FourteenWords spoken for the dead … and some for the living
They buried Harris as Simms promised. The Pinkerton, with his hat clutched in both hands, lowered his head whilst Cartwright spoke some words. Words which Simms neither listened to, nor cared about. Any faith he may have once harbored lay abandoned on the battlefields of the Mexican War. Ten years ago, Simms took off his United States Army uniform for the last time, and with it, any lingering belief in a compassionate god. He rarely thought of such things now, except when circumstance called for a comforting word to ease another's suffering. Since joining the ranks of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, such words were often repeated. But he uttered them without thought, a mechanical response, nothing more. And so, as Cartwright pray
