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Raylan Givens left at age nineteen, left Harlan, the mine, the moonshine, his father, all of that behind.
There’s a difference between leaving home, and leaving all of that.
While there was enough money from Aunt Helen to go to a community college, and try to get into a bigger university, he wasn’t sure that he could save enough money to manage it.
He ended up in the Army. Iraq, in the beginning of Desert Storm, before Kuwait.
Raylan had entered the Marshals with PTSD and a discharge under DOD Directive 1332.14, January 28, 1982, Part 1, Section H.
The hat came later. Miami had followed Glenco, Los Angeles, a long time in fugitive recovery, Chicago, more time in fugitive recovery, and Georgia, of all places. The hat had been an impulse purchase in some Podunk town near the heated waters of Old Faithful. Being as the idiot he and Deputy Cooper had been chasing thought that a little steam bath was a good idea, it had helped salve the massive amounts of paperwork that stupidity and self-broiling incurred.
It let him shut out the memories.
He’d met Winona in a bar. Witty, complicated, trouble on a set of legs that were the best he’d seen on a woman, and interested in him. Salt Lake City.
Their marriage lasted six years, through fugitive recovery, but not through the offer of Miami. His eyes had certainly strayed, but never a hand, until she’d left. He’d gone to Miami.
He ran like a lemming at a cliff, pissing off drug lords and rekindling feuds, and transporting Crowes. Sometimes Raylan thought that he’d never left Harlan.
Maybe Art was the best leader that he’d seen in a long time. Gutterson was smart, but splintering on the edges, Art was wearing down fast, even if he was as determined as ever, and Rachel had deep roots. She, of the Marshals in their office, was the one who would live to retirement.
Raylan wouldn’t.
The jar of ‘shine still didn’t have any answers, sitting on the bedside table at his motel.