"Oh?" "Ah, mon cheri, are you positive it was not Le Havre two years ago?" "No, uh, not Le Havre." "Yet I remember you so well." "Calais?" "Chartres?" "Ah, cheri, your kiss." "How could I forget?" "Paris." "The Four Seasons?" "Four years ago." ""Il faut bonne mémoire après qu'on a menti."" "Bête!" "What happened, Mr. Paladin?" "Well, Hey Girl, I seem to have chosen the wrong moment to quote epigrams." "Maybe you picked the wrong epigram." "What did you quote?" ""A good liar should have a good memory."" "La Rochefoucauld?" "Paladin." ""Soledad, Oregon Territory." ""Climaxing a drunken orgy, the McPhater twins last night" ""brutally murdered two sheriff's deputies" ""who tried to quiet them," ""and wounded four bystanders" ""before fleeing into the wastelands" ""east of the town." ""An aroused citizenry has posted $2,000 reward for the killers."" "Hmm." "McPhater?" "Drop the gun belt, stand up and walk away from it." "Wake him up." "My brother's already dead." "Get that blanket off him." "Not a mark on him." "Ever since we were big enough to run, people never let my brother and me stop running." "But they didn't catch him." "He fooled you all." "He died a natural death." "Railroad town a few miles from here." "Take your brother's body that far, and you and I'll go on in to Soledad." "¶" "Hold it right there!" "What's the matter with you?" "Your name Paladin?" "That's right." "We got your telegram, but you can't cross the river." "What's wrong?" "There's been some deaths up the river." "Maybe diphtheria." "The doctor's on his way up there now." "Left orders, until we hear from him, nobody crosses into Soledad." "How long do we have to wait?" "We're short of supplies." "We won't let you starve." "Paladin?" "He's checking on McPhater's brother, too." "All right, this is fine." "Camp here." "You better behave yourself." ""They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."" "The Lord moves in mysterious ways." "I've waited for a sign, and now I have one." "You'll never deliver me to Soledad." "We'll get there." "Well, tarnation." "Looks like the bridge is out." "Look, Daddy- those men over there." "Why don't we ask them how to cross over?" "Whoa." "You wait here, Jody, honey." "Which one is the...?" "Why don't we make him guess?" "My name is Paladin." "Well, when we seen you fellers camped here, we figured maybe you could tell us where we could ford the river." "Well, they're not letting anybody go across the river right now, till they find out whether or not there's been diphtheria on this side." "Why don't you make yourself comfortable as you can and wait?" "Say, he's not...?" "Yes, he is, my friend." "He won't bother you." "Much obliged." "What'd they say?" "We're gonna have to stay here for a while." "Well, how come?" "You said Soledad was just across the river." "Well, it is, but, uh..." "they ain't letting nobody cross." "Not just now." "You're so easy to talk to, Mr. Paladin." "I guess I just told you my whole life story, that's all." "But anyway, I..." "I thought our destiny was elsewhere." "Daddy didn't want to leave the farm." "Mostly because Mama's buried there." "And now you're on your way to San Francisco to seek your fortune." "Well, I don't know about my fortune, Mr. Paladin, but, oh, I..." "I'd sure like to wear pretty clothes and... and enjoy living, for a change." "Jody, those are laudable ambitions, but they are a little bit general." "You have any more specific idea of how you're going to get along in San Francisco?" "No." "But I'll get by." "I'm sure you will." "Bible in the hands of a man like that's a sacrilege." "What's he trying to do, make a mockery out of religion?" "I'm reading of the terrible fate that awaits you, mister." "The fate that awaits me?" "!" "You're the one that better be worrying, mister." "My fate's going to be played out right here." "Isn't it, gunfighter?" "Your fate is going to be played out in Soledad." "All protestations to the contrary not withstanding." "Well, I say it's a sin and a crime- a man like that flaunting the Bible." "I've got a good mind to just take it..." "Old man, you just stay right where you are." "Here you are, mister." "You want it?" "Take it." "I got it memorized, anyway." "And you're in it." "Tell me more about San Francisco, Mr. Paladin." "All right, Jody." "Where shall I begin?" "Anywhere." "Nobody crosses today, mister." "You can't stop me." "I'm on official business in Soledad." "Somewhere back along that trail, one of us, or all of us, may have been exposed to diphtheria." "Till we get medical clearance, we stay here." "Whoa, there." "Whoa." "May as well hunker down with the rest of us." "Chained." "He's brought me revenge." "In irons, he's led the lambs to me for the slaughter." "It is the Lord's will." "What's he prattling about now?" "Are you gonna tell him, or do you want me to?" "This man's brother died of a fever." "You mean, he was exposed?" "Well, we don't know that it was diphtheria." "But if it was, that means he's got it, too." "I seen a man die with diphtheria once." "Stop it, Strickland." "He's right." "I remember once in Wichita, they were carrying the bodies out in wagons." "Stacked up like cordwood, they were." "And I've seen fear turn men into blind cattle, and they stampeded into killing themselves, and nothing was threatening them." "Now, McPhater, you want this key?" "You want it?" "All right, now you come and get it." "Come on!" "Whatever I got you're gonna stay chained to." "Forever." "The Lord's tainted that water, stranger." "Gaunt, that water's pure, and you know it." "I know." "Well, it's just that I..." "That's a hangman's rope." "That's right." "Phineas Gaunt, tinker... wheelwright... shoemaker, barber, taster of wine... and executioner." "There's someone to hang in Soledad." "Well, if there are indispensable people in any situation... they're the victim and the executioner at a hanging." "Gaunt, they'll wait in Soledad." "I know." "I'm in no hurry." "I don't much like hanging people." "Well, you're quite a pair- a gunfighter chained to his prisoner and a hangman afraid of his own stock-in-trade, death." "And a killer- a murderer who's bound to die in any case." "How'd you get to be what you are?" "By not being much good at anything else, I guess." "All my other trades combined don't make much more than a living." "Just like any of you, I do it for money." "Paladin, I don't think it'd be too hard to get past them fellas over there, if we all scattered out at the same time." "Mr. Strickland," "I've considered a number of possibilities, and there's just one thing that's kept me from trying any of them." "What's that?" "Well, one of us, or all of us, may have been exposed to diphtheria." "Soledad's a town full of people, children, and their lives might be endangered by our entering that town." "When the time is right..." "Hangman... you look poorly, hangman." "You don't talk much." "Now, that's a sign of the fever." "Well, it's a cinch you're not very sick, then." "Maybe not, gunfighter, but he is." "Is he really, Mr. Paladin?" "Jody..." "I don't know." "Morning, Mr. Strickland." "Morning." "Coffee?" "Much obliged." "You know, Paladin, there's only one among us that's been exposed to a sick person." "Now, why let him endanger all the rest of us?" "You can get away, too." "How about this?" "Well, I'll cut that off afterwards." "No, he's not for sale." "Well, if not for my life, for my daughter's." "How about your own?" "He's not for sale at any price." "You run off at the mouth, mister." "Now, that's the first sign of the fever." "McPhater, they're just going to believe so much." "You told Phineas Gaunt he had the fever because he talked too little." "Now you tell Strickland he has the fever because he talks too much?" "Why didn't you let him take me?" "Well, you might find the answer somewhere in that book of yours." "Miss?" "I'm thirsty." "Would you bring me a drink?" "Aah, aah, you...!" "You ornery cuss, turn her loose or I'll...!" "Now, you brave man," "I'm gonna give you two free hands and a gun." "Gaunt, break out that hammer and chisel." "Get up!" "When you're choking to death on the fever, you can give the kiss back." "All right, take 'em off." "Ready?" "Mm-hmm." "Well, I told you I wasn't much of a tinker." "You weren't lying." "Here, let me do it." "Here, let me do it." "Here's that food I promised." "Now, get up." "Give him your gun, Gaunt." "What?" "Give it to him." "All right, brave man." "I told you you'd never get me to Soledad." "Mr. Gaunt?" "Mr. Gaunt, it's there in all of us- the will to live... the will to die... the will to kill." "If that's the sickness that's troubling you... you are not alone." "Good night, sir." "Hello!" "Just got word by telegraph." "It wasn't diphtheria, after all." "You can cross the river now." "Jody, honey." "Hmm?" "Did you hear what the man said?" "It ain't the diphtheria sickness." "It ain't diphtheria?" "We can cross the river." "We can go now?" "Right now." "Oh, Daddy, I'm so glad." "¶" "Fear is a strange thing, Mr. Paladin." "It can drive some men to their own hanging and others into hanging on to what little life they have left." ""With the blaze of dawn comes reason," ""and the fears of the night are gone," ""and we will remember them not," ""and in retrospect will remember only that..." ""we were strangers in a strange land and other strangers gave us food."" "McPhater." "¶ "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."