All the time you spend trying to get back what's been took from you, more is going out the back door.
Ellis
Loretta tells me you're quittin'. How come you're doin' that?
Ed Tom Bell
I don't know. I feel overmatched. I always figured when I got older, God would sort of come into my life in some way, and He didn't. And I don't blame Him. If I was Him, I'd have the same opinion of me that He does.
Ellis
You don't know what He thinks.
Ellis
I sent Uncle Mac's thumb buster and badge over to the Rangers, to put in their museum. Daddy ever tell you how Uncle Mac come to his reward? [Ed Tom shakes his head] Gunned down on his own porch, over in Hudspeth County. Seven or eight of 'em come up there, wantin' this and wantin' that. Uncle Mac went back in the house to get the shotgun, and well, they was ahead of him. Shot him in his doorway. Aunt Ella come out, to try and stop the bleedin', and Uncle Mac all the while tryin' to get that shotgun. They just sat there on their horses, watchin' him die. After a while, one of 'em said somethin' in Indian, and they turned and left out. Uncle Mac knew the score, even if Aunt Ella didn't. Shot through the left lung. And that was that, as they say.
Ed Tom Bell
When'd he die?
Ellis
Nineteen-zero and, uh, nine?
Bell
No, I mean was it right away, or in the night, or when was it?
Ellis
I believe it was that night. She buried him the next mornin', diggin' in that hard old caliche. What you got, ain't nothin' new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity.
