How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Unforgiven.
Quote #4
THE KID: There's two deputies up close pointing their rifles right at you. Got you dead to rights. You pulled out your pistol and blew em both to hell…
WILL: I don't recollect
Will is usually quiet about his past, and her we see actively trying to bury it, to eliminate it from the oral-historical record that the Kid embodies. This suggests that Will is trying to change, but we've seen enough movies to know that you can't just bury the past.
Quote #5
THE KID: Is that what it was like in the old days Will? Everybody riding out shooting, smoke all over the place, folks yelling, bullets whizzing by?
The Kid is like Beauchamp here, and the kinds of people who read his books. He clearly has a romanticized view of Will's past, as if the bullets and smoke were part of some movie set and not part of a violent, potentially deadly spectacle.
Quote #6
THE KID: Was you ever scared in them days?
WILL: I can't remember. I was drunk most of the time.
While Will would love to forget the past, and sometimes he claims he can't remember, here it seems his old whiskey habit is helping him along. He was so drunk in those days, he can't even remember all the horrible things he's done. This is a blessing in disguise in some ways.