Epitaph

by Mary Doria Russell

DAMN SHE MUST BE SOMETHING STOP I GUESS came the reply from Globe, BUT ANGER IS A HORSE THAT WOMAN CAN RIDE FOR DISTANCE.

“I would not have voted for the man,” Doc admitted, “but this—” He lifted a fine-boned hand toward the street, where small groups of Cow Boys were now tearing down Allen on horseback, shooting at the sky and racing beyond the city limits before the police could do anything about the ruckus. “This is indecent.”

I cannot afford to do it nor can I conspire at it, but this thing has aroused all the Devil that is in me.

“I’m sorry about your brother, sir. I’m sure he’s in a better place.” “No,” James said, his voice ragged and fierce. “No! Wherever my brother is, that place is better because he’s in it.”

“Politics, from the Latin. Poly, meaning ‘many.’ Ticks, meaning ‘bloodsucking little bastards.’”

It was someplace to go. It was a direction. She’d probably tell him to go to hell, but even that was a destination.

“I don’t believe I shall mind bein’ dead. Gettin’ there has been a trial.”

They rehashed the gunfight and the vendetta, but they did not say, “He upheld the law until he took it into his own hands and crushed it.”

John wiped his eyes. It’s not lying, he thought. It’s just remembering things the way they should have been.