"It was you who spoke of altruism, Burchfield, not me." "I'm gambling my life in the name of vengeance." "What are you risking?" "Please..." "Mister..." "Paladin." "Wagner, I told you that I am leaving for..." "Denver in the morning." "No holds barred, huh?" "Looking at Anne Marie, you can see she has a problem." "Well, she wasn't born that way." "If you and I had witnessed what my grandchild did... our memories might've gone into hiding, too." "It was two years ago this April, they were crossing the plains with a wagon train, my son, his wife and Anne Marie." "Just outside of Big Lick, Colorado, their camp was set upon." "The child managed to hide in the bushes." "She was the sole survivor." "That raid, Mr. Paladin, was led by a white man, a red-bearded white man named Rusty Doggett." "Doggett?" "Turn around, honey." "Look at her back." "Doggett was fancy with his knife." "It wasn't only her mind that he left his signature on." "Well, Mr. Paladin?" "Is it still Denver in the morning?" "You interested in purchasing yonder equine, old sport?" "I might be." "Where's the owner?" "By a happy coincidence, you are now addressing him." "Dallas Burchfield, at your service, sir." "Mister, don't play with me." "I left my sense of humor in San Francisco." "Now where's Doggett?" "Old sport, let me tell you something about Cayatana here." "With that same right hand, and a much duller instrument," "I can assure you, she very neatly decapitated her father." "Sooner than see one hair on my head disturbed, she would gladly lay down her miserable life." "If I'm to court extinction with a Judas kiss," "I think it's only equitable that I should..." "How much?" "The uptown express office is holding in my name a case of vintage amontillado, which thus far I've been unable to ransom." "Oh, I think $200 would just about cover it." "Observe the saloon across the street?" "Upstairs, turn to your right, the last door on your left." "I shouldn't knock if I were you." "Tsk-tsk-tsk." "Oh, well." "Now if I want you for anything," "I'll send for you." "Three weeks now I've had the feeling something was crawling under my back trail." "Get away from that gun!" "Get on your feet!" "Get out of here." "Go on!" "You'll lose that six-gun, and I mean now!" "This man is a wanted criminal." "You hold still with that scattergun and I'll show you the papers." "You're in Teague's country." "Yeah." "You're the kind that would carry a stingy gun." "So drop it, too." "Now..." "How'd I get here?" "Believe it or not, I won you in a raffle." "A raffle?" "Yes, with the understanding that if you died, I'd inherit all your effects." "I've already stabled your horse." "In the meantime," "Doggett will have had time to put 100 miles between him and me." "Relax, old sport." "Doggett is still below the Deadline." "And while he remains below the Deadline, you are out of luck." "Deadline?" "You're trying to tell me he's still here?" "Yes, he's here." "Here where the line between respectability and sin is tangibly drawn, so that there's no risk of one contaminating the other." "In fact, in most communities, it's invisible." "Take Burchfield, Massachusetts, for example." "Named as you might surmise after a sainted antecedent of mine." "There, "sinner" is a label to be gleefully applied to the resident non-conformist." "I was a prep school Latin teacher." "Does that surprise you?" "Not very much." "Indicted for corrupting his charges and branded as a blasphemous heretic." "Of course, in Burchfield, there was no Deadline behind which to take protective custody." "Oh, no." "In Burchfield, there was tar and feathers." "A torch-lit procession to the edge of town." "You didn't have to come here." "Burchfield isn't the world." "You better forget about Doggett, old sport." "You can't have him." "He and I and all the rest are bound here through eternity." "You know, Burchfield, you had me feeling sorry for you for a moment." "Well, you were right about one thing anyway." "What was that?" "The amontillado is superior." "Thought we'd got all the fun outta you we could, but looks like I'm wrong." "Who are you?" "Teague." "You call me Mister." "You know why I'm here." "I came for Rusty Doggett." "He's an outlaw entitled to asylum just like me." "There are only two sides to the Deadline." "If I can prove to you there's a third side, men who have forfeited their membership in the human race altogether?" "Mr. Paladin has an orator's gift of persuasive eloquence." "I wonder..." "I wonder, Mr. Teague, if he's would be willing to wager his life on it." "Isn't that exactly what I'm doing?" "Not really." "I'm sure that this audacious display of courage is prompted partially by your inner conviction that Mr. Teague here, whatever his reputation, would never shoot an unarmed man." "Just isn't good form, you know?" "Keep talking Burchfield." "What's your point?" "Well, suppose you offer Mr. Paladin a choice, Teague?" "He can leave here now unmolested, or he can stay and plead his case before a jury of your selection knowing that if he loses, he'll be dangling from a gallows this time tomorrow." "Burchfield." "Why, Burchfield." "Bring in the accused." "You understand why we're conducting this hearing, Doggett?" "Yeah." "I understand that when this is over, I get to hang him." "Anytime you're ready, Mr. Prosecutor." "Ladies and gentlemen, this town was founded as a refuge for lawbreakers and social pariah." "I am not gonna contest the morality of that situation." "But I do inquire just how elastic are your standards of admission?" "Would you, for example, admit Judas Iscariot to this fold?" "Are you comparing Doggett to Judas?" "I'm saying there are men whose crimes transcend the statute books, festering sores on the face of humanity." "Your Honor, as counsel for the defense," "I must take exception to such remarks." "Mr. Paladin is attempting to vilify the character of my distinguished client here." "And at the same time, portraying himself as a man of fearless dedication, concerned only with seeing justice done." "Now nothing could be further from the truth." "May I present exhibit A?" "Mr. Paladin is a gun-for-hire, available to anyone capable of paying his princely fee." "In the parlance of the West, he is that lowliest of mercenaries... a bounty hunter." "Your Honor, for the record," "I am not asking one dime for my fee." "Indeed." "You'd have us believe that this is an act of selfless altruism?" "Altruism, no." "Vengeance." "Vengeance." "Ha!" "The battle cry of the lynch mob." "Judge and executioner neatly tied up in one self-righteous little package." "I am risking my life for vengeance." "Burchfield, what are you risking?" "I'm not on trial, old sport." "This whole town is on trial!" "The issue is not whether I have the right to take Doggett," "This issue is whether you have the right to harbor him in the first place." "It's not the defendant's welfare counsel is concerned about." "Oh, no." "No, counsel doesn't care what happens to Doggett." "There isn't one person in this room who cares what happens to Doggett." "No, you're all too much concerned with striking back at that society that you hold responsible for condemning you to this stinking garbage heap." "I am here by preference." "You are here because you belong here." "The only difference between you and your client is that you have murdered no one but yourself, a piddling misdemeanor, when one considers the pitiful pathetic insignificance of the victim." "Vengeance, old sport." "Go ahead, go ahead, it's on the house." "Oh, what a wicked nuisance is the conscience, that demonic instrument of torture forged out of the human soul." "A soul is mankind's most precious birthright, a talisman of divinity" "I'm sure that no matter how you abuse it, none of you would willingly hand it over to the Devil's keeping." "And yet, here sits a man who has done exactly that." "A man." "No, that's not a man." "That's not a vegetable." "That is the soulless, gutless spawn of damnation." "I'm gonna carve you for that." "Back in your seat, Rusty." "You'll have your chance at him later." "Now if my charges have offended you, perhaps you'd like to explain to this court how you got that." "Did it in the army." " How in the army?" " Well, you know, I just did it fighting." " On the battlefield?" " Yes, that's right." "On the battlefield, following the Battle of Antietam, the accused was court-martialed and sentenced to be shot." "While he was waiting for execution, he managed to escape." "pulling himself out of the manacles, he mangled his left hand." "Now would you prefer to explain the nature of the charges against you?" "I don't see why that's got anything..." "Private Doggett was found convicted of robbing the bodies of dead soldiers, friend and foe alike." "This ain't what brought you to Juniper Springs, is it?" "No." "I was merely trying to show you the nature of the man you're so anxious to protect." "Two years ago, you signed on as wagon master for six families heading west." "In Colorado, you were discharged for drunkenness." "Turned out on the flats like a dead mule." "Two days later, you came back and attacked that train." "You can't tie me to that." "Ask the Army." "They'll tell you." "It was the Nez Perce." "Nez Perce do not take scalps." "These did." "They were renegades." "They were full of firewater." "Renegades full of firewater, but they were not Nez Perce." " They were Palouse led by you." " Prove it." "Moreover, it was you, not the Indians, who took the scalps." "Anybody says that's a liar." "Furthermore, not content with killing men and women, he took the life of a child, a pre-adolescent girl." "There." "That's proof he's lying." "Why, everybody knows the kid escaped." "It's true." "The child did not die, but I didn't mention death." "I said her life was taken away." "Now it may be given back to her yet, but at present, her fragile child's mind resides behind a Deadline far more destructive than yours." "Words, words, words." "Where's the evidence?" "Where's the proof?" "He's right, Paladin." "You didn't bring any proof, only secondhand accusations." "Proof?" "Proof!" "Use your eyes." "The truth is written in his face!" "You can't hang a man for being ugly." "You knew the terms when you agreed to this." "Either you convinced us without a doubt or..." "Until this moment," "I had thought that within the worst of you there was a spark of human decency." "I was mistaken." "As of this evening, you dishonor all mankind." "You finished?" "Well, I see no reason for the jury to go out and return with a verdict, unless counsel for defense has something to say." "Yes." "Yes, I do wanna say something." "Earlier, Mr. Paladin accused me of murdering myself." "I see now that that's true." "I have a proposal to make." "During the war, it was permissible for one man to serve another's military hitch." "While I am ill-fitted for the rigors of mortal combat," "I feel now that perhaps" "I am equal to the supreme sacrifice, as they say." "So, Your Honor, since the citizens of this fine community are bent on having a hanging," "I would like to offer myself in Mr. Paladin's stead." "Why, you mealy-mouthed tinhorn." "What are you trying to pull?" "I'm booking my passage out of hell, Mr. Doggett." "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here." "Not with filth like you!" "You're on the wrong side of the Deadline, stranger." "Get going." "Carry on, Cayron, old sport." ""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"