Jasper Knowlington was sitting on the front porch of his cabin, wrapped in an old quilt, half a sleep when Arley Tolliver rode up on a flop-eared mule. It was nearly dark and what was left of the sun lay over the dusty Texas prairie like a fading coat of silver paint.

“What say, Jasper,” Arley said, pulling rein. “I’m surprised you ain’t drunk.”

“I spect I would be if I had me a jug.”

Arley smiled, pulled a forty-four caliber Navy Colt from his waistband, and pumped two rounds into the blue tick hound Jasper had tied to a porch rail. The second slug hit the dog between the eyes and he fell like a sack of potatoes, dying almost immediately.

“Last time I was here, that hound took a chunk out of my ass,” Arley explained, as he tucked the pistol in his belt.

“I guess you’re here to kill me, too,” Jasper said.

“Well, I ain’t here for my health,” Arley replied. “Mind if I step down, seein as how I ain’t apt to git dog bit now.” Jasper looked over at the dog bleeding on the dusty ground and snorted.

“Should have saved your shells. That ole mutt had less teeth than me, and I ain’t got but two left. He ain’t the one that bit you no how. That was his daddy.”

“Lookin mighty stylish these days,” Jasper observed. “Got any whiskey?”

“I surely do,” Arley said. “Rye, and not half bad either.” Arley took a bottle from his saddle bags and walked over to the porch, taking a seat on the bottom step of the stoop. “Cold, ain’t it,” he observed.

“Damn cold for October,” Jasper agreed. “Can I have a pull on that bottle?”

 Arley passed Jasper the bottle and spat a stream of tobacco juice at the dog’s head. Jasper grinned, showing pink gums and pulled the cork from the bottle and took a long swig.

“How’s she been Jasper?” Arley asked after a while.

“She’s dead, Arley. Hell, you should of knowed that. You kilt her ten years ago.”

“She weren’t dead when I went to Leavenworth, you son-of-bitch.”

Jasper shrugged and pulled the quilt close around his chin.

“I spect that was what finally did her in, you getting locked up” he said. “She weren’t the same after that.” Jasper handed Arley the bottle and he took a long swig, grimacing as the acrid liquid poured down his throat.

“Why didn’t you take better care of her?” he asked.

“I tried, she didn’t want me. She never did want me.”

“Don’t mean you couldn’t have looked out for her.”

“Damnit, Arley, there was no way I could get that women to see anything or anyone but you. You’re the one she wanted. You always was.”

“Yeah, but she ended marryin you, now didn’t she, Jasper?”

They fell silent for a while, passing the bottle between them. The sun was quickly disappearing over the hills to the west and shadows crept across the front yard like shy living things. The tentative breeze carried the scent of the dog’s blood to the mule and he shied against his tether with a snort and a shake of his wooly head.

“Is that her buried over yonder?” Arley finally asked. He was looking out across the lots at a small family cemetery on the top of a low hill.

“Yep, she’s there, along with your son and my daughters. Cholera got ever last one of em.” Jasper took another swig of whiskey and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “That was almost ten years ago, Arley. About the same time you was gettin butt fucked up in Kansas.”

“Don’t believe ever thing you hear, Jasper,” Arley said coldly. “Nobody touched me.”

“Ain’t none of my business, no how,” Jasper replied. “You want some supper, or are you keen on getting me kilt and makin San Antone before dark?”

“I could eat.”

Supper wasn’t much, just beans seasoned with fat back and dried peppers and a round of bread made from flour and water. They ate at an old kitchen table stained black from grease smoke and years of disuse.

“Don’t you ever clean up around here?” Arley asked, with his mouth full. He was eying the rat shit and cobwebs scattered in every corner of the little cabin.

“Never had much talent for it,” Jasper said. “Cleanin’s for women folk and I’m fresh out.”

“Why, hell, even a dern buzzard’ll take the time to roll the shit out of its own nest.”

“Look Arley, it don’t matter what this place looks like and you know it. I been waitin for you for a long time and now you’re here. I’m done eatin, so let’s cut the bullshit and get this over with.”

“Not till you tell me how she died. I wanna know how she died. Did she suffer? Was she in much pain? Did….did she ask about me?”

“Called your name till the very end. Even when the fever had her out of her mind, she called out your name. That was the most pitiful part. That and me bein so drunk I couldn’t even keep a cool towel on her head.”

Arley got up from the table and walked to the little window near the door. He’d taken of his coat and Jasper could clearly see the pair of nickel-plated Colts tucked into his waistband.

“Who buried her?”

“I did,” Jasper replied. “Took me all day to dig the grave but I got her in nice and deep. She’s up there with the girls and your boy, Owen. She managed to hold out until the last girl died, but after that, she went fast. You should go up there and visit them when you’re through with me.”

“I spect I will,” Arley said, looking out the window. “Just about plum dark, though. Won’t be able to see much in a little while.”

“Hell, spend the night. I ain’t goin nowhere. You’ve waited fifteen years. What’s’ one more night gonna matter.”

After supper, they went out on the porch and watched the sun disappear over the hills to the west. “Ain’t no purdier sunset in the entire world than right here on the Matagorda,” Arley said, reflectively. Jasper lit his pipe and pulled the quilt up around his chin.

“I can’t argue with that logic,” he said, after a while. “You can sleep out in the tack room yonder if you want. Ain’t nearly as many rats out there.”

“Where you gonna sleep?”

“I ain’t.”

When the sun came up the next morning, Arley was standing in the middle of the cemetery looking down at four overgrown graves. Jasper stood a few feet away holding his old hat in one hand and an ancient Colt Dragoon pistol in the other.

 “No call draggin my carcass all the way up the hill,” he said, breaking the silence of the cool morning. “Course I’m countin on the fact that you’ll at least throw a little dirt on me to keep the coyotes away.”

“How old was the boy when he died?” Arley asked.

“Seven or eight, I don’t really know which. Looked just like you. Tall and yella headed.”

“I swear. Just ain’t right, is it?”

“I gave up tryin to figure out what’s right a long time ago.”

Arley plopped his hat on his head and walked to the crest of the hill where Jasper stood with the sun to his back. Down near the river, a few crows were squawking at a red-tailed fox as it slunk along the shoreline looking for breakfast.

“If it means anything to you Jasper, this ain’t a easy thing for me to do. But, we both know it has to be done, don’t we?”

“I spect so,” Jasper said, nodding. “Not that I’m apologizing or anything but I whist I had never told them Rangers about you. That was a mistake. You gotta pay for your mistakes, I reckon. I’m smart enough to figure that out.”

“Well, I guess this is it then. You got any shells in that old Colt?”

“I got one.”

“Make it count,” Arley said. Then he pulled both pistols from his waistband and snapped off four shots in Jasper’s direction. None of the shots even came close to the mark, however, because Jasper’s one slug from the Dragoon caught Arley in the throat and blew his spine out the back of his neck.

 “You always was slower than smoke off of shit.” Jasper said, without emotion.

Later, when a Ranger named Dan Blessingaine was taking Jasper to San Antonio in handcuffs, the lawman asked Jasper why he’d shot Arley.

 “It was shoot or get shot,” Jasper said.

“Did you know him?”

“Nope. Never seen him in my life.”

“Well, you might be surprised to know that that feller you kilt was one of the worst outlaws in the territory,” the Ranger said. “Some folks say he kilt women and children and even kilt a preacher one time for askin about the condition of his soul. Hell, he just got out of the Federal pen up in Kansas a month ago. They finally got him in seventy-two for stealin gold from a government shipment up in Fort Worth. They say someone real close to him turned him in.”

“Sounds like a feller in need of killin.” Jasper said.

“You reckon he was aimin to rob you?”

Jasper thought on the question for a while, then shook his head.

“Naw, I think he just mistook me for somebody else. Somebody he thought he knew a long time ago.”