It is my privilege. It is so written.
Yet moaning and wailing was not my way. I had never complained, for who cares for complaints? If something is wrong, one does something.
Any time a man comes along and says ‘Indians’ or ‘Mexicans’ or ‘Englishmen’ he’s bound to be wrong. Each man is a person unto himself, and you’ll find good, bad, and indifferent wherever you go.
For three days, Shandy Gamble had been lying on his back in the Perigord House awaiting the stranger in the black mustache. Nichols, his name was, and if they were ever going to start cattle buying they had better be moving. The season was already late.
Once he paused near a small stream to watch a dipper bob up and down on a rock. He saw a school of trout lurking in a shady place where a branch hung low on the water. No amount of seeing ever made nature old to him, and he was conscious of every movement and sound.
You believe in heroes?” Corvino looked at him thoughtfully. “I cannot believe in anything else. A man needs heroes. He needs to believe in strength, nobility and courage. Otherwise we become sheep to be herded to the slaughterhouse of death. I believe this. I am a soldier. I try to fight for the right cause. Sometimes it is hard to know.
It is easy to destroy a book, but an idea once implanted has roots no man can utterly destroy.
The trouble with being on the wrong side of the law was the kind of company you had to keep.
I was raised up where folks looked to the hills, only up where we came from you hadn’t chance to look much higher, we were that near the top of the ridge.
We sprung from thin soil, and raised more kin than crops, but we were proud folk...
Them Injuns. Takin’ the country off ‘em. In good times it must’ve been a fine life they had, huntin’ and fishin’ or driftin’ down the country on the trail of the buffalo. I ain’t sure what we’ll do to the country will be any better.
We were young then, and the West was young, with the land broad and bright before us. We knew, whatever the truth was, that every horse could be ridden, every man whipped, every girl loved.
Folks in the wagon train figured Ma would turn back, but they hadn’t known Ma so long as I had. Once she set her mind to something she wasn’t about to quit.
Under a quiet sky the planet turned, and horses ate, and men slept, and death waited for morning. –.
Not that folks disliked me or that I ever went around being mean, but folks never did get close to me and it was most likely my fault. There was always something standoffish about me. I liked folks, but I liked the wild animals, the lonely trails, and the mountains better.
I like my fellow man, but I also realize he carried a good measure of the Old Nick in him and he can find a good excuse for almost any kind of wrongdoing or mischief.
This was a big country needing big men and women to live in it, and there was no place out here for the frightened or the mean.
If they didn’t accept him, the hell with them – he could go his own way.
There are folks who can’t abide camp-robber jays, but I take to them. Often enough they’ve been my only company for days at a time, and they surely do get friendly. They’ll steal your grub right from under your nose, but who I am to criticize the lifestyle of a bird? He has his ways, I have mine. Like I say, I take to them.
A man often creates an image of a girl in his mind but when it comes right down to it that’s the only place the girl exists.