Another Old West Tale

PROLOGUE

"They passed when I was young, my mother and father. My father passed before I took my first breath. My mother left this world when I was 17. She was an interesting one. Had a knack for the cold. Every winter, she'd sit out, not dressed much more than I am now, and stare for hours into the cold dark, without a hint of goose skin. She always told me my father was a degenerate rascal. He was a crook. A liar. A killer. But I think, on those days, she was looking for him. In the dark. Hoping he'd return back to her, like some kind of demon, if he was even a word of what she said he was. Or, maybe more proper, a fallen angel. If he was that evil, he couldn't have always been that way, could he, mister?" A young man asked to a drunken ranger sat next to him.

"Why would I know?" The drunkard asked, scorned at the young man.

"I don't know. Maybe thought you knew him."

"Now how the Hell would I know?"

"He had a scar, mister. His cheek shredded on the left side. His lip gashed and mangled" The drunkard sat up when hearing these words. "That's what I thought, you son of a Bitch. You knew him. You knew my mother. You know me. Now, you're going to rest and tomorrow, you will tell me everything you know, or I will kill you."