"Mister, you killed nine men." "I never heard anyone say you made allowances for your opponents' ability with a gun." "Thank you, Hey Boy." "Excuse me." "You see most everybody that comes in to this hotel lobby, don't you?" "Yes, sir." "Take a good look at that picture." "If you see this man, would you please contact me?" "My name's Alcorn." "Room 12." "The reward would be yours." "Yes, sir." "And I'll even add a little extra." "I've got money enough to take good care of you." "Oh, do you now?" "Excuse me, Hey Boy." "Beg your pardon?" "Well, that's Manfred Holt." "Killed nine men, condemned last week in Laramie." "Escaped from prison, killing two guards in the process, according to the papers." "And I'll be the next." "I was the chief witness at his trial." "He swore to get me, and I ran." "Well, it took some courage to even testify against a man like that." "Oh, I was scared." "But I owed it to my neighbors to speak up." "He'll make me pay for that now." "Well, he could be caught." "No one will ever catch him in the Black Mountains." "Sheriff Ludlow is chasing him up there for all the good it'll do." "This makes the fourth time Holt's got away from him." "Ludlow's not too smart." "Mr. Alcorn, I'm not a bounty hunter, but I am available for a fee." "What do you do?" "Here's my card." "That's Manfred Holt you've got bottled up in there, isn't it?" "Where'd you come from?" "San Francisco." "You're Jake Ludlow, the sheriff." "How do you know this?" "A man named Alcorn, a friend of yours, wants me to see that Holt's returned to Laramie." "I was on my way to his wife's cabin just now." "So was he, when we caught up with him - as you can see." "He alone?" "He's got a saddle horse and a pack horse." "Well, apparently, you don't need any help from me." "Unless you want to speed things up a little, and dig a grave." "Holt might surrender." "You don't think I'm going to spend two weeks on the road to Laramie with Holt." "He's already killed two of my deputies." "And outsmarted you a few times." "I understood the court settled his fate." "He's to hang." "Hang later, shoot now- what's the difference?" "That's an interesting question, Sheriff." "What is the difference between murder and justice?" "Hah." "Whoa." "Hah." "Get that horse." "Knock him down." "Too late, Jake." "That horse was racing." "Who are you, mister?" "My name's Paladin." "He may still be in there, Sheriff." "Or maybe he's under the packs on that other horse." "Close in." "Looks like he got away from you again." "Read it, Abe." "Here's his shells." "This is where he was firing from." "Then he came over to here, where his horses were, and he got on one." "No more footprints." "And..." "And the horse he got on went like so." "The pack horse." "He hid under the canvas." "Holt will go to see his kid, like he promised." "We can ride for the cabin." "Gage, you and I will ride to the cabin." "Abe, you and Fuzz follow the trail." "Mister you're on your own." "If you cross Holt's trail, stay away from him." "I know 11 men that have tried to outdraw him, and they're wearing marble hats." "I'll bear it in mind." "Good hunting." "Hyah!" "Hyah!" "Get your hands on that horn, Holt." "That's not what I told you to do." "Then you should have pulled that trigger." "That may come." "I'll take the gun." "Ain't I the hard luck fella, though?" "Here all the time I thought..." "Stage coach shift." "A very graceful maneuver, and one I know well." "Stage coach shift?" "Never saw it before, huh?" "Ah, live and learn." "How did you know I was here?" "That branch I picked up under the tree." "It's fresh wet with sap." "You broke it off while you were climbing the tree." "You rode the pack horse under the branch, swung up without your feet touching the ground again." "Say, how did you get that pack horse to keep running?" "Did you put a burr under the saddle?" "No." "It was a sharp rock." "And I sure hated to do it to old Jenny, but she'll keep running till she shakes that rock loose, I guess." "So you knew all the time, huh?" "How come you didn't tell Jake?" "He'd have killed you." "And you?" "I'm taking you back to Laramie." "To be hung at a county fair while they hawk buttons off my shirt?" "Thanks." "Step up on the horse." "A man ought to be left to die like a man." "At the hands of a man." "What are you messing into this for, anyhow?" "Alcorn hired me to see you don't reach him." "You mean you hired your gun to that quivering tub of gully mud?" "Man can't even fight his own fights." "Against you?" "Look, I'd have seen that he had a gun." "I never yet shot a man but he wasn't holding a gun and was facing me." "You just ask around about Manfred Holt." "I never heard anybody say you took into account the ability of your opponents with a gun." "Or lack of ability." "If a man can't handle a gun, he ain't got no business west of the Mississippi." "No?" "Let's go." "Uh, wait a minute." "You know, we've got two weeks on the trail to Laramie." "Now, I figure to give you some trouble in that time." "I'll be looking for it." "Well, maybe you'll catch it, and maybe you won't." "Now, about a half a day's ride from here is my in-law's cabin." "My wife and my boy are there." "I've got a present to give my boy." "And if I take you to that cabin?" "I'll go along with you quiet." "No trouble." "Now I give you my word." "Look, mister, I'm not begging you." "I'm offering my word." "Since you heard the rest about me, maybe you heard, too, that my word is good." "I heard." "The sheriff will be waiting at that cabin." "Yeah, and I guess" "Abe will be catching up with Jenny about now." "They've been trailing along behind." "But I mean to give my boy that present." "He's only been around about three weeks." "You've never seen your boy?" "No." "Well, you ought to see him before you go to Laramie." "And I give you my word, you will." "Lead the way." "Oh, ain't this the pretty country, though?" "You know, Wyoming Territory has every other place beat." "Oh, Paladin, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, turning your back like that." "You tempt a man." "I've got your word." "Well, I've been on the lie." "Take a look." "Oh, that Abe." "He's more bloodhound than he is man." "You could take off on a cloud, and he'd follow you a track." "Yeah, well, tracking, they'll move more slowly than we will." "Yeah, I know a tricky piece of trail that will save us some time, right up over there." "It'll boggle Abe a piece, too." "Well, you better lead us to it, if we're going to see that boy of yours." "What are you calling him, by the way?" "Well, that's another thing." "Sarah's Pa is figuring on naming him, uh, Hubert." "Hubert Holt." "Now I-I ask you..." "Hubert's a fine old name." "It means "bright mind."" "It's a good name for a scholar." "My boy ain't going to be no scholar." "He's going to be a man." "I'll set him off on the right foot when we get there and I give him his present." "Yeah, I'm sure you will, Holt." "Hey, uh... my front name's Manfred, you know." "Manfred." "Then when I got married," "Sarah fixed us up with this here bed in her folks place." "Oh, yes, sir." "Sarah sure changed my ways." "Manfred, it's too bad she didn't change your ways with a gun." "You might have spent more time with her." "Yeah, there's no denying it." "Still, a man has to be what he is." "You know, I don't like someone, I just reach for a gun, just about as natural as you'd reach to scratch an itch." "Well, you can let off a lot of steam just using your fists." "Oh, I'm no good with my fists." "I'm good with a gun." "What's the sense to fighting when you're going to get licked?" "Well, unfortunately, you can't be allowed to go around killing everybody you don't like." "Yeah." "It does sound like I got me some bad habits." "But still, it just don't seem right to hold a carnival and string me up." "And now that I've got me a son..." "Can't you just see him running around saying," ""My Pa, he was hung."" "No." "No, I can't." "But Manfred the way a man dies is less important than the way he lives." "Oh, I figured it'd be my finish he'd be remembering most." "Now, if my boy could say," ""My Pa, he stood up in a gunfight, and was shot down like a man working a gun..."" "Well, now, that's something else again." "Throw me down a rope." "Paladin, you'll be taking me back to hang." "Well?" "Well, you see how it is." "You know what I've got to do." "I can't get out of here without help!" "Paladin, I'm sorry." "So long." "Manfred!" "I thought you never killed anybody except with a gun!" "Manfred?" "!" "Paladin, here, take hold." "Come on up." "Thanks." "No thanks called for." "You didn't turn me in to Jake Ludlow when you could've, so I owe you my life there." "And you wouldn't have been down there if you hadn't gone off your trail so's I could see my son." "Now, the way I see it, now we're quits." "All right." "Neither of us owes the other one anything." "You're dang right." "And our deal's off." "And I'll break away if I can." "Fair enough." "Manfred all the same, that was a friendly gesture." "Ah, forget it." "The cabin is right up around the bend there." "I figure we better go in on foot from here." "That's my Sarah." "Easy." "Sheriff will be in that cabin." "Where will all the horses be?" "On the other side." "Well, now, listen." "That's my son." "Paladin, I got to get in that cabin." "You will." "Get me a pebble." "What are you figuring on doing?" "Stay out of sight until Ludlow and his man ride out." "What are you doing here?" "Sheriff, I came looking for you." "Abe and that other man ran into Holt back in that clearing where you had him trapped." "They get him?" "No, sir." "They didn't." "Abe and Fuzz dead?" "Well, sir, they could still talk when I left them, but it wouldn't do any harm to get a doctor to them right away." "Pretty bad, huh?" "There wasn't anything I could do for them." "Gage, go get the..." "Not me." "I ain't going nowhere." "Not alone." "Not with Holt out there someplace." "All right, get the horses." "All three of us will go." "Lame horse, huh?" "Yeah, something happened to him just as I neared the cabin." "How do you expect to ride with us?" "Well, Sheriff, I guess I'm just stuck here." "You have to take care of your men, don't you?" "Sure." "I guess you better hide in the rocks till we get back." "And if you can get in back of Holt, use your gun." "Yes, sir." "That must've been some whopper you told Ludlow." "I didn't tell him anything but the truth." "He filled in the spaces himself." "Paladin, I guess we've come to the point where we can stop counting what we owe each other." "As you said before, Manfred, we're even, and we always will be." "How are you, Sarah?" "Hey, what's this I hear- you been breeding boy children." "Oh, Manfred." "Manfred." "Manfred." "Ah, don't carry on so." "You knowed I'd be along." "Oh, yes, I knew." "Oh, uh..." "I brought a friend." "How do you do, Mrs. Holt." "Won't you come in?" "Well, thank you." "I better take care of my horse." "Oh." "All right." "Yeah, time's wasting." "Well, come on, show me what you've been up to." "Here, have a cigar." "I've got me a son." "Thank you." "I'll smoke it later." "How is Hubert?" "Hubert who?" "I told you I had a present for my boy." "Manfred Holt, Jr." "I give him my name." "Yeah." "Sarah's Pa ain't going to fool with that no more." "I see you picked up a present for yourself." "Oh, you you mean the gun?" "A man like me just don't feel right unless he has one." "Sheriff's going to be here any minute." "We better move." "Paladin..." "I'm not going back to Laramie with you." "I wish you would." "Not for that crowd waiting in Laramie." "What about Ned Alcorn?" "He hired me to see that you don't kill him." "What about that?" "Oh, I just wouldn't feel right knowing he was walking over the same earth I am." "I'd see that he had a gun." "We talked about that, Manfred." "He's not very good with a gun." "That's too bad." "If I let you go, there'll be other men, and some of them pretty helpless." "And you won't like them, and you'll have to kill them." "A man just has to be what he is." "Guess that holds for you, too." "That's right." "Shall we move away from the house?" "They've been told not to come out, no matter what." "They won't." "All right then." "Here." "Oh, and Paladin don't try anything fancy, like winging a shoulder or the leg." "You know, a man like me, we either kill or he kills you." "I know." "That pump- when the next drop of water falls." "Manfred..." "I'm sorry." "Say..." "I never asked you- what does "Manfred" stand for?" "It's an old German name." "It means..." ""man of peace."" ""Man... of peace"?" "What do..." "what do you know." "He wouldn't let me avoid it." "It was bound to come." "We've always known that." "He shared his life only with the men he respected." "So it is with his death." "You're under arrest, mister." "Tricking me into leaving, so you could sneak Holt back." "You hear me?" "Forget it, Jake." "After all, he did kill Holt, didn't he?" "As a matter of fact, mister, you've got the reward money coming to you." "Uh..." "Maybe some of that reward money will find its way back here one day." "You let it be that way."