"There's an irritating roughness about the way you people speak." "Makes me obstinate." "If you want me to leave, you're going to have to make me." "Whoa." "Bridesville, folks." "Can't you finish him, Peavey?" "All right, break it up, break it up!" "Would you be after killing' him, McNally?" "That murdering' Indian is still keeping diseased stock." "Then take your fight and fight it up in the hills where you belong." "It's the public streets you're obstructing." "And who shot that horse?" "We told him it would happen." "He can't say we didn't warn him." "You'll get this treatment till you get rid of every head of stock on your place." "And I'm warning you, Indian, if one of our animals comes down sick, we'll see more than you just don't cross your boundaries." "We'll burn you out, house, hide and hair." "Now get that carcass out of here." "There's sickness enough without you savages spreading more." "All right, come on, break it up, break it up." "Pardon me." "Not interested in my business card, huh?" "So, you're the one that put it in my pocket." "If I had the money to hire you," "I would not be walking 20 miles to my place." "I would have another horse." "Throw your saddle over my extra one." "I happen to be going your way." "No obligation." "Before I take a favor, it's only right I should tell you... if I had the money, I wouldn't hire you." "I don't hold with men who follow the gun." "I agree, Mr. Whitehorse - it's not a practical profession." "I had 150 prime, healthy cows." "Now ten are dead, the rest ready to fall." "I paid for them with sweat and blisters." "Has the veterinarian looked at them?" "Can't get him to come out and have a look." "I'm a mission Indian, Cherokee." "An educated Indian has few friends among his people..." "and fewer among yours." "Certainly very few in Bridesville." "I cannot trade in the stores." "I have to buy my stuff through the man who runs the pharmacy." "He is about the only one who will admit we're human." "My neighbors have such a tight quarantine around me, I..." "I have to sneak off my own place like a thief." "You see how rich everything is around here?" "This is land a man would fight for." "My father wore feathers in his hair, lived in a teepee, and fought the white man." "He sent me to the Indian school." "We learned to live and think like the white man." "He said that was the only way we could have a home in our land." "I met, married my wife at the mission." "We have built our home." "We will not be driven from our land like my father." "That's Joe Peavey, the one I was fighting- the one who killed my horse." "McNally's foreman?" "More his troublemaker." "Oh, you got yourself another horse." "The one you shot cost me $20." "You're going to have to pay for that." "Sure." "I'll wait for you at the county line and hand it to you as you go across." "You a friend of his, or you just passing through?" "You ask that like a man hoping for the wrong answer." "Don't spook this man, Peavey." "He's a gunfighter." "You working for an Indian?" "He hasn't hired me yet." "You're just a half a mile from his boundary." "You aim to keep going?" "I thought I'd look around." "It ain't that simple, Mister." "You can ride that horse in, but you try to ride him out, and he'll go down with a slug in his head." "That's a very unpleasant thing to contemplate, Mr. Peavey." "Well, you just contemplate it anyway." "No horse comes off that ranch, yours or nobody's." "They mean that." "You'll lose two good horses." "I'll walk the rest of the way." "You'll ride." "You've used my horse for 15 miles." "I expect a man who's done that to rub him down and ask me to sit at table, Mr. Whitehorse." "See?" "Another one dying." "I don't know what I'm going to do." "They just keep losing weight and dying." "Between this and McNally," "I don't know how much longer I can hold out." "A violent man is Mr. McNally." "His father and brother were scalped by the Sioux 35 years ago." "Tell me, what has this to do with me?" "Does a gunslinger come high, Mr. Paladin?" "Well, Mrs. Whitehorse, I do have expensive tastes." "Joseph..." "I like it here." "I want to live here." "I think that right now all we need is time." "I think in time we'll find out what is sickening our cattle and-and have us a healthy herd." "And let the neighbors hate us if they must." "But we know that is their burden, Martha." "Joseph, if this man can scare them into leaving us be..." "I will hear no more of this talk." "Joseph!" "You have had three beatings, and-and you know it won't stop at that." "You carry your gun, but-but you say it's for snakes and deadly things, and-and not for killing people." "Well, good." "That's what we were taught, and I respect you for holding to it, but... but they have put a circle of guns around us, and-and what are we to do now?" "I do not know." "My father would've killed, but at the mission school, where I got my education, they taught me to think like a white man." "Now I'm confused." "I do not know." "Well, here is a white man who does." "We have no money..." "but this is rich land, and we will give you part of it if you will help..." "This is Martha's day to need forgiveness." "She is carrying our first child, and she is easily upset." "I'm sure it'll be a fine youngster." "I'm sorry, Mrs. Whitehorse, I don't care to own land." "It's a thing that grows to a man's feet, and that's not the kind of a life I've chosen for myself." "Well, then you have wasted your journey, because all we have to offer is cows that are dying and land we are being driven from." "You told Peavey he'd have to pay for that horse he shot." "I don't mind taking over that debt, and I'll trade you the horse you rode home on." "But that is a fine horse." "You are cheating yourself." "I may ask Peavey to throw in something else of value." "Thank you for your hospitality." "Hold on, which one are you aiming at?" "The horse..." "but what if I hit the rider?" "Do you know anybody who'd start crying?" "He's not even trying to ride off the ranch yet." "Well, suppose he tries and makes it?" "What do you think we're here for?" "Get out of here!" "Go on!" "Hyah!" "You did that shooting?" "This here's the Indian's boundary." "We warned you clear enough." "I remember." "Now I'll use one of your horses to get me back to town." "You lay a hand on that bridle, you Injun lover, and I'll..." "You want some?" "Tell McNally what happened." "He'll find me in town." "Yes, sir?" "Lovely type." "What if I ask you to test it?" "Mister, I've got enough stuff in bottles and jars to test every substance known to man, with the possible exception of the local mentality." "Well, that's what I wanted to know." "Of course, there's always this way." "Wish I had a thousand like it." "Keep that one for a starter." "You're kind of generous for a stranger." "You just passing through?" "I may be staying at McNally's for a few days." "I'm not impressed." "That's careless talk, Mister." "I understand McNally is a big man around here." "Mister, I've watched your friend being big around here for about five years, and I'm getting tired of it, and you can tell him so." "Now, what can I do for you?" "Do you know the Whitehorses?" "You mean our thieving, scalping, overeducated local Indians?" "I do... and before you say your piece, let me inform you this is the only store in town that'll do business with him and proud to say it." "Now, what's on your mind?" "Well, I guess I've come to the right place." "Now, then... we begin with the word "suppose"..." "McNally." "That's Peavey's horse, all right." "Well, let's have a look at this gun shark." "McNally, he's fast." "Go on back to your ranch if you feel your saddle slipping." "There's enough of us here to slow him down." "Gentlemen." "You pistol whip my foreman, steal his horse?" "I disciplined your foreman, Mr. McNally." "As to the horse, Peavey owed Joe Whitehorse for one he shot." "I took over the debt and settled it." "You working for Whitehorse?" "What kind of men are we breeding, taking wages from an Indian?" "I couldn't get a dollar out of him." "He doesn't have one." "That's why I'm here." "And from here, you can see the road out of town." "There's an irritating roughness about the way you people speak." "It makes me obstinate." "You want me to leave town, Mr. McNally?" "Well, you're the loud spokesman for this community." "Wouldn't you like to try?" "I'm an honest man." "I'm not a gunfighter." "Well, gentlemen, we've established one interesting fact." "If I do lease my services to Joe Whitehorse, we know exactly how you'll react." "If you're not with the Indian, what are you deviling us for?" "I want to be hired." "We're doing fine by ourselves." "Neglecting your ranches, staying away from your work while you try to starve him out?" "He don't have to starve;" "he can sell me his place." "I offered to buy him out the first day I knew what he was, but there's nothing more stubborn than an educated Indian." "Did you offer him a profit?" "I offered him what he paid for it." "Ask anybody." "I'm asking you." "Does the offer still hold?" "Yeah... if somebody can make him take it." "You saying you can?" "All you have to decide is how willing you want that Indian to be." "Well, boys?" "I'm buying the land." "Do I have to fight your battle for you, or are you with me?" "Kelso's in with the rest of us." "Let's go open a bottle and talk." "I thought you wanted action." "Well, good." "Get on out there right away." "No, McNally, first you go to the bank and withdraw certain funds." "I'm sure Joe Whitehorse will want to be paid off in cash." "That's a lot to trust you with." "I see your point." "Well, you may carry it, and, McNally, carry an extra $2,000." "My fee." "$2,000?" "That's right." "My fee just went up." "How much money do you think I've got?" "How much do you hate Indians..." "especially the educated variety?" "All right." "I'll go to the bank." "Well, you look like a happy man." "Five years I've been dozing among these backwards heathens." "Five years with the most complete laboratory in this territory gathering dust, and all the while pleading with 'em to submit their problems to the analysis of modern science." "Not a chance... not with a McNally telling 'em how to think." "Science has absolutely no standing in a community where they still bury chicken heads by the light of the moon to get rid of warts." "Here we go." "I'm only guessing at what we're looking for." "They're waiting, Mr. Whitehorse." "You've already overtaxed their patience." "Perhaps you did not understand me, Mr. Paladin." "When I said I was stubborn, that meant I would not be pushed off my land." "I'm staying here." "I already told McNally you'd sell." "Then tell him you were mistaken." "Why are you doing this?" "Why should you force us off our land?" "Is-is it the money we can't pay you?" "Mrs. Whitehorse, it's my considered opinion that this land should belong to McNally." "And what if that is not my opinion?" "What if I were to say" "I were not afraid to stand up to that gun of yours?" "Well, now that would make everything very uncomfortable for me." "You're no better than the others." "You wouldn't turn on us if we weren't different." "We didn't come here to hurt anybody." "The mission didn't teach us to hate and to kill." "We want to live in peace, to have a home and to build for ourselves and those that come after, and you know that about us." "You know we want to live." "It's our strength that makes us move on, not yours." "All right, sell it, Joseph." "Give them their bill of sale, and let's get out of here." "There." "Now you have earned your money." "Thank you." "I'll tell McNally he can take possession." "But just give us time to pack and leave so we don't have to look at him." "I don't think he'll be here more than a few moments." "Looks like I bought me a ranch." "All right, boys, you know what to do." "They're killing them!" "Did you know he was going to do this?" "I didn't think even McNally was that stupid." "Oh, when will you meet a gun faster than yours?" "I cannot see how I figured you so wrong." "All signed and delivered, huh?" "It's your ranch and you're killing your own cattle." "Ah, filthy, disease-ridden critters." "How'd you make out with the Indian?" "Did he pull his tommyhawk?" "I'm afraid he's given up the ways of his father." "Come into the house and get your bill of sale." "I've got no use for a critter that hangs on when he knows he ain't wanted." "Here is your ranch." "I have the feeling you were itching for it even before my cows took sick." "Whitehorse, you learn something from this business." "You Indians have reservations all over the country." "That's where you belong." "Forget your fool education and go on back to your teepee." "There's one item we don't want to forget" "$2,000." "See me in town." "I see you right now, Mr. McNally, perfectly." "You needed a gunslinger to get rid of us." "We'd have had the land yet if it weren't for him." "I did you a great service, Mrs. Whitehorse." "This land is useless." "It's poisoned." "Poisoned?" "Poisoned?" "Don't ever try to pasture cattle out here, McNally." "They'll die." "You telling me what I can do?" "If that disease is in here that thick," "I'll burn this place to the ground." "Every tree, every blade of grass." "There'll be no disease when I get through." "I had the soil analyzed." "There's a particular element that sometimes occurs in excessive amounts." "When that happens, it affects the vegetation and that's what we have here." "But you said poison." "Almost as bad as poison." "When the cattle eat that vegetation..." "Right here on our land?" "On McNally's land, almost all of it." "There's no such thing." "I'm sorry to say there is." "I saw this cattle sickness once before down on the San Joaquin range." "There's no poison in dirt." "I've lived on the land all my life." "Dirt is dirt." "Except when it's called soil and then it becomes a particular thing." "The particular thing that you bought would have ruined these people in just a short time." "You really should have waited." "What kind of hogwash?" "You believe this?" "Is this what you were tending to over at Rheinhart's?" "He's an excellent chemist." "I never heard of such a thing in all my life." "Well, it's not particularly new." "Molybdenum has been known for centuries." "It looks somewhat like white iron." "It can be found anywhere in the world." "As a matter of fact, Pliny wrote about molybdenum when he was in the employ of the Emperor Nero." "Now there was a man of prejudice." "He kept lions for the people he didn't like." "What the blazes are you talking about?" "Talk English." "I'll spell it out for you." "I'm sure Mrs. Whitehorse won't mind." "The house belongs to Mr. McNally now." "The criminal is called molybdenum." "Hereafter known as "McNally's folly."" "And you shouldn't have killed those cattle." "You could have saved them." "Paladin, let me understand one thing." "You knew about this all along?" "Let's say I suspected it." "When you took my money?" "Well, Rheinhart hadn't confirmed it." "Oh, you've been had, McNally." "This land is useless to you." "And you better have Rheinhart check every acre in this valley." "All right." "I've been out-traded." "But I don't lose all." "You're still leaving here." "I do not want your money this way." "It's been in your hands." "I wouldn't touch it." "But this fella, he's got some money I don't mind taking back." "And I mean to take it." "Ease up, Clyde." "So you went over the saddle." "It happens to every man." "Not to me." "Never draw in anger, Mr. McNally." "It slows the hand." "Get outside." "Outside!" "If you're looking for some land to buy," "I have a section you might care for." "Thank you." "We will see you in town." "No, drop by the house." "You'll meet my wife." "Well." "Well, I'm sorry to have given you some bad moments, but it's very difficult to conspire with an honest man." "Oh, Mr. Paladin, you had a very close call." "Well, fortunately, the close ones don't count." "Oh, I don't mean McNally." "This was going to be my last word to you." "But, Martha, I never keep that gun loaded."