"Start unpiling those rocks, Deke." "And when you've uncovered the dead man, there'd better be an arrow in his back..." "for your sake." "Well, how do you know..." " Ah." "Come here." "Come here." " What are you doing?" "Come on, come on." "Your kings are high." " It happens." " Ah, max, man." "Mm-hmm." " Your bet." " I'm still high over here." "Will you please tell that man that I would like to speak to him?" "Now?" "Now." "While he is still able to stand up." "No good whatever to speak with him now." "Why not?" "Just back from two months of perilous jeopardy without closing an eye." "Very tired now." "So tired he can't even sleep." "Yes, but not too tired to debauch himself." "He unwinds best in front of evil companions." "If he is not too tired to indulge simultaneously in four amusements, any one of which is enough to ravage the health of an ordinary man, then he is not too tired to speak to me." "Now you call him." "He will not do what you want." "It takes money to live the way that one does." "He'll talk to me." "I see you are wealthy perhaps." "Only in bread cast upon the water... and that sometimes comes back soggy." "Interesting." "You do good deeds without long face." "I think perhaps he will speak to you." "Thank you." "The pair of kings bets $250." "Mr. Paladin, this is for you." "Here." "Play my cards." "And don't cheat her." "A young and very innocent child." "All right, honey, it's your bet." "You're very free with your money." "So are you." "Well, I work hard for it." "You seem to work even harder to spend it." "Which makes me a very busy man." "Now, if I have completely satisfied your curiosity..." "My name is Adella Ligget." "I've seen it tacked in my brother's study... a reminder of Satan's physical presence among us." "My brother is a minister of the gospel." "I am a nurse." "Well, there are some men who consider that an immoral occupation for a woman." "My brother is among them." "Why come to me?" "Well, I thought perhaps..." "Satan wouldn't shrink from the thought of a female nurse." "Where do you want Satan to take you?" ""Goldfield, Nevada, Mourns Passing of Only Doctor Within 100 Miles."" "Are you offering your services?" "As long as they need me." "Well, has your offer been accepted?" "Listen." ""Doctor desperately needed." ""Mine accident with 30 injured." ""Some may be dying." "Find us a doctor, not a nurse."" "Why?" "Why press your services on people who don't want them?" "Wait." "I spent four years preparing myself, and now I find that I am not wanted." "I feel like a woman who had carried a child and now was not permitted to bring it into the world." "Some of us are denied the joy and privilege of motherhood." "But a woman still needs to comfort, to care, to protect... in short, to be a nurse." "All right, Adella." "You give me one day to catch up on my sleep, and I'll take you anyplace you want to go." "A whole town full of pain, men dying without a doctor." "You will take me now, or I'll go alone." "We'll camp here." "Are you tired already?" "Well, we've covered 60 miles." "Don't you think the horses have had enough for one day?" "Well, it's only another two or three hours' ride, isn't it?" ""Distrust yourself." "Sleep before you fight." "'Tis not too late tomorrow to be brave."" "The world could come to an end, but a man has to have his sleep." "To a tried man, the world does come to an end each night." "If the good Lord had entrusted men with the task of childbirth, this planet of ours would be as empty as the moon." "Miss Adella, I am aware that a young woman of your high moral standards would much prefer to spend the night with a man on horseback." "I can only assure you that were you to rouse the bestial side of my nature," "I am much too tired to do anything at all about it." "Well!" "I..." "We got neighbors." "Oh." "Well, we'll go and see them." "What for?" "They have the same right to be here that we have." "Oh, it isn't their rights I'm interested in." "It's their health." "Suppose there's someone among them who needs aid and comfort?" "Oh..." "We will go and see them." "Come on." "Ma'am." "It's always hot work to plant one of your fellow men, ain't it?" "Whew." "Feel like the jaws of hell couldn't wait to close over." "Good pair of shoes." "Ain't much use to the worms, is it?" "Well, don't stand there with your finger in your mouth, boy." "Fetch the lady some water." "Good, fresh snow water." "Pure as the Lord made it." "I'm sorry we can't offer you anything more substantial, but... that's all we've had in our own bellies for goin' on three days now." "Well, we'll be glad to share some of our supplies." "Won't we, Mister Paladin?" "God love you, sister." "They're in the saddlebag." "Who was that?" "That was Lucifer..." "Lucifer Blake." "He's a partner of ours." "Yeah, he got drilled by an Injun arrow right betwixt the shoulder blades." "I never saw a man look so surprised." "This Lucifer's coat?" "Yeah." "It happened at high noon." "He, uh..." "He weren't wearing' no jacket." "Can't you wait to hold your inquest until after these people have had something to eat?" "Oh." "Now it ain't no call to trouble about us, ma'am." "If you just leave us a few scraps of bacon rind and a handful of flour," "Reamer and me, we..." "we don't take very much." "Lucifer got killed at noon." "And you're just burying him now." "How come?" "Well, now, it, uh..." "it took quite a spell for all the life juice to trickle out of him, and we didn't feel it'd be very Christian of us to prod him along." "And seeing as we had nothing to dig with except my own dirty fingernails and Reamer's little old busted knife... and it took us another while to assemble these here rocks." "You ain't a lawman, are you?" "No." "Why?" "Oh, I mean it's..." "it's just too bad you ain't, account of I could give you all his papers and all." "You take 'em with you and make it all kind of official-like... not that he had any kinfolk that I know of, poor soul." "Well, there's a town about fifty miles on ahead." "I'll make a report there on the grave, and they can send somebody after you." "Send somebody back after us?" "Whatever for?" "I mean, uh... we ain't done nothing wrong, have we, outside our own Christian duty of covering up our brother's blood so it won't cry out from the ground?" "Well, you tell them your story." "They'll decide what action to take." "Uh, Mister, are you accusing' us of what I think you are?" "If your conscience is clear, you tell them your story." "Save yourself fifty miles on foot." "Hey, Mister, what gives you the right to stand judgment on us?" "Now look, son, it is of no private interest to me whether or not that man has an arrow in his back." "But I do have some responsibility as a citizen." "Anybody accuses me of murdering my best friend is gonna have to be a man enough to stand up and answer for it." "For a bereaved man, you're mighty anxious to start a fight." "Oh, Paladin, can't you see that the boy is nearly out of his mind with hunger?" "No, ma'am, and I thank you kindly, but I'm old enough to know a challenge when I see one." "Now, boy, why don't you just accept the man's apology and let it go at that?" "I wasn't about to offer one." "Ah." "Well, now, that, uh... that do look kind of serious, don't it?" "In Heaven's name, Paladin, have you no regard for their feelings?" "If I have wronged you, I apologize." "If I have not," "I hope they hang you." "Are you coming?" "Mister, maybe that isn't good enough." "No!" "Oh, now stand there." "Is that your idea of "those who live by the sword"... an unarmed boy?" "Well, he was not exactly unarmed." "Besides, I assume that any man who attacks me from the rear is trying to kill me." "Now, ma'am, you can hardly blame him for that." "I reckon a suspicious soul who's always thinking evil thoughts about his fellow man, why, he'd just better be handy with an iron out of sheer self-preservation." "I remember a grave I saw back in Arkansas once... had a lovely motto carved on it in some foreign tongue, which translated as," ""Evil to him what evil thinks."" "It's all right." "All right." "You know, I reckon that that's the kindest he's been treated since the day his ma pushed him out of the nest with just barely enough meat on his bones so as he could sit up." "He, uh..." "He turned into a mighty handsome lad, though, all things considered, didn't he?" "You still got that arrow?" "Arrow!" "Blame if you don't sound like one of them law-fakers... always carrying' on about bits and pieces and doodads that plain folks wouldn't give a second thought to." "No, sir!" "We left the arrow buried right in his back." "To tell the truth, I was a-scared to pull it out, 'case it might cause a leak and all that blood come gushing out at once." "I'm glad you're not a better shot." "At least the bone isn't broken." "I hit him where I intended to." "Yes, sir, you sure are quick with an iron, ain't ya?" "Yes, sir." "I reckon a boy with a little old busted knife, he don't stand much of a chance against you, do he?" "You feel safer now?" "Is it really impossible for a man to feel like a man without a... a weapon in his hand?" "Now, ma'am, don't go runnin' down a man's skill with an iron." "He's liable to get so nervous he'll shoot his own foot off next." "Don't count on it." "I don't count on nothing except my fingers... unless I has to count to 20." "Then I take my shoes off." "It's gonna be dark soon." "I reckon I'll turn in myself." "You know, maybe we shouldn't have piled on all these heavy rocks." "The way your gentlemen protector is a-twitching and a-turning, we might have to make room for another body before the morning." "You be sure to wake me up now when all the shooting commences." "I sure do want to be helpful when them inquest fellers come sniffing around." "Ma'am... if you want to be rid of him," "Deke and me, we'd be proud to take you anywhere you want to go." "No." "Thank you, but no." "I suppose he can't help being what a life of violence has made him." "I haven't felt so comforted since I busted my leg falling off a chair." " I was with my ma then." " Come on." "Come on." "Come on." "Deke come along." "He said she was evil." "But you know, I dream about her, and I see the face of an angel." "And it's your face that I see, always your face." "Now what you got in mind?" "I'd still like to see that arrow." "Let me get you straight now, neighbor." "You want to be dead sure it was the Injuns killed our partner and maybe not his own friends, is that it?" "That's right." "Well, I guess if it will ease your mind... you got the stomach for disturbing a man's eternal rest," "I don't mind accommodating you." "It must be a terrible thing not to be able to trust anybody or anything." "Yes, ma'am, that's a true thing you said." "What?" "What's the matter?" "What?" "I am burning up." "There's a snowbank right over these rocks." "I'll get you some." "Here you go." "Oh, you are an angel." "Now, mister, just what would you do... if there weren't no arrow where I said it was?" "Are you admitting that you killed him?" "Now I'm just saying "supposing."" "I mean, being as you're such a jumpy, hotheaded kind of feller and all." "You're liable to leap to conclusions, and, filled with righteous wrath, raise up your hand to slay the innocent." "Now take the rest of the rocks off there." "Deke!" "Leave it!" "Now get away." "You treat a man like an animal, he's going to act like one." "All that work, and you still don't know whether we killed him or not." "Maybe you're never gonna know." "Take it easy." "He's only funnin'." "Deke, he wouldn't kill nobody." "He wouldn't hurt nobody." "All we want is your horses, so we can get out of this wilderness before them deputy sheriffs come up here and all them small-minded town people with small ideas about what happened." "And they're gonna bring a rope." "That's the truth, sister." "Our only concern is to keep justice from miscarrying... right around our necks." "Get the horses, boy." "I guess maybe his boots would fit you, huh?" "What about her?" "Now, boy you know we ain't got time for that." "Mighty handsome woman, but she ain't worth hanging for." "Will you send somebody back for us with horses?" "I wouldn't worry about that, 'cause you ain't going nowhere." "No!" "You can't!" "Please." "Please." "Please don't let him take me." "Please." "Please." "All right." "Which way?" "You think I should turn back, don't you?" "Stop imposing my help where it isn't wanted." "Goldfield still without a doctor?" "Mm-hmm." ""'Tis not too late tomorrow to be brave."" ""Have Gun Will Travel"" "Reads the card of a man" "A knight without armor in a savage land" "His fast gun for hire" "Heeds the calling wind" "A soldier of fortune" "Is the man called Paladin" "Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?" "Paladin, Paladin, far, far from home"