Dead Man's Walk

by Larry McMurtry

The land before him, which looked so empty, wasn’t. A people were there who knew the emptiness better than he did; they knew it even better than Bigfoot or Shadrach. They knew it and they claimed it. They were the people of the emptiness.

He felt sad for all of them: the Rangers, Matilda, the little family that had lost its roof. They were small, and the world was large and violent.

A man could perhaps and perhaps all day, and not find his way to the truth.

“It means we have to be careful,” Call said. Lady Carey looked again at the distant mountains. “Quite the contrary, Corporal Call,” she said. “It means we have to be wild, like the wild men.”