closed and I heard Jia whisper, ‘It’s OK, Cal.’ Then she was pulling my trousers down over the wound and the worst of it was past. I felt cold air on my legs and I breathed again. I shivered and I lay back and rested my head on the ground and looked up at the trees and, between the branches I saw a few stars, and I thought of One Leg Hawk, and of my father.

  Jia poured cold water over the wound and it stung worse than the bullet had stung. I raised my head to look at her and saw her taking her jacket off. She was wearing a man’s shirt. In the darkness I couldn’t tell what colour, although I must have known because we’d been riding together for two days. She undid the shirt buttons and then she slipped it off just as the moonlight found its way between trees. She wore a thin white sleeveless top under the shirt, and in the moonlight I could see the lines of her body, her shoulders, her breasts, her stomach. The skin on her arms shone and looked so smooth I wanted to reach out and run my fingers down her. She tore first one sleeve off her shirt and then the other. She soaked one of the lengths of cloth in water and she used it to wash and wipe the blood away from my leg.

  ‘I’d like to use hot water,’ she said. ‘But no fire tonight.’

  ‘No fire,’ I said. My heart had started beatin
g a little harder, pushing hot blood throughout my body. She was crouched down with her back to me as she worked on my leg and her white undershirt was riding high. I reached out and touched the small of her back. She shuddered a little. I thought I heard the breath catch in her throat. But it may have been imagination.

  ‘I think the bullet went straight through,’ she said. Her voice was soft and a little lower than normal.

  I could feel her fingers on my leg, resting there.

  I spread my fingers on her back and I could feel her warmth, her softness.

  She started to twist around to look at me, but then she turned back and I felt her quickly wrapping the other torn sleeve around my leg, tying it crudely.

  Then she rested her hand on my leg above the wound, and I could feel her thumb moving slowly, making tiny circles on my skin.

  I reached out with my other hand and I held her waist. I could feel her body’s movement beneath my hands. She, like me, was breathing faster than we had been just a minute before.

  Now she did turn and she looked down upon me and although her face was in darkness I could see the shape of her eyes and her lips and her nose, I could see how her hair was haloed against the moon, and then she leaned forward and she kissed me. Her lips tasted of salt and smoke, of blood and tears. I returned her kiss and then suddenly everything from that night, the anticipation of killing a man, the shooting of what we thought was that man in his bed, the fire, the terror, the relief as One Leg had rescued us, the smoke and the crazy race to safety, and most of all watching One Leg pass away before our eyes, all swept over us and once again time disintegrated and now instinct and a deep human need took over.

  We made love and it didn’t seem wrong that One Leg’s body was lying just yards away. The sudden and unexpected passion helped drive everything else from our minds and bodies. We held each other and we kissed and we moved together as if we were one and it was proof that we were alive and that we had each other, that we each had someone, that for a few minutes amongst all the darkness, we were OK.

  And afterwards we held each other and waited for the night to pass.

  Chapter 12

  A day and a half’s riding brought us back to Green Springs. As we approached One Leg’s cabin, Grey Fox came outside as if she had been expecting us. From a distance I saw her body language change as she realized there were three horses and only two riders. I saw her reach out for support, not looking, not realizing that there was nothing to hold onto. She fell, crumpling to the ground. I saw her punch the earth several times, and even though we were still a distance away I heard her wailing.

  Grey Fox said, ‘It was the war dance. As soon as he’d performed it and looked at the smoke, he knew something was wrong. He told me he had to follow you. I said “How? You can’t even get on a horse any more.” But he could. The needles had made him feel young again.’ She looked at us and she smiled. ‘You two were fast asleep but we had a good night, that night. After the needles.’

  I looked at Jia, and there was such knowledge in our eyes too.

  I glanced at the third horse. One Leg’s body was still tied across the saddle. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  Grey Fox looked at her husband’s body, too. ‘Don’t be.’ She turned back to me. ‘He hated not being a warrior any more. This is the way he would have wanted to go. I expected it.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Jia asked.

  ‘I will take him home,’ she said. ‘To his people.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘They’re my people, too. Even though they weren’t happy with him marrying me. They said no good would come of it.’

  ‘He saved our lives,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not sure that some of his people will see that as good. I’m sorry to say it.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Jia said.

  Grey Fox looked over at the horses again. She walked towards them, to her husband’s body. Jia and I followed, but we allowed Grey Fox space. She reached out and touched One Leg.

  She turned. ‘You know he had to fight to win me?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m young, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he was old and they – none of them – were happy. There was a young one. His name was Wohali – White Eagle. He was handsome and he was strong and there was a lot to be happy about with a man – a boy – like that.’

  She turned again to her husband’s body and touched his leg gently.

  ‘This one was old, then,’ she said, looking at us again but leaving her hand on One Leg. ‘And I knew there was no future. But sometimes . . . well, sometimes it feels like destiny was calling us. He had no money and he was most probably too old for children. But there was something in his eyes and there was something in the way he was with the old and the young, with everyone really. He had been a warrior and there weren’t so many of those anymore.’

  Tears formed in her eyes.

  ‘And he fought Wohali?’ Jia asked.

  Grey Fox looked at her. ‘Yes. I don’t think it really was a fight to the death, but that’s what they said beforehand. I felt sure I would end up with Wohali, and that wouldn’t have been bad. In many ways it would have been good. But inside. Here. . . .’ She thumped a fist against her breast. ‘I knew that I felt more for Tawodi. Before the fight started I was already sad for my loss.’

  She looked back at One Leg again. ‘It’s how I feel again now.’

  The tears spilled from her eyes.

  ‘Wohali – all of them – should have known that Tawodi had learned and forgotten more about fighting than the youngsters would ever know. They don’t fight any more, do they? They – we – have had the fight beaten from us. But not Tawodi.’ Grey Fox smiled at the memory. ‘He fought hard and fair. His legs might have been slow but his hands were fast and he could read Wohali’s mind, or so it seemed. They had knives and though Wohali cut Tawodi a few times, every time he did so, Tawodi cut him twice, maybe three times. And deeper, too.’

  I thought of One Leg watching the bird fight just a few days before. It had seemed terribly cruel and pointless to me, but now I understood why One Leg might like it so much.

  ‘Eventually Wohali tripped. I think he was tiring, and Tawodi never tired.’

  Now Grey Fox looked at Jia and smiled the same smile as she’d done when mentioning the results of the needles a few minutes earlier.

  Jia smiled back. ‘A man that doesn’t tire is a good man.’

  Grey Fox held Jia’s gaze for a moment. Then she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and said, ‘Tawodi could have killed him, but he didn’t. He stepped back and he held out his hand and he pulled Wohali to his feet. I suspect Wohali wished he had been killed. It was a shameful defeat. But then maybe not. Tawodi was . . . special.’

  ‘He certainly was,’ I said. ‘I will never forget him.’

  ‘No,’ Grey Fox said. ‘Please don’t. As long as someone remembers him, as long as someone speaks his name, then he is still alive somewhere.’

  We were exhausted, as were the horses. After leaving Grey Fox – gracefully turning down her offer of a place to sleep for the night – we made it only as far as the Silver Spur. We needed food and clothes and to clean and dress my wound properly. We both wanted to wash the smoke from our bodies. But there was an echo of something Moose Schmidt had said still bouncing around inside my head.

  ‘He said he was going to St Mary’s Gap,’ I said to Jia. ‘To see my mother.’

  I was drinking whiskey. Jia said she’d try a whiskey, too. It made her cough. But after we’d both finished the first one she’d been happy to have another. I think it surprised her how good it made her feel.

  ‘It was just talk.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘He thought we were going to die. He was enjoying the moment. He wanted to make it even worse for us than it was. That’s what he does. He enjoys it the worse it is.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And anyway. . . .’
<
br />   ‘What?’

  ‘He might be dead. One Leg said. . . .’ She let the words tail off. We had both heard One Leg’s last words. But had they simply been words of reassurance, rather than fact?

  It had been impossible to see anything once we had burst from the house. The thick smoke had been billowing around the doorway and the flames had been like a wall. But One Leg had been there calmly steadying himself and shooting at something.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He might be dead. But he might not be.’

  ‘We need a night,’ Jia said. ‘The horses need a night.’

  I drank my whiskey.

  ‘Anyway, St Mary’s Gap is not like here,’ she said. ‘It’s not like Mustang. It’s . . . civilised. Your mother isn’t alone.’

  ‘Another whiskey?’ I asked.

  ‘Are we staying?’

  ‘One night,’ I said.

  ‘Then I’ll have another whiskey,’ Jia said.

  We shared a room, and we shared a bed, but we didn’t make love. It was partly exhaustion and partly drunkenness. But it was also that One Leg was dead, and although that fact had helped ignite our passion the previous night, when our bodies and our minds had needed a release from the emotions of events, tonight the fact made us melancholy and respectful.

  So we slept, and in the morning we ate breakfast, and we took our leave of Green Springs, and we headed home.

  As we rode I told Jia the details of my father’s death. She knew some of it, but I filled in the gaps. I told her of how Schmidt had tricked my father and then used his own son as a shield from behind which to shoot. I told her of how I’d seen One Leg at death’s door all those years ago, and of how it had seemed to me at the time he’d been fighting so hard to stay alive.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t all ordained,’ I said. ‘Destiny. Like Grey Fox and One Leg.’

  ‘I think so, too.’ Jia looked around as we rode, at the distant horizon, the vastness of the landscape, the stunted and dead trees, the dryness of everything. Eventually her eyes landed on me. She smiled and said, ‘Yuánfèn.’