Doran Welks was a good boy.

Doran grew up poor. He had a friend or two and enjoyed the simple pleasures available to poor boys. He fished in the nearby stream and cooked what he caught over a small fire nearby. He smoked filched tobacco from his daddy’s drawer and told tales of sweaty lust and ruttin’ to boys who also lied ‘bout their experiences. He went to school regular, because it was warm there when home was not. He listened well and tried hard, and his teacher graded him on his improvement, not his lacking skills. His best friend, Ethan Cobb, helped him as best he could, as boys will…passing him answers during tests and whispering responses under breath.

But Doran’s daddy was, above all things, a very bad man.

Ethan knew about the bruises and the welts. He knew about the hunger and sleepless nights. But he was Doran’s best friend so he knew you didn’t tell anyone ‘bout those things. You just looked away when he cried, but didn’t leave his side. You simply told him you were full up at lunch and gave him the rest of what your momma packed. You just were…there.

At 13, Doran towered over his classmates, and Ethan. His daddy was bigger.

No one was there to witness the blow that changed Doran. The blood that gushed from his nose and ears dried before his daddy was sober enough to realize his boy hadn’t moved.

The doctor believed Doran fell from a tree, alone, at night, because he was just a man. Ethan knew better, because he was a best friend.

Doran lay without moving for almost 4 weeks. He was lost against the gray of the sheets. When he finally did open his eyes, everyone but Ethan was shocked. There were presents and casseroles from neighbors who naively believed everything was going to be okay. Even Ethan believed it.

Then Doran hit him.

A month after he arose from the bed, he clocked Ethan without so much a ‘how do you do’. Over nothing. Ethan had merely been talking about school and how boring it was without him and how Shyla Banks was getting titties and…

WHAM!

Doran never even looked at Ethan where he lay, some 5 feet away on the ground, gasping like a trout. He simply kept staring straight ahead and chewing on his stale sandwich. Ethan knew, in that instant, Doran had died. He might be walking and grunting replies to basic questions, but he was gone.

Didn’t take long for the rest of the town to figure it out. Didn’t take long for them all to forget the shy, friendly boy and simply remember that small pets were going missing and turning up torn up. He was thrown in jail countless times over the next few years for fighting and stealing. He didn’t know any better anymore.

Ethan was still there. Through their teens, Ethan made sure he ate regular and kept him busy with projects here and there. Got him a couple of odd jobs around the mines, where he could keep an eye on him. Tried to steer him away from big trouble.

When they were twenty two things got real bad. Ethan heard a scuffle over at the chow tent and ran over to see Doran beating Evan Handler to death. The towering man had the smaller man’s head in his massive hands and slammed it over and over again into the ground. The sound was dull and sickening.

Doran looked at the broken thing in his hands and dropped it. He just let it go and walked off. Ethan began to shake and lost his stomach. Plenty of other people did too, and none too few were crying.

On the way towards the foothills, Doran grabbed pretty little Lily Hartensen, with the blue eyes and dark curls. She was 15. He wrapped his hand around her wrist as he walked by and dragged her away from the gathering of girls that came to watch the young men all sweaty and working. She never made a sound and no one stopped him.

Shock has that effect on people.

Ethan was the first to recover. He ran straight to his daddy’s home and burst in. Momma was scared half to death, and she was still screaming after him for answers when he ran back out with his daddy’s shotgun clutched to his chest.

By the time he found their trail the sun was past high and heading down. He was the best tracker in town, none better, but it was still hours before he caught sight of them.

Doran sat next to a small fire wearing only his underclothes. Lily lay naked, crumpled, some feet away. She cried softly.

There was nothing to say to him. No dramatic moment of pity or revulsion. He simply aimed and fired. Doran fell to ground without a sound. No sense of loss because he had buried his friend almost a decade ago.

He walked to Lily and touched her shoulder. Took off his jacket and helped her to sit up so he could wrap it around her. Helped her stand. Helped her walk away from hell as blood dripped slowly from her thighs.

“I knowed he didn’t know what he was doing. There was nothing in his eyes, “ she whispered quietly. “He wasn’t doing that to me. He was just doing…that…to a thing what was there, wasn’t he?”

Ethan stopped and tilted her head up to meet his eyes and nodded. He didn’t bother to brush the tears off her face since the dam hadn’t yet broken. Bloody and bruised. Used in the most brutal of ways by a man that wasn’t. And here she was letting go.

“Didja know him well, Ethan?”

Again he nodded.

“Ya had to shoot him. I know that. They’da put him in prison and beaten him senseless…they’da hung him.” She looked away as the torrent began. Only tears, no sobs. “He wouldn’ta understood…he wouldn’ta…”

Ethan let her trail off and just wrapped a hand around her head burying his fingers in her dark curls and leaning his forehead to rest in them. He felt something break inside and let his own tears flow.

Ages later he shifted away slightly and she quickly smudged the tears away from her cheeks with filthy hands. She needed something, anything to give her the will to walk back to the town.

“Tell me ‘bout him, Ethan. Tell me some…something good.”

Ethan Cobb felt a warmth fill his chest he hadn’t felt since the bruising blow so many years before.

“Doran Welks was a good boy…”