Hector turned towards me as I stepped out of my truck and lumbered towards him. He had just lit a cigarette, which he hadn't done in a month, and he shivered in the cold autumn air.

"She's dead," he said to me, the last word emphasized by his Cree accent. I shivered too.

"For how long?" I asked. The smaller man shrugged and took a series of puffs from his cigarette.

"Likely a couple days now," he replied, "she's already started to decompose. There'd be flies all over her if it wasn't so damned cold."

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his dark green parka, and stamped his feet to keep warm. I moved in to inspect the mangled mess on the shoulder of the road. It was only 7:00, but the sun was already drooping behind the horizon, making the features even more difficult to distinguish, but it was her alright. The shrinking light and copious amounts of blood couldn't hide the rich black hair and the badly disfigured victim or the telltale scar that ran from the edge of her mouth back to her right ear. The smell of her slowly assaulted me until I had to stand up or vomit.

"Did you see the rubber marks when you came in?" Hector asked. I shook my head and fished around my pockets for a cigarette, my first in several months.

"There was still a bit of light when I got here," he continued, "this ain't no accident. She was likely walking along the shoulder here, when a car came up behind her and swerved to hit her. I can tell by the tire marks. Must of been somethin' big too, cause it caved in her ribs like they were plastic."

I failed to find a cigarette, but Hector politely offered me one of his. The taste of the long white coffin nail (as Hector called it) left much to be desired, but the feeling of relief that came over me after a few puffs was what I was really after. I pair of coyotes howled from beyond the clump of trees just off the highway, and a bird of prey circled overhead.

"Any idea who did this?" I asked.

"Nope," replied Hector, "I was going to go see Ian Swain up on the hill over there, see if he saw or heard anything."

"Swain's an ass, you won't get anything out of him, besides, he hated Kaylee. You'd get more co-operation out of his wife, and she's been dead for ten years."

"So what are we gonna do?"

"First were gonna bury her, I've got a shovel in the trunk."

"Won't Swain get upset with you digging around on his land."

"Swain don't own nothin' on this side of that fence over there. This is county land, and if the county don't like it, they can come out here and stop me. Lord knows the Sheriff won't leave town except when he's drunk or horny."

Hector nodded, then hurried back to his own vehicle, an '89 Ranger. I heard him answering his cell as I hauled my shovel out of the truck box. The hole didn't take long to dig, Kaylee wasn't very big, and my own anger fueled the muscles in my arms and legs so that soon I had a hole twice as deep as it needed to be.

Then I picked up Kaylee's broken body from the side of the road and gently carried her to her new resting place, in the depths of the ditch by the side of the road. Before I laid her in her grave I ruffled her hair one last time, and hugged her as best I could, oblivious to the mud and the blood, and the stench. By the time Hector returned, her grave was filled, and I sat leaning on my shovel staring at the now empty ground. He stood beside me for a long time, not saying anything, just standing there, sharing the grief of a friend. I always appreciated that about Hector. He never said much to make me feel better, but he was always there to sit with me through my sorrows.

"I feel like somebody should say something," I said finally, "would you do the eulogy?"

Hector nodded, and removed the parka hood from his head. It would be pitch black in a few minutes, and the wind was starting to pick up. Despite the cold, I took my hat off too.

"Kaylee was the best dog a man could ask for," Hector said, "loyal, obedient, friendly... perhaps too friendly. If only God would make men as good as he made this dog, then this world wouldn't be such a screwed up place. I'm sure there are lots more good dogs in this world, but there's none as good as Kaylee. May she rest in peace."

We lingered only a moment longer before we began the trudge back to our trucks. We reached Hector's mud-caked Ranger first, but instead of getting in and driving away he opened his passenger side door and grabbed the twenty-two he carried with him at all times. Then he locked his ride, and started walking towards my truck.

"What are you doing?" I called as I quickened my pace to catch up.

"Coming with you," he grinned, "that was Joe Biffle who phoned me. He said the Wilm brothers and their cousin Bobby are laughing it up at the bar in Gossville, bragging to everyone who'll listen about how they drove over your dog. So Joe said he'd keep them occupied while you and I head over to their farm."

"The Wilm place? That's two hours away!"

"I know, Joe better be gettin' them dead drunk if we're gonna pull this off."

"Excuse me."

"Well, Joe said since they killed your dog, we should take some compensation out of their herd. That's what the gun's for. Are you up for it?"

I thought for a moment, and then got into my truck, started it up, and unlocked the passenger door so Hector could climb in.