The sun had started to set by the time Terry had finished the dishes with Dottie. He felt nervous. This was it. He slowly walked to the front door and looked out. Ernest sat on the concrete front steps of the porch and watched the sun begin its slow decent behind the trees across the road. Terry didn’t know what sort of mood he was going to find, but the only way forward was to take the first steps. He opened the screen.
Ernest looked over his shoulder at the sound of the screen door. He nodded to the steps next to him and scooted over. Terry took the offered seat. He thought about saying something. Asking about his father. He even thought of a few jokes to break the ice. He decided the best thing to do was to let Ernest tell the story in his own time. After a long moment, Ernest found the words.
“Do ya know how hard it is to look at ya sometimes, son?”
Terry started. 
“I. . .what?”
Ernest shook his head. He started to fidget with his wrist watch. 
“That came out wrong. I mean that ya look so much like Glen it hurts sometimes. I was the last person to see him.”
“Right before the dragon?” he asked.
“No.” Ernest replied. “I saw him die, Terry. I saw my brother die to that dragon.”
There was another long pause. Terry was stunned. 
“I’m sorry.” He said. “I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t want ya to.” Was all he said as he twisted the knob on the old watch.
“Are you ashamed of him?”
“What?!” Ernest snapped his head up, glaring at Terry.
“My dad. Are you ashamed of him for screwing up and getting killed by that dragon? Is that why you don’t talk about him?”
All the emotion drained from Ernest’s face as his gaze drifted off somewhere behind Terry. 
“Ashamed? No. No, son. Yer daddy ended hisself, really. He just used a dragon to do it.”
Terry stared at his uncle as if locusts had started crawling out of his ears.
Ernest focused on Terry again as if coming back from a long trip into the past. He turned back to staring at the road. He seemed to steel himself for something. After a minute he nodded and began.
“Yer father was the best knight in the state. I washed out of trainin’ early. He met Marie, that was your mother, and moved off the farm to be closer to town after they married. I didn’t see him nearly as much after that.”
Terry remained silent. Anything he said might break whatever mood his uncle was in. The story might stop.
“When Marie died of the cancer, well, Glen didn’t recover. He'd just sit for hours and stare off inta space. Dottie started spending more and more time at Glen’s to take care of you since you weren’t even a year old by then. Glen couldn’t. He was barely takin’ care of hisself.”
Terry blinked. His dad had abandoned him?
“Don’t get me wrong. Glen loved ya. He loved ya as much as a father could love his boy, but losing Marie. Well, I think that’s when he really died. He was just a body walkin’ around without a soul after that. It broke him. Hindsight lets ya see stuff like that, ya know? The curse of gettin’ old.”
Ernest continued fiddling with his wrist watch as his brow furrowed. Terry could tell this was hurting him. He’d wanted to know, but. . .
“Uncle Ernest, if this hurts too much we-“
“No.” He said. “I. . . I got to do this. Dottie says it’s killin’ me to hold it in and she’s right. As usual.”
Ernest stared at the watch face as he spun the hands around and around. Again, he seemed to leave the here and now.
“I probably should have seen what happened next coming, but I thought he’d get better. He was my brother, but he always seemed so much stronger than me. He kept our Paw offa me when he’d been drinkin’. He hid me from the worst of it. He’d drag me out with his friends to keep me away from the house all the time till Paw died. His friends couldn't stand me, but he brought me anyway. The man was a hero from the day he was born.”
Terry swallowed hard to try to get the lump in his throat down. He used his fingertips to clear tears from his eyes that he swore weren’t there a minute ago. He didn’t trust himself to say anything yet.
“I thought he’d be ok. It would just take time. Then he brought you to the house one day with yer crib and toys and everything in the truck bed and brought it all into the livin’ room. Dottie was worried and I was confused. He was nervous. He couldn’t focus. Just kept sayin' "Watch mah boy" until Dottie agreed to.”
Ernest looked to the sky as the first stars began to twinkle to life. Lightning bugs started appearing. The symphony of a southern night began as crickets and frog started singing.
“Dottie promised to watch ya and when he walked out she told me to follow him. It didn’t take a lotta convincin’ on her part. I let him get the truck a little ways down the road before I followed him. I parked on the back side of the courthouse in Raymond and ran around to that big roundabout where the water tower is.”
“What did you see?” Terry asked at a near whisper. Ernest’s hands started to shake and the twisting on his watch dial became more violent.
“They’d cleared the town out. The dragon was rampagin’ and startin’ fires. Some kids from town had found it’s nest, ya see. There was these eggs.”
The dial snapped off. Ernest finally looked at it. He seemed to give a single laugh.
“The boys smashed those eggs. It was maybe an hour later the dragon charged into town wantin' an eye for an eye. It started goin’ after the children. That’s why Glen was in such a hurry. He needed ya safe and he needed to get out there. I didn’t find out about the eggs till later, of course.”
Terry held out his hand. Ernest turned and looked at it in confusion. A second later he seemed to get it. He took off his watch and handed it to Terry along with the dial. Terry started working to reattach it. Ernest faced the road again as the last hints of a light blue sky vanished behind the trees leaving them with an early spring night sky.
“Like I said, they’d cleared the town. Glen needed room to work and not worry about lives. I came up the sidewalk runnin’ just in time to see him run up to that dragon right as it started to fill it’s bladders to shoot.”
Ernest’s voice became raspy and quiet.
“Yer daddy was the best in the state, like I said. Maybe the country. People still talk about him out there. There’s a lotta things he coulda done to take that dragon down and been safe and sound. But, well-“ his voice caught and he cleared his throat.
“He didn’t care any more. He just gave up livin’ months ago. He ran up to that dragon with it’s neck pouch all full of fire and he stuck his sword - yer sword - straight into it.”
Terry stared at Ernest with his jaw hanging. If his dad had pierced a dragon’s neck right before breathing fire then. . .
“It exploded.” Terry said. Ernest grinned finally.
“Ripped that thing wide open. Woulda been glorious if Glen hadn’t been standin’ right there under it when it blew. The only two things left was his coat in the truck and his sword. Didn’t have a mark on it. Wasn’t even hot.”
Terry ran his fingers through his hair and turned away from Ernest. He didn’t know what to say. What to feel. He just let the moment stretch and watched lightning bugs. It was a little bit before 
Ernest spoke again.
“I saw it, boy. I was the only one that did see it. I told the mayor Glen zigged when he shoulda zagged but still managed to kill the beast.”
Terry sat stock still and stared at the sky. His mind reeling. 
“Now before you say anything,” Ernest said, “people didn’t know about that kinda sadness back then. They woulda seen it as a sign of weakness, or said he was crazy around here and I wasn’t gonna have that. Yer daddy was a hero. He was broken, but he was still a hero.”
Terry smiled. Of course Ernest would have tried to protect his brother’s reputation.
“I tried fillin’ in for him.” Ernest continued. “I just wasn’t that good. I understood everything in practice but these ankles and my back? I wasn’t worth a darn. Found a guy from down near Pickens to take over Glen’s territory. He was a jack-ass, but he got the job done. That only left one more thing to take care of.”
Terry turned and looked at Ernest in the faint light from the now lit windows. Tears leaked down Ernest's face but he met Terry’s eyes. In that moment, Terry’s understanding of his uncle changed.
“What was left?” he asked, handing the repaired watch back.
“You, boy. The one thing in my life I probably didn’t screw up.”
Terry grabbed his uncle in an embrace and buried his face in his shoulder. All he could do after that was mumble thank you over and over as they held each other for the first time in years.
Neither of them noticed Dottie standing in the doorway watching through the screen door.