Читать книгу Selectively Lawless - Asa Dunnington - Страница 8

Prologue

The older man and the younger man sat in the room, long shadows casting a palpable sense of heaviness and weight between them.

“It’s a burden on my soul, Asa,” said the older man, hunched over the table. “A burden, taking that man’s life.”

The younger man, Asa, nephew of the older, nodded slowly and silently, recognizing the import of what was being said, both aloud and unspoken.

“Not a day passes I don’t wish it could’ve been different.” Emmett Long, one of the so-called baddest of the bad outlaws of the old Wild West, turned in his chair to look his nephew direct in the eye.

Asa stared over at the old man, looked into the elder’s clear blue eyes and saw the ring of truth behind them. He felt like a priest hearing a confession.

There was a great and profound sadness underlying Emmett’s words, but the old man continued.

“You write my story for me, Asa. But don’t make any excuses for me. I done what I done, and there ain’t no gettin’ around it.”

Asa nodded.

“And if I see that fella I done kilt in the hereafter, I’ll tell him the same.”

And so Asa wrote the story.