Re: The end of the rope...
It's Wildcat's turn to be hard to read.
"Well, yer all not what I thought, and that's a good thing. I'll give ya that much. What yer doin'... it may even have had noble roots at one point. I'd even go so far as to say that. People coming together, that's what th' preachers call fellowship. Ah think despite yer self admitted faults, you understand that concept.
"Th' trouble is when you don't stop there. You raise each other up, but you also raise up that mantle of the outcast, the unwanted, the victim. You set yerself apart because you can't let go of it. It closes your eyes to other possibilities that maybe things don't have to be that way. You seem to think I think I'm better than you. Well guess what, this here gun, it'll kill you and me just as dead. I believe the same God will judge us both on the same criteria one day, an' if'n you don't believe in that it don't matter because that just means we'll both pass into the same nothing. We ain't the same, but I ain't better than you in all the ways it ultimately matters."
Wildcat shrugs. "You got some funny ideas about wimmen too. You think it's hard being the man of the house? Try not even having a man of the house when ya got mouths to feed. A man has to work all right, but so does a woman, she just ain't workin' fer some feller's money most of the time, and when she has to do that, it's a hard road to hoe. Yer right some women ain't good fer nuthin', same as some men, but my momma gave up a lot in life to be who she was, worked her fingers to the bone, and after daddy got kilt she worked the bones off.
"I've walked both sides of that fence. How many Rangers do you think can bake a pie, hem a skirt and tie a pretty bow with a piece of ribbon? How many women do you think know how to fry and swallow a lizard whole, ride a horse into battle, and kill a man with a knife? And you know what, it ain't a whole lot of fun either way.
"And incidentally, the reason I've not shot you is it would be wrong. You clearly recognize yerself it would be wrong. You may question my motivations, and that's your perogative, but that proves something very important to me. You know the difference.
"Now fer whatever it's worth, and it ain't much at all, yer man might have had a better chance of him and me backing off if'n we weren't surrounded by a bunch of men who don't even see me as a living thing, because I don't carry that yoke of thinking I'm an outcast like they do. And that's the reason... this can't keep going like this. If you'll listen to me a little bit longer, I'll stop with the cowgirl speeches about things I know you don't care about and offer you a deal with the devil herself. If'n I can learn to shut up, listen, and cure my own ignorance, I bet you can too."