And in the silence what followed, I reckon our eyes had some long conversation our mouths could’ve never talked through. Some long, looking talk about things gone and long since said. About cries out in the night and some long ago tangling of limbs. And about them betrayals done time and time again – by both of us – what led to me pointing the Green Man’s rifle at the man what once loved me under the Green Man’s stars.

Maybe I’d lost something. Maybe I’d lost a lot – more, even, than I could suffer – but I still had my own self. And lonesome as I might be, wasn’t no force on Earth or from above what could make me less.

Targets come big, he said. Time comes small.

Ain’t nothing scarier than someone with nothing.

Jeb didn’t say nothing. Didn’t smile none, neither. Didn’t even move except for the color running right out of him.

No. Some you put to the bullet. Some to the tongue. Reckon we’ll have to see, yet, which way this is going to turn.

Was like the Green Man said, some you got to put to the bullet. Some to the tongue. Often the latter, with me. But some, you just got to put behind you.

Ain’t no good ever comes of it, if you ain’t steering yourself.

That got me to laughing too. His laughter, like his yelling, got into you until you was right soaked with it. So you couldn’t help yourself. But it felt good. Light. I tell you, I hadn’t felt like that in a long while.

I appreciate your thinking on me, marshal, but ain’t no trouble of his what ain’t trouble of mine, too.