Character Analysis
Aww, man. Ned. What is this total sweetheart of a dude doing in a movie like this?
The short answer? Dying.
Ned is Will's longtime friend and former partner in crime. Like Will, Ned has taken to farming in Kansas during his retirement. Also like Will, Ned still has a hankering for adventure.
Will doesn't have to put too much pressure on him to get him to go to Wyoming in quest of a $1,000 bounty. This, however, is pretty much where the similarities end.
Sure, we suspect Ned was once a baddie, just like Will, but it's very strongly implied that he was never as downright cold-blooded as Will. We don't think he'd just kill some guy because he was too drunk to care one way or the other. And we don't think he'd kill a U.S. Marshal, or blow up a train with women and children on it (all things Will has done).
When he says,
NED: We ain't bad men no more. We're farmers.
…we actually believe it.
Late in the film, our suspicions about Ned's goodness are proven correct. Since he's the one who's handy with a rifle, he's entrusted with taking out Davey. He shoots Davey's horse, but then doesn't have the heart to shoot a man whose legs are broken and is trying to get away. After that, he decides to head back to Kansas. Before leaving, he tries to give Will his rifle, a gesture that symbolizes (both for him and for the Kid) his permanent rejection of a life of violence.
More perhaps than anybody else Ned is a character worthy of our pity and our sympathy. He makes the right decision before it's too late, and yet he still pays the price. He's whipped and ultimately killed by Little Bill, even though he doesn't kill anybody and even makes a concerted effort to put that kind of life behind him, once and for all.
Even though it makes sense for Ned to die—his death is a long-awaited punishment for a life of misdeeds—it just doesn't seem fair. "We all got it coming," Will says, but that doesn't make it any less painful to watch.