"Good morning." "Morning." "Good morning." "Good morning, Mr. Paladin." ""Bad Dog seeks tax collector." ""Mayor offers one-third of all monies collected." ""Mayor Trevor of the municipality of Bad Dog," ""in the state of Oregon," ""has offered to meet his city's fiscal crisis" ""by offering a share of tax money" ""to any person who collects taxes from its citizens" ""a population who take their privileges lightly," ""while scorning the idea of paying money that would only go" ""for civic improvement, like roads, schools or an efficient sheriff."" "Good morning." "I'm afraid I've kept you waiting rather a long time." "My name is Paladin." "Oh." "Mine's Trevor." "Mayor Trevor of Bad Dog, as a matter of fact." "That's right." "Well, what do you say?" "Are you going to collect the taxes?" "Well, I must confess it's not a position I fancy for myself." "Well, you know, we've been trying to collect head taxes on cattle for two years." "That is, uh, two bits a head for the bulls, ten cents for the cows and calves." "But the ranchers, they don't like the tax." "And, less than that, they don't like accounting for their animals." "Most of 'em have been stolen and strayed." "We sent out a couple of men, but they were shot at." "And the others, well... they just beat it with what they could find from the collections." "My share?" "A third." "I'll take a half." "Oh, well, now, just wait a sec" "A half of everything is better than two-thirds of nothing." "Well... yes, I guess you've got something there." "Who's the most important rancher in the area?" "Lewt Cutter." "But you don't want to mess with him." "You get all the stray busters and the dog camp hustlers first, and then work your way up, sort of like, to Cutter." "That's the way the other fellers done it." "Oh?" "Hey Girl, are you still on duty?" "Eternally, master." "Good, then you can help me pack." "Your Honor." "Throw your gun down, mister." "One of us'd cut you down." "All right, still make any difference to you who does the shooting?" "Senor... por favor, or I must shoot." "You stay where you are." "What you got there, senor, eh?" "One bullet left in that little gun?" "I will wait." "You shoot him with it, then you got no more bullets and I will kill you." "If you drop it, I take you alive to Senor Cutter." "If you don't, I take you dead to him." "It don't matter to me." "Hah!" "Hah...!" "Get that wagon out of there!" "You wanna kill a good horse?" "Whoa." "What happened to you?" "Better get up to the house and get that fixed." "Come on." "Thanks, Cutter." "How did he do?" "He's full of run." "He's sure ready, Mr. Cutter." "I knew it." "Give him a good rubdown, and get him ready for the San Antone meet." "Yes, sir." "He was fixin' to trespass, Mr. Cutter." "He's a gunman." "Name of Paladin." "What do you think, Diego?" "Maybe you better ask Senor Abe." "Este hombre took his gun." "That right?" "He just outlucked me, that's all." "Get your gear and clear out." "But he would never have got my gun..." "I said get your gear and clear out!" "Mr. Cutter, that horse of yours, he out of the Axworth brood line?" "Yep." "Well, that's pretty rich blood for a quarter horse, isn't it?" "A thousand-dollar stud fee." "You looking to hire on?" "I already have." "Who to?" "I'm the only cattleman around here." "The rest of them are nothing but hide scroungers and rustlers." "Mr. Cutter, I'm collecting taxes." "Taxes?" "!" "Get him out of here, Diego." "I'll just shoot him." "Or maybe you want him hung?" "You got any preferences?" "Mr. Cutter, I didn't come here to collect your taxes." "I came here to make you a proposition." "Well, from here, your bargaining position don't look too good." "No?" "Well, just how many head of cattle do you suppose the hide scroungers and the rustlers have got?" "Well, I don't know;" "it's hard to tell." "Well, you could tell exactly, if you'd help me collect the taxes." "And I think you're just about the only man in this territory strong enough to do it." "I'm prepared to offer you a third of my share." "A third?" "What do you think the whole thing will come to?" "Well, you'd know more about that than I would." "Quarter for bulls and a dime for the rest." "Oh." "Let's see, uh... old Jess Turner's got over a thousand head alone." "A lot of 'em belong to me." "I'll do it for half." "Half?" "Well, you deal pretty hard." "That's the way I play." "Give him back his gun, Diego." "Now, wait a minute!" "I haven't agreed to anything!" "Well, you haven't got any choice, have you, Mr. Paladin?" "Well, which way now?" "I don't know." "We'll just have to guess at it." "Anyway, we'll save the toughest nut to crack last." "Uh, let's see, we've collected from, uh, Burt, the Jameson boys, the Seavers, Carter, Ed Hall..." "That's all of 'em, except old Jess." "What makes Jess Turner the hardest?" "Oh, there's talk that he rode with Quantrill's bunch after the war." "Course, he's ornery enough to have done it, him and those kids of his." "Course, they ain't actually his kids." "Uh, they're, uh, Reed orphans from some old boomer that got strung up." "Uh... that money bag on your horse weighting you down some?" "No." "We'll manage." "Well, if you'd like, you know, I can give you a hand with it." "Thanks." "Well, it's a cinch he didn't sprout wings and fly off, as cussed as he is." "Cutter, a herd, and a big one, went right up through here." "Uh-huh." "More than likely took them off to hide while he changed the brands." "He can't be too far now." "Come on." "Come on." "¶ ¶" "We got 'em notched, Paladin, between us and the river." "Give me another sip there, Ham." "It's a mite grainy yet, Pa." "You know, you got some bad woman ways about you, Ham." "That there's as smooth as hickory bark." "Yes, sir;" "if you say so, Pa." "I hope old Jess ain't too soused to know what hit him." "Cutter, put that back." "I thought you come out here to count herd and collect taxes." "Only way you'll ever get anything out of that old buzzard is to pick his pockets after you got him stretched out." "Just put it back." "Come on." "Don't you think we ought to be leaving, Pa?" "Ben and Sam will have the brands changed on them cows, and they'll be waiting on us." "You better fetch me some more of them tuckleberry squeezings, Ham." "Yes, sir, Pa." "Pa?" "Pa." "Fetch your gun." "Take your place." "Who is it out there?" "I'm the official tax collector of Bad Dog." "You come to squeeze some more money out of me for my cows?" "You ain't got no more sense than the last three they sent." "Don't try it, Jess." "Is that you, Lewt Cutter?" "Well, good to see you, Lewt." "Good to see you." "Say, I... just boiled me up some fresh makings here." "Why don't you two come on down and sup some with me?" "Just, uh, help yourself." "Where's the boys?" "The boys are..." "clean gone." "All three of them?" "Yep." "Yeah, we had us a fuss." "I, uh... caught 'em cussing on the Sabbath, is what I caught 'em doing." "I ain't a man to stand for that." "Next thing I know, uh, they'd run off with half my belongings and my whole herd." "Your herd?" "!" "Why, every cow you've got was stolen from me or somebody else." "You mean to tell me them boys took to stealing?" "Yeah, same as their pa." "I guess the smell don't..." "don't never leave bad blood." "Well, don't just hold it, mister." "Swish her down." "It's sweeter than dew." "Whew..." "It's refreshing, ain't it?" "Bracing, I think, is the word." "Why, you fellas just help yourself." "This is all I got left, but you're sure welcome." "You know, it's just like Abraham with Absalom." "Them going off and leaving me like a dried-up old leaf, to be scrunched underfoot." "The ingratitude of 'em!" "And I took 'em and raised 'em Christian, too!" ""Sharper than a serpent's tooth."" "That's what the Good Book says." "Shakespeare." "Oh." "Don't fool with him, Paladin." "Just collect the tax!" "You, uh, collect from him yet?" "No, but I will in due time." "Well, he can just go ahead and pay mine if he's so government-loving, 'cause I don't hoe with it!" "Now, hoe with it or not, you're going to pay your fair proportion of taxes." "You'd just take that gun and shoot me, wouldn't you?" "Gun down a poor, innocent, old man just for a few pennies." ""Sin aboundeth in the temple of the law."" "That's what the prophet Ezekiel said." "It's in chapter, uh..." "I got it here." "My Bible..." "If them whelps took my Bible, I'll..." "Never mind." "You can look for that later." "Right now, I'm gonna find out how many of my cows are here, or bleed it out of your hide." "You'd put a dumb animal ahead of the Word of the Lord?" "Stop that hogwash." "We're going to get a head count of your herd, and we've got a legal right to do it." "Ain't we, Paladin?" "That so?" "Lawyer-bound legal?" "Show him the document." ""Official order of the official..."" "That says he's authorized to collect taxes for the county." "And I am going to put my own tax on you for every head I find you've rustled from me." "Now, you listen..." "If them boys stole one scruffy, dying, little old glue calf," "I'll put it back to you if I have to work my fingers to the bone for the rest of my life." "Oh, shut up!" "Where's the list?" "List?" "Well, I... guess I got no choice." "Gun 'em down, Ham!" "Go down." "Grab him!" "Let go of me!" "Let go of me!" "You can slice out my liver if you've got a mind, but I ain't never voted, and I ain't gonna pay no taxes..." "I told you once, and I'll tell you again..." "You can slice my liver out if you've a mind to, but I ain't never voted, and I ain't paying no taxes!" "We'll see about that." "Where's the tote sheet?" "You still got two boys." "I'll hunt 'em down and hang 'em!" "They ain't no kin of mine." "You ain't gonna let him kill me 'fore I get a chance to pray out my contritances, are you?" "I'd..." "I'd like me a minister." "Might be there's one in town." "No use, Cutter." "The only way we're gonna get anything out of him is to sell his scalp to the Apaches." "Of course, they'd give him the Apache death rite." "No!" "Where's the money and the tote sheet?" "You go to blazes!" "Of course, they'd bury him in pagan ground." "Pagan ground?" "Pagan ground?" "In the flour barrel." "Shoot him." "Go ahead and shoot him, now he's got his back to you." "We'll split his whole herd between us." "Why being buried in pagan ground should bother you at all is beyond me." "I got it, Paladin!" "I got it!" "I got it!" "What's the matter?" "Don't you give a man no trust?" "Half your take is mine." "We had agreement to that." "That's right, and you're going to get just half of it." "Keep your hands away from that shotgun." "Take the money out there right to the table, and we'll divide it." "Go ahead." "Now, that half goes back to Bad Dog and there is your half of the take." "Yeah, well, it ain't the worst day's pay I ever had." "And I will now apply your half of the take against your taxes." "There's not much I can do about it, is there?" "No." "All right, now, Cutter." "Now, you get over there." "Go on!" "Now, you pick up that table, stack the coins back on it, and you put your taxes in with Bad Dog's share." "I'm with you, Paladin." "Now, just finish him off, and we'll split, and I won't say a word." "Look out!" "Good..." "Good!" "Now, like I say, we'll split, and I won't say a word." "What about me?" "I haven't forgotten about you." "You ain't... you ain't gonna knife a poor man that ain't even got him the Good Book to read him a prayer from, are you?" "All right, just hold it." "Now, you... kindly hand me back my money- and Cutter's, too." "Go ahead- pull the triggers." "¶ "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. ¶"