" IF YOU WANT A STORYBOOK ENDING, stop—now—and remember them in that tender moment. Be content to know that they embarked on a series of adventures throughout the West and that they stayed together through thick and thin for forty-five years.

But know this as well: If their story ended here, no one would remember them at all.

Where a tale begins and where it ends matters. Who tells the story, and why . . . That makes all the difference. "

― Mary Doria Russell , Epitaph