The face that came out of the darkness wasn't exactly one he'd hoped to see. Yet, he was somehow glad to see him anyway. At least he knew he wasn't dead. There's no way that Dish Boggett got to heaven.
Wait...was he in hell?
"Ugh...Dish?" He groaned, rubbing his eyes.
"Who'd ya expect numb nuts?" Dish snarled in reply.
"So the devil finally caught up to ya?" Jasper asked the foggy apparition before him. "All those damn late nights with that..."
"Don't finish that sentence 'less you want yer ears boxed..." Dish warned him.
Jasper quieted and rubbed his aching temples.
"Where am I?" He asked. "This don't feel like hell."
"Cause it ain't." Dish told him. "This is just a dream. You'll live. Maybe."
"Fuckin' Pea..." Jasper growled.
"You shut up about Pea Eye. Ain't his fault and he's awful sorry." Dish snapped back at him.
Jasper growled in response. "What the hell are you doin' in my dreams, Boggett?" He demanded. "Last I checked you ain't no purdy woman. Hell you ain't even no purdy man. Ugly' all you got to offer."
"I'm here, dumbass, because I'm the ghost of your past." Dish growled back at him. "And I'm supposed to be helpin' you save your damned soul so be grateful.
Jasper's mouth clamped shut and his eyes sunk back into his head with fright.
"My...wait a minute what?" He asked.
"Yeah. You're a damned man, Jasper." Dish confirmed with a nod of his head. "Damned as damned can be. But it don't have to be that way. The big man upstairs is givin' ya another chance. I suggested ya take it."
"Wh...what do I gotta do?" Jasper asked, teeth chattering in fear.
"First of all, get off your ass and follow me. I got somethin' to show ya." Dish instructed, offering a hand to his life long enemy.
Jasper looked at the hand with a distrustful expression.
"Well? Ya gonna come on, or do I gotta drag ya there?" Dish asked, voice impatient.
Jasper growled and grabbed hold of Dish's calloused hand, letting him pull him up to his feet.
The next thing he knew, they were suddenly standing in the middle of the North Texas desert.
"What the hell...?" Jasper wondered aloud, looking frantically around in a panic.
"Cool your skirts, Mary Joe. I told ya before its just a damn dream." Dish sighed, shaking his head at Jasper's blind ignorance.
"Where the hell are we?" Jasper asked, still frantically scanning the horizon.
Dish raised an eyebrow. "You don't remember?" He asked. "Maybe this'll jog your noggin." He grabbed a hold of Jasper and whirled him around.
"Hey! What the hell are you..." Jasper growled at him.
"Shut up and watch." Dish told him, arms crossed over his chest as he gazed at the scene before him.
Jasper's jaw dropped. In front of them was the entire crew. All the boys they'd taken up from Lonesome Dove. Even Deets was there.
All of them were sitting around the wagon, watching the entertainment that Dish and Jasper were providing.
Jasper grinned to himself. "You just showin' me this to make me feel bad about beatin' your ass so bad?" He asked Dish, who frowned.
"Ya know, Jas, I can already tell your soul's a goner." He told him. "Less you wise up and pay better attention."
"Attention to what?" Jasper asked.
Dish shook his head and turned Jasper around. "This look familiar?" He asked.
Standing before Jasper was Newt and himself right after he'd tripped him into the mud.
Dish glared at Jasper. "Get the picture?" He asked him.
"That I'm a ball bustin' son of a gun?" Jasper chuckled.
"No!" Dish snarled. "That you're a sadistic bastard who likes to cause trouble whenever it gives him the littlest chance!"
Jasper backed up, eyes wide. "Jesus..." He mouthed.
"Look here, son." Dish told him. "See you and Newt rollin' around there? See that nasty bloody nose he's got now? Who's fault is that huh? Tell me."
Jasper gulped.
"God don't like hecklers, Jassy boy." Dish said, crossing his arms in front of his chest and giving Jasper a serious look.
"So I gave the brat a bloody nose? No big deal. He quit bleedin' didn't he?" Jasper tried to defend himself.
Dish just shook his head. "You're just a brick wall ain't ya?" He chuckled to himself.
"Only cause nothin' you've said so far has made a lick of sense!" Jasper whined at Dish.
"How's about we look at your latest fuck up, Jasper?" Dish suggested, shoving him forward through two swinging doors to a saloon, which he hadn't seen there before but had somehow appeared just then.
"What the hell is...?" He started question when suddenly a gunshot rang out.
He looked up to see a man, a very familiar man, falling to the ground, dead as a door nail.
"All he did was spit on ya, huh?" Dish shook his head and suddenly Jasper realized that this was the man he'd killed at that bar in Miles City.
"Hey! That bastard deserved it!" He immediately tried to defend himself.
"You made little Newt a killer." Dish growled. "You cost two men their lives...and all you can think about is yourself?"
Jasper glared daggers at Dish. He didn't want to admit how wrong the fact made him feel now. He'd never admit it. Not to Dish Boggett anyway.
"Are we done here?" Jasper asked.
"I am." Dish nodded. "But you ain't."
"What do you...?" Jasper started but stopped when Dish vanished into thin air.
"Hello?" Jasper asked, looking around the dark room but finding no one.
"Jasper?" A soft touch on the shoulder made him jump like a bullfrog in a frying pan.
"Jesus Christ! Newt! What the hell are you doin' here!?" He demanded.
The kid smiled at him, just like he always had before all this. Before Dinnigan, before the Captain left, before Gus...
"Dish sent me." Newt interrupted his train of thought. "Said he couldn't reason with ya no more. Thought maybe I could help."
"Great." Jasper scoffed. "So who are you then? My conscience?"
"Nope. I'm the Ghost of your present. Here to show ya what you're doin' to yourself. It ain't good, Jas. Ya gotta stop this."
"Stop what?" Jasper scoffed again. "I ain't done nothin' wrong."
Newt took him by the arm and turned him.
"You're gonna need a new foreman." Jasper heard his own voice echo. "Someone who'll do what you can't."
Jasper gulped and looked at Newt who had a disappointed look on his face.
"Hey! I was just tryin' to..." Jasper tried.
"Jasper, you've been lyin' all your life." Newt told him. "You've betrayed the Captain. You betrayed everybody. Just like Jake done."
"Whoa...now wait a minute. I ain't no Jake Spoon, Newt..." Jasper told him, not liking where the conversation was going.
"Nope." Newt agreed. "You sure aren't. You're worse."
Jasper turned suddenly and looked into a large mirror.
The reflection he saw made him scream.
A lifeless face with black eyes and a devilish smile grinned eerily back at him.
"Hello, Jasper..." It whispered.
"Who the hell are you!? Go away! Get the hell out of here!" He screamed at the beast.
The walls went dark and began closing in around them. Newt had long since vanished.
"You've been bad..." The deep, demonic voice crooned to him, stepping closer and closer.
"Stay back!" He warned, drawing his pistol.
"What's wrong, Jasper? Don't recognize me?" The creature chuckled, still coming closer to him.
"Shut up!" He demanded, dropping the gun and covering his ears.
"I'm you, Jasper." The voice told him. "This is what you are. You're a monster. You're evil. I. Am. You."
"No!" Jasper shouted. "NO!"
The floor opened up beneath him and a fire rose up from the pits of what he assumed was hell.
"We will rot for what we've done!" The demonic version of himself told him, appearing directly infront of him. "You will be punished!"
"NOO!" Jasper screamed as he was shoved into the hole, falling quickly towards the fires of satan's lair.
...
"NOO!" Jasper screamed, sitting up in bed quickly, his injured arm then cramping up and forcing him to go back down, clutching it and nearly crying in pain.
The sound of boot steps coming closer let him know that it had all just been a dream, a horrible horrible dream.
"Jasper? Son? It's alright, boy. Take some of this." Captain Call told him, holding a glass of laudanum to his lips.
Jasper didn't refuse the medicine. His arm really hurt.
"Lay down, kid. You need to rest up." The Captain told him.
"Captain..." Jasper muttered.
"Take it easy now..." Another voice told him. Pea Eye.
"Captain...I..I'm sorry..." He tried to get out again.
"Shh, just rest now." Captain Call told his injured hand, wiping his face with a cool damp cloth.
Jasper started to feel the effects of the laudanum quite quickly, and soon he was being pulled under again into a deep sleep.
There were no nightmares this time though. He already knew what he had to do.
He had to change.
THE END