"You, Al, are an object lesson in the healing powers of obstinacy... and a hostile disposition." "My leg and arm are waxy." "How they feel to you is not the relevant measure." "I judge objectively the way they respond to stimuli... and they are much fucking improved." "In the overall, sir, I call you a miracle." "Ready to meet the world." "How much longer you suppose I'll be buying claims, Mr Wolcott?" "We're close to the end." "Otherwise, I'll need to start dancing out here in long johns... or baying at the moon." "Give people some idea of why I'm going against logic." "This phase is nearly over... even as another begins." "I propose formation of a bank..." "Mr Star, with yourself as chief officer... my holdings in the camp standing surety... and Mr Ellsworth as overseer of my interests." "I see." "Not quite a rousing endorsement." "It's just what's needed, Mrs Garret." "I don't know that I should be part of it." "Why, Mr Star?" "Other obligations." "Oughtn't you... or anyone urging such connections as disqualifying you... think of the good of the camp?" "We all have... complicating obligations." "Might those be my new employees?" "There's a combat in prospect between those two." "As equal as the Sioux with the Whites." "All right?" "Well, you left upright, about half a cunt hair." "Well, bring me fucking straight then." "I got him, Dan." "Whoa." "Right, there you go." "Straight as a string." "Stand back then, Johnny." "Any drool, first fucking fleck, you give me this." "You never showed no fucking spittle, Al." "Do as I fucking say." "Yes, sir." "I'm going in." "Then why am I in first chair?" "Anyone else suck his prick?" "You washed your hands of me, Mr Tolliver... when I was beset amid that rabble... no less contemptibly than Pontius Pilate." "Sometimes the shadow's cast by the sheltering hand." "Meaning the rabble was under your control?" "No, sir." "Wouldn't have them." "I am attuned, though, to the workings of what passes for their minds." "This morning we see the result:" "more claims offered for sale and prices pressed downward." "You suppose the owners fear you might visit your ire on their titles?" "l want to get out of here." "l understand." "Will you have a quick wind of your timepiece before you go?" "No." "No, sir, I will not." "I feel the earth washing away from beneath me." "I want to go away." "We'll fucking miss you." "And you, Mr Wolcott, I find you the most severe disappointment of all." "Often to myself as well." "What impressions do we expect he'll take to Yankton?" "That your money spends... and I'm a dangerous man with whom to disagree." "You put us together, don't that make us the very image of Mr Hearst... as he'd want Yankton to think of him?" "How's the Jew-fucking going?" "It's all right." "What does it add to my understanding?" "He's meeting with the widow this morning." "Spoke to the other of forming a bank, and of her in that connection." "Who's the fucking "other"?" "Fucking Bullock." "My sensibilities do not need coddling, either." "It's no concern for you." "I don't like naming the cocksucker." "Anyways, that may be its purpose... his sitting down with the widow." "The Jew?" "I hope you're getting paid for the pussy." "Don't put a price to it, you'll lose their respect." "He's teaching me accounts." "That's all right then." "Learning is like currency to them." "He stares in my eyes when he fucks me, longing-like." "Jesus Christ." "You don't look so bad." "Yeah, next thing to up and about." "Ma'am, may I?" "A.W. Merrick, ma'am, of the Black Hills Pioneer... making bold to introduce himself." "I am Mary Stokes, Mr Merrick." "I thought so!" "I hoped so. I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, ma'am." "And for the camp's children, whom you will edify." "ls this yours?" "Yes." "And your bags, your bags." "Let's see, are they up here?" "Liar." "Miss Trixie." "What is this now?" "Nothing nefarious. I was looking for you." "My nerves have had a shock." "How so?" "Mrs Garret took poorly." "At the meeting with Mr Star?" "Come here." "I'll add that... she hasn't looked well the last few weeks... especially in the morning." "Pale." "What are you fucking hinting at?" "Nothing." "Nothing?" "She ain't looked well mornings opposed to the rest of the day?" "Pale?" "How does sharing observations make me liable to rebuke?" "You got her knocked up, in other words." "Me?" "I ain't got her in any way at all, Trixie." "In your opinion, I'm saying, she's in the way." "I work for the woman in her fucking employ." "I understand that." "And that is the sole fucking full extent of it." "Would you do the right thing?" "I was not involved." "We're fucking past that." "I know you weren't fucking involved." "Who was involved, too... far as that fucking goes?" "Would you?" "Would I fucking what?" "Do the right fucking thing in that fucking situation?" "What's the situation?" "Explain it." "If she wanted the child... how a woman wants one that ain't certain she's made to bear many... willing even to bear it out of wedlock... but for the hurt she'd do another and the humiliation she'd do... and to that other woman's little boy." "Would you do it then?" "Do?" "The right fucking thing." "Don't get fucking coy with me." "Marry her, you're saying?" "And the child in the eyes of others... the issue of my loins." "As much as they care to see." "This is only a passing glance." "So the cum's true author ain't thrown in their fucking face." "Or the true author's wife's face, or the face of that little fucking boy." "Well?" "Would she fucking have me?" "I'd work on that next." "Books." "Ah, wonderful." "I parted with several boxes in Bismarck." "I'm sure to Bismarck's betterment." "Mostly for the sake of the children." "The other few, might I suspect... for the sake of certain childhood memories of your own?" "You may, and be in the right." "When you're situated, Miss Stokes... may I take you on a tour of the camp?" "I would be grateful." "No more than I, Miss Stokes, I assure you." "Oh, a man's come to camp." "Wolcott." "Agent for the Hearst's interest." "I believe he's made calls with Tolliver and Yankton." "That's why Yankton's suddenly got balls." "I made him think I was trying to gull him... and that he had turned the tables on me." "How much did he buy you for?" "I kept Dan apprised while you convalesced... in abbreviated fashion." "How much?" "Oh, $10,000." "Enlisting me, so he thought, to spread rumours about rescission of the claims." "Tolliver's the front?" "Buying from the panicked sellers, engaged by this Wolcott." "This agent for George Hearst?" "That's it in a nutshell." "I meant you no disloyalty, Al." "You look out for yourself against the chance I'd die." "I never wished for that outcome." "But I am a born follower." "In any case, here we are... if tactically disadvantaged, exactly as before in strength." "Oh, sure." "Thank you, sir." "Morning." "Morning, Sol." "Thanks for opening." "You were out." "Yes." "Yes, I paid a call and then I've been walking." "The call was on Mrs Garret." "We agreed that wasn't gonna happen." "Our agreement was to not solicit her investment in a bank." "The call I paid was at her invitation." "I don't give a fuck who invited who, Sol." "That's your position." "Was the bank the subject of the meeting?" "Get out!" "Excuse us a little while, please." "She invited me, Seth." "To talk of forming a bank, came here and invited you?" "Sent Ellsworth that works for her." "You told me none of it." "Suspecting maybe you mightn't act rational." "But I bet you told the whore." "We're done talking about this for now." "No!" "Yes, Seth." "We're done talking about this." "If you keep it up, we're going to fight... and you'll have to work by yourself while I convalesce." "Until late, Mr Swearengen, I was employed by Alma Garret... as tutor to her orphan ward." "Sacked two days ago." "Let her tell it." "In the course of my employment... I frequently saw Mrs Garret under the influence of opiates." "In this state, she admitted to me... having commissioned the murder of her husband." "What a world." "She named you as her instrument." "Said I killed him?" "She never specified you'd actually killed him." "Left it vague-like." "Exactly." "That I was her instrument?" "Yes." "So we could pin it on someone else, or I could take the fall, confess..." "supporting your version?" "Yes." "In writing and then subsequently escape." "Such has been known to occur." "Leaving the widow lonely at the bar of justice." "Better one than none at all." "Who do you work for?" "People of means." "People you work for were hired by people of means." "Don't get cagey, Miss Isringhausen." "Let me suggest, Mr Swearengen... you do not get distracted from your opportunity." "Not who I work for should concern you, but the amount you'll be paid... and the surety of its delivery." "Too fucking true." "Why, I pray fervently it ain't the Pinkertons whose pay you're in... and that her dead husband's people hired to steal her gold." "I got unrelated reasons to hate those cocksuckers." "$50,000." "I'm hard-pressed to think who the fuck else it would be." "$50,000, Mr Swearengen." "Separate from pay to your subordinates." "Your pockets, not mine?" "Yes." "Would it go against his for the pussy?" "No charge for the pussy." "Mind if I take the day?" "Not at all." "I've got a lot on my plate just now... and I'm feeling less than my full fucking self." "You seem quite formidable to me." "In any case, I'll wait to hear from Silas." "Do." "That'd be grand." "I guess if I called you a cunt, I needn't expect you to faint?" "No." "Getting struck be a first?" "How have I injured your interests?" "Think he's upstairs considering me for promotion?" "Anyway, clear out of my room." "Come up and fuck me, why don't you?" "Simple as that?" "I'd fear a snakebite." "Come up and fuck me, and I'll answer every one you want to ask." "Morning, Sheriff." "You sober enough to listen?" "Did you just intend to insult me?" "Excuse me, Sheriff." "l know." "You face business reverses." "Like losing my fucking claim." "People angry at their difficulties often act like fucking idiots... but there'll be no murdering people in this camp of any colour... or assaults on officials of any stripe." "Even Yankton thieves who are in league with God knows fucking who?" "Officials from Yankton or otherwise, or thieves or not." "If you can't live with that, get out of this fucking camp." "I can live with it." "You have to keep rubbing my fucking nose in it?" "Do not misconduct yourself again in this camp." "Must he take what the Sheriff just fucking give him?" "Apparently so." "He needn't." "Not by custom, not by fucking law." "Name my remedy then." "Outside every county courthouse in the land is the lady blindfolded." "True, far as it goes." "To ignore how them scales she carries sometimes gets balanced out." "There, I take no position." "I could take a leather punch... and stab the bastard's horse in the fucking ass." "You could, and you'd be in the right." "Carve on its coat:" ""Bullock, I fucked your horse..."" "and square the fucking scales." "And if the blindfold was down, see the lady a-winking... while she told you, you done it like a man." "And if I carve "fuck," l will... have fucked the horse beforehand." "Preaching to the choir." "Thanks." "Sure." "Mingle the shit somewhat." "You ought to take up whittling." "Ready to receive currency, Captain, in exchange for titles." "Yes." "And as I've learned to sustain discourse while counting... I'm gonna ask you to take counsel with me." "In what regard?" "Well, first, let's agree them Chink whores make a poor appearance." "Yes." "And as far as locales for fucking, them cribs they're in lack allure." "They might attract the intended clientele." "Now, that's an attitude right there I want us to counsel on." "Smart-alecky sort of attitude... and almost with a quality of fucking anger to it." "I don't find exact fucking words for it... but it fucking disturbs and concerns me." "By my lights, I feel I manage well." "Well, you can say that, Mr Wolcott... yet I hear accounts... that you're a dangerous lay... and that adds to my feeling disturbed." "Are you inclined, sir, every so often... to ride one off the cliff?" "Girls, I mean?" "I am disturbed at my private conduct being spoken of." "Well, I should think you fucking would be." "And to think of Mr Hearst's disturbance if he was to fucking know." "Because... that's a dangerous habit to indulge when you're not among friends." "Are you my friend, Mr Tolliver?" "And someone past surprise at habits or inclination, or turns of events... and who don't confuse himself far as sitting in judgement... with our Lord in fucking Heaven." "l see." "And... who would never tattle to your employer... or jeopardise what's got to be a handsome fucking income." "Goddamn right, I am your friend, Mr Wolcott." "All I can't provide for the party is the cliff." "Believing yourself past surprise does not commend you to me as a friend." "A man inadequately sophisticated... or merely ignorant, or simply stupid... may believe himself past surprise... then be surprised to discover, for example... that Mr Hearst already knows of my inclinations and finds them immaterial." "Suggesting, as a corollary, that your skills for blackmail and manipulation... no longer are assets to you... and for your fatuous belief in their efficacy... in fact, have become liabilities." "In short, you've overplayed your hand." "Now, I should think in consequence... now recognising yourself as a man past his time... that during this last transitional period... you would devote yourself with grateful and quiet diligence... to such uses as others may still find you suitable." "Oh, you bet I'm grateful." "A man like yourself... warmed at Mr Hearst's bosom... secure in his confidence and trust... taking the time and spending the energy to persuade a relic like me." "She'd placed adverts for a tutor in Chicago, Boston and New York." "The interests that employ me saw." "What was you doing at the time?" "Piloting a steamboat." "Was Al right who hired you people to fuck her up?" "That's not something I'm told." "Must be the dead husband's parents... if they want to hang that murder off her neck." "That would make sense." "Why does Swearengen hate the Pinkertons?" "Beats me, a stalwart organisation like that." "Did you help send them miners up the fucking scaffold in Pennsylvania?" "I was busy on the Mississip'." "Past hope." "Past kindness or consideration." "Past justice." "Past satisfaction." "Past warmth or cold or comfort." "Past love." "But past surprise?" "What an endlessly unfolding tedium life would then become." "No, Doris... we must not let you be past surprise." "Carrie's napping. I'll awaken her." "You needn't." "I'd like to see this young lady just now." "All right." "Doris?" "Ah, teachers one remembers." "The thrilling kindness of the extra moment taken... the extra word of encouragement offered." ""You, young man," or "woman" as the case might have been..." ""have an interesting turn of mind."" "Yes." "And to take that extra moment in turn." "Oh, Miss Stokes, to alter a life's course with a word... how I revere you... your profession." "Well, thank you, Mr Merrick." "No, thank you, Miss Stokes." "And all teachers in you." "There before you is the Bullock house." "It was recently constructed by Mr Bullock." "These streets." "I got to meet him, Wu." "Cocksucker!" "San Francisco cocksucker." "I have got to meet him." "Swearengen, San Francisco cocksucker meet!" "San Francisco cocksucker and Swearengen got to meet." "I've got to meet him, Wu." "I've got to see how much juice he's got." "Jews?" "Yeah, I've got to see how much juice San Francisco cocksucker's got." "Jew?" "Jew?" "No." "No, Wu." "No Jews." "Jew?" "No Jew." "Forget juice." "Forget juice." "No Jew?" "Forget juice." "No, Swearengen." "No San Francisco cocksucker." "No Jew." "Swearengen, Wu." "Wu and Swearengen." "Where are the other girls?" "Mooning over a dress at that store." "What is it?" "He's in a room with Doris." "Wolcott." "Why is he with Doris?" "l don't know." "Well, why ain't he with Carrie?" "Carrie's napping." "I can't imagine... what Carrie might have told Wolcott about Doris... to make him want to fuck her." "Maybe that she reports to Cy Tolliver?" "To keep Wolcott from bouncing Doris off more walls?" "Look up from your fucking magazine, Maddie." "I would like to see Carrie now." "Assist me in a flight of fancy, gentlemen." "Well, don't make me think of Leon in a dress, Mr T." "Or me of him anything but fully clothed." "Mr Merrick appears before you." ""Somebody's fucked with my newspaper office," he says." ""My presses are a mess." ""My vowel trays are overturned," or the like." "How do you respond?" "Go fuck yourself." "We don't know anything about it." "If you ain't here to fuck or be fleeced, get on your merry way." "Good." "Now, how about:" ""Referee's the only neutral in a prize fight, Merrick..." ""and you ain't one of those."" "We could say that." "What would we mean?" "I don't know, fellas." "I do not fucking know." "Well, if you don't, we don't have to, either." "I am saying, far as I'm concerned... your initiative and leadership abilities... and stick-fucking-to-it-iveness are all in fucking question." "And was I either or both of you... I'd consider this a fucking test." "When do you suppose he'll show up?" "Once we've paid a visit to his place, Leon." "Oh." "And aftermath, when Merrick's path crosses ours... he'll hear of the "neutral" and the "prize fight."" "In no uncertain terms." "And know the import of that fucking parable." "All right then." "Got any sledgehammers?" "Always." "l'm going in there." "No, you aren't." "He ain't the type to be with two women." "l never took his full history." "I'm saying he ain't." "What are we to do here, Carrie?" "Get rid of her." "They'll let you." "I suppose they will, but that won't dispose of the problem." "What's the problem?" "I don't know." "I can't say." "I don't want you to have seen me." "I don't care you killed her." "She must have done something to you." "I mean something different." "I don't want to have been seen." "Then you're fucking crazy." "And you're going to kill me in this fucking shithole." "Do you know how to make it not hurt?" "Now, I could cut off my arm." "I'm going in." "Your gun isn't there." "I've got it." "Go on, get out!" "Miss Stubbs." "Mr Utter." "What did you do, Mr W?" "Something very expensive." "$100,000." "For now." "And more when I want it for as many years as I live." "For all the years of my life." "Do you understand?" "There's trouble at my place, Cy." "Where is Sheriff Bullock when he's needed?" "Her last report to you, did Doris speak of getting beat on?" "That's the man making the trouble." "Don't you fucking follow me." "How much money you got, Jack?" "Don't put me in the fucking middle, Joanie." "No, I wouldn't." "$1 ,400." "Can you run to Mr Utter, Lila, tell him to ready a wagon." "Sure, Joanie." "Go get your fucking money, Jack." "Again." "Open the fucking bag for him, verify it's fucking gold." "I know. I don't want it." "Anyways, good meeting you." "Come on out, Wu." "Juice?" "If $20,000 don't tempt him to converse, you're fucking-a-right." "Maybe you and me should be working for him." "Wu, Swearengen." "All right, Wu, it's been a long fucking day." "No San Francisco cocksucker." "Come on, Wu, Al's tired." "Hearst." "What about him?" "San Francisco." "You think Hearst and the Chink's connected?" "You think he was born looking down his nose at $20,000?" "Chief fact is, no witnesses are extant." "The other madam was here once when I came out, Joanie Stubbs." "Before you did this?" "Yes." "When I came back out, she was gone." "Was she ever in the bedroom?" "No." "Don't worry about the other madam." "Go to the hotel." "Eat, if you can stand the food." "This will all be took care of." "I told you, Mr Wolcott, all's I can't provide is the cliff." "Go on now, get out of here." "I apologise for bringing Trixie into it, and calling her what I did." "That wasn't new information to me." "After you and me talked, I searched that idiot Steve out... to rebuke him and smack him in the face for being who he was." "Sheriff." "Tell me about your meeting with Mrs Garret." "She never once mentioned your name." "She wants to form the bank to better the camp." "And asked you to be involved?" "To serve as chief officer." "You'd be a good one." "I got the impression that she might be with child." "Lot, before God, could make no case for that food." "Lot's wife may have been in that food." "Over salted as it was." "I took that to be your meaning." "Shit." "Stay still, God damn it." "While I come on your fucking leg." "You're lucky l'm not fucking you." "You tell the Sheriff how that fucking felt... me coming on your fucking leg." "Or that I saved you from an ass fucking." "What else did you learn at that school that teached you that?" "Mr Tolliver, my office has been torn apart." "Hard luck." "My press has been damaged... my vowel tray beyond repair." "And the newly-arrived schoolteacher..." "Miss Stokes, has been badly frightened and has retreated to her hotel." "Do we blame unsavoury elements?" "I regard this incident as postscript... to the visit by County Commissioner Jarry." "Interesting." "Retribution for my refusal to associate my newspaper... with Yankton's notice on title to the claims." "For pinning the notice, you mean, on a wall... instead of printing it under your masthead?" "That is my meaning exactly." "Disassociating the Deadwood Pioneer from what I took to be... the opposite of an effort to inform." "Maybe if you had done your part, calmed the fucking waters a little... instead of treeing the county commissioner... the hooples would have gone and got their loads on... and been waiting for your next edition." "No, we differ, Mr Tolliver, on the function of the press." "Ain't the lesson for you in this, Merrick... that with fucked up machinery, the press cannot function at all?" "And is that the vandalism's purpose, sir?" "And of the dog defecating in my office... with ruffians dispatched by you as the lesson's author?" "I doubt they had a dog with them." "Hostetler, what the hell are you doing?" "He was in here fucking a horse." "l did not fuck that horse." "I'm asking you what you're doing." "I'm gonna go get a shoeing tool... and I'm gonna hit this bastard right here... and I'm gonna drop him like a piece of beef." "I never fucking harmed you." "Guess he ain't talking to me." "I didn't kill you like he's fixing to kill me." "You need to die, Steve." "Hard as you worked, as much shit as you had to eat... only way it makes any sense to kill him... is if you sign everything you got across to me first." "'Cause then I could see the logic." "I'm gonna kill him, then I'm fucking gonna come back and kill you." "And this isn't my will." "Do you believe that God can act through a nigger?" "God does not want you to kill." "Do you believe that God would let me feel mercy toward you... that tarred me and fucked his horse?" "I do." "But I did not fuck the horse." "Would you go hence in gratitude... if you received mercy in this stable?" "I would." "Write out..." ""l fucked the Sheriff's horse." Then we gonna have him sign it." "l didn't fuck the horse." ""l fucked--"" "I jerked off. I came on his leg." "Would you sign off on that slight exaggeration... to keep from getting your fucking head smashed in?" "Yes." "Would you bless coloured folk and God that's father to us all?" "I would and go hence in gratitude." "Go hence now, Steve, go on." "Now go." "And if your gratitude ebbs, remember, we got your signature." "I'll go, and I'll remember." "I took a drink of liquor and it put me to sleep." "How he got in, how I got beside myself...." "l ain't took a drink... in 1 7 years." "Yeah, well, you're over that now." "l don't want any." "That tomboy get you that message?" "I owe you." "When they come for you like they did before..." "you would have did like I did." "Only quicker." "l appreciated the message." "So be it henceforth." "Was it a difficult day?" "No." "Mamma met the new schoolteacher and very much liked her." "Mr Merrick brought her to call." "Good." "I liked her very much." "I'm delighted she's finally arrived." "Good." "I lack my accustomed stamina." "Bullshit, Doc." "They've been coming at Al in waves... and he stood them all the fuck off." "He'd have stopped Sherman shy of the sea." "Without the use of a leg, would they have fired me from a fucking cannon?" "Well, I find you in excellent fettle." "Relative to my former wreckage?" "Relatively speaking, yes." "All conditions are fucking relative." "So how is this?" "Relatively speaking?" "Better than this morning." "All right, thanks." "Poke a girl before you go, Doc?" "Well, change off rummaging their twats." "I hope you ain't connected with them new Chinese prostitutes." "I ain't." "But I did try to make friends with their pimp." "Yeah." "We need to muscle up." "Local?" "Don't know who's been bought." "Well, send me to Cheyenne." "You go. I want you close." "I think I'll take a look outside." "What about that forest fucking type... you used to maraud with before you met me?" "Crop Ear?" "Yeah, he lacked the use of a fucking horn." "He ain't available." "Yeah, didn't I hear lately, Dan..." "Crop Ear's been marauding elsewheres?" "Yep." "Let's not appear as fucking triplets, huh?" "Go back down, both of you." "Took some fucking portion of the relative fucking weight." "Come on, come on." "Someone put a hand out." "Who got it?" "Enid." "Split it three ways, Enid." "Thanks, Joanie." "Thank you very much." "Certainly." "It's $1 ,400." "Split it three ways." "Never come back!"