"Excuse me, preacher." "I mean, for butting in." "I didn't believe it down at the general store when they said:" ""The preacher's up and left us."" "I says, "He wouldn't do nothing like that." "Just wait and see, he'll be back sure."" "But then I weren't sure." "I know it didn't make sense what we see'd and hear'd at the trial yesterday." "No sense at all." "But you leaving the church, your place here, the people who need you that don't make no sense neither." "I can understand the violence of a storm." "It's a natural thing." "Not meant to harm anyone." "But the violence of men their cruelty and savageness to one another, to themselves..." "Please, you'll catch your death." "That train ain't gonna be along for hours." "It hardly stops here these days." "I'll flag it down for you when it comes." "Here, let me make us a fire." ""Silver Gulch."" "I remember when I first came here." "I was gonna strike it rich." "A bonanza of souls to save." "I will lead them into paths they have not known." "I will make the darkness light before them and crooked things straight." "When you get your steam up you do some powerful preachifying." "Yes." "To a congregation of deaf ears." "And the ones at the trial yesterday, you heard it all." "Christians." "I just can't understand it." "All that sinning, lusting and killing." "And then swearing before the judge on the Holy Bible to tell the whole truth, and the way they..." "There must be some answer, but I'm ignorant to explain it." " Not as ignorant as I am." " Oh, no, preacher." "You're educated, you're a man of God." "He knows." "He knows I've failed them." "The shepherd is running away from the wolves." "Where do you aim to be going?" "I don't know." " I don't know." "How about going plumb to hell?" "A fellow can't sleep in peace in this horse ball of a town." "Oh, it's you." "I didn't figure you'd have the guts to show up around these parts again." "I never forget a face, my good man." "But I'm glad to make an exception in your case." "Heehaw up your tail, you godforsaken jackass." "Shut up, you." "This is a preacher standing here." "Preacher?" "It can't be." "He woke me up." "They usually put me to sleep." "Don't pay him no mind." "Who is he?" "He's a con man." "A swindler." "An old scalawag." "How else can a man live to be old nowadays?" "He come around here last year, selling some kind of patent medicine." " Choctaw herbal elixir." " Three people near died of it." "He got out of town just ahead of the tar and feathers." "You can imagine my surprise this morning when I realized where the devil I was." "I just sold a dozen of my fully-guaranteed miracle lightning rods when all of a sudden it starts thundering and lightning like there was a heavenly inspector testing the guarantees." "You're lower than a rattler." "Oh, come now, my cantankerous friend, we're not so different, you and me." "You know, I dig for silver too." "Only in much softer ground." "Though, I must say, this town of yours has sure gone to pot." "What's happened?" "The silver peter out?" "Sure sign when the whores and gamblers start heading for the next sucker town." "Good riddance." "Preacher, huh?" "Nothing much left to preach about, eh, Reverend?" "Oh, I forgot, you're leaving town too." "Had a bellyful of religion, I take it." "How about you and me teaming up?" "We could make a hatful." "You know, with your face, my fingers..." "Leave him be." " Just said he had an honest face." "What's wrong with that?" "He's as rotten as the three at the trial yesterday." "Trial?" "What trial?" "Something happen around here?" " A man was murdered." " Just one?" "Slow day." "You look green around the gills." "What's the matter?" "A little murder upset your tummy?" "It weren't the murder itself." "It was..." "It's what?" "It was the way it happened." "The things we hear'd at the trial." "What did he have to do with it?" " We was subpoenaed, the both of us." " Yeah?" "Why?" "I was the one found the body." "Where?" "In the woods." "A few miles west of town." "Days like that  when it gets too hot at the diggings, I head for a ravine I know  where I can soak a bit in a pool, underneath the falls." "Never mind that." "What about the body?" "I didn't see it." "I mean, not right off." "But..." "I don't know." "There was something about the way the air hung heavy all around  even in the woods, that gave me  a kind of nervous, prickly feeling." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Hello?" "Hello?" "I know, I know." "You know, they always look so surprised them cadavers." "I bet you, death must be a lot different than anybody thinks." "Well, go ahead, go ahead." "Hm?" "Oh." "I ran like all blazes." "Till I got back to town and told the sheriff." "How did you get mixed up in this, Rev?" "He saw them both on the road." "Both?" "Oh, you mean, there was a dame, huh?" "The murdered man's wife." "I passed them on the road, early in the afternoon." "Oh, God." "We never know how close to us death may be hovering." "The sun was high  pouring life and warmth all over the face of the earth." "And there they were, coming down the road  not knowing how soon, how very soon, the road would end." "There was something about them." "The man looked so dignified, so sensitive." "So alive." "How was he killed?" "Stabbed with a dagger." "You found the murder weapon too, huh?" " Me?" " Yes." "No, just one look at that face, and I got out of there as fast as I could." "Now, what makes people so jittery about the dead?" "Why, some of my best friends are corpses." "The only ones you can trust." "Oh, sure, they stink a little, but no more than a few alive ones that I know." "How'd the trial turn out?" "They pin it on anybody?" "Well, there was somebody accused." "There's always somebody accused." "Usually hanged." "But was he guilty?" "It's Carrasco." "Oh, Carrasco." "Bless the Lord, they got the right man for once." " I wonder." " What?" "The bloodiest outlaw in this whole part of the country, and you wonder?" "Why, if he was within 50 miles of any crime, I'd convict him of it." " It's not quite so simple." " Not quite so simple?" "It'd be simple enough if it was me they caught." ""Tar and feather him, boys."" "Sure, peddle a few lightning rods, pick up a couple of bucks in a shell game fleece a yokel without even scratching him and you're a scalawag." "Lower than a rattler." "Yes, but do it in a big way kill, rustle, rob a train, clean out a bank, bamboozle the government and hocus-pocus, alakazam, you're a public hero." "They're writing dime novels and singing songs about you." "You're a somebody." "Somebody to reckon with." " And it's not quite so simple." " You weren't there." "You don't know." "A desperado wanted in every territory he ever set foot on." "Bloodthirsty vandal driven by a craving for our possessions and our women." " Juan Carrasco, killer, robber, lecher..." "The facts, sheriff." "I'm sorry." "I know we have to prove our charges." "In the eyes of the law, a man is innocent until proven guilty and all that." "Of course, we didn't get a chance to prove our charges the last time we caught him because he burned down the jail and escaped." "Maybe we could give him 60 days as a firebug." "Just the facts, sheriff." "The facts." "Well, we know his past record." "Trials, convictions, escapes, facts." "Let's start by proving his latest outrage wasn't beyond him." "Tell us about the capture." "We'd been combing the countryside the biggest posse I could round up." "Search down in there." "Whoa." "He didn't put up much of a fight." "He got pretty cold feet for such a hot country." "He was all dirty, muddied up." "Must have been thrown by his horse." "Did you find the dagger, the murder weapon?" "No, it wasn't on him." "We searched everywhere." "Phoo!" "We going to listen all day to this gringo bigmouth." "Gonna tell us what a big hero he is, huh?" "All these gringos is big hero with the mexicanos." "Greaser, you call them." "Kill the greaser, they don't count like people." "You don't even cut notch in the gun." " Come on, shoot." "Everybody, shoot." "Hold your fire." "He's just trying to cheat the rope." "Sí, the rope, she's more pretty, huh?" "Put away your guns." "It may not look like it, but you are in a court of law." "Justice doesn't need a courthouse or trappings of any kind only order and truth." "Carrasco fall off the horse." "Is no horse alive can throw Carrasco." "Enfermo, I was sick." "You want to know what happen?" "I tell you." "He's good horse, that one." "He's strong, fast." "I run him hard." "This water is bad or something." "I ride more till my belly start to hurt bad, my head." "I don't feel pain like other man." "But this..." "He capture me." "Some day, somebody going to pistol-whip you." "Bluff and blowhard." "They hate to be taken with their boots on." "Are you guilty as accused?" "Look, I going to swing from the tree if I say sí, if I say no." "You think the time has come for me to pay for my crimes, huh?" "The ones I done, this ones you think I done, this ones you afraid maybe I going to do." "So why should I tell you lie, huh?" " Sí, presidente, it was me who kill the man." "Why did you commit this murder?" "I do not murder, I kill him." "It's big diferencia." "Why?" "Because of little breeze." "If not for this breeze, this man would never be killed." "It was a hot time of day, like now  and only the stupid gringos do not take time out for the siesta." "What do you want?" " Señor, I..." "Excuse me thousand time, but maybe you like buy old..." "No, I'm not interested in buying anything." " Oh, but, señor, this is very pretty." " Whoa." "Don't shoot." "I don't hurt nobody." "I just want to show you this." "Look." "It very nice." "Fancy, have this red stone, see?" "Green stone." " Looks like ancient Aztec." " Oh, sí, sí, that Aztec, Aztec." "How much do you want for it?" "I don't know." "Fifty cent." "Is too much?" "I got more." "More?" "This..." "I find lots of this old thing in this, uh..." "This hole, cave." "Is no good for me." "You want, I sell cheap." " Fine." " We better go on, dear." "It'll only take a few minutes." "Here, you better hang on to this." "After you." "Well, to me, killing is not very importante." "I kill to live, to eat." "Have pleasure." "Most of the time, if I capture a woman is better if I kill her man." "But this time, I don't know." "I think maybe if I can take this woman without killing her gentleman, it would..." "Don't be afraid, amigo." "Lucky." "You catch Carrasco, he feeling good." "I don't take all the money, see?" "Hey." "Look like you was soldier, eh?" ""Confederate colonel."" "How do you like that?" "Maybe that's why you don't do this estupido thing with my gun in your back." "I am very impress, colonel." "Your..." "Your husband, he say wait here." "He's got many thing he have to look at." "There is old statue, maybe take him long time." "What have you done with him?" "I could stop her, but I don't." "That look on her face, these eyes wide." "Make me mad." "I want for her to see him there tied up." "This big colonel." "That's Carrasco, all right." "No mistake about that." "There's a man for you." "Hey, did you hear what happened a couple of months ago out around Badger Pass?" "A woman strays away from a wagon train with her mother and daughter, just a little too far." "They were looking for berries." "And what do they find?" "Carrasco." "Well, like they say in the melodramas, there they was in his clutches." "Now, which one of them do you think got that well-known fate worse than death?" "The mother?" "The daughter?" "The grandma?" "All three of them." " Carrasco's a wild pig." " Oh, sure." "But how they love it, especially the ladies." "The highborn ones with the table manners and the smelling salts." "They see a fella with sweat all over him and their boilers go steaming over." "I told you not to talk that way in front of the preacher." "But he says he's giving it up." "If he's gonna be one of us, he might as well start learning the language." "Okay, okay." "Now let's hear some more, will you?" "You know, that story of yours hots me up more than this crummy fire." "Now, what else did he say, Carrasco?" " Nothing." " Nothing?" "Humbug." "Half the fun of pleasuring a dame is talking about it afterwards." "Now, he must have said something more." "Didn't he?" "He said more." "He said he didn't mean to kill." "All I want was this woman." "I take lots of women." "Not mucha diferencia." "Some, they fight." "Some, they don't fight." "But this one, I know she want me." "But when I stand up from her..." "Enough." "You cry like baby." "I didn't hurt you." "Stop it, I..." "Wait." "What you want now?" "How can I go on?" "How can I live at all, disgraced like this?" "Disgra...?" "Lots women is disgraced like you." "They live nice happily." "It don't matter." "You don't see me no more." "I'll always see you." "I'll see it all till the day I die." "At least give my husband a chance to avenge my honor." "And his own." "I forgot." "Your gentleman coronel has mucho honor, huh?" "Bad day for him, he cannot fight the duel." "Give him a chance, I beg of you." "If he loses, I'll go with you." "I'll do whatever you say." "Maybe you want for me to kill him." "You like that more better." "I can have hundred woman." "Why I going to take big chance for you?" "One live, one die." "He fight pretty good." "Maybe too good." "These gentleman soldiers, they better fight other gentleman soldiers." "Out here, they got no chance." "But he sure fight pretty good." "What happened to his wife?" "She run away, I think." " I don't look for her." "He didn't look for her." "Damn right he didn't." "One of these days, they'll find her face down in the gully." "What do you mean?" "Oh, what's another killing to a butcher like Carrasco?" "He didn't kill her." " He didn't?" "She was at the trial." "At the trial?" "They found her up in the woods in a deserted cabin, near out of her head." "Well..." "Her testifying against Carrasco, that must have cooked his goose in a hurry." "No, it wasn't like that." " I mean, that's what gives you the willies." "What does?" "You see, the wife, she told a different story, sort of." "Different?" " But Carrasco confessed, didn't he?" "Yes." "But to me, she didn't look at all like he described her." "Not a bit worldly or sensual." "At the trial, her face looked so delicate, so helpless." "Like a bird with a broken wing you hold in your hand." "You were coming from Tennessee, is that right?" "Tennessee." "Yes." "We were looking for some likely place where we could make a new start." "The war had taken everything." "The house the plantation, future." "Our whole way of life was over." "It was hard for men like my husband." "He was a Wakefield, you know." "One of the oldest and proudest families in..." "Doesn't matter now, does it?" "Nothing matters now." "Nothing but the truth." "The truth?" "The truth is that he was a Wakefield." "And I was the daughter of their seamstress." "So I watched him." "And I loved him from a safe distance." "Never allowing that it was anything but the wildest romantic foolishness." "It seemed he never even looked at me." "Except in the way you look at a window and see past it." "And then one day I remember my heart beat so loud I was afraid he could hear it." "He reached out his hand." "And it touched my cheek." "I tried to be the wife he wanted." "I learned to walk, to talk to hold my teacup, as he expected of me." "I lay by his side at night, afraid to sleep afraid I might wake up find it was all a dream." "A dream." "Would you like to stop for a while?" "No." "No, Your Honor, I'm sorry." "I'll try to tell you everything, the way it all happened." "When the bandit finished with me..." "Hey, you." "Do you know who this is?" "Carrasco." "You don't got no ear?" "Then say "Carrasco."" "Where you come from, you don't know about Carrasco?" "Well, you know about him now." "You can tell about it when you're a dried-up old bitch." "That once upon a time, you was raped by El Grande Carrasco the son of a peon, who lost this whole damn territory." "Don't look so like sick fish." "This may be the only thing in your whole life that you will remember." "Aztec treasure." "Perdóneme, señor, but maybe you like to buy this old..." "How you call it?" "Very fancy." "How about this red stone, this green stone?" "You think this dumb greaser never see these ruby or these emeralds, huh?" "Your big fat tongue, it hang out." " Oh, you gringo cabrón." " No." "Why not?" "I do you big favor to kill him." "You animal." "Sí, animal." "It's too bad you're not." "He's gone." "He's gone and we're still alive." "Oh, forgive me." "Oh, forgive me." "Forgive me." "It's only because I thought he'd surely have to kill us both." "Oh, my darling." "Oh, my darling." "I..." "I want you to know, he couldn't hurt me." "He couldn't touch all we've been to each other, our whole life together." "I'll wipe it out of my mind." "We'll both forget about this nightmare, and we'll go on the way we always..." "Why are you looking at me like that?" "Your eyes." "No." "No." "You can't mean it." "You..." "Here." "Take it and kill me if that's the way you feel." "Kill me." "Only, don't look at me with such contempt." "I never knew any man but you." "I never wanted any." "I didn't ask for this to happen to me." "Well, what did you want me to do?" "Go away and never see you again?" "Where would I go without you?" "Answer me." "Am I so soiled now, so damaged, you can't throw me a word?" "Like a bone to your dog?" "Answer me." "I'm not the daughter of your hired help anymore." "I'm your wife." "Do you hear?" "Your wife." "Answer me." "Answer me." "Answer me!" "I must have fainted." "When I recovered my senses, he was dead." "The dagger in his breast." "I suddenly realized I must've killed him." "I ran into the woods." "Deeper." "Deeper." "And deeper." "Can it be my husband was right?" "Am I so shameful, so foul that even the river would spit me out?" "Am I?" "Am I?" "Am I?" "Am I?" "Her face, I can't forget it." "All men are suckers for tears." "Except for me, I'm waterproof." "Why?" "Why should she confess to a crime she didn't commit?" "Well, you figure out why women do things and you'll win first prize." " To get away with murder, usually." "What do you mean?" "Look how you fellows are bleeding for her." ""She's like a bird with a broken wing."" "You can't forget her face." "Oh, so pure and holy, like a Madonna." "Who the hell is gonna hang a Madonna?" "Don't listen to him." "He's just trying to needle you." "There's some truth in what he says." "How can we believe the wife's testimony after hearing the husband's?" "The husband's?" "But you said he croaked." "What did they do, subpoena him from the other world?" "An old Injun medicine man came across the body." "Before die, man talk to me." "He say, "Bandit bandit, evil man." "Attack my wife." "Then later..."" "He sat near her  on the dry leaves." "He talked to her  with a serpent's tongue." ""He talk with tongue of snake."" "Like a man who knows about women." "It's big diferencia, eh?" "One is big diferencia to make love on the ground, under the sky." "But what the hell you know about thing like that?" "Locked up in this wooden box in the city living with the Southern gentleman." "In my veins run the blood of conquistadores." "What run in him?" "Milk." "I know how that kind make love." "Under the covers, in the soft bed with the clothes on." "Don't look, don't touch, don't dirty the mouth too much with lovemaking." "But you are not like woman like that." "I know it when that breeze blow and I see your face, those hungry eyes and mouth." "And I say that woman must have man like me." "What do you think?" "My wife." "My loving  sweet and gentle wife." "Never in all our married life  did I see her face like that." ""Wife, gentle wife never see like that."" "Take me away with you." "Take me." "As long as he lives, I'll always be his wife." "He'll always own me and haunt me." " Kill him." "What?" "Don't you see you've gotta kill him?" "Kill him." ""Kill him." "Kill him."" "No, no, you don't understand." "What do you want me to do with her?" "Shoot her?" "Cut her up like bug?" "Tell me." "What do you say I do it." "Hey." "Let her go." "She as good as lost." "Maybe mountain cat finish her up." "I'm sorry about this whole thing." "I think we both better off without her." "It was quiet for a long time." "Then I heard someone sobbing." "Someone sobbing." "Who could it be?" "Kill him." "Kill him." "Kill him." "Somehow, I didn't feel the pain." "Just a cold feeling creeping along my fingers  and a kind of mist gathering around me." "Everything was quiet." "So quiet." "Not even a bird note, not a leaf moving." "Only a ray of light coming through a tree somewhere." "I lay there in the stillness, I don't know how long." "The light grew dimmer, gray." "Then something, someone hovering around me." "Who?" "I tried to see, but the darkness was too heavy." "A hand, someone's hand." "You finished, old fellow?" "He lied, he lied." "The whole story was a lie." "The husband didn't kill himself." " He was..." "He was what?" " Nothing." " What are you sweating about?" " Nothing, I tell you." "Ah, shame on you." "I bet you got a juicy little tidbit you're not sharing with us." "No, I ain't." "I don't know nothing." "Nothing?" "Just that a dead man lied." "Two dead men, that's all." "You've been holding out." " I swear..." " Well, you swear pretty easy." "Just now, yesterday in court." "But you must have seen the dead man while he was still alive." "And the woman and the bandit." "He must have seen the whole darn show." "Why?" " Why didn't you speak out at the trial?" " I'm a poor man." "Is truth a luxury for the rich?" " I don't wanna get tangled up in all that." "But you are tangled up." "Every time justice blunders, it's someone like you who cries out for help who rots in every jail, who hangs from every rope." "What kind of a fool are you to sit back and not lift a finger when you could clear up the whole thing?" "Don't you see?" "In all that confusion, one of those three people one of them must have been telling the truth." "No." "No?" "What do you mean?" "None of their stories were true." "They lied, all of them." "Now, look here, gentlemen I've slickered and swindled this country from one end to the other." "But for pure artistry I've never encountered a piece of leg-pulling to top this one." "The way he sat there with that poker face and the ace of spades up his sleeves." " I told you, I didn't wanna..." "Go on, say it." "You didn't wanna get tangled up." " I was wrong, I guess." " Wrong?" "You were thinking of your own skin, you knucklehead." "Now, what's wrong with that?" "Don't listen to his bull." "Justice is gonna keep on blundering, no matter what you do." " So don't forget to duck is all I say." " Leave him alone." "You and your holy palaver." "Have you ever been clobbered by a sheriff's gunbutt?" "Or fought off an army of bedbugs in one of those prison cells?" "Oh, sure, it's easy enough to talk big in the cozy shelter of a parsonage." " I'm not looking for any shelter." " What the hell are you looking for?" "Here you are, running away, because this world you live in makes you puke." "You're flabbergasted because three people tell a few whoppers in a court of law." " They must've had some reason." " Sure they had." " You tell people what to believe." " No." "There must be a better answer." "Still hoping for some heavenly toilet water to sprinkle down and hide the stink." "You were running away, preacher." "Well, keep on running is my advice." "They're fresh out of miracles." "Maybe the miracle is here." "Now." "What?" "Maybe it's you." "Here now, wait a minute, wait a minute, my friend, wait." "This place, the storm, the three of us meeting here, the train being late." "Was it coincidence?" "Why did we tell you the whole horrible thing that happened?" "I don't know." "But just look." "In spite of your mockery and laughter or because of it, the truth has come out in the open at last." " The real truth." " The real truth at last." "Oh, great and divine blabbermouth, this is your big moment." "You know, the celestial spotlight is shining down upon thee." "Little pink cherubim are hovering around your noggin." " I don't think..." " Come now." "The heavenly prompter will guide you word for word." " Never be afraid of the truth." " No." "All right." "I was heading for the glade and suddenly, I heard voices." "And there they was, all three of them." "The husband was tied to a tree." "And the wife?" "She was fixing her hair." " Fixing her hair?" "Of course." "What else would a dame be doing?" "And Carrasco?" "He was on his knees." "Carrasco, the Border Wolf, on his knees?" "Oh, I'm gonna like this story." "Please." "I am sorry." "I am sorry." "I don't know how is other way to say it." "I am sorry." "How to make you understand?" "Since I was a little boy, all the time I watch these ladies of the fine family pass by in their shiny carriages." "Oh, they are so beautiful, so elegante, like a Santa Maria in the church." "No." "You look to me." "It is Carrasco." "The famous Carrasco." "I am on my knees, I am begging." "Please, come with me and be my woman." "Leave me be." "Why you no say yes?" "Maybe you afraid, because I bandido?" "I give it up." "No more bandido." " I swear to God." " Since when did you believe in God?" "Since when?" "Since all my life." "Who you think pardon my sin when I do the bad thing?" "Who you think save me from the rope 20 times?" "Oh, go away." "Maybe you think I got no money, huh?" "Señora, I got so much bags of money, I forgot where I hide it all." "Oh, and other things." "Rings on the tiaras gold, silver, dresses for a queen, jewels." "There is one diamond." "It is so big, like my fist." "It hurt your eyes to look at." "When I give it you, it look bella." " It hang down from..." " Don't you touch me." "Ei-ei-ei-ei!" "How you expect this fine lady she going to dirty herself with these stolen jewels and money?" "Then she would not be this fine lady." "If that the way it got to be, I do it." "I go to work." "Throw away this dirty money, and I make clean money." "I don't know how, but I work." "I sweat for you." "I make you happy, if just you be Carrasco's lady." "The audacity, even to suggest a thing like that." "Please." "Oh, take your hands off me." "Don't be silly." " I make you so happy." " No, stop it, I'll..." "My dress." "What you've done." " Well, I buy you new dress." " This is a new dress." "I buy you hundred dresses." " This is the second time I've worn it." "Look." " Well, to hell with your dress." "To hell with the dress." "To hell with you." "If you don't do what I say, I'm going to beat you." " I'm going to kill you." " You wouldn't dare." "You're asking the impossible." "I cannot do what you say." "I have a husband." "I promised to love, honor, and obey him, till death do us part." " Death going to part you right now." " No." "Why not?" "It's most simple way." "A lady isn't impressed with a simple way." "She only looks up to a man who's willing to fight for her." "You mean, fight a duel?" "I don't want to play fancy games with this gringo coronel." "Hey, señora." "Hey, señora." "Hey?" "There." "Now it's up to both of you." "Don't be afraid." "I have no intention of shooting it out with you." "Afraid, me?" "Where I come from, we don't engage in dueling unless there's a point of honor involved." " Honor?" "What about my honor?" " I've often wondered." " But I've just been violated." "I struggled, he was just too strong." "My dear wife, I may have been gagged, but I wasn't blindfolded." " Well, what could I do?" " Nothing, I suppose, being what you are." " What do you mean, what I am?" " What you are and what you always will be." "A slut, poor white trash." "So that's the reward I get for being faithful and true all these years." " Faith...?" " Poor white trash?" "Faithful?" "Do you think I'm a half-wit?" "All that flirting with everything in pants that crossed our threshold." "You weren't clever enough to be discreet about it." ""Oh, you simply must see our lovely garden, Mr..."" "Whatever his name was." "Always managing somehow to end up in the dark spots." " Whispering and giggling." " Giggling?" "Yes, giggling, and kissing, and hallelujahing in the honeysuckle." " Mr. Wakefield." " Talk about Southern hospitality." "Well, I've never been so insulted in all my life." "Oh, you can stop acting the great lady now." "I'm your husband, remember?" "I know where you come from and what you are." "I've tried all this time to hide it from the world to preserve my good name." "Good name, that's all you ever think about." "You and your pismire name." "I should've thought about it before I married you." "You snob, you damn snob." "Silencio, both of you." "I don't like this big argumento." "It remind me of my mother and father." "How I get in the middle of this thing, anyway?" "That breeze." "Having nice quiet siesta." "This stinking breeze." " Forget the whole thing." "Wait, how can we forget it?" " It never happen." " But it did happen." "We..." "You can't leave us like this together." "You heard the things he said." "How hateful he's being." "Our marriage is ruined." "Señora, you cooked the pot of tamales, I just pick up the lid." " Oh, please." " And don't follow me." "People follow me make me very nervioso." "Let him go." "Haven't you cheapened yourself enough already?" "There she goes again." "Always they do it." "It's been like that from the beginning, always keeling over." "I never know whether she's playing possum or not." "How can you live with a woman like that?" "Oh, it was the face that trapped me." "I thought I could make something out of her, but..." "It's imposible." "There's nothing you can do with this poor white trash." "Poor white trash." "Poor white trash." "I guess that's what I am." "But the world is full of trash." "High fancy trash and low filthy trash." "Now hold your tongue, woman." "My dear husband, my lover, my hero." "All that mushmouth talk about your precious honor." "Back home, sure, you waved it around like the Confederate flag." "You even challenged a man once when he said his hound dog was better than yours." "And what has this lout done to you?" "Stuck a pistol in your back, tied you up, raped your wife right in front of your eyes." "And you, do you shoot him down like a dog, tear him to shreds?" "No, it's all my fault." "I led him on." "I'm a slut." "You sanctimonious fraud." "I thought I was giving you one last chance to be a man but I might've known better!" "I've lived with you, slept with you." "I've seen you shake all over in a cold sweat and held your head while you vomited before you rode off to battle with your horse prancing and the band playing Dixie." "Yes, we both know why you won't fight, don't we?" "You're a big, 14-karat coward." "Coward, coward!" "Enough." " Who says so?" "Me, Carrasco." "Oh, yes, the famous Carrasco." "I've known about you for a long time." "When I heard all those stories about your romantic escapades, your savageness, your daring something inside of me always went limp and fluttery." "Today, when you took me like I had no will of my own I loathed you and loved you." "I prayed you'd be the one who'd tear me away from this make-believe life I've been living." "But no, you were willing enough to murder my husband when he was tied hand and foot." "But when he was standing there with a gun in his hand your burning passion for me vamoosed, and you can't wait to vamoose after it." "You're just a small tinhorn imitation of yourself." "A name without a body." "A nothing." "Nothing, huh?" "Vomited, did I?" "Fair duel." "In the open." "Draw when ready." "Shoot to kill." "Right." "Ten paces." "One, two, three four, five, six seven, eight, nine..." "Wait." "Ten." " Why don't you draw?" " Why don't you draw?" "Ready?" "Now, don't stand there in the open like that." " Get behind the tree." " You might get hurt." "That's more than I can say for either of you." "All right, just stand there and get shot full of holes, for all I care." "Wait." "Señor, please, por favor." "Please..." "But you are gentleman, coronel." "I tripped." "You like to think people are big." "Big heroes, big villains, big something or other." "But no, this is the way they are." "Little pipsqueaks." "Just plain selfish, cowardly, rotten." "And not even honest about it." "Still can't figure out why they all lied at the trial yesterday." "Like I said, people see what they wanna see and they say what they wanna hear." "There's your miracle, holy man." "You asked for it, didn't you?" "At last, we got the truth by the tail." "Never be afraid of the truth." "Lay off him, can't you?" "You have to hammer away at him all the time?" "Well, it's no skin off my behind." "Now look, sooner or later, you fellas gotta stop kidding yourselves." "You know, to me, the truth is like that little ball under the three shells." "Now you see it, now you don't." "Lies, well, they're just balloons full of hot air." "It's fun sticking pins in them just to hear them pop." "Well, I'll be a cockeyed cornball." "Here, here, here, little fella." "Come." "You come to me." "Now, now, now." "Yeah." " Yeah." " A baby, here." "Yeah, somebody's little bastard probably." "Here." "Hold it a second, will you?" "What have we got here?" " What you doing?" " Give me that child." "Man, don't get your bowels in an uproar, will you?" "All I want is this here dough." " You're lower than I thought." " Somebody's gonna swipe it." " Might as well be me." " I ought to break your neck." " A human coyote, that's what you are." " Oh, yeah?" "What would you call its mommy and daddy?" "They had a little joy ride, and then dumped the result like so much garbage." "If I'm a coyote, what are they?" "What would you know about parents and kids?" "What's there to know?" "Sometimes they dump you, sometimes you dump them." "This isn't a newborn infant." "It must be six or seven months old." "The agonies the parents must've gone through doing a thing like this." "Oh, now, please." "I've had enough sob stories for one day." " That money was left for the kid." " No, go soak your hair." " Give it to me, I say." " Leave me alone, rube." "Let me have it now." "I'll get the sheriff after you." "Get him." "Go ahead and get the sheriff." "There's a few things I can tell him about you." "Yes, you." "So you damn well better leave me alone." "I've been going easy on you." " Easy?" " Yes, very easy, my friend." "My good, honest, sweet-smelling friend." "Considering you're a lying hypocrite like the rest of them." "How the hell can anybody believe your damn story?" "It's just as phony as the other three." " What are you talking about?" "He knows well enough." "Ask him." "Go ahead and ask him." "Where the hell is that dagger the man was killed with?" "That fancy one with all them jewels in the handle." "Hm?" "The sheriff and nobody else could find it." "What happened?" "The squirrels get it?" " Did it walk away?" " I don't know." "You don't know?" "Just look at that face." "The old Injun said it, remember?" "Somebody snuck up afterwards and yanked the dagger out of the man's chest even before he was dead." " No." " How much you get for it?" "Plenty, I bet." "And you call me a coyote." "You dumb ox, you." "Oh, I figured I was helping you cover up." "You know, like they say, honor among thieves." "But that's what you get when..." "It's the train." "Coming this way." "Oh, boy, this is one time I ain't gonna ride the rods." "Gotta get the damn thing to stop here." "Eureka." "Train's coming this way." "Please." " Let me..." " Let you what?" "Strip off its clothes and sell them?" "I know." "And I don't blame you none." "What I done, I guess even God Almighty won't forgive." "But I got a wife and five young'uns of my own." "Hungry, mostly." "Cold, scared." "You hear them cry, and..." "But what can I say?" "A fancy dagger can feed a lot of mouths." "Please." "Gas." "It's gonna be awful rough on you traveling with a kid." "How are you gonna get nipples, and diapers and all that?" "I don't know." "Maybe, if you don't mind, preacher..." "Maybe I can take it home with me." "Ain't much there, I know, but how much can a peewee like this eat?" "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked." "Take it." "Take it back with you." "You sure?" "You just heard yourself." "I'm a thief, a liar." "A coward, a fool, a lot of things." "Like all the rest of us." "Maybe that's the truth." "We got them." "We got them." "Come on, partner, gather up your gear, and let's get rolling." "Preacher." "Hey, preacher, where the hell are you going?" "You're gonna miss the train." "Hey, preacher."