Explain the very end?

SPOILERS. Perhaps watch again. Prior to his money discovered as worthless, Briggs had purchased an engraved wooden "tombstone" and in the last scene was heading back west across the river ostensibly to provide Mary Bee a proper burial. The "tombstone" unfortunately slid off the barge into the river while Briggs was drunk, dancing and firing his pistol at noise complainers. I'm sure he later accomplished his mission with or without that piece of wood.

He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator.

The headstone was kicked off the barge by some jerk. I read some about the condition of the women. The isolation of that place and time was horrible. Especially for the people who had come from more populated areas. Plus, some of these women had very bad luck in the husbands that they had. Some of them should have been put on that wagon too for their lack of compassion and brutality that they showed toward their wives. I really feel sorry for the mother of the one who was in the bed when her husband came to her. I think he was the one who caught her in the barn. I bet the mother did not last much longer either.

I think Mary just decided that she did not want to go back there and felt there was nowhere to go and the incident of being lost on the prairie finally broke her. Also, two separate men turned down her proposal for the same reason. To me, she probably had more backbone and courage than a lot of them. Too bad she lost hope so near the end of the mission.

The Prairie Madness finally went away when transportation and communication improved. Thank God for radio. As for the weather, I lived in Kansas for eight years and the wind almost never stops and because of that, I hated it and could not wait to get back to Texas. I will go back there to see friends and family but you could not pay me enough to ever live there again. To this day, I still hate weather that is high wind like it is/was there. I really feel sorry for the people who lived there then during the frontier days. I can understand why so many of them went crazy there. The Dust Bowl of the Depression made it a lot worse. I will not forget this movie for a long time. Good job done by everyone and you can tell this was a personal project for Tommy Lee Jones.

Well said sir, good analysis

[deleted]