"Good evening, partners, cattle rustlers, wranglers, desert rats, varmints, hombres, and all you prospectors who futilely comb the hills of television looking for something of value." "This is no mirage." "No optical illusion." "I'm as real as a piece of motion picture film." "As authentic as a shadow." "As for tonight's play," "I'm afraid I have disappointing news." "It will not be an adult western." "The plot is not yet 21 years old." "Unfortunately, we are not completely out of line, for although television fans demand adult stories, their taste in commercials run to another extreme." "Allow me to illustrate." "Hey, boys!" "It's me, the Sheriff!" "Tom?" "Ben?" "Where are you?" "Hi, Sheriff." "Oh, hello, Ben." "Must have something mighty important on your mind to be paying us a visit in this heat." "You know darn well why I'm here." "Yeah, I guess I do." "After all, it's kind of an official matter." "Guess it is." "Well, now, Sheriff, I'll tell you, you sit right down here in this new chair and make yourself comfortable while I..." "Hey, it'll hold you all right." "I made it good and strong." "Made it out of juniper boughs." "Here, wet your whistle." "This is the last of that stuff that was sent to us by that old miner three years ago." "Thanks." "Where's your partner?" "Tom?" "Yeah." "Tom!" "Tom, Sheriff is here." "I'm coming." "Hold your horses." "So, you're back again, Sheriff?" "I guess you know why I'm here, Tom." "Yeah." "You just had another powwow with that..." "What do you call it?" "Town council?" "Yeah." "We never made trouble for anybody." "Can't figure why anybody would want to make trouble for us." "The town council is only trying to act friendly toward you boys." "Well, you go back again and tell them the answer's still no." "You tell them, you hear?" "Now don't you go blowing off steam the second I get here." "Why don't you talk quiet and easy like Ben?" "I don't feel quiet and easy inside." "Inside, I'm just as riled as Tom." "Why, we've homesteaded here a lifetime." "Digging gold in this region before the oldest member of the town council was even born!" "When there wasn't no town at all." "Just a jail, 12 saloons and a dance hall." "Mighty long ago." "Back in 1892." "And now a bunch of young, snappy dressed nincompoops come along and..." "Now, you don't understand." "The town council is real worried about you boys and so am I." "Shucks." "There ain't nothing to worry about, is there, Tom?" "No." "You're not getting any younger, you know." "Living out here with no visible means of support, so to speak, and no one to look after you." "Look after us?" "You talk like we was helpless!" "We've made out all right here, Sheriff, and we aim to keep making out all right." "We feel spryer every day!" "We just ain't leaving." "You don't aim on forcing us out, Jeff, do you?" "That decision ain't up to me." "It's up to the town council, and they can do it." "But, Jeff, they'd listen to you." "You can tell them they should let us stay here." "Look, homesteading is reckoned by what grows on the land or is taken out of the mine." "Now, once upon a time, you boys mined enough gold to keep body and soul alive, but not lately." "Ben and me, we mine enough gold to pay for grub for us and the mule." "No town council can call us paupers or run us off our property." "But, look, Tom, it says right in the book..." "Kind of sudden, ain't it?" "You looking up books after knowing us for 30 years." "If I could just show the council that you're farmers of a sort, that you grow something on this land, even raise a scrawny rooster..." "If I could stand up in front of that council and say," ""Gentlemen, these two partners are responsible tillers of the soil. "" "But what can I say you grow here?" "Sufferin' catfish, just look at this place!" "Why, even a stubborn juniper refuses to lift its head in this soil." "Nothing decent grows without enough food and water, and you ain't got enough for yourself or the soil." "We got a rosebush." "It's thriving." "Thriving, my foot." "You call this dying weed a rosebush?" "The catalog said it'd take time to grow." "Wait and see." "It's gonna have great big red blooms." "Sure." "Like them tomato plants you tried growing last year?" "You're not very friendly, throwing them tomatoes in our face." "Jeff, you go back to them councilmen." "Tell them we ain't letting no town take care of us." "But you'd have a nice, clean place to live and be with folks your own age." "Doggone lot of old fogies lying around, just waiting to die." "Playing bridge." "Steam heat out of a radiator." "Toast and hot milk." "No place for a man to breathe." "No looking out and seeing for miles and miles." "Nothing like that." "We'd die quick if we never saw that again." "But I tell you, Tom, they can force you out of here." "Let them try." "Don't tempt them." "We don't need charity." "And if it's growing things in this soil that proves our worth, tell them to come on up in a month and we'll..." "We'll..." "Tell them in a month we'll pick them a great big bouquet of roses off from this bush." "A great big bouquet of roses?" "Yeah." "Off from that bush?" "Yeah." "That would prove that we can grow things here, wouldn't it, Jeff?" "Sure." "That would prove it." "Yeah." "Yeah." "I'll tell them." "Yeah, tell them." "See you in a month." "All right." "So long." "So long, Jeff." "Jeff meant well." "Fools, fools, every last one of them." "Now, Tom, don't go losing your temper again." "Remember your sciatica." "We'll fight." "Even if we have to fight the Sheriff, the town council, and all the law books in the State of Nevada!" "Yeah, we'll fight." "Yeah." "We'll fight, Tom." "But you didn't have to tell him it would bloom in a month." "Yeah." "I was fit to be tied." "Yeah." "Tom?" "Yeah?" "Did you water the rosebush today?" "Half-rations." "The well's running dry." "Yeah." "What we need is a miracle." "I reckon we do." "Yeah." "What are you cooking?" "What else?" "Rabbit stew again?" "What else?" "Put a little liquor in it to kill the taste." "Good idea." "That can't be a car way out here, can it?" "Well, if it is, it sounds like there's something wrong with its insides." "Hello." "Having trouble?" "You guys got a car?" "Nope." "We got a mule, though." "Yeah." "And she's as old as we are." "Me, I'm Tom Akins." "I'm Ben White." "How'd you ever get on our road?" "What'd you do?" "Make the wrong turn down there off of the highway?" "Yeah." "Back at the fork." "I was trying to get to Reno." "Well, this road don't go nowhere." "Ends about three miles down here." "My carburetor's on the blink." "The car won't move." "Come on in." "Have a bite of grub with us." "You got a drink?" "Sure, we got a drink." "We never see many folks out around here." "Here we are." "Have a drink." "It's nice having a stranger come to see us now and then." "Some palace you got here." "Boy, a real mansion." "We like it." "Oh, I gotta get out of here." "You guys ain't got a jalopy?" "Maybe a pick-up truck?" "Nope." "Anything on wheels, get me from here to Reno." "Our mule ain't got wheels." "Hey, is riding a mule like riding a horse?" "Depends if the mule likes to be ridden." "Our mule don't." "She's only broken for packing and she ain't biding no saddle neither." "How do you coots travel?" "We don't, much." "Look, if I can get from here to the nearest town," "I can hop a bus to Reno." "Now, how do I get to town?" "Try walking." "How far is the nearest town?" "Ten miles from Reno." "How far from here?" "Forty-seven miles." "Tom and I walk it in a day and a half." "With the mule, it takes two days." "And Beulah has her own idea about physical exercise." "Will you crack the comedy?" "I'm in a hurry!" "I gotta get to Reno fast!" "So you said." "All right, Pops." "I'll make it worth your while to get me from here to Reno in good shape." "Now, that's simple enough, ain't it?" "Some things that seem simple just ain't." "Look, dough." "Real dough." "100 smackers for you." "Maybe you got something better to do?" "Matter of fact, we do." "Yeah." "We got to feed Beulah and we got a gold pan to fix." "And we gotta water the rosebush in the morning." "But come morning, we'll be glad to show you the trail and fix you up with some grub." "I guess you didn't hear me right." "I said 100 bucks." "We heard you." "We got a mule and that's all." "We can't help you." "Pops, you're wrong." "We're all going to Reno tonight." "I ain't gonna stumble around in that desert by myself, see." "I'm from back east." "I'm not used to sand and rattlers, see." "Can't argue with a gun, Tom." "Now get some food ready." "And saddle up that mule, or whatever you do to mules, but get started and fast!" "If you aim to kill us, that ain't gonna help you get to Reno." "You're a little touched in the head if you think that gun's gonna get us where we don't want to go." "I said, get moving." "We ain't going." "I'll show you, you old..." "You shouldn't have done that." "Now you know I mean business." "But I don't know the trail to Reno." "He does." "I just wanted him to know I wasn't fooling." "He's gonna need a lot of fixing up if he's gonna show you the way to Reno." "Where you goin'?" "To get some liniment." "Stay here." "I know, but his cheek is cut bad." "All right." "All right, get the liniment." "But don't you give me no rough time, Pop." "I killed a few people lately, one or two old men won't make no difference." "We know you're a killer, all right." "We've seen them before." "Used to be a lot of them way out west." "Make it snappy." "All right." "Fix him up quick." "I said, make it snappy." "All right!" "Tom's cheek is cut bad." "Tom, do you hear me?" "Yeah." "Are you all right?" "I reckon so." "Well, now, just hold still while I wipe this blood off of your face." "Belt, my belt." "Look, see?" "My belt." "Hurry up." "All right." "Ah, there you are!" "I guess that'll fix you up so you can start this fellow on the trail to Reno." "Yep." "Guess so." "Come on!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "In a minute." "Just give him a chance to get his breath." "My belt." "Pour some cold water over his head." "Let's get moving." "I ain't got forever." "I'm gonna give you guys just one more minute, then I'm gonna let you have it." "City fellers just ain't got no manners." "No wonder this car wouldn't run any further, got a couple of bullets in the motor." "Three weeks the police of five counties have been looking for this car." "And for three weeks, it's been sitting right there." "What made you think it might be here?" "Elimination." "We've looked every place but this old road." "Think he's hiding out here?" "Maybe." "But where?" "The cabin?" "Then where are the boys?" "And their mule's not here." "Do you think he might have forced them to lead him out of here and then killed them?" "Well, I hate to admit it, but it has crossed my mind." "They're getting pretty well on in years." "Easy pickings for a killer like that." "Let's hope we're wrong." "Sheriff, take a squint!" "Can you bake an apple pie" "Billy boy, Billy boy?" "Can you bake an apple pie, Billy boy?" "I can bake an apple pie as quick as I can wink my eye" "Hi, Sheriff." "Greetings, Sheriff!" "Howdy, boys." "You don't know how glad I am to see you." "You know my deputy here." "Sure." "Hiya, Tex." "Hello." "We've been worried." "Thought maybe you might have got yourselves killed out there on the desert somewhere." "Why us?" "That." "Oh." "The car?" "Meant to ask you about that when we met next." "Funny thing about that car." "He never did come back for it, that feller." "Nice car." "Probably worth a few dollars." "Where did he go, boys?" "Don't know." "Just come and went." "Didn't even get his name or know who he was." "He just said his car broke down and he had to get to Reno." "So he went." "Him?" "Yeah." "Walking?" "A city feller?" "All the way from up here to Reno?" "Almost 50 miles?" "He might've went down to the highway and caught a ride." "Nope." "Didn't." "You been hunting for him?" "Three weeks." "Well, what do you know?" "No, he didn't go back down to the highway." "Had every car checked through." "Who was he, Sheriff?" "We had a funny feeling that he wasn't somebody to argue with." "You were right." "He was wanted for everything in the book, including murder." "What?" "And to think he sat with us and ate our grub." "And he was real pleasant." "The California boys chased him all the way to the border." "And somebody put a bullet in his car at the last roadblock." "It's a wonder he was able to drive off of the highway and get down here to your place." "And he told us it was his carburetor." "And we believed him." "Real tough hombre, eh?" "He'll be held for two murders when they do catch him." "Oh, he'll be caught, all right, a criminal that dangerous." "Dangerous?" "That youngster?" "Yep." "He's got a finger in almost every dirty racket on the coast." "He's a real killer, all right." "Boys, is there something you're not telling me?" "No." "Are you sure he's not around here?" "Would a killer like him let two old men like us leave the cabin?" "Up to the mines with Beulah?" "Why, sure he would have, if he thought you were scared enough to keep your mouth shut." "I'll soon find out if he's got you boys buffaloed." "Come on out." "We've got you covered." "We told you he wouldn't take a chance letting us get away." "Then how does a tenderfoot like him from New York decide to take a two-day hike across the desert?" "We gave him good directions." "Sure." "They must've been real good." "Oh, yeah." "Oh, well." "We'll let Reno look for him now." "Mmm." "Well, I'd better ride back to town." "You coming, Sheriff?" "No." "Not yet, Tex." "I got a little business here with the boys." "All right." "So long." "So long, Tex." "So long." "There's talk in town of the council getting out a warrant to force you boys out of this place." "A warrant?" "Yep." "Tomorrow, you'll be out of here." "Now, look, you cantankerous old goats, ain't you got sense enough to know when you're licked?" "Now, they've got that place all fixed up for you down below." "You can still be your own boss, get decent food three times a day, and be near a doctor in case you need him." "What would you do around here if something did go wrong?" "Why, when I think of that gangster being around here, he could have filled you full of holes and both of you as helpless as a couple of babies." "Now..." "Now that's what I mean." "Look at your face, Tom." "What have you been a-doing?" "A-using your head for a pickaxe?" "I..." "I tripped over a rock." "Yeah." "Mmm." "Well, whatever it was, it should have been fixed up by a doctor days ago from the looks of it." "Tripped over a rock, huh?" "Oh, yeah, yeah." "You mean you and Ben been fighting?" "At your age." "Oh, there ain't no use going over the past, Jeff." "The main thing is, you kind of made us a promise." "You said if we could prove to the council that we could grow something..." "Oh, that." "Sure." "End of the month you did say you'd have a great, big bouquet of roses to show the council, didn't you?" "Big bouquet, yes." "Sure." "That's what I thought you said." "You've always been a man of your word, Jeff." "We got a present for you over here." "Why, it's a miracle." "Should we cut the roses for you now, Jeff?" "No." "I'll..." "I'll get the chairman of the town council out here tomorrow to look at this." "Could be I could talk him into letting you boys stay on here now." "Well, I'll be doggone." "It's a miracle." "That's what it is, a miracle." "He's a nice fellow." "Hated to lie to Jeff." "It wasn't no lie, really." "Fella did say he had to get to Reno." "We just didn't tell the Sheriff that instead, he stayed here." "Do you think they grow roses that big back where he come from?" "Could be." "Requests are pouring in from garden clubs across the country for details of Ben and Tom's method of desert reclamation." "Directions are as follows." "For best results, select a sunny spot and place the body in a shallow grave, six to ten inches below your plants." "Water frequently and watch out for garden pests and the police." "As for Tom and Ben, they soon ran out of desperate criminals and began planting innocent passers-by." "They are now in prison, after first donating their property to the government as a national cemetery." "We have a one-minute film now, after which I shall meet you at the pass." "And now, the time has come for me to ride off into the sunset." "I shall return next week." "Until then, so long, partners." "Subtitles: drvvr"