"Mm." "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" "Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!" "Mr. Paladin." ""Fandango Continued." "Denton, Texas." ""Today, Bob Olson and James Horton escaped" ""from Sheriff Ernie Backwater and from a hanging." ""The boys leaped out of the courtroom window" ""after the death penalty had been pronounced on them" ""for the murder of Tom Petty, age 19." ""Olson had testified that they hadn't set out to kill Petty, that it had just been a fandango."" "Ernie Backwater." "What'd you say?" "Oh, checkmate, Yevgeny." "Hey Girl, bags." ""Checkmate, Yevgeny"?" "No, no, no." "Son of a gun!" "Excuse me, my dear." "Yes..." "Yes." "Whoo-ee, ain't you a beauty?" "!" "That's a good fish." "Yes, sir." "Will you stay for supper?" "Thank you." "I will, at that." "I caught me a slew." "After we fry some up, what's left" "I'm gonna take to town and sell." "There's a carnival over at Wakersfield." "I'm gonna buy me a ticket and all the cotton candy and ice cream I can eat." "You are Bob Olson." "I didn't know there was a bounty on me." "There is." "Well... you go ahead and kill me, then." "I thought I'd just take you in." "Yes, sir." "I'd rather be shot than hung." "How old are you?" "Sixteen." "Would you like to eat first?" "You got it out of your system, son?" "You want me to put chains on you?" "Well, I reckon you better had." "How come they brung you?" "There wasn't nobody to watch the jail, and Lloyd Petty says he's gonna kill us." "Come on..." "Hello, Bobby." "Hello, Ernie." "How are you?" "Fine and dandy." "Been a long time since Bull Run and Shiloh." "Yeah, seems like a hundred years." "Mr. Backwater, what happened to Lucky?" "That's my dog." "Well, Mr. Hawes, there, come and took him up to his sheep ranch." "He'll treat him real good." "Now, he'll make a real good sheepdog." "He'll purely bay at the moon when I'm hung." "Ernie?" "Ernie, I want to quit." "Now, you took this town's money when the sky was blue." "Now, you earn your keep." "I have a wife, four kids... still alive." "And I've been feeding 'em, turncoat." "And when Lloyd Petty kills you and me both, hmm?" "Who's going to feed them?" "Hah!" "Well, I just lost me a deputy sheriff." "When do they hang?" "Ernie?" "Tomorrow morning." "I usually know what I'm doing." "I don't move until I can see." "This time, I was sitting in San Francisco and I was bored." "I saw your name in a newspaper;" "I thought you might need help." "I did." "Those two boys almost cost me my job." "I'm starting to feel sick." "Me?" "No, no, not you." "The whole thing." "Well, I gotta pull the trap." "You want to wash your hands and ride out of here clean, is that it?" "Well, go on over there and scrub 'em, and use plenty of soap." "I'm sorry, pal." "I got no right to put my mouth on you." "I needed your help, and you came." "And I want to thank you for being my friend." "Don't take any plugged nickels." "Who's Lloyd Petty?" "Well, I guess he's the fella gonna kill me tomorrow." "It was his brother those two boys murdered." "Why does he want to kill you?" "Well, I guess he likes to do his own hangings or whatever." "Hmm..." "Lloyd Petty." "Don't you recall him?" "Oh, just think a minute." "Mm-hmm." "That was seven or eight years ago." "That's a long time for a gunfighter not to be heard of." "And now you?" "Twitch of a finger, and..." "Tenth of a second one way or the other." "That's a poor thing for a man to dedicate his life to." "He's a big rancher how." "Mr. Backwater, do I get a last request?" "Well, maybe." "When we get to town, could I get some ice cream?" "Well, uh, if they got any made, yeah." "It don't matter." "Mr. Backwater, you get it for him." "All his life, he never could have as much ice cream as he wanted." "Well, I'll see." "I ask you a question?" "I ain't running away." "Why did you kill that boy?" "I don't know." "Did you mean to kill him?" "I don't know." "Maybe it just started out to be a fandango, like Bobby says." "But I seen him on top of his big, ugly horse with his snotty nose and his eyes too good to see ya..." "Maybe it was a fandango, like Bobby says, but I meant to kill him." "I'm the one that killed him." "I bashed his head in." "I purely did." "You want to be my deputy?" "It pays ten dollars a day, meals thrown in." "Now, Sanchez only got five." "Well, I won't take your money just yet." "I'll do you the favor." "You hear what Mr. Backwater said, Jimmy?" "He's gonna get you ice cream." "And you can eat a slew of it, on account of you'll be dead before you can get sick." "Now, don't you move!" "All right." "You hurt?" "No." "You learn anything from that?" "Next time, shoot." "Now, go on." "Get up there!" "Can you take Lloyd Petty?" "I don't know, nor that I want to try." "Well, it's a grand feeling, being alone." "Want some coffee?" "Thank you." "Boy..." "Well, I really feel exposed." "Lloyd Petty." "I just hope there's nobody else." "No, only him." "He'll most likely want to talk, to start." "Ernie, is there any chance this sentence'll be commuted?" "No, there's no pardon." "There's no nothing." "You know, last year they went up to the state legislature." "They tried to get a law passed." "It was gonna say that no boy under 16 years old could be tried for first-degree murder." "Probably just as well it didn't get passed." "Couldn't have been any help to Bobby, anyway." "Gonna stick it out?" "I don't know, Ernie." "I just don't like anything about this." "Yeah, well, that's understandable." "Still, I sure could use your help." "You know, with you, maybe I could live to see another birthday." "I don't expect you to help me hang 'em, but..." "I just want you to see that Lloyd doesn't lynch 'em." "All right." "You know... funny thing..." "I always liked Lloyd Petty." "I always have." "Thank you for that, Ernie." "Easy, mister." "Don't squeeze that thing too hard." "You always did walk like an Indian, Lloyd." "I figured you'd be looking for horses." "You alone?" "No, I got 150 men out in the palo verdes there, rifles on you." "Put the gun away." "He's got an Indian sense of humor, too." "Ernie, I could've put a bullet right between your eyes." "Yeah, that's right." "Getting to be an old man." "That's the way it is." "I want the boys." "Well, I'll make it simple for you." "You gotta kill me to get 'em." "That ain't simple, but I'll do it if I have to." "He speaking for you, Mister?" "Yes, he does." "Petty, why do you want these boys?" "They're going to hang." "Ernie, just so's you'll understand," "I wasn't always a big muckety-muck." "There was a time when I slept in one room with seven brothers and four sisters." "I liked some of my sisters and brothers, but some of 'em I didn't." "We was poor white trash, and some of us acted like that." "But there was one thing that my pa taught me- blood, the strength of blood." "That there's nothing in the world, and there should not be, anything stronger than blood." "Those two boys killed my brother." "They beat him to death." "I didn't like him." "I had him come to work for me, and he was a thief, a no-good and a wastrel." "But he's my brother;" "he's my blood." "Well, Ernie, I'm not gonna hang those boys." "I'm gonna put a bullet through their heads." "Both of them." "Ernie... why don't you take a walk?" "Go fishing." "Just anything." "Get drunk, if you want to." "Well, I wish I could." "Gunfighter, you don't matter." "I sure wish I didn't have to kill that old fool there." "How many men'll he bring?" "About three or four." "He ain't a wasteful man." "He wants to cut the heart out of those boys just like he was an Apache Indian." "Well, why not?" "That's his way of thinking, that's all." "Yah..." "¶ ¶" "Your town's ready for this." "Yep." "Tomorrow morning?" "One lousy night to go." "You gonna have enough?" "Will you get me more?" "If you want." "I tell you, Bobby, it's almost worth dying for!" "Mmm!" "Mmm..." "You was a churchgoing boy, wasn't you?" "Want a minister?" "No." "Before my old man died, he... used to tell me that I was a match for the devil, anyway." "Bobby?" "I don't want nothing." "Mr. Backwater?" "I didn't hear you testing the traps." "They'll work." "Ernie, where is this town?" "Behind windows, shutters and doors." "And no lights." "They don't wanna get shot." "You can't blame them." "No, I don't blame them." "I wish I was with them." "Well, I wish the same thing." "And don't you forget it for one minute!" ""On the night of August 23, 1876," ""the defendants James Horton and Robert Olson did," ""with malice aforethought, beat Thomas Petty, age 19," ""to death with clubs, fists and a metal chain" ""one-quarter inch in thickness and four feet in length." ""The deceased crawled for one mile" ""during a period of five hours before lapsing into a coma, and" ""he died two days later" ""of concussion and internal hemorrhages." ""The defense will contend that this brutal murder" ""began as a fandango..." ""that the defendants meant only to frighten the deceased" ""and that there was no intent to kill." ""The defense will point out to you" ""the youthfulness of the defendants." ""They'll play upon your sympathies." ""They will demand your understanding and indulgence for murder." ""And the defense will point up" ""the background of each of these boys." ""One of low mentality and of doubtful parentage," ""and the other the only son of an honest widow," ""and lacking a father's firm hand." ""But I tell you that there is no mitigation for murder." ""There is no excuse for murder." ""I tell you that no one, no matter what his age" ""and no matter what his condition," ""has the right to kill another human being... and ask for our indulgence."" "Well... you'll have to excuse me." "I'm reading from the opening address of the county prosecutor, but... well, I'm just trying to think it out, you know?" "Ernie, it's daylight, and they're out there." "Now, where do you want to make your fight?" "Well, I hate to be like a couple of chickens in a coop waiting for a fox, but... but this place is built like a fort." "We'll make our stand from in here." "They come in through the rear door, we'll hear 'em." "I wonder how they'll try and get in here." "I just wonder." "Ernie, that's dynamite!" "Now, hold it." "You made a mistake." "No." "No, I made a judgment." "He'll kill another man tomorrow." "Or the day after." "Or the day after that." "It'll happen." "Maybe you're right, Ernie." "Maybe." "Well, I still got a prisoner, and I'm gonna do what the law prescribes." "You know, he was slow." "He wasn't like the Lloyd Petty that I knew." "Tenth of a second." "That's all." "Just one-tenth of a second." "¶ "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. ¶"