"All right, parker." "Someone has to make a beginning of trust" "And take a chance." "A chance of being sold out by friends" "Or shot in the back." "Thank you very much, hey boy." "Even playing by mail, that move" "Will see you checkmated in three moves, mr." "Paladin." "Thank you, but I haven't made my move yet, madame..." "No?" "All I've heard about for the past weeks" "Is the impetuous mr." "Paladin." "Now is no time for deliberate caution." "Hey boy, have I met this lady?" "You don't have to ask him." "Her name is juliana." "And you?" "The husband." "commodore jonathan guilder." "Member of big four." "The comstock load." "Ten dollar gold piece." "Oh." "Commodore always tip ten dollar gold piece." "So sorry." "Anyway, I've come to buy you." "I'm not for sale, commodore." "Five thousand for a month's service." "Not for ten." "Fifteen then." "Be ready in the morning." "I'll send a man for your things." "I'm not a shotgun." "how wise." "There should be a limit to the spirit of adventure." "Like everything else." "shut up, juliana." "You've been milking these ranches and mines" "For your furs and those diamonds." "You can see where the fur and the silk comes from." "He can't trust me if he leaves me behind." "I'm going to foreclose a few mortgages." "And generally confirm what everybody thinks of me." "Ruthless." "Greedy." "You have enemies." "Quanah parker." "You know him?" "Half indian." "Mother, cynthia parker." "He's stirring up the kiowa and the comanche" "To drive out the white settlers." "You think parker will try to kill you?" "I know he'll try." "Fifteen thousand." "Deal, commodore." "You, uh, have enough room there?" "Oh, sure." "We're just fine." "Thank you, mr..." "Paladin." "Ben." "Ben maddock." "Mr. Maddock." "That's commodore and mrs." "Guilder over there." "This is my wife, madge." "Say hello to them, madge." "Hello." "She always says that." "Meets somebody." "Sweet as pie." ""hello," she says." "Now we seem to be climbing." "Should be somewhere near adobe wells." "There's four of them." "Minus one and a half." "The one I shot him in the shoulder like enough." "Well, I might live till the stage gets here yet." "Watch out!" "They got the driver!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Well, commodore," "You handled that with your accustomed skill and dash." "How long you had this?" "Uh..." "Three day..." "Four." "I'd like to find the feller says, "injuns can't shoot."" "How many of them?" "Three." "Four." "Got one of them in the shoulder like enough." "Only count him half." "They ain't had water for four days in the sun." "Come on." "Easy." "Easy." "Get that bunk ready." "Come on." "Water?" "Is that what they want?" "Reckon." "Gonna die." "You know that?" "You are not." "I'm madge maddock and I'm taking care of you." "Well, I don't aim to disappoint you, ma'am," "But I'm hurt awful bad." "Ben, get me some water." "paladin." "What do they want here?" "They could have ridden to water in the time they been out there." "If what he says is true." "white eyes!" "You come at a bad time, white eyes!" "This was not our fight." "You want water?" "Give us your guns and water" "And we will go." "All he wants is water." "They ain't after water." "That's parker." "Quanah parker." "He was laying ambush for me." "What are you afraid of, white eyes?" "Quanah parker, you are not famous for keeping bargains!" "You know me?" "Commodore?" "He's got one brown eye and a blue one." "By the brown eye and the blue one!" "Then you know how I am when my mind is made up." "I want the buffalo man." "Give me the buffalo man and I will give you our guns." "Not a chance!" "Then die, white eyes!" "Hold the fire, maddock." "They won't attack until dark." "He wants me." "He doesn't know you from adam bald fox." "What's he fight a war over a stinkin' buffalo man for?" "It's quanah parker out there." "It is?" "No surprise he shoots good." "He wants you." "Me?" "Parker wants me?" "What for?" "Well, he didn't say," "But since he's been laying siege to this place," "I suppose it's for the usual comanche stake out." "Face up to the sun." "Eyelids slit so you can't shut out the sun." "Oh, charming." "You wouldn't turn me over, would you?" "He's got half the comanche tribes running wild," "Burning and killing." "Sure not." "Terrible thing." "You take heart, you hear?" "You're among friends." "I knew it." "I knew the blessed lord would send me help in my trouble." "You forget something." "Parker's got us trapped." "If he wants the man, we may have to" "Give him up to save ourselves." "Guilder." "You remember, you're working for me." "Your money does not buy you the right to make a human sacrifice." "I promised to protect you and I will." "All right." "Try it your way." "If anybody gets out alive, it's gonna be me." "If the price is the buffalo man, I'll pay it." "You'll all pay it." "Paladin." "We could give him the commodore." "Madge, I..." "It's all right, honey." "Mr. Guilder and mr." "Paladin will handle it." "nothing we can do for him?" "Nothing." "You know, I just can't help but feel sorry for him." "They're just trying to keep us awake till we drop." "Paladin!" "Jones!" "Nothing doing." "You don't give me to the stinkin' siwash." "Stay here." "Let him go." "Let him take his chances." "He has more to suffer than we do if quanah parker gets him." "I'll tell you..." "Parker made a mistake." "I never shot indian bounty." "Truth." "More profit in buffalo." "Less chance of shooting back." "You know why parker wanted him?" "that's a scalp!" "ranchers pay money for indian hair." "So bounty men like him kill indians for the money." "Cheap easy way to solve the indian problem." "Not me." "Never me." "How much, mr." "Paladin?" "How much do they pay for an indian?" "A dollar and a half." "Sometimes a dollar." "Give him to parker." "It's too late." "Buffalo coming." "Billions of them." "Like a ugly, brown river." "All..." "Gone." "What do we do now?" "You mean now that we can't give him to parker alive?" "Maddock." "We'll see if parker will take him dead." "Cover me." "Don't let guilder get near a gun." "Parker!" "Quanah parker!" "What do you want?" "Will you talk?" "If you wish it." "Parker?" "Up here, white eyes." "You will give me the buffalo man?" "I can't." "I talk of justice." "He cut the throats of an indian family." "Even the children." "What kind of people can you be, white eyes," "To pay for little children to die?" "You are part indian." "Is that all good?" "And the white man in you, is that all bad?" "The buffalo man is dead." "You shot him?" "No." "I will give you water" "If you will give up your guns and let us leave." "I don't believe you." "That's the only way you'll get water" "Or see the buffalo man dead." "How can I trust you if you were me?" "I don't know, parker." "Someone has to make a beginning." "Someone has to start acting decently." "And that man will take a chance." "A chance of what?" "A chance of being sold out by friends." "A chance of being shot in the back." "To see him, the buffalo man..." "I want to see him dead." "Maddock?" "Nothing." "They're just waiting out there." "Can I have the guns?" "Handgun." "You're just about the most flaming jackass" "I could have asked for, paladin." "If he comes in here, he might recognize me." "That's possible, mr." "Guilder." "Then take him out to parker." "We've got to get parker's guns." "All right." "When he comes in, you hold his eye over there." "Give maddock a gun to cover the braves" "And I'll take parker from behind." "Guilder, I made this promise to parker" "And you're going to keep it." "Even to a dirty siwash." "The ninth wonder of the world is you're still alive." "Juliana." "Aye, aye, commodore." "Now, cut it." "Why do you have to do that to me?" "That's what you get for being an empire builder." "This isn't your Thursday afternoon ladies cultural union." "We may die here." "What do you want me to do?" "Cry?" "I'm trying to tell you something." "You're the only woman I ever saw that I wanted." "Well, everything isn't what you want." "You want, you want, you want!" "A child." "It isn't my fault that I wasn't made for you to..." "I'm not made for you to use for your pleasure" "And then throw away like a worn out glove." "A man's got to have an heir." "Jonathan, I've seen your son." "You did not." "I saw the woman you hired to give you an heir." "So that the race of giants shall not perish from the earth." "I'm sorry." "I'm not good enough to forgive you." "You're not a giant." "You're a monster." "A monster!" "You are mine." "So is my son." "And this earth." "Paladin." "Mrs. Guilder." "Do you know why parker wants him?" "Juliana!" "He pays the bounties." "He buys the indians." "Someone has to begin." "Mrs. Maddock, give mr." "Parker and his men some water." "Mr. Parker." "Is it enough?" "Can you make him more dead by torture?" "It is the best we can do." "This will all be your land, white eyes." "But it was ours." "And when you walk here," "Even after we are dead," "You will not be alone." "And behind the laughing of your children," "Will be ghosts of the laughing of ours." "Only let us live out our time before you take it all away." "Is your name parker?" "A strange name for an indian?" "Juliana!" "Commodore." "Commodore guilder." "Take him!" "Take him!" "We will make a beginning of trust." "Do not fear our guns until you come back." "mr." "Paladin." "We've been waiting for you to wake up." "Oh, have you?" "Morning." "Morning." "I've got something to tell you." "We decided." "There ain't no more place for us back home" "Than for parker and his people out here." "My children gotta have a place, too." "It's cruel land." "Mighty cruel." "You two don't have to justify yourselves to me." "You want to stay here and farm, you stay." "We're not cruel people, paladin." "No." "No, you're not." "we gotta be tough." "Or else this country's gonna be nothing but a dessert" "Full of naked savages with stone axes." "Right?" "Perhaps..." "Commodore." "What?" "Well, thanks, mr." "Paladin." "Always be grateful." "Saved our lives, yes, sir." "You two aren't forgetting what you owe quanah parker, are you?" "What?" "Trust." "A beginning." "Let me tell you, without you there and that gun," "He'd have cut our throats." "Uh-uh." "Don't trust him." "Thank you." "You're very welcome." "¶ "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 ¶"