"Time to get ready." "Early worm catch the bird." "Hey Boy, my train doesn't leave for three hours yet, and besides..." "Ah it's "the early bird."" "Oh." "Fort Smith long way." "You have to ride fast." "I have horse ready." "What horse?" "Saddle on horse back, saddlebag on saddle, train ticket in saddlebag." "You have to get dressed right away." "Hey Boy, there are the deserts and mountains of Nevada," "Utah Territory, Wyoming, not to mention the great prairie lands of Nebraska and Missouri, before I even get close to Fort Smith." "Now go and get the ticket back out of the saddlebags." "The horse and I will take the train." "Oh." "Oh, Mr. Fairchild, is he bad man?" "Mr. Fairchild is a very bad man, and has seven dead wives to prove it." "Fairchild's last wife was the daughter of an old friend of mine and I intend to see him stand trial." "That case, don't go by train." "Take horseback and shortcut." "Hey Boy..." "No horse!" "Gee." "Then stableman win bet." "What bet?" "I say Mr. Paladin can ride to Missouri very fast, in less than four days." "Stableman say no can do." "I say, "I from Missouri, show me."" "We make two-dollar bet." "Well, Hey Boy, you have just lost a two-dollar bet." "Now go and give the stableman his two dollars, and get my ticket out of the saddlebag and bring it back here." "The horse and I will take the train." "Hold it." "What is it?" "It's an extra day's life for you, and a good night's sleep for me, thanks to an Osage funeral ceremony." "Mind if I have a drink of water?" "Hot weather like this is mighty good for cotton." "You know, I have two sections prime cotton land down near Denton?" "A man with land like that don't need nothing more." "And you'd be very happy to write me out a deed free and clear to turn you loose, hmm?" "Which one of your seven wives did it belong to?" "Was it Emma?" "Did you poison her, or is she the one you stabbed with a pitchfork?" "I drowned her." "I couldn't keep the land if I killed her straight out." "I think, Fairchild, you had better shut your mouth." "Go ahead." "Afternoon." "I beg your pardon, ladies." "Is there a house in this community that takes boarders?" "Ain't no boardinghouse." "Not for you." "Oh, I see." "Well, do you have a jail?" "Kind of." "We got us a sheriff." "Down the road yonder." "Half a mile to the right." "Sheriff Stinchcomb." "Much obliged." "He gonna take Billy McGuire's place?" "That what you brung him for?" "What he done was a terrible thing, but I ain't making no excuses for him." "Have mercy if You see fit." "Amen." "You're Sheriff Stinchcomb?" "Yes, sir." "That's me." "Good evening, little lady." "I saw the tree with the paint on it." "I'm prepared to honor the Osage request for privacy." "I'd like the use of your jail for my prisoner until their ceremony's finished." "They'll be having their burial in the morning." "We can put you up for the night." "Letty May, get on down to the house and prepare an extra place for supper." "Mighty pretty woman, your daughter." "What's his crime?" "He had seven wives and probably killed all of them." "The last one, in Fort Smith, he poisoned for ten dollars' worth of paste jewelry." "How did you come by him?" "Animal like him deserves what he gets." "Well, let's get him over to the shed." "Follow me." "Put him on in here." "Ain't you gonna take these off?" "No, sir." "Not till you're dead." "You go on up the house." "I'll see to the horses." "Thank you." "You won't have to wait long." "I wish it hadn't rained so soon." "Him up there in his grave..." "That was Billy McGuire your father buried, huh?" "You knew him?" "I only heard his name." "He didn't mean to kill nobody, not down in his heart." "If you could've seen him, you'd've knowed that." "There just wasn't no reason for him to suffer the way he done, penned up out there in that shed." "He was a prisoner?" "For three months." "He couldn't stand it no longer, so he killed hisself." "Oh, I wish to death I could get away from this place." "You're leaving tomorrow, ain't you?" "Yes, ma'am." "I, uh..." "I saved some money." "Seventeen dollars." "It's yours, if you let me go along." "Well, Letty, there are 100 different ways that you could get hurt between here and Wichita." "Mister, I do know what hurt is." "I..." "There's enough water coming down out there... what are you sniveling about?" "Something gnawing on her." "Like to know what it could be." "What did Billy McGuire do?" "Killed his uncle." "Shot him down in the street in Locust Grove." "Took a deputy four days to catch him." "And he brought him here to die?" "Three months later, 150 from where the crime occurred?" "What's that?" "That's the way it is." "$100 is the price we pay." "Is that what the deputy got for Billy?" "That's what everybody gets who brings us a prisoner." "And what will you do with Fairchild if I sell him to you?" "Now, don't goad me." "You know what we'll do." "The Osage chief can't be buried without a scalp to send him to glory." "And you expect Fairchild to provide the scalp." "There's a hill ten mile from here." "We'll take him out there." "The Osages used to get their burial scalps from the Pawnee till the Pawnee moved out." "Then they got to raiding us, coming down at night, picking out anybody they could find." "So one night we had us a horse thief out in the shed, ready to hang come dawn." "And an Osage chief died." "So we took the horse thief out by the hill and left him by one of them painted trees." "We were never bothered again." "And how many others have you left by the painted trees for slaughter?" "There ain't enough of us to fight them Osages!" "Mr. Stinchcomb," "I have had a rather trying week." "I saved that craven thing out there in your jail from a lynch mob in Fort Smith at considerable risk to my own life, and I do not intend to see him used as a human sacrifice." "He will stand trial in Wichita, and then he will be hanged..." "legally." "You ain't ever gonna make it." "Not without horses." "Oh?" "What did you do with the horses?" "Run 'em off into the brush." "And what with the dark coming on..." "All right." "You make no mistake about this, Stinchcomb," "I will ride out of here tomorrow morning... and Fairchild will be with me." "I brung you the Bible you asked for." "Oh, bless you, ma'am." "They took me away from the schoolhouse so fast," "I didn't get a chance to bring nothing with me." "You a schoolmaster?" "Down in the Choctaw Nation." "I never got cooking like yours down there." "Them... them pork dumplings was something." "Thank you." "I'll bring you some coffee directly." "Men are coming." "Come in." "That the prisoner?" "Then we better get started." "He's a Christian man, Papa." "You can't do this to him!" "Letty, Fairchild is not a Christian man." "He's cold-blooded animal who would gladly kill you for 15 cents." "However, your point is well-taken." "Now, is there anyplace else you can stay?" "I don't want you here tonight." "She can stay down the road a piece with Mrs. White." "She'll take her." "Good night, Letty." "Help yourself." "You fixing on giving us a rough time?" "If you force me to it," "I'm fixing to give you a rough time." "Now, gentlemen, I suggest that you stack those rifles against the table." "You want more money?" "Nope." "Now, mister, you don't let us take that man out there for them Indians, they're gonna come riding down here." "Ten, maybe 15 of 'em." "And they're gonna take somebody." "Maybe somebody like Letty there." "Maybe somebody like my ma." "They figure that killer out there, he's worth more than either of them." "What makes you so sure he's a killer?" "You said so." "I could have been lying." "I could have picked up some strange little man, brought him in here for the hundred dollars." "You people are so anxious to save your own skins, you didn't even question that possibility." "Every man we brought up on the hill was a guilty man." "What proof did the deputy give you to turn Billy McGuire over to you?" "Billy McGuire killed a man." "That makes him a murderer." "You put Fairchild up on that hill, what does that make you?" "We got no choice." "And he's gonna die anyway." "Most of us are." "Why Fairchild?" "I saw an old woman at the general store." "Why don't you take her?" "Her life's almost over." "And when you finish with her, you could start on the lame and the blind and the sickly." "Why, there'd be enough unfortunates in this community to keep you people safe for a long time." "That ain't the same and you know it!" "Isn't it?" "When you start to evaluate human life to decide who can and who cannot survive, then there's no place to stop." "Hey, now the rain stopped." "Now we're wasting time!" "Gentlemen, so there won't be any misunderstanding about tomorrow morning, when I ride out of here, Fairchild goes with me." "I wouldn't like to kill somebody else for the privilege of taking Fairchild out of here, but I will if it's necessary." "I suggest you gentlemen adjust yourself to this." "Sit down on that sofa, make yourselves very comfortable because this is going to be an extremely long night." "Mr. Fairchild..." "Mr. Fairchild, they're gonna..." "I mean, there's something I have to know." "You didn't kill nobody, did you?" "He did bring you up here for the money?" "Money?" "They're gonna give you to the Indians, Mr. Fairchild." "To be killed!" "Oh, no, they wouldn't do that to a peaceable widower like me, little lady." "I can prove them charges against me's false." "I knew you was guiltless." "I just knew." "If I was to let you go, would you let me ride along with you?" "Away from here?" "Little lady, I wouldn't rest easy unless you came with me now." "I put the horses over in the trees." "Well, it won't be long." "It's almost daybreak." "Paladin?" "Come out here!" "Let's talk a little business, Paladin." "Get back inside and stay out of the way." "Turn her loose, Fairchild." "No, sir." "There's some horses out in the trees." "Send somebody to fetch 'em." "Jenkins." "He's got two horses down there in the trees." "Go get 'em." "Now give me the key to these chains... and your gun." "I don't suppose it would do any good to ask you to leave her here?" "You suppose right." "Put 'em on the stump." "Now turn around." "Letty... move!" "Paladin... now maybe it won't make no difference to them Indians if he is dead." "You can't have Fairchild dead or alive." "Paladin, we'll find another way to handle the Indians next time." "This time, let us have him." "I'm gonna bury Fairchild." "I'll dig one grave or two..." "either way you want it... and you make up your mind what you're gonna do with that thing." "Either use it or put it down." "Letty, I will be riding south to San Francisco." "If you like, I'll take you with me." "Where's my father?" "He's in the house." "Thank you, Mr. Paladin, but I won't be going now." "There's a need for me here." "Maybe that's what I was running away to find." "Now if you'll excuse me." "There's $100 in the house, Paladin, if you leave him." "You stall the Osage until noon." "They'll have to bury their chief with a totem scalp... piece of a beaver pelt, foxtail." "You got 'em to do it once, and you'll never be bothered again." "We can sell some land if a $100 is not enough." "You can get those two shovels over there and I will watch you bury Mr. Fairchild." ""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?"