Max Brand

“ I know the place. They's a spring that come out in a holler between two mountains; and the wind blows up the valley all the year; and they's a tree that stands over the spring. That's where I'll put him. He loved the sound of runnin' water; and the wind'll be on his face; and the tree'll sort of mark the place. Jerry, lad, would ye like that?"
Now, while Mac Strann talked, inspiration came to Haw-Haw Langley, and he stretched out his gaunt arms to it and gathered it in to his heart.
"Mac," he said, "don't you see no reason why Jerry wouldn't ask you to go after Barry?" ”

“ The fury of the death-struggle which had been omitted must take place, and the full rage of wrath and destruction must be vented. Can a bomb explode and make no sound and do no injury?
Yet Jerry Strann was dead and all the world lived on. Someone cantered his horse down the street and called gayly to an acquaintance, and afterwards the dust rose, invisible, and blew through the open window and stung the nostrils of Mac Strann. ”

“ Not if you get the man that fixed him."
"Would you want me to get him, Jerry?" asked Mac Strann. And he waited for an answer.
"I dunno," he muttered, after a moment. "Jerry was always for fightin', but he wasn't never for killin'. He never liked the way I done things. And when he was lyin' here, Haw-Haw, he never said nothin' about me gettin' Barry. Did he?"
Astonishment froze the lips of Haw-Haw. He managed to stammer: "Ain't you going to get Barry? Ain't you goin' to bust him up, Mac?"
"I dunno," repeated the big man heavily. "Seems like I've got no heart for killing. ”