The old man was having trouble keeping his horse stationary as he rode up in front of the saloon. The skin on his face visible above his scraggly white beard and below the rim of his worn hat was leathery and I could tell that the man was in a lot of pain. In a hoarse voice asked me to help him get down off his steed, and I obliged him.

Even once he was on the ground, he was unsteady. “Help me inside,” he said, nodding toward the swinging doors of the saloon, “and sit me down at a table.” Again, I obliged the old timer.

After he was situated, he said, “Now fetch me a pencil and some stationery. I’m dying and I need to write down my last will and testament, and if you hurry, I’ll give you a piece of my inheritance.”

I stepped over to the bar and asked the barkeep for a pencil and some paper and then walked over to the table where the old man was seated, only to find him slumped over dead as a doornail. I figured that I earned my inheritance, which as far as I was concerned was the old timer’s horse and whatever I found in his saddlebags. Hell, I helped the geezer out in his dying moment. It wasn’t my fault that he died intestate.

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Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Double Take—Saturday Mix, where we are asked to use these homophones in our post: horse/hoarse and stationary/stationery.