We devolve into animals when we creep near to death.

It was a sad loss, this illusion of importance, a humbling blow.

It’s easy to forgo distractions and to not accumulate things when you have a larger goal on the horizon.

He’d only ever seen a gun once, a smaller one on the hip of that old deputy, a gun he’d always figured was more for show. He stuffed a fistful of deadly rounds in his pocket, thinking how each one could end an individual life, and understanding why such things were forbidden. Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one’s conscience to get in the way.

That's the problem with the truth," Darcy said. "Liars and honest men both claim to have it.

I am about to die. It is September 11, and every cell in my body is acutely aware of my looming demise. The certainty of it. The inevitability. Not years from now, not weeks nor days. Moments.

Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one's conscience to get in the way.