"Ben, you're bleeding and you're sick and you will make a mistake." "The first time you blink, I'll kill you." "The first time you forget, I'll kill you." "Kings up!" "Mr. Paladin." "No, Hey Boy, no." " No luck, Mr. Paladin?" " No luck, Hey Boy." "Oh, I wouldn't say that." "You had luck all right." "I've never seen anyone with luck like yours." "Two days." "High card?" "Gentlemen, I am now broke." "Sit down, Mr. Paladin." "Your credit's good." "Thank you, no, sir." "Hey Boy, I need a vacation." "I must need a vacation." ""Murderer escapes." ""Huntsville, Texas." ""Today, Ben Jalisco, notorious murderer and one-time bounty hunter" ""escaped from a state penitentiary." ""Sentenced to life imprisonment, Jalisco, age 35, murdered a guard," ""George Tay, while escaping." ""Surviving Tay are his wife, his sons James and Michael, and two brothers." ""Jalisco's capture six years ago" ""was based on information supplied by his wife." ""The capture itself was affected by a professional gunfighter" ""with a strange calling card and the romantic name of..."" "Can I help you?" "I'm looking for Lucy Jalisco." "I'm John Armstedder." "Well, I guess you ain't her husband." " Friend of his?" " No." "She waits table, hustles drinks, like that." " In there?" " You seem surprised." "Well, Armstedder, she didn't always have to hustle drinks in a bar." "You know her a hundred years ago, mister?" "I guess it was that long ago." "The fall of innocence is a melancholy event." "Ain't that the sour truth?" "Still, she looks sweet enough to be honey for Jalisco." "I understand she turned him in." "Is that right?" "She told me where I could find him." "I think he'll come around for honey and then kill her." "That's what I think." "You got men watching the other side of that place?" "A deputy in the daytime." "Me at night." "There's a reward of $500 for Jalisco." "Are you here to kill him, gunfighter?" "I'm here to take him back to prison." "I never had any doings with him, but they tell me Jalisco is the kind of bounty hunter that never took a man alive." "Is that right?" "That's right." "By conservative estimate, he murdered 34 men." "Hey, Birdie, come on out here." "Sit down, Birdie." " What are you drinking?" " Whiskey." "I don't think I want any more whiskey." "I'll get you your whiskey." "Lucy?" "Hello." " I guess you heard, huh?" " That's why I'm here." " To stop him from killing me?" " If I can." " Don't put yourself out." " I owe it." "I talked you into helping me take him." "I made a mistake." "Never mind about him." "Lucy, why this?" "Well, I'm still his wife." "There's nothing else for me to do." "Not around here." "You could have left." "How?" "You still love him." "And he's coming here to kill you." "Looks that way." "Funny, huh?" "You'd do well to move out before he kills you, too." "Ben's a holy terror when he's mad." "Hey, Birdie, you've got my dollar." "Don't I get something for it?" "You'll get your whiskey." "Son, you're only teasing yourself." "It don't taste the same as when you put a match to it." "Mr. Armstedder, this is a kind of a compromise." "It's not as good as a smoke, but then again, it's not as bad as lighting a match and getting shot." "Now I chew." "It's good for your health, your disposition, and your life expectancy, and it don't have any unbeneficial side effects, like on a night like this." "Well, I have heard of a couple of fellas that got frightened and swallowed it." "Yes, sir, I've done that myself a couple of times, but I consider it very beneficial to the digestion." "Now my wife, though, she never did like my chewing." "I gave it up while she was alive." "That seems about 700 years ago." "I got a boy somewhere." "Last letter he wrote me was from Montana where he was punching cows." "I'm glad of that." "I know a lot of boys go wrong nowadays." "You married?" "You're missing a fine thing." "That and having children." "It's a rich thing in a man's life." "And becoming a sentimental old man is a bad thing." "Armstedder, Jalisco moves like a cat, and I'm just beginning to take a liking to you." "You chew your cigar." "I won't make a fool of myself again." "All right, Ben, what now?" "You blow a hole in me, gunfighter, this Greener can't help going off." "You know that." " Too good to talk to a jailbird?" " I know that." "My old Greener." "I guess I could have busted loose without killing that prison guard, but I wanted my Greener." "I had to go look for it all the way to the warden's office." "Wife, light the lamp." "Come here." "On your knees, as close as you can get." "I killed one man out there." "Any more good men around?" "I guess you killed them all." "Lucy, my wife." "Lucy, my life." "Lucy, I love you." "Do you remember how I used to say that to you?" "Authentic Western poetry." "Do you remember how I used to say that to you?" "Jalisco, you gonna scare us to death or just shoot your wife?" " Lucy?" " I remember." "Do you remember when we lost our baby, how there wasn't a woman around for 300 miles, and how I did for you?" "I remember that, too." "And how you nursed when I was snake bit and gun shot?" "Ben." "I'm gonna put this gun down." "Because the next time I just won't care." "I let you have your gun for a reason, gunfighter." "Do you have one of those good cigars you used to smoke six years ago, gunfighter?" "Just one." "I ain't a thief." "You maybe know what living means to a man like me." "Never even comfortable sleeping under a roof." "Been a hunter all my life." "Was born in Tennessee." "There's deer, quail, possum there." "Eating pigeons in New Jersey before the war." "I wasn't even 15." "Buffalo, Indian hunting, scalp hunting." "That was good." "Then bounty hunting and that was good." "I put my skills to a good purpose." "Do you know what being chained up like a bull to a water wheel meant to me?" "Why did you give me away, Lucy, my wife, why?" "Because I told her about you." " Because he had a pretty mustache?" " Because I told her about you." "Because you liked the way he smiled?" "They was bad men all of them, the ones I took." "Murderers, horse thieves, spoilers." "The Indians had no souls, like animals have no souls, and the men I took had lost their souls, Lucy." "And I hunted them alone." "I got close enough so that they could smell me had they had the nose for it, and then I killed them." "No, that was honest and clean." "Oh, honey, he shot a big hole in my leg." "Would you put a tourniquet on it for me?" "Ben, I'm going to Mexico." "Yes." "We're maybe 10 miles from the border, and I think my leg is broken." "You're gonna have to take me there." "You may have to kill for me, gunfighter, before we get to Mexico." "You don't want me to pull the trigger." "I'll take you, Ben, but you'll never make it." "You're bleeding." "You're sick." "You'll make a bad mistake." "And the first time you blink," "I will kill you." "The first time you forget," "I'll kill you." "We'll see." "Paladin, he'll kill me anyway." "We'll see." "Lucy." "Getting tired, Lucy?" "No." "She'd say no whether she's tired or not." "She was always a long suffering woman." "I had nothing against that man." "He tried to kill me." "I killed him." "You feeling tired, Ben?" "Not yet, gunfighter." "Not yet." "Yeah, I'll go water the horses." "Get down." "How many?" "Paladin, you think you could take the bullet out of me?" "I'm gonna get gangrene." "I can try." "You wanna chance it?" "No." "He was the reason, wasn't he, Lucy?" "I was not the reason." "You convince him of that, Mrs. Jalisco?" "He may let you live." "No, Paladin, believing what he does, he'll tie us together, he'll shoot us with one cartridge, and he'll bury us together." "I know my Ben." "And I still love him." "I would rather see you dead than see you work at a saloon." "Why, Lucy?" "To spite me?" "To spite me?" "To eat, Ben." "Just to eat." "I don't sew good, and I'm not free to marry, am I?" "Did you ever notice, Paladin, what sad stories these saloon girls tell?" "Gonna kill them for me, gunfighter?" "I don't know, Ben." "Why don't you let her go?" "For what?" "To go back?" " You want that for her?" " I want her to live." "Then you shoot straight, gunfighter." "Lie still, girlie." "You're close to dying." " I'm John Tay." "Are you Paladin?" " That's right." "Are we gonna have to kill you to get to him?" "You know who that woman is and what he'll do to her?" "I know what he did to my brother." "I know what he did to your brother in a prison." "I know what he did to Armstedder in that weigh station." "And I know what he'll do to her right now." " I don't believe it." " It's true." "It's no matter." "True or not, we're gonna kill Jalisco." "Now do we have to kill you first?" "You take Jalisco, Will." "I'm sorry I had to shoot you." "I would have killed you." "Will, do you want to bury him?" "What now, Lucy?" "I guess I'm free." "I guess I can go anywhere now, can't I?" "I guess so." "I guess I should thank you." "No." "Well, thank you anyway." "All the worst that can happen to me is behind me, isn't it?" "Now something good has got to happen." "I hope so." ""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"