“Around about now, young John Owen comes out of the shack lugging my old musket from the War. At six years of age, our youngest boy already knew his business. Not a word, just brings the shooting iron somewhat closer so's he don't waste powder, then hoists her up, set to haul back on the trigger. I believe his plan was to shoot this feller, get the story later.”

“Hold it right there. You men from the bank?" "You Wash's boy?" "Yessir and Daddy told me I'm to shoot whoever's from the bank." "Well, we ain't from the bank young feller." "Yessir, I'm also s'posed to shoot folks serving papers." "We ain't got no papers neither." "I nicked the census man." "Now there's a good boy.”

“The kid pulled a Buck knife out of his pants pocket. "How about giving me your purse, bitch?" Sally hiked up his skirt, reached into his briefs and pulled out a Glock. "How about using that knife to slice off your balls?" Lula whipped a gun out of her red satin purse and Grandma hauled out her .45 long-barrel. "Day my make, punk," Grandma said. "Hey, I don't want any trouble," the kid said. "We were just having some fun." "I want to shoot him," Sally said. "Nobody'll tell, right?" "No fair," Lula said. "I want to shoot him." "Okay," Grandma said. "On the count of three, we'll all shoot him.”

“We're no longer young men. We've lost any desire to conquer the world. We are refugees. We are fleeing from ourselves. From our lives. We were eighteen years old, and we had just begun to love the world and to love being in it; but we had to shoot at it. The first shell to land went straight for our hearts. We've been cut off from real action, from getting on, from progress. We don't believe in those things any more; we believe in the war.”

“It gets you thinking about all the parts in a story we never see" --he cleared his throat-- "the parts around the edges. You bring someone like that boy so alive before us and there he is set loose in our world so that we can't stop thinking of him. But then the report is over, the boy disappears. He was just a boy in a story and we never know the ending, we never get to close the book. It makes you wonder what happens to the people in them after the story stops--all the stories you've reported for instance. Where are they all now?”

“Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.”