1
The sound of his feet crunching on the cracked ground broke the quiet chaos echoing around him. The heat waves of the desert where playing tricks on his eyes as they ran along the horizon. His bucket was empty; the dirt in it making a dry sloshing noise as it swung from side to side in tune with his long stride. There was a little metal thing running up from the ground about ten yards away. But it wasn’t a “thing,” it was a safe haven, a flowing river in a valley of dust.
Tim Shaffer grabbed the pump jutting from the ground, startled, he let it go; it was blazing hot from the sun. He took out a dirty old kerchief that he never actually used, then he cursed as he noticed the rust rubbing on the white piece of old fabric. He began pumping and the water came out a brownish red and steamed when it hit the parched ground. At the few drops that escaped the bucket the ground seemed to reach up and quaff the drink without the slightest hesitation.
As he pumped the grotesque life blood of this dry desert he noticed the handle was near to falling of. Mumbling to himself he noted it and decided to fix it tonight. The rust of the handle was grinding off and forming a little reddish pile on the ground; it was going to take some work getting it all out of the water. Three days worth of sweat cutting wood just to refresh with a half bucket of water and do it all over again.
The handle broke. One third a bucket of water it turns out.
Tim groaned at his luck and started following his foot prints back, a drop of sweat falling from his nose with every step. His sandy blond hair was stuck to the nap of his neck and plastered to his face. Why had he grown it so long? He had forgotten.  It is a damn nuisance he decided. Shoulder length, his hair screwed up his vision and bothered him while chopping wood.
He reached his porch, finally escaping the deathly heat from the sun. His pants where sticking to his thighs, and his plain white shirt was drenched in sweat. The small wooden house was a patch of shade in a blazing white desert, desolate for miles around but for Joshua trees and a town about ten miles away. Where they had gotten the wood for this house he had no idea. There wasn’t a descent tree for twenty miles; all the Joshua trees where gnarled and unfit for building.
As Tim prepared the decontamination of his small bucket of water- one third full- he gazed out at the horizon. The Joshua trees dotted the white hot ground. The twisted disfigured things looming up from the dry land. Somehow they survived here in this desolate place. They weren’t trees to him, they where ghouls, ghastly, omnipotent, and sad looking things that watched you wherever you went.
The day was so hot. Tim couldn’t get over it. He felt like an egg in the middle of a giant greased up skillet. As he was dreading the heat he looked out at the horizon yet again except, this time, there was something different. A little dust cloud was forming in the distance lead by an even littler black dot. He didn’t mind it for a minute, contenting himself with stoking a fire in a small fire pit in his porch.
After he was done stoking the fire he place the bucket of water on it and set up a thick cloth on top of it to catch the boiling water. He checked the horizon again. The dot had grown larger and Tim was getting impatient. He quickly went inside and attached a holster to his belt and checked that his pistol was loaded. When he was done fixing himself up pretty for his unwelcome guest he sat on an old stool on his porch, tending the fire when need be.
A figure soon emerged from the dot; a man in a long coat, long enough for a rifle, was taking a swig of his canteen as his horse swayed beneath him. Tim hoped to God that it wasn’t liquor in that canteen; liquor got men in killing moods. A feeling of anxiety grew in his stomach to replace the impatience, he didn’t want to shoot anyone.
Pretty soon the sound of horse hooves could be heard, and sooner the horse itself was standing in front of the small house. A gruff, tough, hard eyed and mean faced looking lad was hopping off the horse. His dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his hat was tilted back revealing brown eyes that no one would mess with in town. But this wasn’t town.
The young man popped a tooth-pick in his mouth and said: “Tim “Sharp-Eye” Shaffer I presume.”
“Yeah, that’s me. What’s a young lad like you doin’ all the way out here?”
The boy pushed his left hand into his long coat and Tim’s right shifted to his gun.
“Whoa, don’t want no trouble, least with Sharp-Eye Shaffer.” He pulled a small bundle out of his coat and lobed it to Tim.
“What’s this?” Tim said as he caught it.
“Meat, its wut you ordered aint it?”
“Yeah. Thanks son.” Tim reached in his pocket and flipped the kid a fifty cent piece.
“I don’t need this, sir.” He said fingering the polished metal.
“Don’t need to need what’s offered as a gift of thanks” Tim smiled and stood.
“Thank you, sir.” He started for his horse and stopped abruptly. “Almost forgot,” he said turning around, “got a letter for you too, smells shiny.”
Tim walked out into the sun and took a small envelope from the boy. He fingered it and held it up to his nose. It smelled like lavender and sage.
Tim clapped the on the shoulder and smiled kindly, “Thanks, son.”
As the boy walked away and started mounting his horse Tim stopped and called out to him. “Hey, boy, you mind telling me what happened to Eric?” Eric was his normal delivery man.
“Shot, twice, naught more then three hours ago.” He looked up into the sky, the sun was in the middle of it, “Maybe four.”
“Who?”
“Eric, sir”
“No, who shot him, boy?”
“Glenn Davis.”
Tim harrumphed and spat at the ground. He new Glenn, knew him to be a snake in the grass and a lowlife snob. His parents owned the little town ten miles away so he went around causing havoc like it was nobodies business.
“You mind sending a message for me?” Tim said with a look.
“No, sir.”
“Tell Glenn Davis that if he starts any more in that cozy little town uh yours again, I’ll split him from ear to ear. Not to hard to remember is it?”
The boy’s hard face finally relaxed and he grinned. “No, sir, it aint.”
“Good, be sure to get that to him. What’s your name, son?”
“Jayne Sweet, sir.”
Tim smiled in spite of himself; he should have known where that hard look came from. This was Eric’s son.
“You tell your pa to get patched up quick so I don’t need to be shootin’ one of his boy’s in confusion, yuh hear?”
“Shiny, sir.” He smiled again, tipped his hat and was off.
Tim eyed him as he left for a bit, then held the letter up to his nose again and wondered why he should remember that smell. Pretty soon though he was stoking the fire again and thinking about other things, not ready to reveal a secret so easily.

2
Just before the cloth had caught all the water Tim retrieved a hard glass jug and a skillet out of his house. He poured the last bit of water into it and opened up the package of meat to see his fixins’ for the next week or so. The package was about six and a half inches cubed of pure ground beef. Tim had all the seasoning he needed in the house and was glad to because the same taste got to you after a few weeks out here. He took a small chunk and flopped it onto the skillet and went into the house to find some seasoning.
His house was one big room. You can see the rafters from inside and there was a small board in the corner of the rafters that someone put there for some odd reason; Tim used it to hide his money. He had a small cot in the far left corner, and a table on the closest right with two chairs, in case he had company. In the far right corner was his wardrobe that held a couple extra shirts, pants, and a rifle and ammo. Next to that was a spice rack- which he was now enthusiastically searching through. Finally in the left corner closest to the door there was a dresser, that he didn’t use for much, just storing his extra food or drink, and a wood stove he decided not to cook on tonight. Currently the dresser held another pack of beef, which he realized he should be using, another couple jugs of water, a bottle of whiskey, and an unopened bottle of wine.
After searching through the spice rack and finding what he wanted- rosemary- he went back outside to find his meat had gotten sand in it. Disappointed but not deterred Tim cooked it up anyway.
His belly full, and his mind at ease for the moment, Tim made a point of watching the sun go down. There was something eerie about the sunsets in the desert. Tim thought it was the colors. The way everything turned a harsh red and brightened up for a moment, like the world was catching fire, just thrilled him. It may be scorching hot and lonely in the day, but Tim always felt good watching that sun go down on that distant horizon.
For the second time today thought something was disrupting his horizon, and Tim didn’t like it. Instead of one solitary dot there seemed to be many, he counted fifteen or so. Then he noticed one was far ahead of the others and he didn’t want to guess who it was, he always guessed right.
Once again Tim watched them for a while, but this time he already had his pistol on, so instead of getting that he got his rifle and a few boxes of bullets. There was one window in his house, to the left of the front door, which he now opened for an easy escape to cover.
And once again he grew anxious.
The figure in front turned out to be who he thought it was. I hate bein’ right all the time he thought. It was Eric’s son Jayne, but there seemed to be another person with him on the horse. It wasn’t to long that the two men plopped onto the ground in front of his house a Tim found out it was Eric ridin’ with Jayne, two bullet holes in his left leg.
“Damn Eric,” Tim said, “Good to see you alive.”
“Well it’s about go’ram time someone was glad to see me. That son-of-a -bitch chasin’ me nearly sliced my head off, he was so unhappy to see me.” He said with a smirk and a laugh. His bald head had a cut on it that had stopped bleeding. He had bright orange sideburns and the biggest mustache you ever seen.
“Now look here you two,” Tim said as he walked Eric to the porch, “We got ‘bout two minutes till those rat bastards start firin’ on us and I don’t want either of you gettin’ hurt, you understand me?”
“Oh, horse shit,” Eric said, “You don’t give a damn what happens to us, just get on doin’ what you do best, I know I don’t need no gallant speeches.” He smiled and Jayne nodded.
“You got a gun, boy?” asked Tim.
“Yes, sirie bob.” He billowed open that big coat and out came a sawed-off-shotgun for him and a pistol for his pa.
“You raise your kids well, Eric.” Tim smiled.
“Damn straight.” Eric smiled back.
Sure enough, just about two minutes after the three got into the house there was shootin’. And sure enough it was Glenn Davis an a few of his buddies. They where firing of shots into the air, wasting ammo. Tim sighed that he didn’t have to shoot anyone smart, he felt like he got ride of something important when he did.
A loud and gruff-to-the-point-of-annoyance voice came a hollarin’ after the men inside the house. “Ye haw, you better not be sidin’ with those boys in there Sharp-Eye, they owe me sumthin’ and they’re gonna give us what due us.”
“As far as I see it they don’t owe you shit but for a fresh grave and another notch on your belt boy.” Tim said.
“You best not be talkin’ sly now yuh hear, I got seven armed and very dangerous men out here with me, just a waitin’ to blow your heads off.”
“Now I'm gonna break it to you slow so you understand,” Tim said, now at the side of the window, “there’s thirteen men plus you makes fourteen out there, just ‘cause you can’t count don’t mean you gotta pick on right minded and well educated folk.”
There where a few laughs outside followed by a quick “Shut up!”
Hooves started clattering and a general chaos started. Men started shooting at the house with all different kinds of guns: rifles, shotguns, pistols, you name it they had it. And then there where the whisky bottles with rags on them. Tim didn’t like them one bit; thank God they couldn’t hit the broad side of a red barn if they where standing in front of it.
Tim turned around to look out the window and a bullet flew past his head taking a wisp of hair with it. He began shooting. One, two, three men went falling off their horses as he fired his rifle. The horses, now without riders to steer them, went willed with fright. They began kicking a screaming and hit other men off their horses. Tim always remembered the saying “A live horse is panic, a dead horse is cover.” Plus he didn’t like shooting beasts; they didn’t really want to be there.
Jayne burst through the front door with his shotgun. Chink-chink BOOM there went one rider chink-chink BOOM there went another. The stench of blood and gunpowder filled the air.
Pretty soon most of the riders had run of scared, leaving Glenn with a bullet wound in his leg and a scratched up face from the fall from his horse. Tim walked up to him and put his pistol to Glenn’s cheek. “Now what do you say?” he pulled the hammer back.
“I’m sorry! I won’t ever do it again, I promise!” tears where welling up in his eyes and he began sniveling.
“Get up yuh baby.” Tim said as he pulled his gun away.
“Nobody’s stood up to me like that before…” Glenn said, eyeing the gun now resting on Tim’s shoulder.
“Your lucky I don’t shoot yuh. It wouldn’t be outuh reach of my right’s too, your at least nine miles out of your territory, boy. You catchin’ me?” Glenn nodded. “Now git, you dog!” Tim eyed him as he tried to get on a horse and failed a few times before succeeding.
“Well-,”
“That was fun.” Eric finished with a cackle.

3
After the shoot-out all three of them slowly searched the dead bodies for any guns or trinkets they would like. Jayne found a pistol that only a rich man could where, it had gold filigree on the handle and it was a “mighty fine piece of craftsmanship.” Eric was happy to find a new buck knife- about three inches longer then his last one- ‘course he had broken his a few days back and was longing to go hunting and skinning again. Tim found himself a rifle he’s been aching to buy for some time now, a Winchester 30-30, lever action and a short barrel length that could be easily concealed in a coat. He looked down the sights and was wanting to try it out.
Pretty soon he got his chance. There was a jack rabbit hopping around the desert floor about thirty yards away, completely unawares that Tim had a sharp aim on it. About three seconds later there was a shot fired and the little fella was dead.
“Looks like dinners ready boys.” Tim smiled and Eric pulled his new buck knife.
As Eric and Jayne where busy preparing the fresh catch Tim went inside. He was searching around for a place to mount his new gun for his own viewing pleasure when he noticed the letter on the table. Now what could anyone want to send to good ol’ me? He wondered as he set down his gun and gingerly picked up the letter.
He slipped his finger in the little fold in the envelope and tore open a side. There was dust inside, it must have been a long time sending. The paper it held was a little old and yellowish and the smell of lavender and sage filled the air around him. As he opened it the leaves of these plants fell to the ground and the scent spread across the whole room- and apparently outside as Jayne and Eric where now watching him through the window.
As Tim lifted up the piece of paper, his long blond hair grazed the letter. He had to hold it up close to his “sharp” eyes, no one knew it but things where starting to get blurry and out of focus the farther they went. Turns out Tim “Sharp-Eye” Shaffer was going blind. He held the letter up close to his face and the blurry image turned into delicately scrawled cursive. Most people thought he couldn’t read because of the way he held things up to his face, but it was just hard for him if stuff was too far or not far enough. As he read he wondered at its contents.

Dear Tim,
It’s me, Betty. It’s been a long time, near ten years right? Gosh it’s been a while. How have you been? Me? I’m doin’ fine. I have missed you all these years. You runin’ off to California and all had us worried. But I guess you had no choice now did you. Them Harold brothers are still causing a fuss all over town. You used to love them.
Well enough of the small talk, Tim, I know you ain’t much for wastin’ time. I wrote this to tell you to get your scrawny ass up here. Carson just ain’t the same without you. Plus something happened that you need to know about but you gotta be witness to. It’s about your pa, Jedidiah. I hope you come home soon. I’ll be lookin’ off into that horizon that you love so much awaitin’ your arrival. Be swift in your travels.
Sincerely your beloved,
Betty
PS: Don’t be givin’ any people any trouble, you have a problem with trouble following you and your tongue taunting it closer and closer. Be safe, not smart.

Ten years Tim thought. Ten years of lost time and lost memory.
His attention was brought back to him as an obstruction in the window caught his eyes. It was Jayne, checking in on him.
“What do you want boy?” he said with a look, Tim didn’t like being peeped on.
“N-nothing sir. We’re jus’ about to finish with the meat.”
Tim walked outside after placing the letter on the table. He never really liked skinning animals so he was glad that Eric had done it for him. Tim just couldn’t get over the fact that he was making it look not alive anymore. Creped him out something fierce. After sitting down for a short spell there was a dry patch in conversation. Tim looked at Jayne, and Jayne looked at Eric, and in a round about way they all stared at one another for a time. They just killed a lot of men. Tim mostly, but the fact of the matter was that there where a lot of bodies to get rid of, and not to much time to do it. If he hadn’t died yet, that yellow bastard Glenn would call the real authorities, then they would all be in a peck of trouble. Tim didn’t like killing law-men.