[September 2020]
​
Chapters: 1
Word Count: 2,186
​
Warnings: None
​
THE LAST ACT
by
Eleanor Ward
​
​
[An exercise in first person narration]
Waiting at the church, on the day of Jed’s funeral,
Heyes reflects on their lives, to the Minister.
​
* * *
​
“Jed and me were friends pretty much from when we could walk and talk. Our folks lived on neighbouring farms so we spent most of our time together, growing up, except for when we were at school, or doing our chores. Being that bit older than him I bossed him around a lot, something he got to resent a bit when we got into our teens, but when we were kids it didn’t seem to bother him none.
​
We used to duck out of our chores whenever we could and we’d go off climbing trees, or fishin’ in the river. We’d get in trouble when we got home, but it didn’t stop us. They were fun days back then, before…
​
I was nine and Jed was seven when raiders came to our farms… We’d skipped off our chores that afternoon and gone fishin’ down at the river. As we were headin’ back home, we saw smoke above the trees… As we cleared the woods, we could see that it was our homes that were burning…
I knew somethin’ bad had happened, so I made Jed promise to stay where he was while I went down to look… My Pa and Ma had been killed… he had been shot and she’d had her throat cut… It was so sudden, Pa hadn’t even had time to get his rifle from the house… They’d taken our horses and set the house on fire.
Then I ran to Jed’s house… It was the same there. His folks were dead too, both shot, and their house was burning too… I didn’t know what to do… I was scared the raiders would come looking for us…
Then I remembered I’d left Jed back up by the woods. I didn’t want to tell him what had happened, but, I knew I had to.
I ran back up to where I’d told him to wait, and I told him our folks were dead… I don’t think he really understood, at that age, what death meant, but he cried in my arms when I explained that they were gone forever. I didn’t want him to see them… not like that… so I took him back to the river bank and told him not to move from there until I came back. Then I went back and retrieved what few things I could, from what was left of the houses, to keep as mementos.
When I got back to Jed, he wanted to know what we were going to do. I had no idea… We started walking, towards the town, and after a while we were found by some of the locals who had seen the smoke and headed out to see what had happened. Apparently, there were a number of outlying farms that had been targeted and a lot of people had been killed.
One of the families took us in for a few days. Mr and Mrs Walker. She was real nice, giving us supper and cookies and letting us sleep in their spare room. It was only later, in the middle of the night when everyone was in bed, and Jed was asleep, that I cried. I didn’t want to cry in front of Jed, it would just have scared him more. But, when I thought back to what had happened, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I buried my face in the pillow so nobody would hear me sobbing. Afterwards, I swore I’d never cry again, an’ I never did… until last week...
The next morning some people came round to see the Walkers, to discuss what to do with us. I think Mrs Walker would have been happy for us to stay with them but she already had two children of her own and I don’t think they could afford to take in any more, so it was decided we’d be sent to an orphanage.
So, a few days later we arrived at the orphanage. It wasn’t a nice place. No better than a prison really. Cold and overcrowded, with barely enough food to keep us alive. A lot of the kids were thieves and bullies and the staff weren’t much better. They would get us up at the crack of dawn, and then we’d have lessons in the morning and then chores to do in the afternoon and then it was lights out at sundown, and they would beat us if we didn’t get our chores done on time or were behind in our class work.
Jed was small for his age back then and he got picked on more than most, so I often had to step in to defend him, which got me beat up a lot, and into a lot of trouble with the staff. They would lock me in a dark cupboard as punishment, for being a ‘troublemaker’… I wasn’t a troublemaker, I was just tryin’ to protect Jed… I’ve always hated being shut in anywhere since then… Jed more than repaid me later on though, after we grew up, with him steppin’ in to protect me when I was the one in trouble.
We decided we had to escape from the orphanage, so we watched and waited and, when the opportunity came up, we ran away.
Life wasn’t much easier on the outside, but at least we had each other, and our freedom. Because of our young age, nobody would give us jobs, and begging usually got us a clip round the ear, so, eventually, we started stealing… food at first, then money. We soon fell in with some bad company and before too long we were holding up trains.
It was around this time that Jed and I parted company. He said he was fed up of me bossing him around and not listening to him and was going to go it alone. I didn’t want him to go, but I had too much pride, at that age, to lower myself to plead with him to stay. So, he left. It was three years before we found each other again, by which time he’d gained a reputation as a fast draw and I was leading a gang. I was glad when he agreed to join us. I’d missed him.
For a while after that, we were the most wanted outlaws in the west. But it began to get harder and harder to escape the law, what with the telegraph spreadin’ all over the country, tipping everyone off about a robbery much quicker than before.
Eventually, I talked Jed into trying for an amnesty, and we asked an old friend of ours to liaise with the Governor on our behalf. He said, because we’d never killed anyone we might be considered, but not until we’d proved we could stay out of trouble. They set us a target of a year. Then they’d think about it.
It wasn’t easy staying out of trouble, and we got into a lot of scrapes, a lot of the time through no fault of our own. The one year period kept getting extended and we didn’t think they would ever give it to us, that they’d just made the promise to keep us on the straight and narrow with no intention of honouring it.
But, nearly two years later, they finally gave it to us… We had a heck of a party that night I can tell you. I don’t remember ever getting that drunk before, or since.
After that, Jed went into business breeding horses, and I studied to be a lawyer. It took Jed a few years to get his business into profit, and it was seven years before I qualified as a lawyer. Jed had got married by then, to Madelaine, and they had a daughter, called Maria, after Jed’s Mom.
I envied him his family but I never managed to meet anyone that made me feel the way Jed did about her. Oh, I’ve dallied with my fair share of ladies over the years, but I didn’t get the urge to settle down with any of them. It’s only in recent years that I’ve come to regret it. It would have been nice to have a family of my own…
Even though he had Madelaine and Maria, we still stayed close. He made me Maria’s Godfather and I was always over at their place, as she was growing up, for dinner and for Christmas and other occasions. Madelaine didn’t seem to mind me butting into their lives though. I guess she understood the bond we had between us…
I remember, after we ran away from the orphanage, we held a blood brothers ritual… We cut our hands and wrapped them together to let our blood mingle. We weren’t born brothers, but everything we’d been through together had made us closer even than real brothers and doing the ritual just affirmed that. Even when we split up for a while, I always knew we would see each other again.
Maria moved away, after she finished school, to Denver, where she ended up working as a secretary for Horace Tabor, who built the Grand Opera House. She married a young man from up there, Charles, and they set up home there. They had a little boy a couple of years later, named Joseph. Jed and Madelaine used to travel up to Denver two or three times a year to visit with them. They took me with them one time, and we stayed at the Brown Palace. I’d heard a lot about the place, and it certainly lived up to expectations.
They were good years, those…
Madelaine passed away three years ago. Jed was broken hearted, as was I. They’d been together for more than thirty years. Maria, Charles and young Joseph came down from Denver for the funeral. Jed was… lost… for months – moping around, not eating, not sleeping, neglecting his business - and I was beginning to wonder if he’d ever get over it. But, slowly, he got himself together, although I could tell he still missed her every day… Like I’m gonna miss him now…
He’d been ill for a few days. He just thought it was a case of the grippe, but he just seemed to get worse, so I called in the doctor. He diagnosed pneumonia… He tried every medicine he knew about but it didn’t help…
I was with him, when he… I think he was glad, in a way, to go… you know, to be with Madelaine? But… I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone as I did at that moment…
After Madelaine died, we made each other a promise that, when our times came, whichever of us went first, whoever was left would organize everything, just the way we wanted. We bought adjoining family burial plots, and we drew up our Wills and wrote down what we wanted writing on our markers. Both of us hoped we would be the first to go, ‘cause neither of us wanted to be the one that had to fulfil that promise, but… it’s fallen to me, and it’s… an honour… for me to do it. You could call it a last act of friendship I guess… I don’t know who will do it for me… I guess I’ll have to leave that to my Lawyer…
He left the business to Maria, but she’s happy with her life in Denver so she’s passed it over to me, to do whatever I think fit with it… Keep it for myself, sell it, close it down… I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. Jed worked hard to build it up and was proud of what he achieved. I’m a bit too long in the tooth now for runnin’ a business like that… But I’d feel bad, selling it or closing it down… It was the only place he ever had that he could call his own, and is all that’s left for me to remember him by…
From the start we had in life, losing our families so young, running away from the orphanage and ending up as outlaws, I think our lives turned out pretty well in the end. Jed used to ask me if I regretted anything... Obviously, there are things that I wish hadn’t happened, or that could have been different, but, if I could go back and change things, would I...? Probably not… because… if things hadn’t happened the way they did, losing our folks an’ all, Jed and I might have gone our separate ways, once we’d grown up, and might not have become the friends we’ve been all our lives… and I wouldn’t change that for anything…
Maria, Charles and Joseph arrived yesterday, from Denver. Joseph has certainly grown since the last time I saw him. He has Jed’s eyes, and smile…
Jed was a good man, kind, and honourable… and a loyal friend… my friend… The best friend a man could have… You would have liked him if you’d met him…
I think I hear the hearse coming… I guess it’s time…
Time to say… goodbye…”
-oo00oo-
​
​
​
​
