So. Now I know.

But I don't know how I feel about it.

Roughly twenty years ago, I answered a knock on the door, around dusk, to find one of our local desert rats on our porch. A man, drawn and dirty, who prefers the solitude of the open desert to any human community.

We had met before, a few times out in the country. No problems, but a warden had warned me to never turn my back on him. A fellow who was reportedly quite congenial until an accident damaged his brain, and then was never quite right after that.

So, I do not invite him inside our home. Instead I step out, in my stockinged feet, to join him on our porch.

He is nervous, and spends a great deal of time and words getting to the point of what he has to say. Wanting me to understand he was placing himself at great risk by being there.

He is here to warn me.

And he is actually quite up front about how he feels about folks who work in our outfit, and if I were to say he had no use for us at all, I would be quite generous.

But his family and I are friends, and according to him, they said I was a good person. And since I was their friend, he didn't want anything to happen to me.

There was a poacher working our country. A companion, so to speak, of the man on my porch. One who bragged he would kill any game warden he came across out in the country, and leave them in a ditch where they'd never be found. And this man who came to warn me was certain this poacher would do the same to him, if he ever found out.

I know he was telling the truth. Darkness had settled upon the two of us, standing on the cold concrete porch, so my naive wife turned on the porch light.

My reluctant benefactor literally tried to flinch into the wall, cringing at the light like a cornered mouse, before I could yell at her to get the light off.

Unbeknownst to me, and the man on my porch, wardens were already aware of this poacher, and at the same time as our conversation, there were two wardens from other parts of the state living under cover in our community, keeping tabs on this threatening poacher.

Wasn't too long before he was sent off to prison, based upon their investigation, and I saw no more of the modern desert nomad who had come to warn me.

Roughly ten years ago, someone kidnapped a young woman near Central City, held and raped her for days, and then stabbed her to death and dumped her body in a river. Her murder was unsolved, a mystery.

Roughly a year or two ago, enforcement folks finally put the case together, complete with the villain.

As you have guessed, the two men had the same name. Not a common name, but neither a unique one. So I have been forced to wonder.

And now I know.

The man who stood on my porch, placing his own life in grave risk in order to warn me of danger...

Is the same man who kidnapped, raped and murdered a beautiful young woman.

And I have no idea how to feel about that.