"Well, Mr. Paladin, it's early you've returned!" "Maggie, it's 3:00 a.m." "Well, I said it was early." "Hmm." "Maggie?" "Have you noticed that the city seems overcrowded?" "Well, not with men to suit my taste, it isn't." "People are less polite." "I think I'm beginning to yearn for things pastoral." "Trees, tall and green, that scrape the sky when the wind blows, and clouds, white and fat." "Well, for that, I could qualify myself." "Open spaces... vast, empty, untouched." "Are you tired of people, Mr. Paladin, sir?" "Most of them, Maggie." "Ah!" "Here it is." "Hey Boy says, "Maggie, to give it to Mr. Paladin the minute he came in."" "And I says to Hey Boy, I says," " "What will that darlin' man think of me" "Yeah." ""pouncing on him like a... like a man-hungry leech the minute he saunters in here?"" "Thank you very much, Maggie." "Mm." "Oh, it isn't bad news, is it, dearie?" "No." "As a matter of fact, it's very good news." "It's an invitation to a breath of mountain air and peace and quiet and serenity." "All that on only one sheet of paper?" "Listen to this." ""Orrville, Texas." ""Dear Paladin, spring is here." ""There are trout in the stream and deer in the mountains." ""My mouth is watering for fried trout and venison." ""Can you come down for some fishing or hunting?" "Your friend, Ernie Backwater."" "Ernie Backwater." "Yeah." "Blue skies and wide spaces." "Clouds like your letter said." "Not many trees, though." "How are you, Ernie?" "Go ahead and get it over with." "Get what over with?" "It's an old joke and a bad one." "I shot a man once for asking it, but you ain't gonna be happy until you do, so go ahead and get it over with." "I might not be as forbearing tomorrow or the next day." "Your name Ernie Backwater?" "That's right." "That mean you back water?" "Not while I'm alive." "How about you?" "Have you grown soft in two years?" "Why?" "What's this?" "Fishing pole." "Fancy." "What's it for?" "Fishing." "Trout, you said." "I'm going hunting." "For what?" "A man... who killed five people, killed one of my posse, got sentenced to hang, broke my jail, burned it down, killed my deputy, shot me in the belly, and left me for dead." "It's a miracle I'm still alive." "You want to come?" "Now, Ernie, you knew about this when you wrote me that letter about the six-pound trout and the 400-pound bucks." "I don't ask favors, and I'm not now." "I wrote you the trout was biting, and they are." "That it was a good deer season, and it is." "I'm going hunting for something else, that's all." "Ernie." "Most men lie to themselves about something... that they're stronger than they are or faster than they are." "Well, I lie about standing on my own two feet." "I never asked another man's help, or ever will." "You want to come?" "My pleasure." "I thank you for that, but it won't be a pleasure." "He'll probably kill us both." "He's like a storm or pestilence or drought." "A force of nature, huh?" "Like a force of nature." "Savage, fearsome." "The Comanches have a name for the kind of Texas man who took this part of the country away from the Mexicans, drove the Apaches into the Chiricahuas and the Comanches into the state plains." "You know what it is?" " Ammantophori." " "Savage American."" ""Savage American."" "That's not really a good translation, Ernie." "It's more like..." "It's more like "American primitive."" "Pays three dollars a day." "Raise your right hand." " No badge, Ernie." " Why not?" "Well, I always have to consider the possibility that some fool won't be able to resist the temptation of using it for a target." "How long?" "20 minutes." "He do sleep sound, don't he?" "That's a rag doll down there." "He's out in the brush." "That's right." "Or up there, looking down our throats." "Three months for my belly to heal enough to go after him." "Almost a month on the trail with you." "Hard to believe we've really found him." "I'm going out in the brush." "You're good here." "No." "My eyes are going on me." "And the light's bad here." "I won't trust a rifle." "I'll get a little closer." "Ernie don't break a leg." "You mean don't make any noise." "I'm not that old." "Don't do that." "That last shot, you could have killed me." "That's right." "But I put one in your shoulder, so you put two in mine." "That's right." "I wouldn't have done that." "I would have killed you." "Me, too." "You gonna cauterize my shoulder, Ernie?" "Yes." "That gonna hurt?" "Like nothing ever hurt before." "Him, too." "Twice." "What's the matter, Ernie?" "You afraid I'd chew through them?" "No." "Just that you might get desperate and tear the tree up by the roots or break the chain in half." "Ernie?" "Did they all die?" "Two of them were still alive when I left." "They all died." "Why, Will?" "Would you have hated to be hung for just three of them?" "That's a fact." "There's one place for you cripples:" "a way station between us and a trip back without water." "You ain't gonna lose that arm on me before we get there, are you?" "Not if I can help it." "You're feverish?" "A little." "Well, go to sleep." "You need your rest." "Yeah." " Ernie?" " Yeah?" "Ernie, you don't want to hang him, do you?" "I never want to hang a man." "No, I mean, some less than others." "No, they're all the same to me." "I bring them in, the court tries them, the jury brings in a verdict, the judge sentences them." "I got to get some sleep." "Ernie?" "Yes?" "Ernie... you say his... it was his son?" "That's right." "He was murdered by five men?" "That's right." "For a ten-dollar gold piece his pa gave him..." "his 15th birthday." "And he hangs for that?" "For revenging his son?" "No." "He killed the wrong men, Paladin." "How?" "With a shotgun, mostly." "Not in their sleep, though." "He woke them up, and he killed them." "Does he know?" "No." "We tried him for killing one of my posse, not for those saddle tramps." "We thought they'd done it, too." "You got to understand the facts of life." "No jury in the world was gonna bring a verdict against him." "Only thing is he did kill one of my posse, then my deputy in escaping." "A month later, the five men who had killed his son were taken in Sonora for murder." "They were gonna hang anyway, so they told what they'd done." "Ernie." "Yes?" "You're not gonna tell him?" "For what purpose?" "He shot you." "Why didn't you kill him, Paladin?" "I told you." "No." "You didn't tell me." "Not really." "Get your sleep, Ernie." "Ernie?" "Yes?" "I want my boots." "I told you, no." "That was yesterday." "That was for the last 13 days." "We gonna reach town tomorrow?" "I hope so." "Well, then you're gonna have to shoot me, because I am not gonna ride into town without my boots." "I could make you walk, tied to my horse's tail." "Ernie, you do that, and I might lose my temper." "And when I lose my temper, I sometimes act like a fool." "I don't want to do that so close to dying." "I'll give you your boots just before we get into town." "You heal slow, gunfighter." "All right, Will." "Well, you took yours off... yesterday." "I didn't holler as loud as you did either when Ernie put the iron to me." "That's just because you were making so much noise you couldn't hear yourself." "Ernie, who hollered the loudest?" "You was both as brave as pussycats." "Now, let's get riding." "Could you spare another of those fancy cigars, Paladin?" "Thanks." "When, Ernie?" "Tomorrow morning." "That's right." "No sense in wasting time." "Now I wish you'd have shot a little more on target." "All right, let's go." "Where to, Ernie?" "Or have they rebuilt your jail already?" "No, the council hasn't even voted the funds for it yet." "I thought maybe the schoolhouse." " No." " Why not?" "The children, Ernie." "They'll be leaving in ten minutes." "Tomorrow's Saturday." "And they'll be back Monday." "You don't want to hang a man out of a schoolhouse." "Find someplace else." "Cellar, hotel room." "All right, the hotel." "But first, we'll get a barbershop bath." "We need it." "Thanks." "You know, I keep wondering if I could take you in a fair fight." "I keep thinking about it." "Does it bother you?" "Some." "Ah, there's nothing like a barbershop bath." "Nothing in the world." "I almost feel like a new man." "You smell better, too." "Well, downwind, you weren't exactly a rose garden, Ernie." "Aw, come on, Ernie." "Um, shave first, sir?" "Uh-huh." "You got something to read?" "Uh, yes, sir." "It was, uh, due last week, but it just came out today." "All fresh news." "Uh, I-I haven't had a chance to see it myself yet." "I making you nervous, Sim?" "Yes, sir." "I won't bite." "All for nothing." "What's that, Mr. Tybee?" "Oh." "How's your wife, Sim?" "Oh, fine." "How many children do you have now?" "Oh, four, sir." "If you mean to use that shotgun, Ernie, get on with it." "But you'll use that razor?" "I've killed seven men since Christmas." "Two of them were men I liked." "Now, you put that shotgun over here and unlock those chains, because one more doesn't matter at all." "Now, put your handgun down at my feet." "Sim, tell Mr. Paladin how many children you got." " He didn't hear you." " Oh, please, sir." "Now put your gun over here with Ernie's." "Stop thinking, Paladin." "Because no matter how fast you get that bullet off, my reflex will make his children orphans." "Now back against the wall, your hands high." "Uh-uh." "I like to see a man's face." "Now, Sim, you and I are gonna kneel together." "Careful like." "You're gonna pick up Mr. Paladin's gun and put it in my left hand." "Real careful like." "Now, Sim, take off the sheriffts boots." "You've got a sense of humor." "I always did admire that in you, Will." "I truly hope you don't try something foolish." "Well, I guess it's this." "He is a murderer." "Yeah." "Will!" "You know, I expected you to come up with something, Paladin." "That ain't much of a gun for this kind of thing." "It doesn't have to be this way, Will." "You better not shoot fancy this time, friend." "You're not that good." "I know." "I'll shoot straight." "Why, Paladin?" "Those men are murderers." "Even the newspaper says so." "What about the seven men you killed who weren't murderers, Will?" "What about them?" "I still have to try." "Go on." "Get away from him." "Go on home." "Well, let's get him to the undertaker." "And I'll buy a beer." "Ernie, whiskey." "Then you pay." "He was a man." "Ammantophori." "American primitive." ""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?"