He wondered if he was going crazy, only it that was the case, it should have happened a long time ago. Still, walking up the dirt track towards the house, feeling the sun at his back, the breeze in his face, he had to admit it was a pretty good hallucination. Even down to the sound of the dogs barking in the distance from the herd he could see creating a dust cloud some way off.

Sticking his thumbs into his pockets he tried for nonchalance as he approached the veranda. He coughed slightly, making the woman there look up.

“Mal.”

“Ma.”

“It ain’t time.”

“Not of my choosing, Ma.”

“You sure about that?” Alice Reynolds sat back in the old rocker, on the porch that didn’t exist anymore, and resumed shelling peas, dropping them into the blue and white bowl in her lap.

“Is this what you do?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him. “Chores?”

“What else is there to do? Things need doing, so you do them.”

“But this is heaven, isn’t it?”

She smiled at him. “Is it?”

“Well, it sure ain’t hell.” He turned to look around the landscape, at the sun setting behind the mountains, and the soft sound of the creek not that far away.

“For a man that don’t believe you sure have a particular view of how things should be.” She picked up another bowl by her feet and held it out. “Here. ‘Stead of standing around being all philosophical, why don’t you give me a hand?”

He gazed at her, not a day older than when he was a boy, and considerably younger than when he walked away from the ranch for the last time. He grinned. “I’ve got to work, now?”

“Surely do.”

With a chuckle he sat down at her feet, setting the bowl between his thighs. “Green beans,” he said, shaking his head. “Ain’t had them in a long time. Frey’s not so keen on ‘em, and they’re not cheap, so we don’t tend to buy ‘em.”

“You used to love them. With gravy, and some of my biscuits.” She laughed. “I swear, you didn’t even care if there was meat, so long as you had the gravy and biscuits.”

“How it should be,”