Part 22 begins with the pro­tag­o­nist walk­ing through the shad­owed streets, his eyes drawn to a lone­ly and decay­ing tav­ern. The scene is qui­et and unset­tling, and before he knows it, sol­diers arrive and seize him. He is soon locked in a cell, where his thoughts grow rest­less and con­sumed by the mem­o­ries of the vio­lent past that have led him here. The actions of his life, filled with blood­shed and loss, are haunt­ing him, and his jail­ers take notice of his increas­ing­ly agi­tat­ed state. Just as his mind is spi­ral­ing, the judge, a fig­ure of both charm and men­ace, arrives to vis­it him. Dressed sharply and armed with weapons, the judge presents an unset­tling pres­ence. The con­ver­sa­tion between them revolves around account­abil­i­ty for the atroc­i­ties of the past, with the judge sug­gest­ing that the pro­tag­o­nist played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the blood­shed, even in orches­trat­ing a mas­sacre along­side a sav­age part­ner­ship. The judge manip­u­lates the dia­logue, fram­ing their inter­twined fates through the chaos of war, and chal­lenges the protagonist’s under­stand­ing of his actions.

The pro­tag­o­nist, still defi­ant, asserts that it is the judge who bears the true respon­si­bil­i­ty. The judge, how­ev­er, con­tin­ues to weave his manip­u­la­tive nar­ra­tive, explain­ing that true con­nec­tion between men comes not from cama­raderie but from a shared ene­my. This state­ment fur­ther dis­torts the lines between right and wrong, as the pro­tag­o­nist finds him­self ques­tion­ing his own posi­tion in the world. With every word, the judge push­es the pro­tag­o­nist clos­er to an uncom­fort­able real­iza­tion about his own role in the vio­lence they are both com­plic­it in. As the con­ver­sa­tion reach­es its peak, the pro­tag­o­nist, though resis­tant, starts to under­stand how much the judge has shaped his life’s path, push­ing him into vio­lence and tur­moil. After this tense encounter, the pro­tag­o­nist briefly finds a moment of respite when a cor­po­ral speaks to him about hid­den trea­sures, offer­ing him a fleet­ing escape from the over­whelm­ing thoughts of his past. How­ev­er, his free­dom is short-lived when a priest arrives, per­form­ing a cer­e­mo­ni­al act akin to a bap­tism and mark­ing the protagonist’s release from his cap­tiv­i­ty.

Once freed, the pro­tag­o­nist seeks med­ical help for an arrow wound and encoun­ters a young sur­geon eager to per­form surgery. In an act of des­per­a­tion, the pro­tag­o­nist sells his pis­tol to cov­er the med­ical costs, all while grap­pling with the sense that his fate remains out of his hands. As he con­tin­ues through Los Ange­les, he wit­ness­es the grim spec­ta­cle of a pub­lic hang­ing, where the bod­ies of Toad­vine and Brown are put on dis­play for all to see. The sight is haunt­ing and forces the pro­tag­o­nist to con­front the harsh real­i­ty of his existence—an exis­tence marked by vio­lence and con­stant suf­fer­ing. The hang­ing is a stark reminder of the cycli­cal nature of vio­lence that per­me­ates his world, a world where life and death are con­stant­ly inter­twined. These gris­ly images, the pub­lic spec­ta­cle of death, and the over­whelm­ing sense of futil­i­ty linger in the protagonist’s mind as he moves through a land that seems to offer no escape from its bru­tal real­i­ty.

The protagonist’s jour­ney, though filled with count­less inter­ac­tions and encoun­ters with strangers, is ulti­mate­ly one of pro­found iso­la­tion. He finds him­self adrift in a world devoid of com­pas­sion, where the bru­tal­i­ty of the past seems to per­pet­u­al­ly echo into the present. His encoun­ters with the suf­fer­ing of others—whether through the trag­ic hang­ing or the vio­lence he has wit­nessed through­out his travels—serve as stark reminders of the relent­less cycle of death that defines his exis­tence. As he con­tin­ues to move through the world, he remains unable to escape the weight of the past, unable to find any clo­sure regard­ing the roles played by the judge or the priest in shap­ing his des­tiny. The themes of fate, guilt, and the human con­di­tion dom­i­nate his thoughts, as he wres­tles with the real­iza­tion that the choic­es made by oth­ers, as well as his own, have trapped him in an unend­ing loop of vio­lence and loss. The deep­er mean­ing of his jour­ney, one that start­ed with so much promise, is now a search for mean­ing in a world that seems indif­fer­ent to his suf­fer­ing.