"Tell me where I'll find Abel Hix." "Sure." "Down there." "Church." "Thank you." "Some of ye could help!" "Nobody's going to help you, Reverend." "I told you that." "Abel Hix deserves Christian burial, same as anyone." "Maybe so." "But not alongside our loved ones." "There's plenty of open country hereabouts." "Reverend, I'll give you a hand, if you like." "Mister!" "You're a stranger here." "Abel Hix was a gunman." "A killer." "We didn't want his kind in our valley." "We don't want yours." "How did Abel Hix die?" "Shot." "Well, now, that's very interesting." "Just how do you classify the person who shot him?" "Stop it!" "Can't you even leave the dead in peace?" "If you would please just help us back inside." "You rest easy, Judd Bowman." "We won't desecrate your holy ground." "I do thank you." "You're Mrs. Hix?" "Yeah." "Well, Mrs. Hix, your husband asked me to come here." "Who are you?" "Paladin?" "I don't know what he could have wanted." "Well, whatever it was, it can't make any difference now." "Well, we can't be quite sure of that." "I'll be here when you decide what to do." "You scoot for now, boy." "Mr. Paladin," "Bowman was at least right about one thing:" "there is no place in this town for a gunman." "Whatever his reason for being here." "Did that include Abel Hix, Reverend?" "It included Abel Hix, Mr. Paladin." "Reverend Harper tried hard to be fair; he's a good man." "It's just that there hasn't been any trouble here for such a long time." "Mrs. Hix, who was the man you called Bowman?" "He owns and rules everything around here, from his office in the back of the town saloon." "Mrs. Hix... who killed your husband?" "Judd Bowman." "Mrs. Hix." "How did it happen?" "Mr. Bowman says Abel forced a fight... and that he just plain outdrew him." " No witnesses?" " No." "My husband was a very sick man, Mr. Paladin." "And he picked this town to..." "get away from his reputation." "Bought a few sheep." "He tried very hard." "Mr. Paladin, he hadn't worn his guns for nearly two years." "Why did he, on that last day?" "Well, I... suppose that question deserves answering." "It'll take me some time." "Where will I find you?" "I'll be at home." "It's at the far end of the street, around the corner." "The house all by itself." "Senor Paladin?" "I am Lauro." "I watch the sheeps for Senor Hix." "Well, it's an ancient and honorable profession, Lauro." "Si." "Senor Hix give me something to keep for you." "He did not want the senora to know." "You come with me now?" "I would say now is an appropriate time." "You could wait here?" "I can wait here." "I hide this very careful." ""Paladin, I couldn't show up in person" ""to collect the money I put into these banks," ""but you can, and that's what you're hired to do." ""Give it all to my wife, except 1,000 to the church," ""because my wife loves it." ""1,000 to Lauro..." ""...because I love him as the son I never had." ""And 1,000 to you as your fee." "Abel Hix."" "Well, Lauro Abel Hix loved you very much." "Si." "I was his friend." "Yeah." "You were his friend." "Will you keep these and my horse for me," " for now?" " Oh, si." "Hasta luego." "Nos vemos." "Reverend, what can you tell me about Abel Hix?" "Ah, you do follow a scent close, Mr. Paladin." "Well... came here with his wife." "He was a sick man taking a long time dying." "He didn't talk about himself." "And after a while, he was accepted here." "Then, one day, a pair of drifters came through." "They recognized him." "And all of a sudden, he had a past again." "And from then on, things changed." "Aye." "Things changed." "Abel Hix left a will." "In the will was a bequest of $1,000 to this church." "I suspect he made that bequest because his wife loved this church and Abel Hix loved his wife." "Salt in the wounds of my conscience, Mr. Paladin?" "Perhaps a little, Reverend." "You said there was no room in your town for a gunfighter, and yet there was room in that gunfighter's heart for love." "A man grows old." "And the fruits of his labor sometimes become more important than the work itself." "Reverend, it seems to me that Mrs. Hix deserves to hear that said." "Um... one more thing, Reverend." "Judd Bowman never saw the day he could outdraw Abel Hix in a fair fight." "Things being what they are, what I do about that will be Mrs. Hix's decision." "I told you once I didn't want you in our valley." "Will you be leaving now?" ""Our valley," Mr. Bowman?" "Their valley?" "Or is it only your valley, your people, your will be done?" "I'd hoped you'd be a reasonable man." "Friend, will you excuse me?" "Take him to the edge of town." "Don't kill him." "Just come within an inch of it." "The bones of your head are very sound, senor." "Like the granite beneath Guadalajara." "Ah..." "Oh, I think you better don't get up yet." "How'd I get here?" "I bring you." "In the wheelbarrow." "After the mens leave you on the trail." "Right." "I think you're right, I..." "better not try to get up." "I fix you hot food, to give you strength." "Oh, you cook, too, huh?" "Oh, si." "It's almost ready." "?" "Esta falda de cordero?" "No." "Oh." "?" "Las chuletas?" "Oh, por favor, senor." "As the protector of the sheeps, how could I eat them?" "No." "Estas gallina suprema." "Chicken supreme." "Si." "I take it then, you're not a protector of chickens." "Oh, no." "That's the work for the womens." "I do a man's work, senor." "And where does such a man come by the ingredients for chicken supreme?" "Heaven provides, senor." "Ah." "What you do now, senor?" "Well..." "I seem to be missing a holster and a gun or two" "I'd like to recover." "It's better to lose your gun than your life." "Like Abel Hix?" "Si." "You're very much like him." "Oh, that's a good thing, senor." "But you're not old." "You're not sick." "It's enough to see one such man die." "Lauro... how did he die?" "A most wondrous thing, senor." "In the back of the saloon is Senor Bowman's office, also room for storage." " And the back door?" " Si." "They say that in the barrancas east of Guadalajara, a brave man can catch himself a lion whose pelt will keep him warm in the winter and whose teeth will drive away the lesser ones." "How you know that?" " Is it true?" " Si." "Not only lion, also have tiger." "But tiger's not so much courage." "Well, Lauro, you and I are just about to catch ourselves four such tigers." "Bye." "We'll see you, Moon." "Linda?" "Oye, Linda." "You want to buy this belt?" "Well, I don't know." "I have plenty moneys here." "Oh, senor, mire." "Now, Lauro... if you were to lead him on a trail of money to this spot..." "Claro?" "Clarisimos." "Aye!" "What are you doing, chili picker?" "Oh, maybe it's my patron saint." "He throw it from heaven." "Maybe just a rich man with a hole in his pocket." "More moneys!" "Oh, so rich!" "Look all this moneys I have here." "Oh, look at the moneys." "Hey, wait a minute!" "Where you are?" "I don't see no more moneys." "Ah." "Oh, you find one, huh?" "Hey!" "Help!" "Let me down!" "What's the matter?" "Hey!" "What are you doing?" "!" "Let me down!" "Come on!" "What... what are you gonna do?" "!" "Hey!" "You better let me down from here!" "Whoa!" "I think I'll get a little shut-eye." " Tell Bowman where I'm at if he wants me, okay?" " Okay." "Hola, senor." "You, sir, are a miserable whelp, which my faithful sheepdog would not mother." "Gracias." "Oh." "Hey, toro!" "Olé!" "Hey!" "Oh!" "Hello, Mr. Horse." "You're pretty nice." "Oh, yeah." "You're a very good horse." "Oh, I think..." "I think you better come with me, horse." "Oh, yeah, I like you." "Hey, kid, get away from that horse." "Oh, he's my horse, mister." "Oh, no, he ain't." "Lauro, we have captured our fourth tiger, and I think you'd better replace this step." "Oh, muy bueno." "Listo." "Vamos." "Oh, please, sir, it's somebody here to see you." "Now, please." "What is it?" "Oh, yes, they did a very neat job on me." "Very neat indeed." "Now get over there." "What do you want?" "The truth." "Such as?" "Sick to death, tired to exhaustion with two broken arms," "Abel Hix could outdraw you 60 times every hour if it was a fair fight." "Well, he didn't." "He didn't outdraw me." "Bowman, I asked you for the truth." "Somebody saw that fight." "Lauro." "Now, the truth is that Bowman wanted Abel Hix to leave this town, and finally, one day, he met Hix face to face." "Hix had a gun on him for the first time in two years." "He smiled at Bowman, and he said, "Now's your chance."" "Bowman drew, but before he could even clear leather," "Hix had his gun on him." "But Hix didn't fire." "Bowman did." "And when Hix went down from the shot, he smiled at Bowman." "And then, for a few seconds, he knelt there as if he were praying." "And then he died." "Now, I believe that Abel Hix was praying." "I believe he was a man who was tired of dying an inch at a time." "And I do believe he found your real talent, Bowman, as an executioner." "No!" "That's not the way it happened." "You're not going to believe him." "That boy." "Abel Hix was the fastest man with a gun who ever lived." "He was faster than I am." "So I should be very easy for you." "Lauro." "There's no reason..." "Will you draw that gun?" "There'll be no question now where Abel Hix is to be buried." "Thank you, Reverend." "Mrs. Hix, should you need me again, you send for me." "Lauro." "You will go now, huh?" "I think so, Lauro." "My business is finished here." "Oh." "You'll be staying." "Oh, si." "Who would watch the sheeps?" "Who would love my pretty hills?" ""To him, who in the love of nature," ""holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language."" "Oh, si." "I understand." "Then shall we go find my horse?" "Si." ""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" "Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?"