"They're out there somewhere." "And I want them found." "What am I paying you for?" "You can't find a man, woman and boy out there on foot." "What am I supposed to do?" "Go out there like I used to in the old days and find them myself?" "We've got all the men on the road." "Now, what good's that gonna do?" "You could have a thousand men on the road." "What do you think, they're traveling in style, by stagecoach?" "Get off the road." "I want a 360-degree search." "North, east, south, west." "Every direction." "They're heading for Danny Caine's hideout." "I don't want them to get there." "You get that boy for me." "I'll find out where Danny Caine is from him." "What about the Chinaman?" "Yeah." "That's the danger." "They've gone." "We're safe." "Only for the moment." "We must leave this trail and go deeper into the wilderness." "Where?" "We'll help you." "You find him, you come to me." "I make my move then." "I've got $ 1 0,000." "Ten thousand dollars for that boy in front of me." "And that Chinaman dead." "Your tread must be light and sure as though your path were upon rice paper." "It is said a Shaolin priest can walk through walls." "Looked for, he cannot be seen." "Listened for, he cannot be heard." "Touched, he cannot be felt." "This rice paper is the test." "Fragile as the wings of the dragonfly, clinging as the cocoon of the silkworm." "When you can walk its length and leave no trace you will have learned." "This is too hard for you?" "No." "l'll manage." "Good for you, Mother." "Oh, that's a word I've wanted to hear for a long time." "We'll take care of you, Mother." "How far is it to the town?" "To Orion?" "It is several days across the mountains." "From the road it would be much quicker." "But we have to keep off the roads." "And away from carriages and horses and beds to sleep in and food." "The land will give us food." "I've only seen miles and miles of brush and rocks and weeds." "You must see through my eyes." "Here are berries." "You should pick some to take them with us." "I will." "You're very much like Danny." "The good part of him." "Tell me about him." "Ask Zeke." "He's the authority on Danny Caine." "After all, I only had Danny for half a year." "Zeke's had him for a lifetime." "Tell me." "I don't know what to say, really." "When I'm with my father, everything's really exciting." "And when I'm not, things are bad." "Sometimes I have to stay with other people like Mr. Corbino and I really don't like that." "That's Danny." "Always on top of the mountain or flat on his back." "Never any in-between." "Well, who wants to be in-between?" "If you wanna live, you have to take chances." "Sometimes you lose and you have to fight your way back up." "He was the most exciting, most handsome, most forbidding man that any young girl ever saw." "But he had more downs than ups." "And how did you like the safe in-between?" "l never found it." "You see." "Zeke, don't be angry with me." "I'm sorry." "Well, I...." "l guess we didn't tell you much about Danny." "But you have." "When we find my father are you going to live with us and be my mother?" "I hope so, Zeke." "Kwai Chang, I must rest." "is she all right?" "She has fainted from the heat." "And we're all thirsty." "I'll climb up that hill and see if I can see a stream or waterhole." "I feel like a millstone around your neck." "You need food and water and a place to rest." "And you'll find them." "And you'll get us to Orion too." "Hey, there's an old way station over there." "Maybe we can get some help." "Help me." "I'm all right. I can walk." "I don't...." "I don't wanna be a burden to you." "You are no burden." "Anybody home?" "Who are you?" "We need help." "Oh, my goodness." "Come in." "Come in." "I'm afraid this place ain't quite what she used to be." "Can we have some water?" "Yeah, right there in the bucket, boy." "Thank you." "Oh, I didn't mean to blow you folks' heads off." "I just didn't hear no horses coming." "That's how I know I'm gonna have company here." "I got my ears tuned to hear horses two miles away." "Well, we came on foot." "Over them mountains?" "Yep, right over the top." "Why you didn't take the road?" "Well, we...." "Never mind why." "I'll just mind my own business." "I've seen enough travelers in my day come and go out of here to know enough to mind my own business." "We need food." "We have money." "Well now, there we got a problem." "You see, one reason I come tearing out of here with that gun ready is I thought you might be lnjuns." "Nobody else comes up here real quiet-like on foot but lnjuns." "There have been hunting parties around all week." "I've been scared to go out and shoot myself any meat." "And the stage only comes through here every month." "You have no food?" "Precious little." "I can work for it." "You should see me cut wood" "You could cut me 1 0 winters' wood and I couldn't make no food appear out of nowhere." "How do you manage for yourself?" "Oh, me." "I wouldn't know no other life." "I run this station for 25 years." "Of course, at first, it was a prime station, let me tell you." "The stagecoaches ran every day, mine wagons and peddlers." "This place was full of new people every day." "We served food, ran a bar kept five pairs of horses ready in the pen out there." "And then, the mines played out towns up there, dead." "Still, it ain't all bad." "And how often do I get to help out people anymore?" "That's what I always liked to do, help out folks in the road." "I was known for that, I was." "Thank you." "You just hold on." "Come on." "Here you are." "It's all I've got." "But you're welcome to it." "Thank you." "Here's for your water, you can fill it up outside." "I'm gonna fix you a hot meal before you go." "Now, that's the least I can do." "This is mighty good, sir." "I never had squirrel stew before." "It's the last meat I got." "In payment." "This is much, much too fine for what I gave you." "No." "You've been very kind to us." "Please let me pay you." "You can use the money from the necklace to fix up your place here." "You're real high class." "But I don't need this to remember the prettiest lady that ever sat at my table." "Sure nice having you folks." "I don't suppose you'll ever be coming back this way, though." "Who can say?" "Well, goodbye, Mr. Stanford." "Thank you." "Goodbye." "Goodbye, young fella." "Thanks a lot, Mr. Stanford." "You take care of the horses." "Howdy." "Glad to see you." "You got any whiskey, old man?" "I work for Mr. Vincent Corbino." "And we're looking for some people." "Three of them." "There's two males and a female." "The woman, she's about 30 years old and blond." "Good-looking, but a lady." "And one of the males is a boy." "A youngster, about 1 5 years old." "And the third one, he's easy." "He's a Chinaman." "You seen them?" "Not me." "No, sir." "I don't hardly see nobody anymore." "Well, I just got one thing to say to you, Mr...?" "Stanford." "Stanford." "Ten thousand dollars." "Ten thousand dollars for the three of them." "Now, if you know Mr. Vince Corbino, you know that's just like money in the bank." "Are you gonna kill them?" "Well, what's that to you, Mr. Stanford?" "Well, it's...." "It's just that..." "...blood money" "Well, now with $ 1 0,000 a person could buy hisself an entire new life." "Wipe out anything that ever happened for $ 1 0,000." "Well, I got to be riding on." "Who knows, the next farmhouse I stop at, or maybe the next stagecoach stop there'll be somebody there that's seen them people and they'll go to bed tonight a rich man." "Are you gonna...?" "Are you gonna kill them?" "Well, of course we ain't gonna kill them." "Then I saw them." "They was here yesterday." "I know the way they went." "I'll tell you what to do." "Get this place cleaned up for an important visitor." "And I'll be back here tomorrow with Mr. Corbino." "And...?" "And your money." "Your 2 and I'll raise you 1 more." "Okay, 2." "One, 2 more." "All right. I'll call you." "Aces over 1 0s." "Three ladies." "Ladies always were my style, McCord." "When you gonna learn you'll never win from me?" "When I stop being entertained by losing to you." "Boss, guess what I've done." "Did you find them?" "That's right." "They're as good as in your hands." "You didn't move on them?" "No, I followed your orders to the letter." "Get Mendoza." "We'll leave immediately." "Right." "Well, this is it. I tell you, McCord, this is the best game of all." "Perhaps I'd like to play." "No, that's out of your league." "You better stick to women and fighters." "What are the stakes?" "Danny Caine's son, back here with me." "And that Chinaman dead." "The Shanghai kid?" "The one I saw fight here?" "Yeah, that's him." "l've seen that boy in action." "Are you suggesting something, McCord?" "I'm suggesting I put my money on Shanghai." "How much?" "Five thousand." "Five thousand you lose." "Five thousand you don't lay a hand on Danny Caine's son and the Chinaman wins." "It's always a pleasure to take your money." "Maybe the Chinaman will change my luck." "Hey, Kwai Chang when you beat the McAffee brothers at Barbary House, was it like this?" "I learn fast." "Teach me another one." "We could fight alongside each other if we had to." "I hope I never have to." "We must see to your mother." "l'll try to find some more berries." "No." "That's the last of it." "Save it for Zeke." "He's a stranger to me." "I can't touch him." "He's so bound up with his father." "And now that I've found him, I'll never give him up again." "Why would you have to?" "Would Danny want me back?" "I gave him up because I thought my father paid him off." "And then I gave up Zeke to save my reputation." "You did not know Danny took the boy with him?" "All these years I thought he'd deserted us." "And now I see he had far greater love for Zeke than I ever had." "How can I undo all that?" "You were very young." "Kwai Chang get us to that town." "Quickly." "Get us to Orion." "You can go no further." "Where are you going?" "I will be back by nightfall." "You rest." "Rest here." "Zeke?" "Over here." "There's no berries." "Zeke suppose...." "Suppose we don't find your father." "Would you come and live with me?" "We'll find him." "Oh, we'll try." "But you know your father." "By the time we get to Orion, he may be gone." "He wouldn't go without me." "He has many times." "Your life would be much better with me." "You'd have a home." "You could go to school." "I don't wanna go to school." "I just wanna be with my father." "What about your mother?" "Look, why do I have to choose?" "Zeke, please don't run away from me." "You don't want me." "You don't need me." "It's not that, really." "I just don't know how to act with you." "Maybe there are some of those roots around here." "Zeke." "Zeke." "Kwai Chang!" "Kwai Chang!" "Where are you?" "He's gone." "Where?" "l don't know." "l don't-- -l'll find him." "Wait!" "No!" "Stay here with me." "What can I do?" "Tell me." "Nothing." "Mother." "There's nothing, Zeke." "It's not your fault." "Mother I love you." "She's dying!" "She's dying!" "A rattlesnake." "Your son will be as my son." "No!" "No!" "She only wanted me to love her." "She let that snake get her to save me." "I'm the one who should be dead." "She was my mother." "And she's dead." "The breath of life moves through a deathless valley of mysterious motherhood which conceives and bears the universal seed." "The seeming of a world never to end." "Breath for men to draw from as they will." "And the more they take of it the more remains." "is that from the Bible?" "It is the way." "What do you mean?" "The way of life." "The teachings that I follow." "I waited all my life for her I only had her for a few days." "You will have her always in your heart." "You should wear this." "I came to your camp and found no one." "Now we have found you." "You came here." "You stole our food like the coyote." "I did not come to steal. I left something for what I took from you." "We cannot eat this." "When you came, why did you not wait until we returned?" "Even in the time of drought, we share what we have." "I could not wait." "There was no time." "Our laws are simple." "He who takes from us is a thief." "The thief must die." "is there no way in your laws that I may seek justice for myself?" "There is the Ordeal." "You must leave here now." "No, I won't go without you." "Listen to me." "Soon they will come to take me to whatever it is I must do." "You cannot help me by staying." "You must save yourself." "But they'll kill you." "That is as it will be." "You must go to Orion and find your father." "l'll never find him without you." "You must try." "Now, go." "Kwai Chang!" "Wherever you are I will be with you." "Wherever I am, you will be with me." "Now, hurry, Zeke." "It's such a pleasure taking your money, McCord." "Just a moment. I've seen the boy." "But I haven't seen the Chinaman." "Well, you heard what the kid said." "He got caught by an Indian hunting party." "What do you want, a dead body on the table?" "A bet is a bet." "We agreed, the boy in your hands and the Chinaman dead." "All right, Mendoza, saddle up two horses." "Take McCord, find that Indian hunting party." "Tell them we want the body of that Chinaman back." "If you have any trouble, leave McCord." "He'll straighten him out." "No, that's all right." "Klaus!" "Thank you." "l hope that's the right size." "Tailor guarantees it." "I'll tell the kid that you paid for his suit, McCord." "Hey!" "How's my boy?" "Everybody treating your right?" "l'm not your boy." "What's that?" "I thought we had that all straightened out." "Why couldn't you have left me alone?" "Where would you be now?" "In the middle of nowhere, you'd be cold and starving, right?" "Hey, Mendoza, remember how he looked when we brought him in?" "Well, cleaned up, he looks about 1 0 pounds lighter." "Never mind." "We got a meal for you outside that'll put it back on for you." "Bet you're hungry, huh?" "Yeah, I'm hungry." "All right, well, get out of there and slip into these." "You're not mad at me?" "Now, what would I be angry about?" "You went out." "You tried it on your own for a while." "That's good." "You're no flunky." "You've got spirit, kid. I like that." "Well, come on now, hurry up." "A horse." "l forgot about the horse." "What horse?" "He's a beautiful horse." "I had him trained for myself." "But he's gonna be my gift to you." "He's back at Barbary House right now." "What kind of horse is it?" "Listen to that, you can't wait now." "He's a beautiful horse." "His sire won the English Derby two years ago." "And his mother beautiful Appaloosa, a wild horse." "I caught her myself." "You never told me you caught wild horses." "We'll catch them together from now on." "But I wanna tell you about your horse." "Are you interested?" "l'm interested." "What color is he?" "He's black." "Black, and he's got those Appaloosa spots of his mother sprinkled across his flanks." "Just sprinkled like stars in the sky." "Gee, thanks a lot, Mr. Corbino." "Come on." "You don't have to thank me." "You got it coming, kid." "This is the claw of the great owl." "It will help you find what you seek." "I am honored." "Thank you, my brother." "You know the young one has fled." "Yes." "But you do not know he has met with three men who rode with him to the way station." "The old man who ran the station betrayed you." "He has taken their money and gone." "You know, I never had a son." "I thought maybe you had son who was grown up." "No." "Sometimes I walk down the street and I look at myself and say:" ""Vincent Corbino, you've got everything." "You got money, respect, power." "You got women who love you." "You got rich men, important men, right in the palm of your hand."" "And, then I say to myself, "Corbino, you've got nothing because you don't have a son."" "l'm sorry." "Hey, come on." "No need to feel sorry for me." "Because maybe now I've got everything, after all." "Because maybe now, I got a kid of my own." "Hey, you're not such a big high roller yet that I can't put my hands on your shoulders, are you?" "l don't know what to say." "Come on." "Don't say anything." "Just take your time, get used to the idea." "We're gonna be big together, kid." "We need each other." "Everything I've worked for is gonna be yours one of these days." "You gonna walk down the street and people will point at you and say:" ""There goes Vincent Corbino's boy." "That's somebody."" "What about my father?" "Well, you don't think I'm gonna ask you to give him up, do you?" "But you said that-- -l know. I know. I said a lot of things." "I know that Corbino's got a temper." "You know your father and me." "But we're partners." "We're still partners." "Sure, I got mad at him." "Yeah, and I'm still a bit edgy too, but...." "When I see him, I'm gonna tell him that." "Well, he thought you were going to" "Gonna what?" "To kill him." "Kill him?" "Kill him?" "Come here." "Kill him." "Come here." "Look, Corbino has got a temper." "But if I killed everybody I got mad at, that graveyard would be three deep." "No." "Kill him." "Come on." "No, whatever's between Danny and me it's nothing that can't be straightened out with a good long talk." "Sure, I'm gonna say things he's not gonna like." "He's sure not gonna die from them." "But then why did he run away?" "Well, we'll find that out together when we see him." "When we see him?" "That's where you were going to see you father, wasn't it?" "We'll talk to him together." "Hey, what is that?" "You don't trust me?" "Now, look." "All I wanna do is talk to him." "All right, you win." "I'll tell you where he is." "How long must I stay out here?" "You can go in now, McCord." "Good. I want a drink." "Mendoza." "Get word back to Barbary House." "I want a full crew here." "Everybody." "We're heading for Orion." "Orion?" "That's right." "That's where Danny Caine is hiding." "And I want that place tied up so tight not even a nit can get through." "You've got it." "You lied to me!" "Corbino." "Orion." "There you will find your father." "What if it's too late?" "What if Corbino has already found him and killed him?" "Will you blame yourself?" "Yes. I let him trick me." "First my mother, now my father." "Take this from me." "Take it." "Do as I tell you." "Take lt." "Take it." "Take it." "Take it." "Take it." "What's the matter?" "Take it." "l can't!" "You're too big and too strong for me." "So is Corbino."