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“Thus, he fulfilled what Jesus said by denying him three times before the Thomas crowed.”
Wolfwood tipped his head back and blew smoke towards the starry sky. “Yeah, I know that story. Why’re ya telling me this again?”
Vash stared across the empty feet of desert between them. Despite being backlit by the moons, his eyes glowed like a cat’s in the dark. He shrugged. “Seems like something you would do.”
Wolfwood coughed and choked on his next breath. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Vash shrugged again, an innocent smile dancing across his lips. “I dunno. I can't control what comes out of my mouth.”
Wolfwood grumbled. “Sure, Spikey.” He crushed his cigarette in the sand by his head and nestled deeper beneath his blanket. “Y’ sure it was a tomas?”
“Um, yeah?” He could hear the frown in Vash’s voice. “Pretty sure. That one was a sad story so I never liked to hear it. I preferred the one about the parting of the sea and the pillars of fire and stuff.”
Wolfwood snorted. “Just thought it was somethin’ else.”
“Like what?”
“Like...” He tried desperately to remember the inflection of Miss Melanie’s voice and the way the biblical tale unfolded in her words. “A...cock?”
“...Are you being serious?”
“What- yes!”
Vash raised an eyebrow. “Because it sounds like you're using this as an excuse to run your foul mouth!”
Wolfwood sat up and hurled his makeshift pillow at him. “Idiot! It’s like a bird or something, from Earth! You should know that!”
Wolfwood’s bag hit Vash square in the face, eliciting a dramatic oomph from him. He whined and tossed it back. “Shut up! I just said, I never paid much attention to that one!”
He caught the bag and tucked it beneath his head. “I wasn’t talkin’ about that-”
Vash interrupted. “That's good because I don't want to hear about-”
“I was talkin’-” Wolfwood raised his voice over him. “about the bird. It's how I used to hear it.”
Silence washed over them for a long moment. Vash fiddled with his boots. Wolfwood considered another cigarette.
“Ya got me wrong, anyway, Blondie,” he muttered, staring at the sky, “I wouldn't do that.”
The subtle clink of Vash’s boot clasps stopped abruptly. “What makes you so sure?”
Wolfwood tipped his head and grinned. “Yer stuck with me. If you go down, I go down.”
They held each other's gaze. Wolfwood shuddered and tried to hide it. Vash’s eyes always seemed to look right through him and it unnerved him.
His blond companion smiled and the cold dissipated. “Together, huh? Well, that does sound nice.”
To look back on memories of Vash always seems...childish. Like wishful thinking. Wolfwood is rarely one to dwell on the past. There is never any changing it, after all; best to move forward.
Yet here he is, dwelling on the past as if the images of Vash in his head are some sort of addictive and tantalizing drug. A feeling he cannot replicate any other way. A sound and sight he will spend a lifetime searching for again and may never find, because there is nothing and no one else like Vash the Stampede.
Damn him.
Bless him.
Wolfwood breathes smoke in his lungs, dwelling also on his last cigarette. What’s left of the second sun as it sets just barely peers over the horizon, and in its golden friendliness, there is a cluster of buildings.
At least, he thinks that's what those little black dots are. They had better be, after walking all damn day in the sticky, dizzying, exhausting heat.
Your fault anyway for losin’ yourself in your head like that. Coulda been killed.
He snorts what could be considered a laugh, if he was in better spirits. But who would take a shot at a poor sap like me?
Unwilling to dwell on that particular train of thought, he squashes the bad feeling in his gut and keeps his feet moving. He ponders, instead of the way the spiky sun rays remind him of a certain man’s head of hair, what excuse he’ll use this time.
Wolfwood has been many men in his travels since The Incident, and Vash has been any number of men as well, in his tales. Wolfwood has used a variety of familial relations, friendship, coworkers, a member of such-and-such agency looking for survivors. Bernadelli, once, but it was too hard to get the word off his lips more than a single, brave instance.
“A priest looking for a long-lost lamb,” is the one he usually chooses these days. It catches people off guard and leaves them wondering what he’s implying, and by the time they form the words to ask, Wolfwood is already gone.
He hasn't yet decided what the story is as he crosses from loose sand to hard, packed earth and a shoddy attempt at brick laying- some sort of clay, Wolfwood suspects. A quick visual sweep of the main thoroughfare confirms his suspicion. The buildings, crumbled and clinging to their upright and whole positions, are made of the same bland, dusty colored material.
The people of this town are settling in for the night as they lose daylight, judging by the distinct lack of hustle and bustle in the market square. Wolfwood pauses at the turn, taking in the small wooden stands with weathered tarp over them and withering baskets peeking from behind, empty for now of their wares- what little they may have to offer.
He takes a moment- just one moment, he swears- to dwell again. How Vash’s eyes would get all big and wet and sad, like a kicked puppy or lost child, if he saw this scene. How he would beg Wolfwood to help him revitalize this little square somehow, with more color or more music, despite the fact they both knew very well why that would do nothing for these poor people. How he would spend days or weeks dwelling on the town after they left, and every now and then, his voice would rise from the edge of his sleeping bag, “I wish I could do something.”
A shuffling of feet shakes him from his reverie. He tilts his head to meet the dull eyes of an old, bent man.
“You lost, boy?”
Wolfwood attempts a drag from his cigarette. It is long spent. He forgot, while he stood there dwelling and thinking. “No, sir, just travelin’.”
The man squints, suspicion rolling off him in waves (as it should, although Wolfwood would never say). “Ain’t nobody travelin’ in these parts.” His hard eyes linger on the cross at Wolfwood’s back. “Ever. Y’ understand why I'm suspicious, dontcha?”
Wolfwood does. “Yes, sir.” He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and eyes the damp paper in disappointment. “Where do y’all hole up for a good drink and smoke?”
The man answers after a long, long silence. Debating. Observing. A smart man, Wolfwood muses. “Mary Margaret’s got a place on Second Street, just down this way to the left. She don't put up with trouble, though.”
Wolfwood nodded, and mustered a weak smile. “I don't blame her. Thank you.”
“Yer lookin’ for someone.”
Smart, smart man. “Yes, sir.”
The man takes a long look. Up, down, up and down again. “Can't be a wife.”
Wolfwood chuckles, perhaps more genuine than he has in months. Since Vash...well, since Vash. “Do I really look that rough around the edges?”
“Just don't look like the type.” The man crosses his arms. “Well, whoever it is, we haven't had a stranger in our stretch of desert since before that day.”
Wolfwood’s mouth obtains a strange sour taste. “To your knowledge, that is. Sir.” He tacks on the last word quickly, as an afterthought. He can't afford to lose the progress made.
He laughs, loud and harsh. “I suppose. You can try askin’ around. We’ll be gathered outside Mary Margaret’s for most of the night. Annual starfall, y’see.”
Wolfwood hums in acquiescence, pretending to “see”. He did not. It sounded like something Vash would be delighted to attend. Either that or his ghosts would rear their heads and he would not sleep for days and refuse even the sweetest donuts.
Vash again. Always Vash.
Damn him.
“Sounds like the best time to ask around,” Wolfwood says aloud.
“Should be.” He digs in his pocket and retrieves a dusty pack of cigarettes. Wolfwood cannot make out the brand, but he doesn't really care as the man passes him a cigarette. “Stay outta trouble.”
“I will.” He probably won't. Ever since Vash, trouble clings to him like a tumbleweed, like a thousand cactus needles. Vash made his life hell like that, always stirring people up with his fantasies, with his idealistic dream world, and then burning everything to the ground the moment some poor sap recognized his stupid face.
God, he hates that man. Vash the Stampede.
He crushes the odd tightness in his chest, banishes it to his feet, and waves to the old man as he hobbles away. He lights the cigarette and stands in the empty street.
Wolfwood dwells on it all. On Vash.
Always Vash.
After a great deal of wandering and contemplating and smoking and eventually chewing on the spent cigarette, Wolfwood finds the general store. He crosses the threshold before it closes, thankfully. The cheery bell signaling his entry startles him a little, and again, he thinks of Vash, who might make a big scene and overly dramatize his reaction, or tease Wolfwood for his own, or-
He shakes his head to clear it. What a clown, a fool, a nuisance. He's glad Vash is gone.
He has to find him or he may lose his goddamn mind.
“Evenin’,” he says in greeting to the woman behind the counter.
Her eyes narrow in suspicion. “You're not from around here.”
“That is correct, ma’am,” he admits, or confesses. “I just need some information on, uh...”
Shit, he hasn’t thought of a story yet. Who is Vash today? A brother he longs to embrace again? A monster he hunts to kill and rid the world of its horrid nature?
The woman supplies the rest of his sentence. “Ah, you're looking for someone.”
Is it really that obvious, he wonders. “Yes, ma’am. I will be askin’ around Mary Margaret’s tonight.”
She nods. Her face has changed subtly, a softer countenance on her wrinkled face, aged beyond her years by labor and sun. “Best place for that. Mary Margaret’s got a keen eye on her, too. She’ll know if anybody’s passed through.” She folds her hands on the counter. “What can I get you?”
Wolfwood scans the sparse shelves around him. “Cigarettes’ll do. And maybe a new cooking pot. I dinged the hell out of the last one fending off a worm.”
He didn't cook. Or, he used to cook. For people in his past. For Vash.
Vash. He loved his cooking. He would stare at the food wide-eyed and thrilled to the point of shaking where he sat. And the questions would come, over and over, “What's that? How does this work? Can I taste it?” Sometimes Vash would eat nearly all of their food, greedy little bastard. Sometimes he would hardly touch it, insisting someone else needed more. “I'm a plant, I'll just photosynthesize.” What a load of shit and they all knew it.
But damn, Wolfwood loved to get pissed at him for pulling that act.
The woman smiles. “Oh my, it must have been a large worm.”
Wolfwood sighs, mostly fondly, to remember the way he had smacked Vash upside the head with the pan, the night before The Incident. He hated Vash’s stupid annoying whining. He loved Vash’s poorly hidden glee as he pouted up at Wolfwood.
What a beautiful, manipulative, brilliant, conniving, compassionate man.
“It was,” he says wryly.
She inspects the shelves with a low hum. “I’m due for a restock. Let me see what I have in the backroom. Give me just a moment.”
“No problem.”
She disappears through a door behind the counter. As she leaves, a small child appears in her place. He clutches a battered toy wearing a vaguely cowboy-esque hat. Wolfwood tries not to stare at his little bony knuckles clutching the worn little figure. Brings back too many memories.
Not necessarily good ones.
Wolfwood fiddles with a bit of lint in his pants pocket. He fixes his eyes on the white dust coating the toes of his shoes. He ponders asking for something to shine them with, then thinks better of it. He doesn’t have the money or the time.
Two big brown eyes enter his field of vision.
Wolfwood clears his throat. “Ah...hey there.”
He’s normally good with kids. Great, even. Vash used to coo and smile over his methods with them, his ease in speaking, earning trust, playing, understanding. Wolfwood feels closer to most children than he does the larger adult population. He sees himself and a handful of other children he spent years with back in that old orphanage.
The boy stares.
Wolfwood offers a smile he prays isn’t strained and tired. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for; this boy will know if he fakes it. “That’s a neat toy ya got there. Did ya name him?”
He nods. There is a shimmer there, in those wide brown depths, that speak of long hours spent imagining the open desert as a world of adventure and possibility. Wolfwood used to see that same shimmer in the mirror.
Oh, Wolfwood wants to bend to this dear child’s height so much, but his cross is in the way. He bears it and stays upright, waiting patiently for the little one to speak.
“Mama doesn’t like when I say his name,” the boy mumbles after a stretch.
“Yeah? Why not?”
“He’s a bad man.”
“Oh.” Wolfwood ponders. A bad man? So, this kid enjoys gunslingers and ne’er-do-wells. Proper outlaw stories. “Did he do something bad to make him a bad man?”
The boy hesitates. “Mama says he made a city explode.”
Wolfwood’s mouth goes dry. “I see,” he chokes.
“But Vash the Stampede isn’t really bad, is he?”
Damn. Damn the universe, damn his bleeding heart, damn that Vash the Stampede. “People...” he starts slowly, “make mistakes sometimes. That doesn’t make ‘em bad people, yeah?”
He nods earnestly. “That’s what the preacher says.”
Wolfwood tries his best to keep his breath of relief between his lips. “Good, you listen to that preacher, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” The boy holds his toy against his chest. “Can I ask something?”
He admires this child’s curiosity and bravery. “Sure, kiddo.”
“What is your cross for?”
“I’m a bit of a preacher myself.”
The boy’s eyes grow a bit wider. “Is that why you said I should listen to my preacher?”
Wolfwood smiles, a blessedly more natural smile. “A little bit.”
“I’ll listen to him!” he affirms, clenching his little fist.
Wolfwood thinks he likes this kid.
“Sir?”
“Mhm?”
“Do you know about the Punisher?”
Oh no. “What makes you ask?”
The boy shrugs. “He has a big cross, too. He knows Vash the Stampede.” He adjusts the figure’s arm, holding its tiny wooden hand and admiring its blank face. “I like Vash the Stampede.”
Wolfwood isn’t sure whether to agree or disagree. He has a laundry list of reasons to despise and adore that man. “Well, ah...”
“Joseph!”
The boy gasps.
The woman stands in the doorway. Her words are as sharp as her gaze. “What did I say about you spreadin’ word about that horrible man?”
“You said not to,” he mutters, then he seems to gain a burst of courage. “But Mama, I bet this man knows him!”
Her eyebrows raise. “He had better not if he knows what’s good for him.” She cannot help directing her needlepoint gaze to Wolfwood. “I’m sorry about my son.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Wolfwood says. He’s amazed at his ability to speak with such a dry, heavy tongue. “He was just curious, tellin’ me about his toy.”
The woman seems unsurprised but wary. “Do you?”
Wolfwood blinks. “What?”
“Do you know Vash the Stampede?” She too takes a longer look at the cross on his back. “He traveled with another man, for a time. A man with a cross.”
Wolfwood shook his head once, as much as his stiff, tense neck would allow. “No, ma’am, never met the man.”
She fixes him another long, hard stare. Then she holds two packs of cigarettes up. “This is all I got.”
“Thank you, I’ll take them.” Wolfwood hands her a fistful of cash. He has no idea how much it is- more than enough, he’s sure- but he cannot bear to stand in this suffocating store any longer.
“That’s plenty, I don’t need that much,” she protests.
“Please,” he insists.
They exchange goods. Wolfwood utters another thanks. He hurries for the door and does not look back, does not even stop moving until he’s put enough distance between himself and the memories of smoke and blood and a toothy grin, that which he could never determine was the truth or a lie.
Wolfwood circles the town in a somewhat panic-induced haze, smoking and cursing Vash’s existence, before he returns to himself and seeks his next destination.
Mary Margaret’s bar is a lively place when he approaches, the moons high in the inky, starry sky. The bar is well marked with a hand painted sign and glowing windows. Laughter and clinking of cups spills from its doorway. A part of him relaxes as the familiar drone surrounds him.
Wolfwood enters and approaches the counter, where a tall, stout woman prepares drinks for a couple perched on stools topped with faded red leather. He pointedly avoids the direction his thoughts wish to take at the sight of that cursed color and fabric combination.
“Evenin’,” he greets once the woman turns her attention, “Two shots of your strongest, please.”
She barks a laugh. “Welcome, stranger. Yer in for a ride!”
“Works well enough for me.” He prays that just this once, the Lord will allow him to get drunk on the piss-colored liquid the woman is pouring for him.
She places two shot glasses in front of him. “Should be enough to get ya niiice and shit-faced.”
Thank the good Lord above. He reaches eagerly for the first one.
“Now then,” she interrupts sharply, slapping his hand away, “I just want you to know, I don’t allow any chaos or tomfoolery in this place, ya hear? No funny business, no violence, no guns firin’, none of that. I don’t care if I send you to yer doom out in the cold desert night, you won’t get sympathy from me if ya start somethin’.”
Wolfwood smiles at her fiery gaze and hair. “You must be Mary Margaret herself.”
“That I am.”
“I swear I won’t cause trouble, and if I do, yer welcome to do whatever’s necessary.” He withdraws his remaining money and passes it to her.
Mary Margaret grins. “I like you, stranger. Have fun.”
He raises his glass in thanks and downs it in one gulp. He tries his best not to make a face as it enters his digestive system. Damn, it’s strong, and his throat already feels the burn of the alcohol.
Behind him, the crackle and pop of a radio stretches above the din. A cheer ripples through the crowd. Wolfwood turns in time to see people jump from their seats and begin to dance as lively music fills the room.
He doesn’t expect the sight to ache as much as it does.
It’s almost too easy to spy a spiky blond head in that dancing crowd. Vash loved to dance. He would often start a dance, if a bar had a radio. Even if he was the only person who got up, he would dance as if his life depended on it. He roped Wolfwood into his antics too many times to count. It was embarrassing, humiliating; and yet, it felt like freedom, too.
He downs the next shot. Did he really come here to wallow and sulk like a lovesick teenager or did he come to get his business done?
Wolfwood spins back around. Mary Margaret watches the crowd as she leans on the counter, a smile once again on her sun battered face. He hates to interrupt her.
“Excuse me.”
She looks at him. “What can I do for ya? More already?”
He coughs. “Ah, not yet. I was actually hopin’ you could tell me if you’ve seen anybody else pass through here? Any time from now until about...year, year and a half ago?”
Mary Margaret squints, a little sad and a little suspicious. “Lookin’ for someone from that day, huh? Your sweetheart?”
Why does everyone assume that? What’s in my face? “Not exactly. A partner, of sorts.” He sort of wishes he had ordered another drink as his fingers fold and unfold the corner of a napkin. “Do you know of the Humanoid Typhoon?”
She stares. “That’s a mighty odd question.”
“I know.”
“A lot of us on this godforsaken planet have business with that monster of a man, if he is a man at all. Him and his companions.”
“I’m sure.” He licks his lips. “So do I, in a way.”
“Is that why you’re askin’?” Mary Margaret is a smart woman. She taps her nail against something clearly made of metal, something Wolfwood cannot see from his vantage. Must be a rifle tucked under the counter. “Do you know him?”
“No,” he answers, “I’m just a curious fellow. Got friends who’re reporters, you know the type, spinnin’ fantastical tales and the like. It gets a man’s head going.”
Stupid, stupid things to say, but his mind is a whirlwind and his heart is like a stampede of its own. He is usually so much more collected, but alas, a mere child can bring him to his knees at the mention of damn Vash the Stampede.
Mary Margaret seems to understand. She rests her hands atop the counter and purses her lips. “Yer the first stranger in nearly a decade, trust me. They all come in my door eventually, if they visit this town. I would remember someone like that man if I ever saw ‘im.” She sighs heavily and shakes her head. “Wouldn’t mind puttin’ a bullet through his skull. My sister was...there.”
Wolfwood has folded the napkin in a small shape. He sets it down with trembling fingers and it springs to life. The sharp angles and sudden movement remind him much of the black smoke and vines writhing and rising to the sky, blocking out the stars, belching their darkness into the peaceful night. Sweat beads on the back of his neck, as if he still stood on the edge of it all, watching a man he could have loved so much destroy the very innocence he claimed to protect.
Mary Margaret’s words dance in his mind like the jaunty music in the background. He recalls dozens of openings, dozens of moments he could have put his gun to Vash’s head and finished the job. He would have done it, he should have done it, but he too was enchanted by the idiot’s compassion and sincerity. What a fool. He wouldn’t be in this mess if he had just sucked up his emotion and pulled the trigger instead of spending days getting lost in his unreal blue eyes and nights curled up by his side.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “about your sister. I, uh, coulda shot the Typhoon myself if I had the chance.”
Liar.
Her face softens, pitying. “You were there.”
She’s perceptive. Good for her. “Yes, ma’am.” No sense lying.
“So, he took someone from you, too.”
In a way. I thought he was different and then he turned out to be just the sort I was told he was. Bastard. “Yes, ma’am.”
She reaches and pats his hand. “I know it’s rough, honey, but we can’t hold onto our grief. He’s probably dead, anyway, good riddance.”
She’s right, Vash probably is dead, but Wolfwood isn’t so sure. He’s seen the impossible, incredible strength and resilience of this Humanoid Typhoon. It will take more than one bullet to bring him down.
“I hope so,” he musters. He can almost feel that spiky blond hair between his fingers if he closes his eyes. He imagines himself tenderly stroking it, like the precious head of a child, then yanking on it and staining it red. He did one when he should have done the other.
Wolfwood opens his eyes and faces Mary Margaret. “I’d like to keep these comin’, please, as much as that money will pay for.”
She chuckles. “Comin’ right up. You’re in for a good, long night, son.”
Wolfwood smells trouble before it reaches him.
The people, although distracted in part by the falling stars whizzing and dazzling across the sky, are uneasy. They sense the stranger in their midst, a stranger who has stirred up their town with dark talk of a man they have never met, never seen but for his wanted posters, but hate with the vehemence of a hundred terrified parents and neighbors.
They are afraid of Vash the Stampede, and afraid of Wolfwood because of Vash.
He can’t help but resent it. What did he do except fall for the same trap many of them fell for too? Is he guilty of the devil’s crimes simply by association?
The unrest becomes more obvious as the shooting stars dissipate. The people linger for conversation and drinks. Mary Magdalene keeps the booze flowing and a great bonfire blazing, a pleasant buzz and comfortable heat.
Vash’s name is whispered on the wind. The shopkeeper holds her sleeping son, Joseph, close in her arms as she mutters to the other women about the strange man in her store today. They gasp and turn their stares to him; judgment, fear, anger. The men sense their discomfort and begin to stand guard at the women’s backs, or display the guns at their hips, or pass weapons to the hands of the gathered women.
Wolfwood recognizes a sheriff in the crowd. He has stood on the edge the whole night, one eye on the sky and the other on the stranger with the cross. Wolfwood is aware that he will approach. The inevitable will occur no matter how fast you run.
Wolfwood slams his last shot as the sheriff makes his move. It has been a hell of a night and he has lost track of the number of shots he has put in his burning insides. He can hardly feel a thing, neither the effects of the alcohol nor the tips of his fingers. Well, perhaps a little bit of the alcohol, then.
The sheriff stops in front of him. “Hello, stranger.”
Wolfwood glances at the badge on his belt. The name ‘Peter’ is barely visible beneath the tarnish and rust. “Evenin’.”
The sheriff sighs skyward. “Practically mornin’.”
“Ah.”
“I hear you’ve caused trouble in my town.”
“Done nothin’ of the sort,” Wolfwood defends. It’s a weak defense and they both know it. No man can casually go around asking about the Humanoid Typhoon and get away with it.
“Men who cause trouble in my town usually get shot,” the sheriff, Peter, says simply.
Wolfwood shrugs. “Fair thing to do.”
“I will keep my streets safe no matter the cost, no matter the blood.”
“As is yer right.”
“Well then? Do you belong to Vash the Stampede?”
“Belong?” Wolfwood snorts. “I don’t belong anywhere, much less to him.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrow.
Wolfwood leans his elbows on the table and rubs his forehead. God, his head hurts. There’s a weight on his shoulders and it’s not his physical cross. “Look, I know I make a pretty bad image, but I swear I’m just curious about the guy. I don’t know Vash the Stampede.”
“And what if yer lyin’?” Peter shifts forward. “What then?”
“I’m tellin’ y’all the truth!” Wolfwood flips the table as he stands to face the sheriff, sending empty shot glasses flying and shattering across the packed clay floor. “Vash the Stampede is a goddamn monster, a menace, a danger! I hate him! Don’t anybody ever mention his name again! I don’t know him.” His lip curled as if tasting something bitter. “I will never know him. I refuse to know him!”
From the barn beside them, a Thomas crows.
The first sun’s light peeks out across the barren horizon.
There are many memories in Wolfwood’s head. In this moment, there is only one that comes to stand boldly in the forefront.
Thus, he fulfilled what Jesus said by denying him three times before the Thomas crowed.
Together, huh? Well, that does sound nice.
Wolfwood does not realize the crowd is gone until he is already alone.
He stands, chest heaving and fists clenched at his sides. His face remains turned towards the brilliant sunlight. It burns to look at, but it hurts more to dwell on Vash the Stampede.
He does not know he’s crying until the tears and snot begin to stain his collar and drip between his parched lips.
Wolfwood falls to his knees. His hand comes to rest over his face, shielding it from the bold and golden sun.
I should have killed him.
I should not have let him go.
He bent forward until his forehead touched the earth.
I promised.
Well, I’ve never been a man of my word.
Anguish is like a vice in his chest. The alcohol stirs uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach and threatens to emerge with every muffled sob and gasp. He weeps for everything; all his anger, all his sorrow, all his empty promises and failures. He wishes, perhaps foolishly, that he were a stronger man, a man who could proclaim the one he follows without fear of being carried to his death in his leader’s footsteps.
But Wolfwood is weak.
In the shadow of his denial, he weeps.