For all of Christmas Day, and the week that followed, Sheriff Kelly and his posse searched in the pouring rain for a sign of the escaped murderer. They slugged their way through sandy puddles and literally beat the bushes around the groves of scrub oaks and sycamores that grew along the creek. The steady rains washed away his trail, they concluded. So it was, on the following Sunday, New Year's Eve of 1899, the posse straggled back into town dejected and disappointed that their abundance of guns and hatred had been of no use in tracking the murderer down.
Dan Reid lit white candles on his Christmas tree while Betsy sat in an armchair and watched. She was silent; even after a week, she couldn't talk. Her high lacy collar barely covered the bandages. Her auburn hair was braided Indian style in two thick ropes on either side of her head.
Their son Britt squealed with joy as he tore the plain brown paper away from his large Christmas present. "A bicycle! Oh, Pa, thank you!"
Dan forced a smile.
"Here's for you, honey." He brought his wife a sandalwood box made in the British colony of India.
Betsy opened it and revealed a sterling silver hat pin with a dainty glass honeybee on the tip. She neither smiled nor raised her face for the customary Christmas kiss. She just sat there, looking at it, and after a minute or so she closed the box again.
"Tomorrow morning, it's going to be the Twentieth Century. What do think of that, Britt?"
The little boy hopped onto the bicycle seat, right there in the parlor next to the piano. He tested his feet on the pedals, and his mother stirred not so much as a blink to scold him.
"When can I go riding my bicycle, Pa?"
"I suppose when it stops raining."
"When'll it stop raining, Pa?"
"I don't know. Soon."
Dan Reid started down the corridor toward the kitchen. A big pot of apple cider was simmering on the stove, and he intended to toss in a few cinnamon sticks and cloves before bringing some to Betsy.
Someone knocked on the front door. I hope it's Christmas carolers; that might cheer her up a bit, he thought as he returned to the foyer.
When he opened the door, he froze as if he'd seen a ghost. The Lone Ranger stood on his porch. "Good evening, Mr. Reid."
Dan blinked to be sure of what he was seeing: the white Stetson hat; the black felt mask; the canvas duster coat, blue cotton shirt, black leather vest, and Levi blue jeans tucked into horse boots. A double-holstered gun belt sagged low bearing a pair of Colt .45 pistols.
"My God," Dan breathed. "It can't be."
"May I come in, Mr. Reid?"
"Uh, of course."
Dan opened the door wider to a draft of cold rain. The Lone Ranger strolled inside as casual as you please. Spurs clinked on the hardwood floor. His silver-studded gun belt twinkled in the lamp light. He removed his white hat and the brim dripped speckles on the carpet. A receding hairline above the black mask showed a little more forehead than it used to, but other than that, he hadn't changed a bit.
Dan Reid fired questions, "What are you doing here? Where have you been? Why didn't you join the posse? We looked, and looked, for a week!"
"I know, Dan. I'm sorry you had to go through that for nothing."
A peculiar answer. So many questions log-jammed in Dan Reid's mind, he just stood there gawking at the masked man, unable to speak.
Britt popped out from the parlor. "Wow! Are you really the Lone Ranger?"
"I sure am, son. You must be Britt Reid."
"Wow! You know my name?"
The Lone Ranger went down on his knee to smile at the boy face-to-face. "I know you're an honest, courageous little boy. I heard you took care of your Ma when a bad man tried to hurt her."
Britt suddenly frowned, and tears welled up in his blue eyes. "I ran away."
"You went to get help. You did the right thing. You saved her life."
The boy's smile returned. Britt sniffed and wiped his face clean on his sleeve. "Do you really have silver bullets in your gun?"
"I sure do." The Lone Ranger pulled out a Colt, broke open the cylinder, and removed one of the bullets. "Here."
"Wow! Wait till I show this to my friend Hoi Lee! He's going to be so jealous!"
The Lone Ranger stood up, twirled his gun around his finger and dropped it neatly back into the holster. "Where's Mrs. Reid? I have something for her."
Betsy appeared at the doorway to the parlor, holding her fringed embroidered shawl around her shoulders. With her hair down, and in flat-heeled house slippers, she looked smaller than her normal self. Sadness had drawn dark circles around her eyes. Not even the sight of this masked man in her own home could coax a smile from those pinched, pale lips.
The Lone Ranger paused, obviously surprised at how grim she looked. "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Elizabeth."
Dan put his hand on the Lone Ranger's shoulder. "She still can't talk. Doc Kitzinger said it might be a couple of months before the damage to her throat is healed."
Britt held up his silver bullet. "Look, Ma! Look what the Lone Ranger gave me. Isn't it great?"
Betsy kept staring dead straight at the masked man.
"I brought you a Christmas present," the Lone Ranger said. "You'll have to put on a coat and shoes and come outside with me."
"It's raining," said Dan. "Can't it wait until morning?"
"No, Mr. Reid, it can't."
Britt ran for the coat rack first. "Can I come too?"
His mother shook her head, but Dan Reid said, "Sure. We'll all go outside and see."
It took a few minutes for them to bundle up in coats and boots and to get their umbrellas. The Lone Ranger led the way.
At the front gate, there stood a white horse. It wasn't an Arabian, and it wasn't even a stallion, but it was white – mostly – but for splotches of gray on the lips and ankles.
The Ranger snatched little Britt under the armpits and hoisted him onto the fancy black saddle.
"Look at me, Pa! I'm riding the Lone Ranger's horse!"
"You sure are, Son. How does it feel?"
"It feels great!" Britt kicked, his feet hanging only halfway to the stirrups. "Heigh-ho, Silver!"
The Lone Ranger led his horse by the bridle, walking. Dan Reid and his wife followed just behind under their matching black umbrellas. They strolled up the muddy street toward the middle of town.
"I didn't join the posse because, as I told you, the man you were after doesn't act like a typical outlaw. I knew you wouldn't find him in the usual places, camped out in gullies and heading for the Mexican border. He'd go to where ex-bounty hunters like Sheriff Kelly would never expect to find him."
Rain sizzled on the shingled roofs of the town. Most of the ground-level windows were dark, but upstairs there were lights: at Old Black Joe's apartment above the barber shop, at Mrs. Wagner's boarding house, and at Doc Kitzinger's office.
"My God, are you saying you got him?"
Britt laughed from high in the saddle. "Of course he got him, Pa. He's the Lone Ranger!"
They stopped at the sheriff's office. A light glowed from inside. The ranger tied up his white horse at the hitching post. He caught Britt by the shoulders as the boy eagerly slid down.
Deputy Yarnell opened the door for them, and he wore a smile as big as a kid holding the keys to Santa Claus's toy shop. "Hey there, Dan, Mrs. Reid. I see you met the Lone Ranger."
Betsy stepped in ahead of all of them. She alone made her way to the cage of iron bars at the back of the sheriff's office.
"He gave me a silver bullet!" little Britt bragged.
"Me too," said the deputy just as proudly.
A man imprisoned in the cell sat glumly on the hard bench. He still wore his fine, tailored clothes, a wool tweed suit and catalog-ordered Oxford loafers. His face had been knocked around a bit, with a cut lip and a swollen black eye to show for it. His left hand was bandaged, Dan assumed, from the ranger shooting a gun out of his hand.
The photographer looked up at her with utter hatred. "Look what you've done to me, you lil' whore. This is all your damned fault."
Dan Reid seized the bars in his hands. "That's my wife you're talking to, you cowardly murderer!"
The Lone Ranger gently pulled him back. "Don't let him get you angry, Dan. He's not worth it."
Betsy hoarsely whispered, "Whe-?"
"Where?" the Lone Ranger repeated. "Where did I catch him?"
She nodded.
"I found him at the Port of San Diego, waiting for a steamer ship to take him to London. The cab drivers and the bartenders and the baggage porters at the ticket office pointed him out. They all remembered him as the only cheapskate who didn't give anyone a tip on Christmas."
Betsy stepped forward and lightly kissed the Lone Ranger on his cheek.
He actually blushed. "Now, Mrs. Reid, there's no need for that. I'm only seeing that justice is done."
The ranger headed for the door.
Deputy dogged his heels, asking, "Where're you going? Ain't you gonna stay and talk to the sheriff? He'll never believe me!"
"Don't worry, I'll be back to witness at the trial. You'll need my testimony to make sure Coulson hangs for his crimes. Right now, I've got other things to do. Adios."
Into the dark rain, he left them with only the memory of his bright smile. The pale horse galloped off. The patter of hooves blended into the drizzle.
Dan Reid put his arm behind his wife. "You see? How many times have I complained about those penny-dreadful paperbacks. He never said, 'Heigh-ho, Silver' in his life."
The End