Jack of Harts

The many deaths of Louis Mattioli are spread out all over explored space and beyond. He has a lot of graves on a lot of worlds, and sometimes he claimed the first plot of Cowboy Country on a new world. Other times, we’ve never been able to find out what happened to him out there in the dark. He just… went out and never came back. That happens to us more often than we’d like to admit. But a new Louis was always decanted in time, and went out to do his duty again. Based off the most recent backup, he knew everything he’d known before he left, and sometimes that made it easier to try again. Sometimes it didn’t. But Louis never gave up. He was stubborn that way. It was one of his better traits.

Louis Mattioli was a good Cowboy for a long time after War’s End. He lived up to everything we stood for. Truth. Justice. The American Way. All that jazz and more. He had his problems, but he kept them from showing in his work. As long as I wasn’t involved. He helped a lot of people over the decades. He fought a lot of fights, and he won most of them. Entire planets owe him a debt that can never be repaid. They are free because of him. Because when they called for help, he answered. He put his life on the line for them. Again and again and again, he did everything a Cowboy was supposed to do. Everything we’ve devoted our very long lives to. He devoted most of his to that same goal. When it comes time to tally up his legacy, we should never forget that.

Louis Mattioli and Natalie never had exactly the same relationship they had before he died. Before I stuck my well-intentioned nose into keeping her alive. She wasn’t all his anymore, and there was a jealous streak in him. It burned deep and cool over the decades, but he never put it to words. I would have handled things differently if I’d recognized it bothered him, but I didn’t. Nobody did. Even he didn’t. And that just made things worse. He couldn’t tell me why he resented me because he didn’t understand what he resented me for. But our disagreements got worse, and I just tried to stay away from him in the end. Our cybers helped with that, and of course that stuck in his craw too. He should be able to confront the man who messed everything up, right? Even if he couldn’t say how I had done it.