On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world.

I will do what I promised. He whispered. No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.

What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.

You ever get ill at ease? said Rawlins. About what? I dont know. About anything. Just ill at ease. Sometimes. If you're someplace you aint supposed to be I guess you'd be ill at ease. Should be anyways. Well suppose you were ill at ease and didnt know why. Would that mean that you might be someplace you wasnt supposed to be and didnt know it?

If we were going to die would you tell me? I dont know. We're not going to die.

I dont know what happens to country.

Sometimes faith might just be a case of not havin nothin else left.

Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland.

People will tell you it was Vietnam brought this country to its knees. But I never believed that. It was already in bad shape. Vietnam was just the icin on the cake. We didn't have nothin to give to em to take over there. If we'd sent em without rifles I dont know as they'd of been all that much worse off. You can't go to war like that. You cant go to war without God. I dont know what is goin to happen when the next one comes. I surely dont.

Dont let go. Okay. No matter what. No matter what.

I will do what I promised, he whispered. No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.

They sat contemplating towns to come and the poor fanfare of trumpet and drum and the crude boards upon which their destinies were inscribed for these people were no less bound and indentured and they watched like the prefiguration of their own ends the carbonized skulls of their enemies incandescing before them bright as blood among the coals.