With both the Indian and the women he was always left with the feeling that, without meaning to, he had made some kind of mistake.
Well, boys, Long Bill said. I guess here's where I quit rangering. It's rare sport, but it ain't quite safe.
Virtually all his life he had been in the position of leading groups of men, yet the truth was he had never liked groups. Men he admired for their abilities in action almost always brought themselves...
Though loyal and able and brave, Pea had never displayed the slightest ability to learn from his experience, though his experience was considerable. Time and again he would walk up on the wrong side o...
There isn't a thought in my head I care to be alone with for more than five minutes.
The thought crossed his mind that he ought to have married her and not gone rambling. If he had, he wouldn’t be in such a fix. But he felt little fear; just an overpowering fatigue. Life had slipped o...
The journeys that people took had always interested him; his own life was a constant journeying, though not quite so constant as it had been before he had his wives and children. Usually he only agree...
Such is the life and death of a good cowboy.
She may know what I am, though, Lorena said.Yes, she'll know you're a human being. You don't have to duck your head to nobody. Half the women in this country probably started out like you did, workin'...
Ride with an outlaw, die with him, he added. I admit it's a harsh code. But you rode on the other side long enough to know how it works. I'm sorry you crossed the line, though. Jake's momentary optimi...
Most of the talk of human beings was silly talk, talk that was of less weight than a man’s breath.
Learning may be the best thing we have. It may be all that we can truly keep, Lorie,
I would prefer to be shot, myself, if I get that sick, Call said. Once there’s no avoiding death I see no point in lingering. Augustus smiled at the comment, and poured himself a little more whiskey....
I needed a man, Call replied. I was hoping he might turn out to be a fighter. No, he’s just a jailer, Billy said.
I make my share of mistakes, but one I never make is to underestimate the power of things. People imbued from childhood with the myth of the primacy of feeling seldom like to admit they really want th...
I guess we could pile some rocks on her, Call said. I hate just to leave a body laying out.Woodrow, she's mostly et anyway, Gus said. Why spoil the buzzards' picnic?
I don't know why you would even want to stay with me, I said.T.R. looked stunned for a second and then whipped her elbow into my side as hard as she could--months later it was determined that the jab...
He was annoyed with his mind—it would be a lot easier to do his task well if his mind would just behave and not keep making him scared.
Governors and legislators wanted the hostiles held in check and the bandits hung, but they wanted it all to be done with the fewest possible men on the cheapest possible horses. It irritated Call and...
For a time Dish lost all sense of what life was about. He even lost the sense that he was a cowboy, the strongest sense he had to work with. He was just a fellow with a glass in his hand, whose life h...