"Brennan, what kind of a man are you?" "You whipped fred, theodore, louis, and john," "And then you beat up tim." "What are you doing now?" "Speedy messenger service." "Oh?" "Yours?" "Yes." "He's waiting for you on the kaibab forest road." "Wait a minute." "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "Who's waiting and why?" "Do I ask him why?" "Do I ask him who?" "Speedy's my business and questions slow me down." "Do you always deliver loose money like this?" "I told him he ought to wrap it." "But he was in a hurry." "So am I." "There's a city out there waiting for its bills," "Its invoices, checks, messages- lifeblood of the nation." "All right with you if we get on with it?" "Oh, I beg your pardon." "Excuse me." "You paladin?" "I am." "Well, what took you?" "When I pay a man, I expect him on the job." "I don't have a job." "I don't know who you are or what you want." "I haven't got time to explain it to you now." "Climb up here." "You explain it now or you won't explain it at all." "All right." "I'm ike brennan." "I'm in the furniture business in new york" "And I'm here buying timber." "I'm told you're a good man with a gun and a team." "I sure need a man like that." "I'm not a shotgun guard." "I know that." "Otherwise, I wouldn't have hired you." "Now, the indians have got my wife." "You need the cavalry, not me." "They're gonna kill her." "And if they see the cavalry, they're gonna kill her." "Climb up here, man." "Let's get going." "I don't understand this." "All right, I'll explain it." "I was up in the kaibab forest" "Buying lumber for my factory." "And we were captured by this little gang." "They killed the drivers." "And one of them speaks english." "And he kept maureen." "He sent me back to get a wagonload of food and blankets" "And like that." "If I'm not there in two days, they're gonna burn her." "Why me?" "I'm a city man." "I need a guide." "I'm told that you know the indians." "Two days from here to the kaibab forest?" "It'd be close." "Maureen is up there with him." "You make up your mind, man." "Hyah!" "Hold it." "What you stopping here for?" "We got to rest these horses sometime." "What are you looking for back there?" "No indians around here." "I'm looking for the blasted cavalry who are." "Why?" "If the indians see that cavalry first," "What do you think they'll do to maureen?" "Pass the water." "Eh, boy, it's hot." "You know, I'm her father's age." "It drove her dad right out of his mind." ""you're an old man," he said." ""and she's a young girl."" "So I beat him up to show." "You don't give up easily, do you?" "No, I don't." "I beat up the man who became my father-in-law." "And the lord bless him for that." "Then I beat up tom, her oldest brother." "And a sweeter man you never met in all your life." "And then I beat up fred," "Theodore, gene, and john." "Why did you do that?" "Then I beat up tim." "The biggest and the youngest." "Well, by that time, we were so tired," "We decided to postpone the wedding till the next afternoon" "And devote the rest of that one to drinking and singing." "Ah, maureen sang like a bird." "All right, come on, man." "Let me get over on my side where I belong, huh?" "Now, devil." "Ha!" "Get!" "Giddyup there!" "Whoa." "Howdy." "I'd take it kindly if you'd lend us a hand." "We ain't got no tools for that wheel," "And the old woman's suffering something awful from the heat." "We've got a spare wheel on the side of our wagon." "Much obliged." "You ain't gonna gamble my woman's life on this." "Get her moving!" "Go ahead, sir." "Unstrap it." "You touch that wagon," "They'll have to scrape you off the ground." "Now, let's get going." "Brennan," "You wanna get to the kaibab forest?" "Come on!" "You hold that for us?" "Yes, sir." "Miss, will you put that box under the axle, please?" "Good samaritan, huh?" "Hope you folks ain't thinki"" "On heading up into the pass." "There's a score of bad indians up there." "Cavalry patrol warned us most particular." "What kind of a man are you anyway?" "Willing to risk a woman's life so you can play good samaritan" "To a bunch of nesters, huh?" "Who hired you anyway, I'd like to know." "You hired my time, brennan." "Nobody hires me." "Give me the nut." "Giddyap!" "Yah!" "Yah!" "Yah!" "Slow down." "Whoa." "Here we rest them a little bit." "Whoa now, mare." "Hold, black mare." "Ah, I should have listened to maureen." "She didn't wanna come out here in the first place." "She's too tenderhearted" "To even take the hook out of a fish." "Boy, when I think of what those savages might do to her..." "Look." "It's a cavalry." "Ten or twelve of them." "What are we gonna do?" "Think we ought to try and outrun 'em?" "Outrun 'em?" "Why?" "I've got no business with them." "Maybe they've got some with us." "They've got no right to stop us" "When the loss of a single minute might cost maureen her life." "Let's get going." "Lieutenant." "How do, sir?" "You folks ain't thinking on going up to that pass, are you?" "No law against, is there?" "No, sir, but you might just wish there was." "There's a gang of cutthroat piutes running wild up there." "They just about paralyzed all traffic going through." "You all quite sure you got some urgent business up that way?" "We're sure." "Well, I can't force you to turn back." "Though I reckon you might thank me if I did." "Come on." "Let's get going." "You sure in a great sweat to get yourself scalped." "Well, it's my hair, ain't it?" "What you got in there anyways that's so all-fired important?" "Food and blankets." "For a mining camp." "Mining?" "Up that way?" "Now, mister," "I may be just a little old farm boy," "But I ain't that big a fool." "Sergeant, take two men." "robeson, dimmert, dismount and unload the wagon." "This gentleman's got me plumb curious now." "I told you we should have kept going." "By heaven, I'll blast the first man that takes..." "Ah!" "What kind..." "What kind of a gunman are you anyway?" "Looking by without a peep from you" "While they're throwing away the last chance I have" "To save maureen." "Lieutenant!" "Sir?" "You really wanna catch those piutes?" "I sure ain't out here for my health." "How about just letting us be the bait?" "How so?" "You'd stay two or three miles behind us." "When you hear the gunfire, come catch 'em from behind." "Hold on a second." "No need to strip it." "That's a might chancy for you folks, isn't it?" "This gentleman's got a personal score to settle." "He's willing." "So am I, as long as he pays me." "You got any objections?" "Well, if the good lord chooses to create durn fools," "I reckon it ain't my business to interfere." "You better give us about an hour's head start." "Wouldn't wanna scare 'em off." "All right, you men." "Fold up those blankets good." "Put 'em back." "I don't care if it takes all day." "Please, lieutenant, just leave 'em be." "Come on." "Whoo!" "We'll just stay right on their trail, sergeant," "Whilst we figure what they're really up to." "The indians will have them spotted before we even get close." "Brennan, what's in the wagon?" "What are you carrying to the indians?" "Food and blankets, just like I said." "That's a pretty big pile of food and blankets." "That's their business, not yours." "Start cutting." "We've only got about three hours." "I wanna see what's in the wagon." "Start cutting." "You know, the cavalry will be here soon." "All right." "All right, I lied to you." "It's mining equipment, just like I told the lieutenant." "That's what you're carrying to those renegade indians?" "A gatling gun?" "How much are they paying you for that?" "It was the only way I could bargain for maureen's life." "It was the one thing they wanted bad enough" "To trade for the pleasure of burning us alive." "You're trading two lives for the hundreds they can kill with that gun?" "That sounds fair." "What are you gonna do?" "I'm not gonna do anything." "I'm gonna wait for the cavalry." "It's their responsibility now." "It'd be like you murdered my wife with your own two hands." "Ah." "What about you?" "Hmm?" "You think that lieutenant's gonna pin the medal on you 'cause you turned me in?" "I'll tell him that you knew they were catching up with us." "And you figured to hang me to save yourself." "They're having drumhead court-martials" "Right here in the fields." "Sure, I'll hang." "But you'll hang right there beside me." "They're getting closer, aren't they?" "Oh, please, mister." "Please, will you do it for maureen's life?" "Isn't there some way we could do something to save her?" "It's an ammunition canister for that gatling gun." "Yeah." "Maybe we can still make that delivery." "Let's go." "That lieutenant may not see things the way we do." "Now, mare." "Giddyup." "Giddyup!" "They're probably watching us right now." "That cavalry's less than a half hour behind us." "What are you gonna do with that battered canister?" "Them indians may wanna test it before they let us go." "Probably." "Oh, the lord help us, paladin." "We're a pair of flaming' jack-asses." "I'm gonna get her away from those murdering' savages" "Even if they skin me alive." "Let's go." "Hyah!" "Whoa now." "Whoa." "Where is she?" "You have the killing machine?" "It's in the wagon." "Now, where is she?" "She is yours." "Oh, my." "Oh, my." "Are you all right?" "I'm fine." "I'm fine." "Oh." "Look at your lovely ol' face." "What about the cavalry?" "Where are they?" "I fought them to get here." "And it was a pleasure all the way." "But what do we do now?" "Come on." "Out of the way, man." "I've kept my part of the bargain." "This is a very difficult machine to master." "Surely, you will give us a demonstration." "all right." "You wanna waste ammunition" "And alert every cavalry patrol within 30 miles." "Let them come, huh?" "With a machine like that," "I can kill enough cavalry to have all the munitions I want." "I see one fired in vera cruz." "I dream of it since that day." "You show us right now." "Then we be ready." "If maybe you tell the cavalry where you come, huh?" "All right." "Miss brennan, wait up here in the wagon," "Please." "What'll we do?" "Don't think about me." "Do what you must." "We'll give them the demonstration." "Load it." "Now, gentlemen, what you have here" "Is a gatling gun, model 1862." "It's a crank-operated, fully automatic weapon." "A gun like this, properly placed," "Can wipe out an entire wave of cavalry." "All you have to do to cause this weapon to fire" "Is to place this canister of ammunition" "In this position." "Enough talk." "Now you see how it spits fire." "The cavalry." "She comes, huh?" "This machine is no good!" "Well, let me see what I can do to fix it." "You take your men over there." "Paladin." "Look over there." "Now maybe you fix the machine, huh?" "I give you one finger width of time." "All right, brennan, go over and stand by your wife." "I'm gonna tell you the truth, mister." "If I'd have caught you two earlier today with that gun," "Court-martial'd have strung you up in the morning." "Maybe that's why I prefer the civilian way of doing things, lieutenant." "I'll, uh..." "We'll escort you as far as kanab." "Much obliged, lieutenant." "Miss brennan, you can do me a great favor." "Will you try and keep your husband in the city for a while?" "Giddyup." "¶ "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 ¶"