The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

EPILOGUE

“True, it is almost as bad to kill as to be killed. It drove my father to an early grave; it almost distracted my mother; it killed my brother Joe and my cousins Tom and William; it left my brother’s widow with two helpless babes … to say nothing of the grief of countless others. I do say, however, that the man who does not exercise the first law of nature—that of self-preservation—is not worthy of living and breathing the breath of life.”

From The Life of John Wesley Hardin as Written by Himself