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It’s not… love, so much as a helpless affection, almost awful in its relentless warmth. It’s familiarity, home- among the red rock walls and endless rolling sand. It’s grit behind his teeth when the wind blows, and grains of dust in his eyes where they peer out from under the brim of his hat.
It’s not the same hat- hasn’t been for a long time now- the old one lost to a close brush with robbers in a funnel between a gorge and a waterfall. John still has the scar from the broken branch he fell onto- ropy and twisted over his shoulder blade.
He wonders, sometimes, what Dan would think if he could see him now- battle hardened; baptised into the wild of the western landscape by blood, smoke and silver. If he’s still call him ‘little brother’ and smile that old smile he’d use when John said something stupid.
“Have changed,” says Tonto one night, the stars overhead like needle-holes in gingham. The Comanche prods the fire with a stick. At his feet, the whiskey bottle sits, abandoned.
John squints at him. His eyes are burning from tiredness. It’s been a long few days- the arm of the law longer, though no less corrupt for it. He feels as though it’s futile; as if he’s a struck match, racing towards the end without brakes. Maybe he should just give up and go home.
“What’s changed?”
Tonto tips his head back to offer the claw-moon a side-eye. John waits. There’ll be no rushing the Comanche, he knows that well enough by now.
He’s reaching for the whiskey bottle, leaning forward, when Tonto says, “You.”
“Me, what?”
“You have changed.”
John considers that- takes a sip of the whiskey. It’s rye, and it burns all the way down. John coughs. “Everyone changes,” he says with a wheeze.
Tonto hums.
John goes for another sip, then stops. “That a good change or bad change?”
Tonto pulls a handful of seed from his pocket and lifts it to his crow’s beak. John rolls his eyes. That damn bird’s endured better than HE has.
The desert lies silent under the veil of the night, reduced to a land of black powder and looming shadows of the cliffs and canyons. The air carries a chill with it, like a mother carries her child, as it whispers through the stunted joshua trees.
John lies back, the ground still harboring a trace of warmth from the afternoon sun.
“You too stupid for bad change, Kemo Sabe,” says Tonto, with finality.
John laughs into the darkness. “Still on the whole ‘wrong brother’ shtick, huh?”
The flames flicker, casting shadows. Embers float on the air like magic realised, and John feels his eyelids droop with fast encroaching sleep.
“No,” says Tonto quietly. “Not for long time.”
The shot, searing into his chest- burrowing deeper and deeper until it takes John over onto his back, and Dan with him.
Darkness. The smell of iron. John is falling, falling, falling, and over it all stands Cavandish, leering, dripping blood down onto his face.
Danny’s growing fast.
John sees him before the kid turns around, newly twelve and somehow a whole head taller than the last time John came by to visit.
“Uncle John!”
He’s hardly off the horse when he has his arms full of the boy, and John can’t help an oof when the force slams into him. “Hey, kiddo.”
Danny smiles up at him. His hair is shorter, his jacket a little too short in the arm. He reminds John of his own mother, bemoaning his constant growth spurts with every breath she took. When he finally stopped at six-foot-five, he remembers her shaking her head with a sigh.
“Hi, Mr. Tonto,” Danny tacks on as an afterthought, waving up at the Comanche who’s astride a piebald gelding. It’s the worst horse he’s had so far- the nag is incredibly fond of biting.
Silver snorts, wandering off down to the river. John’s not worried- he’s always come back when needed.
Tonto peers down at the boy and smiles. “Got big.”
“Mum says if I keep growing this way I’ll be even taller than Uncle John,” says Danny.
Tonto contemplates. Then says, “Perhaps you replace him.”
“Hey,” says John, faux danger in his voice. “Watch it.”
Danny giggles.
Becca’s changed too- she’s… happier. Wilder. There’s something that glows in her face when she’s talking to him, her hands never idle. She’s a tumbleweed that’s finally found its resting place- here on the border of the untamed.
“You look tired, John,” she says, ladling water into the pot. She’s always known him too well.
He smiles, small and weary- honesty just for her. “It’s gettin' tougher to avoid them,” he admits. He’s trying to do good- to help those folks the law doesn’t consider rich enough to. The people who need justice that will serve them with truth and honour. “The world’s shrinking.”
“It ain’t shrinking,” she says, and she squeezes his arm. “There’s just less in it, that’s all.”
John sits down heavily on the bench, watches her chop vegetables. Outside, the sun is going down, and he can hear Danny rambling on about a rabbit he caught with his first snare while Tonto listens on in silence.
“I miss him,” says John. It fists in his throat, a memory of blood and dust and ringing gunfire. His leg aches in phantom pain and when he swallows, it feels like he’s caught in a noose.
Becca hesitates, thumb running over the blade of her knife. Then she says, “I know.”
Maybe Dan’s ghost will always be between them.
“Ride!” yells Dan, lashing at his horse with the reins. John drags in a breath and tastes grit and despair. It’s just them- the mouth of the canyon rising before them. “RIDE OUT!”
The shot, his horse rearing, throwing him before it falls down onto his leg. John shouts in pain, the sun stabbing into his eyes as he tried to blink them free of the dust.
Hoofbeats- Dan, coming back, because Dan always comes back. Except it’s not Dan, it’s Butch Cavandish, and the man’s hand is red with blood and he’s holding a ragged old crow by the feet.
John thinks less and less these days, or at least he tries to.
It’s been almost five years since everything started. Since the silver and loosing Dan. He’s become a tumbleweed in his own right, except he carries an itch under his skin that never lets him settle for long. John hates it on the days when he’s atop a canyon, watching the land roll on and on and on into the distance like an endless, crinkled blanket. He hates the lonesome spirit of this place, hates the fear that if he does go home, to Becca’s ranch, that he will see Dan’s ghost every time he dares to close his eyes.
He shares some of it with Tonto, when it all becomes too much and he thinks he might explode.
Tonto is quiet at first, watching him from dark eyes, they’re sitting close by a campfire, shoulders brushing, and John doesn’t know if he wants to move closer, or wander into the dark and scream until his voice breaks.
“Guilt,” he says.
John shakes his head. “Not exactly.”
Because Dan’s death wasn’t John’s fault. He knows that. Knows that even if Dan hadn’t turned around to try and save him, he’s have been gunned down before he’s made the mouth of the canyon.
“Not guilt of brother, Kemo Sabe,” says the Comanche. He places a palm over John’s jacket. Where the silver of his ranger badge gleams. Over his heart. Where there’s a scar from the bullet that killed him.
John’s often wondered what it means that he can’t be killed. Does that mean he can’t die? Will he just carry on forever- Immortal like this awful land of red and brown? Doomed to wander and deal out justice until everything ends and takes him with it?
Alone.
John doesn’t want to be alone.
“Guilt of living.”
Survivor's Guilt.
John laughs- ugly in the silence. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice doesn’t shake. “You’re probably right.”
John’s lost- wandering an endless canyon, and, in his hands, his brother’s heart beats.
“Nightmares?” says Tonto.
John shivers. There’s a storm coming, he can see the swell of clouds on the near horizon. “Yeah.”
They’re somewhere, on the outskirts of a town that’s little more than a few clapboard homes and a ramshackle bar, when John says, “I ain't immortal, right?”
Tonto draws up his horse, the motion jerky. “Why you ask?”
“This whole Spirit Walker malarkey,” says John. He’s decided that if the answer is yes, he’ll find a way to live with it. Tries not to imagine his life without Tonto in it. Or Becca and Danny. It makes him feel sick when he does. “Sayin’ I can’t be killed.”
“I said you cannot be killed in battle.” Tonto rubs a hand over his forehead. “This whole time you think you live forever?” There’s exasperation there, dark in his eyes.
“Uh…” John flushes, embarrassed. Jesus Christ. “…yeah?”
“White man always so stupid,” mutters Tonto, rolling his eyes so dramatically that his whole head moves with the motion. “Nothing lives forever. There is balance.”
John’s never been more glad to hear that word. “And it ain't good for nature to be out of balance?” he teases.
Tonto nods. Serious in the face of mockery.
“Aw c’mon, i’m messing with ya.”
The Comanche smirks, and John reins Silver in and leans over to bump the other man’s shoulder. He feels lighter, unburdened. As if a breeze could blow him away.
“Idiot, thinking you become immortal,” says Tonto. He’s shaking his head with an exasperated tone. John can live with being an idiot, as long as he’s an idiot that was wrong.
He can breathe again, lungs no longer aching behind his ribs, and as the first drops of rain start to fall, John thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything’s going to work out for the best.