"a father ask that his son's body" "Have whatever honor is left to it." "I've seen him hounded to death" "With less dignity than cattle in a slaughter pen." "mr." "Paladin?" "That's right." "This is chief dark leaf." "I am his nephew." "How." "Chief." "Chief dark leaf's son, yellow star," "Is going to be hanged for murder." "You have connections with important men in the army." "In washington." "This is your card." "Or doesn't it include us?" "Well, what do you want with me?" "He is an old man, mr." "Paladin." "He lives in the ways of the past." "All he's asked is that yellow star's body" "Be burned on a sioux pyre." "And the authorities have refused this right?" "Mr. Paladin, we are indians." "At fort benjamin, we don't have rights." "I'll do what I can." "One thing." "Your son has been tried and found guilty." "I can't, and I won't interfere with that." "That he may die as chief." "up with the guard!" "Rider approaching!" "Hoskins, take this man's horse." "Thank you, corporal." "ten-hut!" "Pick it up, injun!" "You stand at attention." "No, not that way!" "I said at attention!" "You gonna pick that up, injun?" "Or am I gonna break your back?" "Detail!" "Ten-hut!" "Detail!" "Pick up that garbage." "You're all over the place like a spilt bowl of soup." "Ten-hut!" "See, the trouble is, he just don't learn very fast." "And he ain't got much time left." "Why, you stupid..." "Sergeant kern, what's going on there?" "He's trying to beat a prisoner." "Oh, are you paladin?" "We've been rather expecting you." "I'll settle with you, mister." "I'll find the time and the place, and I'll settle." "All right, sergeant." "Anytime." "At your leisure or now." "Sergeant, take the prisoner back to the guardhouse." "Move, gimp!" "Tomorrow I have no fear." "I no pick up garbage." "I no spit to shine boot." "Take him away, colonel." "Do be a little easier with him." "You are paladin?" "I am." "That's the prisoner, yellow star?" "The gimp, that's him." "Lieutenant, are all your prisoners treated" "With this astonishing degree of respect?" "He killed an officer of the post." "You should have seen the body." "It was the worst moment of my life." "To see poor pierson grinning at me." "It was awful." "Well, the major's wild." "Nothing but telegrams about you and your mission" "For the last three weeks." "Shall we see it?" "Sergeant kern?" "He's no worse than the rest here." "Incompetents, derelicts, thieves, cowards." "Impartial scraping of the bottom." "Oh, yes, I'm part of that scraping, too." "You're from san francisco, I understand." "This place along the fringe of the barbary coast, the gables." "It has an air about it." "Even the grill work in the front." "Puts me in mind of a certain place in paris," "Where I squandered the most delicious part of my youth." "Montmartre." "What was the evidence against yellow star?" "Hurry it up, captain." "I want this finished before sundown." "Major." "Not a bad sort, really." "Lieutenant, I had asked you a question." "Oh, the evidence." "Well, the gimp simply confessed, that's all." "And who were the witnesses?" "Sergeant kern..." "And myself, of course." "I'd just gotten back from wellburg." "Supply duty." "Simply stumbled onto gimp running off" "And what was left of pierson." "Then you didn't actually see it." "Everyone knows that the gimp did it." "I don't know it..." "Yet," "Lieutenant." "As I said before, mr." "Paladin, that file is in my desk." "Nothing is going to be changed." "You won't surrender yellow star's body?" "That should have been clear before you wasted your time coming here." "Major, sooner or later," "No matter what the degree of a man's guilt," "It has to be washed away by something." "Love, courage, death." "I've come to you with what seemed to me" "To be a humane, uncomplicated request." "That the body of yellow star" "Be afforded whatever honor remained for it." "That request came from a father for his last son." "It was made, not in anger, not in bitterness." "But now I've seen your prisoner." "Now I've seen a man being hounded to death" "With less dignity than cattle in a slaughterhouse." "And I wanna know why." "The prisoner will be executed tomorrow as scheduled," "His body consigned to the lime pit." "The lime pit?" "Army sanitation code." "Section four, paragraph two." ""post commander shall be responsible" ""for the disposal of all animal refuse..." "Or any other matter subject to decay."" "Mr. Paladin?" "What you're thinking is wrong." "I had a belief." "But your sioux friends taught me different." "This is all the honor in a sioux pyre." "I walked into a sioux war camp under a flag of truce." "I lasted through this and all the rest they could do to me." "Oh, I whined." "I begged." "Then I whimpered out everything I knew." "There is honor among the sioux, mr." "Paladin." "They only allow death to those they respect." "I wanna talk to yellow star." "Talk to him." "Take a close look at the thing you wanna honor." "Smell it." "Well, sergeant?" "Is this the time or the place?" "Whiskey." "You bring a whiskey?" "You want me?" "Your father, dark leaf, sent me." "He knows I take coup." "A scalp taken from a foe you faced in battle," "Not from a drunk man you cut down from behind." "No." "I make him face me!" "My mark is put to what happen." "I kill him." "Where did you get the saber you used?" "Or did you hide the saber?" "Where's the scalp?" "I kill him." "I take coup." "I don't think I believe you." "You didn't kill anyone." "They're gonna hang you tomorrow." "Has any of that sunk in?" "Tomorrow they call me gimp indian no more." "Soldiers, they say," ""look, give him spoon of whiskey." "Make him beg." "Beg, gimp!" "Beg!"" "I want whiskey." "Gimp," "Beg spoon whiskey." "Whiskey." "Tomorrow no more!" "I son to dark leaf." "Son of chief." "I went first in battle." "I take greatest buffalo." "I go to council." "All others wait for me to speak." "I speak evil." "I speak surrender." "I give myself to your world." "Got a medal for bravery." "When I'm scout." "Tomorrow I..." "I die with honor." "There's more honor in cleaning a stable properly" "Than in dying uselessly like this, yellow star." "No!" "I no yellow star!" "I still gimp indian till tomorrow!" "Then yellow star once more!" "You wanna die?" "Tomorrow they will see brave die." "Will they?" "You know what they're gonna do to you tomorrow?" "After they hang you, they're gonna cut your body down" "And that major's gonna have it dragged over to the lime pit" "And shoveled in like so much slop." "Do you understand that?" "Shoveled into a lime pit." "I must die as brave." "I take coup." "I must die as brave." "I take coup!" "I must die as brave!" "Lieutenant, I found out a number of things about you" "In the last half hour." "Including the fact that the night pierson was killed," "You were staggering drunk." "Who was it that said that about my staggering?" "Never mind about the staggering." "How well could you see that night?" "Enough to see what I saw." "Pierson smiling?" "I'll never forget that." "It was the first time anyone ever saw pierson smile." "And the last." "I'm gonna get the truth out of you," "If I have to slap you unconscious" "And then pour water on you and start all over again." "Now, what did you see that night?" "Well, I was drunk." "But I saw that filthy savage, and I saw pierson." "I'll never forget that." "You saw pierson smiling?" "Lieutenant, have you ever seen a scalped man?" "No." "Well, their expression is not smiling." "It's sad." "And a little bit sleepy." "What of it?" "You said you saw pierson smiling." "That means he hadn't been scalped when you saw him." "I don't believe gimp killed him." "Let them hang him." "It'll be the end of a miserable life for him." "Let it go." "We'll just hang gimp and then all sit down to tea?" "That right?" "Look." "Another drunk charge," "And I'm out of the army altogether." "The major thinks I've stopped drinking." "If kern or you..." "Kern?" "Was kern there?" "Did he see you drunk and threaten to expose you?" "That why you pick up garbage rather than face him down?" "Don't." "Did kern kill pierson?" "Please." "Watch out for kern." "He's a very dangerous man." "I'll remind you, mr." "Paladin," "You are a guest of the United States army" "And thank you to cease interference with my men and my affairs." "I've talked to graham." "You think I don't know he's drinking again?" "He can use another chance to stop himself, too, mr." "Paladin." "We can all use another chance." "He's concealing evidence." "If you think I'm altering the records" "Of the court-martial of that indian" "To brand an officer a drunk and a perjurer," "You're making a grave mistake." "Major, has it occurred to you" "That lieutenant pierson, another of your trusted officers," "Could have been killed by one of your men" "And the gimp blamed for it?" "It was considered and rejected." "Because the beast himself says he's guilty." "You know that poor, demoralized, deluded indian" "Is not responsible for what he says." "He thinks it's an honor to die." "The case is closed, mr." "Paladin." "Major, I'm gonna wire washington" "And ask for a review of this case." "Request denied." "You'll have to ride out to a civilian telegraph" "To send that wire." "Major." "Don't hang that man before I get back." "gimp." "No." "No lime pit." "I must die as brave." "Shut up." "I'm not here to take you to be hung." "I'm here to set you free." "I have a horse for you outside the gate." "You understand?" "Whiskey." "See?" "Plenty." "Go." "up with the guard!" "They haven't hung him yet?" "Hung him?" "They'd have to catch him first." "He snuck out last night." "He escaped?" "They're out looking for him." "Rode north." "You finally got what you wanted." "Now you can have him hunted down and slaughtered." "You afraid the appeal would be granted" "And you wouldn't get your pound of flesh?" "Major!" "Some hoofprints along the bank" "Lead off into the woods." "Mount!" "You stay out of this." "You tell him!" "Sergeant kern." "Take this man back to the fort" "And do it any way you have to." "Hold it, mr." "Paladin." "We ain't going back to no fort." "Guess maybe I found the right time and place." "Sergeant." "Possibly you have." "Would you like me to beg?" "Or would you prefer me drunk?" "Like an officer with a record of fighting with enlisted men." "You doped that one out, huh?" "Old pierson picked hisself the wrong man" "To shove around." "You like working with a saber, sergeant?" "Worked out just right, didn't it?" "You killed pierson," "Then you chased graham away." "Then you gave the saber to gimp and let him take the coup." "That right?" "Onlyest way that indian was ever gonna get his coup" "And visit his ancestors." "What do you want?" "Drink whiskey?" "You, me share." "Huh?" "No." "I want you to go back to the fort with me." "There'll be a new trial." "No." "I'm free." "You'll never be free until you prove you didn't kill pierson." "And you'll have to go back to the fort to do that." "No." "I kill him." "Lieutenant saber." "I polished good." "Plenty time." "I kill him!" "What about sergeant kern?" "Huh?" "Now, sergeant kern killed pierson with that saber." "Didn't he, yellow star?" "No." "Yes, he did." "And you saw it all, didn't you, lieutenant?" "But you were so frightened of kern," "You'd let a man die." "You don't believe that." "You know what he is!" "He's a dirty, drunken indian!" "There's your story, major." "What are you gonna do about it?" "Maybe the rest of you are afraid, but I'll take him in!" "He's filth!" "Can't you see that?" "He belongs in the lime pits!" "Must die as brave." "All right, major." "You take your turn." "Go ahead." "Get your dirty penny's worth of vengeance." "It's all over, mr." "Paladin." "You may take the body." "Corporal, take charge of lieutenant graham." "You degraded a man into something worse than an animal." "Honoring his body won't change that now." "¶ "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 ¶"