"Whoa." "Who are you?" "I am Caine." "What you doing up on this mountain?" "What you looking for?" "Nothing." "How long have you been up here?" "Two days." "Just doing nothing?" "I live." "I rest." "I am at peace." "It is good." "What I'm doing is looking for a killer." "Any chance you seen him?" "I have seen no one." "Well, I've seen his horse." "Dead, about a mile back." "I figure he had to be heading in this direction." "Now, if you see him, I'd be willing to cut you in on the reward." "I'll be riding in circles." "I'll be around." "Stop right there." "I wish to help." "I'm beyond help. I'm dying." "Then I must come." "Perhaps you can still live." "Will you not try?" "I've been trying for years." "I think my time's about up." "You can still breathe and speak." "Why did you do this for me?" "Why would I not?" "That bounty hunter's not gonna let up." "He's gonna be back here at daylight." "It was he who shot you?" "I got to move on but there's something important I got to do in Pinewood first." "I will help you." "No, I owe you already." "But there's someone else I owe." "It's this woman called Nedra." "I wouldn't want to let that go undone." "Wouldn't want to be responsible for your death, either." "Nor I yours." "This man is hurt." "He has been shot." "There's a doctor in town." "Take him there." "We are on foot." "You can use my wagon." "It's in the barn." "He came to see you." "I don't know him." "He knows you." "All right, bring him in." "Been shot in the back." "Fifty dollars." "What's this for?" "Who are you?" "My name is White." "That was eight years ago." "You've come halfway across the country to repay me?" "It was worth it." "Well, you can't stay." "I won't." "I've paid my debt." "What about you?" "Are you repaying some old debt too?" "He needs help." "It's not much of a reason." "It is enough." "You don't have to do that." "lf l had to, I wouldn't." "When I first met you you seemed so helpless." "You saw a Northern girl married to a Southern man." "After he died, I decided to start life over again." "Came out West." "Ended up here in Pinewood." "I've learned to do things without help." "Eight years makes a difference." "I'll get some tea." "Master you have said that we are to make ourselves one with life." "As the leaf flows with the river, it does not hold it back." "It makes not even a ripple." "Should not the branch then be left as the wind has left it?" "If I do not help it to heal, it will wither never to bear fruit for the birds to eat." "Would you have the birds go hungry?" "No, master but if we help, how then are we like the leaf on the river?" "Do what must be done." "But, master, how will I know when to be like the leaf?" "And when to do what must be done?" "What do you think?" "I do not know." "The way to do is to be." "Thank you." "I'm glad I had a chance to pay you what I owed you." "I'll be moving on as soon as I can." "I owe you a debt too." "is there any way in this world I can rid myself of that?" "When the bounty hunter comes what will you do?" "I'll have to kill him." "It would repay me if you did not." "l can't do that." "Why?" "I like to live." "Do you like to kill?" "When I was 1 6 there was a man who robbed my folks." "Now, I went looking for that man to get that money back." "When I found him, he cussed me, and he come at me with a knife and I killed him." "I had to." "And then the war came." "There was a lot of killing to be done then." "It got easy." "Was it easy to kill my husband?" "No!" "No." "I was...." "l was caught behind the lines." "I was hiding out." "And I saw a man beating you with a whip. I stopped him." "He saved your life?" "I did what had to be done." "Do you feel no remorse for killing him?" "You cried on my shoulder like you was released from bondage." "She give me 50 dollars and some clothes to get away with." "I don't like to kill but I don't run from it." "Are you never afraid?" "No." "What do you feel?" "Nothing." "I learned that in the Army." "I don't see people when I shoot." "That's my edge. I just...." "l just see something I call the enemy." "I'll meet him outside." "I have a larder." "You can hide in there." "I don't hide." "Are you not now hiding from the debt you owe me?" "Oh, ma'am." "Royal's the name." "Yes?" "Any chance you laid eyes on this man here?" "No." "Afraid I can't help." "Well, he's in these parts somewheres." "Hasn't shown around here." "Excuse me. I'm putting some bread in the oven, if you'll-- l'd like to talk to your husband." "Maybe he seen him." "My husband's not here." "Oh, well that's a concern, ma'am." "Now, you take something like this over here." "You could have a double bolt on that door and still somebody could come right along here and just lift it right up." "lt's nailed shut." "Oh, yeah." "Anyone wanting in would have to break the glass." "That's all the warning I'd need." "Yeah, nights have been right cold lately." "Days have been real comfortable, though." "is that some kind of liniment?" "Oh, yes, yes." "I sprained my shoulder." "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am." "This place is a good leg from town." "This is the kind of a spot that a wanted man would pick especially if he was wounded." "Now, you keep a sharp eye now, you hear?" "And take care of that shoulder too, will you, ma'am?" "Well, that looks real nice, Ruthie." "You can finish up over there now." "Well!" "What have you got that will turn a woman's head, Sam?" "You mean Nedra's head." "Well, I don't know what will do that for you." "Come on." "There's got to be something." "Come on, Sam." "You're my best friend." "I'm counting on you." "Well, maybe there's one thing that might do it." "If I was a woman, I think it would do it for me." "It's expensive." "So is my sanity." "The little I got left." "What's the matter with that woman, Sam?" "Why won't she settle?" "Well, some women won't be tamed." "I don't believe that." "I notice you don't raise any livestock." "No." "I've got 1 0 acres in alfalfa." "I sell most of it off for feed." "You do your own baling, cutting?" "Yes." "Well, that seems like an awful lot of work for a woman." "When it gets too hard, I'll hire a hand." "Oh, I expect one of these days that you'll move into town." "No." "I couldn't give this up." "It's simple out here." "Very private." "Well, I guess I kind of disturbed that." "I'll be moving on in a day or two." "I'm not sure I want to leave and I'm not sure why." "It's best." "You know what she told me?" "She said she hoped you wouldn't leave tomorrow." "Me?" "Or you?" "Then why didn't she say so?" "Master, I have gathered these for you." "Why?" "Because they are the most perfect flowers of all as you are the most perfect master." "I cannot accept them." "Grasshopper." "Were you not preparing me a gift of great beauty?" "I was, master." "What has become of it?" "You do not want flowers." "Have you no love for me?" "I have only love for you." "The other boy does not." "His was a gift without love." "It was false." "I feared you would not accept them." "I feared I would be hurt." "And now, have you not lost the joy we might have shared?" "There's something you ought to know." "If Royal comes around here again, my debt to you is paid." "I won't hide anymore." "You know that she keeps this packed in rose petals and balsam." "Do you love her?" "Love her?" "Well, she's got her life, and I got mine." "Now, she's a fine woman but I don't love her, and I don't love anybody." "And you do not love me?" "Love you?" "You poverty-stricken bundle of rags." "Now, I might respect you." "I might even admire you." "But love you?" "You're a disgrace to mankind." "That sound like love?" "Have we not become friends without asking that it be so?" "What could you possibly find to admire and respect about me?" "Not what you have done but what you are." "is that all?" "Bringing White here yesterday interrupted my work." "l'm behind." "You have saved his life." "Morning, Nedra." "Can I talk to you?" "Alone." "All right." "Who's he?" "He's just helping me." "He's passing through." "He doesn't bother me." "I brought something for you." "It's just a thought." "It's beautiful." "Well, when can I see you wear it?" "I can't accept this, Bob." "It will mean there's more between us than there is." "What kind of talk is that?" "A gift's..." "...just a gift." "l feel it's a bribe." "Because I don't love you." "Well, I know you feel something for me." "I'm gonna make you love me." "What can I say to him?" "What are you asking him for?" "Now, I know you're attracted to me." "And I regret it." "Was he here last night?" "Yes." "Get off this property and don't come back." "Bob!" "Do you hear me?" "Come on, now, move!" "Move!" "Hold it!" "You'll have to take him into town." "What am I going to say?" "Well, tell them I shot him." "Just say I murdered him for nothing." "That's not the way it was." "There's not a sheriff in this country who will believe any different." "You'll only make trouble for yourself." "What will you do now?" "I'll hole up a couple of days and get my strength and head for the border." "And a new life?" "I'll hang on to what's left of it." "I'll go back to that big rock where you found me." "Maybe I'll get lucky again." "Are you able to ride?" "Horse does all the work." "Take the gray. lt's the fastest." "How did it happen?" "He tried to kill this man and he would have done, but a stranger intervened." "Gardner tried to kill this man?" "Why?" "He was jealous." "Of this man?" "Come on inside." "Who was the stranger?" "The man in the poster." "White?" "What was he doing at your place?" "He just came." "Where is he now?" "I don't know." "This White, he a friend of yours?" "Yes." "l thought so." "You know where he went?" "Yes." "Where?" "I cannot tell you." "What do you mean, you can't?" "I will not." "Miss Chamberlain, I don't like putting you in jail but this man admits being in with White and it seems like you're in it with him." "Lock her up." "She has told you the truth." "The truth is, there's a man dead and you're hiding his killer." "He was my best friend." "I don't want to be here!" "I haven't done anything!" "You have chosen to be where you are." "Chosen?" "Did not White say to blame him and say nothing?" "I should have." "I'm gonna change my story." "Will you back me up?" "No." "But why?" "It's not hurting anybody." "It is hurting you." "Mr. Cogan, sir Royal's the name." "I know who you are." "Now, a lot of people don't like a bounty hunter till the right time comes." "The way I figure it you and me, we got a commonality of problems." "is that right?" "That's right." "See I don't want to lose my job to no posse." "And you you want to see that White dead." "They're gonna find him." "That sheriff knows what he's doing." "Why didn't he tell me where he was going?" "I kissed him." "Master we are taught that a good man's heart is not shut within itself but is open to the hearts of others." "The sage says:" ""Find good people good and bad people good because I am good enough." "Trust men of their word and liars if I am true enough."" "To be yourself, grasshopper, feel the heartbeats of others above your own." "But if I shall love others how can I be sure that they, in return, will love me?" "Do you seek love or barter?" "But if I love others and they do not love me I shall feel great pain." "That is what you risk, grasshopper:" "great pain." "Or great joy." "Well, it's over." "That was then." "Now is now." "Does not tomorrow begin now?" "Each act can be an act of improvement." "Mr. Cogan." "Quite a night." "Yeah, sure is." "What brings you over this hour?" "Oh, couldn't sleep." "Wondered if those two decided to talk." "No." "They've been about as quiet as dust in a church." "Which one first?" "The Chinaman." "If he doesn't talk, the woman will." "All right, where's your friend?" "Are you gonna tell us where White is?" "If you don't tell us where that killer is, we're going to kill you." "Right here!" "Hear me?" "Let's go." "I cannot." "What do you mean?" "I must stay here." "In jail?" "Why must I leave?" "I have told the truth." "Tell me where he is." "You must tell me where he is." "Please." "On the mountain east of your ranch behind the big rock." "You mean to tell me you got the best of five armed men then turned around and went back to your cell?" "Yes." "Why didn't you run?" "I would have understood that." "And he still won't say where White's at." "You leave me no choice." "The sheriff will have a posse." "They'll find you." "Go now!" "If you go with me." "My life's here." "If you love me you come with me now." "I can't." "I don't want to leave Caine." "There's something I want you to do for me." "What's going to make him talk all of a sudden?" "If I can get him to tell me where White is will you let both of us go free?" "All right." "I'll need to talk to him alone." "He trusts me." "Get on with it." "White wants you to tell the sheriff where he is to free yourself." "They will kill him." "He says that's up to him." "It is also up to me." "I didn't think you would." "He told me." "White is on the mountain east of my ranch by the big rock." "is he up by the big rock?" "You know he is." "This is the sheriff!" "Are you coming down, or do we come up?" "Get the horses." "We lost him." "Pete and Tony, take the cutoff." "The rest of you keep going." "I'll double back." "How can you plant flowers?" "What's happened between you?" "He wanted me to go away with him." "And you could not." "I couldn't tell him that I loved him." "It's just painful to think about him." "He's alive." "You are safe." "Not long. I left a trail behind me." "Now, listen." "Can I get a fresh horse?" "A horse?" "Of course." "Why did you come back?" "Well I guess that bag of bones there had something to do with it." "There's something I didn't say to you before." "I couldn't." "It's a new feeling for me, and I don't understand it but it's good." "I love you, Nedra." "You don't have to say you love me." "l love" "White." "White!" "Don't die." "Don't die." "Don't die." "You murdered him." "But he's wanted alive or dead, sheriff." "I was just doing my job." "He had me." "Why didn't he shoot?" "He had lost his edge." "He thought of you not as an enemy but as a man." "What did I do?" "What did I do to make him love me?" "Nothing." "I wanted him to live." "Perhaps you loved him." "I did love him." "I too." "Such a loss." "There is also gain." "You feel." "It's too late." "No." "Not too late."